The Three Musketeers Tr by W Robson Author:Alexandre Dumas General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1853 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: This sleep, provincial as it was, brought him to nine o'clock m the morning, at which hour he rose in order to rppnir to the residence of M. de Trcvillo, the third personage in the kingdom in jiatcrual estimation. CHAPTER II. The Antechamber of M. de Trévílle. M. De Teoisville, as his family was still called in Gascony, or M. de Tréville. as he has ended by styling himself in Paris, had really commenced life as d'Artagnan now did, that is to say, without a sou in his pocket, but with a fund of courage, shrewdness, and intelligence, that makes the poorest Gascon gentleman often derive more in his hope from the paternal inheritance than the richest Pengordian or Berrichan gentleman derives in reality from his. His insolent bravery, his still more insolent success at a time when blows poured down like hail, had borne him to the top of that ladder called court favour, which he had climbed four steps at a time. He was the friend of the king, who honoured highly, as every one knows, the memory of his father, Henry IV. The father of M. de Tréville had served him so faithfully in his wars against the League, that for want of money -- a thing to which the Béarnais was accustomed all his life, and who constantly paid his debts with that of which he never stood in need of borrowing, that is to say, with ready wit, -- for want of money, we repeat, he authorised him, after the reduction of Paris, to assume for his arms a golden lion passant upon gueules, with the device of: fidelůs et fortis. This was a (treat matter m the way of honour, but very little in the way of wealth ; so that when the illustrious compan...« less