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Twenty years after

by Alexandre Dumas · English · Gutenberg #1259 · 1,387,900 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Twenty years after

Author: Alexandre Dumas
        Auguste Maquet


        
Release date: March 1, 1998 [eBook #1259]
                Most recently updated: October 15, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1259

Credits: An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY YEARS AFTER ***

Twenty Years After

By Alexandre Dumas, Père

Second Volume of the D’Artagnan Series




LINKED INDEX OF PROJECT GUTENBERG VOLUMES:

ORDER   TITLE                       PG EBOOK#    DATES       VOLUME    CHAPTERS
1       The Three Musketeers        1257         1625–1628    1
2       Twenty Years After          1259         1648–1649    2
3       The Vicomte de Bragelonne   2609         1660         3         1–75
4       Ten Years Later             2681         1660–1661    3         76–140
5       Louise de la Vallière       2710         1661         3         141–208
6       The Man in the Iron Mask    2759         1661–1673    3         209–269

[Project Gutenberg eBook 1258 listed below, is of the same title as
eBook 2681 and its contents overlap those of two other volumes: it
includes all the chapters of eBook 2609 and the first 28 chapters of
2681]

        TITLE                       PG EBOOK#    DATES       VOLUME    CHAPTERS
        Ten Years Later             1258         1660–1661   3         1–104




CONTENTS

 Chapter I. The Shade of Cardinal Richelieu.
 Chapter II. A Nightly Patrol.
 Chapter III. Dead Animosities.
 Chapter IV. Anne of Austria at the Age of Forty-six.
 Chapter V. The Gascon and the Italian.
 Chapter VI. D’Artagnan in his Fortieth Year.
 Chapter VII. Touches upon the Strange Effects a Half-pistole may have.
 Chapter VIII. D’Artagnan, Going to a Distance to discover Aramis.
 Chapter IX. The Abbé D’Herblay.
 Chapter X. Monsieur Porthos du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds.
 Chapter XI. Wealth does not necessarily produce Happiness.
 Chapter XII. Porthos was Discontented with his Condition.
 Chapter XIII. Two Angelic Faces.
 Chapter XIV. The Castle of Bragelonne.
 Chapter XV. Athos as a Diplomatist.
 Chapter XVI. The Duc de Beaufort.
 Chapter XVII. Duc de Beaufort amused his Leisure Hours in the Donjon of Vincennes.
 Chapter XVIII. Grimaud begins his Functions.
 Chapter XIX. Pâtés made by the Successor of Father Marteau are described.
 Chapter XX. One of Marie Michon’s Adventures.
 Chapter XXI. The Abbé Scarron.
 Chapter XXII. Saint Denis.
 Chapter XXIII. One of the Forty Methods of Escape of the Duc de Beaufort.
 Chapter XXIV. The timely Arrival of D’Artagnan in Paris.
 Chapter XXV. An Adventure on the High Road.
 Chapter XXVI. The Rencontre.
 Chapter XXVII. The four old Friends prepare to meet again.
 Chapter XXVIII. The Place Royale.
 Chapter XXIX. The Ferry across the Oise.
 Chapter XXX. Skirmishing.
 Chapter XXXI. The Monk.
 Chapter XXXII. The Absolution.
 Chapter XXXIII. Grimaud Speaks.
 Chapter XXXIV. On the Eve of Battle.
 Chapter XXXV. A Dinner in the Old Style.
 Chapter XXXVI. A Letter from Charles the First.
 Chapter XXXVII. Cromwell’s Letter.
 Chapter XXXVIII. Henrietta Maria and Mazarin.
 Chapter XXXIX. How, sometimes, the Unhappy mistake Chance for Providence.
 Chapter XL. Uncle and Nephew.
 Chapter XLI. Paternal Affection.
 Chapter XLII. Another Queen in Want of Help.
 Chapter XLIII. In which it is proved that first Impulses are oftentimes the best.
 Chapter XLIV. Te Deum for the Victory of Lens.
 Chapter XLV. The Beggar of St. Eustache.
 Chapter XLVI. The Tower of St. Jacques de la Boucherie.
 Chapter XLVII. The Riot.
 Chapter XLVIII. The Riot becomes a Revolution.
 Chapter XLIX. Misfortune refreshes the Memory.
 Chapter L. The Interview.
 Chapter LI. The Flight.
 Chapter LII. The Carriage of Monsieur le Coadjuteur.
 Chapter LIII. How D’Artagnan and Porthos earned by selling Straw.
 Chapter LIV. In which we hear Tidings of Aramis.
 Chapter LV. The Scotchman.
 Chapter LVI. The Avenger.
 Chapter LVII. Oliver Cromwell.
 Chapter LVIII. Jesus Seigneur.
 Chapter LIX. Noble Natures never lose Courage, nor good Stomachs their Appetites.
 Chapter LX. Respect to Fallen Majesty.
 Chapter LXI. D’Artagnan hits on a Plan.
 Chapter LXII. London.
 Chapter LXIII. The Trial.
 Chapter LXIV. Whitehall.
 Chapter LXV. The Workmen.
 Chapter LXVI. Remember!
 Chapter LXVII. The Man in the Mask.
 Chapter LXVIII. Cromwell’s House.
 Chapter LXIX. Conversational.
 Chapter LXX. The Skiff “Lightning.”
 Chapter LXXI. Port Wine.
 Chapter LXXII. End of the Port Wine Mystery.
 Chapter LXXIII. Fatality.
 Chapter LXXIV. How Mousqueton had a Narrow Escape of being eaten.
 Chapter LXXV. The Return.
 Chapter LXXVI. The Ambassadors.
 Chapter LXXVII. The three Lieutenants of the Generalissimo.
 Chapter LXXVIII. The Battle of Charenton.
 Chapter LXXIX. The Road to Picardy.
 Chapter LXXX. The Gratitude of Anne of Austria.
 Chapter LXXXI. Cardinal Mazarin as King.
 Chapter LXXXII. Precautions.
 Chapter LXXXIII. Strength and Sagacity.
 Chapter LXXXIV. Strength and Sagacity—Continued.
 Chapter LXXXV. The Oubliettes of Cardinal Mazarin.
 Chapter LXXXVI. Conferences.
 Chapter LXXXVII. Thinking that Porthos will be at last a Baron, and D’Artagnan a Captain.
 Chapter LXXXVIII. Shows how with Threat and Pen more is effected than by the Sword.
 Chapter LXXXIX. Difficult for Kings to return to the Capitals of their Kingdoms.
 Chapter XC. Conclusion.




Chapter I.
The Shade of Cardinal Richelieu.


In a splendid chamber of the Palais Royal, formerly styled the Palais
Cardinal, a man was sitting in deep reverie, his head supported on his
hands, leaning over a gilt and inlaid table which was covered with
letters and papers. Behind this figure glowed a vast fireplace alive
with leaping flames; great logs of oak blazed and crackled on the
polished brass andirons whose flicker shone upon the superb habiliments
of the lonely tenant of the room, which was illumined grandly by twin
candelabra rich with wax-lights.

Any one who happened at that moment to contemplate that red simar—the
gorgeous robe of office—and the rich lace, or who gazed on that pale
brow, bent in anxious meditation, might, in the solitude of that
apartment, combined with the silence of the ante-chambers and the
measured paces of the guards upon the landing-place, have fancied that
the shade of Cardinal Richelieu lingered still in his accustomed haunt.

It was, alas! the ghost of former greatness. France enfeebled, the
authority of her sovereign contemned, her nobles returning to their
former turbulence and insolence, her enemies within her frontiers—all
proved the great Richelieu no longer in existence.

In truth, that the red simar which occupied the wonted place was his no
longer, was still more strikingly obvious from the isolation which
seemed, as we have observed, more appropriate to a phantom than a
living creature—from the corridors deserted by courtiers, and courts
crowded with guards—from that spirit of bitter ridicule, which, arising
from the streets below, penetrated through the very casements of the
room, which resounded with the murmurs of a whole city leagued against
the minister; as well as from the distant and incessant sounds of guns
firing—let off, happily, without other end or aim, except to show to
the guards, the Swiss troops and the military who surrounded the Palais
Royal, that the people were possessed of arms.

The shade of Richelieu was Mazarin. Now Mazarin was alone and
defenceless, as he well knew.

“Foreigner!” he ejaculated, “Italian! that is their mean yet mighty
byword of reproach—the watchword with which they assassinated, hanged,
and made away with Concini; and if I gave them their way they would
assassinate, hang, and make away with me in the same manner, although
they have nothing to complain of except a tax or two now and then.
Idiots! ignorant of their real enemies, they do not perceive that it is
not the Italian who speaks French badly, but those who can say fine
things to them in the purest Parisian accent, who are their real foes.

“Yes, yes,” Mazarin continued, whilst his wonted smile, full of
subtlety, lent a strange expression to his pale lips; “yes, these
noises prove to me, indeed, that the destiny of favorites is
precarious; but ye shall know I am no ordinary favorite. No! The Earl
of Essex, ’tis true, wore a splendid ring, set with diamonds, given him
by his royal mistress, whilst I—I have nothing but a simple circlet of
gold, with a cipher on it and a date; but that ring has been blessed in
the chapel of the Palais Royal,* so they will never ruin me, as they
long to do, and whilst they shout, ‘Down with Mazarin!’ I, unknown, and
unperceived by them, incite them to cry out, ‘Long live the Duke de
Beaufort’ one day; another, ‘Long live the Prince de Condé;’ and again,
‘Long live the parliament!’” And at this word the smile on the
cardinal’s lips assumed an expression of hatred, of which his mild
countenance seemed incapable. “The parliament! We shall soon see how to
dispose,” he continued, “of the parliament! Both Orléans and Montargis
are ours. It will be a work of time, but those who have begun by crying
out: Down with Mazarin! will finish by shouting out, Down with all the
people I have mentioned, each in his turn.

* It is said that Mazarin, who, though a cardinal, had not taken such
vows as to prevent it, was secretly married to Anne of Austria.—La
Porte’s Memoirs.

“Richelieu, whom they hated during his lifetime and whom they now
praise after his death, was even less popular than I am. Often he was
driven away, oftener still had he a dread of being sent away. The queen
will never banish me, and even were I obliged to yield to the populace
she would yield with me; if I fly, she will fly; and then we shall see
how the rebels will get on without either king or queen.

“Oh, were I not a foreigner! were I but a Frenchman! were I but of
gentle birth!”

The position of the cardinal was indeed critical, and recent events had
added to his difficulties. Discontent had long pervaded the lower ranks
of society in France. Crushed and impoverished by taxation—imposed by
Mazarin, whose avarice impelled him to grind them down to the very
dust—the people, as the Advocate-General Talon described it, had
nothing left to them except their souls; and as those could not be sold
by auction, they began to murmur. Patience had in vain been recommended
to them by reports of brilliant victories gained by France; laurels,
however, were not meat and drink, and the people had for some time been
in a state of discontent.

Had this been all, it might not, perhaps, have greatly signified; for
when the lower classes alone complained, the court of France, separated
as it was from the poor by the intervening classes of the gentry and
the _bourgeoisie_, seldom listened to their voice; but unluckily,
Mazarin had had the imprudence to attack the magistrates and had sold
no less than twelve appointments in the Court of Requests, at a high
price; and as the officers of that court paid very dearly for their
places, and as the addition of twelve new colleagues would necessarily
lower the value of each place, the old functionaries formed a union
amongst themselves, and, enraged, swore on the Bible not to allow of
this addition to their number, but to resist all the persecutions which
might ensue; and should any one of them chance to forfeit his post by
this resistance, to combine to indemnify him for his loss.

Now the following occurrences had taken place between the two
contending parties.

On the seventh of January between seven and eight hundred tradesmen had
assembled in Paris to discuss a new tax which was to be levied on house
property. They deputed ten of their number to wait upon the Duke of
Orléans, who, according to his custom, affected popularity. The duke
received them and they informed him that they were resolved not to pay
this tax, even if they were obliged to defend themselves against its
collectors by force of arms. They were listened to with great
politeness by the duke, who held out hopes of easier measures, promised
to speak in their behalf to the queen, and dismissed them with the
ordinary expression of royalty, “We will see what we can do.”

Two days afterward these same magistrates appeared before the cardinal
and their spokesman addressed Mazarin with so much fearlessness and
determination that the minister was astounded and sent the deputation
away with the same answer as it had received from the Duke of
Orléans—that he would see what could be done; and in accordance with
that intention a council of state was assembled and the superintendent
of finance was summoned.

This man, named Emery, was the object of popular detestation, in the
first place because he _was_ superintendent of finance, and every
superintendent of finance deserved to be hated; in the second place,
because he rather deserved the odium which he had incurred.

He was the son of a banker at Lyons named Particelli, who, after
becoming a bankrupt, chose to change his name to Emery; and Cardinal
Richelieu having discovered in him great financial aptitude, had
introduced him with a strong recommendation to Louis XIII. under his
assumed name, in order that he might be appointed to the post he
subsequently held.

“You surprise me!” exclaimed the monarch. “I am rejoiced to hear you
speak of Monsieur d’Emery as calculated for a post which requires a man
of probity. I was really afraid that you were going to force that
villain Particelli upon me.”

“Sire,” replied Richelieu, “rest assured that Particelli, the man to
whom your majesty refers, has been hanged.”

“Ah; so much the better!” exclaimed the king. “It is not for nothing
that I am styled Louis the Just,” and he signed Emery’s appointment.

This was the same Emery who became eventually superintendent of
finance.

He was sent for by the ministers and he came before them pale and
trembling, declaring that his son had very nearly been assassinated the
day before, near the palace. The mob had insulted him on account of the
ostentatious luxury of his wife, whose house was hung with red velvet
edged with gold fringe. This lady was the daughter of Nicholas de
Camus, who arrived in Paris with twenty francs in his pocket, became
secretary of state, and accumulated wealth enough to divide nine
millions of francs among his children and to keep an income of forty
thousand for himself.

The fact was that Emery’s son had run a great chance of being
suffocated, one of the rioters having proposed to squeeze him until he
gave up all the gold he had swallowed. Nothing, therefore, was settled
that day, as Emery’s head was not steady enough for business after such
an occurrence.

On the next day Mathieu Molé, the chief president, whose courage at
this crisis, says the Cardinal de Retz, was equal to that of the Duc de
Beaufort and the Prince de Condé—in other words, of the two men who
were considered the bravest in France—had been attacked in his turn.
The people threatened to hold him responsible for the evils that hung
over them. But the chief president had replied with his habitual
coolness, without betraying either disturbance or surprise, that should
the agitators refuse obedience to the king’s wishes he would have
gallows erected in the public squares and proceed at once to hang the
most active among them. To which the others had responded that they
would be glad to see the gallows erected; they would serve for the
hanging of those detestable judges who purchased favor at court at the
price of the people’s misery.

Nor was this all. On the eleventh the queen in going to mass at Notre
Dame, as she always did on Saturdays, was followed by more than two
hundred women demanding justice. These poor creatures had no bad
intentions. They wished only to be allowed to fall on their knees
before their sovereign, and that they might move her to compassion; but
they were prevented by the royal guard and the queen proceeded on her
way, haughtily disdainful of their entreaties.

At length parliament was convoked; the authority of the king was to be
maintained.

One day—it was the morning of the day my story begins—the king, Louis
XIV., then ten years of age, went in state, under pretext of returning
thanks for his recovery from the small-pox, to Notre Dame. He took the
opportunity of calling out his guard, the Swiss troops and the
musketeers, and he had planted them round the Palais Royal, on the
quays, and on the Pont Neuf. After mass the young monarch drove to the
Parliament House, where, upon the throne, he hastily confirmed not only
such edicts as he had already passed, but issued new ones, each one,
according to Cardinal de Retz, more ruinous than the others—a
proceeding which drew forth a strong remonstrance from the chief
president, Molé—whilst President Blancmesnil and Councillor Broussel
raised their voices in indignation against fresh taxes.

The king returned amidst the silence of a vast multitude to the Palais
Royal. All minds were uneasy, most were foreboding, many of the people
used threatening language.

At first, indeed, they were doubtful whether the king’s visit to the
parliament had been in order to lighten or increase their burdens; but
scarcely was it known that the taxes were to be still further
increased, when cries of “Down with Mazarin!” “Long live Broussel!”
“Long live Blancmesnil!” resounded through the city. For the people had
learned that Broussel and Blancmesnil had made speeches in their
behalf, and, although the eloquence of these deputies had been without
avail, it had none the less won for them the people’s good-will. All
attempts to disperse the groups collected in the streets, or silence
their exclamations, were in vain. Orders had just been given to the
royal guards and the Swiss guards, not only to stand firm, but to send
out patrols to the streets of Saint Denis and Saint Martin, where the
people thronged and where they were the most vociferous, when the mayor
of Paris was announced at the Palais Royal.

He was shown in directly; he came to say that if these offensive
precautions were not discontinued, in two hours Paris would be under
arms.

Deliberations were being held when a lieutenant in the guards, named
Comminges, made his appearance, with his clothes all torn, his face
streaming with blood. The queen on seeing him uttered a cry of surprise
and asked him what was going on.

As the mayor had foreseen, the sight of the guards had exasperated the
mob. The tocsin was sounded. Comminges had arrested one of the
ringleaders and had ordered him to be hanged near the cross of Du
Trahoir; but in attempting to execute this command the soldiery were
attacked in the market-place with stones and halberds; the delinquent
had escaped to the Rue des Lombards and rushed into a house. They broke
open the doors and searched the dwelling, but in vain. Comminges,
wounded by a stone which had struck him on the forehead, had left a
picket in the street and returned to the Palais Royal, followed by a
menacing crowd, to tell his story.

This account confirmed that of the mayor. The authorities were not in a
condition to cope with serious revolt. Mazarin endeavored to circulate
among the people a report that troops had only been stationed on the
quays and on the Pont Neuf, on account of the ceremonial of the day,
and that they would soon withdraw. In fact, about four o’clock they
were all concentrated about the Palais Royal, the courts and ground
floors of which were filled with musketeers and Swiss guards, and there
awaited the outcome of all this disturbance.

Such was the state of affairs at the very moment we introduced our
readers to the study of Cardinal Mazarin—once that of Cardinal
Richelieu. We have seen in what state of mind he listened to the
murmurs from below, which even reached him in his seclusion, and to the
guns, the firing of which resounded through that room. All at once he
raised his head; his brow slightly contracted like that of a man who
has formed a resolution; he fixed his eyes upon an enormous clock that
was about to strike ten, and taking up a whistle of silver gilt that
stood upon the table near him, he shrilled it twice.

A door hidden in the tapestry opened noiselessly and a man in black
silently advanced and stood behind the chair on which Mazarin sat.

“Bernouin,” said the cardinal, not turning round, for having whistled,
he knew that it was his _valet-de-chambre_ who was behind him; “what
musketeers are now within the palace?”

“The Black Musketeers, my lord.”

“What company?”

“Tréville’s company.”

“Is there any officer belonging to this company in the ante-chamber?”

“Lieutenant d’Artagnan.”

“A man on whom we can depend, I hope.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Give me a uniform of one of these musketeers and help me to put it
on.”

The valet went out as silently as he had entered and appeared in a few
minutes bringing the dress demanded.

The cardinal, in deep thought and in silence, began to take off the
robes of state he had assumed in order to be present at the sitting of
parliament, and to attire himself in the military coat, which he wore
with a certain degree of easy grace, owing to his former campaigns in
Italy. When he was completely dressed he said:

“Send hither Monsieur d’Artagnan.”

The valet went out of the room, this time by the centre door, but still
as silently as before; one might have fancied him an apparition.

When he was left alone the cardinal looked at himself in the glass with
a feeling of self-satisfaction. Still young—for he was scarcely
forty-six years of age—he possessed great elegance of form and was
above the middle height; his complexion was brilliant and beautiful;
his glance full of expression; his nose, though large, was well
proportioned; his forehead broad and majestic; his hair, of a chestnut
color, was curled slightly; his beard, which was darker than his hair,
was turned carefully with a curling iron, a practice that greatly
improved it. After a short time the cardinal arranged his shoulder
belt, then looked with great complacency at his hands, which were most
elegant and of which he took the greatest care; and throwing on one
side the large kid gloves tried on at first, as belonging to the
uniform, he put on others of silk only. At this instant the door
opened.

“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the _valet-de-chambre_.

An officer, as he spoke, entered the apartment. He was a man between
thirty-nine and forty years of age, of medium height but a very well
proportioned figure; with an intellectual and animated physiognomy; his
beard black, and his hair turning gray, as often happens when people
have found life either too gay or too sad, more especially when they
happen to be of swart complexion.

D’Artagnan advanced a few steps into the apartment.

How perfectly he remembered his former entrance into that very room!
Seeing, however, no one there except a musketeer of his own troop, he
fixed his eyes upon the supposed soldier, in whose dress, nevertheless,
he recognized at the first glance the cardinal.

The lieutenant remained standing in a dignified but respectful posture,
such as became a man of good birth, who had in the course of his life
been frequently in the society of the highest nobles.

The cardinal looked at him with a cunning rather than serious glance,
yet he examined his countenance with attention and after a momentary
silence said:

“You are Monsieur d’Artagnan?”

“I am that individual,” replied the officer.

Mazarin gazed once more at a countenance full of intelligence, the play
of which had been, nevertheless, subdued by age and experience; and
D’Artagnan received the penetrating glance like one who had formerly
sustained many a searching look, very different, indeed, from those
which were inquiringly directed on him at that instant.

“Sir,” resumed the cardinal, “you are to come with me, or rather, I am
to go with you.”

“I am at your command, my lord,” returned D’Artagnan.

“I wish to visit in person the outposts which surround the Palais
Royal; do you suppose that there is any danger in so doing?”

“Danger, my lord!” exclaimed D’Artagnan with a look of astonishment,
“what danger?”

“I am told that there is a general insurrection.”

“The uniform of the king’s musketeers carries a certain respect with
it, and even if that were not the case I would engage with four of my
men to put to flight a hundred of these clowns.”

“Did you witness the injury sustained by Comminges?”

“Monsieur de Comminges is in the guards and not in the musketeers——”

“Which means, I suppose, that the musketeers are better soldiers than
the guards.” The cardinal smiled as he spoke.

“Every one likes his own uniform best, my lord.”

“Myself excepted,” and again Mazarin smiled; “for you perceive that I
have left off mine and put on yours.”

“Lord bless us! this is modesty indeed!” cried D’Artagnan. “Had I such
a uniform as your eminence possesses, I protest I should be mightily
content, and I would take an oath never to wear any other costume——”

“Yes, but for to-night’s adventure I don’t suppose my dress would have
been a very safe one. Give me my felt hat, Bernouin.”

The valet instantly brought to his master a regimental hat with a wide
brim. The cardinal put it on in military style.

“Your horses are ready saddled in their stables, are they not?” he
said, turning to D’Artagnan.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Well, let us set out.”

“How many men does your eminence wish to escort you?”

“You say that with four men you will undertake to disperse a hundred
low fellows; as it may happen that we shall have to encounter two
hundred, take eight——”

“As many as my lord wishes.”

“I will follow you. This way—light us downstairs Bernouin.”

The valet held a wax-light; the cardinal took a key from his bureau and
opening the door of a secret stair descended into the court of the
Palais Royal.




Chapter II.
A Nightly Patrol.


In ten minutes Mazarin and his party were traversing the street “Les
Bons Enfants” behind the theatre built by Richelieu expressly for the
play of “Mirame,” and in which Mazarin, who was an amateur of music,
but not of literature, had introduced into France the first opera that
was ever acted in that country.

The appearance of the town denoted the greatest agitation. Numberless
groups paraded the streets and, whatever D’Artagnan might think of it,
it was obvious that the citizens had for the night laid aside their
usual forbearance, in order to assume a warlike aspect. From time to
time noises came in the direction of the public markets. The report of
firearms was heard near the Rue Saint Denis and occasionally church
bells began to ring indiscriminately and at the caprice of the
populace. D’Artagnan, meantime, pursued his way with the indifference
of a man upon whom such acts of folly made no impression. When he
approached a group in the middle of the street he urged his horse upon
it without a word of warning; and the members of the group, whether
rebels or not, as if they knew with what sort of a man they had to
deal, at once gave place to the patrol. The cardinal envied that
composure, which he attributed to the habit of meeting danger; but none
the less he conceived for the officer under whose orders he had for the
moment placed himself, that consideration which even prudence pays to
careless courage. On approaching an outpost near the Barrière des
Sergens, the sentinel cried out, “Who’s there?” and D’Artagnan
answered—having first asked the word of the cardinal—“Louis and
Rocroy.” After which he inquired if Lieutenant Comminges were not the
commanding officer at the outpost. The soldier replied by pointing out
to him an officer who was conversing, on foot, his hand upon the neck
of a horse on which the individual to whom he was talking sat. Here was
the officer D’Artagnan was seeking.

“Here is Monsieur Comminges,” said D’Artagnan, returning to the
cardinal. He instantly retired, from a feeling of respectful delicacy;
it was, however, evident that the cardinal was recognized by both
Comminges and the other officers on horseback.

“Well done, Guitant,” cried the cardinal to the equestrian; “I see
plainly that, notwithstanding the sixty-four years that have passed
over your head, you are still the same man, active and zealous. What
were you saying to this youngster?”

“My lord,” replied Guitant, “I was observing that we live in troublous
times and that to-day’s events are very like those in the days of the
Ligue, of which I heard so much in my youth. Are you aware that the mob
have even suggested throwing up barricades in the Rue Saint Denis and
the Rue Saint Antoine?”

“And what was Comminges saying to you in reply, my good Guitant?”

“My lord,” said Comminges, “I answered that to compose a Ligue only one
ingredient was wanting—in my opinion an essential one—a Duc de Guise;
moreover, no generation ever does the same thing twice.”

“No, but they mean to make a Fronde, as they call it,” said Guitant.

“And what is a Fronde?” inquired Mazarin.

“My lord, Fronde is the name the discontented give to their party.”

“And what is the origin of this name?”

“It seems that some days since Councillor Bachaumont remarked at the
palace that rebels and agitators reminded him of schoolboys
slinging—_qui frondent_—stones from the moats round Paris, young
urchins who run off the moment the constable appears, only to return to
their diversion the instant his back is turned. So they have picked up
the word and the insurrectionists are called ‘Frondeurs,’ and yesterday
every article sold was ‘à la Fronde;’ bread ‘à la Fronde,’ hats ‘à la
Fronde,’ to say nothing of gloves, pocket-handkerchiefs, and fans; but
listen——”

At that moment a window opened and a man began to sing:

“A tempest from the Fronde

Did blow to-day:

I think ’twill blow

Sieur Mazarin away.”

“Insolent wretch!” cried Guitant.

“My lord,” said Comminges, who, irritated by his wounds, wished for
revenge and longed to give back blow for blow, “shall I fire off a ball
to punish that jester, and to warn him not to sing so much out of tune
in the future?”

And as he spoke he put his hand on the holster of his uncle’s
saddle-bow.

“Certainly not! certainly not,” exclaimed Mazarin. “_Diavolo!_ my dear
friend, you are going to spoil everything—everything is going on
famously. I know the French as well as if I had made them myself. They
sing—let them pay the piper. During the Ligue, about which Guitant was
speaking just now, the people chanted nothing except the mass, so
everything went to destruction. Come, Guitant, come along, and let’s
see if they keep watch at the Quinze-Vingts as at the Barrière des
Sergens.”

And waving his hand to Comminges he rejoined D’Artagnan, who instantly
put himself at the head of his troop, followed by the cardinal, Guitant
and the rest of the escort.

“Just so,” muttered Comminges, looking after Mazarin. “True, I forgot;
provided he can get money out of the people, that is all he wants.”

The street of Saint Honoré, when the cardinal and his party passed
through it, was crowded by an assemblage who, standing in groups,
discussed the edicts of that memorable day. They pitied the young king,
who was unconsciously ruining his country, and threw all the odium of
his proceedings on Mazarin. Addresses to the Duke of Orléans and to
Condé were suggested. Blancmesnil and Broussel seemed in the highest
favor.

D’Artagnan passed through the very midst of this discontented mob just
as if his horse and he had been made of iron. Mazarin and Guitant
conversed together in whispers. The musketeers, who had already
discovered who Mazarin was, followed in profound silence. In the street
of Saint Thomas-du-Louvre they stopped at the barrier distinguished by
the name of Quinze-Vingts. Here Guitant spoke to one of the subalterns,
asking how matters were progressing.

“Ah, captain!” said the officer, “everything is quiet hereabout—if I
did not know that something is going on in yonder house!”

And he pointed to a magnificent hotel situated on the very spot whereon
the Vaudeville now stands.

“In that hotel? it is the Hotel Rambouillet,” cried Guitant.

“I really don’t know what hotel it is; all I do know is that I observed
some suspicious looking people go in there——”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Guitant, with a burst of laughter; “those men
must be poets.”

“Come, Guitant, speak, if you please, respectfully of these gentlemen,”
said Mazarin; “don’t you know that I was in my youth a poet? I wrote
verses in the style of Benserade——”

“_You_, my lord?”

“Yes, I; shall I repeat to you some of my verses?”

“Just as you please, my lord. I do not understand Italian.”

“Yes, but you understand French,” and Mazarin laid his hand upon
Guitant’s shoulder. “My good, my brave Guitant, whatsoever command I
may give you in that language—in French—whatever I may order you to do,
will you not perform it?”

“Certainly. I have already answered that question in the affirmative;
but that command must come from the queen herself.”

“Yes! ah yes!” Mazarin bit his lips as he spoke; “I know your devotion
to her majesty.”

“I have been a captain in the queen’s guards for twenty years,” was the
reply.

“_En route_, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the cardinal; “all goes well in
this direction.”

D’Artagnan, in the meantime, had taken the head of his detachment
without a word and with that ready and profound obedience which marks
the character of an old soldier.

He led the way toward the hill of Saint Roche. The Rue Richelieu and
the Rue Villedot were then, owing to their vicinity to the ramparts,
less frequented than any others in that direction, for the town was
thinly inhabited thereabout.

“Who is in command here?” asked the cardinal.

“Villequier,” said Guitant.

“_Diavolo!_ Speak to him yourself, for ever since you were deputed by
me to arrest the Duc de Beaufort, this officer and I have been on bad
terms. He laid claim to that honor as captain of the royal guards.”

“I am aware of that, and I have told him a hundred times that he was
wrong. The king could not give that order, since at that time he was
hardly four years old.”

“Yes, but I could give him the order—I, Guitant—and I preferred to give
it to you.”

Guitant, without reply, rode forward and desired the sentinel to call
Monsieur de Villequier.

“Ah! so you are here!” cried the officer, in the tone of ill-humor
habitual to him; “what the devil are you doing here?”

“I wish to know—can you tell me, pray—is anything fresh occurring in
this part of the town?”

“What do you mean? People cry out, ‘Long live the king! down with
Mazarin!’ That’s nothing new; no, we’ve been used to those acclamations
for some time.”

“And you sing chorus,” replied Guitant, laughing.

“Faith, I’ve half a mind to do it. In my opinion the people are right;
and cheerfully would I give up five years of my pay—which I am never
paid, by the way—to make the king five years older.”

“Really! And pray what would come to pass, supposing the king were five
years older than he is?”

“As soon as ever the king comes of age he will issue his commands
himself, and ’tis far pleasanter to obey the grandson of Henry IV. than
the son of Peter Mazarin. ’Sdeath! I would die willingly for the king,
but supposing I happened to be killed on account of Mazarin, as your
nephew came near being to-day, there could be nothing in Paradise,
however well placed I might be there, that could console me for it.”

“Well, well, Monsieur de Villequier,” Mazarin interposed, “I shall make
it my care the king hears of your loyalty. Come, gentlemen,” addressing
the troop, “let us return.”

“Stop,” exclaimed Villequier, “so Mazarin was here! so much the better.
I have been waiting for a long time to tell him what I think of him. I
am obliged to you Guitant, although your intention was perhaps not very
favorable to me, for such an opportunity.”

He turned away and went off to his post, whistling a tune then popular
among the party called the “Fronde,” whilst Mazarin returned, in a
pensive mood, toward the Palais Royal. All that he had heard from these
three different men, Comminges, Guitant and Villequier, confirmed him
in his conviction that in case of serious tumults there would be no one
on his side except the queen; and then Anne of Austria had so often
deserted her friends that her support seemed most precarious. During
the whole of this nocturnal ride, during the whole time that he was
endeavoring to understand the various characters of Comminges, Guitant
and Villequier, Mazarin was, in truth, studying more especially one
man. This man, who had remained immovable as bronze when menaced by the
mob—not a muscle of whose face was stirred, either at Mazarin’s
witticisms or by the jests of the multitude—seemed to the cardinal a
peculiar being, who, having participated in past events similar to
those now occurring, was calculated to cope with those now on the eve
of taking place.

The name of D’Artagnan was not altogether new to Mazarin, who, although
he did not arrive in France before the year 1634 or 1635, that is to
say, about eight or nine years after the events which we have related
in a preceding narrative, * fancied he had heard it pronounced as that
of one who was said to be a model of courage, address and loyalty.

* “The Three Musketeers.”

Possessed by this idea, the cardinal resolved to know all about
D’Artagnan immediately; of course he could not inquire from D’Artagnan
himself who he was and what had been his career; he remarked, however,
in the course of conversation that the lieutenant of musketeers spoke
with a Gascon accent. Now the Italians and the Gascons are too much
alike and know each other too well ever to trust what any one of them
may say of himself; so in reaching the walls which surrounded the
Palais Royal, the cardinal knocked at a little door, and after thanking
D’Artagnan and requesting him to wait in the court of the Palais Royal,
he made a sign to Guitant to follow him.

They both dismounted, consigned their horses to the lackey who had
opened the door, and disappeared in the garden.

“My dear friend,” said the cardinal, leaning, as they walked through
the garden, on his friend’s arm, “you told me just now that you had
been twenty years in the queen’s service.”

“Yes, it’s true. I have,” returned Guitant.

“Now, my dear Guitant, I have often remarked that in addition to your
courage, which is indisputable, and your fidelity, which is invincible,
you possess an admirable memory.”

“You have found that out, have you, my lord? Deuce take it—all the
worse for me!”

“How?”

“There is no doubt but that one of the chief accomplishments of a
courtier is to know when to forget.”

“But you, Guitant, are not a courtier. You are a brave soldier, one of
the few remaining veterans of the days of Henry IV. Alas! how few
to-day exist!”

“Plague on’t, my lord, have you brought me here to get my horoscope out
of me?”

“No; I only brought you here to ask you,” returned Mazarin, smiling,
“if you have taken any particular notice of our lieutenant of
musketeers?”

“Monsieur d’Artagnan? I have had no occasion to notice him
particularly; he’s an old acquaintance. He’s a Gascon. De Tréville
knows him and esteems him very highly, and De Tréville, as you know, is
one of the queen’s greatest friends. As a soldier the man ranks well;
he did his whole duty and even more, at the siege of Rochelle—as at
Suze and Perpignan.”

“But you know, Guitant, we poor ministers often want men with other
qualities besides courage; we want men of talent. Pray, was not
Monsieur d’Artagnan, in the time of the cardinal, mixed up in some
intrigue from which he came out, according to report, quite cleverly?”

“My lord, as to the report you allude to”—Guitant perceived that the
cardinal wished to make him speak out—“I know nothing but what the
public knows. I never meddle in intrigues, and if I occasionally become
a confidant of the intrigues of others I am sure your eminence will
approve of my keeping them secret.”

Mazarin shook his head.

“Ah!” he said; “some ministers are fortunate and find out all that they
wish to know.”

“My lord,” replied Guitant, “such ministers do not weigh men in the
same balance; they get their information on war from warriors; on
intrigues, from intriguers. Consult some politician of the period of
which you speak, and if you pay well for it you will certainly get to
know all you want.”

“Eh, _pardieu!_” said Mazarin, with a grimace which he always made when
spoken to about money. “They will be paid, if there is no way of
getting out of it.”

“Does my lord seriously wish me to name any one who was mixed up in the
cabals of that day?”

“By Bacchus!” rejoined Mazarin, impatiently, “it’s about an hour since
I asked you for that very thing, wooden-head that you are.”

“There is one man for whom I can answer, if he will speak out.”

“That’s my concern; I will make him speak.”

“Ah, my lord, ’tis not easy to make people say what they don’t wish to
let out.”

“Pooh! with patience one must succeed. Well, this man. Who is he?”

“The Comte de Rochefort.”

“The Comte de Rochefort!”

“Unfortunately he has disappeared these four or five years and I don’t
know where he is.”

“_I_ know, Guitant,” said Mazarin.

“Well, then, how is it that your eminence complained just now of want
of information?”

“You think,” resumed Mazarin, “that Rochefort——”

“He was Cardinal Richelieu’s creature, my lord. I warn you, however,
his services will cost you something. The cardinal was lavish to his
underlings.”

“Yes, yes, Guitant,” said Mazarin; “Richelieu was a great man, a very
great man, but he had that defect. Thanks, Guitant; I shall benefit by
your advice this very evening.”

Here they separated and bidding adieu to Guitant in the court of the
Palais Royal, Mazarin approached an officer who was walking up and down
within that inclosure.

It was D’Artagnan, who was waiting for him.

“Come hither,” said Mazarin in his softest voice; “I have an order to
give you.”

D’Artagnan bent low and following the cardinal up the secret staircase,
soon found himself in the study whence they had first set out.

The cardinal seated himself before his bureau and taking a sheet of
paper wrote some lines upon it, whilst D’Artagnan stood imperturbable,
without showing either impatience or curiosity. He was like a soldierly
automaton, or rather, like a magnificent marionette.

The cardinal folded and sealed his letter.

“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” he said, “you are to take this dispatch to the
Bastile and bring back here the person it concerns. You must take a
carriage and an escort, and guard the prisoner with the greatest care.”

D’Artagnan took the letter, touched his hat with his hand, turned round
upon his heel like a drill-sergeant, and a moment afterward was heard,
in his dry and monotonous tone, commanding “Four men and an escort, a
carriage and a horse.” Five minutes afterward the wheels of the
carriage and the horses’ shoes were heard resounding on the pavement of
the courtyard.




Chapter III.
Dead Animosities.


D’Artagnan arrived at the Bastile just as it was striking half-past
eight. His visit was announced to the governor, who, on hearing that he
came from the cardinal, went to meet him and received him at the top of
the great flight of steps outside the door. The governor of the Bastile
was Monsieur du Tremblay, the brother of the famous Capuchin, Joseph,
that fearful favorite of Richelieu’s, who went by the name of the Gray
Cardinal.

During the period that the Duc de Bassompierre passed in the
Bastile—where he remained for twelve long years—when his companions, in
their dreams of liberty, said to each other: “As for me, I shall go out
of the prison at such a time,” and another, at such and such a time,
the duke used to answer, “As for me, gentlemen, I shall leave only when
Monsieur du Tremblay leaves;” meaning that at the death of the cardinal
Du Tremblay would certainly lose his place at the Bastile and De
Bassompierre regain his at court.

His prediction was nearly fulfilled, but in a very different way from
that which De Bassompierre supposed; for after the death of Richelieu
everything went on, contrary to expectation, in the same way as before;
and Bassompierre had little chance of leaving his prison.

Monsieur du Tremblay received D’Artagnan with extreme politeness and
invited him to sit down with him to supper, of which he was himself
about to partake.

“I should be delighted to do so,” was the reply; “but if I am not
mistaken, the words ‘In haste,’ are written on the envelope of the
letter which I brought.”

“You are right,” said Du Tremblay. “Halloo, major! tell them to order
Number 25 to come downstairs.”

The unhappy wretch who entered the Bastile ceased, as he crossed the
threshold, to be a man—he became a number.

D’Artagnan shuddered at the noise of the keys; he remained on
horseback, feeling no inclination to dismount, and sat looking at the
bars, at the buttressed windows and the immense walls he had hitherto
only seen from the other side of the moat, but by which he had for
twenty years been awe-struck.

A bell resounded.

“I must leave you,” said Du Tremblay; “I am sent for to sign the
release of a prisoner. I shall be happy to meet you again, sir.”

“May the devil annihilate me if I return thy wish!” murmured
D’Artagnan, smiling as he pronounced the imprecation; “I declare I feel
quite ill after only being five minutes in the courtyard. Go to! go to!
I would rather die on straw than hoard up a thousand a year by being
governor of the Bastile.”

He had scarcely finished this soliloquy before the prisoner arrived. On
seeing him D’Artagnan could hardly suppress an exclamation of surprise.
The prisoner got into the carriage without seeming to recognize the
musketeer.

“Gentlemen,” thus D’Artagnan addressed the four musketeers, “I am
ordered to exercise the greatest possible care in guarding the
prisoner, and since there are no locks to the carriage, I shall sit
beside him. Monsieur de Lillebonne, lead my horse by the bridle, if you
please.” As he spoke he dismounted, gave the bridle of his horse to the
musketeer and placing himself by the side of the prisoner said, in a
voice perfectly composed, “To the Palais Royal, at full trot.”

The carriage drove on and D’Artagnan, availing himself of the darkness
in the archway under which they were passing, threw himself into the
arms of the prisoner.

“Rochefort!” he exclaimed; “you! is it you, indeed? I am not mistaken?”

“D’Artagnan!” cried Rochefort.

“Ah! my poor friend!” resumed D’Artagnan, “not having seen you for four
or five years I concluded you were dead.”

“I’faith,” said Rochefort, “there’s no great difference, I think,
between a dead man and one who has been buried alive; now I have been
buried alive, or very nearly so.”

“And for what crime are you imprisoned in the Bastile.”

“Do you wish me to speak the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, _I don’t know_.”

“Have you any suspicion of me, Rochefort?”

“No! on the honor of a gentleman; but I cannot be imprisoned for the
reason alleged; it is impossible.”

“What reason?” asked D’Artagnan.

“For stealing.”

“For stealing! you, Rochefort! you are laughing at me.”

“I understand. You mean that this demands explanation, do you not?”

“I admit it.”

“Well, this is what actually took place: One evening after an orgy in
Reinard’s apartment at the Tuileries with the Duc d’Harcourt,
Fontrailles, De Rieux and others, the Duc d’Harcourt proposed that we
should go and pull cloaks on the Pont Neuf; that is, you know, a
diversion which the Duc d’Orléans made quite the fashion.”

“Were you crazy, Rochefort? at your age!”

“No, I was drunk. And yet, since the amusement seemed to me rather
tame, I proposed to Chevalier de Rieux that we should be spectators
instead of actors, and, in order to see to advantage, that we should
mount the bronze horse. No sooner said than done. Thanks to the spurs,
which served as stirrups, in a moment we were perched upon the
_croupe;_ we were well placed and saw everything. Four or five cloaks
had already been lifted, with a dexterity without parallel, and not one
of the victims had dared to say a word, when some fool of a fellow,
less patient than the others, took it into his head to cry out,
‘Guard!’ and drew upon us a patrol of archers. Duc d’Harcourt,
Fontrailles, and the others escaped; De Rieux was inclined to do
likewise, but I told him they wouldn’t look for us where we were. He
wouldn’t listen, put his foot on the spur to get down, the spur broke,
he fell with a broken leg, and, instead of keeping quiet, took to
crying out like a gallows-bird. I then was ready to dismount, but it
was too late; I descended into the arms of the archers. They conducted
me to the Châtelet, where I slept soundly, being very sure that on the
next day I should go forth free. The next day came and passed, the day
after, a week; I then wrote to the cardinal. The same day they came for
me and took me to the Bastile. That was five years ago. Do you believe
it was because I committed the sacrilege of mounting _en croupe_ behind
Henry IV.?”

“No; you are right, my dear Rochefort, it couldn’t be for that; but you
will probably learn the reason soon.”

“Ah, indeed! I forgot to ask you—where are you taking me?”

“To the cardinal.”

“What does he want with me?”

“I do not know. I did not even know that you were the person I was sent
to fetch.”

“Impossible—you—a favorite of the minister!”

“A favorite! no, indeed!” cried D’Artagnan. “Ah, my poor friend! I am
just as poor a Gascon as when I saw you at Meung, twenty-two years ago,
you know; alas!” and he concluded his speech with a deep sigh.

“Nevertheless, you come as one in authority.”

“Because I happened to be in the ante-chamber when the cardinal called
me, by the merest chance. I am still a lieutenant in the musketeers and
have been so these twenty years.”

“Then no misfortune has happened to you?”

“And what misfortune could happen to me? To quote some Latin verses I
have forgotten, or rather, never knew well, ‘the thunderbolt never
falls on the valleys,’ and I am a valley, dear Rochefort,—one of the
lowliest of the low.”

“Then Mazarin is still Mazarin?”

“The same as ever, my friend; it is said that he is married to the
queen.”

“Married?”

“If not her husband, he is unquestionably her lover.”

“You surprise me. Rebuff Buckingham and consent to Mazarin!”

“Just like the women,” replied D’Artagnan, coolly.

“Like women, not like queens.”

“Egad! queens are the weakest of their sex, when it comes to such
things as these.”

“And M. de Beaufort—is he still in prison?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Oh, nothing, but that he might get me out of this, if he were
favorably inclined to me.”

“You are probably nearer freedom than he is, so it will be your
business to get him out.”

“And,” said the prisoner, “what talk is there of war with Spain?”

“With Spain, no,” answered D’Artagnan; “but Paris.”

“What do you mean?” cried Rochefort.

“Do you hear the guns, pray? The citizens are amusing themselves in the
meantime.”

“And you—do you really think that anything could be done with these
_bourgeois?_”

“Yes, they might do well if they had any leader to unite them in one
body.”

“How miserable not to be free!”

“Don’t be downcast. Since Mazarin has sent for you, it is because he
wants you. I congratulate you! Many a long year has passed since any
one has wanted to employ _me;_ so you see in what a situation _I_ am.”

“Make your complaints known; that’s my advice.”

“Listen, Rochefort; let us make a compact. We are friends, are we not?”

“Egad! I bear the traces of our friendship—three slits or slashes from
your sword.”

“Well, if you should be restored to favor, don’t forget me.”

“On the honor of a Rochefort; but you must do the like for me.”

“There’s my hand,—I promise.”

“Therefore, whenever you find any opportunity of saying something in my
behalf——”

“I shall say it, and you?”

“I shall do the same.”

“Apropos, are we to speak of your friends also, Athos, Porthos, and
Aramis? or have you forgotten them?”

“Almost.”

“What has become of them?”

“I don’t know; we separated, as you know. They are alive, that’s all
that I can say about them; from time to time I hear of them indirectly,
but in what part of the world they are, devil take me if I know, No, on
my honor, I have not a friend in the world but you, Rochefort.”

“And the illustrious—what’s the name of the lad whom I made a sergeant
in Piedmont’s regiment?”

“Planchet!”

“The illustrious Planchet. What has become of him?”

“I shouldn’t wonder if he were at the head of the mob at this very
moment. He married a woman who keeps a confectioner’s shop in the Rue
des Lombards, for he’s a lad who was always fond of sweetmeats; he’s
now a citizen of Paris. You’ll see that that queer fellow will be a
sheriff before I shall be a captain.”

“Come, dear D’Artagnan, look up a little! Courage! It is when one is
lowest on the wheel of fortune that the merry-go-round wheels and
rewards us. This evening your destiny begins to change.”

“Amen!” exclaimed D’Artagnan, stopping the carriage.

“What are you doing?” asked Rochefort.

“We are almost there and I want no one to see me getting out of your
carriage; we are supposed not to know each other.”

“You are right. Adieu.”

“_Au revoir_. Remember your promise.”

In five minutes the party entered the courtyard and D’Artagnan led the
prisoner up the great staircase and across the corridor and
ante-chamber.

As they stopped at the door of the cardinal’s study, D’Artagnan was
about to be announced when Rochefort slapped him on his shoulder.

“D’Artagnan, let me confess to you what I’ve been thinking about during
the whole of my drive, as I looked out upon the parties of citizens who
perpetually crossed our path and looked at you and your four men with
fiery eyes.”

“Speak out,” answered D’Artagnan.

“I had only to cry out ‘Help!’ for you and for your companions to be
cut to pieces, and _then_ I should have been free.”

“Why didn’t you do it?” asked the lieutenant.

“Come, come!” cried Rochefort. “Did we not swear friendship? Ah! had
any one but you been there, I don’t say——”

D’Artagnan bowed. “Is it possible that Rochefort has become a better
man than I am?” he said to himself. And he caused himself to be
announced to the minister.

“Let M. de Rochefort enter,” said Mazarin, eagerly, on hearing their
names pronounced; “and beg M. d’Artagnan to wait; I shall have further
need of him.”

These words gave great joy to D’Artagnan. As he had said, it had been a
long time since any one had needed him; and that demand for his
services on the part of Mazarin seemed to him an auspicious sign.

Rochefort, rendered suspicious and cautious by these words, entered the
apartment, where he found Mazarin sitting at the table, dressed in his
ordinary garb and as one of the prelates of the Church, his costume
being similar to that of the abbés in that day, excepting that his
scarf and stockings were violet.

As the door was closed Rochefort cast a glance toward Mazarin, which
was answered by one, equally furtive, from the minister.

There was little change in the cardinal; still dressed with sedulous
care, his hair well arranged and curled, his person perfumed, he
looked, owing to his extreme taste in dress, only half his age. But
Rochefort, who had passed five years in prison, had become old in the
lapse of a few years; the dark locks of this estimable friend of the
defunct Cardinal Richelieu were now white; the deep bronze of his
complexion had been succeeded by a mortal pallor which betokened
debility. As he gazed at him Mazarin shook his head slightly, as much
as to say, “This is a man who does not appear to me fit for much.”

After a pause, which appeared an age to Rochefort, Mazarin took from a
bundle of papers a letter, and showing it to the count, he said:

“I find here a letter in which you sue for liberty, Monsieur de
Rochefort. You are in prison, then?”

Rochefort trembled in every limb at this question. “But I thought,” he
said, “that your eminence knew that circumstance better than any one——”

“I? Oh no! There is a congestion of prisoners in the Bastile, who were
cooped up in the time of Monsieur de Richelieu; I don’t even know their
names.”

“Yes, but in regard to myself, my lord, it cannot be so, for I was
removed from the Châtelet to the Bastile owing to an order from your
eminence.”

“You _think_ you were.”

“I am certain of it.”

“Ah, stay! I fancy I remember it. Did you not once refuse to undertake
a journey to Brussels for the queen?”

“Ah! ah!” exclaimed Rochefort. “There is the true reason! Idiot that I
am, though I have been trying to find it out for five years, I never
found it out.”

“But I do not _say_ it was the cause of your imprisonment. I merely ask
you, did you not refuse to go to Brussels for the queen, whilst you had
consented to go there to do some service for the late cardinal?”

“That is the very reason I refused to go back to Brussels. I was there
at a fearful moment. I was sent there to intercept a correspondence
between Chalais and the archduke, and even then, when I was discovered
I was nearly torn to pieces. How could I, then, return to Brussels? I
should injure the queen instead of serving her.”

“Well, since the best motives are liable to misconstruction, the queen
saw in your refusal nothing but a refusal—a distinct refusal she had
also much to complain of you during the lifetime of the late cardinal;
yes, her majesty the queen——”

Rochefort smiled contemptuously.

“Since I was a faithful servant, my lord, to Cardinal Richelieu during
his life, it stands to reason that now, after his death, I should serve
you well, in defiance of the whole world.”

“With regard to myself, Monsieur de Rochefort,” replied Mazarin, “I am
not, like Monsieur de Richelieu, all-powerful. I am but a minister, who
wants no servants, being myself nothing but a servant of the queen’s.
Now, the queen is of a sensitive nature. Hearing of your refusal to
obey her she looked upon it as a declaration of war, and as she
considers you a man of superior talent, and consequently dangerous, she
desired me to make sure of you; that is the reason of your being shut
up in the Bastile. But your release can be managed. You are one of
those men who can comprehend certain matters and having understood
them, can act with energy——”

“Such was Cardinal Richelieu’s opinion, my lord.”

“The cardinal,” interrupted Mazarin, “was a great politician and
therein shone his vast superiority over me. I am a straightforward,
simple man; that’s my great disadvantage. I am of a frankness of
character quite French.”

Rochefort bit his lips in order to prevent a smile.

“Now to the point. I want friends; I want faithful servants. When I say
I want, I mean the queen wants them. I do nothing without her
commands—pray understand that; not like Monsieur de Richelieu, who went
on just as he pleased. So I shall never be a great man, as he was, but
to compensate for that, I shall be a good man, Monsieur de Rochefort,
and I hope to prove it to you.”

Rochefort knew well the tones of that soft voice, in which sounded
sometimes a sort of gentle lisp, like the hissing of young vipers.

“I am disposed to believe your eminence,” he replied; “though I have
had but little evidence of that good-nature of which your eminence
speaks. Do not forget that I have been five years in the Bastile and
that no medium of viewing things is so deceptive as the grating of a
prison.”

“Ah, Monsieur de Rochefort! have I not told you already that I had
nothing to do with that? The queen—cannot you make allowances for the
pettishness of a queen and a princess? But that has passed away as
suddenly as it came, and is forgotten.”

“I can easily suppose, sir, that her majesty has forgotten it amid the
_fêtes_ and the courtiers of the Palais Royal, but I who have passed
those years in the Bastile——”

“Ah! _mon Dieu!_ my dear Monsieur de Rochefort! do you absolutely think
that the Palais Royal is the abode of gayety? No. We have had great
annoyances there. As for me, I play my game squarely, fairly, and above
board, as I always do. Let us come to some conclusion. Are you one of
us, Monsieur de Rochefort?”

“I am very desirous of being so, my lord, but I am totally in the dark
about everything. In the Bastile one talks politics only with soldiers
and jailers, and you have not an idea, my lord, how little is known of
what is going on by people of that sort; I am of Monsieur de
Bassompierre’s party. Is he still one of the seventeen peers of
France?”

“He is dead, sir; a great loss. His devotion to the queen was
boundless; men of loyalty are scarce.”

“I think so, forsooth,” said Rochefort, “and when you find any of them,
you march them off to the Bastile. However, there are plenty in the
world, but you don’t look in the right direction for them, my lord.”

“Indeed! explain to me. Ah! my dear Monsieur de Rochefort, how much you
must have learned during your intimacy with the late cardinal! Ah! he
was a great man.”

“Will your eminence be angry if I read you a lesson?”

“I! never! you know you may say _anything_ to me. I try to be beloved,
not feared.”

“Well, there is on the wall of my cell, scratched with a nail, a
proverb, which says, ‘Like master, like servant.’”

“Pray, what does that mean?”

“It means that Monsieur de Richelieu was able to find trusty servants,
dozens and dozens of them.”

“He! the point aimed at by every poniard! Richelieu, who passed his
life in warding off blows which were forever aimed at him!”

“But he _did_ ward them off,” said De Rochefort, “and the reason was,
that though he had bitter enemies he possessed also true friends. I
have known persons,” he continued—for he thought he might avail himself
of the opportunity of speaking of D’Artagnan—“who by their sagacity and
address have deceived the penetration of Cardinal Richelieu; who by
their valor have got the better of his guards and spies; persons
without money, without support, without credit, yet who have preserved
to the crowned head its crown and made the cardinal crave pardon.”

“But those men you speak of,” said Mazarin, smiling inwardly on seeing
Rochefort approach the point to which he was leading him, “those men
were not devoted to the cardinal, for they contended against him.”

“No; in that case they would have met with more fitting reward. They
had the misfortune to be devoted to that very queen for whom just now
you were seeking servants.”

“But how is it that you know so much of these matters?”

“I know them because the men of whom I speak were at that time my
enemies; because they fought against me; because I did them all the
harm I could and they returned it to the best of their ability; because
one of them, with whom I had most to do, gave me a pretty sword-thrust,
now about seven years ago, the third that I received from the same
hand; it closed an old account.”

“Ah!” said Mazarin, with admirable suavity, “could I but find such
men!”

“My lord, there has stood for six years at your very door a man such as
I describe, and during those six years he has been unappreciated and
unemployed by you.”

“Who is it?”

“It is Monsieur d’Artagnan.”

“That Gascon!” cried Mazarin, with well acted surprise.

“‘That Gascon’ has saved a queen and made Monsieur de Richelieu confess
that in point of talent, address and political skill, to him he was
only a tyro.”

“Really?”

“It is as I have the honor of telling it to your excellency.”

“Tell me a little about it, my dear Monsieur de Rochefort.”

“That is somewhat difficult, my lord,” said Rochefort, with a smile.

“Then he will tell it me himself.”

“I doubt it, my lord.”

“Why do you doubt it?”

“Because the secret does not belong to him; because, as I have told
you, it has to do with a great queen.”

“And he was alone in achieving an enterprise like that?”

“No, my lord, he had three colleagues, three brave men, men such as you
were wishing for just now.”

“And were these four men attached to each other, true in heart, really
united?”

“As if they had been one man—as if their four hearts had pulsated in
one breast.”

“You pique my curiosity, dear Rochefort; pray tell me the whole story.”

“That is impossible; but I will tell you a true story, my lord.”

“Pray do so, I delight in stories,” cried the cardinal.

“Listen, then,” returned Rochefort, as he spoke endeavoring to read in
that subtle countenance the cardinal’s motive. “Once upon a time there
lived a queen—a powerful monarch—who reigned over one of the greatest
kingdoms of the universe; and a minister; and this minister wished much
to injure the queen, whom once he had loved too well. (Do not try, my
lord, you cannot guess who it is; all this happened long before you
came into the country where this queen reigned.) There came to the
court an ambassador so brave, so magnificent, so elegant, that every
woman lost her heart to him; and the queen had even the indiscretion to
give him certain ornaments so rare that they could never be replaced by
any like them.

“As these ornaments were given by the king the minister persuaded his
majesty to insist upon the queen’s appearing in them as part of her
jewels at a ball which was soon to take place. There is no occasion to
tell you, my lord, that the minister knew for a fact that these
ornaments had sailed away with the ambassador, who was far away, beyond
seas. This illustrious queen had fallen low as the least of her
subjects—fallen from her high estate.”

“Indeed!”

“Well, my lord, four men resolved to save her. These four men were not
princes, neither were they dukes, neither were they men in power; they
were not even rich. They were four honest soldiers, each with a good
heart, a good arm and a sword at the service of those who wanted it.
They set out. The minister knew of their departure and had planted
people on the road to prevent them ever reaching their destination.
Three of them were overwhelmed and disabled by numerous assailants; one
of them alone arrived at the port, having either killed or wounded
those who wished to stop him. He crossed the sea and brought back the
set of ornaments to the great queen, who was able to wear them on her
shoulder on the appointed day; and this very nearly ruined the
minister. What do you think of that exploit, my lord?”

“It is magnificent!” said Mazarin, thoughtfully.

“Well, I know of ten such men.”

Mazarin made no reply; he reflected.

Five or six minutes elapsed.

“You have nothing more to ask of me, my lord?” said Rochefort.

“Yes. And you say that Monsieur d’Artagnan was one of those four men?”

“He led the enterprise.”

“And who were the others?”

“I leave it to Monsieur d’Artagnan to name them, my lord. They were his
friends and not mine. He alone would have any influence with them; I do
not even know them under their true names.”

“You suspect me, Monsieur de Rochefort; I want him and you and all to
aid me.”

“Begin with me, my lord; for after five or six years of imprisonment it
is natural to feel some curiosity as to one’s destination.”

“You, my dear Monsieur de Rochefort, shall have the post of confidence;
you shall go to Vincennes, where Monsieur de Beaufort is confined; you
will guard him well for me. Well, what is the matter?”

“The matter is that you have proposed to me what is impossible,” said
Rochefort, shaking his head with an air of disappointment.

“What! impossible? And why is it impossible?”

“Because Monsieur de Beaufort is one of my friends, or rather, I am one
of his. Have you forgotten, my lord, that it is he who answered for me
to the queen?”

“Since then Monsieur de Beaufort has become an enemy of the State.”

“That may be, my lord; but since I am neither king nor queen nor
minister, he is not my enemy and I cannot accept your offer.”

“This, then, is what you call devotion! I congratulate you. Your
devotion does not commit you too far, Monsieur de Rochefort.”

“And then, my lord,” continued Rochefort, “you understand that to
emerge from the Bastile in order to enter Vincennes is only to change
one’s prison.”

“Say at once that you are on the side of Monsieur de Beaufort; that
will be the most sincere line of conduct,” said Mazarin.

“My lord, I have been so long shut up, that I am only of one party—I am
for fresh air. Employ me in any other way; employ me even actively, but
let it be on the high roads.”

“My dear Monsieur de Rochefort,” Mazarin replied in a tone of raillery,
“you think yourself still a young man; your spirit is that of the
phoenix, but your strength fails you. Believe me, you ought now to take
a rest. Here!”

“You decide, then, nothing about me, my lord?”

“On the contrary, I have come to a decision.”

Bernouin came into the room.

“Call an officer of justice,” he said; “and stay close to me,” he
added, in a low tone.

The officer entered. Mazarin wrote a few words, which he gave to this
man; then he bowed.

“Adieu, Monsieur de Rochefort,” he said.

Rochefort bent low.

“I see, my lord, I am to be taken back to the Bastile.”

“You are sagacious.”

“I shall return thither, my lord, but it is a mistake on your part not
to employ me.”

“You? the friend of my greatest foes? Don’t suppose that you are the
only person who can serve me, Monsieur de Rochefort. I shall find many
men as able as you are.”

“I wish you may, my lord,” replied De Rochefort.

He was then reconducted by the little staircase, instead of passing
through the ante-chamber where D’Artagnan was waiting. In the courtyard
the carriage and the four musketeers were ready, but he looked around
in vain for his friend.

“Ah!” he muttered to himself, “this changes the situation, and if there
is still a crowd of people in the streets we will try to show Mazarin
that we are still, thank God, good for something else than keeping
guard over a prisoner;” and he jumped into the carriage with the
alacrity of a man of five-and-twenty.




Chapter IV.
Anne of Austria at the Age of Forty-six.


When left alone with Bernouin, Mazarin was for some minutes lost in
thought. He had gained much information, but not enough. Mazarin was a
cheat at the card-table. This is a detail preserved to us by Brienne.
He called it using his advantages. He now determined not to begin the
game with D’Artagnan till he knew completely all his adversary’s cards.

“My lord, have you any commands?” asked Bernouin.

“Yes, yes,” replied Mazarin. “Light me; I am going to the queen.”

Bernouin took up a candlestick and led the way.

There was a secret communication between the cardinal’s apartments and
those of the queen; and through this corridor* Mazarin passed whenever
he wished to visit Anne of Austria.

* This secret passage is still to be seen in the Palais Royal.

In the bedroom in which this passage ended, Bernouin encountered Madame
de Beauvais, like himself intrusted with the secret of these
subterranean love affairs; and Madame de Beauvais undertook to prepare
Anne of Austria, who was in her oratory with the young king, Louis
XIV., to receive the cardinal.

Anne, reclining in a large easy-chair, her head supported by her hand,
her elbow resting on a table, was looking at her son, who was turning
over the leaves of a large book filled with pictures. This celebrated
woman fully understood the art of being dull with dignity. It was her
practice to pass hours either in her oratory or in her room, without
either reading or praying.

When Madame de Beauvais appeared at the door and announced the
cardinal, the child, who had been absorbed in the pages of Quintus
Curtius, enlivened as they were by engravings of Alexander’s feats of
arms, frowned and looked at his mother.

“Why,” he said, “does he enter without first asking for an audience?”

Anne colored slightly.

“The prime minister,” she said, “is obliged in these unsettled days to
inform the queen of all that is happening from time to time, without
exciting the curiosity or remarks of the court.”

“But Richelieu never came in this manner,” said the pertinacious boy.

“How can you remember what Monsieur de Richelieu did? You were too
young to know about such things.”

“I do not remember what he did, but I have inquired and I have been
told all about it.”

“And who told you about it?” asked Anne of Austria, with a movement of
impatience.

“I know that I ought never to name the persons who answer my
questions,” answered the child, “for if I do I shall learn nothing
further.”

At this very moment Mazarin entered. The king rose immediately, took
his book, closed it and went to lay it down on the table, near which he
continued standing, in order that Mazarin might be obliged to stand
also.

Mazarin contemplated these proceedings with a thoughtful glance. They
explained what had occurred that evening.

He bowed respectfully to the king, who gave him a somewhat cavalier
reception, but a look from his mother reproved him for the hatred
which, from his infancy, Louis XIV. had entertained toward Mazarin, and
he endeavored to receive the minister’s homage with civility.

Anne of Austria sought to read in Mazarin’s face the occasion of this
unexpected visit, since the cardinal usually came to her apartment only
after every one had retired.

The minister made a slight sign with his head, whereupon the queen said
to Madame Beauvais:

“It is time for the king to go to bed; call Laporte.”

The queen had several times already told her son that he ought to go to
bed, and several times Louis had coaxingly insisted on staying where he
was; but now he made no reply, but turned pale and bit his lips with
anger.

In a few minutes Laporte came into the room. The child went directly to
him without kissing his mother.

“Well, Louis,” said Anne, “why do you not kiss me?”

“I thought you were angry with me, madame; you sent me away.”

“I do not send you away, but you have had the small-pox and I am afraid
that sitting up late may tire you.”

“You had no fears of my being tired when you ordered me to go to the
palace to-day to pass the odious decrees which have raised the people
to rebellion.”

“Sire!” interposed Laporte, in order to turn the subject, “to whom does
your majesty wish me to give the candle?”

“To any one, Laporte,” the child said; and then added in a loud voice,
“to any one except Mancini.”

Now Mancini was a nephew of Mazarin’s and was as much hated by Louis as
the cardinal himself, although placed near his person by the minister.

And the king went out of the room without either embracing his mother
or even bowing to the cardinal.

“Good,” said Mazarin, “I am glad to see that his majesty has been
brought up with a hatred of dissimulation.”

“Why do you say that?” asked the queen, almost timidly.

“Why, it seems to me that the way in which he left us needs no
explanation. Besides, his majesty takes no pains to conceal how little
affection he has for me. That, however, does not hinder me from being
entirely devoted to his service, as I am to that of your majesty.”

“I ask your pardon for him, cardinal,” said the queen; “he is a child,
not yet able to understand his obligations to you.”

The cardinal smiled.

“But,” continued the queen, “you have doubtless come for some important
purpose. What is it, then?”

Mazarin sank into a chair with the deepest melancholy painted on his
countenance.

“It is likely,” he replied, “that we shall soon be obliged to separate,
unless you love me well enough to follow me to Italy.”

“Why,” cried the queen; “how is that?”

“Because, as they say in the opera of ‘Thisbe,’ ‘The whole world
conspires to break our bonds.’”

“You jest, sir!” answered the queen, endeavoring to assume something of
her former dignity.

“Alas! I do not, madame,” rejoined Mazarin. “Mark well what I say. The
whole world conspires to break our bonds. Now as you are one of the
whole world, I mean to say that you also are deserting me.”

“Cardinal!”

“Heavens! did I not see you the other day smile on the Duke of Orléans?
or rather at what he said?”

“And what was he saying?”

“He said this, madame: ‘Mazarin is a stumbling-block. Send him away and
all will then be well.’”

“What do you wish me to do?”

“Oh, madame! you are the queen!”

“Queen, forsooth! when I am at the mercy of every scribbler in the
Palais Royal who covers waste paper with nonsense, or of every country
squire in the kingdom.”

“Nevertheless, you have still the power of banishing from your presence
those whom you do not like!”

“That is to say, whom _you_ do not like,” returned the queen.

“I! persons whom _I_ do not like!”

“Yes, indeed. Who sent away Madame de Chevreuse after she had been
persecuted twelve years under the last reign?”

“A woman of intrigue, who wanted to keep up against me the spirit of
cabal she had raised against M. de Richelieu.”

“Who dismissed Madame de Hautefort, that friend so loyal that she
refused the favor of the king that she might remain in mine?”

“A prude, who told you every night, as she undressed you, that it was a
sin to love a priest, just as if one were a priest because one happens
to be a cardinal.”

“Who ordered Monsieur de Beaufort to be arrested?”

“An incendiary the burden of whose song was his intention to
assassinate me.”

“You see, cardinal,” replied the queen, “that your enemies are mine.”

“That is not enough madame, it is necessary that your friends should be
also mine.”

“My friends, monsieur?” The queen shook her head. “Alas, I have them no
longer!”

“How is it that you have no friends in your prosperity when you had
many in adversity?”

“It is because in my prosperity I forgot those old friends, monsieur;
because I have acted like Queen Marie de Médicis, who, returning from
her first exile, treated with contempt all those who had suffered for
her and, being proscribed a second time, died at Cologne abandoned by
every one, even by her own son.”

“Well, let us see,” said Mazarin; “isn’t there still time to repair the
evil? Search among your friends, your oldest friends.”

“What do you mean, monsieur?”

“Nothing else than I say—search.”

“Alas, I look around me in vain! I have no influence with any one.
Monsieur is, as usual, led by his favorite; yesterday it was Choisy,
to-day it is La Rivière, to-morrow it will be some one else. Monsieur
le Prince is led by the coadjutor, who is led by Madame de Guéménée.”

“Therefore, madame, I ask you to look, not among your friends of
to-day, but among those of other times.”

“Among my friends of other times?” said the queen.

“Yes, among your friends of other times; among those who aided you to
contend against the Duc de Richelieu and even to conquer him.”

“What is he aiming at?” murmured the queen, looking uneasily at the
cardinal.

“Yes,” continued his eminence; “under certain circumstances, with that
strong and shrewd mind your majesty possesses, aided by your friends,
you were able to repel the attacks of that adversary.”

“I!” said the queen. “I suffered, that is all.”

“Yes,” said Mazarin, “as women suffer in avenging themselves. Come, let
us come to the point. Do you know Monsieur de Rochefort?”

“One of my bitterest enemies—the faithful friend of Cardinal
Richelieu.”

“I know that, and we sent him to the Bastile,” said Mazarin.

“Is he at liberty?” asked the queen.

“No; still there, but I only speak of him in order that I may introduce
the name of another man. Do you know Monsieur d’Artagnan?” he added,
looking steadfastly at the queen.

Anne of Austria received the blow with a beating heart.

“Has the Gascon been indiscreet?” she murmured to herself, then said
aloud:

“D’Artagnan! stop an instant, the name seems certainly familiar.
D’Artagnan! there was a musketeer who was in love with one of my women.
Poor young creature! she was poisoned on my account.”

“That’s all you know of him?” asked Mazarin.

The queen looked at him, surprised.

“You seem, sir,” she remarked, “to be making me undergo a course of
cross-examination.”

“Which you answer according to your fancy,” replied Mazarin.

“Tell me your wishes and I will comply with them.”

The queen spoke with some impatience.

“Well, madame,” said Mazarin, bowing, “I desire that you give me a
share in your friends, as I have shared with you the little industry
and talent that Heaven has given me. The circumstances are grave and it
will be necessary to act promptly.”

“Still!” said the queen. “I thought that we were finally quit of
Monsieur de Beaufort.”

“Yes, you saw only the torrent that threatened to overturn everything
and you gave no attention to the still water. There is, however, a
proverb current in France relating to water which is quiet.”

“Continue,” said the queen.

“Well, then, madame, not a day passes in which I do not suffer affronts
from your princes and your lordly servants, all of them automata who do
not perceive that I wind up the spring that makes them move, nor do
they see that beneath my quiet demeanor lies the still scorn of an
injured, irritated man, who has sworn to himself to master them one of
these days. We have arrested Monsieur de Beaufort, but he is the least
dangerous among them. There is the Prince de Condé——”

“The hero of Rocroy. Do you think of _him?_”

“Yes, madame, often and often, but _pazienza_, as we say in Italy;
next, after Monsieur de Condé, comes the Duke of Orléans.”

“What are you saying? The first prince of the blood, the king’s uncle!”

“No! not the first prince of the blood, not the king’s uncle, but the
base conspirator, the soul of every cabal, who pretends to lead the
brave people who are weak enough to believe in the honor of a prince of
the blood—not the prince nearest to the throne, not the king’s uncle, I
repeat, but the murderer of Chalais, of Montmorency and of Cinq-Mars,
who is playing now the same game he played long ago and who thinks that
he will win the game because he has a new adversary—instead of a man
who threatened, a man who smiles. But he is mistaken; I shall not leave
so near the queen that source of discord with which the deceased
cardinal so often caused the anger of the king to rage above the
boiling point.”

Anne blushed and buried her face in her hands.

“What am I to do?” she said, bowed down beneath the voice of her
tyrant.

“Endeavor to remember the names of those faithful servants who crossed
the Channel, in spite of Monsieur de Richelieu, tracking the roads
along which they passed by their blood, to bring back to your majesty
certain jewels given by you to Buckingham.”

Anne arose, full of majesty, and as if touched by a spring, and looking
at the cardinal with the haughty dignity which in the days of her youth
had made her so powerful: “You are insulting me!” she said.

“I wish,” continued Mazarin, finishing, as it were, the speech this
sudden movement of the queen had cut; “I wish, in fact, that you should
now do for your husband what you formerly did for your lover.”

“Again that accusation!” cried the queen. “I thought that calumny was
stifled or extinct; you have spared me till now, but since you speak of
it, once for all, I tell you——”

“Madame, I do not ask you to tell me,” said Mazarin, astounded by this
returning courage.

“I will tell you all,” replied Anne. “Listen: there were in truth, at
that epoch, four devoted hearts, four loyal spirits, four faithful
swords, who saved more than my life—my honor——”

“Ah! you confess it!” exclaimed Mazarin.

“Is it only the guilty whose honor is at the sport of others, sir? and
cannot women be dishonored by appearances? Yes, appearances were
against me and I was about to suffer dishonor. However, I swear I was
not guilty, I swear it by——”

The queen looked around her for some sacred object by which she could
swear, and taking out of a cupboard hidden in the tapestry, a small
coffer of rosewood set in silver, and laying it on the altar:

“I swear,” she said, “by these sacred relics that Buckingham was not my
lover.”

“What relics are those by which you swear?” asked Mazarin, smiling. “I
am incredulous.”

The queen untied from around her throat a small golden key which hung
there, and presented it to the cardinal.

“Open, sir,” she said, “and look for yourself.”

Mazarin opened the coffer; a knife, covered with rust, and two letters,
one of which was stained with blood, alone met his gaze.

“What are these things?” he asked.

“What are these things?” replied Anne, with queen-like dignity,
extending toward the open coffer an arm, despite the lapse of years,
still beautiful. “These two letters are the only ones I ever wrote to
him. This knife is the knife with which Felton stabbed him. Read the
letters and see if I have lied or spoken the truth.”

But Mazarin, notwithstanding this permission, instead of reading the
letters, took the knife which the dying Buckingham had snatched out of
the wound and sent by Laporte to the queen. The blade was red, for the
blood had become rust; after a momentary examination during which the
queen became as white as the cloth which covered the altar on which she
was leaning, he put it back into the coffer with an involuntary
shudder.

“It is well, madame, I believe your oath.”

“No, no, read,” exclaimed the queen, indignantly; “read, I command you,
for I am resolved that everything shall be finished to-night and never
will I recur to this subject again. Do you think,” she said, with a
ghastly smile, “that I shall be inclined to reopen this coffer to
answer any future accusations?”

Mazarin, overcome by this determination, read the two letters. In one
the queen asked for the ornaments back again. This letter had been
conveyed by D’Artagnan and had arrived in time. The other was that
which Laporte had placed in the hands of the Duke of Buckingham,
warning him that he was about to be assassinated; that communication
had arrived too late.

“It is well, madame,” said Mazarin; “nothing can gainsay such
testimony.”

“Sir,” replied the queen, closing the coffer and leaning her hand upon
it, “if there is anything to be said, it is that I have always been
ungrateful to the brave men who saved me—that I have given nothing to
that gallant officer, D’Artagnan, you were speaking of just now, but my
hand to kiss and this diamond.”

As she spoke she extended her beautiful hand to the cardinal and showed
him a superb diamond which sparkled on her finger.

“It appears,” she resumed, “that he sold it—-he sold it in order to
save me another time—to be able to send a messenger to the duke to warn
him of his danger—he sold it to Monsieur des Essarts, on whose finger I
remarked it. I bought it from him, but it belongs to D’Artagnan. Give
it back to him, sir, and since you have such a man in your service,
make him useful.”

“Thank you, madame,” said Mazarin. “I will profit by the advice.”

“And now,” added the queen, her voice broken by her emotion, “have you
any other question to ask me?”

“Nothing,”—the cardinal spoke in his most conciliatory manner—“except
to beg of you to forgive my unworthy suspicions. I love you so tenderly
that I cannot help being jealous, even of the past.”

A smile, which was indefinable, passed over the lips of the queen.

“Since you have no further interrogations to make, leave me, I beseech
you,” she said. “I wish, after such a scene, to be alone.”

Mazarin bent low before her.

“I will retire, madame. Do you permit me to return?”

“Yes, to-morrow.”

The cardinal took the queen’s hand and pressed it with an air of
gallantry to his lips.

Scarcely had he left her when the queen went into her son’s room, and
inquired from Laporte if the king was in bed. Laporte pointed to the
child, who was asleep.

Anne ascended the steps side of the bed and softly kissed the placid
forehead of her son; then she retired as silently as she had come,
merely saying to Laporte:

“Try, my dear Laporte, to make the king more courteous to Monsieur le
Cardinal, to whom both he and I are under such important obligations.”




Chapter V.
The Gascon and the Italian.


Meanwhile the cardinal returned to his own room; and after asking
Bernouin, who stood at the door, whether anything had occurred during
his absence, and being answered in the negative, he desired that he
might be left alone.

When he was alone he opened the door of the corridor and then that of
the ante-chamber. There D’Artagnan was asleep upon a bench.

The cardinal went up to him and touched his shoulder. D’Artagnan
started, awakened himself, and as he awoke, stood up exactly like a
soldier under arms.

“Here I am,” said he. “Who calls me?”

“I,” said Mazarin, with his most smiling expression.

“I ask pardon of your eminence,” said D’Artagnan, “but I was so
fatigued——”

“Don’t ask my pardon, monsieur,” said Mazarin, “for you fatigued
yourself in my service.”

D’Artagnan admired Mazarin’s gracious manner. “Ah,” said he, between
his teeth, “is there truth in the proverb that fortune comes while one
sleeps?”

“Follow me, monsieur,” said Mazarin.

“Come, come,” murmured D’Artagnan, “Rochefort has kept his promise, but
where in the devil is he?” And he searched the cabinet even to the
smallest recesses, but there was no sign of Rochefort.

“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the cardinal, sitting down on a _fauteuil_,
“you have always seemed to me to be a brave and honorable man.”

“Possibly,” thought D’Artagnan, “but he has taken a long time to let me
know his thoughts;” nevertheless, he bowed to the very ground in
gratitude for Mazarin’s compliment.

“Well,” continued Mazarin, “the time has come to put to use your
talents and your valor.”

There was a sudden gleam of joy in the officer’s eyes, which vanished
immediately, for he knew nothing of Mazarin’s purpose.

“Order, my lord,” he said; “I am ready to obey your eminence.”

“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” continued the cardinal, “you performed sundry
superb exploits in the last reign.”

“Your eminence is too good to remember such trifles in my favor. It is
true I fought with tolerable success.”

“I don’t speak of your warlike exploits, monsieur,” said Mazarin;
“although they gained you much reputation, they were surpassed by
others.”

D’Artagnan pretended astonishment.

“Well, you do not reply?” resumed Mazarin.

“I am waiting, my lord, till you tell me of what exploits you speak.”

“I speak of the adventure—Eh, you know well what I mean.”

“Alas, no, my lord!” replied D’Artagnan, surprised.

“You are discreet—so much the better. I speak of that adventure in
behalf of the queen, of the ornaments, of the journey you made with
three of your friends.”

“Aha!” thought the Gascon; “is this a snare or not? Let me be on my
guard.”

And he assumed a look of stupidity which Mendori or Bellerose, two of
the first actors of the day, might have envied.

“Bravo!” cried Mazarin; “they told me that you were the man I wanted.
Come, let us see what you will do for me.”

“Everything that your eminence may please to command me,” was the
reply.

“You will do for me what you have done for the queen?”

“Certainly,” D’Artagnan said to himself, “he wishes to make me speak
out. He’s not more cunning than De Richelieu was! Devil take him!” Then
he said aloud:

“The queen, my lord? I don’t comprehend.”

“You don’t comprehend that I want you and your three friends to be of
use to me?”

“Which of my friends, my lord?”

“Your _three_ friends—the friends of former days.”

“Of former days, my lord! In former days I had not only three friends,
I had thirty; at two-and-twenty one calls every man one’s friend.”

“Well, sir,” returned Mazarin, “prudence is a fine thing, but to-day
you might regret having been too prudent.”

“My lord, Pythagoras made his disciples keep silence for five years
that they might learn to hold their tongues.”

“But you have been silent for twenty years, sir. Speak, now the queen
herself releases you from your promise.”

“The queen!” said D’Artagnan, with an astonishment which this time was
not pretended.

“Yes, the queen! And as a proof of what I say she commanded me to show
you this diamond, which she thinks you know.”

And so saying, Mazarin extended his hand to the officer, who sighed as
he recognized the ring so gracefully given to him by the queen on the
night of the ball at the Hotel de Ville and which she had repurchased
from Monsieur des Essarts.

“’Tis true. I remember well that diamond, which belonged to the queen.”

“You see, then, that I speak to you in the queen’s name. Answer me
without acting as if you were on the stage; your interests are
concerned in your so doing.”

“Faith, my lord, it is very necessary for me to make my fortune, your
eminence has so long forgotten me.”

“We need only a week to amend all that. Come, you are accounted for,
you are here, but where are your friends?”

“I do not know, my lord. We have parted company this long time; all
three have left the service.”

“Where can you find them, then?”

“Wherever they are, that’s my business.”

“Well, now, what are your conditions, if I employ you?”

“Money, my lord, as much money as what you wish me to undertake will
require. I remember too well how sometimes we were stopped for want of
money, and but for that diamond, which I was obliged to sell, we should
have remained on the road.”

“The devil he does! Money! and a large sum!” said Mazarin. “Pray, are
you aware that the king has no money in his treasury?”

“Do then as I did, my lord. Sell the crown diamonds. Trust me, don’t
let us try to do things cheaply. Great undertakings come poorly off
with paltry means.”

“Well,” returned Mazarin, “we will satisfy you.”

“Richelieu,” thought D’Artagnan, “would have given me five hundred
pistoles in advance.”

“You will then be at my service?” asked Mazarin.

“Yes, if my friends agree.”

“But if they refuse can I count on you?”

“I have never accomplished anything alone,” said D’Artagnan, shaking
his head.

“Go, then, and find them.”

“What shall I say to them by way of inducement to serve your eminence?”

“You know them better than I. Adapt your promises to their respective
characters.”

“What shall I promise?”

“That if they serve me as well as they served the queen my gratitude
shall be magnificent.”

“But what are we to do?”

“Make your mind easy; when the time for action comes you shall be put
in full possession of what I require from you; wait till that time
arrives and find out your friends.”

“My lord, perhaps they are not in Paris. It is even probable that I
shall have to make a journey. I am only a lieutenant of musketeers,
very poor, and journeys cost money.

“My intention,” said Mazarin, “is not that you go with a great
following; my plans require secrecy, and would be jeopardized by a too
extravagant equipment.”

“Still, my lord, I can’t travel on my pay, for it is now three months
behind; and I can’t travel on my savings, for in my twenty-two years of
service I have accumulated nothing but debts.”

Mazarin remained some moments in deep thought, as if he were fighting
with himself; then, going to a large cupboard closed with a triple
lock, he took from it a bag of silver, and weighing it twice in his
hands before he gave it to D’Artagnan:

“Take this,” he said with a sigh, “’tis merely for your journey.”

“If these are Spanish doubloons, or even gold crowns,” thought
D’Artagnan, “we shall yet be able to do business together.” He saluted
the cardinal and plunged the bag into the depths of an immense pocket.

“Well, then, all is settled; you are to set off,” said the cardinal.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Apropos, what are the names of your friends?”

“The Count de la Fère, formerly styled Athos; Monsieur du Vallon, whom
we used to call Porthos; the Chevalier d’Herblay, now the Abbé
d’Herblay, whom we styled Aramis——”

The cardinal smiled.

“Younger sons,” he said, “who enlisted in the musketeers under feigned
names in order not to lower their family names. Long swords but light
purses. Was that it?”

“If, God willing, these swords should be devoted to the service of your
eminence,” said D’Artagnan, “I shall venture to express a wish, which
is, that in its turn the purse of your eminence may become light and
theirs heavy—for with these three men your eminence may rouse all
Europe if you like.”

“These Gascons,” said the cardinal, laughing, “almost beat the Italians
in effrontery.”

“At all events,” answered D’Artagnan, with a smile almost as crafty as
the cardinal’s, “they beat them when they draw their swords.”

He then withdrew, and as he passed into the courtyard he stopped near a
lamp and dived eagerly into the bag of money.

“Crown pieces only—silver pieces! I suspected it. Ah! Mazarin! Mazarin!
thou hast no confidence in me! so much the worse for thee, for harm may
come of it!”

Meanwhile the cardinal was rubbing his hands in great satisfaction.

“A hundred pistoles! a hundred pistoles! for a hundred pistoles I have
discovered a secret for which Richelieu would have paid twenty thousand
crowns; without reckoning the value of that diamond”—he cast a
complacent look at the ring, which he had kept, instead of restoring to
D’Artagnan—“which is worth, at least, ten thousand francs.”

He returned to his room, and after depositing the ring in a casket
filled with brilliants of every sort, for the cardinal was a
connoisseur in precious stones, he called to Bernouin to undress him,
regardless of the noises of gun-fire that, though it was now near
midnight, continued to resound through Paris.

In the meantime D’Artagnan took his way toward the Rue Tiquetonne,
where he lived at the Hotel de la Chevrette.

We will explain in a few words how D’Artagnan had been led to choose
that place of residence.




Chapter VI.
D’Artagnan in his Fortieth Year.


Years have elapsed, many events have happened, alas! since, in our
romance of “The Three Musketeers,” we took leave of D’Artagnan at No.
12 Rue des Fossoyeurs. D’Artagnan had not failed in his career, but
circumstances had been adverse to him. So long as he was surrounded by
his friends he retained his youth and the poetry of his character. He
was one of those fine, ingenuous natures which assimilate themselves
easily to the dispositions of others. Athos imparted to him his
greatness of soul, Porthos his enthusiasm, Aramis his elegance. Had
D’Artagnan continued his intimacy with these three men he would have
become a superior character. Athos was the first to leave him, in order
that he might retire to a little property he had inherited near Blois;
Porthos, the second, to marry an attorney’s wife; and lastly, Aramis,
the third, to take orders and become an abbé. From that day D’Artagnan
felt lonely and powerless, without courage to pursue a career in which
he could only distinguish himself on condition that each of his three
companions should endow him with one of the gifts each had received
from Heaven.

Notwithstanding his commission in the musketeers, D’Artagnan felt
completely solitary. For a time the delightful remembrance of Madame
Bonancieux left on his character a certain poetic tinge, perishable
indeed; for like all other recollections in this world, these
impressions were, by degrees, effaced. A garrison life is fatal even to
the most aristocratic organization; and imperceptibly, D’Artagnan,
always in the camp, always on horseback, always in garrison, became (I
know not how in the present age one would express it) a typical
trooper. His early refinement of character was not only not lost, it
grew even greater than ever; but it was now applied to the little,
instead of to the great things of life—to the martial condition of the
soldier—comprised under the head of a good lodging, a rich table, a
congenial hostess. These important advantages D’Artagnan found to his
own taste in the Rue Tiquetonne at the sign of the Roe.

From the time D’Artagnan took quarters in that hotel, the mistress of
the house, a pretty and fresh looking Flemish woman, twenty-five or
twenty-six years old, had been singularly interested in him; and after
certain love passages, much obstructed by an inconvenient husband to
whom a dozen times D’Artagnan had made a pretence of passing a sword
through his body, that husband had disappeared one fine morning, after
furtively selling certain choice lots of wine, carrying away with him
money and jewels. He was thought to be dead; his wife, especially, who
cherished the pleasing idea that she was a widow, stoutly maintained
that death had taken him. Therefore, after the connection had continued
three years, carefully fostered by D’Artagnan, who found his bed and
his mistress more agreeable every year, each doing credit to the other,
the mistress conceived the extraordinary desire of becoming a wife and
proposed to D’Artagnan that he should marry her.

“Ah, fie!” D’Artagnan replied. “Bigamy, my dear! Come now, you don’t
really wish it?”

“But he is dead; I am sure of it.”

“He was a very contrary fellow and might come back on purpose to have
us hanged.”

“All right; if he comes back you will kill him, you are so skillful and
so brave.”

“_Peste!_ my darling! another way of getting hanged.”

“So you refuse my request?”

“To be sure I do—furiously!”

The pretty landlady was desolate. She would have taken D’Artagnan not
only as her husband, but as her God, he was so handsome and had so
fierce a mustache.

Then along toward the fourth year came the expedition of Franche-Comté.
D’Artagnan was assigned to it and made his preparations to depart.
There were then great griefs, tears without end and solemn promises to
remain faithful—all of course on the part of the hostess. D’Artagnan
was too grand to promise anything; he purposed only to do all that he
could to increase the glory of his name.

As to that, we know D’Artagnan’s courage; he exposed himself freely to
danger and while charging at the head of his company he received a ball
through the chest which laid him prostrate on the field of battle. He
had been seen falling from his horse and had not been seen to rise;
every one, therefore, believed him to be dead, especially those to whom
his death would give promotion. One believes readily what he wishes to
believe. Now in the army, from the division-generals who desire the
death of the general-in-chief, to the soldiers who desire the death of
the corporals, all desire some one’s death.

But D’Artagnan was not a man to let himself be killed like that. After
he had remained through the heat of the day unconscious on the
battle-field, the cool freshness of the night brought him to himself.
He gained a village, knocked at the door of the finest house and was
received as the wounded are always and everywhere received in France.
He was petted, tended, cured; and one fine morning, in better health
than ever before, he set out for France. Once in France he turned his
course toward Paris, and reaching Paris went straight to Rue
Tiquetonne.

But D’Artagnan found in his chamber the personal equipment of a man,
complete, except for the sword, arranged along the wall.

“He has returned,” said he. “So much the worse, and so much the
better!”

It need not be said that D’Artagnan was still thinking of the husband.
He made inquiries and discovered that the servants were new and that
the mistress had gone for a walk.

“Alone?” asked D’Artagnan.

“With monsieur.”

“Monsieur has returned, then?”

“Of course,” naïvely replied the servant.

“If I had any money,” said D’Artagnan to himself, “I would go away; but
I have none. I must stay and follow the advice of my hostess, while
thwarting the conjugal designs of this inopportune apparition.”

He had just completed this monologue—which proves that in momentous
circumstances nothing is more natural than the monologue—when the
servant-maid, watching at the door, suddenly cried out:

“Ah! see! here is madame returning with monsieur.”

D’Artagnan looked out and at the corner of Rue Montmartre saw the
hostess coming along hanging to the arm of an enormous Swiss, who
tiptoed in his walk with a magnificent air which pleasantly reminded
him of his old friend Porthos.

“Is that monsieur?” said D’Artagnan to himself. “Oh! oh! he has grown a
good deal, it seems to me.” And he sat down in the hall, choosing a
conspicuous place.

The hostess, as she entered, saw D’Artagnan and uttered a little cry,
whereupon D’Artagnan, judging that he had been recognized, rose, ran to
her and embraced her tenderly. The Swiss, with an air of stupefaction,
looked at the hostess, who turned pale.

“Ah, it is you, monsieur! What do you want of me?” she asked, in great
distress.

“Is monsieur your cousin? Is monsieur your brother?” said D’Artagnan,
not in the slightest degree embarrassed in the rôle he was playing. And
without waiting for her reply he threw himself into the arms of the
Helvetian, who received him with great coldness.

“Who is that man?” he asked.

The hostess replied only by gasps.

“Who is that Swiss?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Monsieur is going to marry me,” replied the hostess, between two
gasps.

“Your husband, then, is at last dead?”

“How does that concern you?” replied the Swiss.

“It concerns me much,” said D’Artagnan, “since you cannot marry madame
without my consent and since——”

“And since?” asked the Swiss.

“And since—I do not give it,” said the musketeer.

The Swiss became as purple as a peony. He wore his elegant uniform,
D’Artagnan was wrapped in a sort of gray cloak; the Swiss was six feet
high, D’Artagnan was hardly more than five; the Swiss considered
himself on his own ground and regarded D’Artagnan as an intruder.

“Will you go away from here?” demanded the Swiss, stamping violently,
like a man who begins to be seriously angry.

“I? By no means!” said D’Artagnan.

“Some one must go for help,” said a lad, who could not comprehend that
this little man should make a stand against that other man, who was so
large.

D’Artagnan, with a sudden accession of wrath, seized the lad by the ear
and led him apart, with the injunction:

“Stay you where you are and don’t you stir, or I will pull this ear
off. As for you, illustrious descendant of William Tell, you will
straightway get together your clothes which are in my room and which
annoy me, and go out quickly to another lodging.”

The Swiss began to laugh boisterously. “I go out?” he said. “And why?”

“Ah, very well!” said D’Artagnan; “I see that you understand French.
Come then, and take a turn with me and I will explain.”

The hostess, who knew D’Artagnan’s skill with the sword, began to weep
and tear her hair. D’Artagnan turned toward her, saying, “Then send him
away, madame.”

“Pooh!” said the Swiss, who had needed a little time to take in
D’Artagnan’s proposal, “pooh! who are you, in the first place, to ask
me to take a turn with you?”

“I am lieutenant in his majesty’s musketeers,” said D’Artagnan, “and
consequently your superior in everything; only, as the question now is
not of rank, but of quarters—you know the custom—come and seek for
yours; the first to return will recover his chamber.”

D’Artagnan led away the Swiss in spite of lamentations on the part of
the hostess, who in reality found her heart inclining toward her former
lover, though she would not have been sorry to give a lesson to that
haughty musketeer who had affronted her by the refusal of her hand.

It was night when the two adversaries reached the field of battle.
D’Artagnan politely begged the Swiss to yield to him the disputed
chamber; the Swiss refused by shaking his head, and drew his sword.

“Then you will lie here,” said D’Artagnan. “It is a wretched bed, but
that is not my fault, and it is you who have chosen it.” With these
words he drew in his turn and crossed swords with his adversary.

He had to contend against a strong wrist, but his agility was superior
to all force. The Swiss received two wounds and was not aware of it, by
reason of the cold; but suddenly feebleness, occasioned by loss of
blood, obliged him to sit down.

“There!” said D’Artagnan, “what did I tell you? Fortunately, you won’t
be laid up more than a fortnight. Remain here and I will send you your
clothes by the boy. Good-by! Oh, by the way, you’d better take lodging
in the Rue Montorgueil at the Chat Qui Pelote. You will be well fed
there, if the hostess remains the same. Adieu.”

Thereupon he returned in a lively mood to his room and sent to the
Swiss the things that belonged to him. The boy found him sitting where
D’Artagnan had left him, still overwhelmed by the coolness of his
adversary.

The boy, the hostess, and all the house had the same regard for
D’Artagnan that one would have for Hercules should he return to earth
to repeat his twelve labors.

But when he was alone with the hostess he said: “Now, pretty Madeleine,
you know the difference between a Swiss and a gentleman. As for you,
you have acted like a barmaid. So much the worse for you, for by such
conduct you have lost my esteem and my patronage. I have driven away
the Swiss to humiliate you, but I shall lodge here no longer. I will
not sleep where I must scorn. Ho, there, boy! Have my valise carried to
the Muid d’Amour, Rue des Bourdonnais. Adieu, madame.”

In saying these words D’Artagnan appeared at the same time majestic and
grieved. The hostess threw herself at his feet, asked his pardon and
held him back with a sweet violence. What more need be said? The spit
turned, the stove roared, the pretty Madeleine wept; D’Artagnan felt
himself invaded by hunger, cold and love. He pardoned, and having
pardoned he remained.

And this explains how D’Artagnan had quarters in the Rue Tiquetonne, at
the Hotel de la Chevrette.

D’Artagnan then returned home in thoughtful mood, finding a somewhat
lively pleasure in carrying Mazarin’s bag of money and thinking of that
fine diamond which he had once called his own and which he had seen on
the minister’s finger that night.

“Should that diamond ever fall into my hands again,” he reflected, “I
would turn it at once into money; I would buy with the proceeds certain
lands around my father’s château, which is a pretty place, well enough,
but with no land to it at all, except a garden about the size of the
Cemetery des Innocents; and I should wait in all my glory till some
rich heiress, attracted by my good looks, rode along to marry me. Then
I should like to have three sons; I should make the first a nobleman,
like Athos; the second a good soldier, like Porthos; the third an
excellent abbé, like Aramis. Faith! that would be a far better life
than I lead now; but Monsieur Mazarin is a mean wretch, who won’t
dispossess himself of his diamond in my favor.”

On entering the Rue Tiquetonne he heard a tremendous noise and found a
dense crowd near the house.

“Oho!” said he, “is the hotel on fire?” On approaching the hotel of the
Roe he found, however, that it was in front of the next house the mob
was collected. The people were shouting and running about with torches.
By the light of one of these torches D’Artagnan perceived men in
uniform.

He asked what was going on.

He was told that twenty citizens, headed by one man, had attacked a
carriage which was escorted by a troop of the cardinal’s bodyguard; but
a reinforcement having come up, the assailants had been put to flight
and the leader had taken refuge in the hotel next to his lodgings; the
house was now being searched.

In his youth D’Artagnan had often headed the _bourgeoisie_ against the
military, but he was cured of all those hot-headed propensities;
besides, he had the cardinal’s hundred pistoles in his pocket, so he
went into the hotel without a word. There he found Madeleine alarmed
for his safety and anxious to tell him all the events of the evening,
but he cut her short by ordering her to put his supper in his room and
give him with it a bottle of good Burgundy.

He took his key and candle and went upstairs to his bedroom. He had
been contented, for the convenience of the house, to lodge in the
fourth story; and truth obliges us even to confess that his chamber was
just above the gutter and below the roof. His first care on entering it
was to lock up in an old bureau with a new lock his bag of money, and
then as soon as supper was ready he sent away the waiter who brought it
up and sat down to table.

Not to reflect on what had passed, as one might fancy. No, D’Artagnan
considered that things are never well done when they are not reserved
to their proper time. He was hungry; he supped, he went to bed. Neither
was he one of those who think that the necessary silence of the night
brings counsel with it. In the night he slept, but in the morning,
refreshed and calm, he was inspired with his clearest views of
everything. It was long since he had any reason for his morning’s
inspiration, but he always slept all night long. At daybreak he awoke
and took a turn around his room.

“In ’43,” he said, “just before the death of the late cardinal, I
received a letter from Athos. Where was I then? Let me see. Oh! at the
siege of Besançon I was in the trenches. He told me—let me think—what
was it? That he was living on a small estate—but where? I was just
reading the name of the place when the wind blew my letter away, I
suppose to the Spaniards; there’s no use in thinking any more about
Athos. Let me see: with regard to Porthos, I received a letter from
him, too. He invited me to a hunting party on his property in the month
of September, 1646. Unluckily, as I was then in Bearn, on account of my
father’s death, the letter followed me there. I had left Bearn when it
arrived and I never received it until the month of April, 1647; and as
the invitation was for September, 1646, I couldn’t accept it. Let me
look for this letter; it must be with my title deeds.”

D’Artagnan opened an old casket which stood in a corner of the room,
and which was full of parchments referring to an estate during a period
of two hundred years lost to his family. He uttered an exclamation of
delight, for the large handwriting of Porthos was discernible, and
underneath some lines traced by his worthy spouse.

D’Artagnan eagerly searched for the heading of this letter; it was
dated from the Château du Vallon.

Porthos had forgotten that any other address was necessary; in his
pride he fancied that every one must know the Château du Vallon.

“Devil take the vain fellow,” said D’Artagnan. “However, I had better
find him out first, since he can’t want money. Athos must have become
an idiot by this time from drinking. Aramis must have worn himself to a
shadow of his former self by constant genuflexion.”

He cast his eyes again on the letter. There was a postscript:

“I write by the same courier to our worthy friend Aramis in his
convent.”

“In his convent! What convent? There are about two hundred in Paris and
three thousand in France; and then, perhaps, on entering the convent he
changed his name. Ah! if I were but learned in theology I should
recollect what it was he used to dispute about with the curate of
Montdidier and the superior of the Jesuits, when we were at Crèvecœur;
I should know what doctrine he leans to and I should glean from that
what saint he has adopted as his patron.

“Well, suppose I go back to the cardinal and ask him for a passport
into all the convents one can find, even into the nunneries? It would
be a curious idea, and maybe I should find my friend under the name of
Achilles. But, no! I should lose myself in the cardinal’s opinion.
Great people only thank you for doing the impossible; what’s possible,
they say, they can effect themselves, and they are right. But let us
wait a little and reflect. I received a letter from him, the dear
fellow, in which he even asked me for some small service, which, in
fact, I rendered him. Yes, yes; but now what did I do with that
letter?”

D’Artagnan thought a moment and then went to the wardrobe in which hung
his old clothes. He looked for his doublet of the year 1648 and as he
had orderly habits, he found it hanging on its nail. He felt in the
pocket and drew from it a paper; it was the letter of Aramis:

“Monsieur D’Artagnan: You know that I have had a quarrel with a certain
gentleman, who has given me an appointment for this evening in the
Place Royale. As I am of the church, and the affair might injure me if
I should share it with any other than a sure friend like you, I write
to beg that you will serve me as second.

“You will enter by the Rue Neuve Sainte Catherine; under the second
lamp on the right you will find your adversary. I shall be with mine
under the third.

“Wholly yours,

“Aramis.”

D’Artagnan tried to recall his remembrances. He had gone to the
rendezvous, had encountered there the adversary indicated, whose name
he had never known, had given him a pretty sword-stroke on the arm,
then had gone toward Aramis, who at the same time came to meet him,
having already finished his affair. “It is over,” Aramis had said. “I
think I have killed the insolent fellow. But, dear friend, if you ever
need me you know that I am entirely devoted to you.” Thereupon Aramis
had given him a clasp of the hand and had disappeared under the
arcades.

So, then, he no more knew where Aramis was than where Athos and Porthos
were, and the affair was becoming a matter of great perplexity, when he
fancied he heard a pane of glass break in his room window. He thought
directly of his bag and rushed from the inner room where he was
sleeping. He was not mistaken; as he entered his bedroom a man was
getting in by the window.

“Ah! you scoundrel!” cried D’Artagnan, taking the man for a thief and
seizing his sword.

“Sir!” cried the man, “in the name of Heaven put your sword back into
the sheath and don’t kill me unheard. I’m no thief, but an honest
citizen, well off in the world, with a house of my own. My name is—ah!
but surely you are Monsieur d’Artagnan?”

“And thou—Planchet!” cried the lieutenant.

“At your service, sir,” said Planchet, overwhelmed with joy; “if I were
still capable of serving you.”

“Perhaps so,” replied D’Artagnan. “But why the devil dost thou run
about the tops of houses at seven o’clock of the morning in the month
of January?”

“Sir,” said Planchet, “you must know; but, perhaps you ought not to
know——”

“Tell us what,” returned D’Artagnan, “but first put a napkin against
the window and draw the curtains.”

“Sir,” said the prudent Planchet, “in the first place, are you on good
terms with Monsieur de Rochefort?”

“Perfectly; one of my dearest friends.”

“Ah! so much the better!”

“But what has De Rochefort to do with this manner you have of invading
my room?”

“Ah, sir! I must first tell you that Monsieur de Rochefort is——”

Planchet hesitated.

“Egad, I know where he is,” said D’Artagnan. “He’s in the Bastile.”

“That is to say, he was there,” replied Planchet. “But in returning
thither last night, when fortunately you did not accompany him, as his
carriage was crossing the Rue de la Ferronnerie his guards insulted the
people, who began to abuse them. The prisoner thought this a good
opportunity for escape; he called out his name and cried for help. I
was there. I heard the name of Rochefort. I remembered him well. I said
in a loud voice that he was a prisoner, a friend of the Duc de
Beaufort, who called for help. The people were infuriated; they stopped
the horses and cut the escort to pieces, whilst I opened the doors of
the carriage and Monsieur de Rochefort jumped out and soon was lost
amongst the crowd. At this moment a patrol passed by. I was obliged to
sound a retreat toward the Rue Tiquetonne; I was pursued and took
refuge in the house next to this, where I have been concealed between
two mattresses. This morning I ventured to run along the gutters and——”

“Well,” interrupted D’Artagnan, “I am delighted that De Rochefort is
free, but as for thee, if thou shouldst fall into the hands of the
king’s servants they will hang thee without mercy. Nevertheless, I
promise thee thou shalt be hidden here, though I risk by concealing
thee neither more nor less than my lieutenancy, if it was found out
that I gave one rebel an asylum.”

“Ah! sir, you know well I would risk my life for you.”

“Thou mayst add that thou hast risked it, Planchet. I have not
forgotten all I owe thee. Sit down there and eat in security. I see
thee cast expressive glances at the remains of my supper.”

“Yes, sir; for all I’ve had since yesterday was a slice of bread and
butter, with preserves on it. Although I don’t despise sweet things in
proper time and place, I found the supper rather light.”

“Poor fellow!” said D’Artagnan. “Well, come; set to.”

“Ah, sir, you are going to save my life a second time!” cried Planchet.

And he seated himself at the table and ate as he did in the merry days
of the Rue des Fossoyeurs, whilst D’Artagnan walked to and fro and
thought how he could make use of Planchet under present circumstances.
While he turned this over in his mind Planchet did his best to make up
for lost time at table. At last he uttered a sigh of satisfaction and
paused, as if he had partially appeased his hunger.

“Come,” said D’Artagnan, who thought that it was now a convenient time
to begin his interrogations, “dost thou know where Athos is?”

“No, sir,” replied Planchet.

“The devil thou dost not! Dost know where Porthos is?”

“No—not at all.”

“And Aramis?”

“Not in the least.”

“The devil! the devil! the devil!”

“But, sir,” said Planchet, with a look of shrewdness, “I know where
Bazin is.”

“Where is he?”

“At Notre Dame.”

“What has he to do at Notre Dame?”

“He is beadle.”

“Bazin beadle at Notre Dame! He must know where his master is!”

“Without a doubt he must.”

D’Artagnan thought for a moment, then took his sword and put on his
cloak to go out.

“Sir,” said Planchet, in a mournful tone, “do you abandon me thus to my
fate? Think, if I am found out here, the people of the house, who have
not seen me enter it, will take me for a thief.”

“True,” said D’Artagnan. “Let’s see. Canst thou speak any patois?”

“I can do something better than that, sir, I can speak Flemish.”

“Where the devil didst thou learn it?”

“In Artois, where I fought for years. Listen, sir. _Goeden morgen,
mynheer, eth ben begeeray le weeten the ge sond heets omstand._”

“Which means?”

“Good-day, sir! I am anxious to know the state of your health.”

“He calls that a language! But never mind, that will do capitally.”

D’Artagnan opened the door and called out to a waiter to desire
Madeleine to come upstairs.

When the landlady made her appearance she expressed much astonishment
at seeing Planchet.

“My dear landlady,” said D’Artagnan, “I beg to introduce to you your
brother, who is arrived from Flanders and whom I am going to take into
my service.”

“My brother?”

“Wish your sister good-morning, Master Peter.”

“Wilkom, suster,” said Planchet.

“Goeden day, broder,” replied the astonished landlady.

“This is the case,” said D’Artagnan; “this is your brother, Madeleine;
you don’t know him perhaps, but I know him; he has arrived from
Amsterdam. You must dress him up during my absence. When I return,
which will be in about an hour, you must offer him to me as a servant,
and upon your recommendation, though he doesn’t speak a word of French,
I take him into my service. You understand?”

“That is to say, I guess your wishes, and that is all that’s
necessary,” said Madeleine.

“You are a precious creature, my pretty hostess, and I am much obliged
to you.”

The next moment D’Artagnan was on his way to Notre Dame.




Chapter VII.
Touches upon the Strange Effects a Half-pistole may have.


D’Artagnan, as he crossed the Pont Neuf, congratulated himself on
having found Planchet again, for at that time an intelligent servant
was essential to him; nor was he sorry that through Planchet and the
situation which he held in Rue des Lombards, a connection with the
_bourgeoisie_ might be commenced, at that critical period when that
class were preparing to make war with the court party. It was like
having a spy in the enemy’s camp. In this frame of mind, grateful for
the accidental meeting with Planchet, pleased with himself, D’Artagnan
reached Notre Dame. He ran up the steps, entered the church, and
addressing a verger who was sweeping the chapel, asked him if he knew
Monsieur Bazin.

“Monsieur Bazin, the beadle?” said the verger. “Yes. There he is,
attending mass, in the chapel of the Virgin.”

D’Artagnan nearly jumped for joy; he had despaired of finding Bazin,
but now, he thought, since he held one end of the thread he would be
pretty sure to reach the other end.

He knelt down just opposite the chapel in order not to lose sight of
his man; and as he had almost forgotten his prayers and had omitted to
take a book with him, he made use of his time in gazing at Bazin.

Bazin wore his dress, it may be observed, with equal dignity and
saintly propriety. It was not difficult to understand that he had
gained the crown of his ambition and that the silver-mounted wand he
brandished was in his eyes as honorable a distinction as the marshal’s
baton which Condé threw, or did not throw, into the enemy’s line of
battle at Fribourg. His person had undergone a change, analogous to the
change in his dress; his figure had grown rotund and, as it were,
canonical. The striking points of his face were effaced; he had still a
nose, but his cheeks, fattened out, each took a portion of it unto
themselves; his chin had joined his throat; his eyes were swelled up
with the puffiness of his cheeks; his hair, cut straight in holy guise,
covered his forehead as far as his eyebrows.

The officiating priest was just finishing mass whilst D’Artagnan was
looking at Bazin; he pronounced the words of the holy Sacrament and
retired, giving the benediction, which was received by the kneeling
communicants, to the astonishment of D’Artagnan, who recognized in the
priest the coadjutor* himself, the famous Jean Francois Gondy, who at
that time, having a presentiment of the part he was to play, was
beginning to court popularity by almsgiving. It was to this end that he
performed from time to time some of those early masses which the common
people, generally, alone attended.

* A sacerdotal officer.

D’Artagnan knelt as well as the rest, received his share of the
benediction and made the sign of the cross; but when Bazin passed in
his turn, with his eyes raised to Heaven and walking, in all humility,
the very last, D’Artagnan pulled him by the hem of his robe.

Bazin looked down and started, as if he had seen a serpent.

“Monsieur d’Artagnan!” he cried; “_Vade retro Satanas!_”

“So, my dear Bazin!” said the officer, laughing, “this is the way you
receive an old friend.”

“Sir,” replied Bazin, “the true friends of a Christian are those who
aid him in working out his salvation, not those who hinder him in doing
so.”

“I don’t understand you, Bazin; nor can I see how I can be a
stumbling-block in the way of your salvation,” said D’Artagnan.

“You forget, sir, that you very nearly ruined forever that of my
master; and that it was owing to you that he was very nearly being
damned eternally for remaining a musketeer, whilst all the time his
true vocation was the church.”

“My dear Bazin, you ought to perceive,” said D’Artagnan, “from the
place in which you find me, that I am greatly changed in everything.
Age produces good sense, and, as I doubt not but that your master is on
the road to salvation, I want you to tell me where he is, that he may
help me to mine.”

“Rather say, to take him back with you into the world. Fortunately, I
don’t know where he is.”

“How!” cried D’Artagnan; “you don’t know where Aramis is?”

“Formerly,” replied Bazin, “Aramis was his name of perdition. By Aramis
is meant Simara, which is the name of a demon. Happily for him he has
ceased to bear that name.”

“And therefore,” said D’Artagnan, resolved to be patient to the end,
“it is not Aramis I seek, but the Abbé d’Herblay. Come, my dear Bazin,
tell me where he is.”

“Didn’t you hear me tell you, Monsieur d’Artagnan, that I don’t know
where he is?”

“Yes, certainly; but to that I answer that it is impossible.”

“It is, nevertheless, the truth, monsieur—the pure truth, the truth of
the good God.”

D’Artagnan saw clearly that he would get nothing out of this man, who
was evidently telling a falsehood in his pretended ignorance of the
abode of Aramis, but whose lies were bold and decided.

“Well, Bazin,” said D’Artagnan, “since you do not know where your
master lives, let us speak of it no more; let us part good friends.
Accept this half-pistole to drink to my health.”

“I do not drink”—Bazin pushed away with dignity the officer’s
hand—“’tis good only for the laity.”

“Incorruptible!” murmured D’Artagnan; “I _am_ unlucky;” and whilst he
was lost in thought Bazin retreated toward the sacristy, and even there
he could not think himself safe until he had shut and locked the door
behind him.

D’Artagnan was still in deep thought when some one touched him on the
shoulder. He turned and was about to utter an exclamation of surprise
when the other made to him a sign of silence.

“You here, Rochefort?” he said, in a low voice.

“Hush!” returned Rochefort. “Did you know that I am at liberty?”

“I knew it from the fountain-head—from Planchet. And what brought you
here?”

“I came to thank God for my happy deliverance,” said Rochefort.

“And nothing more? I suppose that is not all.”

“To take my orders from the coadjutor and to see if we cannot wake up
Mazarin a little.”

“A bad plan; you’ll be shut up again in the Bastile.”

“Oh, as to that, I shall take care, I assure you. The air, the fresh,
free air is so good; besides,” and Rochefort drew a deep breath as he
spoke, “I am going into the country to make a tour.”

“Stop,” cried D’Artagnan; “I, too, am going.”

“And if I may without impertinence ask—where are you going?”

“To seek my friends.”

“What friends?”

“Those that you asked about yesterday.”

“Athos, Porthos and Aramis—you are looking for them?”

“Yes.”

“On honor?”

“What, then, is there surprising in that?”

“Nothing. Queer, though. And in whose behalf are you looking for them?”

“You are in no doubt on that score.”

“That is true.”

“Unfortunately, I have no idea where they are.”

“And you have no way to get news of them? Wait a week and I myself will
give you some.”

“A week is too long. I must find them within three days.”

“Three days are a short time and France is large.”

“No matter; you know the word _must;_ with that word great things are
done.”

“And when do you set out?”

“I am now on my road.”

“Good luck to you.”

“And to you—a good journey.”

“Perhaps we shall meet on our road.”

“That is not probable.”

“Who knows? Chance is so capricious. Adieu, till we meet again!
Apropos, should Mazarin speak to you about me, tell him that I should
have requested you to acquaint him that in a short time he will see
whether I am, as he says, too old for action.”

And Rochefort went away with one of those diabolical smiles which used
formerly to make D’Artagnan shudder, but D’Artagnan could now see it
without alarm, and smiling in his turn, with an expression of
melancholy which the recollections called up by that smile could,
perhaps, alone give to his countenance, he said:

“Go, demon, do what thou wilt! It matters little now to me. There’s no
second Constance in the world.”

On his return to the cathedral, D’Artagnan saw Bazin, who was
conversing with the sacristan. Bazin was making, with his spare little
short arms, ridiculous gestures. D’Artagnan perceived that he was
enforcing prudence with respect to himself.

D’Artagnan slipped out of the cathedral and placed himself in ambuscade
at the corner of the Rue des Canettes; it was impossible that Bazin
should go out of the cathedral without his seeing him.

In five minutes Bazin made his appearance, looking in every direction
to see if he were observed, but he saw no one. Calmed by appearances he
ventured to walk on through the Rue Notre Dame. Then D’Artagnan rushed
out of his hiding place and arrived in time to see Bazin turn down the
Rue de la Juiverie and enter, in the Rue de la Calandre, a respectable
looking house; and this D’Artagnan felt no doubt was the habitation of
the worthy beadle. Afraid of making any inquiries at this house,
D’Artagnan entered a small tavern at the corner of the street and asked
for a cup of hypocras. This beverage required a good half-hour to
prepare. And D’Artagnan had time, therefore, to watch Bazin
unsuspected.

He perceived in the tavern a pert boy between twelve and fifteen years
of age whom he fancied he had seen not twenty minutes before under the
guise of a chorister. He questioned him, and as the boy had no interest
in deceiving, D’Artagnan learned that he exercised, from six o’clock in
the morning until nine, the office of chorister, and from nine o’clock
till midnight that of a waiter in the tavern.

Whilst he was talking to this lad a horse was brought to the door of
Bazin’s house. It was saddled and bridled. Almost immediately Bazin
came downstairs.

“Look!” said the boy, “there’s our beadle, who is going a journey.”

“And where is he going?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Forsooth, I don’t know.”

“Half a pistole if you can find out,” said D’Artagnan.

“For me?” cried the boy, his eyes sparkling with joy, “if I can find
out where Bazin is going? That is not difficult. You are not joking,
are you?”

“No, on the honor of an officer; there is the half-pistole;” and he
showed him the seductive coin, but did not give it him.

“I shall ask him.”

“Just the very way not to know. Wait till he is set out and then,
marry, come up, ask, and find out. The half-pistole is ready,” and he
put it back again into his pocket.

“I understand,” said the child, with that jeering smile which marks
especially the “gamin de Paris.” “Well, we must wait.”

They had not long to wait. Five minutes afterward Bazin set off on a
full trot, urging on his horse by the blows of a parapluie, which he
was in the habit of using instead of a riding whip.

Scarcely had he turned the corner of the Rue de la Juiverie when the
boy rushed after him like a bloodhound on full scent.

Before ten minutes had elapsed the child returned.

“Well!” said D’Artagnan.

“Well!” answered the boy, “the thing is done.”

“Where is he gone?”

“The half-pistole is for me?”

“Doubtless, answer me.”

“I want to see it. Give it me, that I may see it is not false.”

“There it is.”

The child put the piece of money into his pocket.

“And now, where is he gone?” inquired D’Artagnan.

“He is gone to Noisy.”

“How dost thou know?”

“Ah, faith! there was no great cunning necessary. I knew the horse he
rode; it belonged to the butcher, who lets it out now and then to M.
Bazin. Now I thought that the butcher would not let his horse out like
that without knowing where it was going. And he answered ‘that Monsieur
Bazin went to Noisy.’ ’Tis his custom. He goes two or three times a
week.”

“Dost thou know Noisy well?”

“I think so, truly; my nurse lives there.”

“Is there a convent at Noisy?”

“Isn’t there a great and grand one—the convent of Jesuits?”

“What is thy name?”

“Friquet.”

D’Artagnan wrote the child’s name in his tablets.

“Please, sir,” said the boy, “do you think I can gain any more
half-pistoles in any way?”

“Perhaps,” replied D’Artagnan.

And having got out all he wanted, he paid for the hypocras, which he
did not drink, and went quickly back to the Rue Tiquetonne.




Chapter VIII.
D’Artagnan, Going to a Distance to discover Aramis.


On entering the hotel D’Artagnan saw a man sitting in a corner by the
fire. It was Planchet, but so completely transformed, thanks to the old
clothes that the departing husband had left behind, that D’Artagnan
himself could hardly recognize him. Madeleine introduced him in
presence of all the servants. Planchet addressed the officer with a
fine Flemish phrase; the officer replied in words that belonged to no
language at all, and the bargain was concluded; Madeleine’s brother
entered D’Artagnan’s service.

The plan adopted by D’Artagnan was soon perfected. He resolved not to
reach Noisy in the day, for fear of being recognized; he had therefore
plenty of time before him, for Noisy is only three or four leagues from
Paris, on the road to Meaux.

He began his day by breakfasting substantially—a bad beginning when one
wants to employ the head, but an excellent precaution when one wants to
work the body; and about two o’clock he had his two horses saddled, and
followed by Planchet he quitted Paris by the Barrière de la Villete. A
most active search was still prosecuted in the house near the Hotel de
la Chevrette for the discovery of Planchet.

At about a league and a half from the city, D’Artagnan, finding that in
his impatience he had set out too soon, stopped to give the horses
breathing time. The inn was full of disreputable looking people, who
seemed as if they were on the point of commencing some nightly
expedition. A man, wrapped in a cloak, appeared at the door, but seeing
a stranger he beckoned to his companions, and two men who were drinking
in the inn went out to speak to him.

D’Artagnan, on his side, went up to the landlady, praised her
wine—which was a horrible production from the country of Montreuil—and
heard from her that there were only two houses of importance in the
village; one of these belonged to the Archbishop of Paris, and was at
that time the abode of his niece the Duchess of Longueville; the other
was a convent of Jesuits and was the property—a by no means unusual
circumstance—of these worthy fathers.

At four o’clock D’Artagnan recommenced his journey. He proceeded slowly
and in deep reverie. Planchet also was lost in thought, but the subject
of their reflections was not the same.

One word which their landlady had pronounced had given a particular
turn to D’Artagnan’s deliberations; this was the name of Madame de
Longueville.

That name was indeed one to inspire imagination and produce thought.
Madame de Longueville was one of the highest ladies in the realm; she
was also one of the greatest beauties at court. She had formerly been
suspected of an intimacy of too tender a nature with Coligny, who, for
her sake, had been killed in a duel, in the Place Royale, by the Duc de
Guise. She was now connected by bonds of a political nature with the
Prince de Marsillac, the eldest son of the old Duc de Rochefoucauld,
whom she was trying to inspire with an enmity toward the Duc de Condé,
her brother-in-law, whom she now hated mortally.

D’Artagnan thought of all these matters. He remembered how at the
Louvre he had often seen, as she passed by him in the full radiance of
her dazzling charms, the beautiful Madame de Longueville. He thought of
Aramis, who, without possessing any greater advantages than himself,
had formerly been the lover of Madame de Chevreuse, who had been to a
former court what Madame de Longueville was in that day; and he
wondered how it was that there should be in the world people who
succeed in every wish, some in ambition, others in love, whilst others,
either from chance, or from ill-luck, or from some natural defect or
impediment, remain half-way upon the road toward fulfilment of their
hopes and expectations.

He was confessing to himself that he belonged to the latter unhappy
class, when Planchet approached and said:

“I will lay a wager, your honor, that you and I are thinking of the
same thing.”

“I doubt it, Planchet,” replied D’Artagnan, “but what are you thinking
of?”

“I am thinking, sir, of those desperate looking men who were drinking
in the inn where we rested.”

“Always cautious, Planchet.”

“’Tis instinct, your honor.”

“Well, what does your instinct tell you now?”

“Sir, my instinct told me that those people were assembled there for
some bad purpose; and I was reflecting on what my instinct had told me,
in the darkest corner of the stable, when a man wrapped in a cloak and
followed by two other men, came in.”

“Ah ah!” said D’Artagnan, Planchet’s recital agreeing with his own
observations. “Well?”

“One of these two men said, ‘He must certainly be at Noisy, or be
coming there this evening, for I have seen his servant.’

“‘Art thou sure?’ said the man in the cloak.

“‘Yes, my prince.’”

“My prince!” interrupted D’Artagnan.

“Yes, ‘my prince;’ but listen. ‘If he is here’—this is what the other
man said—‘let’s see decidedly what to do with him.’

“‘What to do with him?’ answered the prince.

“‘Yes, he’s not a man to allow himself to be taken anyhow; he’ll defend
himself.’

“‘Well, we must try to take him alive. Have you cords to bind him with
and a gag to stop his mouth?’

“‘We have.’

“‘Remember that he will most likely be disguised as a horseman.’

“‘Yes, yes, my lord; don’t be uneasy.’

“‘Besides, I shall be there.’

“‘You will assure us that justice——’

“‘Yes, yes! I answer for all that,’ the prince said.

“‘Well, then, we’ll do our best.’ Having said that, they went out of
the stable.”

“Well, what matters all that to us?” said D’Artagnan. “This is one of
those attempts that happen every day.”

“Are you sure that we are not its objects?”

“We? Why?”

“Just remember what they said. ‘I have seen his servant,’ said one, and
that applies very well to me.”

“Well?”

“‘He must certainly be at Noisy, or be coming there this evening,’ said
the other; and that applies very well to you.”

“What else?”

“Then the prince said: ‘Take notice that in all probability he will be
disguised as a cavalier;’ which seems to me to leave no room for doubt,
since you are dressed as a cavalier and not as an officer of
musketeers. Now then, what do you say to that?”

“Alas! my dear Planchet,” said D’Artagnan, sighing, “we are
unfortunately no longer in those times in which princes would care to
assassinate me. Those were good old days; never fear—these people owe
us no grudge.”

“Is your honor _sure?_”

“I can answer for it they do not.”

“Well, we won’t speak of it any more, then;” and Planchet took his
place in D’Artagnan’s suite with that sublime confidence he had always
had in his master, which even fifteen years of separation had not
destroyed.

They had traveled onward about half a mile when Planchet came close up
to D’Artagnan.

“Stop, sir, look yonder,” he whispered; “don’t you see in the darkness
something pass by, like shadows? I fancy I hear horses’ feet.”

“Impossible!” returned D’Artagnan. “The ground is soaking wet; yet I
fancy, as thou sayest, that I see something.”

At this moment the neighing of a horse struck his ear, coming through
darkness and space.

“There are men somewhere about, but that’s of no consequence to us,”
said D’Artagnan; “let us ride onward.”

At about half-past eight o’clock they reached the first houses in
Noisy; every one was in bed and not a light was to be seen in the
village. The obscurity was broken only now and then by the still darker
lines of the roofs of houses. Here and there a dog barked behind a door
or an affrighted cat fled precipitately from the midst of the pavement
to take refuge behind a pile of faggots, from which retreat her eyes
would shine like peridores. These were the only living creatures that
seemed to inhabit the village.

Toward the middle of the town, commanding the principal open space,
rose a dark mass, separated from the rest of the world by two lanes and
overshadowed in the front by enormous lime-trees. D’Artagnan looked
attentively at the building.

“This,” he said to Planchet, “must be the archbishop’s château, the
abode of the fair Madame de Longueville; but the convent, where is
that?”

“The convent, your honor, is at the other end of the village; I know it
well.”

“Well, then, Planchet, gallop up to it whilst I tighten my horse’s
girth, and come back and tell me if there is a light in any of the
Jesuits’ windows.”

In about five minutes Planchet returned.

“Sir,” he said, “there is one window of the convent lighted up.”

“Hem! If I were a ‘Frondeur,’” said D’Artagnan, “I should knock here
and should be sure of a good supper. If I were a monk I should knock
yonder and should have a good supper there, too; whereas, ’tis very
possible that between the castle and the convent we shall sleep on hard
beds, dying with hunger and thirst.”

“Yes,” added Planchet, “like the famous ass of Buridan. Shall I knock?”

“Hush!” replied D’Artagnan; “the light no longer burns in yonder
window.”

“Do you hear nothing?” whispered Planchet.

“What is that noise?”

There came a sound like a whirlwind, at the same time two troops of
horsemen, each composed of ten men, sallied forth from each of the
lanes which encompassed the house and surrounded D’Artagnan and
Planchet.

“Heyday!” cried D’Artagnan, drawing his sword and taking refuge behind
his horse; “are you not mistaken? is it really for us that you mean
your attack?”

“Here he is! we have him!” cried the horsemen, rushing on D’Artagnan
with naked swords.

“Don’t let him escape!” said a loud voice.

“No, my lord; be assured we shall not.”

D’Artagnan thought it was now time for him to join in the conversation.

“Halloo, gentlemen!” he called out in his Gascon accent, “what do you
want? what do you demand?”

“That thou shalt soon know,” shouted a chorus of horsemen.

“Stop, stop!” cried he whom they had addressed as “my lord;” “’tis not
his voice.”

“Ah! just so, gentlemen! pray, do people get into a passion at random
at Noisy? Take care, for I warn you that the first man that comes
within the length of my sword—and my sword is long—I rip him up.”

The chieftain of the party drew near.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a lofty tone, as that of one
accustomed to command.

“And you—what are _you_ doing here?” replied D’Artagnan.

“Be civil, or I shall beat you; for although one may not choose to
proclaim oneself, one insists on respect suitable to one’s rank.”

“You don’t choose to discover yourself, because you are the leader of
an ambuscade,” returned D’Artagnan; “but with regard to myself, who am
traveling quietly with my own servant, I have not the same reasons as
you have to conceal my name.”

“Enough! enough! what is your name?”

“I shall tell you my name in order that you may know where to find me,
my lord, or my prince, as it may suit you best to be called,” said our
Gascon, who did not choose to seem to yield to a threat. “Do you know
Monsieur d’Artagnan?”

“Lieutenant in the king’s musketeers?” said the voice; “you are
Monsieur d’Artagnan?”

“I am.”

“Then you came here to defend him?”

“Him? whom?”

“The man we are seeking.”

“It seems,” said D’Artagnan, “that whilst I thought I was coming to
Noisy I have entered, without suspecting it, into the kingdom of
mysteries.”

“Come,” replied the same lofty tone, “answer! Are you waiting for him
underneath these windows? Did you come to Noisy to defend him?”

“I am waiting for no one,” replied D’Artagnan, who was beginning to be
angry. “I propose to defend no one but myself, and I shall defend
myself vigorously, I give you warning.”

“Very well,” said the voice; “go away from here and leave the place to
us.”

“Go away from here!” said D’Artagnan, whose purposes were in conflict
with that order, “that is not so easy, since I am on the point of
falling, and my horse, too, through fatigue; unless, indeed, you are
disposed to offer me a supper and a bed in the neighborhood.”

“Rascal!”

“Eh! monsieur!” said D’Artagnan, “I beg you will have a care what you
say; for if you utter another word like that, be you marquis, duke,
prince or king, I will thrust it down your throat! do you hear?”

“Well, well,” rejoined the leader, “there’s no doubt ’tis a Gascon who
is speaking, and therefore not the man we are looking for. Our blow has
failed for to-night; let us withdraw. We shall meet again, Master
d’Artagnan,” continued the leader, raising his voice.

“Yes, but never with the same advantages,” said D’Artagnan, in a tone
of raillery; “for when you meet me again you will perhaps be alone and
there will be daylight.”

“Very good, very good,” said the voice. “_En route_, gentlemen.”

And the troop, grumbling angrily, disappeared in the darkness and took
the road to Paris. D’Artagnan and Planchet remained for some moments
still on the defensive; then, as the noise of the horsemen became more
and more distant, they sheathed their swords.

“Thou seest, simpleton,” said D’Artagnan to his servant, “that they
wished no harm to us.”

“But to whom, then?”

“I’faith! I neither know nor care. What I do care for now, is to make
my way into the Jesuits’ convent; so to horse and let us knock at their
door. Happen what will, the devil take them, they can’t eat us.”

And he mounted his horse. Planchet had just done the same when an
unexpected weight fell upon the back of the horse, which sank down.

“Hey! your honor!” cried Planchet, “I’ve a man behind me.”

D’Artagnan turned around and plainly saw two human forms on Planchet’s
horse.

“’Tis then the devil that pursues!” he cried; drawing his sword and
preparing to attack the new foe.

“No, no, dear D’Artagnan,” said the figure, “’tis not the devil, ’tis
Aramis; gallop fast, Planchet, and when you come to the end of the
village turn swiftly to the left.”

And Planchet, with Aramis behind him, set off at full gallop, followed
by D’Artagnan, who began to think he was in the merry maze of some
fantastic dream.




Chapter IX.
The Abbé D’Herblay.


At the extremity of the village Planchet turned to the left in
obedience to the orders of Aramis, and stopped underneath the window
which had light in it. Aramis alighted and clapped his hands three
times. Immediately the window was opened and a ladder of rope was let
down from it.

“My friend,” said Aramis, “if you like to ascend I shall be delighted
to receive you.”

“Ah,” said D’Artagnan, “is that the way you return to your apartment?”

“After nine at night, _pardieu!_” said Aramis, “the rule of the convent
is very severe.”

“Pardon me, my dear friend,” said D’Artagnan, “I think you said
‘_pardieu!_’”

“Do you think so?” said Aramis, smiling; “it is possible. You have no
idea, my dear fellow, how one acquires bad habits in these cursed
convents, or what evil ways all these men of the church have, with whom
I am obliged to live. But will you not go up?”

“Pass on before me, I beg of you.”

“As the late cardinal used to say to the late king, ‘only to show you
the way, sire.’” And Aramis ascended the ladder quickly and reached the
window in an instant.

D’Artagnan followed, but less nimbly, showing plainly that this mode of
ascent was not one to which he was accustomed.

“I beg your pardon,” said Aramis, noticing his awkwardness; “if I had
known that I was to have the honor of your visit I should have procured
the gardener’s ladder; but for me alone this is good enough.”

“Sir,” said Planchet when he saw D’Artagnan on the summit of the
ladder, “this way is easy for Monsieur Aramis and even for you; in case
of necessity I might also climb up, but my two horses cannot mount the
ladder.”

“Take them to yonder shed, my friend,” said Aramis, pointing to a low
building on the plain; “there you will find hay and straw for them;
then come back here and clap your hands three times, and we will give
you wine and food. Marry, forsooth, people don’t die of hunger here.”

And Aramis, drawing in the ladder, closed the window. D’Artagnan then
looked around attentively.

Never was there an apartment at the same time more warlike and more
elegant. At each corner were arranged trophies, presenting to view
swords of all sorts, and on the walls hung four great pictures
representing in their ordinary military costume the Cardinal de
Lorraine, the Cardinal de Richelieu, the Cardinal de la Valette, and
the Archbishop of Bordeaux. Exteriorly, nothing in the room showed that
it was the habitation of an abbé. The hangings were of damask, the
carpets from Alençon, and the bed, especially, had more the look of a
fine lady’s couch, with its trimmings of fine lace and its embroidered
counterpane, than that of a man who had made a vow that he would
endeavor to gain Heaven by fasting and mortification.

“You are examining my den,” said Aramis. “Ah, my dear fellow, excuse
me; I am lodged like a Chartreux. But what are you looking for?”

“I am looking for the person who let down the ladder. I see no one and
yet the ladder didn’t come down of itself.”

“No, it is Bazin.”

“Ah! ah!” said D’Artagnan.

“But,” continued Aramis, “Bazin is a well trained servant, and seeing
that I was not alone he discreetly retired. Sit down, my dear friend,
and let us talk.” And Aramis pushed forward a large easy-chair, in
which D’Artagnan stretched himself out.

“In the first place, you will sup with me, will you not?” asked Aramis.

“Yes, if you really wish it,” said D’Artagnan, “and even with great
pleasure, I confess; the journey has given me a devil of an appetite.”

“Ah, my poor friend!” said Aramis, “you will find meagre fare; you were
not expected.”

“Am I then threatened with the omelet of Crèvecœur?”

“Oh, let us hope,” said Aramis, “that with the help of God and of Bazin
we shall find something better than that in the larder of the worthy
Jesuit fathers. Bazin, my friend, come here.”

The door opened and Bazin entered; on perceiving the musketeer he
uttered an exclamation that was almost a cry of despair.

“My dear Bazin,” said D’Artagnan, “I am delighted to see with what
wonderful composure you can tell a lie even in church!”

“Sir,” replied Bazin, “I have been taught by the good Jesuit fathers
that it is permitted to tell a falsehood when it is told in a good
cause.”

“So far well,” said Aramis; “we are dying of hunger. Serve us up the
best supper you can, and especially give us some good wine.”

Bazin bowed low, sighed, and left the room.

“Now we are alone, dear Aramis,” said D’Artagnan, “tell me how the
devil you managed to alight upon the back of Planchet’s horse.”

“I’faith!” answered Aramis, “as you see, from Heaven.”

“From Heaven,” replied D’Artagnan, shaking his head; “you have no more
the appearance of coming from thence than you have of going there.”

“My friend,” said Aramis, with a look of imbecility on his face which
D’Artagnan had never observed whilst he was in the musketeers, “if I
did not come from Heaven, at least I was leaving Paradise, which is
almost the same.”

“Here, then, is a puzzle for the learned,” observed D’Artagnan, “until
now they have never been able to agree as to the situation of Paradise;
some place it on Mount Ararat, others between the rivers Tigris and
Euphrates; it seems that they have been looking very far away for it,
while it was actually very near. Paradise is at Noisy le Sec, upon the
site of the archbishop’s château. People do not go out from it by the
door, but by the window; one doesn’t descend here by the marble steps
of a peristyle, but by the branches of a lime-tree; and the angel with
a flaming sword who guards this elysium seems to have changed his
celestial name of Gabriel into that of the more terrestrial one of the
Prince de Marsillac.”

Aramis burst into a fit of laughter.

“You were always a merry companion, my dear D’Artagnan,” he said, “and
your witty Gascon fancy has not deserted you. Yes, there is something
in what you say; nevertheless, do not believe that it is Madame de
Longueville with whom I am in love.”

“A plague on’t! I shall not do so. After having been so long in love
with Madame de Chevreuse, you would hardly lay your heart at the feet
of her mortal enemy!”

“Yes,” replied Aramis, with an absent air; “yes, that poor duchess! I
once loved her much, and to do her justice, she was very useful to us.
Eventually she was obliged to leave France. He was a relentless enemy,
that damned cardinal,” continued Aramis, glancing at the portrait of
the old minister. “He had even given orders to arrest her and would
have cut off her head had she not escaped with her waiting-maid—poor
Kitty! I have heard that she met with a strange adventure in I don’t
know what village, with I don’t know what curé, of whom she asked
hospitality and who, having but one chamber, and taking her for a
cavalier, offered to share it with her. For she had a wonderful way of
dressing as a man, that dear Marie; I know only one other woman who can
do it as well. So they made this song about her: ‘_Laboissiere, dis
moi_.’ You know it, don’t you?”

“No, sing it, please.”

Aramis immediately complied, and sang the song in a very lively manner.

“Bravo!” cried D’Artagnan, “you sing charmingly, dear Aramis. I do not
perceive that singing masses has spoiled your voice.”

“My dear D’Artagnan,” replied Aramis, “you understand, when I was a
musketeer I mounted guard as seldom as I could; now when I am an abbé I
say as few masses as I can. But to return to our duchess.”

“Which—the Duchess de Chevreuse or the Duchess de Longueville?”

“Have I not already told you that there is nothing between me and the
Duchess de Longueville? Little flirtations, perhaps, and that’s all.
No, I spoke of the Duchess de Chevreuse; did you see her after her
return from Brussels, after the king’s death?”

“Yes, she is still beautiful.”

“Yes,” said Aramis, “I saw her also at that time. I gave her good
advice, by which she did not profit. I ventured to tell her that
Mazarin was the lover of Anne of Austria. She wouldn’t believe me,
saying that she knew Anne of Austria, who was too proud to love such a
worthless coxcomb. After that she plunged into the cabal headed by the
Duke of Beaufort; and the ‘coxcomb’ arrested De Beaufort and banished
Madame de Chevreuse.”

“You know,” resumed D’Artagnan, “that she has had leave to return to
France?”

“Yes she is come back and is going to commit some fresh folly or
another.”

“Oh, but this time perhaps she will follow your advice.”

“Oh, this time,” returned Aramis, “I haven’t seen her; she is much
changed.”

“In that respect unlike you, my dear Aramis, for you are still the
same; you have still your beautiful dark hair, still your elegant
figure, still your feminine hands, which are admirably suited to a
prelate.”

“Yes,” replied Aramis, “I am extremely careful of my appearance. Do you
know that I am growing old? I am nearly thirty-seven.”

“Mind, Aramis”—D’Artagnan smiled as he spoke—“since we are together
again, let us agree on one point: what age shall we be in future?”

“How?”

“Formerly I was your junior by two or three years, and if I am not
mistaken I am turned forty years old.”

“Indeed! Then ’tis I who am mistaken, for you have always been a good
chronologist. By your reckoning I must be forty-three at least. The
devil I am! Don’t let it out at the Hotel Rambouillet; it would ruin
me,” replied the abbé.

“Don’t be afraid,” said D’Artagnan. “I never go there.”

“Why, what in the world,” cried Aramis, “is that animal Bazin doing?
Bazin! Hurry up there, you rascal; we are mad with hunger and thirst!”

Bazin entered at that moment carrying a bottle in each hand.

“At last,” said Aramis, “we are ready, are we?”

“Yes, monsieur, quite ready,” said Bazin; “but it took me some time to
bring up all the——”

“Because you always think you have on your shoulders your beadle’s
robe, and spend all your time reading your breviary. But I give you
warning that if in polishing your chapel utensils you forget how to
brighten up my sword, I will make a great fire of your blessed images
and will see that you are roasted on it.”

Bazin, scandalized, made a sign of the cross with the bottle in his
hand. D’Artagnan, more surprised than ever at the tone and manners of
the Abbé d’Herblay, which contrasted so strongly with those of the
Musketeer Aramis, remained staring with wide-open eyes at the face of
his friend.

Bazin quickly covered the table with a damask cloth and arranged upon
it so many things, gilded, perfumed, appetizing, that D’Artagnan was
quite overcome.

“But you expected some one then?” asked the officer.

“Oh,” said Aramis, “I always try to be prepared; and then I knew you
were seeking me.”

“From whom?”

“From Master Bazin, to be sure; he took you for the devil, my dear
fellow, and hastened to warn me of the danger that threatened my soul
if I should meet again a companion so wicked as an officer of
musketeers.”

“Oh, monsieur!” said Bazin, clasping his hands supplicatingly.

“Come, no hypocrisy! you know that I don’t like it. You will do much
better to open the window and let down some bread, a chicken and a
bottle of wine to your friend Planchet, who has been this last hour
killing himself clapping his hands.”

Planchet, in fact, had bedded and fed his horses, and then coming back
under the window had repeated two or three times the signal agreed
upon.

Bazin obeyed, fastened to the end of a cord the three articles
designated and let them down to Planchet, who then went satisfied to
his shed.

“Now to supper,” said Aramis.

The two friends sat down and Aramis began to cut up fowls, partridges
and hams with admirable skill.

“The deuce!” cried D’Artagnan; “do you live in this way always?”

“Yes, pretty well. The coadjutor has given me dispensations from
fasting on the _jours maigres_, on account of my health; then I have
engaged as my cook the cook who lived with Lafollone—you know the man I
mean?—the friend of the cardinal, and the famous epicure whose grace
after dinner used to be, ‘Good Lord, do me the favor to cause me to
digest what I have eaten.’”

“Nevertheless he died of indigestion, in spite of his grace,” said
D’Artagnan.

“What can you expect?” replied Aramis, in a tone of resignation. “Every
man that’s born must fulfil his destiny.”

“If it be not an indelicate question,” resumed D’Artagnan, “have you
grown rich?”

“Oh, Heaven! no. I make about twelve thousand francs a year, without
counting a little benefice of a thousand crowns the prince gave me.”

“And how do you make your twelve thousand francs? By your poems?”

“No, I have given up poetry, except now and then to write a drinking
song, some gay sonnet or some innocent epigram; I compose sermons, my
friend.”

“What! sermons? Do you preach them?”

“No; I sell them to those of my cloth who wish to become great
orators.”

“Ah, indeed! and you have not been tempted by the hopes of reputation
yourself?”

“I should, my dear D’Artagnan, have been so, but nature said ‘No.’ When
I am in the pulpit, if by chance a pretty woman looks at me, I look at
her again: if she smiles, I smile too. Then I speak at random; instead
of preaching about the torments of hell I talk of the joys of Paradise.
An event took place in the Church of St. Louis au Marais. A gentleman
laughed in my face. I stopped short to tell him that he was a fool; the
congregation went out to get stones to stone me with, but whilst they
were away I found means to conciliate the priests who were present, so
that my foe was pelted instead of me. ’Tis true that he came the next
morning to my house, thinking that he had to do with an abbé—like all
other abbés.”

“And what was the end of the affair?”

“We met in the Place Royale—Egad! you know about it.”

“Was I not your second?” cried D’Artagnan.

“You were; you know how I settled the matter.”

“Did he die?”

“I don’t know. But, at all events, I gave him absolution _in articulo
mortis_. ’Tis enough to kill the body, without killing the soul.”

Bazin made a despairing sign which meant that while perhaps he approved
the moral he altogether disapproved the tone in which it was uttered.

“Bazin, my friend,” said Aramis, “you don’t seem to be aware that I can
see you in that mirror, and you forget that once for all I have
forbidden all signs of approbation or disapprobation. You will do me
the favor to bring us some Spanish wine and then to withdraw. Besides,
my friend D’Artagnan has something to say to me privately, have you
not, D’Artagnan?”

D’Artagnan nodded his head and Bazin retired, after placing on the
table the Spanish wine.

The two friends, left alone, remained silent, face to face. Aramis
seemed to await a comfortable digestion; D’Artagnan, to be preparing
his exordium. Each of them, when the other was not looking, hazarded a
sly glance. It was Aramis who broke the silence.

“What are you thinking of, D’Artagnan?” he began.

“I was thinking, my dear old friend, that when you were a musketeer you
turned your thoughts incessantly to the church, and now that you are an
abbé you are perpetually longing to be once more a musketeer.”

“’Tis true; man, as you know,” said Aramis, “is a strange animal, made
up of contradictions. Since I became an abbé I dream of nothing but
battles.”

“That is apparent in your surroundings; you have rapiers here of every
form and to suit the most exacting taste. Do you still fence well?”

“I—I fence as well as you did in the old time—better still, perhaps; I
do nothing else all day.”

“And with whom?”

“With an excellent master-at-arms that we have here.”

“What! here?”

“Yes, here, in this convent, my dear fellow. There is everything in a
Jesuit convent.”

“Then you would have killed Monsieur de Marsillac if he had come alone
to attack you, instead of at the head of twenty men?”

“Undoubtedly,” said Aramis, “and even at the head of his twenty men, if
I could have drawn without being recognized.”

“God pardon me!” said D’Artagnan to himself, “I believe he has become
more Gascon than I am!” Then aloud: “Well, my dear Aramis, do you ask
me why I came to seek you?”

“No, I have not asked you that,” said Aramis, with his subtle manner;
“but I have expected you to tell me.”

“Well, I sought you for the single purpose of offering you a chance to
kill Monsieur de Marsillac whenever you please, prince though he is.”

“Hold on! wait!” said Aramis; “that is an idea!”

“Of which I invite you to take advantage, my friend. Let us see; with
your thousand crowns from the abbey and the twelve thousand francs you
make by selling sermons, are you rich? Answer frankly.”

“I? I am as poor as Job, and were you to search my pockets and my boxes
I don’t believe you would find a hundred pistoles.”

“_Peste!_ a hundred pistoles!” said D’Artagnan to himself; “he calls
that being as poor as Job! If I had them I should think myself as rich
as Crœsus.” Then aloud: “Are you ambitious?”

“As Enceladus.”

“Well, my friend, I bring you the means of becoming rich, powerful, and
free to do whatever you wish.”

The shadow of a cloud passed over Aramis’s face as quickly as that
which in August passes over the field of grain; but quick as it was, it
did not escape D’Artagnan’s observation.

“Speak on,” said Aramis.

“One question first. Do you take any interest in politics?”

A gleam of light shone in Aramis’s eyes, as brief as the shadow that
had passed over his face, but not so brief but that it was seen by
D’Artagnan.

“No,” Aramis replied.

“Then proposals from any quarter will be agreeable to you, since for
the moment you have no master but God?”

“It is possible.”

“Have you, my dear Aramis, thought sometimes of those happy, happy,
happy days of youth we passed laughing, drinking, and fighting each
other for play?”

“Certainly, and more than once regretted them; it was indeed a glorious
time.”

“Well, those splendidly wild days may chance to come again; I am
commissioned to find out my companions and I began by you, who were the
very soul of our society.”

Aramis bowed, rather with respect than pleasure at the compliment.

“To meddle in politics,” he exclaimed, in a languid voice, leaning back
in his easy-chair. “Ah! dear D’Artagnan! see how regularly I live and
how easy I am here. We have experienced the ingratitude of ‘the great,’
as you well know.”

“’Tis true,” replied D’Artagnan. “Yet the great sometimes repent of
their ingratitude.”

“In that case it would be quite another thing. Come! let’s be merciful
to every sinner! Besides, you are right in another respect, which is in
thinking that if we were to meddle in politics there could not be a
better time than the present.”

“How can you know that? You who never interest yourself in politics?”

“Ah! without caring about them myself, I live among those who are much
occupied in them. Poet as I am, I am intimate with Sarazin, who is
devoted to the Prince de Conti, and with Monsieur de Bois-Robert, who,
since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, is of all parties or any party;
so that political discussions have not altogether been uninteresting to
me.”

“I have no doubt of it,” said D’Artagnan.

“Now, my dear friend, look upon all I tell you as merely the statement
of a monk—of a man who resembles an echo—repeating simply what he
hears. I understand that Mazarin is at this very moment extremely
uneasy as to the state of affairs; that his orders are not respected
like those of our former bugbear, the deceased cardinal, whose portrait
as you see hangs yonder—for whatever may be thought of him, it must be
allowed that Richelieu was great.”

“I will not contradict you there,” said D’Artagnan.

“My first impressions were favorable to the minister; I said to myself
that a minister is never loved, but that with the genius this one was
said to have he would eventually triumph over his enemies and would
make himself feared, which in my opinion is much more to be desired
than to be loved——”

D’Artagnan made a sign with his head which indicated that he entirely
approved that doubtful maxim.

“This, then,” continued Aramis, “was my first opinion; but as I am very
ignorant in matters of this kind and as the humility which I profess
obliges me not to rest on my own judgment, but to ask the opinion of
others, I have inquired—Eh!—my friend——”

Aramis paused.

“Well? what?” asked his friend.

“Well, I must mortify myself. I must confess that I was mistaken.
Monsieur de Mazarin is not a man of genius, as I thought, he is a man
of no origin—once a servant of Cardinal Bentivoglio, and he got on by
intrigue. He is an upstart, a man of no name, who will only be the tool
of a party in France. He will amass wealth, he will injure the king’s
revenue and pay to himself the pensions which Richelieu paid to others.
He is neither a gentleman in manner nor in feeling, but a sort of
buffoon, a punchinello, a pantaloon. Do you know him? _I_ do not.”

“Hem!” said D’Artagnan, “there is some truth in what you say.”

“Ah! it fills me with pride to find that, thanks to a common sort of
penetration with which I am endowed, I am approved by a man like you,
fresh from the court.”

“But you speak of him, not of his party, his resources.”

“It is true—the queen is for him.”

“Something in his favor.”

“But he will never have the king.”

“A mere child.”

“A child who will be of age in four years. Then he has neither the
parliament nor the people with him—they represent the wealth of the
country; nor the nobles nor the princes, who are the military power of
France.”

D’Artagnan scratched his ear. He was forced to confess to himself that
this reasoning was not only comprehensive, but just.

“You see, my poor friend, that I am sometimes bereft of my ordinary
thoughtfulness; perhaps I am wrong in speaking thus to you, who have
evidently a leaning to Mazarin.”

“I!” cried D’Artagnan, “not in the least.”

“You spoke of a mission.”

“Did I? I was wrong then, no, I said what you say—there is a crisis at
hand. Well! let’s fly the feather before the wind; let us join with
that side to which the wind will carry it and resume our adventurous
life. We were once four valiant knights—four hearts fondly united; let
us unite again, not our hearts, which have never been severed, but our
courage and our fortunes. Here’s a good opportunity for getting
something better than a diamond.”

“You are right, D’Artagnan; I held a similar project, but as I had not
nor ever shall have your fruitful, vigorous imagination, the idea was
suggested to me. Every one nowadays wants auxiliaries; propositions
have been made to me and I confess to you frankly that the coadjutor
has made me speak out.”

“Monsieur de Gondy! the cardinal’s enemy?”

“No; the king’s friend,” said Aramis; “the king’s friend, you
understand. Well, it is a question of serving the king, the gentleman’s
duty.”

“But the king is with Mazarin.”

“He is, but not willingly; in appearance, not heart; and that is
exactly the snare the king’s enemies are preparing for the poor child.”

“Ah! but this is, indeed, civil war which you propose to me, dear
Aramis.”

“War for the king.”

“Yet the king will be at the head of the army on Mazarin’s side.”

“But his heart will be in the army commanded by the Duc de Beaufort.”

“Monsieur de Beaufort? He is at Vincennes.”

“Did I say Monsieur de Beaufort? Monsieur de Beaufort or another.
Monsieur de Beaufort or Monsieur le Prince.”

“But Monsieur le Prince is to set out for the army; he is entirely
devoted to the cardinal.”

“Oh oh!” said Aramis, “there are questions between them at this very
moment. And besides, if it is not the prince, then Monsieur de Gondy——”

“But Monsieur de Gondy is to be made a cardinal; they are soliciting
the hat for him.”

“And are there no cardinals that can fight? Come now, recall the four
cardinals that at the head of armies have equalled Monsieur de
Guebriant and Monsieur de Gassion.”

“But a humpbacked general!

“Under the cuirass the hump will not be seen. Besides, remember that
Alexander was lame and Hannibal had but one eye.”

“Do you see any great advantage in adhering to this party?” asked
D’Artagnan.

“I foresee in it the aid of powerful princes.”

“With the enmity of the government.”

“Counteracted by parliament and insurrections.”

“That may be done if they can separate the king from his mother.”

“That _may_ be done,” said Aramis.

“Never!” cried D’Artagnan. “You, Aramis, know Anne of Austria better
than I do. Do you think she will ever forget that her son is her
safeguard, her shield, the pledge for her dignity, for her fortune and
her life? Should she forsake Mazarin she must join her son and go over
to the princes’ side; but you know better than I do that there are
certain reasons why she can never abandon Mazarin.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said Aramis, thoughtfully; “therefore I shall
not pledge myself.”

“To them or to us, do you mean, Aramis?”

“To no one. I am a priest,” resumed Aramis. “What have I to do with
politics? I am not obliged to read any breviary. I have a jolly little
circle of witty abbés and pretty women; everything goes on smoothly, so
certainly, dear friend, I shall not meddle in politics.”

“Well, listen, my dear Aramis,” said D’Artagnan; “your philosophy
convinces me, on my honor. I don’t know what devil of an insect stung
me and made me ambitious. I have a post by which I live; at the death
of Monsieur de Tréville, who is old, I may be a captain, which is a
very snug berth for a once penniless Gascon. Instead of running after
adventures I shall accept an invitation from Porthos; I shall go and
shoot on his estate. You know he has estates—Porthos?”

“I should think so, indeed. Ten leagues of wood, of marsh land and
valleys; he is lord of the hill and the plain and is now carrying on a
suit for his feudal rights against the Bishop of Noyon!”

“Good,” said D’Artagnan to himself. “That’s what I wanted to know.
Porthos is in Picardy.”

Then aloud:

“And he has taken his ancient name of Vallon?”

“To which he adds that of Bracieux, an estate which has been a barony,
by my troth.”

“So that Porthos will be a baron.”

“I don’t doubt it. The ‘Baroness Porthos’ will sound particularly
charming.”

And the two friends began to laugh.

“So,” D’Artagnan resumed, “you will not become a partisan of
Mazarin’s?”

“Nor you of the Prince de Condé?”

“No, let us belong to no party, but remain friends; let us be neither
Cardinalists nor Frondists.”

“Adieu, then.” And D’Artagnan poured out a glass of wine.

“To old times,” he said.

“Yes,” returned Aramis. “Unhappily, those times are past.”

“Nonsense! They will return,” said D’Artagnan. “At all events, if you
want me, remember the Rue Tiquetonne, Hotel de la Chevrette.”

“And I shall be at the convent of Jesuits; from six in the morning to
eight at night come by the door. From eight in the evening until six in
the morning come in by the window.”

“Adieu, dear friend.”

“Oh, I can’t let you go so! I will go with you.” And he took his sword
and cloak.

“He wants to be sure that I go away,” said D’Artagnan to himself.

Aramis whistled for Bazin, but Bazin was asleep in the ante-chamber,
and Aramis was obliged to shake him by the ear to awake him.

Bazin stretched his arms, rubbed his eyes, and tried to go to sleep
again.

“Come, come, sleepy head; quick, the ladder!”

“But,” said Bazin, yawning portentously, “the ladder is still at the
window.”

“The other one, the gardener’s. Didn’t you see that Monsieur d’Artagnan
mounted with difficulty? It will be even more difficult to descend.”

D’Artagnan was about to assure Aramis that he could descend easily,
when an idea came into his head which silenced him.

Bazin uttered a profound sigh and went out to look for the ladder.
Presently a good, solid, wooden ladder was placed against the window.

“Now then,” said D’Artagnan, “this is something like; this is a means
of communication. A woman could go up a ladder like that.”

Aramis’s searching look seemed to seek his friend’s thought even at the
bottom of his heart, but D’Artagnan sustained the inquisition with an
air of admirable simplicity. Besides, at that moment he put his foot on
the first step of the ladder and began his descent. In a moment he was
on the ground. Bazin remained at the window.

“Stay there,” said Aramis; “I shall return immediately.”

The two friends went toward the shed. At their approach Planchet came
out leading the two horses.

“That is good to see,” said Aramis. “There is a servant active and
vigilant, not like that lazy fellow Bazin, who is no longer good for
anything since he became connected with the church. Follow us,
Planchet; we shall continue our conversation to the end of the
village.”

They traversed the width of the village, talking of indifferent things,
then as they reached the last houses:

“Go, then, dear friend,” said Aramis, “follow your own career. Fortune
lavishes her smiles upon you; do not let her flee from your embrace. As
for me, I remain in my humility and indolence. Adieu!”

“Thus ’tis quite decided,” said D’Artagnan, “that what I have to offer
to you does not tempt you?”

“On the contrary, it would tempt me were I any other man,” rejoined
Aramis; “but I repeat, I am made up of contradictions. What I hate
to-day I adore to-morrow, and vice versa. You see that I cannot, like
you, for instance, settle on any fixed plan.”

“Thou liest, subtile one,” said D’Artagnan to himself. “Thou alone, on
the contrary, knowest how to choose thy object and to gain it
stealthily.”

The friends embraced. They descended into the plain by the ladder.
Planchet met them hard by the shed. D’Artagnan jumped into the saddle,
then the old companions in arms again shook hands. D’Artagnan and
Planchet spurred their steeds and took the road to Paris.

But after he had gone about two hundred steps D’Artagnan stopped short,
alighted, threw the bridle of his horse over the arm of Planchet and
took the pistols from his saddle-bow to fasten them to his girdle.

“What’s the matter?” asked Planchet.

“This is the matter: be he ever so cunning he shall never say I was his
dupe. Stand here, don’t stir, turn your back to the road and wait for
me.”

Having thus spoken, D’Artagnan cleared the ditch by the roadside and
crossed the plain so as to wind around the village. He had observed
between the house that Madame de Longueville inhabited and the convent
of the Jesuits, an open space surrounded by a hedge.

The moon had now risen and he could see well enough to retrace his
road.

He reached the hedge and hid himself behind it; in passing by the house
where the scene which we have related took place, he remarked that the
window was again lighted up and he was convinced that Aramis had not
yet returned to his own apartment and that when he did it would not be
alone.

In truth, in a few minutes he heard steps approaching and low whispers.

Close to the hedge the steps stopped.

D’Artagnan knelt down near the thickest part of the hedge.

Two men, to the astonishment of D’Artagnan, appeared shortly; soon,
however, his surprise vanished, for he heard the murmurs of a soft,
harmonious voice; one of these two men was a woman disguised as a
cavalier.

“Calm yourself, dear Rene,” said the soft voice, “the same thing will
never happen again. I have discovered a sort of subterranean passage
which runs beneath the street and we shall only have to raise one of
the marble slabs before the door to open you an entrance and an
outlet.”

“Oh!” answered another voice, which D’Artagnan instantly recognized as
that of Aramis. “I swear to you, princess, that if your reputation did
not depend on precautions and if my life alone were jeopardized——”

“Yes, yes! I know you are as brave and venturesome as any man in the
world, but you do not belong to me alone; you belong to all our party.
Be prudent! sensible!”

“I always obey, madame, when I am commanded by so gentle a voice.”

He kissed her hand tenderly.

“Ah!” exclaimed the cavalier with a soft voice.

“What’s the matter?” asked Aramis.

“Do you not see that the wind has blown off my hat?”

Aramis rushed after the fugitive hat. D’Artagnan took advantage of the
circumstance to find a place in the hedge not so thick, where his
glance could penetrate to the supposed cavalier. At that instant, the
moon, inquisitive, perhaps, like D’Artagnan, came from behind a cloud
and by her light D’Artagnan recognized the large blue eyes, the golden
hair and the classic head of the Duchess de Longueville.

Aramis returned, laughing, one hat on his head and the other in his
hand; and he and his companion resumed their walk toward the convent.

“Good!” said D’Artagnan, rising and brushing his knees; “now I have
thee—thou art a Frondeur and the lover of Madame de Longueville.”




Chapter X.
Monsieur Porthos du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds.


Thanks to what Aramis had told him, D’Artagnan, who knew already that
Porthos called himself Du Vallon, was now aware that he styled himself,
from his estate, De Bracieux; and that he was, on account of this
estate, engaged in a lawsuit with the Bishop of Noyon. It was, then, in
the neighborhood of Noyon that he must seek that estate. His itinerary
was promptly determined: he would go to Dammartin, from which place two
roads diverge, one toward Soissons, the other toward Compiègne; there
he would inquire concerning the Bracieux estate and go to the right or
to the left according to the information obtained.

Planchet, who was still a little concerned for his safety after his
recent escapade, declared that he would follow D’Artagnan even to the
end of the world, either by the road to the right or by that to the
left; only he begged his former master to set out in the evening, for
greater security to himself. D’Artagnan suggested that he should send
word to his wife, so that she might not be anxious about him, but
Planchet replied with much sagacity that he was very sure his wife
would not die of anxiety through not knowing where he was, while he,
Planchet, remembering her incontinence of tongue, would die of anxiety
if she did know.

This reasoning seemed to D’Artagnan so satisfactory that he no further
insisted; and about eight o’clock in the evening, the time when the
vapors of night begin to thicken in the streets, he left the Hotel de
la Chevrette, and followed by Planchet set forth from the capital by
way of the Saint Denis gate.

At midnight the two travelers were at Dammartin, but it was then too
late to make inquiries—the host of the Cygne de la Croix had gone to
bed.

The next morning D’Artagnan summoned the host, one of those sly Normans
who say neither yes nor no and fear to commit themselves by giving a
direct answer. D’Artagnan, however, gathered from his equivocal replies
that the road to the right was the one he ought to take, and on that
uncertain information he resumed his journey. At nine in the morning he
reached Nanteuil and stopped for breakfast. His host here was a good
fellow from Picardy, who gave him all the information he needed. The
Bracieux estate was a few leagues from Villars-Cotterets.

D’Artagnan was acquainted with Villars-Cotterets, having gone thither
with the court on several occasions; for at that time Villars-Cotterets
was a royal residence. He therefore shaped his course toward that place
and dismounted at the Dauphin d’Or. There he ascertained that the
Bracieux estate was four leagues distant, but that Porthos was not at
Bracieux. Porthos had, in fact, been involved in a dispute with the
Bishop of Noyon in regard to the Pierrefonds property, which adjoined
his own, and weary at length of a legal controversy which was beyond
his comprehension, he put an end to it by purchasing Pierrefonds and
added that name to his others. He now called himself Du Vallon de
Bracieux de Pierrefonds, and resided on his new estate.

The travelers were therefore obliged to stay at the hotel until the
next day; the horses had done ten leagues that day and needed rest. It
is true they might have taken others, but there was a great forest to
pass through and Planchet, as we have seen, had no liking for forests
after dark.

There was another thing that Planchet had no liking for and that was
starting on a journey with a hungry stomach. Accordingly, D’Artagnan,
on awaking, found his breakfast waiting for him. It need not be said
that Planchet in resuming his former functions resumed also his former
humility and was not ashamed to make his breakfast on what was left by
D’Artagnan.

It was nearly eight o’clock when they set out again. Their course was
clearly defined: they were to follow the road toward Compiègne and on
emerging from the forest turn to the right.

The morning was beautiful, and in this early springtime the birds sang
on the trees and the sunbeams shone through the misty glades, like
curtains of golden gauze.

In other parts of the forest the light could scarcely penetrate through
the foliage, and the stems of two old oak trees, the refuge of the
squirrel, startled by the travelers, were in deep shadow.

There came up from all nature in the dawn of day a perfume of herbs,
flowers and leaves, which delighted the heart. D’Artagnan, sick of the
closeness of Paris, thought that when a man had three names of his
different estates joined one to another, he ought to be very happy in
such a paradise; then he shook his head, saying, “If I were Porthos and
D’Artagnan came to make me such a proposition as I am going to make to
him, I know what I should say to it.”

As to Planchet, he thought of little or nothing, but was happy as a
hunting-hound in his old master’s company.

At the extremity of the wood D’Artagnan perceived the road that had
been described to him, and at the end of the road he saw the towers of
an immense feudal castle.

“Oh! oh!” he said, “I fancied this castle belonged to the ancient
branch of Orléans. Can Porthos have negotiated for it with the Duc de
Longueville?”

“Faith!” exclaimed Planchet, “here’s land in good condition; if it
belongs to Monsieur Porthos I wish him joy.”

“Zounds!” cried D’Artagnan, “don’t call him Porthos, nor even Vallon;
call him De Bracieux or De Pierrefonds; thou wilt knell out damnation
to my mission otherwise.”

As he approached the castle which had first attracted his eye,
D’Artagnan was convinced that it could not be there that his friend
dwelt; the towers, though solid and as if built yesterday, were open
and broken. One might have fancied that some giant had cleaved them
with blows from a hatchet.

On arriving at the extremity of the castle D’Artagnan found himself
overlooking a beautiful valley, in which, at the foot of a charming
little lake, stood several scattered houses, which, humble in their
aspect, and covered, some with tiles, others with thatch, seemed to
acknowledge as their sovereign lord a pretty château, built about the
beginning of the reign of Henry IV., and surmounted by four stately,
gilded weather-cocks. D’Artagnan no longer doubted that this was
Porthos’s pleasant dwelling place.

The road led straight up to the château which, compared to its ancestor
on the hill, was exactly what a fop of the coterie of the Duc d’Enghein
would have been beside a knight in steel armor in the time of Charles
VII. D’Artagnan spurred his horse on and pursued his road, followed by
Planchet at the same pace.

In ten minutes D’Artagnan reached the end of an alley regularly planted
with fine poplars and terminating in an iron gate, the points and
crossed bars of which were gilt. In the midst of this avenue was a
nobleman, dressed in green and with as much gilding about him as the
iron gate, riding on a tall horse. On his right hand and his left were
two footmen, with the seams of their dresses laced. A considerable
number of clowns were assembled and rendered homage to their lord.

“Ah!” said D’Artagnan to himself, “can this be the Seigneur du Vallon
de Bracieux de Pierrefonds? Well-a-day! how he has shrunk since he gave
up the name of Porthos!”

“This cannot be Monsieur Porthos,” observed Planchet replying, as it
were, to his master’s thoughts. “Monsieur Porthos was six feet high;
this man is scarcely five.”

“Nevertheless,” said D’Artagnan, “the people are bowing very low to
this person.”

As he spoke, he rode toward the tall horse—to the man of importance and
his valets. As he approached he seemed to recognize the features of
this individual.

“Jesu!” cried Planchet, “can it be?”

At this exclamation the man on horseback turned slowly and with a lofty
air, and the two travelers could see, displayed in all their
brilliancy, the large eyes, the vermilion visage, and the eloquent
smile of—Mousqueton.

It was indeed Mousqueton—Mousqueton, as fat as a pig, rolling about
with rude health, puffed out with good living, who, recognizing
D’Artagnan and acting very differently from the hypocrite Bazin,
slipped off his horse and approached the officer with his hat off, so
that the homage of the assembled crowd was turned toward this new sun,
which eclipsed the former luminary.

“Monsieur d’Artagnan! Monsieur d’Artagnan!” cried Mousqueton, his fat
cheeks swelling out and his whole frame perspiring with joy; “Monsieur
d’Artagnan! oh! what joy for my lord and master, Du Vallon de Bracieux
de Pierrefonds!”

“Thou good Mousqueton! _where_ is thy master?”

“You stand upon his property!”

“But how handsome thou art—how fat! thou hast prospered and grown
stout!” and D’Artagnan could not restrain his astonishment at the
change good fortune had produced on the once famished one.

“Hey, yes, thank God, I am pretty well,” said Mousqueton.

“But hast thou nothing to say to thy friend Planchet?”

“How, my friend Planchet? Planchet—art thou there?” cried Mousqueton,
with open arms and eyes full of tears.

“My very self,” replied Planchet; “but I wanted first to see if thou
wert grown proud.”

“Proud toward an old friend? never, Planchet! thou wouldst not have
thought so hadst thou known Mousqueton well.”

“So far so well,” answered Planchet, alighting, and extending his arms
to Mousqueton, the two servants embraced with an emotion which touched
those who were present and made them suppose that Planchet was a great
lord in disguise, so highly did they estimate the position of
Mousqueton.

“And now, sir,” resumed Mousqueton, when he had rid himself of
Planchet, who had in vain tried to clasp his hands behind his friend’s
fat back, “now, sir, allow me to leave you, for I could not permit my
master to hear of your arrival from any but myself; he would never
forgive me for not having preceded you.”

“This dear friend,” said D’Artagnan, carefully avoiding to utter either
the former name borne by Porthos or his new one, “then he has not
forgotten me?”

“Forgotten—he!” cried Mousqueton; “there’s not a day, sir, that we
don’t expect to hear that you were made marshal either instead of
Monsieur de Gassion, or of Monsieur de Bassompierre.”

On D’Artagnan’s lips there played one of those rare and melancholy
smiles which seemed to emanate from the depth of his soul—the last
trace of youth and happiness that had survived life’s disillusions.

“And you—fellows,” resumed Mousqueton, “stay near Monsieur le Comte
d’Artagnan and pay him every attention in your power whilst I go to
prepare my lord for his visit.”

And mounting his horse Mousqueton rode off down the avenue on the grass
at a hand gallop.

“Ah, there! there’s something promising,” said D’Artagnan. “No
mysteries, no cloak to hide one’s self in, no cunning policy here;
people laugh outright, they weep for joy here. I see nothing but faces
a yard broad; in short, it seems to me that nature herself wears a
holiday garb, and that the trees, instead of leaves and flowers, are
covered with red and green ribbons as on gala days.”

“As for me,” said Planchet, “I seem to smell, from this place, even, a
most delectable perfume of fine roast meat, and to see the scullions in
a row by the hedge, hailing our approach. Ah! sir, what a cook must
Monsieur Pierrefonds have, when he was so fond of eating and drinking,
even whilst he was only called Monsieur Porthos!”

“Say no more!” cried D’Artagnan. “If the reality corresponds with
appearances I am lost; for a man so well off will never change his
happy condition, and I shall fail with him, as I have already done with
Aramis.”




Chapter XI.
Wealth does not necessarily produce Happiness.


D’Artagnan passed through the iron gate and arrived in front of the
château. He alighted as he saw a species of giant on the steps. Let us
do justice to D’Artagnan. Independently of every selfish wish, his
heart palpitated with joy when he saw that tall form and martial
demeanor, which recalled to him a good and brave man.

He ran to Porthos and threw himself into his arms; the whole body of
servants, arranged in a semi-circle at a respectful distance, looked on
with humble curiosity. Mousqueton, at the head of them, wiped his eyes.
Porthos linked his arm in that of his friend.

“Ah! how delightful to see you again, dear friend!” he cried, in a
voice which was now changed from a baritone into a bass, “you’ve not
then forgotten me?”

“Forget you! oh! dear Du Vallon, does one forget the happiest days of
flowery youth, one’s dearest friends, the dangers we have dared
together? On the contrary, there is not an hour we have passed together
that is not present to my memory.”

“Yes, yes,” said Porthos, trying to give to his mustache a curl which
it had lost whilst he had been alone. “Yes, we did some fine things in
our time and we gave that poor cardinal a few threads to unravel.”

And he heaved a sigh.

“Under any circumstances,” he resumed, “you are welcome, my dear
friend; you will help me to recover my spirits; to-morrow we will hunt
the hare on my plain, which is a superb tract of land, or pursue the
deer in my woods, which are magnificent. I have four harriers which are
considered the swiftest in the county, and a pack of hounds which are
unequalled for twenty leagues around.”

And Porthos heaved another sigh.

“But, first,” interposed D’Artagnan, “you must present me to Madame du
Vallon.”

A third sigh from Porthos.

“I lost Madame du Vallon two years ago,” he said, “and you find me
still in affliction on that account. That was the reason why I left my
Château du Vallon near Corbeil, and came to my estate, Bracieux. Poor
Madame du Vallon! her temper was uncertain, but she came at last to
accustom herself to my little ways and understand my little wishes.”

“So you are free now, and rich?”

“Alas!” groaned Porthos, “I am a widower and have forty thousand francs
a year. Let us go to breakfast.”

“I shall be happy to do so; the morning air has made me hungry.”

“Yes,” said Porthos; “my air is excellent.”

They went into the château; there was nothing but gilding, high and
low; the cornices were gilt, the mouldings were gilt, the legs and arms
of the chairs were gilt. A table, ready set out, awaited them.

“You see,” said Porthos, “this is my usual style.”

“Devil take me!” answered D’Artagnan, “I wish you joy of it. The king
has nothing like it.”

“No,” answered Porthos, “I hear it said that he is very badly fed by
the cardinal, Monsieur de Mazarin. Taste this cutlet, my dear
D’Artagnan; ’tis off one of my sheep.”

“You have very tender mutton and I wish you joy of it.” said
D’Artagnan.

“Yes, the sheep are fed in my meadows, which are excellent pasture.”

“Give me another cutlet.”

“No, try this hare, which I had killed yesterday in one of my warrens.”

“Zounds! what a flavor!” cried D’Artagnan; “ah! they are fed on thyme
only, your hares.”

“And how do you like my wine?” asked Porthos; “it is pleasant, isn’t
it?”

“Capital!”

“It is nothing, however, but a wine of the country.”

“Really?”

“Yes, a small declivity to the south, yonder on my hill, gives me
twenty hogsheads.”

“Quite a vineyard, hey?”

Porthos sighed for the fifth time—D’Artagnan had counted his sighs. He
became curious to solve the problem.

“Well now,” he said, “it seems, my dear friend, that something vexes
you; you are ill, perhaps? That health, which——”

“Excellent, my dear friend; better than ever. I could kill an ox with a
blow of my fist.”

“Well, then, family affairs, perhaps?”

“Family! I have, happily, only myself in the world to care for.”

“But what makes you sigh?”

“My dear fellow,” replied Porthos, “to be candid with you, I am not
happy.”

“You are not happy, Porthos? You who have château, meadows, mountains,
woods—you who have forty thousand francs a year—_you—are—not—happy?_”

“My dear friend, all those things I have, but I am a hermit in the
midst of superfluity.”

“Surrounded, I suppose, only by clodhoppers, with whom you could not
associate.”

Porthos turned rather pale and drank off a large glass of wine.

“No; but just think, there are paltry country squires who have all some
title or another and pretend to go back as far as Charlemagne, or at
least to Hugh Capet. When I first came here; being the last comer, it
was for me to make the first advances. I made them, but you know, my
dear friend, Madame du Vallon——”

Porthos, in pronouncing these words, seemed to gulp down something.

“Madame du Vallon was of doubtful gentility. She had, in her first
marriage—I don’t think, D’Artagnan, I am telling you anything
new—married a lawyer; they thought that ‘nauseous;’ you can understand
that’s a word bad enough to make one kill thirty thousand men. I _have_
killed two, which has made people hold their tongues, but has not made
me their friend. So that I have no society; I live alone; I am sick of
it—my mind preys on itself.”

D’Artagnan smiled. He now saw where the breastplate was weak, and
prepared the blow.

“But now,” he said, “that you are a widower, your wife’s connection
cannot injure you.”

“Yes, but understand me; not being of a race of historic fame, like the
De Courcys, who were content to be plain sirs, or the Rohans, who
didn’t wish to be dukes, all these people, who are all either vicomtes
or comtes go before me at church in all the ceremonies, and I can say
nothing to them. Ah! If I only were a——”

“A baron, don’t you mean?” cried D’Artagnan, finishing his friend’s
sentence.

“Ah!” cried Porthos; “would I were but a baron!”

“Well, my friend, I am come to give you this very title which you wish
for so much.”

Porthos gave a start that shook the room; two or three bottles fell and
were broken. Mousqueton ran thither, hearing the noise.

Porthos waved his hand to Mousqueton to pick up the bottles.

“I am glad to see,” said D’Artagnan, “that you have still that honest
lad with you.”

“He is my steward,” replied Porthos; “he will never leave me. Go away
now, Mouston.”

“So he’s called Mouston,” thought D’Artagnan; “’tis too long a word to
pronounce ‘Mousqueton.’”

“Well,” he said aloud, “let us resume our conversatio

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