Always on horseback, he had never known what lassitude was.

One evening, as he rose from table, his legs failed him." "He had supped heartily, perhaps," said Aramis, "and that was why he staggered." "Bah! A friend of M.de Bassompierre, nonsense! No, no, he was astonished at this lassitude, and said to my mother, who laughed at him, 'Would not one believe I was going to meet with a wild boar, as the late M.du Vallon, my father did ?'" "Well ?" said Aramis.
"Well, having this weakness, my father insisted upon going down into the garden, instead of going to bed; his foot slipped on the first stair, the staircase was steep; my father fell against a stone in which an iron hinge was fixed.

The hinge gashed his temple; and he was stretched out dead upon the spot." Aramis raised his eyes to his friend: "These are two extraordinary circumstances," said he; "let us not infer that there may succeed a third.

It is not becoming in a man of your strength to be superstitious, my brave Porthos.

Besides, when were your legs known to fail?
Never have you stood so firm, so haughtily; why, you could carry a house on your shoulders." "At this moment," said Porthos, "I feel myself pretty active; but at times I vacillate; I sink; and lately this phenomenon, as you say, has occurred four times.