D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 244: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HN ener ener ens CHAPTER XXX. FOR THE KING. It was a cycle when the greatest generals carried out the ductile doctrine that all was allowable in war. The same men, often knights of the boudoir, justified them- selves in shady transactions, before Cupid’s court, with the same axiom. The outcome was, in our heroes’ minds, that, when a case involved both love and war, their course was per- fectly warranted in becoming friends of Colonel Jorge and his guests under false pretences. Without any qualms they would sleep under his roof and eat at his board. It must be admitted that had the beds been less soft and the fare less praiseworthy, Por- thos for one would have felt compunction. It was war time, but such great establishments as Count de Mari- anda’s were provisioned to hold out a siege. Many a time, in these residential forts, a lord offered long resistance—to the rabble, frequently, the king some- times, but seldom to the Church, when represented by the Holy Inquisition. The line of independence must, in Spain and Portugal, be drawn somewhere. The dining-room in Marianda Mansion was superb. The musketeers, knowing of Vincennes, St. Germains, and the Louvre, were dashed. The conquerers had mod- ied the Saracenic glories without altogether spoiling them. Walls and ceilings were covered with openwork in scented woods, gilt and tinseled, and with old glass, set in interstices, of hues difficult for our subtlest chem- ists to imitate, They seemed rooms plastered with jewels. Here and there, squares had been cut out and panel paintings inserted, a happy medley of sacred subjects treated with simplicity, which was grotesque, and homely ones heightened into fantasy by artistic revelry. Porthos admired the table more than the surround- ings. D’Artagnan was as usual sobriety itself, having still a hard game to play. GOMmIiIGbooks (CO