Concerning a Court Intrigue — The Three Musketeers

The king's forty pistoles end. Athos supports the four, then Porthos after one of his disappearances, then Aramis by selling theological books. Tréville's advances on their pay cannot stretch far. Porthos takes their last coins to the table and loses them, plus twenty-five more on his word. They haunt quays and guardrooms for other men's dinners. D'Artagnan, who can offer only a chocolate breakfast and one Guards dinner, feels himself a burden and starts hunting for a use worthy of four united arms.

At four in the afternoon a tradesman taps at the door. Planchet, who was told that he who sleeps dines, is woken to open it. The visitor is Bonacieux, D'Artagnan's landlord. Alone, he says his wife, seamstress to the queen and goddaughter of Laporte, was abducted yesterday. He insists it is less love than politics: someone has written to the Duke of Buckingham in the queen's name, and the cardinal wants her secrets. The man who took her is a dark gentleman with a scar on his temple. D'Artagnan knows him at once as the man of Meung.

Bonacieux shows a note: do not seek your wife; one step and you are lost. He offers three months' forgotten rent and fifty pistoles. From the window both men see the cloaked stranger in a doorway. D'Artagnan seizes his sword, rushes downstairs, and almost knocks over Athos and Porthos. When they reach his room it is empty. The landlord has judged it prudent to decamp.