"But why so many of them? Do they await some enemy?"
"Nay; we are at peace with all the world. Worse luck!"
"At peace. Why then all these men?"
"That they may be ready."
The young man shook his head in bewilderment. "They might be as ready in their own homes surely. In our country every man has his musket in his chimney corner, and is ready enough, yet he does not waste his time when all is at peace."
"Our king is very great, and he has many enemies."
"And who made the enemies?"
"Why, the king, to be sure."
"Then would it not be better to be without him?"
The guardsman shrugged his epaulettes in despair. "We shall both wind up in the Bastille or Vincennes at this rate," said he. "You must know that it is in serving the country that he has made these enemies. It is but five years since he made a peace at Nimeguen, by which he tore away sixteen fortresses from the Spanish Lowlands. Then, also, he had laid his hands upon Strassburg and upon Luxembourg, and has chastised the Genoans, so that there are many who would fall upon him if they thought that he was weak."