They both dismounted, consigned their horses to the lackey who had opened the door, and disappeared in the garden.

“My dear friend,” said the cardinal, leaning, as they walked through the garden, on his friend’s arm, “you told me just now that you had been twenty years in the queen’s service.”

“Yes, it’s true.  I have,” returned Guitant.

“Now, my dear Guitant, I have often remarked that in addition to your courage, which is indisputable, and your fidelity, which is invincible, you possess an admirable memory.”

“You have found that out, have you, my lord?  Deuce take it —­ all the worse for me!”

“How?”

“There is no doubt but that one of the chief accomplishments of a courtier is to know when to forget.”

“But you, Guitant, are not a courtier.  You are a brave soldier, one of the few remaining veterans of the days of Henry IV.  Alas! how few to-day exist!”

“Plague on’t, my lord, have you brought me here to get my horoscope out of me?”

“No; I only brought you here to ask you,” returned Mazarin, smiling, “if you have taken any particular notice of our lieutenant of musketeers?”

“Monsieur d’Artagnan?  I have had no occasion to notice him particularly; he’s an old acquaintance.  He’s a Gascon.  De Treville knows him and esteems him very highly, and De Treville, as you know, is one of the queen’s greatest friends.  As a soldier the man ranks well; he did his whole duty and even more, at the siege of Rochelle —­ as at Suze and Perpignan.”

“But you know, Guitant, we poor ministers often want men with other qualities besides courage; we want men of talent.  Pray, was not Monsieur d’Artagnan, in the time of the cardinal, mixed up in some intrigue from which he came out, according to report, quite cleverly?”

“My lord, as to the report you allude to” —­ Guitant perceived that the cardinal wished to make him speak out —­ “I know nothing but what the public knows.  I never meddle in intrigues, and if I occasionally become a confidant of the intrigues of others I am sure your eminence will approve of my keeping them secret.”

Mazarin shook his head.

“Ah!” he said; “some ministers are fortunate and find out all that they wish to know.”

“My lord,” replied Guitant, “such ministers do not weigh men in the same balance; they get their information on war from warriors; on intrigues, from intriguers.  Consult some politician of the period of which you speak, and if you pay well for it you will certainly get to know all you want.”

“Eh, pardieu!” said Mazarin, with a grimace which he always made when spoken to about money.  “They will be paid, if there is no way of getting out of it.”

“Does my lord seriously wish me to name any one who was mixed up in the cabals of that day?”

“By Bacchus!” rejoined Mazarin, impatiently, “it’s about an hour since I asked you for that very thing, wooden-head that you are.”