The Three Musketeers [antikvár]

On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the town of Meung appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second Rochelle of it. In those times, panics were common. There were nobles, who made war against each other; there was the King, who made war against the Cardinal; there was Spain, which made war against the King. It resulted, then, from this habit, that on the said first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the citizens, on hearing the clamour, rushed toward the hostel of the Franc-Meunier. On their arrival the cause of this hubbub was apparent to all. It was a young man, whose portrait we can sketch in a few lines. Imagine to yourself Don Quixote at eighteen ; Don Quixote clothed in a woollen doublet. Imagine to yourself, further, a long, brown face, with high cheek bones. Our young man wore a barret-cap, set off with a sort of feather. He had an open and intelligent eye, and a hooked but finely chiselled nose. Too big for a youth, too small for a grown man, an inexperienced eye might have taken him for a farmer's son upon a journey, had it not been for the long sword, which, dangling from a leathern baldrick, hit against the calves of its owner as he walked, and against the rough side of his steed when he was on horseback. For our young man had a mount which was the observed of all observes. It was a Beam pony, from twelve to fourteen years old, of a yellow colour, without a hair in its tail. This pony, though going with its head lower than its knees, contrived, nevertheless, to traverse eight leagues a day. D'Artagnan did not in the least conceal from himself the ridiculous appearance that such a steed gave him, good horseman as he was. He had sighed deeply, therefore, on accepting the gift of the pony from M. d'Artagnan the elder. The same day the young man set forth on his journey, furnished with the three paternal presents, which consisted