In six hours they reached Compiegne and alighted at the Peacock. The host proved to be a worthy man, as bald as a Chinaman. They asked him if some time ago he had not received in his house two gentlemen who were pursued by dragoons; without answering he went out and brought in the blade of a rapier.
"Do you know that?" he asked.
Athos merely glanced at it.
"'Tis D'Artagnan's sword," he said.
"Does it belong to the smaller or to the larger of the two?" asked the host.
"To the smaller."
"I see that you are the friends of these gentlemen."
"Well, what has happened to them?"
"They were pursued by eight of the light dragoons, who rode into the courtyard before they had time to close the gate."
"Eight!" said Aramis; "it surprises me that two such heroes as Porthos and D'Artagnan should have allowed themselves to be arrested by eight men."
"The eight men would doubtless have failed had they not been assisted by twenty soldiers of the regiment of Italians in the king's service, who are in garrison in this town so that your friends were overpowered by numbers."
"Arrested, were they?" inquired Athos; "is it known why?"
"No, sir, they were carried off instantly, and had not even time to tell me why; but as soon as they were gone I found this broken sword-blade, as I was helping to raise two dead men and five or six wounded ones."
"'Tis still a consolation that they were not wounded," said Aramis.
"Where were they taken?" asked Athos.
"Toward the town of Louvres," was the reply.
The two friends having agreed to leave Blaisois and Grimaud at Compiegne with the horses, resolved to take post horses; and having snatched a hasty dinner they continued their journey to Louvres. Here they found only one inn, in which was consumed a liqueur which preserves its reputation to our time and which is still made in that town.
"Let us alight here," said Athos. "D'Artagnan will not have let slip an opportunity of drinking a glass of this liqueur, and at the same time leaving some trace of himself."
They went into the town and asked for two glasses of liqueur, at the counter -- as their friends must have done before them. The counter was covered with a plate of pewter; upon this plate was written with the point of a large pin:
"Rueil . . . D . ."
"They went to Rueil," cried Aramis.
"Let us go to Rueil," said Athos.
"It is to throw ourselves into the wolf's jaws," said Aramis.
"Had I been as great a friend of Jonah as I am of D'Artagnan I should have followed him even into the inside of the whale itself; and you would have done the same, Aramis."
"Certainly -- but you make me out better than I am, dear count. Had I been alone I should scarcely have gone to Rueil without great caution. But where you go, I go."
They then set off for Rueil. Here the deputies of the parliament had just arrived, in order to enter upon those famous conferences which were to last three weeks, and produced eventually that shameful peace, at the conclusion of which the prince was arrested. Rueil was crowded with advocates, presidents and councillors, who came from the Parisians, and, on the side of the court, with officers and guards; it was therefore easy, in the midst of this confusion, to remain as unobserved as any one might wish; besides, the conferences implied a truce, and to arrest two gentlemen, even Frondeurs, at this time, would have been an attack on the rights of the people.