“Ah! really,” said D’Artagnan, “these people are very ingenious. When I go back to France I must suggest some such convenient course to Cardinal Mazarin and the coadjutor. One of them will weed the parliament in the name of the court, and the other in the name of the people; and then there won’t be any parliament at all.”
“And who is this Colonel Bridge?” asked Aramis, “and how does he go to work to weed the parliament?”
“Colonel Bridge,” replied the Spaniard, “is a retired wagoner, a man of much sense, who made one valuable observation whilst driving his team, namely, that where there happened to be a stone on the road, it was much easier to remove the stone than try and make the wheel pass over it. Now, of two hundred and fifty-one members who composed the parliament, there were one hundred and ninety-one who were in the way and might have upset his political wagon. He took them up, just as he formerly used to take up the stones from the road, and threw them out of the house.”
“Neat,” remarked D’Artagnan. “Very!”
“And all these one hundred and ninety-one were Royalists?” asked Athos.
“Without doubt, senor; and you understand that they would have saved the king.”
“To be sure,” said Porthos, with majestic common sense; “they were in the majority.”
“And you think,” said Aramis, “he will consent to appear before such a tribunal?”
“He will be forced to do so,” smiled the Spaniard.
“Now, Athos!” said D’Artagnan, “do you begin to believe that it’s a ruined cause, and that what with your Harrisons, Joyces, Bridges and Cromwells, we shall never get the upper hand?”