"You think, then, that I would not have given the money without that?
Then I will have none of your five thousand francs." D'Artagnan smiled.

"Accept it, accept it, Planchet; and in that way you will only lose fifteen thousand francs instead of twenty thousand, and you will not be tempted to disregard the signature of your master and friend, by losing nothing at all." How well that dear Monsieur d'Artagnan knew the hearts of men and grocers! They who have pronounced Don Quixote mad because he rode out to the conquest of an empire with nobody but Sancho, his squire, and they who have pronounced Sancho mad because he accompanied his master in his attempt to conquer the said empire,--they certainly will have no hesitation in extending the same judgment to D'Artagnan and Planchet.
And yet the first passed for one of the most subtle spirits among the astute spirits of the court of France.

As to the second, he had acquired by good right the reputation of having one of the longest heads among the grocers of the Rue des Lombards; consequently of Paris, and consequently of France.

Now, to consider these two men from the point of view from which you would consider other men, and the means by the aid of which they contemplated to restore a monarch to his throne, compared with other means, the shallowest brains of the country where brains are most shallow must have revolted against the presumptuous madness of the lieutenant and the stupidity of his associate.

Fortunately, D'Artagnan was not a man to listen to the idle talk of those around him, or to the comments that were made on himself.