falconer

"Oh, passionately, monsieur!" repeated the falconer, with an accent of bitter regret and a sigh that was the funeral oration of Fouquet.

"Both, Monsieur d'Artagnan," said the falconer; "but you need not be alarmed; the king is not much of a sportsman; he does not take the field on his own account, he only wishes to amuse the ladies."

"Shall we see the king early?" asked he of the falconer.

not Mademoiselle de la Valliere," replied the falconer.

The falconer and his companions set off immediately, leaving D'Artagnan alone in the midst of the suspended sentence.

"I must know that woman," thought the musketeer; "who can she be?" And he stooped towards his friend, the falconer, to whom he addressed the question he had put to himself.

The falconer was about to reply, when the king, perceiving D'Artagnan, "Ah, comte!" said he, "you are amongst us once more then!

Madame de Montespan complied; she took the hand the king held out to her, and he, plucking out the first feather from the heron, which the falconer had strangled, placed it in his beautiful companion's hat.