How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"What must have been," he thought, "the youth of those extraordinary men, who, even as age is stealing fast upon them, still are able to conceive such plans, and to carry them out without flinching!" (22.2)
Here youth is glorified. Fouquet could have understood the men as benefiting from experience that old age gives, but instead chooses to imagine their youth as even more powerful.
Quote #2
This last endearment was tender as in youth, as in times when the heart was warm and life happy; and then Porthos mounted his horse. (26.63)
In contrast to aging, youth is seen as the highlight of one's life.
Quote #3
"Alas! we are no longer the young invincibles of former days. Who knows whether the hatchet or the iron bar of this miserable coaster has not succeeded in doing that which the best blades of Europe, balls, and bullets have not been able to do in forty years?" (31.28)
This is one of the first acknowledgments of the four friends' mortality.