Chapter 27

Chapter XXVII
M. de Beaufort
The Prince turned around at the moment when Raoul, in order to leave him alone with Athos, was shutting the door, and preparing to go with the other officers into an adjoining apartment.

“Is that the young man I have heard Monsieur the Prince speak so highly of?” asked M. de Beaufort.

“It is, Monseigneur.”

“He is quite the soldier; let him stay, Count, we cannot spare him.”

“Remain, Raoul, since Monseigneur permits it,” said Athos.

“Ma foi! he is tall and handsome!” continued the duke. “Will you give him to me, Monseigneur, if I ask him of you?”

“How am I to understand you, Monseigneur?” said Athos.

“Why, I call upon you to bid you farewell.”

“Farewell?”

“Yes, in good truth. Have you no idea of what I am about to be?”

“Why, what you have always been, Monseigneur,- a valiant Prince and an excellent gentleman.”

“I am going to be an African Prince,- a Bedouin gentleman. The King is sending me to make conquests among the Arabs.”

“What do you tell me, Monseigneur?”

“Strange, is it not? I, the Parisian par essence,- I, who have reigned in the faubourgs, and have been called King of the Halles,- I am going to pass from the Place Maubert to the minarets of Djidgelli; I become from a Frondeur an adventurer!”

“Oh, Monseigneur, if you did not yourself tell me that-”

“It would not be credible, would it? Believe me, nevertheless, and let us bid each other farewell. This is what comes of getting into favor again.”

“Into favor?”

“Yes. You smile? Ah, my dear count, do you know why I have accepted this enterprise; can you guess?”

“Because your Highness loves glory above everything.”

“Oh, no; there is no glory in firing muskets at savages. I see no glory in that, for my part, and it is more probable that I shall there meet with something else. But I have wished, and still wish earnestly, my dear count, that my life should have this last facet, after all the whimsical exhibitions I have made in fifty years. For, in short, you must admit that it is sufficiently strange to be born the grandson of a king, to have made war against kings, to have reckoned among the powers of the age, to have maintained my rank, to feel Henry IV within me, to be great Admiral of France, and then to go and get killed at Djidgelli among all those Turks, Saracens, and Moors!”

“Monseigneur, you dwell strangely upon that subject,” said Athos, in an agitated voice. “How can you suppose that so brilliant a destiny will be extinguished in that