He had picked up, here and there, some scraps of M.de la Rochefoucault, worthy of being translated into Latin by MM.

de Port Royal; and he had made a collection, _en passant_, in the society of Athos and Aramis, of many morsels of Seneca and Cicero, translated by them, and applied to the uses of common life.

That contempt of riches which our Gascon had observed as an article of faith during the thirty-five first years of his life, had for a long time been considered by him as the first article of the code of bravery.

"Article first," said he, "A man is brave because he has nothing.

A man has nothing because he despises riches." Therefore, with these principles, which, as we have said, had regulated the thirty-five first years of his life, D'Artagnan was no sooner possessed of riches, than he felt it necessary to ask himself if, in spite of his riches, he were still brave.