Hunting for the Equipments — The Three Musketeers

D'Artagnan is the most worried of the four, though a Guardsman costs less to equip than a Musketeer. Vanity pulls him. So does Constance. Tréville has asked the queen. She does not know where Madame Bonacieux is, and her promise to search is vague. Athos will not leave his room. If nothing finds him in a fortnight, he will pick a fight with four of the cardinal's Guards or eight Englishmen and die for the king without buying an outfit. Porthos walks with his hands behind him and says he will follow his idea. Aramis stays silent in neglected clothes. The lackeys copy the house: Mousqueton hoards crusts, Bazin lives in churches, Planchet watches flies, and Grimaud sighs without breaking Athos's rule of silence.

Porthos moves first. D'Artagnan follows him into the church of St. Leu and hides behind a pillar. During the sermon Porthos looks at women, then ignores Madame Coquenard in her black hood so she will see him signal a great lady near the choir. D'Artagnan knows that lady. She is Milady of Meung, Calais, and Dover. At the holy font Porthos dips his whole hand and offers the water to Milady, not to the procurator's wife. She draws him into the cloister of St. Magloire, sure there is an intrigue. He pretends surprise, names the stranger a duchess, and accuses Madame Coquenard of leaving him to starve at Chantilly when he asked for a loan.

She offers money if he is ever in the same need. He calls money humiliating, then says her strongbox is fuller than a great lady's. When she retreats to pretty well off, he takes back his arm. He adds a campaign in fifteen days, a presentiment of death, and a journey to Brittany with the same duchess. Love beats avarice. She invites him to dinner as her cousin from Noyon, with lawsuits and no attorney. Her husband is seventy-six and shrewd. By the marriage contract the survivor takes everything. They part as traitor and angel. D'Artagnan, already chasing Milady, sees Porthos's triumphant look and thinks one friend will be equipped in time.