Upon whibsp;M. d''Artagnan the elder girded his own sword round his son, kisd him tenderly on both cheeks, and gave him his beion.
On leaving the paternal chamber, the young man found his mother, who was waiting for him with the famous recipe of whibsp;the ls we have just repeated would ate frequent employment. The adieux were on this side longer and more tender than they had been on the other--not that M. d''Artagnan did not love his son, who was his only offspring, but M. d''Artagnan was a man, and he would have sidered it unworthy of a man to give way to his feelings; whereas Mme. d''Artagnan was a woman, and still more, a mother. She wept abundantly; and--let us speak it to the prai of M. d''Artagnan the younger--notwithstanding the efforts he made to remain firm, as a future Musketeer ought, nature prevailed, and he shed many tears, of whibsp;he succeeded with great difficulty in cealing the half.
The same day the young man t forward on his journey, furnished with the three paternal gifts, whibsp;sisted, as we have said, of fifteen s, the hor, and the letter for M. de Treville--the ls being thrown into the bargain.
With subsp;a VADE MEbsp;d''Artagnan was morally and physically an exabsp;copy of the hero of Cervantes, to whom we so happily pared him when our duty of an historian plabsp;us under the y of sketg his portrait. Don Quixote took windmills for giants, and sheep for armies; d''Artagnan took every smile for an insult, and every look as a provocation--whenbsp;it resulted that from Tarbes to Meung his fist was stantly doubled, or his hand on the hilt of his sword; and yet the fist did not desd upon any jaw, nor did the sword issue from its scabbard. It was not that the sight of the wretched pony did not excite numerous smiles on the tenanbsp;of pasrs-by; but as against the side of this pony rattled a sword of respectable length, and as over this sword gleamed an eye rather ferocious than haughty, the pasrs-by represd their hilarity, or if hilarity prevailed over prudenbsp;they endeavored to laugh only on one side, like the masks of the as. D''Artagnan, then, remained majestibsp;and intabsp;in his susceptibility, till he came to this unlubsp;city of Meung.