The Three Musketeers

By Alexandre Dumas, Père

First Volume of the D’Artagnan Series


CONTENTS

 AUTHOR’S PREFACE
 Chapter I. THE THREE PRESENTS OF D’ARTAGNAN THE ELDER
 Chapter II. THE ANTECHAMBER OF M. DE TRÉVILLE
 Chapter III. THE AUDIENCE
 Chapter IV. THE SHOULDER OF ATHOS, THE BALDRIC OF PORTHOS AND THE HANDKERCHIEF OF ARAMIS
 Chapter V. THE KING’S MUSKETEERS AND THE CARDINAL’S GUARDS
 Chapter VI. HIS MAJESTY KING LOUIS XIII.
 Chapter VII. THE INTERIOR OF THE MUSKETEERS
 Chapter VIII. CONCERNING A COURT INTRIGUE
 Chapter IX. D’ARTAGNAN SHOWS HIMSELF
 Chapter X. A MOUSETRAP IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
 Chapter XI. IN WHICH THE PLOT THICKENS
 Chapter XII. GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
 Chapter XIII. MONSIEUR BONACIEUX
 Chapter XIV. THE MAN OF MEUNG
 Chapter XV. MEN OF THE ROBE AND MEN OF THE SWORD
 Chapter XVI. IN WHICH M. SÉGUIER, KEEPER OF THE SEALS, LOOKS MORE THAN ONCE FOR THE BELL
 Chapter XVII. BONACIEUX AT HOME
 Chapter XVIII. LOVER AND HUSBAND
 Chapter XIX. PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
 Chapter XX. THE JOURNEY
 Chapter XXI. THE COUNTESS DE WINTER
 Chapter XXII. THE BALLET OF LA MERLAISON
 Chapter XXIII. THE RENDEZVOUS
 Chapter XXIV. THE PAVILION
 Chapter XXV. PORTHOS
 Chapter XXVI. ARAMIS AND HIS THESIS
 Chapter XXVII. THE WIFE OF ATHOS
 Chapter XXVIII. THE RETURN
 Chapter XXIX. HUNTING FOR THE EQUIPMENTS
 Chapter XXX. D’ARTAGNAN AND THE ENGLISHMAN
 Chapter XXXI. ENGLISH AND FRENCH
 Chapter XXXII. A PROCURATOR’S DINNER
 Chapter XXXIII. SOUBRETTE AND MISTRESS
 Chapter XXXIV. IN WHICH THE EQUIPMENT OF ARAMIS AND PORTHOS IS TREATED OF
 Chapter XXXV. A GASCON A MATCH FOR CUPID
 Chapter XXXVI. DREAM OF VENGEANCE
 Chapter XXXVII. MILADY’S SECRET
 Chapter XXXVIII. HOW, WITHOUT INCOMMDING HIMSELF, ATHOS PROCURES HIS EQUIPMENT
 Chapter XXXIX. A VISION
 Chapter XL. A TERRIBLE VISION
 Chapter XLI. THE SIEGE OF LA ROCHELLE
 Chapter XLII. THE ANJOU WINE
 Chapter XLIII. THE SIGN OF THE RED DOVECOT
 Chapter XLIV. THE UTILITY OF STOVEPIPES
 Chapter XLV. A CONJUGAL SCENE
 Chapter XLVI. THE BASTION SAINT-GERVAIS
 Chapter XLVII. THE COUNCIL OF THE MUSKETEERS
 Chapter XLVIII. A FAMILY AFFAIR
 Chapter XLIX. FATALITY
 Chapter L. CHAT BETWEEN BROTHER AND SISTER
 Chapter LI. OFFICER
 Chapter LII. CAPTIVITY: THE FIRST DAY
 Chapter LIII. CAPTIVITY: THE SECOND DAY
 Chapter LIV. CAPTIVITY: THE THIRD DAY
 Chapter LV. CAPTIVITY: THE FOURTH DAY
 Chapter LVI. CAPTIVITY: THE FIFTH DAY
 Chapter LVII. MEANS FOR CLASSICAL TRAGEDY
 Chapter LVIII. ESCAPE
 Chapter LIX. WHAT TOOK PLACE AT PORTSMOUTH AUGUST 23, 1628
 Chapter LX. IN FRANCE
 Chapter LXI. THE CARMELITE CONVENT AT BÉTHUNE
 Chapter LXII. TWO VARIETIES OF DEMONS
 Chapter LXIII. THE DROP OF WATER
 Chapter LXIV. THE MAN IN THE RED CLOAK
 Chapter LXV. TRIAL
 Chapter LXVI. EXECUTION
 Chapter LXVII. CONCLUSION
 EPILOGUE




AUTHOR’S PREFACE

In which it is proved that, notwithstanding their names’ ending in _os_
and _is_, the heroes of the story which we are about to have the honor
to relate to our readers have nothing mythological about them.

A short time ago, while making researches in the Royal Library for my
History of Louis XIV., I stumbled by chance upon the Memoirs of M.
d’Artagnan, printed—as were most of the works of that period, in which
authors could not tell the truth without the risk of a residence, more
or less long, in the Bastille—at Amsterdam, by Pierre Rouge. The title
attracted me; I took them home with me, with the permission of the
guardian, and devoured them.

It is not my intention here to enter into an analysis of this curious
work; and I shall satisfy myself with referring such of my readers as
appreciate the pictures of the period to its pages. They will therein
find portraits penciled by the hand of a master; and although these
squibs may be, for the most part, traced upon the doors of barracks and
the walls of cabarets, they will not find the likenesses of Louis XIII.,
Anne of Austria, Richelieu, Mazarin, and the courtiers of the period,
less faithful than in the history of M. Anquetil.

But, it is well known, what strikes the capricious mind of the poet is
not always what affects the mass of readers. Now, while admiring, as
others doubtless will admire, the details we have to relate, our main
preoccupation concerned a matter to which no one before ourselves had
given a thought.

D’Artagnan relates that on his first visit to M. de Tréville, captain
of the king’s Musketeers, he met in the antechamber three young men,
serving in the illustrious corps into which he was soliciting the honor
of being received, bearing the names of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

We must confess these three strange names struck us; and it immediately
occurred to us that they were but pseudonyms, under which D’Artagnan
had disguised names perhaps illustrious, or else that the bearers of
these borrowed names had themselves chosen them on the day in which,
from caprice, discontent, or want of fortune, they had donned the
simple Musketeer’s uniform.

From that moment we had no rest till we could find some trace in
contemporary works of these extraordinary names which had so strongly
awakened our curiosity.

The catalogue alone of the books we read with this object would fill a
whole chapter, which, although it might be very instructive, would
certainly afford our readers but little amusement. It will suffice,
then, to tell them that at the moment at which, discouraged by so many
fruitless investigations, we were about to abandon our search, we at
length found, guided by the counsels of our illustrious friend Paulin
Paris, a manuscript in folio, endorsed 4772 or 4773, we do not
recollect which, having for title, “Memoirs of the Comte de la Fère,
Touching Some Events Which Passed in France Toward the End of the Reign
of King Louis XIII. and the Commencement of the Reign of King Louis
XIV.”

It may be easily imagined how great was our joy when, in turning over
this manuscript, our last hope, we found at the twentieth page the name
of Athos, at the twenty-seventh the name of Porthos, and at the
thirty-first the name of Aramis.

The discovery of a completely unknown manuscript at a period in which
historical science is carried to such a high degree appeared almost
miraculous. We hastened, therefore, to obtain permission to print it,
with the view of presenting ourselves someday with the pack of others
at the doors of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, if we
should not succeed—a very probable thing, by the by—in gaining
admission to the Académie Française with our own proper pack. This
permission, we feel bound to say, was graciously granted; which compels
us here to give a public contradiction to the slanderers who pretend
that we live under a government but moderately indulgent to men of
letters.

Now, this is the first part of this precious manuscript which we offer
to our readers, restoring it to the title which belongs to it, and
entering into an engagement that if (of which we have no doubt) this
first part should obtain the success it merits, we will publish the
second immediately.

In the meanwhile, as the godfather is a second father, we beg the
reader to lay to our account, and not to that of the Comte de la Fère,
the pleasure or the _ennui_ he may experience.

This being understood, let us proceed with our history.




The Three Musketeers




Chapter I.
THE THREE PRESENTS OF D’ARTAGNAN THE ELDER


On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the market town of
Meung, in which the author of _Romance of the Rose_ was born, appeared
to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just
made a second La Rochelle of it. Many citizens, seeing the women flying
toward the High Street, leaving their children crying at the open
doors, hastened to don the cuirass, and supporting their somewhat
uncertain courage with a musket or a partisan, directed their steps
toward the hostelry of the Jolly Miller, before which was gathered,
increasing every minute, a compact group, vociferous and full of
curiosity.

In those times panics were common, and few days passed without some
city or other registering in its archives an event of this kind. There
were nobles, who made war against each other; there was the king, who
made war against the cardinal; there was Spain, which made war against
the king. Then, in addition to these concealed or public, secret or
open wars, there were robbers, mendicants, Huguenots, wolves, and
scoundrels, who made war upon everybody. The citizens always took up
arms readily against thieves, wolves or scoundrels, often against
nobles or Huguenots, sometimes against the king, but never against the
cardinal or Spain. It resulted, then, from this habit that on the said
first Monday of April, 1625, the citizens, on hearing the clamor, and
seeing neither the red-and-yellow standard nor the livery of the Duc de
Richelieu, rushed toward the hostel of the Jolly Miller. When arrived
there, the cause of the hubbub was apparent to all.

A young man—we can sketch his portrait at a dash. Imagine to yourself a
Don Quixote of eighteen; a Don Quixote without his corselet, without
his coat of mail, without his cuisses; a Don Quixote clothed in a
woolen doublet, the blue color of which had faded into a nameless shade
between lees of wine and a heavenly azure; face long and brown; high
cheek bones, a sign of sagacity; the maxillary muscles enormously
developed, an infallible sign by which a Gascon may always be detected,
even without his cap—and our young man wore a cap set off with a sort
of feather; the eye open and intelligent; the nose hooked, but finely
chiseled. Too big for a youth, too small for a grown man, an
experienced eye might have taken him for a farmer’s son upon a journey
had it not been for the long sword which, dangling from a leather
baldric, hit against the calves of its owner as he walked, and against
the rough side of his steed when he was on horseback.

For our young man had a steed which was the observed of all observers.
It was a Béarn pony, from twelve to fourteen years old, yellow in his
hide, without a hair in his tail, but not without windgalls on his
legs, which, though going with his head lower than his knees, rendering
a martingale quite unnecessary, contrived nevertheless to perform his
eight leagues a day. Unfortunately, the qualities of this horse were so
well concealed under his strange-colored hide and his unaccountable
gait, that at a time when everybody was a connoisseur in horseflesh,
the appearance of the aforesaid pony at Meung—which place he had
entered about a quarter of an hour before, by the gate of
Beaugency—produced an unfavorable feeling, which extended to his rider.

And this feeling had been more painfully perceived by young
D’Artagnan—for so was the Don Quixote of this second Rosinante
named—from his not being able to conceal from himself the ridiculous
appearance that such a steed gave him, good horseman as he was. He had
sighed deeply, therefore, when accepting the gift of the pony from M.
d’Artagnan the elder. He was not ignorant that such a beast was worth
at least twenty livres; and the words which had accompanied the present
were above all price.

“My son,” said the old Gascon gentleman, in that pure Béarn _patois_ of
which Henry IV. could never rid himself, “this horse was born in the
house of your father about thirteen years ago, and has remained in it
ever since, which ought to make you love it. Never sell it; allow it to
die tranquilly and honorably of old age, and if you make a campaign
with it, take as much care of it as you would of an old servant. At
court, provided you have ever the honor to go there,” continued M.
d’Artagnan the elder, “—an honor to which, remember, your ancient
nobility gives you the right—sustain worthily your name of gentleman,
which has been worthily borne by your ancestors for five hundred years,
both for your own sake and the sake of those who belong to you. By the
latter I mean your relatives and friends. Endure nothing from anyone
except Monsieur the Cardinal and the king. It is by his courage, please
observe, by his courage alone, that a gentleman can make his way
nowadays. Whoever hesitates for a second perhaps allows the bait to
escape which during that exact second fortune held out to him. You are
young. You ought to be brave for two reasons: the first is that you are
a Gascon, and the second is that you are my son. Never fear quarrels,
but seek adventures. I have taught you how to handle a sword; you have
thews of iron, a wrist of steel. Fight on all occasions. Fight the more
for duels being forbidden, since consequently there is twice as much
courage in fighting. I have nothing to give you, my son, but fifteen
crowns, my horse, and the counsels you have just heard. Your mother
will add to them a recipe for a certain balsam, which she had from a
Bohemian and which has the miraculous virtue of curing all wounds that
do not reach the heart. Take advantage of all, and live happily and
long. I have but one word to add, and that is to propose an example to
you—not mine, for I myself have never appeared at court, and have only
taken part in religious wars as a volunteer; I speak of Monsieur de
Tréville, who was formerly my neighbor, and who had the honor to be, as
a child, the play-fellow of our king, Louis XIII., whom God preserve!
Sometimes their play degenerated into battles, and in these battles the
king was not always the stronger. The blows which he received increased
greatly his esteem and friendship for Monsieur de Tréville. Afterward,
Monsieur de Tréville fought with others: in his first journey to Paris,
five times; from the death of the late king till the young one came of
age, without reckoning wars and sieges, seven times; and from that date
up to the present day, a hundred times, perhaps! So that in spite of
edicts, ordinances, and decrees, there he is, captain of the
Musketeers; that is to say, chief of a legion of Cæsars, whom the king
holds in great esteem and whom the cardinal dreads—he who dreads
nothing, as it is said. Still further, Monsieur de Tréville gains ten
thousand crowns a year; he is therefore a great noble. He began as you
begin. Go to him with this letter, and make him your model in order
that you may do as he has done.”

Upon which M. d’Artagnan the elder girded his own sword round his son,
kissed him tenderly on both cheeks, and gave him his benediction.

On leaving the paternal chamber, the young man found his mother, who
was waiting for him with the famous recipe of which the counsels we
have just repeated would necessitate frequent employment. The adieux
were on this side longer and more tender than they had been on the
other—not that M. d’Artagnan did not love his son, who was his only
offspring, but M. d’Artagnan was a man, and he would have considered it
unworthy of a man to give way to his feelings; whereas Mme. D’Artagnan
was a woman, and still more, a mother. She wept abundantly; and—let us
speak it to the praise of M. d’Artagnan the younger—notwithstanding the
efforts he made to remain firm, as a future Musketeer ought, nature
prevailed, and he shed many tears, of which he succeeded with great
difficulty in concealing the half.

The same day the young man set forward on his journey, furnished with
the three paternal gifts, which consisted, as we have said, of fifteen
crowns, the horse, and the letter for M. de Tréville—the counsels being
thrown into the bargain.

With such a _vade mecum_ D’Artagnan was morally and physically an exact
copy of the hero of Cervantes, to whom we so happily compared him when
our duty of an historian placed us under the necessity of sketching his
portrait. Don Quixote took windmills for giants, and sheep for armies;
D’Artagnan took every smile for an insult, and every look as a
provocation—whence it resulted that from Tarbes to Meung his fist was
constantly doubled, or his hand on the hilt of his sword; and yet the
fist did not descend upon any jaw, nor did the sword issue from its
scabbard. It was not that the sight of the wretched pony did not excite
numerous smiles on the countenances of passers-by; but as against the
side of this pony rattled a sword of respectable length, and as over
this sword gleamed an eye rather ferocious than haughty, these
passers-by repressed their hilarity, or if hilarity prevailed over
prudence, they endeavored to laugh only on one side, like the masks of
the ancients. D’Artagnan, then, remained majestic and intact in his
susceptibility, till he came to this unlucky city of Meung.

But there, as he was alighting from his horse at the gate of the Jolly
Miller, without anyone—host, waiter, or hostler—coming to hold his
stirrup or take his horse, D’Artagnan spied, though an open window on
the ground floor, a gentleman, well-made and of good carriage, although
of rather a stern countenance, talking with two persons who appeared to
listen to him with respect. D’Artagnan fancied quite naturally,
according to his custom, that he must be the object of their
conversation, and listened. This time D’Artagnan was only in part
mistaken; he himself was not in question, but his horse was. The
gentleman appeared to be enumerating all his qualities to his auditors;
and, as I have said, the auditors seeming to have great deference for
the narrator, they every moment burst into fits of laughter. Now, as a
half-smile was sufficient to awaken the irascibility of the young man,
the effect produced upon him by this vociferous mirth may be easily
imagined.

Nevertheless, D’Artagnan was desirous of examining the appearance of
this impertinent personage who ridiculed him. He fixed his haughty eye
upon the stranger, and perceived a man of from forty to forty-five
years of age, with black and piercing eyes, pale complexion, a strongly
marked nose, and a black and well-shaped mustache. He was dressed in a
doublet and hose of a violet color, with aiguillettes of the same
color, without any other ornaments than the customary slashes, through
which the shirt appeared. This doublet and hose, though new, were
creased, like traveling clothes for a long time packed in a
portmanteau. D’Artagnan made all these remarks with the rapidity of a
most minute observer, and doubtless from an instinctive feeling that
this stranger was destined to have a great influence over his future
life.

Now, as at the moment in which D’Artagnan fixed his eyes upon the
gentleman in the violet doublet, the gentleman made one of his most
knowing and profound remarks respecting the Béarnese pony, his two
auditors laughed even louder than before, and he himself, though
contrary to his custom, allowed a pale smile (if I may be allowed to
use such an expression) to stray over his countenance. This time there
could be no doubt; D’Artagnan was really insulted. Full, then, of this
conviction, he pulled his cap down over his eyes, and endeavoring to
copy some of the court airs he had picked up in Gascony among young
traveling nobles, he advanced with one hand on the hilt of his sword
and the other resting on his hip. Unfortunately, as he advanced, his
anger increased at every step; and instead of the proper and lofty
speech he had prepared as a prelude to his challenge, he found nothing
at the tip of his tongue but a gross personality, which he accompanied
with a furious gesture.

“I say, sir, you sir, who are hiding yourself behind that shutter—yes,
you, sir, tell me what you are laughing at, and we will laugh
together!”

The gentleman raised his eyes slowly from the nag to his cavalier, as
if he required some time to ascertain whether it could be to him that
such strange reproaches were addressed; then, when he could not
possibly entertain any doubt of the matter, his eyebrows slightly bent,
and with an accent of irony and insolence impossible to be described,
he replied to D’Artagnan, “I was not speaking to you, sir.”

“But I am speaking to you!” replied the young man, additionally
exasperated with this mixture of insolence and good manners, of
politeness and scorn.

The stranger looked at him again with a slight smile, and retiring from
the window, came out of the hostelry with a slow step, and placed
himself before the horse, within two paces of D’Artagnan. His quiet
manner and the ironical expression of his countenance redoubled the
mirth of the persons with whom he had been talking, and who still
remained at the window.

D’Artagnan, seeing him approach, drew his sword a foot out of the
scabbard.

“This horse is decidedly, or rather has been in his youth, a
buttercup,” resumed the stranger, continuing the remarks he had begun,
and addressing himself to his auditors at the window, without paying
the least attention to the exasperation of D’Artagnan, who, however,
placed himself between him and them. “It is a color very well known in
botany, but till the present time very rare among horses.”

“There are people who laugh at the horse that would not dare to laugh
at the master,” cried the young emulator of the furious Tréville.

“I do not often laugh, sir,” replied the stranger, “as you may perceive
by the expression of my countenance; but nevertheless I retain the
privilege of laughing when I please.”

“And I,” cried D’Artagnan, “will allow no man to laugh when it
displeases me!”

“Indeed, sir,” continued the stranger, more calm than ever; “well, that
is perfectly right!” and turning on his heel, was about to re-enter the
hostelry by the front gate, beneath which D’Artagnan on arriving had
observed a saddled horse.

But, D’Artagnan was not of a character to allow a man to escape him
thus who had the insolence to ridicule him. He drew his sword entirely
from the scabbard, and followed him, crying, “Turn, turn, Master Joker,
lest I strike you behind!”

“Strike me!” said the other, turning on his heels, and surveying the
young man with as much astonishment as contempt. “Why, my good fellow,
you must be mad!” Then, in a suppressed tone, as if speaking to
himself, “This is annoying,” continued he. “What a godsend this would
be for his Majesty, who is seeking everywhere for brave fellows to
recruit for his Musketeers!”

He had scarcely finished, when D’Artagnan made such a furious lunge at
him that if he had not sprung nimbly backward, it is probable he would
have jested for the last time. The stranger, then perceiving that the
matter went beyond raillery, drew his sword, saluted his adversary, and
seriously placed himself on guard. But at the same moment, his two
auditors, accompanied by the host, fell upon D’Artagnan with sticks,
shovels and tongs. This caused so rapid and complete a diversion from
the attack that D’Artagnan’s adversary, while the latter turned round
to face this shower of blows, sheathed his sword with the same
precision, and instead of an actor, which he had nearly been, became a
spectator of the fight—a part in which he acquitted himself with his
usual impassiveness, muttering, nevertheless, “A plague upon these
Gascons! Replace him on his orange horse, and let him begone!”

“Not before I have killed you, poltroon!” cried D’Artagnan, making the
best face possible, and never retreating one step before his three
assailants, who continued to shower blows upon him.

“Another gasconade!” murmured the gentleman. “By my honor, these
Gascons are incorrigible! Keep up the dance, then, since he will have
it so. When he is tired, he will perhaps tell us that he has had enough
of it.”

But the stranger knew not the headstrong personage he had to do with;
D’Artagnan was not the man ever to cry for quarter. The fight was
therefore prolonged for some seconds; but at length D’Artagnan dropped
his sword, which was broken in two pieces by the blow of a stick.
Another blow full upon his forehead at the same moment brought him to
the ground, covered with blood and almost fainting.

It was at this moment that people came flocking to the scene of action
from all sides. The host, fearful of consequences, with the help of his
servants carried the wounded man into the kitchen, where some trifling
attentions were bestowed upon him.

As to the gentleman, he resumed his place at the window, and surveyed
the crowd with a certain impatience, evidently annoyed by their
remaining undispersed.

“Well, how is it with this madman?” exclaimed he, turning round as the
noise of the door announced the entrance of the host, who came in to
inquire if he was unhurt.

“Your Excellency is safe and sound?” asked the host.

“Oh, yes! Perfectly safe and sound, my good host; and I wish to know
what has become of our young man.”

“He is better,” said the host, “he fainted quite away.”

“Indeed!” said the gentleman.

“But before he fainted, he collected all his strength to challenge you,
and to defy you while challenging you.”

“Why, this fellow must be the devil in person!” cried the stranger.

“Oh, no, your Excellency, he is not the devil,” replied the host, with
a grin of contempt; “for during his fainting we rummaged his valise and
found nothing but a clean shirt and eleven crowns—which however, did
not prevent his saying, as he was fainting, that if such a thing had
happened in Paris, you should have cause to repent of it at a later
period.”

“Then,” said the stranger coolly, “he must be some prince in disguise.”

“I have told you this, good sir,” resumed the host, “in order that you
may be on your guard.”

“Did he name no one in his passion?”

“Yes; he struck his pocket and said, ‘We shall see what Monsieur de
Tréville will think of this insult offered to his _protégé_.’”

“Monsieur de Tréville?” said the stranger, becoming attentive, “he put
his hand upon his pocket while pronouncing the name of Monsieur de
Tréville? Now, my dear host, while your young man was insensible, you
did not fail, I am quite sure, to ascertain what that pocket contained.
What was there in it?”

“A letter addressed to Monsieur de Tréville, captain of the
Musketeers.”

“Indeed!”

“Exactly as I have the honor to tell your Excellency.”

The host, who was not endowed with great perspicacity, did not observe
the expression which his words had given to the physiognomy of the
stranger. The latter rose from the front of the window, upon the sill
of which he had leaned with his elbow, and knitted his brow like a man
disquieted.

“The devil!” murmured he, between his teeth. “Can Tréville have set
this Gascon upon me? He is very young; but a sword thrust is a sword
thrust, whatever be the age of him who gives it, and a youth is less to
be suspected than an older man,” and the stranger fell into a reverie
which lasted some minutes. “A weak obstacle is sometimes sufficient to
overthrow a great design.

“Host,” said he, “could you not contrive to get rid of this frantic boy
for me? In conscience, I cannot kill him; and yet,” added he, with a
coldly menacing expression, “he annoys me. Where is he?”

“In my wife’s chamber, on the first flight, where they are dressing his
wounds.”

“His things and his bag are with him? Has he taken off his doublet?”

“On the contrary, everything is in the kitchen. But if he annoys you,
this young fool—”

“To be sure he does. He causes a disturbance in your hostelry, which
respectable people cannot put up with. Go; make out my bill and notify
my servant.”

“What, monsieur, will you leave us so soon?”

“You know that very well, as I gave my order to saddle my horse. Have
they not obeyed me?”

“It is done; as your Excellency may have observed, your horse is in the
great gateway, ready saddled for your departure.”

“That is well; do as I have directed you, then.”

“What the devil!” said the host to himself. “Can he be afraid of this
boy?” But an imperious glance from the stranger stopped him short; he
bowed humbly and retired.

“It is not necessary for Milady* to be seen by this fellow,” continued
the stranger. “She will soon pass; she is already late. I had better
get on horseback, and go and meet her. I should like, however, to know
what this letter addressed to Tréville contains.” And the stranger,
muttering to himself, directed his steps toward the kitchen.

* We are well aware that this term, milady, is only properly used when
followed by a family name. But we find it thus in the manuscript, and
we do not choose to take upon ourselves to alter it.


In the meantime, the host, who entertained no doubt that it was the
presence of the young man that drove the stranger from his hostelry,
re-ascended to his wife’s chamber, and found D’Artagnan just recovering
his senses. Giving him to understand that the police would deal with
him pretty severely for having sought a quarrel with a great lord—for
in the opinion of the host the stranger could be nothing less than a
great lord—he insisted that notwithstanding his weakness D’Artagnan
should get up and depart as quickly as possible. D’Artagnan, half
stupefied, without his doublet, and with his head bound up in a linen
cloth, arose then, and urged by the host, began to descend the stairs;
but on arriving at the kitchen, the first thing he saw was his
antagonist talking calmly at the step of a heavy carriage, drawn by two
large Norman horses.

His interlocutor, whose head appeared through the carriage window, was
a woman of from twenty to two-and-twenty years. We have already
observed with what rapidity D’Artagnan seized the expression of a
countenance. He perceived then, at a glance, that this woman was young
and beautiful; and her style of beauty struck him more forcibly from
its being totally different from that of the southern countries in
which D’Artagnan had hitherto resided. She was pale and fair, with long
curls falling in profusion over her shoulders, had large, blue,
languishing eyes, rosy lips, and hands of alabaster. She was talking
with great animation with the stranger.

“His Eminence, then, orders me—” said the lady.

“To return instantly to England, and to inform him as soon as the duke
leaves London.”

“And as to my other instructions?” asked the fair traveler.

“They are contained in this box, which you will not open until you are
on the other side of the Channel.”

“Very well; and you—what will you do?”

“I—I return to Paris.”

“What, without chastising this insolent boy?” asked the lady.

The stranger was about to reply; but at the moment he opened his mouth,
D’Artagnan, who had heard all, precipitated himself over the threshold
of the door.

“This insolent boy chastises others,” cried he; “and I hope that this
time he whom he ought to chastise will not escape him as before.”

“Will not escape him?” replied the stranger, knitting his brow.

“No; before a woman you would dare not fly, I presume?”

“Remember,” said Milady, seeing the stranger lay his hand on his sword,
“the least delay may ruin everything.”

“You are right,” cried the gentleman; “begone then, on your part, and I
will depart as quickly on mine.” And bowing to the lady, he sprang into
his saddle, while her coachman applied his whip vigorously to his
horses. The two interlocutors thus separated, taking opposite
directions, at full gallop.

“Pay him, booby!” cried the stranger to his servant, without checking
the speed of his horse; and the man, after throwing two or three silver
pieces at the foot of mine host, galloped after his master.

“Base coward! false gentleman!” cried D’Artagnan, springing forward, in
his turn, after the servant. But his wound had rendered him too weak to
support such an exertion. Scarcely had he gone ten steps when his ears
began to tingle, a faintness seized him, a cloud of blood passed over
his eyes, and he fell in the middle of the street, crying still,
“Coward! coward! coward!”

“He is a coward, indeed,” grumbled the host, drawing near to
D’Artagnan, and endeavoring by this little flattery to make up matters
with the young man, as the heron of the fable did with the snail he had
despised the evening before.

“Yes, a base coward,” murmured D’Artagnan; “but she—she was very
beautiful.”

“What _she?_” demanded the host.

“Milady,” faltered D’Artagnan, and fainted a second time.

“Ah, it’s all one,” said the host; “I have lost two customers, but this
one remains, of whom I am pretty certain for some days to come. There
will be eleven crowns gained.”

It is to be remembered that eleven crowns was just the sum that
remained in D’Artagnan’s purse.

The host had reckoned upon eleven days of confinement at a crown a day,
but he had reckoned without his guest. On the following morning at five
o’clock D’Artagnan arose, and descending to the kitchen without help,
asked, among other ingredients the list of which has not come down to
us, for some oil, some wine, and some rosemary, and with his mother’s
recipe in his hand composed a balsam, with which he anointed his
numerous wounds, replacing his bandages himself, and positively
refusing the assistance of any doctor, D’Artagnan walked about that
same evening, and was almost cured by the morrow.

But when the time came to pay for his rosemary, this oil, and the wine,
the only expense the master had incurred, as he had preserved a strict
abstinence—while on the contrary, the yellow horse, by the account of
the hostler at least, had eaten three times as much as a horse of his
size could reasonably be supposed to have done—D’Artagnan found nothing
in his pocket but his little old velvet purse with the eleven crowns it
contained; for as to the letter addressed to M. de Tréville, it had
disappeared.

The young man commenced his search for the letter with the greatest
patience, turning out his pockets of all kinds over and over again,
rummaging and rerummaging in his valise, and opening and reopening his
purse; but when he found that he had come to the conviction that the
letter was not to be found, he flew, for the third time, into such a
rage as was near costing him a fresh consumption of wine, oil, and
rosemary—for upon seeing this hot-headed youth become exasperated and
threaten to destroy everything in the establishment if his letter were
not found, the host seized a spit, his wife a broom handle, and the
servants the same sticks they had used the day before.

“My letter of recommendation!” cried D’Artagnan, “my letter of
recommendation! or, the holy blood, I will spit you all like ortolans!”

Unfortunately, there was one circumstance which created a powerful
obstacle to the accomplishment of this threat; which was, as we have
related, that his sword had been in his first conflict broken in two,
and which he had entirely forgotten. Hence, it resulted when D’Artagnan
proceeded to draw his sword in earnest, he found himself purely and
simply armed with a stump of a sword about eight or ten inches in
length, which the host had carefully placed in the scabbard. As to the
rest of the blade, the master had slyly put that on one side to make
himself a larding pin.

But this deception would probably not have stopped our fiery young man
if the host had not reflected that the reclamation which his guest made
was perfectly just.

“But, after all,” said he, lowering the point of his spit, “where is
this letter?”

“Yes, where is this letter?” cried D’Artagnan. “In the first place, I
warn you that that letter is for Monsieur de Tréville, and it must be
found, or if it is not found, he will know how to find it.”

His threat completed the intimidation of the host. After the king and
the cardinal, M. de Tréville was the man whose name was perhaps most
frequently repeated by the military, and even by citizens. There was,
to be sure, Father Joseph, but his name was never pronounced but with a
subdued voice, such was the terror inspired by his Gray Eminence, as
the cardinal’s familiar was called.

Throwing down his spit, and ordering his wife to do the same with her
broom handle, and the servants with their sticks, he set the first
example of commencing an earnest search for the lost letter.

“Does the letter contain anything valuable?” demanded the host, after a
few minutes of useless investigation.

“Zounds! I think it does indeed!” cried the Gascon, who reckoned upon
this letter for making his way at court. “It contained my fortune!”

“Bills upon Spain?” asked the disturbed host.

“Bills upon his Majesty’s private treasury,” answered D’Artagnan, who,
reckoning upon entering into the king’s service in consequence of this
recommendation, believed he could make this somewhat hazardous reply
without telling of a falsehood.

“The devil!” cried the host, at his wits’ end.

“But it’s of no importance,” continued D’Artagnan, with natural
assurance; “it’s of no importance. The money is nothing; that letter
was everything. I would rather have lost a thousand pistoles than have
lost it.” He would not have risked more if he had said twenty thousand;
but a certain juvenile modesty restrained him.

A ray of light all at once broke upon the mind of the host as he was
giving himself to the devil upon finding nothing.

“That letter is not lost!” cried he.

“What!” cried D’Artagnan.

“No, it has been stolen from you.”

“Stolen? By whom?”

“By the gentleman who was here yesterday. He came down into the
kitchen, where your doublet was. He remained there some time alone. I
would lay a wager he has stolen it.”

“Do you think so?” answered D’Artagnan, but little convinced, as he
knew better than anyone else how entirely personal the value of this
letter was, and saw nothing in it likely to tempt cupidity. The fact
was that none of his servants, none of the travelers present, could
have gained anything by being possessed of this paper.

“Do you say,” resumed D’Artagnan, “that you suspect that impertinent
gentleman?”

“I tell you I am sure of it,” continued the host. “When I informed him
that your lordship was the _protégé_ of Monsieur de Tréville, and that
you even had a letter for that illustrious gentleman, he appeared to be
very much disturbed, and asked me where that letter was, and
immediately came down into the kitchen, where he knew your doublet
was.”

“Then that’s my thief,” replied D’Artagnan. “I will complain to
Monsieur de Tréville, and Monsieur de Tréville will complain to the
king.” He then drew two crowns majestically from his purse and gave
them to the host, who accompanied him, cap in hand, to the gate, and
remounted his yellow horse, which bore him without any further accident
to the gate of St. Antoine at Paris, where his owner sold him for three
crowns, which was a very good price, considering that D’Artagnan had
ridden him hard during the last stage. Thus the dealer to whom
D’Artagnan sold him for the nine livres did not conceal from the young
man that he only gave that enormous sum for him on the account of the
originality of his color.

Thus D’Artagnan entered Paris on foot, carrying his little packet under
his arm, and walked about till he found an apartment to be let on terms
suited to the scantiness of his means. This chamber was a sort of
garret, situated in the Rue des Fossoyeurs, near the Luxembourg.

As soon as the earnest money was paid, D’Artagnan took possession of
his lodging, and passed the remainder of the day in sewing onto his
doublet and hose some ornamental braiding which his mother had taken
off an almost-new doublet of the elder M. d’Artagnan, and which she had
given her son secretly. Next he went to the Quai de Feraille to have a
new blade put to his sword, and then returned toward the Louvre,
inquiring of the first Musketeer he met for the situation of the hôtel
of M. de Tréville, which proved to be in the Rue du Vieux-Colombier;
that is to say, in the immediate vicinity of the chamber hired by
D’Artagnan—a circumstance which appeared to furnish a happy augury for
the success of his journey.

After this, satisfied with the way in which he had conducted himself at
Meung, without remorse for the past, confident in the present, and full
of hope for the future, he retired to bed and slept the sleep of the
brave.

This sleep, provincial as it was, brought him to nine o’clock in the
morning; at which hour he rose, in order to repair to the residence of
M. de Tréville, the third personage in the kingdom, in the paternal
estimation.




Chapter II.
THE ANTECHAMBER OF M. DE TRÉVILLE


M. de Troisville, as his family was still called in Gascony, or M. de
Tréville, as he has ended by styling himself in Paris, had really
commenced life as D’Artagnan now did; that is to say, without a sou in
his pocket, but with a fund of audacity, shrewdness, and intelligence
which makes the poorest Gascon gentleman often derive more in his hope
from the paternal inheritance than the richest Perigordian or Berrichan
gentleman derives in reality from his. His insolent bravery, his still
more insolent success at a time when blows poured down like hail, had
borne him to the top of that difficult ladder called Court Favor, which
he had climbed four steps at a time.

He was the friend of the king, who honored highly, as everyone knows,
the memory of his father, Henry IV. The father of M. de Tréville had
served him so faithfully in his wars against the league that in default
of money—a thing to which the Béarnais was accustomed all his life, and
who constantly paid his debts with that of which he never stood in need
of borrowing, that is to say, with ready wit—in default of money, we
repeat, he authorized him, after the reduction of Paris, to assume for
his arms a golden lion passant upon gules, with the motto _Fidelis et
fortis_. This was a great matter in the way of honor, but very little
in the way of wealth; so that when the illustrious companion of the
great Henry died, the only inheritance he was able to leave his son was
his sword and his motto. Thanks to this double gift and the spotless
name that accompanied it, M. de Tréville was admitted into the
household of the young prince where he made such good use of his sword,
and was so faithful to his motto, that Louis XIII., one of the good
blades of his kingdom, was accustomed to say that if he had a friend
who was about to fight, he would advise him to choose as a second,
himself first, and Tréville next—or even, perhaps, before himself.

Thus Louis XIII. had a real liking for Tréville—a royal liking, a
self-interested liking, it is true, but still a liking. At that unhappy
period it was an important consideration to be surrounded by such men
as Tréville. Many might take for their device the epithet _strong_,
which formed the second part of his motto, but very few gentlemen could
lay claim to the _faithful_, which constituted the first. Tréville was
one of these latter. His was one of those rare organizations, endowed
with an obedient intelligence like that of the dog; with a blind valor,
a quick eye, and a prompt hand; to whom sight appeared only to be given
to see if the king were dissatisfied with anyone, and the hand to
strike this displeasing personage, whether a Besme, a Maurevers, a
Poltiot de Méré, or a Vitry. In short, up to this period nothing had
been wanting to Tréville but opportunity; but he was ever on the watch
for it, and he faithfully promised himself that he would not fail to
seize it by its three hairs whenever it came within reach of his hand.
At last Louis XIII. made Tréville the captain of his Musketeers, who
were to Louis XIII. in devotedness, or rather in fanaticism, what his
Ordinaries had been to Henry III., and his Scotch Guard to Louis XI.

On his part, the cardinal was not behind the king in this respect. When
he saw the formidable and chosen body with which Louis XIII. had
surrounded himself, this second, or rather this first king of France,
became desirous that he, too, should have his guard. He had his
Musketeers therefore, as Louis XIII. had his, and these two powerful
rivals vied with each other in procuring, not only from all the
provinces of France, but even from all foreign states, the most
celebrated swordsmen. It was not uncommon for Richelieu and Louis XIII.
to dispute over their evening game of chess upon the merits of their
servants. Each boasted the bearing and the courage of his own people.
While exclaiming loudly against duels and brawls, they excited them
secretly to quarrel, deriving an immoderate satisfaction or genuine
regret from the success or defeat of their own combatants. We learn
this from the memoirs of a man who was concerned in some few of these
defeats and in many of these victories.

Tréville had grasped the weak side of his master; and it was to this
address that he owed the long and constant favor of a king who has not
left the reputation behind him of being very faithful in his
friendships. He paraded his Musketeers before the Cardinal Armand
Duplessis with an insolent air which made the gray moustache of his
Eminence curl with ire. Tréville understood admirably the war method of
that period, in which he who could not live at the expense of the enemy
must live at the expense of his compatriots. His soldiers formed a
legion of devil-may-care fellows, perfectly undisciplined toward all
but himself.

Loose, half-drunk, imposing, the king’s Musketeers, or rather M. de
Tréville’s, spread themselves about in the cabarets, in the public
walks, and the public sports, shouting, twisting their mustaches,
clanking their swords, and taking great pleasure in annoying the Guards
of the cardinal whenever they could fall in with them; then drawing in
the open streets, as if it were the best of all possible sports;
sometimes killed, but sure in that case to be both wept and avenged;
often killing others, but then certain of not rotting in prison, M. de
Tréville being there to claim them. Thus M. de Tréville was praised to
the highest note by these men, who adored him, and who, ruffians as
they were, trembled before him like scholars before their master,
obedient to his least word, and ready to sacrifice themselves to wash
out the smallest insult.

M. de Tréville employed this powerful weapon for the king, in the first
place, and the friends of the king—and then for himself and his own
friends. For the rest, in the memoirs of this period, which has left so
many memoirs, one does not find this worthy gentleman blamed even by
his enemies; and he had many such among men of the pen as well as among
men of the sword. In no instance, let us say, was this worthy gentleman
accused of deriving personal advantage from the cooperation of his
minions. Endowed with a rare genius for intrigue which rendered him the
equal of the ablest intriguers, he remained an honest man. Still
further, in spite of sword thrusts which weaken, and painful exercises
which fatigue, he had become one of the most gallant frequenters of
revels, one of the most insinuating lady’s men, one of the softest
whisperers of interesting nothings of his day; the _bonnes fortunes_ of
de Tréville were talked of as those of M. de Bassompierre had been
talked of twenty years before, and that was not saying a little. The
captain of the Musketeers was therefore admired, feared, and loved; and
this constitutes the zenith of human fortune.

Louis XIV. absorbed all the smaller stars of his court in his own vast
radiance; but his father, a sun _pluribus impar_, left his personal
splendor to each of his favorites, his individual value to each of his
courtiers. In addition to the levees of the king and the cardinal,
there might be reckoned in Paris at that time more than two hundred
smaller but still noteworthy levees. Among these two hundred levees,
that of Tréville was one of the most sought.

The court of his hôtel, situated in the Rue du Vieux-Colombier,
resembled a camp from by six o’clock in the morning in summer and eight
o’clock in winter. From fifty to sixty Musketeers, who appeared to
replace one another in order always to present an imposing number,
paraded constantly, armed to the teeth and ready for anything. On one
of those immense staircases, upon whose space modern civilization would
build a whole house, ascended and descended the office seekers of
Paris, who ran after any sort of favor—gentlemen from the provinces
anxious to be enrolled, and servants in all sorts of liveries, bringing
and carrying messages between their masters and M. de Tréville. In the
antechamber, upon long circular benches, reposed the elect; that is to
say, those who were called. In this apartment a continued buzzing
prevailed from morning till night, while M. de Tréville, in his office
contiguous to this antechamber, received visits, listened to
complaints, gave his orders, and like the king in his balcony at the
Louvre, had only to place himself at the window to review both his men
and arms.

The day on which D’Artagnan presented himself the assemblage was
imposing, particularly for a provincial just arriving from his
province. It is true that this provincial was a Gascon; and that,
particularly at this period, the compatriots of D’Artagnan had the
reputation of not being easily intimidated. When he had once passed the
massive door covered with long square-headed nails, he fell into the
midst of a troop of swordsmen, who crossed one another in their
passage, calling out, quarreling, and playing tricks one with another.
In order to make one’s way amid these turbulent and conflicting waves,
it was necessary to be an officer, a great noble, or a pretty woman.

It was, then, into the midst of this tumult and disorder that our young
man advanced with a beating heart, ranging his long rapier up his lanky
leg, and keeping one hand on the edge of his cap, with that half-smile
of the embarrassed provincial who wishes to put on a good face. When he
had passed one group he began to breathe more freely; but he could not
help observing that they turned round to look at him, and for the first
time in his life D’Artagnan, who had till that day entertained a very
good opinion of himself, felt ridiculous.

Arrived at the staircase, it was still worse. There were four
Musketeers on the bottom steps, amusing themselves with the following
exercise, while ten or twelve of their comrades waited upon the landing
place to take their turn in the sport.

One of them, stationed upon the top stair, naked sword in hand,
prevented, or at least endeavored to prevent, the three others from
ascending.

These three others fenced against him with their agile swords.

D’Artagnan at first took these weapons for foils, and believed them to
be buttoned; but he soon perceived by certain scratches that every
weapon was pointed and sharpened, and that at each of these scratches
not only the spectators, but even the actors themselves, laughed like
so many madmen.

He who at the moment occupied the upper step kept his adversaries
marvelously in check. A circle was formed around them. The conditions
required that at every hit the man touched should quit the game,
yielding his turn for the benefit of the adversary who had hit him. In
five minutes three were slightly wounded, one on the hand, another on
the ear, by the defender of the stair, who himself remained intact—a
piece of skill which was worth to him, according to the rules agreed
upon, three turns of favor.

However difficult it might be, or rather as he pretended it was, to
astonish our young traveler, this pastime really astonished him. He had
seen in his province—that land in which heads become so easily heated—a
few of the preliminaries of duels; but the daring of these four fencers
appeared to him the strongest he had ever heard of even in Gascony. He
believed himself transported into that famous country of giants into
which Gulliver afterward went and was so frightened; and yet he had not
gained the goal, for there were still the landing place and the
antechamber.

On the landing they were no longer fighting, but amused themselves with
stories about women, and in the antechamber, with stories about the
court. On the landing D’Artagnan blushed; in the antechamber he
trembled. His warm and fickle imagination, which in Gascony had
rendered him formidable to young chambermaids, and even sometimes their
mistresses, had never dreamed, even in moments of delirium, of half the
amorous wonders or a quarter of the feats of gallantry which were here
set forth in connection with names the best known and with details the
least concealed. But if his morals were shocked on the landing, his
respect for the cardinal was scandalized in the antechamber. There, to
his great astonishment, D’Artagnan heard the policy which made all
Europe tremble criticized aloud and openly, as well as the private life
of the cardinal, which so many great nobles had been punished for
trying to pry into. That great man who was so revered by D’Artagnan the
elder served as an object of ridicule to the Musketeers of Tréville,
who cracked their jokes upon his bandy legs and his crooked back. Some
sang ballads about Mme. d’Aguillon, his mistress, and Mme. Cambalet,
his niece; while others formed parties and plans to annoy the pages and
guards of the cardinal duke—all things which appeared to D’Artagnan
monstrous impossibilities.

Nevertheless, when the name of the king was now and then uttered
unthinkingly amid all these cardinal jests, a sort of gag seemed to
close for a moment on all these jeering mouths. They looked
hesitatingly around them, and appeared to doubt the thickness of the
partition between them and the office of M. de Tréville; but a fresh
allusion soon brought back the conversation to his Eminence, and then
the laughter recovered its loudness and the light was not withheld from
any of his actions.

“Certes, these fellows will all either be imprisoned or hanged,”
thought the terrified D’Artagnan, “and I, no doubt, with them; for from
the moment I have either listened to or heard them, I shall be held as
an accomplice. What would my good father say, who so strongly pointed
out to me the respect due to the cardinal, if he knew I was in the
society of such pagans?”

We have no need, therefore, to say that D’Artagnan dared not join in
the conversation, only he looked with all his eyes and listened with
all his ears, stretching his five senses so as to lose nothing; and
despite his confidence on the paternal admonitions, he felt himself
carried by his tastes and led by his instincts to praise rather than to
blame the unheard-of things which were taking place.

Although he was a perfect stranger in the court of M. de Tréville’s
courtiers, and this his first appearance in that place, he was at
length noticed, and somebody came and asked him what he wanted. At this
demand D’Artagnan gave his name very modestly, emphasized the title of
compatriot, and begged the servant who had put the question to him to
request a moment’s audience of M. de Tréville—a request which the
other, with an air of protection, promised to transmit in due season.

D’Artagnan, a little recovered from his first surprise, had now leisure
to study costumes and physiognomy.

The center of the most animated group was a Musketeer of great height
and haughty countenance, dressed in a costume so peculiar as to attract
general attention. He did not wear the uniform cloak—which was not
obligatory at that epoch of less liberty but more independence—but a
cerulean-blue doublet, a little faded and worn, and over this a
magnificent baldric, worked in gold, which shone like water ripples in
the sun. A long cloak of crimson velvet fell in graceful folds from his
shoulders, disclosing in front the splendid baldric, from which was
suspended a gigantic rapier. This Musketeer had just come off guard,
complained of having a cold, and coughed from time to time affectedly.
It was for this reason, as he said to those around him, that he had put
on his cloak; and while he spoke with a lofty air and twisted his
mustache disdainfully, all admired his embroidered baldric, and
D’Artagnan more than anyone.

“What would you have?” said the Musketeer. “This fashion is coming in.
It is a folly, I admit, but still it is the fashion. Besides, one must
lay out one’s inheritance somehow.”

“Ah, Porthos!” cried one of his companions, “don’t try to make us
believe you obtained that baldric by paternal generosity. It was given
to you by that veiled lady I met you with the other Sunday, near the
gate St. Honoré.”

“No, upon honor and by the faith of a gentleman, I bought it with the
contents of my own purse,” answered he whom they designated by the name
Porthos.

“Yes; about in the same manner,” said another Musketeer, “that I bought
this new purse with what my mistress put into the old one.”

“It’s true, though,” said Porthos; “and the proof is that I paid twelve
pistoles for it.”

The wonder was increased, though the doubt continued to exist.

“Is it not true, Aramis?” said Porthos, turning toward another
Musketeer.

This other Musketeer formed a perfect contrast to his interrogator, who
had just designated him by the name of Aramis. He was a stout man, of
about two- or three-and-twenty, with an open, ingenuous countenance, a
black, mild eye, and cheeks rosy and downy as an autumn peach. His
delicate mustache marked a perfectly straight line upon his upper lip;
he appeared to dread to lower his hands lest their veins should swell,
and he pinched the tips of his ears from time to time to preserve their
delicate pink transparency. Habitually he spoke little and slowly,
bowed frequently, laughed without noise, showing his teeth, which were
fine and of which, as the rest of his person, he appeared to take great
care. He answered the appeal of his friend by an affirmative nod of the
head.

This affirmation appeared to dispel all doubts with regard to the
baldric. They continued to admire it, but said no more about it; and
with a rapid change of thought, the conversation passed suddenly to
another subject.

“What do you think of the story Chalais’s esquire relates?” asked
another Musketeer, without addressing anyone in particular, but on the
contrary speaking to everybody.

“And what does he say?” asked Porthos, in a self-sufficient tone.

“He relates that he met at Brussels Rochefort, the _âme damnée_ of the
cardinal disguised as a Capuchin, and that this cursed Rochefort,
thanks to his disguise, had tricked Monsieur de Laigues, like a ninny
as he is.”

“A ninny, indeed!” said Porthos; “but is the matter certain?”

“I had it from Aramis,” replied the Musketeer.

“Indeed?”

“Why, you knew it, Porthos,” said Aramis. “I told you of it yesterday.
Let us say no more about it.”

“Say no more about it? That’s _your_ opinion!” replied Porthos.

“Say no more about it! _Peste!_ You come to your conclusions quickly.
What! The cardinal sets a spy upon a gentleman, has his letters stolen
from him by means of a traitor, a brigand, a rascal—has, with the help
of this spy and thanks to this correspondence, Chalais’s throat cut,
under the stupid pretext that he wanted to kill the king and marry
Monsieur to the queen! Nobody knew a word of this enigma. You unraveled
it yesterday to the great satisfaction of all; and while we are still
gaping with wonder at the news, you come and tell us today, ‘Let us say
no more about it.’”

“Well, then, let us talk about it, since you desire it,” replied
Aramis, patiently.

“This Rochefort,” cried Porthos, “if I were the esquire of poor
Chalais, should pass a minute or two very uncomfortably with me.”

“And you—you would pass rather a sad quarter-hour with the Red Duke,”
replied Aramis.

“Oh, the Red Duke! Bravo! Bravo! The Red Duke!” cried Porthos, clapping
his hands and nodding his head. “The Red Duke is capital. I’ll
circulate that saying, be assured, my dear fellow. Who says this Aramis
is not a wit? What a misfortune it is you did not follow your first
vocation; what a delicious abbé you would have made!”

“Oh, it’s only a temporary postponement,” replied Aramis; “I shall be
one someday. You very well know, Porthos, that I continue to study
theology for that purpose.”

“He will be one, as he says,” cried Porthos; “he will be one, sooner or
later.”

“Sooner,” said Aramis.

“He only waits for one thing to determine him to resume his cassock,
which hangs behind his uniform,” said another Musketeer.

“What is he waiting for?” asked another.

“Only till the queen has given an heir to the crown of France.”

“No jesting upon that subject, gentlemen,” said Porthos; “thank God the
queen is still of an age to give one!”

“They say that Monsieur de Buckingham is in France,” replied Aramis,
with a significant smile which gave to this sentence, apparently so
simple, a tolerably scandalous meaning.

“Aramis, my good friend, this time you are wrong,” interrupted Porthos.
“Your wit is always leading you beyond bounds; if Monsieur de Tréville
heard you, you would repent of speaking thus.”

“Are you going to give me a lesson, Porthos?” cried Aramis, from whose
usually mild eye a flash passed like lightning.

“My dear fellow, be a Musketeer or an abbé. Be one or the other, but
not both,” replied Porthos. “You know what Athos told you the other
day; you eat at everybody’s mess. Ah, don’t be angry, I beg of you,
that would be useless; you know what is agreed upon between you, Athos
and me. You go to Madame d’Aguillon’s, and you pay your court to her;
you go to Madame de Bois-Tracy’s, the cousin of Madame de Chevreuse,
and you pass for being far advanced in the good graces of that lady.
Oh, good Lord! Don’t trouble yourself to reveal your good luck; no one
asks for your secret—all the world knows your discretion. But since you
possess that virtue, why the devil don’t you make use of it with
respect to her Majesty? Let whoever likes talk of the king and the
cardinal, and how he likes; but the queen is sacred, and if anyone
speaks of her, let it be respectfully.”

“Porthos, you are as vain as Narcissus; I plainly tell you so,” replied
Aramis. “You know I hate moralizing, except when it is done by Athos.
As to you, good sir, you wear too magnificent a baldric to be strong on
that head. I will be an abbé if it suits me. In the meanwhile I am a
Musketeer; in that quality I say what I please, and at this moment it
pleases me to say that you weary me.”

“Aramis!”

“Porthos!”

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” cried the surrounding group.

“Monsieur de Tréville awaits Monsieur d’Artagnan,” cried a servant,
throwing open the door of the cabinet.

At this announcement, during which the door remained open, everyone
became mute, and amid the general silence the young man crossed part of
the length of the antechamber, and entered the apartment of the captain
of the Musketeers, congratulating himself with all his heart at having
so narrowly escaped the end of this strange quarrel.




Chapter III.
THE AUDIENCE


M. de Tréville was at the moment in rather ill-humor, nevertheless he
saluted the young man politely, who bowed to the very ground; and he
smiled on receiving D’Artagnan’s response, the Béarnese accent of which
recalled to him at the same time his youth and his country—a double
remembrance which makes a man smile at all ages; but stepping toward
the antechamber and making a sign to D’Artagnan with his hand, as if to
ask his permission to finish with others before he began with him, he
called three times, with a louder voice at each time, so that he ran
through the intervening tones between the imperative accent and the
angry accent.

“Athos! Porthos! Aramis!”

The two Musketeers with whom we have already made acquaintance, and who
answered to the last of these three names, immediately quitted the
group of which they had formed a part, and advanced toward the cabinet,
the door of which closed after them as soon as they had entered. Their
appearance, although it was not quite at ease, excited by its
carelessness, at once full of dignity and submission, the admiration of
D’Artagnan, who beheld in these two men demigods, and in their leader
an Olympian Jupiter, armed with all his thunders.

When the two Musketeers had entered; when the door was closed behind
them; when the buzzing murmur of the antechamber, to which the summons
which had been made had doubtless furnished fresh food, had
recommenced; when M. de Tréville had three or four times paced in
silence, and with a frowning brow, the whole length of his cabinet,
passing each time before Porthos and Aramis, who were as upright and
silent as if on parade—he stopped all at once full in front of them,
and covering them from head to foot with an angry look, “Do you know
what the king said to me,” cried he, “and that no longer ago than
yesterday evening—do you know, gentlemen?”

“No,” replied the two Musketeers, after a moment’s silence, “no, sir,
we do not.”

“But I hope that you will do us the honor to tell us,” added Aramis, in
his politest tone and with his most graceful bow.

“He told me that he should henceforth recruit his Musketeers from among
the Guards of Monsieur the Cardinal.”

“The Guards of the cardinal! And why so?” asked Porthos, warmly.

“Because he plainly perceives that his piquette* stands in need of
being enlivened by a mixture of good wine.”

* A watered liquor, made from the second pressing of the grape.


The two Musketeers reddened to the whites of their eyes. D’Artagnan did
not know where he was, and wished himself a hundred feet underground.

“Yes, yes,” continued M. de Tréville, growing warmer as he spoke, “and
his majesty was right; for, upon my honor, it is true that the
Musketeers make but a miserable figure at court. The cardinal related
yesterday while playing with the king, with an air of condolence very
displeasing to me, that the day before yesterday those _damned
Musketeers_, those _daredevils_—he dwelt upon those words with an
ironical tone still more displeasing to me—those _braggarts_, added he,
glancing at me with his tiger-cat’s eye, had made a riot in the Rue
Férou in a cabaret, and that a party of his Guards (I thought he was
going to laugh in my face) had been forced to arrest the rioters!
_Morbleu!_ You must know something about it. Arrest Musketeers! You
were among them—you were! Don’t deny it; you were recognized, and the
cardinal named you. But it’s all my fault; yes, it’s all my fault,
because it is myself who selects my men. You, Aramis, why the devil did
you ask me for a uniform when you would have been so much better in a
cassock? And you, Porthos, do you only wear such a fine golden baldric
to suspend a sword of straw from it? And Athos—I don’t see Athos. Where
is he?”

“Ill—”

“Very ill, say you? And of what malady?”

“It is feared that it may be the smallpox, sir,” replied Porthos,
desirous of taking his turn in the conversation; “and what is serious
is that it will certainly spoil his face.”

“The smallpox! That’s a great story to tell me, Porthos! Sick of the
smallpox at his age! No, no; but wounded without doubt, killed,
perhaps. Ah, if I knew! S’blood! Messieurs Musketeers, I will not have
this haunting of bad places, this quarreling in the streets, this
swordplay at the crossways; and above all, I will not have occasion
given for the cardinal’s Guards, who are brave, quiet, skillful men who
never put themselves in a position to be arrested, and who, besides,
never allow themselves to be arrested, to laugh at you! I am sure of
it—they would prefer dying on the spot to being arrested or taking back
a step. To save yourselves, to scamper away, to flee—that is good for
the king’s Musketeers!”

Porthos and Aramis trembled with rage. They could willingly have
strangled M. de Tréville, if, at the bottom of all this, they had not
felt it was the great love he bore them which made him speak thus. They
stamped upon the carpet with their feet; they bit their lips till the
blood came, and grasped the hilts of their swords with all their might.
All without had heard, as we have said, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis
called, and had guessed, from M. de Tréville’s tone of voice, that he
was very angry about something. Ten curious heads were glued to the
tapestry and became pale with fury; for their ears, closely applied to
the door, did not lose a syllable of what he said, while their mouths
repeated as he went on, the insulting expressions of the captain to all
the people in the antechamber. In an instant, from the door of the
cabinet to the street gate, the whole hôtel was boiling.

“Ah! The king’s Musketeers are arrested by the Guards of the cardinal,
are they?” continued M. de Tréville, as furious at heart as his
soldiers, but emphasizing his words and plunging them, one by one, so
to say, like so many blows of a stiletto, into the bosoms of his
auditors. “What! Six of his Eminence’s Guards arrest six of his
Majesty’s Musketeers! _Morbleu!_ My part is taken! I will go straight
to the Louvre; I will give in my resignation as captain of the king’s
Musketeers to take a lieutenancy in the cardinal’s Guards, and if he
refuses me, _morbleu!_ I will turn abbé.”

At these words, the murmur without became an explosion; nothing was to
be heard but oaths and blasphemies. The _morbleus_, the _sang Dieus_,
the _morts touts les diables_, crossed one another in the air.
D’Artagnan looked for some tapestry behind which he might hide himself,
and felt an immense inclination to crawl under the table.

“Well, my Captain,” said Porthos, quite beside himself, “the truth is
that we were six against six. But we were not captured by fair means;
and before we had time to draw our swords, two of our party were dead,
and Athos, grievously wounded, was very little better. For you know
Athos. Well, Captain, he endeavored twice to get up, and fell again
twice. And we did not surrender—no! They dragged us away by force. On
the way we escaped. As for Athos, they believed him to be dead, and
left him very quiet on the field of battle, not thinking it worth the
trouble to carry him away. That’s the whole story. What the devil,
Captain, one cannot win all one’s battles! The great Pompey lost that
of Pharsalia; and Francis the First, who was, as I have heard say, as
good as other folks, nevertheless lost the Battle of Pavia.”

“And I have the honor of assuring you that I killed one of them with
his own sword,” said Aramis; “for mine was broken at the first parry.
Killed him, or poniarded him, sir, as is most agreeable to you.”

“I did not know that,” replied M. de Tréville, in a somewhat softened
tone. “The cardinal exaggerated, as I perceive.”

“But pray, sir,” continued Aramis, who, seeing his captain become
appeased, ventured to risk a prayer, “do not say that Athos is wounded.
He would be in despair if that should come to the ears of the king; and
as the wound is very serious, seeing that after crossing the shoulder
it penetrates into the chest, it is to be feared—”

At this instant the tapestry was raised and a noble and handsome head,
but frightfully pale, appeared under the fringe.

“Athos!” cried the two Musketeers.

“Athos!” repeated M. de Tréville himself.

“You have sent for me, sir,” said Athos to M. de Tréville, in a feeble
yet perfectly calm voice, “you have sent for me, as my comrades inform
me, and I have hastened to receive your orders. I am here; what do you
want with me?”

And at these words, the Musketeer, in irreproachable costume, belted as
usual, with a tolerably firm step, entered the cabinet. M. de Tréville,
moved to the bottom of his heart by this proof of courage, sprang
toward him.

“I was about to say to these gentlemen,” added he, “that I forbid my
Musketeers to expose their lives needlessly; for brave men are very
dear to the king, and the king knows that his Musketeers are the
bravest on the earth. Your hand, Athos!”

And without waiting for the answer of the newcomer to this proof of
affection, M. de Tréville seized his right hand and pressed it with all
his might, without perceiving that Athos, whatever might be his
self-command, allowed a slight murmur of pain to escape him, and if
possible, grew paler than he was before.

The door had remained open, so strong was the excitement produced by
the arrival of Athos, whose wound, though kept as a secret, was known
to all. A burst of satisfaction hailed the last words of the captain;
and two or three heads, carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment,
appeared through the openings of the tapestry. M. de Tréville was about
to reprehend this breach of the rules of etiquette, when he felt the
hand of Athos, who had rallied all his energies to contend against
pain, at length overcome by it, fell upon the floor as if he were dead.

“A surgeon!” cried M. de Tréville, “mine! The king’s! The best! A
surgeon! Or, s’blood, my brave Athos will die!”

At the cries of M. de Tréville, the whole assemblage rushed into the
cabinet, he not thinking to shut the door against anyone, and all
crowded round the wounded man. But all this eager attention might have
been useless if the doctor so loudly called for had not chanced to be
in the hôtel. He pushed through the crowd, approached Athos, still
insensible, and as all this noise and commotion inconvenienced him
greatly, he required, as the first and most urgent thing, that the
Musketeer should be carried into an adjoining chamber. Immediately M.
de Tréville opened and pointed the way to Porthos and Aramis, who bore
their comrade in their arms. Behind this group walked the surgeon; and
behind the surgeon the door closed.

The cabinet of M. de Tréville, generally held so sacred, became in an
instant the annex of the antechamber. Everyone spoke, harangued, and
vociferated, swearing, cursing, and consigning the cardinal and his
Guards to all the devils.

An instant after, Porthos and Aramis re-entered, the surgeon and M. de
Tréville alone remaining with the wounded.

At length, M. de Tréville himself returned. The injured man had
recovered his senses. The surgeon declared that the situation of the
Musketeer had nothing in it to render his friends uneasy, his weakness
having been purely and simply caused by loss of blood.

Then M. de Tréville made a sign with his hand, and all retired except
D’Artagnan, who did not forget that he had an audience, and with the
tenacity of a Gascon remained in his place.

When all had gone out and the door was closed, M. de Tréville, on
turning round, found himself alone with the young man. The event which
had occurred had in some degree broken the thread of his ideas. He
inquired what was the will of his persevering visitor. D’Artagnan then
repeated his name, and in an instant recovering all his remembrances of
the present and the past, M. de Tréville grasped the situation.

“Pardon me,” said he, smiling, “pardon me my dear compatriot, but I had
wholly forgotten you. But what help is there for it! A captain is
nothing but a father of a family, charged with even a greater
responsibility than the father of an ordinary family. Soldiers are big
children; but as I maintain that the orders of the king, and more
particularly the orders of the cardinal, should be executed—”

D’Artagnan could not restrain a smile. By this smile M. de Tréville
judged that he had not to deal with a fool, and changing the
conversation, came straight to the point.

“I respected your father very much,” said he. “What can I do for the
son? Tell me quickly; my time is not my own.”

“Monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, “on quitting Tarbes and coming hither, it
was my intention to request of you, in remembrance of the friendship
which you have not forgotten, the uniform of a Musketeer; but after all
that I have seen during the last two hours, I comprehend that such a
favor is enormous, and tremble lest I should not merit it.”

“It is indeed a favor, young man,” replied M. de Tréville, “but it may
not be so far beyond your hopes as you believe, or rather as you appear
to believe. But his majesty’s decision is always necessary; and I
inform you with regret that no one becomes a Musketeer without the
preliminary ordeal of several campaigns, certain brilliant actions, or
a service of two years in some other regiment less favored than ours.”

D’Artagnan bowed without replying, feeling his desire to don the
Musketeer’s uniform vastly increased by the great difficulties which
preceded the attainment of it.

“But,” continued M. de Tréville, fixing upon his compatriot a look so
piercing that it might be said he wished to read the thoughts of his
heart, “on account of my old companion, your father, as I have said, I
will do something for you, young man. Our recruits from Béarn are not
generally very rich, and I have no reason to think matters have much
changed in this respect since I left the province. I dare say you have
not brought too large a stock of money with you?”

D’Artagnan drew himself up with a proud air which plainly said, “I ask
alms of no man.”

“Oh, that’s very well, young man,” continued M. de Tréville, “that’s
all very well. I know these airs; I myself came to Paris with four
crowns in my purse, and would have fought with anyone who dared to tell
me I was not in a condition to purchase the Louvre.”

D’Artagnan’s bearing became still more imposing. Thanks to the sale of
his horse, he commenced his career with four more crowns than M. de
Tréville possessed at the commencement of his.

“You ought, I say, then, to husband the means you have, however large
the sum may be; but you ought also to endeavor to perfect yourself in
the exercises becoming a gentleman. I will write a letter today to the
Director of the Royal Academy, and tomorrow he will admit you without
any expense to yourself. Do not refuse this little service. Our
best-born and richest gentlemen sometimes solicit it without being able
to obtain it. You will learn horsemanship, swordsmanship in all its
branches, and dancing. You will make some desirable acquaintances; and
from time to time you can call upon me, just to tell me how you are
getting on, and to say whether I can be of further service to you.”

D’Artagnan, stranger as he was to all the manners of a court, could not
but perceive a little coldness in this reception.

“Alas, sir,” said he, “I cannot but perceive how sadly I miss the
letter of introduction which my father gave me to present to you.”

“I certainly am surprised,” replied M. de Tréville, “that you should
undertake so long a journey without that necessary passport, the sole
resource of us poor Béarnese.”

“I had one, sir, and, thank God, such as I could wish,” cried
D’Artagnan; “but it was perfidiously stolen from me.”

He then related the adventure of Meung, described the unknown gentleman
with the greatest minuteness, and all with a warmth and truthfulness
that delighted M. de Tréville.

“This is all very strange,” said M. de Tréville, after meditating a
minute; “you mentioned my name, then, aloud?”

“Yes, sir, I certainly committed that imprudence; but why should I have
done otherwise? A name like yours must be as a buckler to me on my way.
Judge if I should not put myself under its protection.”

Flattery was at that period very current, and M. de Tréville loved
incense as well as a king, or even a cardinal. He could not refrain
from a smile of visible satisfaction; but this smile soon disappeared,
and returning to the adventure of Meung, “Tell me,” continued he, “had
not this gentlemen a slight scar on his cheek?”

“Yes, such a one as would be made by the grazing of a ball.”

“Was he not a fine-looking man?”

“Yes.”

“Of lofty stature.”

“Yes.”

“Of pale complexion and brown hair?”

“Yes, yes, that is he; how is it, sir, that you are acquainted with
this man? If I ever find him again—and I will find him, I swear, were
it in hell!”

“He was waiting for a woman,” continued Tréville.

“He departed immediately after having conversed for a minute with her
whom he awaited.”

“You know not the subject of their conversation?”

“He gave her a box, told her not to open it except in London.”

“Was this woman English?”

“He called her Milady.”

“It is he; it must be he!” murmured Tréville. “I believed him still at
Brussels.”

“Oh, sir, if you know who this man is,” cried D’Artagnan, “tell me who
he is, and whence he is. I will then release you from all your
promises—even that of procuring my admission into the Musketeers; for
before everything, I wish to avenge myself.”

“Beware, young man!” cried Tréville. “If you see him coming on one side
of the street, pass by on the other. Do not cast yourself against such
a rock; he would break you like glass.”

“That will not prevent me,” replied D’Artagnan, “if ever I find him.”

“In the meantime,” said Tréville, “seek him not—if I have a right to
advise you.”

All at once the captain stopped, as if struck by a sudden suspicion.
This great hatred which the young traveler manifested so loudly for
this man, who—a rather improbable thing—had stolen his father’s letter
from him—was there not some perfidy concealed under this hatred? Might
not this young man be sent by his Eminence? Might he not have come for
the purpose of laying a snare for him? This pretended D’Artagnan—was he
not an emissary of the cardinal, whom the cardinal sought to introduce
into Tréville’s house, to place near him, to win his confidence, and
afterward to ruin him as had been done in a thousand other instances?
He fixed his eyes upon D’Artagnan even more earnestly than before. He
was moderately reassured, however, by the aspect of that countenance,
full of astute intelligence and affected humility. “I know he is a
Gascon,” reflected he, “but he may be one for the cardinal as well as
for me. Let us try him.”

“My friend,” said he, slowly, “I wish, as the son of an ancient
friend—for I consider this story of the lost letter perfectly true—I
wish, I say, in order to repair the coldness you may have remarked in
my reception of you, to discover to you the secrets of our policy. The
king and the cardinal are the best of friends; their apparent
bickerings are only feints to deceive fools. I am not willing that a
compatriot, a handsome cavalier, a brave youth, quite fit to make his
way, should become the dupe of all these artifices and fall into the
snare after the example of so many others who have been ruined by it.
Be assured that I am devoted to both these all-powerful masters, and
that my earnest endeavors have no other aim than the service of the
king, and also the cardinal—one of the most illustrious geniuses that
France has ever produced.

“Now, young man, regulate your conduct accordingly; and if you
entertain, whether from your family, your relations, or even from your
instincts, any of these enmities which we see constantly breaking out
against the cardinal, bid me adieu and let us separate. I will aid you
in many ways, but without attaching you to my person. I hope that my
frankness at least will make you my friend; for you are the only young
man to whom I have hitherto spoken as I have done to you.”

Tréville said to himself: “If the cardinal has set this young fox upon
me, he will certainly not have failed—he, who knows how bitterly I
execrate him—to tell his spy that the best means of making his court to
me is to rail at him. Therefore, in spite of all my protestations, if
it be as I suspect, my cunning gossip will assure me that he holds his
Eminence in horror.”

It, however, proved otherwise. D’Artagnan answered, with the greatest
simplicity: “I came to Paris with exactly such intentions. My father
advised me to stoop to nobody but the king, the cardinal, and
yourself—whom he considered the first three personages in France.”

D’Artagnan added M. de Tréville to the others, as may be perceived; but
he thought this addition would do no harm.

“I have the greatest veneration for the cardinal,” continued he, “and
the most profound respect for his actions. So much the better for me,
sir, if you speak to me, as you say, with frankness—for then you will
do me the honor to esteem the resemblance of our opinions; but if you
have entertained any doubt, as naturally you may, I feel that I am
ruining myself by speaking the truth. But I still trust you will not
esteem me the less for it, and that is my object beyond all others.”

M. de Tréville was surprised to the greatest degree. So much
penetration, so much frankness, created admiration, but did not
entirely remove his suspicions. The more this young man was superior to
others, the more he was to be dreaded if he meant to deceive him.
Nevertheless, he pressed D’Artagnan’s hand, and said to him: “You are
an honest youth; but at the present moment I can only do for you that
which I just now offered. My hôtel will be always open to you.
Hereafter, being able to ask for me at all hours, and consequently to
take advantage of all opportunities, you will probably obtain that
which you desire.”

“That is to say,” replied D’Artagnan, “that you will wait until I have
proved myself worthy of it. Well, be assured,” added he, with the
familiarity of a Gascon, “you shall not wait long.” And he bowed in
order to retire, and as if he considered the future in his own hands.

“But wait a minute,” said M. de Tréville, stopping him. “I promised you
a letter for the director of the Academy. Are you too proud to accept
it, young gentleman?”

“No, sir,” said D’Artagnan; “and I will guard it so carefully that I
will be sworn it shall arrive at its address, and woe be to him who
shall attempt to take it from me!”

M. de Tréville smiled at this flourish; and leaving his young man
compatriot in the embrasure of the window, where they had talked
together, he seated himself at a table in order to write the promised
letter of recommendation. While he was doing this, D’Artagnan, having
no better employment, amused himself with beating a march upon the
window and with looking at the Musketeers, who went away, one after
another, following them with his eyes until they disappeared.

M. de Tréville, after having written the letter, sealed it, and rising,
approached the young man in order to give it to him. But at the very
moment when D’Artagnan stretched out his hand to receive it, M. de
Tréville was highly astonished to see his _protégé_ make a sudden
spring, become crimson with passion, and rush from the cabinet crying,
“S’blood, he shall not escape me this time!”

“And who?” asked M. de Tréville.

“He, my thief!” replied D’Artagnan. “Ah, the traitor!” and he
disappeared.

“The devil take the madman!” murmured M. de Tréville, “unless,” added
he, “this is a cunning mode of escaping, seeing that he had failed in
his purpose!”




Chapter IV.
THE SHOULDER OF ATHOS, THE BALDRIC OF PORTHOS AND THE HANDKERCHIEF OF
ARAMIS


D’Artagnan, in a state of fury, crossed the antechamber at three
bounds, and was darting toward the stairs, which he reckoned upon
descending four at a time, when, in his heedless course, he ran head
foremost against a Musketeer who was coming out of one of M. de
Tréville’s private rooms, and striking his shoulder violently, made him
utter a cry, or rather a howl.

“Excuse me,” said D’Artagnan, endeavoring to resume his course, “excuse
me, but I am in a hurry.”

Scarcely had he descended the first stair, when a hand of iron seized
him by the belt and stopped him.

“You are in a hurry?” said the Musketeer, as pale as a sheet. “Under
that pretense you run against me! You say, ‘Excuse me,’ and you believe
that is sufficient? Not at all, my young man. Do you fancy because you
have heard Monsieur de Tréville speak to us a little cavalierly today
that other people are to treat us as he speaks to us? Undeceive
yourself, comrade, you are not Monsieur de Tréville.”

“My faith!” replied D’Artagnan, recognizing Athos, who, after the
dressing performed by the doctor, was returning to his own apartment.
“I did not do it intentionally, and not doing it intentionally, I said
‘Excuse me.’ It appears to me that this is quite enough. I repeat to
you, however, and this time on my word of honor—I think perhaps too
often—that I am in haste, great haste. Leave your hold, then, I beg of
you, and let me go where my business calls me.”

“Monsieur,” said Athos, letting him go, “you are not polite; it is easy
to perceive that you come from a distance.”

D’Artagnan had already strode down three or four stairs, but at Athos’s
last remark he stopped short.

“_Morbleu_, monsieur!” said he, “however far I may come, it is not you
who can give me a lesson in good manners, I warn you.”

“Perhaps,” said Athos.

“Ah! If I were not in such haste, and if I were not running after
someone,” said D’Artagnan.

“Monsieur Man-in-a-hurry, you can find me without running—_me_, you
understand?”

“And where, I pray you?”

“Near the Carmes-Deschaux.”

“At what hour?”

“About noon.”

“About noon? That will do; I will be there.”

“Endeavor not to make me wait; for at quarter past twelve I will cut
off your ears as you run.”

“Good!” cried D’Artagnan, “I will be there ten minutes before twelve.”
And he set off running as if the devil possessed him, hoping that he
might yet find the stranger, whose slow pace could not have carried him
far.

But at the street gate, Porthos was talking with the soldier on guard.
Between the two talkers there was just enough room for a man to pass.
D’Artagnan thought it would suffice for him, and he sprang forward like
a dart between them. But D’Artagnan had reckoned without the wind. As
he was about to pass, the wind blew out Porthos’s long cloak, and
D’Artagnan rushed straight into the middle of it. Without doubt,
Porthos had reasons for not abandoning this part of his vestments, for
instead of quitting his hold on the flap in his hand, he pulled it
toward him, so that D’Artagnan rolled himself up in the velvet by a
movement of rotation explained by the persistency of Porthos.

D’Artagnan, hearing the Musketeer swear, wished to escape from the
cloak, which blinded him, and sought to find his way from under the
folds of it. He was particularly anxious to avoid marring the freshness
of the magnificent baldric we are acquainted with; but on timidly
opening his eyes, he found himself with his nose fixed between the two
shoulders of Porthos—that is to say, exactly upon the baldric.

Alas, like most things in this world which have nothing in their favor
but appearances, the baldric was glittering with gold in the front, but
was nothing but simple buff behind. Vainglorious as he was, Porthos
could not afford to have a baldric wholly of gold, but had at least
half. One could comprehend the necessity of the cold and the urgency of
the cloak.

“Bless me!” cried Porthos, making strong efforts to disembarrass
himself of D’Artagnan, who was wriggling about his back; “you must be
mad to run against people in this manner.”

“Excuse me,” said D’Artagnan, reappearing under the shoulder of the
giant, “but I am in such haste—I was running after someone and—”

“And do you always forget your eyes when you run?” asked Porthos.

“No,” replied D’Artagnan, piqued, “and thanks to my eyes, I can see
what other people cannot see.”

Whether Porthos understood him or did not understand him, giving way to
his anger, “Monsieur,” said he, “you stand a chance of getting
chastised if you rub Musketeers in this fashion.”

“Chastised, Monsieur!” said D’Artagnan, “the expression is strong.”

“It is one that becomes a man accustomed to look his enemies in the
face.”

“Ah, _pardieu!_ I know full well that you don’t turn your back to
yours.”

And the young man, delighted with his joke, went away laughing loudly.

Porthos foamed with rage, and made a movement to rush after D’Artagnan.

“Presently, presently,” cried the latter, “when you haven’t your cloak
on.”

“At one o’clock, then, behind the Luxembourg.”

“Very well, at one o’clock, then,” replied D’Artagnan, turning the
angle of the street.

But neither in the street he had passed through, nor in the one which
his eager glance pervaded, could he see anyone; however slowly the
stranger had walked, he was gone on his way, or perhaps had entered
some house. D’Artagnan inquired of everyone he met with, went down to
the ferry, came up again by the Rue de Seine, and the Red Cross; but
nothing, absolutely nothing! This chase was, however, advantageous to
him in one sense, for in proportion as the perspiration broke from his
forehead, his heart began to cool.

He began to reflect upon the events that had passed; they were numerous
and inauspicious. It was scarcely eleven o’clock in the morning, and
yet this morning had already brought him into disgrace with M. de
Tréville, who could not fail to think the manner in which D’Artagnan
had left him a little cavalier.

Besides this, he had drawn upon himself two good duels with two men,
each capable of killing three D’Artagnans—with two Musketeers, in
short, with two of those beings whom he esteemed so greatly that he
placed them in his mind and heart above all other men.

The outlook was sad. Sure of being killed by Athos, it may easily be
understood that the young man was not very uneasy about Porthos. As
hope, however, is the last thing extinguished in the heart of man, he
finished by hoping that he might survive, even though with terrible
wounds, in both these duels; and in case of surviving, he made the
following reprehensions upon his own conduct:

“What a madcap I was, and what a stupid fellow I am! That brave and
unfortunate Athos was wounded on that very shoulder against which I
must run head foremost, like a ram. The only thing that astonishes me
is that he did not strike me dead at once. He had good cause to do so;
the pain I gave him must have been atrocious. As to Porthos—oh, as to
Porthos, faith, that’s a droll affair!”

And in spite of himself, the young man began to laugh aloud, looking
round carefully, however, to see that his solitary laugh, without a
cause in the eyes of passers-by, offended no one.

“As to Porthos, that is certainly droll; but I am not the less a giddy
fool. Are people to be run against without warning? No! And have I any
right to go and peep under their cloaks to see what is not there? He
would have pardoned me, he would certainly have pardoned me, if I had
not said anything to him about that cursed baldric—in ambiguous words,
it is true, but rather drolly ambiguous. Ah, cursed Gascon that I am, I
get from one hobble into another. Friend D’Artagnan,” continued he,
speaking to himself with all the amenity that he thought due himself,
“if you escape, of which there is not much chance, I would advise you
to practice perfect politeness for the future. You must henceforth be
admired and quoted as a model of it. To be obliging and polite does not
necessarily make a man a coward. Look at Aramis, now; Aramis is
mildness and grace personified. Well, did anybody ever dream of calling
Aramis a coward? No, certainly not, and from this moment I will
endeavor to model myself after him. Ah! That’s strange! Here he is!”

D’Artagnan, walking and soliloquizing, had arrived within a few steps
of the hôtel d’Arguillon and in front of that hôtel perceived Aramis,
chatting gaily with three gentlemen; but as he had not forgotten that
it was in presence of this young man that M. de Tréville had been so
angry in the morning, and as a witness of the rebuke the Musketeers had
received was not likely to be at all agreeable, he pretended not to see
him. D’Artagnan, on the contrary, quite full of his plans of
conciliation and courtesy, approached the young men with a profound
bow, accompanied by a most gracious smile. All four, besides,
immediately broke off their conversation.

D’Artagnan was not so dull as not to perceive that he was one too many;
but he was not sufficiently broken into the fashions of the gay world
to know how to extricate himself gallantly from a false position, like
that of a man who begins to mingle with people he is scarcely
acquainted with and in a conversation that does not concern him. He was
seeking in his mind, then, for the least awkward means of retreat, when
he remarked that Aramis had let his handkerchief fall, and by mistake,
no doubt, had placed his foot upon it. This appeared to be a favorable
opportunity to repair his intrusion. He stooped, and with the most
gracious air he could assume, drew the handkerchief from under the foot
of the Musketeer in spite of the efforts the latter made to detain it,
and holding it out to him, said, “I believe, monsieur, that this is a
handkerchief you would be sorry to lose?”

The handkerchief was indeed richly embroidered, and had a coronet and
arms at one of its corners. Aramis blushed excessively, and snatched
rather than took the handkerchief from the hand of the Gascon.

“Ah, ah!” cried one of the Guards, “will you persist in saying, most
discreet Aramis, that you are not on good terms with Madame de
Bois-Tracy, when that gracious lady has the kindness to lend you one of
her handkerchiefs?”

Aramis darted at D’Artagnan one of those looks which inform a man that
he has acquired a mortal enemy. Then, resuming his mild air, “You are
deceived, gentlemen,” said he, “this handkerchief is not mine, and I
cannot fancy why Monsieur has taken it into his head to offer it to me
rather than to one of you; and as a proof of what I say, here is mine
in my pocket.”

So saying, he pulled out his own handkerchief, likewise a very elegant
handkerchief, and of fine cambric—though cambric was dear at the
period—but a handkerchief without embroidery and without arms, only
ornamented with a single cipher, that of its proprietor.

This time D’Artagnan was not hasty. He perceived his mistake; but the
friends of Aramis were not at all convinced by his denial, and one of
them addressed the young Musketeer with affected seriousness. “If it
were as you pretend it is,” said he, “I should be forced, my dear
Aramis, to reclaim it myself; for, as you very well know, Bois-Tracy is
an intimate friend of mine, and I cannot allow the property of his wife
to be sported as a trophy.”

“You make the demand badly,” replied Aramis; “and while acknowledging
the justice of your reclamation, I refuse it on account of the form.”

“The fact is,” hazarded D’Artagnan, timidly, “I did not see the
handkerchief fall from the pocket of Monsieur Aramis. He had his foot
upon it, that is all; and I thought from having his foot upon it the
handkerchief was his.”

“And you were deceived, my dear sir,” replied Aramis, coldly, very
little sensible to the reparation. Then turning toward that one of the
guards who had declared himself the friend of Bois-Tracy, “Besides,”
continued he, “I have reflected, my dear intimate of Bois-Tracy, that I
am not less tenderly his friend than you can possibly be; so that
decidedly this handkerchief is as likely to have fallen from your
pocket as mine.”

“No, upon my honor!” cried his Majesty’s Guardsman.

“You are about to swear upon your honor and I upon my word, and then it
will be pretty evident that one of us will have lied. Now, here,
Montaran, we will do better than that—let each take a half.”

“Of the handkerchief?”

“Yes.”

“Perfectly just,” cried the other two Guardsmen, “the judgment of King
Solomon! Aramis, you certainly are full of wisdom!”

The young men burst into a laugh, and as may be supposed, the affair
had no other sequel. In a moment or two the conversation ceased, and
the three Guardsmen and the Musketeer, after having cordially shaken
hands, separated, the Guardsmen going one way and Aramis another.

“Now is my time to make peace with this gallant man,” said D’Artagnan
to himself, having stood on one side during the whole of the latter
part of the conversation; and with this good feeling drawing near to
Aramis, who was departing without paying any attention to him,
“Monsieur,” said he, “you will excuse me, I hope.”

“Ah, monsieur,” interrupted Aramis, “permit me to observe to you that
you have not acted in this affair as a gallant man ought.”

“What, monsieur!” cried D’Artagnan, “and do you suppose—”

“I suppose, monsieur, that you are not a fool, and that you knew very
well, although coming from Gascony, that people do not tread upon
handkerchiefs without a reason. What the devil! Paris is not paved with
cambric!”

“Monsieur, you act wrongly in endeavoring to mortify me,” said
D’Artagnan, in whom the natural quarrelsome spirit began to speak more
loudly than his pacific resolutions. “I am from Gascony, it is true;
and since you know it, there is no occasion to tell you that Gascons
are not very patient, so that when they have begged to be excused once,
were it even for a folly, they are convinced that they have done
already at least as much again as they ought to have done.”

“Monsieur, what I say to you about the matter,” said Aramis, “is not
for the sake of seeking a quarrel. Thank God, I am not a bravo! And
being a Musketeer but for a time, I only fight when I am forced to do
so, and always with great repugnance; but this time the affair is
serious, for here is a lady compromised by you.”

“By _us_, you mean!” cried D’Artagnan.

“Why did you so maladroitly restore me the handkerchief?”

“Why did you so awkwardly let it fall?”

“I have said, monsieur, and I repeat, that the handkerchief did not
fall from my pocket.”

“And thereby you have lied twice, monsieur, for I saw it fall.”

“Ah, you take it with that tone, do you, Master Gascon? Well, I will
teach you how to behave yourself.”

“And I will send you back to your Mass book, Master Abbé. Draw, if you
please, and instantly—”

“Not so, if you please, my good friend—not here, at least. Do you not
perceive that we are opposite the Hôtel d’Arguillon, which is full of
the cardinal’s creatures? How do I know that this is not his Eminence
who has honored you with the commission to procure my head? Now, I
entertain a ridiculous partiality for my head, it seems to suit my
shoulders so correctly. I wish to kill you, be at rest as to that, but
to kill you quietly in a snug, remote place, where you will not be able
to boast of your death to anybody.”

“I agree, monsieur; but do not be too confident. Take your
handkerchief; whether it belongs to you or another, you may perhaps
stand in need of it.”

“Monsieur is a Gascon?” asked Aramis.

“Yes. Monsieur does not postpone an interview through prudence?”

“Prudence, monsieur, is a virtue sufficiently useless to Musketeers, I
know, but indispensable to churchmen; and as I am only a Musketeer
provisionally, I hold it good to be prudent. At two o’clock I shall
have the honor of expecting you at the hôtel of Monsieur de Tréville.
There I will indicate to you the best place and time.”

The two young men bowed and separated, Aramis ascending the street
which led to the Luxembourg, while D’Artagnan, perceiving the appointed
hour was approaching, took the road to the Carmes-Deschaux, saying to
himself, “Decidedly I can’t draw back; but at least, if I am killed, I
shall be killed by a Musketeer.”




Chapter V.
THE KING’S MUSKETEERS AND THE CARDINAL’S GUARDS


D’Artagnan was acquainted with nobody in Paris. He went therefore to
his appointment with Athos without a second, determined to be satisfied
with those his adversary should choose. Besides, his intention was
formed to make the brave Musketeer all suitable apologies, but without
meanness or weakness, fearing that might result from this duel which
generally results from an affair of this kind, when a young and
vigorous man fights with an adversary who is wounded and weakened—if
conquered, he doubles the triumph of his antagonist; if a conqueror, he
is accused of foul play and want of courage.

Now, we must have badly painted the character of our adventure seeker,
or our readers must have already perceived that D’Artagnan was not an
ordinary man; therefore, while repeating to himself that his death was
inevitable, he did not make up his mind to die quietly, as one less
courageous and less restrained might have done in his place. He
reflected upon the different characters of those with whom he was going
to fight, and began to view his situation more clearly. He hoped, by
means of loyal excuses, to make a friend of Athos, whose lordly air and
austere bearing pleased him much. He flattered himself he should be
able to frighten Porthos with the adventure of the baldric, which he
might, if not killed upon the spot, relate to everybody a recital
which, well managed, would cover Porthos with ridicule. As to the
astute Aramis, he did not entertain much dread of him; and supposing he
should be able to get so far, he determined to dispatch him in good
style or at least, by hitting him in the face, as Cæsar recommended his
soldiers do to those of Pompey, to damage forever the beauty of which
he was so proud.

In addition to this, D’Artagnan possessed that invincible stock of
resolution which the counsels of his father had implanted in his heart:
“Endure nothing from anyone but the king, the cardinal, and Monsieur de
Tréville.” He flew, then, rather than walked, toward the convent of the
Carmes Déchaussés, or rather Deschaux, as it was called at that period,
a sort of building without a window, surrounded by barren fields—an
accessory to the Preaux-Clercs, and which was generally employed as the
place for the duels of men who had no time to lose.

When D’Artagnan arrived in sight of the bare spot of ground which
extended along the foot of the monastery, Athos had been waiting about
five minutes, and twelve o’clock was striking. He was, then, as
punctual as the Samaritan woman, and the most rigorous casuist with
regard to duels could have nothing to say.

Athos, who still suffered grievously from his wound, though it had been
dressed anew by M. de Tréville’s surgeon, was seated on a post and
waiting for his adversary with hat in hand, his feather even touching
the ground.

“Monsieur,” said Athos, “I have engaged two of my friends as seconds;
but these two friends are not yet come, at which I am astonished, as it
is not at all their custom.”

“I have no seconds on my part, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan; “for having
only arrived yesterday in Paris, I as yet know no one but Monsieur de
Tréville, to whom I was recommended by my father, who has the honor to
be, in some degree, one of his friends.”

Athos reflected for an instant. “You know no one but Monsieur de
Tréville?” he asked.

“Yes, monsieur, I know only him.”

“Well, but then,” continued Athos, speaking half to himself, “if I kill
you, I shall have the air of a boy-slayer.”

“Not too much so,” replied D’Artagnan, with a bow that was not
deficient in dignity, “since you do me the honor to draw a sword with
me while suffering from a wound which is very inconvenient.”

“Very inconvenient, upon my word; and you hurt me devilishly, I can
tell you. But I will take the left hand—it is my custom in such
circumstances. Do not fancy that I do you a favor; I use either hand
easily. And it will be even a disadvantage to you; a left-handed man is
very troublesome to people who are not prepared for it. I regret I did
not inform you sooner of this circumstance.”

“You have truly, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, bowing again, “a courtesy,
for which, I assure you, I am very grateful.”

“You confuse me,” replied Athos, with his gentlemanly air; “let us talk
of something else, if you please. Ah, s’blood, how you have hurt me! My
shoulder quite burns.”

“If you would permit me—” said D’Artagnan, with timidity.

“What, monsieur?”

“I have a miraculous balsam for wounds—a balsam given to me by my
mother and of which I have made a trial upon myself.”

“Well?”

“Well, I am sure that in less than three days this balsam would cure
you; and at the end of three days, when you would be cured—well, sir,
it would still do me a great honor to be your man.”

D’Artagnan spoke these words with a simplicity that did honor to his
courtesy, without throwing the least doubt upon his courage.

“_Pardieu_, monsieur!” said Athos, “that’s a proposition that pleases
me; not that I can accept it, but a league off it savors of the
gentleman. Thus spoke and acted the gallant knights of the time of
Charlemagne, in whom every cavalier ought to seek his model.
Unfortunately, we do not live in the times of the great emperor, we
live in the times of the cardinal; and three days hence, however well
the secret might be guarded, it would be known, I say, that we were to
fight, and our combat would be prevented. I think these fellows will
never come.”

“If you are in haste, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, with the same
simplicity with which a moment before he had proposed to him to put off
the duel for three days, “and if it be your will to dispatch me at
once, do not inconvenience yourself, I pray you.”

“There is another word which pleases me,” cried Athos, with a gracious
nod to D’Artagnan. “That did not come from a man without a heart.
Monsieur, I love men of your kidney; and I foresee plainly that if we
don’t kill each other, I shall hereafter have much pleasure in your
conversation. We will wait for these gentlemen, so please you; I have
plenty of time, and it will be more correct. Ah, here is one of them, I
believe.”

In fact, at the end of the Rue Vaugirard the gigantic Porthos appeared.

“What!” cried D’Artagnan, “is your first witness Monsieur Porthos?”

“Yes, that disturbs you?”

“By no means.”

“And here is the second.”

D’Artagnan turned in the direction pointed to by Athos, and perceived
Aramis.

“What!” cried he, in an accent of greater astonishment than before,
“your second witness is Monsieur Aramis?”

“Doubtless! Are you not aware that we are never seen one without the
others, and that we are called among the Musketeers and the Guards, at
court and in the city, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, or the Three
Inseparables? And yet, as you come from Dax or Pau—”

“From Tarbes,” said D’Artagnan.

“It is probable you are ignorant of this little fact,” said Athos.

“My faith!” replied D’Artagnan, “you are well named, gentlemen; and my
adventure, if it should make any noise, will prove at least that your
union is not founded upon contrasts.”

In the meantime, Porthos had come up, waved his hand to Athos, and then
turning toward D’Artagnan, stood quite astonished.

Let us say in passing that he had changed his baldric and relinquished
his cloak.

“Ah, ah!” said he, “what does this mean?”

“This is the gentleman I am going to fight with,” said Athos, pointing
to D’Artagnan with his hand and saluting him with the same gesture.

“Why, it is with him I am also going to fight,” said Porthos.

“But not before one o’clock,” replied D’Artagnan.

“And I also am to fight with this gentleman,” said Aramis, coming in
his turn onto the place.

“But not until two o’clock,” said D’Artagnan, with the same calmness.

“But what are you going to fight about, Athos?” asked Aramis.

“Faith! I don’t very well know. He hurt my shoulder. And you, Porthos?”

“Faith! I am going to fight—because I am going to fight,” answered
Porthos, reddening.

Athos, whose keen eye lost nothing, perceived a faintly sly smile pass
over the lips of the young Gascon as he replied, “We had a short
discussion upon dress.”

“And you, Aramis?” asked Athos.

“Oh, ours is a theological quarrel,” replied Aramis, making a sign to
D’Artagnan to keep secret the cause of their duel.

Athos indeed saw a second smile on the lips of D’Artagnan.

“Indeed?” said Athos.

“Yes; a passage of St. Augustine, upon which we could not agree,” said
the Gascon.

“Decidedly, this is a clever fellow,” murmured Athos.

“And now you are assembled, gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, “permit me to
offer you my apologies.”

At this word _apologies_, a cloud passed over the brow of Athos, a
haughty smile curled the lip of Porthos, and a negative sign was the
reply of Aramis.

“You do not understand me, gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, throwing up his
head, the sharp and bold lines of which were at the moment gilded by a
bright ray of the sun. “I asked to be excused in case I should not be
able to discharge my debt to all three; for Monsieur Athos has the
right to kill me first, which must much diminish the face-value of your
bill, Monsieur Porthos, and render yours almost null, Monsieur Aramis.
And now, gentlemen, I repeat, excuse me, but on that account only,
and—on guard!”

At these words, with the most gallant air possible, D’Artagnan drew his
sword.

The blood had mounted to the head of D’Artagnan, and at that moment he
would have drawn his sword against all the Musketeers in the kingdom as
willingly as he now did against Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

It was a quarter past midday. The sun was in its zenith, and the spot
chosen for the scene of the duel was exposed to its full ardor.

“It is very hot,” said Athos, drawing his sword in its turn, “and yet I
cannot take off my doublet; for I just now felt my wound begin to bleed
again, and I should not like to annoy Monsieur with the sight of blood
which he has not drawn from me himself.”

“That is true, Monsieur,” replied D’Artagnan, “and whether drawn by
myself or another, I assure you I shall always view with regret the
blood of so brave a gentleman. I will therefore fight in my doublet,
like yourself.”

“Come, come, enough of such compliments!” cried Porthos. “Remember, we
are waiting for our turns.”

“Speak for yourself when you are inclined to utter such incongruities,”
interrupted Aramis. “For my part, I think what they say is very well
said, and quite worthy of two gentlemen.”

“When you please, monsieur,” said Athos, putting himself on guard.

“I waited your orders,” said D’Artagnan, crossing swords.

But scarcely had the two rapiers clashed, when a company of the Guards
of his Eminence, commanded by M. de Jussac, turned the corner of the
convent.

“The cardinal’s Guards!” cried Aramis and Porthos at the same time.
“Sheathe your swords, gentlemen, sheathe your swords!”

But it was too late. The two combatants had been seen in a position
which left no doubt of their intentions.

“Halloo!” cried Jussac, advancing toward them and making a sign to his
men to do so likewise, “halloo, Musketeers? Fighting here, are you? And
the edicts? What is become of them?”

“You are very generous, gentlemen of the Guards,” said Athos, full of
rancor, for Jussac was one of the aggressors of the preceding day. “If
we were to see you fighting, I can assure you that we would make no
effort to prevent you. Leave us alone, then, and you will enjoy a
little amusement without cost to yourselves.”

“Gentlemen,” said Jussac, “it is with great regret that I pronounce the
thing impossible. Duty before everything. Sheathe, then, if you please,
and follow us.”

“Monsieur,” said Aramis, parodying Jussac, “it would afford us great
pleasure to obey your polite invitation if it depended upon ourselves;
but unfortunately the thing is impossible—Monsieur de Tréville has
forbidden it. Pass on your way, then; it is the best thing to do.”

This raillery exasperated Jussac. “We will charge upon you, then,” said
he, “if you disobey.”

“There are five of them,” said Athos, half aloud, “and we are but
three; we shall be beaten again, and must die on the spot, for, on my
part, I declare I will never appear again before the captain as a
conquered man.”

Athos, Porthos, and Aramis instantly drew near one another, while
Jussac drew up his soldiers.

This short interval was sufficient to determine D’Artagnan on the part
he was to take. It was one of those events which decide the life of a
man; it was a choice between the king and the cardinal—the choice made,
it must be persisted in. To fight, that was to disobey the law, that
was to risk his head, that was to make at one blow an enemy of a
minister more powerful than the king himself. All this the young man
perceived, and yet, to his praise we speak it, he did not hesitate a
second. Turning towards Athos and his friends, “Gentlemen,” said he,
“allow me to correct your words, if you please. You said you were but
three, but it appears to me we are four.”

“But you are not one of us,” said Porthos.

“That’s true,” replied D’Artagnan; “I have not the uniform, but I have
the spirit. My heart is that of a Musketeer; I feel it, monsieur, and
that impels me on.”

“Withdraw, young man,” cried Jussac, who doubtless, by his gestures and
the expression of his countenance, had guessed D’Artagnan’s design.
“You may retire; we consent to that. Save your skin; begone quickly.”

D’Artagnan did not budge.

“Decidedly, you are a brave fellow,” said Athos, pressing the young
man’s hand.

“Come, come, choose your part,” replied Jussac.

“Well,” said Porthos to Aramis, “we must do something.”

“Monsieur is full of generosity,” said Athos.

But all three reflected upon the youth of D’Artagnan, and dreaded his
inexperience.

“We should only be three, one of whom is wounded, with the addition of
a boy,” resumed Athos; “and yet it will not be the less said we were
four men.”

“Yes, but to yield!” said Porthos.

“That _is_ difficult,” replied Athos.

D’Artagnan comprehended their irresolution.

“Try me, gentlemen,” said he, “and I swear to you by my honor that I
will not go hence if we are conquered.”

“What is your name, my brave fellow?” said Athos.

“D’Artagnan, monsieur.”

“Well, then, Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan, forward!” cried
Athos.

“Come, gentlemen, have you decided?” cried Jussac for the third time.

“It is done, gentlemen,” said Athos.

“And what is your choice?” asked Jussac.

“We are about to have the honor of charging you,” replied Aramis,
lifting his hat with one hand and drawing his sword with the other.

“Ah! You resist, do you?” cried Jussac.

“S’blood; does that astonish you?”

And the nine combatants rushed upon each other with a fury which
however did not exclude a certain degree of method.

Athos fixed upon a certain Cahusac, a favorite of the cardinal’s.
Porthos had Bicarat, and Aramis found himself opposed to two
adversaries. As to D’Artagnan, he sprang toward Jussac himself.

The heart of the young Gascon beat as if it would burst through his
side—not from fear, God be thanked, he had not the shade of it, but
with emulation; he fought like a furious tiger, turning ten times round
his adversary, and changing his ground and his guard twenty times.
Jussac was, as was then said, a fine blade, and had had much practice;
nevertheless it required all his skill to defend himself against an
adversary who, active and energetic, departed every instant from
received rules, attacking him on all sides at once, and yet parrying
like a man who had the greatest respect for his own epidermis.

This contest at length exhausted Jussac’s patience. Furious at being
held in check by one whom he had considered a boy, he became warm and
began to make mistakes. D’Artagnan, who though wanting in practice had
a sound theory, redoubled his agility. Jussac, anxious to put an end to
this, springing forward, aimed a terrible thrust at his adversary, but
the latter parried it; and while Jussac was recovering himself, glided
like a serpent beneath his blade, and passed his sword through his
body. Jussac fell like a dead mass.

D’Artagnan then cast an anxious and rapid glance over the field of
battle.

Aramis had killed one of his adversaries, but the other pressed him
warmly. Nevertheless, Aramis was in a good situation, and able to
defend himself.

Bicarat and Porthos had just made counterhits. Porthos had received a
thrust through his arm, and Bicarat one through his thigh. But neither
of these two wounds was serious, and they only fought more earnestly.

Athos, wounded anew by Cahusac, became evidently paler, but did not
give way a foot. He only changed his sword hand, and fought with his
left hand.

According to the laws of dueling at that period, D’Artagnan was at
liberty to assist whom he pleased. While he was endeavoring to find out
which of his companions stood in greatest need, he caught a glance from
Athos. The glance was of sublime eloquence. Athos would have died
rather than appeal for help; but he could look, and with that look ask
assistance. D’Artagnan interpreted it; with a terrible bound he sprang
to the side of Cahusac, crying, “To me, Monsieur Guardsman; I will slay
you!”

Cahusac turned. It was time; for Athos, whose great courage alone
supported him, sank upon his knee.

“S’blood!” cried he to D’Artagnan, “do not kill him, young man, I beg
of you. I have an old affair to settle with him when I am cured and
sound again. Disarm him only—make sure of his sword. That’s it! Very
well done!”

The exclamation was drawn from Athos by seeing the sword of Cahusac fly
twenty paces from him. D’Artagnan and Cahusac sprang forward at the
same instant, the one to recover, the other to obtain, the sword; but
D’Artagnan, being the more active, reached it first and placed his foot
upon it.

Cahusac immediately ran to the Guardsman whom Aramis had killed, seized
his rapier, and returned toward D’Artagnan; but on his way he met
Athos, who during his relief which D’Artagnan had procured him had
recovered his breath, and who, for fear that D’Artagnan would kill his
enemy, wished to resume the fight.

D’Artagnan perceived that it would be disobliging Athos not to leave
him alone; and in a few minutes Cahusac fell, with a sword thrust
through his throat.

At the same instant Aramis placed his sword point on the breast of his
fallen enemy, and forced him to ask for mercy.

There only then remained Porthos and Bicarat. Porthos made a thousand
flourishes, asking Bicarat what o’clock it could be, and offering him
his compliments upon his brother’s having just obtained a company in
the regiment of Navarre; but, jest as he might, he gained nothing.
Bicarat was one of those iron men who never fell dead.

Nevertheless, it was necessary to finish. The watch might come up and
take all the combatants, wounded or not, royalists or cardinalists.
Athos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan surrounded Bicarat, and required him to
surrender. Though alone against all and with a wound in his thigh,
Bicarat wished to hold out; but Jussac, who had risen upon his elbow,
cried out to him to yield. Bicarat was a Gascon, as D’Artagnan was; he
turned a deaf ear, and contented himself with laughing, and between two
parries finding time to point to a spot of earth with his sword,
“Here,” cried he, parodying a verse of the Bible, “here will Bicarat
die; for I only am left, and they seek my life.”

“But there are four against you; leave off, I command you.”

“Ah, if you command me, that’s another thing,” said Bicarat. “As you
are my commander, it is my duty to obey.” And springing backward, he
broke his sword across his knee to avoid the necessity of surrendering
it, threw the pieces over the convent wall, and crossed his arms,
whistling a cardinalist air.

Bravery is always respected, even in an enemy. The Musketeers saluted
Bicarat with their swords, and returned them to their sheaths.
D’Artagnan did the same. Then, assisted by Bicarat, the only one left
standing, they bore Jussac, Cahusac, and one of Aramis’s adversaries
who was only wounded, under the porch of the convent. The fourth, as we
have said, was dead. They then rang the bell, and carrying away four
swords out of five, they took their road, intoxicated with joy, toward
the hôtel of M. de Tréville.

They walked arm in arm, occupying the whole width of the street and
taking in every Musketeer they met, so that in the end it became a
triumphal march. The heart of D’Artagnan swam in delirium; he marched
between Athos and Porthos, pressing them tenderly.

“If I am not yet a Musketeer,” said he to his new friends, as he passed
through the gateway of M. de Tréville’s hôtel, “at least I have entered
upon my apprenticeship, haven’t I?”




Chapter VI.
HIS MAJESTY KING LOUIS XIII.


This affair made a great noise. M. de Tréville scolded his Musketeers
in public, and congratulated them in private; but as no time was to be
lost in gaining the king, M. de Tréville hastened to report himself at
the Louvre. It was already too late. The king was closeted with the
cardinal, and M. de Tréville was informed that the king was busy and
could not receive him at that moment. In the evening M. de Tréville
attended the king’s gaming table. The king was winning; and as he was
very avaricious, he was in an excellent humor. Perceiving M. de
Tréville at a distance—

“Come here, Monsieur Captain,” said he, “come here, that I may growl at
you. Do you know that his Eminence has been making fresh complaints
against your Musketeers, and that with so much emotion, that this
evening his Eminence is indisposed? Ah, these Musketeers of yours are
very devils—fellows to be hanged.”

“No, sire,” replied Tréville, who saw at the first glance how things
would go, “on the contrary, they are good creatures, as meek as lambs,
and have but one desire, I’ll be their warranty. And that is that their
swords may never leave their scabbards but in your majesty’s service.
But what are they to do? The Guards of Monsieur the Cardinal are
forever seeking quarrels with them, and for the honor of the corps
even, the poor young men are obliged to defend themselves.”

“Listen to Monsieur de Tréville,” said the king; “listen to him! Would
not one say he was speaking of a religious community? In truth, my dear
Captain, I have a great mind to take away your commission and give it
to Mademoiselle de Chemerault, to whom I promised an abbey. But don’t
fancy that I am going to take you on your bare word. I am called Louis
the Just, Monsieur de Tréville, and by and by, by and by we will see.”

“Ah, sire; it is because I confide in that justice that I shall wait
patiently and quietly the good pleasure of your Majesty.”

“Wait, then, monsieur, wait,” said the king; “I will not detain you
long.”

In fact, fortune changed; and as the king began to lose what he had
won, he was not sorry to find an excuse for playing Charlemagne—if we
may use a gaming phrase of whose origin we confess our ignorance. The
king therefore arose a minute after, and putting the money which lay
before him into his pocket, the major part of which arose from his
winnings, “La Vieuville,” said he, “take my place; I must speak to
Monsieur de Tréville on an affair of importance. Ah, I had eighty louis
before me; put down the same sum, so that they who have lost may have
nothing to complain of. Justice before everything.”

Then turning toward M. de Tréville and walking with him toward the
embrasure of a window, “Well, monsieur,” continued he, “you say it is
his Eminence’s Guards who have sought a quarrel with your Musketeers?”

“Yes, sire, as they always do.”

“And how did the thing happen? Let us see, for you know, my dear
Captain, a judge must hear both sides.”

“Good Lord! In the most simple and natural manner possible. Three of my
best soldiers, whom your Majesty knows by name, and whose devotedness
you have more than once appreciated, and who have, I dare affirm to the
king, his service much at heart—three of my best soldiers, I say,
Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, had made a party of pleasure with a young
fellow from Gascony, whom I had introduced to them the same morning.
The party was to take place at St. Germain, I believe, and they had
appointed to meet at the Carmes-Deschaux, when they were disturbed by
de Jussac, Cahusac, Bicarat, and two other Guardsmen, who certainly did
not go there in such a numerous company without some ill intention
against the edicts.”

“Ah, ah! You incline me to think so,” said the king. “There is no doubt
they went thither to fight themselves.”

“I do not accuse them, sire; but I leave your Majesty to judge what
five armed men could possibly be going to do in such a deserted place
as the neighborhood of the Convent des Carmes.”

“Yes, you are right, Tréville, you are right!”

“Then, upon seeing my Musketeers they changed their minds, and forgot
their private hatred for partisan hatred; for your Majesty cannot be
ignorant that the Musketeers, who belong to the king and nobody but the
king, are the natural enemies of the Guardsmen, who belong to the
cardinal.”

“Yes, Tréville, yes,” said the king, in a melancholy tone; “and it is
very sad, believe me, to see thus two parties in France, two heads to
royalty. But all this will come to an end, Tréville, will come to an
end. You say, then, that the Guardsmen sought a quarrel with the
Musketeers?”

“I say that it is probable that things have fallen out so, but I will
not swear to it, sire. You know how difficult it is to discover the
truth; and unless a man be endowed with that admirable instinct which
causes Louis XIII. to be named the Just—”

“You are right, Tréville; but they were not alone, your Musketeers.
They had a youth with them?”

“Yes, sire, and one wounded man; so that three of the king’s
Musketeers—one of whom was wounded—and a youth not only maintained
their ground against five of the most terrible of the cardinal’s
Guardsmen, but absolutely brought four of them to earth.”

“Why, this is a victory!” cried the king, all radiant, “a complete
victory!”

“Yes, sire; as complete as that of the Bridge of Ce.”

“Four men, one of them wounded, and a youth, say you?”

“One hardly a young man; but who, however, behaved himself so admirably
on this occasion that I will take the liberty of recommending him to
your Majesty.”

“How does he call himself?”

“D’Artagnan, sire; he is the son of one of my oldest friends—the son of
a man who served under the king your father, of glorious memory, in the
civil war.”

“And you say this young man behaved himself well? Tell me how,
Tréville—you know how I delight in accounts of war and fighting.”

And Louis XIII. twisted his mustache proudly, placing his hand upon his
hip.

“Sire,” resumed Tréville, “as I told you, Monsieur d’Artagnan is little
more than a boy; and as he has not the honor of being a Musketeer, he
was dressed as a citizen. The Guards of the cardinal, perceiving his
youth and that he did not belong to the corps, invited him to retire
before they attacked.”

“So you may plainly see, Tréville,” interrupted the king, “it was they
who attacked?”

“That is true, sire; there can be no more doubt on that head. They
called upon him then to retire; but he answered that he was a Musketeer
at heart, entirely devoted to your Majesty, and that therefore he would
remain with Messieurs the Musketeers.”

“Brave young man!” murmured the king.

“Well, he did remain with them; and your Majesty has in him so firm a
champion that it was he who gave Jussac the terrible sword thrust which
has made the cardinal so angry.”

“He who wounded Jussac!” cried the king, “he, a boy! Tréville, that’s
impossible!”

“It is as I have the honor to relate it to your Majesty.”

“Jussac, one of the first swordsmen in the kingdom?”

“Well, sire, for once he found his master.”

“I will see this young man, Tréville—I will see him; and if anything
can be done—well, we will make it our business.”

“When will your Majesty deign to receive him?”

“Tomorrow, at midday, Tréville.”

“Shall I bring him alone?”

“No, bring me all four together. I wish to thank them all at once.
Devoted men are so rare, Tréville, by the back staircase. It is useless
to let the cardinal know.”

“Yes, sire.”

“You understand, Tréville—an edict is still an edict, it is forbidden
to fight, after all.”

“But this encounter, sire, is quite out of the ordinary conditions of a
duel. It is a brawl; and the proof is that there were five of the
cardinal’s Guardsmen against my three Musketeers and Monsieur
d’Artagnan.”

“That is true,” said the king; “but never mind, Tréville, come still by
the back staircase.”

Tréville smiled; but as it was indeed something to have prevailed upon
this child to rebel against his master, he saluted the king
respectfully, and with this agreement, took leave of him.

That evening the three Musketeers were informed of the honor accorded
them. As they had long been acquainted with the king, they were not
much excited; but D’Artagnan, with his Gascon imagination, saw in it
his future fortune, and passed the night in golden dreams. By eight
o’clock in the morning he was at the apartment of Athos.

D’Artagnan found the Musketeer dressed and ready to go out. As the hour
to wait upon the king was not till twelve, he had made a party with
Porthos and Aramis to play a game at tennis in a tennis court situated
near the stables of the Luxembourg. Athos invited D’Artagnan to follow
them; and although ignorant of the game, which he had never played, he
accepted, not knowing what to do with his time from nine o’clock in the
morning, as it then scarcely was, till twelve.

The two Musketeers were already there, and were playing together.
Athos, who was very expert in all bodily exercises, passed with
D’Artagnan to the opposite side and challenged them; but at the first
effort he made, although he played with his left hand, he found that
his wound was yet too recent to allow of such exertion. D’Artagnan
remained, therefore, alone; and as he declared he was too ignorant of
the game to play it regularly they only continued giving balls to one
another without counting. But one of these balls, launched by Porthos’
herculean hand, passed so close to D’Artagnan’s face that he thought
that if, instead of passing near, it had hit him, his audience would
have been probably lost, as it would have been impossible for him to
present himself before the king. Now, as upon this audience, in his
Gascon imagination, depended his future life, he saluted Aramis and
Porthos politely, declaring that he would not resume the game until he
should be prepared to play with them on more equal terms, and went and
took his place near the cord and in the gallery.

Unfortunately for D’Artagnan, among the spectators was one of his
Eminence’s Guardsmen, who, still irritated by the defeat of his
companions, which had happened only the day before, had promised
himself to seize the first opportunity of avenging it. He believed this
opportunity was now come and addressed his neighbor: “It is not
astonishing that that young man should be afraid of a ball, for he is
doubtless a Musketeer apprentice.”

D’Artagnan turned round as if a serpent had stung him, and fixed his
eyes intensely upon the Guardsman who had just made this insolent
speech.

“_Pardieu_,” resumed the latter, twisting his mustache, “look at me as
long as you like, my little gentleman! I have said what I have said.”

“And as since that which you have said is too clear to require any
explanation,” replied D’Artagnan, in a low voice, “I beg you to follow
me.”

“And when?” asked the Guardsman, with the same jeering air.

“At once, if you please.”

“And you know who I am, without doubt?”

“I? I am completely ignorant; nor does it much disquiet me.”

“You’re in the wrong there; for if you knew my name, perhaps you would
not be so pressing.”

“What is your name?”

“Bernajoux, at your service.”

“Well, then, Monsieur Bernajoux,” said D’Artagnan, tranquilly, “I will
wait for you at the door.”

“Go, monsieur, I will follow you.”

“Do not hurry yourself, monsieur, lest it be observed that we go out
together. You must be aware that for our undertaking, company would be
in the way.”

“That’s true,” said the Guardsman, astonished that his name had not
produced more effect upon the young man.

Indeed, the name of Bernajoux was known to all the world, D’Artagnan
alone excepted, perhaps; for it was one of those which figured most
frequently in the daily brawls which all the edicts of the cardinal
could not repress.

Porthos and Aramis were so engaged with their game, and Athos was
watching them with so much attention, that they did not even perceive
their young companion go out, who, as he had told the Guardsman of his
Eminence, stopped outside the door. An instant after, the Guardsman
descended in his turn. As D’Artagnan had no time to lose, on account of
the audience of the king, which was fixed for midday, he cast his eyes
around, and seeing that the street was empty, said to his adversary,
“My faith! It is fortunate for you, although your name is Bernajoux, to
have only to deal with an apprentice Musketeer. Never mind; be content,
I will do my best. On guard!”

“But,” said he whom D’Artagnan thus provoked, “it appears to me that
this place is badly chosen, and that we should be better behind the
Abbey St. Germain or in the Pré-aux-Clercs.”

“What you say is full of sense,” replied D’Artagnan; “but unfortunately
I have very little time to spare, having an appointment at twelve
precisely. On guard, then, monsieur, on guard!”

Bernajoux was not a man to have such a compliment paid to him twice. In
an instant his sword glittered in his hand, and he sprang upon his
adversary, whom, thanks to his great youthfulness, he hoped to
intimidate.

But D’Artagnan had on the preceding day served his apprenticeship.
Fresh sharpened by his victory, full of hopes of future favor, he was
resolved not to recoil a step. So the two swords were crossed close to
the hilts, and as D’Artagnan stood firm, it was his adversary who made
the retreating step; but D’Artagnan seized the moment at which, in this
movement, the sword of Bernajoux deviated from the line. He freed his
weapon, made a lunge, and touched his adversary on the shoulder.
D’Artagnan immediately made a step backward and raised his sword; but
Bernajoux cried out that it was nothing, and rushing blindly upon him,
absolutely spitted himself upon D’Artagnan’s sword. As, however, he did
not fall, as he did not declare himself conquered, but only broke away
toward the hôtel of M. de la Trémouille, in whose service he had a
relative, D’Artagnan was ignorant of the seriousness of the last wound
his adversary had received, and pressing him warmly, without doubt
would soon have completed his work with a third blow, when the noise
which arose from the street being heard in the tennis court, two of the
friends of the Guardsman, who had seen him go out after exchanging some
words with D’Artagnan, rushed, sword in hand, from the court, and fell
upon the conqueror. But Athos, Porthos, and Aramis quickly appeared in
their turn, and the moment the two Guardsmen attacked their young
companion, drove them back. Bernajoux now fell, and as the Guardsmen
were only two against four, they began to cry, “To the rescue! The
Hôtel de la Trémouille!” At these cries, all who were in the hôtel
rushed out and fell upon the four companions, who on their side cried
aloud, “To the rescue, Musketeers!”

This cry was generally heeded; for the Musketeers were known to be
enemies of the cardinal, and were beloved on account of the hatred they
bore to his Eminence. Thus the soldiers of other companies than those
which belonged to the Red Duke, as Aramis had called him, often took
part with the king’s Musketeers in these quarrels. Of three Guardsmen
of the company of M. Dessessart who were passing, two came to the
assistance of the four companions, while the other ran toward the hôtel
of M. de Tréville, crying, “To the rescue, Musketeers! To the rescue!”
As usual, this hôtel was full of soldiers of this company, who hastened
to the succor of their comrades. The _mêlée_ became general, but
strength was on the side of the Musketeers. The cardinal’s Guards and
M. de la Trémouille’s people retreated into the hôtel, the doors of
which they closed just in time to prevent their enemies from entering
with them. As to the wounded man, he had been taken in at once, and, as
we have said, in a very bad state.

Excitement was at its height among the Musketeers and their allies, and
they even began to deliberate whether they should not set fire to the
hôtel to punish the insolence of M. de la Trémouille’s domestics in
daring to make a _sortie_ upon the king’s Musketeers. The proposition
had been made, and received with enthusiasm, when fortunately eleven
o’clock struck. D’Artagnan and his companions remembered their
audience, and as they would very much have regretted that such an
opportunity should be lost, they succeeded in calming their friends,
who contented themselves with hurling some paving stones against the
gates; but the gates were too strong. They soon tired of the sport.
Besides, those who must be considered the leaders of the enterprise had
quit the group and were making their way toward the hôtel of M. de
Tréville, who was waiting for them, already informed of this fresh
disturbance.

“Quick to the Louvre,” said he, “to the Louvre without losing an
instant, and let us endeavor to see the king before he is prejudiced by
the cardinal. We will describe the thing to him as a consequence of the
affair of yesterday, and the two will pass off together.”

M. de Tréville, accompanied by the four young fellows, directed his
course toward the Louvre; but to the great astonishment of the captain
of the Musketeers, he was informed that the king had gone stag hunting
in the forest of St. Germain. M. de Tréville required this intelligence
to be repeated to him twice, and each time his companions saw his brow
become darker.

“Had his Majesty,” asked he, “any intention of holding this hunting
party yesterday?”

“No, your Excellency,” replied the valet de chambre, “the Master of the
Hounds came this morning to inform him that he had marked down a stag.
At first the king answered that he would not go; but he could not
resist his love of sport, and set out after dinner.”

“And the king has seen the cardinal?” asked M. de Tréville.

“In all probability he has,” replied the valet, “for I saw the horses
harnessed to his Eminence’s carriage this morning, and when I asked
where he was going, they told me, ‘To St. Germain.’”

“He is beforehand with us,” said M. de Tréville. “Gentlemen, I will see
the king this evening; but as to you, I do not advise you to risk doing
so.”

This advice was too reasonable, and moreover came from a man who knew
the king too well, to allow the four young men to dispute it. M. de
Tréville recommended everyone to return home and wait for news.

On entering his hôtel, M. de Tréville thought it best to be first in
making the complaint. He sent one of his servants to M. de la
Trémouille with a letter in which he begged of him to eject the
cardinal’s Guardsmen from his house, and to reprimand his people for
their audacity in making _sortie_ against the king’s Musketeers. But M.
de la Trémouille—already prejudiced by his esquire, whose relative, as
we already know, Bernajoux was—replied that it was neither for M. de
Tréville nor the Musketeers to complain, but, on the contrary, for him,
whose people the Musketeers had assaulted and whose hôtel they had
endeavored to burn. Now, as the debate between these two nobles might
last a long time, each becoming, naturally, more firm in his own
opinion, M. de Tréville thought of an expedient which might terminate
it quietly. This was to go himself to M. de la Trémouille.

He repaired, therefore, immediately to his hôtel, and caused himself to
be announced.

The two nobles saluted each other politely, for if no friendship
existed between them, there was at least esteem. Both were men of
courage and honor; and as M. de la Trémouille—a Protestant, and seeing
the king seldom—was of no party, he did not, in general, carry any bias
into his social relations. This time, however, his address, although
polite, was cooler than usual.

“Monsieur,” said M. de Tréville, “we fancy that we have each cause to
complain of the other, and I am come to endeavor to clear up this
affair.”

“I have no objection,” replied M. de la Trémouille, “but I warn you
that I am well informed, and all the fault is with your Musketeers.”

“You are too just and reasonable a man, monsieur!” said Tréville, “not
to accept the proposal I am about to make to you.”

“Make it, monsieur, I listen.”

“How is Monsieur Bernajoux, your esquire’s relative?”

“Why, monsieur, very ill indeed! In addition to the sword thrust in his
arm, which is not dangerous, he has received another right through his
lungs, of which the doctor says bad things.”

“But has the wounded man retained his senses?”

“Perfectly.”

“Does he talk?”

“With difficulty, but he can speak.”

“Well, monsieur, let us go to him. Let us adjure him, in the name of
the God before whom he must perhaps appear, to speak the truth. I will
take him for judge in his own cause, monsieur, and will believe what he
will say.”

M. de la Trémouille reflected for an instant; then as it was difficult
to suggest a more reasonable proposal, he agreed to it.

Both descended to the chamber in which the wounded man lay. The latter,
on seeing these two noble lords who came to visit him, endeavored to
raise himself up in his bed; but he was too weak, and exhausted by the
effort, he fell back again almost senseless.

M. de la Trémouille approached him, and made him inhale some salts,
which recalled him to life. Then M. de Tréville, unwilling that it
should be thought that he had influenced the wounded man, requested M.
de la Trémouille to interrogate him himself.

That happened which M. de Tréville had foreseen. Placed between life
and death, as Bernajoux was, he had no idea for a moment of concealing
the truth; and he described to the two nobles the affair exactly as it
had passed.

This was all that M. de Tréville wanted. He wished Bernajoux a speedy
convalescence, took leave of M. de la Trémouille, returned to his
hôtel, and immediately sent word to the four friends that he awaited
their company at dinner.

M. de Tréville entertained good company, wholly anticardinalist,
though. It may easily be understood, therefore, that the conversation
during the whole of dinner turned upon the two checks that his
Eminence’s Guardsmen had received. Now, as D’Artagnan had been the hero
of these two fights, it was upon him that all the felicitations fell,
which Athos, Porthos, and Aramis abandoned to him, not only as good
comrades, but as men who had so often had their turn that they could
very well afford him his.

Toward six o’clock M. de Tréville announced that it was time to go to
the Louvre; but as the hour of audience granted by his Majesty was
past, instead of claiming the _entrée_ by the back stairs, he placed
himself with the four young men in the antechamber. The king had not
yet returned from hunting. Our young men had been waiting about half an
hour, amid a crowd of courtiers, when all the doors were thrown open,
and his Majesty was announced.

At his announcement D’Artagnan felt himself tremble to the very marrow
of his bones. The coming instant would in all probability decide the
rest of his life. His eyes therefore were fixed in a sort of agony upon
the door through which the king must enter.

Louis XIII. appeared, walking fast. He was in hunting costume covered
with dust, wearing large boots, and holding a whip in his hand. At the
first glance, D’Artagnan judged that the mind of the king was stormy.

This disposition, visible as it was in his Majesty, did not prevent the
courtiers from ranging themselves along his pathway. In royal
antechambers it is worth more to be viewed with an angry eye than not
to be seen at all. The three Musketeers therefore did not hesitate to
make a step forward. D’Artagnan on the contrary remained concealed
behind them; but although the king knew Athos, Porthos, and Aramis
personally, he passed before them without speaking or looking—indeed,
as if he had never seen them before. As for M. de Tréville, when the
eyes of the king fell upon him, he sustained the look with so much
firmness that it was the king who dropped his eyes; after which his
Majesty, grumbling, entered his apartment.

“Matters go but badly,” said Athos, smiling; “and we shall not be made
Chevaliers of the Order this time.”

“Wait here ten minutes,” said M. de Tréville; “and if at the expiration
of ten minutes you do not see me come out, return to my hôtel, for it
will be useless for you to wait for me longer.”

The four young men waited ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, twenty
minutes; and seeing that M. de Tréville did not return, went away very
uneasy as to what was going to happen.

M. de Tréville entered the king’s cabinet boldly, and found his Majesty
in a very ill humor, seated on an armchair, beating his boot with the
handle of his whip. This, however, did not prevent his asking, with the
greatest coolness, after his Majesty’s health.

“Bad, monsieur, bad!” replied the king; “I am bored.”

This was, in fact, the worst complaint of Louis XIII., who would
sometimes take one of his courtiers to a window and say, “Monsieur
So-and-so, let us weary ourselves together.”

“How! Your Majesty is bored? Have you not enjoyed the pleasures of the
chase today?”

“A fine pleasure, indeed, monsieur! Upon my soul, everything
degenerates; and I don’t know whether it is the game which leaves no
scent, or the dogs that have no noses. We started a stag of ten
branches. We chased him for six hours, and when he was near being
taken—when St. Simon was already putting his horn to his mouth to sound
the _halali_—crack, all the pack takes the wrong scent and sets off
after a two-year-older. I shall be obliged to give up hunting, as I
have given up hawking. Ah, I am an unfortunate king, Monsieur de
Tréville! I had but one gerfalcon, and he died day before yesterday.”

“Indeed, sire, I wholly comprehend your disappointment. The misfortune
is great; but I think you have still a good number of falcons, sparrow
hawks, and tiercels.”

“And not a man to instruct them. Falconers are declining. I know no one
but myself who is acquainted with the noble art of venery. After me it
will all be over, and people will hunt with gins, snares, and traps. If
I had but the time to train pupils! But there is the cardinal always at
hand, who does not leave me a moment’s repose; who talks to me about
Spain, who talks to me about Austria, who talks to me about England!
Ah! _à propos_ of the cardinal, Monsieur de Tréville, I am vexed with
you!”

This was the chance at which M. de Tréville waited for the king. He
knew the king of old, and he knew that all these complaints were but a
preface—a sort of excitation to encourage himself—and that he had now
come to his point at last.

“And in what have I been so unfortunate as to displease your Majesty?”
asked M. de Tréville, feigning the most profound astonishment.

“Is it thus you perform your charge, monsieur?” continued the king,
without directly replying to de Tréville’s question. “Is it for this I
name you captain of my Musketeers, that they should assassinate a man,
disturb a whole quarter, and endeavor to set fire to Paris, without
your saying a word? But yet,” continued the king, “undoubtedly my haste
accuses you wrongfully; without doubt the rioters are in prison, and
you come to tell me justice is done.”

“Sire,” replied M. de Tréville, calmly, “on the contrary, I come to
demand it of you.”

“And against whom?” cried the king.

“Against calumniators,” said M. de Tréville.

“Ah! This is something new,” replied the king. “Will you tell me that
your three damned Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and your
youngster from Béarn, have not fallen, like so many furies, upon poor
Bernajoux, and have not maltreated him in such a fashion that probably
by this time he is dead? Will you tell me that they did not lay siege
to the hôtel of the Duc de la Trémouille, and that they did not
endeavor to burn it?—which would not, perhaps, have been a great
misfortune in time of war, seeing that it is nothing but a nest of
Huguenots, but which is, in time of peace, a frightful example. Tell
me, now, can you deny all this?”

“And who told you this fine story, sire?” asked Tréville, quietly.

“Who has told me this fine story, monsieur? Who should it be but he who
watches while I sleep, who labors while I amuse myself, who conducts
everything at home and abroad—in France as in Europe?”

“Your Majesty probably refers to God,” said M. de Tréville; “for I know
no one except God who can be so far above your Majesty.”

“No, monsieur; I speak of the prop of the state, of my only servant, of
my only friend—of the cardinal.”

“His Eminence is not his holiness, sire.”

“What do you mean by that, monsieur?”

“That it is only the Pope who is infallible, and that this
infallibility does not extend to cardinals.”

“You mean to say that he deceives me; you mean to say that he betrays
me? You accuse him, then? Come, speak; avow freely that you accuse
him!”

“No, sire, but I say that he deceives himself. I say that he is
ill-informed. I say that he has hastily accused your Majesty’s
Musketeers, toward whom he is unjust, and that he has not obtained his
information from good sources.”

“The accusation comes from Monsieur de la Trémouille, from the duke
himself. What do you say to that?”

“I might answer, sire, that he is too deeply interested in the question
to be a very impartial witness; but so far from that, sire, I know the
duke to be a royal gentleman, and I refer the matter to him—but upon
one condition, sire.”

“What?”

“It is that your Majesty will make him come here, will interrogate him
yourself, _tête-à-tête_, without witnesses, and that I shall see your
Majesty as soon as you have seen the duke.”

“What, then! You will bind yourself,” cried the king, “by what Monsieur
de la Trémouille shall say?”

“Yes, sire.”

“You will accept his judgment?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“And you will submit to the reparation he may require?”

“Certainly.”

“La Chesnaye,” said the king. “La Chesnaye!”

Louis XIII.’s confidential valet, who never left the door, entered in
reply to the call.

“La Chesnaye,” said the king, “let someone go instantly and find
Monsieur de la Trémouille; I wish to speak with him this evening.”

“Your Majesty gives me your word that you will not see anyone between
Monsieur de la Trémouille and myself?”

“Nobody, by the faith of a gentleman.”

“Tomorrow, then, sire?”

“Tomorrow, monsieur.”

“At what o’clock, please your Majesty?”

“At any hour you will.”

“But in coming too early I should be afraid of awakening your Majesty.”

“Awaken me! Do you think I ever sleep, then? I sleep no longer,
monsieur. I sometimes dream, that’s all. Come, then, as early as you
like—at seven o’clock; but beware, if you and your Musketeers are
guilty.”

“If my Musketeers are guilty, sire, the guilty shall be placed in your
Majesty’s hands, who will dispose of them at your good pleasure. Does
your Majesty require anything further? Speak, I am ready to obey.”

“No, monsieur, no; I am not called Louis the Just without reason.
Tomorrow, then, monsieur—tomorrow.”

“Till then, God preserve your Majesty!”

However ill the king might sleep, M. de Tréville slept still worse. He
had ordered his three Musketeers and their companion to be with him at
half past six in the morning. He took them with him, without
encouraging them or promising them anything, and without concealing
from them that their luck, and even his own, depended upon the cast of
the dice.

Arrived at the foot of the back stairs, he desired them to wait. If the
king was still irritated against them, they would depart without being
seen; if the king consented to see them, they would only have to be
called.

On arriving at the king’s private antechamber, M. de Tréville found La
Chesnaye, who informed him that they had not been able to find M. de la
Trémouille on the preceding evening at his hôtel, that he returned too
late to present himself at the Louvre, that he had only that moment
arrived and that he was at that very hour with the king.

This circumstance pleased M. de Tréville much, as he thus became
certain that no foreign suggestion could insinuate itself between M. de
la Trémouille’s testimony and himself.

In fact, ten minutes had scarcely passed away when the door of the
king’s closet opened, and M. de Tréville saw M. de la Trémouille come
out. The duke came straight up to him, and said: “Monsieur de Tréville,
his Majesty has just sent for me in order to inquire respecting the
circumstances which took place yesterday at my hôtel. I have told him
the truth; that is to say, that the fault lay with my people, and that
I was ready to offer you my excuses. Since I have the good fortune to
meet you, I beg you to receive them, and to hold me always as one of
your friends.”

“Monsieur the Duke,” said M. de Tréville, “I was so confident of your
loyalty that I required no other defender before his Majesty than
yourself. I find that I have not been mistaken, and I thank you that
there is still one man in France of whom may be said, without
disappointment, what I have said of you.”

“That’s well said,” cried the king, who had heard all these compliments
through the open door; “only tell him, Tréville, since he wishes to be
considered your friend, that I also wish to be one of his, but he
neglects me; that it is nearly three years since I have seen him, and
that I never do see him unless I send for him. Tell him all this for
me, for these are things which a king cannot say for himself.”

“Thanks, sire, thanks,” said the duke; “but your Majesty may be assured
that it is not those—I do not speak of Monsieur de Tréville—whom your
Majesty sees at all hours of the day that are most devoted to you.”

“Ah! You have heard what I said? So much the better, Duke, so much the
better,” said the king, advancing toward the door. “Ah! It is you,
Tréville. Where are your Musketeers? I told you the day before
yesterday to bring them with you; why have you not done so?”

“They are below, sire, and with your permission La Chesnaye will bid
them come up.”

“Yes, yes, let them come up immediately. It is nearly eight o’clock,
and at nine I expect a visit. Go, Monsieur Duke, and return often. Come
in, Tréville.”

The Duke saluted and retired. At the moment he opened the door, the
three Musketeers and D’Artagnan, conducted by La Chesnaye, appeared at
the top of the staircase.

“Come in, my braves,” said the king, “come in; I am going to scold
you.”

The Musketeers advanced, bowing, D’Artagnan following closely behind
them.

“What the devil!” continued the king. “Seven of his Eminence’s Guards
placed _hors de combat_ by you four in two days! That’s too many,
gentlemen, too many! If you go on so, his Eminence will be forced to
renew his company in three weeks, and I to put the edicts in force in
all their rigor. One now and then I don’t say much about; but seven in
two days, I repeat, it is too many, it is far too many!”

“Therefore, sire, your Majesty sees that they are come, quite contrite
and repentant, to offer you their excuses.”

“Quite contrite and repentant! Hem!” said the king. “I place no
confidence in their hypocritical faces. In particular, there is one
yonder of a Gascon look. Come hither, monsieur.”

D’Artagnan, who understood that it was to him this compliment was
addressed, approached, assuming a most deprecating air.

“Why, you told me he was a young man? This is a boy, Tréville, a mere
boy! Do you mean to say that it was he who bestowed that severe thrust
at Jussac?”

“And those two equally fine thrusts at Bernajoux.”

“Truly!”

“Without reckoning,” said Athos, “that if he had not rescued me from
the hands of Cahusac, I should not now have the honor of making my very
humble reverence to your Majesty.”

“Why he is a very devil, this Béarnais! _Ventre-saint-gris_, Monsieur
de Tréville, as the king my father would have said. But at this sort of
work, many doublets must be slashed and many swords broken. Now,
Gascons are always poor, are they not?”

“Sire, I can assert that they have hitherto discovered no gold mines in
their mountains; though the Lord owes them this miracle in recompense
for the manner in which they supported the pretensions of the king your
father.”

“Which is to say that the Gascons made a king of me, myself, seeing
that I am my father’s son, is it not, Tréville? Well, happily, I don’t
say nay to it. La Chesnaye, go and see if by rummaging all my pockets
you can find forty pistoles; and if you can find them, bring them to
me. And now let us see, young man, with your hand upon your conscience,
how did all this come to pass?”

D’Artagnan related the adventure of the preceding day in all its
details; how, not having been able to sleep for the joy he felt in the
expectation of seeing his Majesty, he had gone to his three friends
three hours before the hour of audience; how they had gone together to
the tennis court, and how, upon the fear he had manifested lest he
receive a ball in the face, he had been jeered at by Bernajoux, who had
nearly paid for his jeer with his life, and M. de la Trémouille, who
had nothing to do with the matter, with the loss of his hôtel.

“This is all very well,” murmured the king, “yes, this is just the
account the duke gave me of the affair. Poor cardinal! Seven men in two
days, and those of his very best! But that’s quite enough, gentlemen;
please to understand, that’s enough. You have taken your revenge for
the Rue Férou, and even exceeded it; you ought to be satisfied.”

“If your Majesty is so,” said Tréville, “we are.”

“Oh, yes; I am,” added the king, taking a handful of gold from La
Chesnaye, and putting it into the hand of D’Artagnan. “Here,” said he,
“is a proof of my satisfaction.”

At this epoch, the ideas of pride which are in fashion in our days did
not prevail. A gentleman received, from hand to hand, money from the
king, and was not the least in the world humiliated. D’Artagnan put his
forty pistoles into his pocket without any scruple—on the contrary,
thanking his Majesty greatly.

“There,” said the king, looking at a clock, “there, now, as it is half
past eight, you may retire; for as I told you, I expect someone at
nine. Thanks for your devotedness, gentlemen. I may continue to rely
upon it, may I not?”

“Oh, sire!” cried the four companions, with one voice, “we would allow
ourselves to be cut to pieces in your Majesty’s service.”

“Well, well, but keep whole; that will be better, and you will be more
useful to me. Tréville,” added the king, in a low voice, as the others
were retiring, “as you have no room in the Musketeers, and as we have
besides decided that a novitiate is necessary before entering that
corps, place this young man in the company of the Guards of Monsieur
Dessessart, your brother-in-law. Ah, _pardieu_, Tréville! I enjoy
beforehand the face the cardinal will make. He will be furious; but I
don’t care. I am doing what is right.”

The king waved his hand to Tréville, who left him and rejoined the
Musketeers, whom he found sharing the forty pistoles with D’Artagnan.

The cardinal, as his Majesty had said, was really furious, so furious
that during eight days he absented himself from the king’s gaming
table. This did not prevent the king from being as complacent to him as
possible whenever he met him, or from asking in the kindest tone,
“Well, Monsieur Cardinal, how fares it with that poor Jussac and that
poor Bernajoux of yours?”




Chapter VII.
THE INTERIOR OF THE MUSKETEERS


When D’Artagnan was out of the Louvre, and consulted his friends upon
the use he had best make of his share of the forty pistoles, Athos
advised him to order a good repast at the Pomme-de-Pin, Porthos to
engage a lackey, and Aramis to provide himself with a suitable
mistress.

The repast was carried into effect that very day, and the lackey waited
at table. The repast had been ordered by Athos, and the lackey
furnished by Porthos. He was a Picard, whom the glorious Musketeer had
picked up on the Bridge Tournelle, making rings and plashing in the
water.

Porthos pretended that this occupation was proof of a reflective and
contemplative organization, and he had brought him away without any
other recommendation. The noble carriage of this gentleman, for whom he
believed himself to be engaged, had won Planchet—that was the name of
the Picard. He felt a slight disappointment, however, when he saw that
this place was already taken by a compeer named Mousqueton, and when
Porthos signified to him that the state of his household, though great,
would not support two servants, and that he must enter into the service
of D’Artagnan. Nevertheless, when he waited at the dinner given by his
master, and saw him take out a handful of gold to pay for it, he
believed his fortune made, and returned thanks to heaven for having
thrown him into the service of such a Crœsus. He preserved this
opinion even after the feast, with the remnants of which he repaired
his own long abstinence; but when in the evening he made his master’s
bed, the chimeras of Planchet faded away. The bed was the only one in
the apartment, which consisted of an antechamber and a bedroom.
Planchet slept in the antechamber upon a coverlet taken from the bed of
D’Artagnan, and which D’Artagnan from that time made shift to do
without.

Athos, on his part, had a valet whom he had trained in his service in a
thoroughly peculiar fashion, and who was named Grimaud. He was very
taciturn, this worthy signor. Be it understood we are speaking of
Athos. During the five or six years that he had lived in the strictest
intimacy with his companions, Porthos and Aramis, they could remember
having often seen him smile, but had never heard him laugh. His words
were brief and expressive, conveying all that was meant, and no more;
no embellishments, no embroidery, no arabesques. His conversation was a
matter of fact, without a single romance.

Although Athos was scarcely thirty years old, and was of great personal
beauty and intelligence of mind, no one knew whether he had ever had a
mistress. He never spoke of women. He certainly did not prevent others
from speaking of them before him, although it was easy to perceive that
this kind of conversation, in which he only mingled by bitter words and
misanthropic remarks, was very disagreeable to him. His reserve, his
roughness, and his silence made almost an old man of him. He had, then,
in order not to disturb his habits, accustomed Grimaud to obey him upon
a simple gesture or upon a simple movement of his lips. He never spoke
to him, except under the most extraordinary occasions.

Sometimes, Grimaud, who feared his master as he did fire, while
entertaining a strong attachment to his person and a great veneration
for his talents, believed he perfectly understood what he wanted, flew
to execute the order received, and did precisely the contrary. Athos
then shrugged his shoulders, and, without putting himself in a passion,
thrashed Grimaud. On these days he spoke a little.

Porthos, as we have seen, had a character exactly opposite to that of
Athos. He not only talked much, but he talked loudly, little caring, we
must render him that justice, whether anybody listened to him or not.
He talked for the pleasure of talking and for the pleasure of hearing
himself talk. He spoke upon all subjects except the sciences, alleging
in this respect the inveterate hatred he had borne to scholars from his
childhood. He had not so noble an air as Athos, and the commencement of
their intimacy often rendered him unjust toward that gentleman, whom he
endeavored to eclipse by his splendid dress. But with his simple
Musketeer’s uniform and nothing but the manner in which he threw back
his head and advanced his foot, Athos instantly took the place which
was his due and consigned the ostentatious Porthos to the second rank.
Porthos consoled himself by filling the antechamber of M. de Tréville
and the guardroom of the Louvre with the accounts of his love scrapes,
after having passed from professional ladies to military ladies, from
the lawyer’s dame to the baroness, there was question of nothing less
with Porthos than a foreign princess, who was enormously fond of him.

An old proverb says, “Like master, like man.” Let us pass, then, from
the valet of Athos to the valet of Porthos, from Grimaud to Mousqueton.

Mousqueton was a Norman, whose pacific name of Boniface his master had
changed into the infinitely more sonorous name of Mousqueton. He had
entered the service of Porthos upon condition that he should only be
clothed and lodged, though in a handsome manner; but he claimed two
hours a day to himself, consecrated to an employment which would
provide for his other wants. Porthos agreed to the bargain; the thing
suited him wonderfully well. He had doublets cut out of his old clothes
and cast-off cloaks for Mousqueton, and thanks to a very intelligent
tailor, who made his clothes look as good as new by turning them, and
whose wife was suspected of wishing to make Porthos descend from his
aristocratic habits, Mousqueton made a very good figure when attending
on his master.

As for Aramis, of whom we believe we have sufficiently explained the
character—a character which, like that of his companions, we shall be
able to follow in its development—his lackey was called Bazin. Thanks
to the hopes which his master entertained of someday entering into
orders, he was always clothed in black, as became the servant of a
churchman. He was a Berrichon, thirty-five or forty years old, mild,
peaceable, sleek, employing the leisure his master left him in the
perusal of pious works, providing rigorously for two a dinner of few
dishes, but excellent. For the rest, he was dumb, blind, and deaf, and
of unimpeachable fidelity.

And now that we are acquainted, superficially at least, with the
masters and the valets, let us pass on to the dwellings occupied by
each of them.

Athos dwelt in the Rue Férou, within two steps of the Luxembourg. His
apartment consisted of two small chambers, very nicely fitted up, in a
furnished house, the hostess of which, still young and still really
handsome, cast tender glances uselessly at him. Some fragments of past
splendor appeared here and there upon the walls of this modest lodging;
a sword, for example, richly embossed, which belonged by its make to
the times of Francis I, the hilt of which alone, encrusted with
precious stones, might be worth two hundred pistoles, and which,
nevertheless, in his moments of greatest distress Athos had never
pledged or offered for sale. It had long been an object of ambition for
Porthos. Porthos would have given ten years of his life to possess this
sword.

One day, when he had an appointment with a duchess, he endeavored even
to borrow it of Athos. Athos, without saying anything, emptied his
pockets, got together all his jewels, purses, aiguillettes, and gold
chains, and offered them all to Porthos; but as to the sword, he said
it was sealed to its place and should never quit it until its master
should himself quit his lodgings. In addition to the sword, there was a
portrait representing a nobleman of the time of Henry III., dressed with
the greatest elegance, and who wore the Order of the Holy Ghost; and
this portrait had certain resemblances of lines with Athos, certain
family likenesses which indicated that this great noble, a knight of
the Order of the King, was his ancestor.

Besides these, a casket of magnificent goldwork, with the same arms as
the sword and the portrait, formed a middle ornament to the
mantelpiece, and assorted badly with the rest of the furniture. Athos
always carried the key of this coffer about him; but he one day opened
it before Porthos, and Porthos was convinced that this coffer contained
nothing but letters and papers—love letters and family papers, no
doubt.

Porthos lived in an apartment, large in size and of very sumptuous
appearance, in the Rue du Vieux-Colombier. Every time he passed with a
friend before his windows, at one of which Mousqueton was sure to be
placed in full livery, Porthos raised his head and his hand, and said,
“That is my abode!” But he was never to be found at home; he never
invited anybody to go up with him, and no one could form an idea of
what his sumptuous apartment contained in the shape of real riches.

As to Aramis, he dwelt in a little lodging composed of a boudoir, an
eating room, and a bedroom, which room, situated, as the others were,
on the ground floor, looked out upon a little fresh green garden, shady
and impenetrable to the eyes of his neighbors.

With regard to D’Artagnan, we know how he was lodged, and we have
already made acquaintance with his lackey, Master Planchet.

D’Artagnan, who was by nature very curious—as people generally are who
possess the genius of intrigue—did all he could to make out who Athos,
Porthos, and Aramis really were (for under these pseudonyms each of
these young men concealed his family name)—Athos in particular, who, a
league away, savored of nobility. He addressed himself then to Porthos
to gain information respecting Athos and Aramis, and to Aramis in order
to learn something of Porthos.

Unfortunately Porthos knew nothing of the life of his silent companion
but what revealed itself. It was said Athos had met with great crosses
in love, and that a frightful treachery had forever poisoned the life
of this gallant man. What could this treachery be? All the world was
ignorant of it.

As to Porthos, except his real name (as was the case with those of his
two comrades), his life was very easily known. Vain and indiscreet, it
was as easy to see through him as through a crystal. The only thing to
mislead the investigator would have been belief in all the good things
he said of himself.

With respect to Aramis, though having the air of having nothing secret
about him, he was a young fellow made up of mysteries, answering little
to questions put to him about others, and having learned from him the
report which prevailed concerning the success of the Musketeer with a
princess, wished to gain a little insight into the amorous adventures
of his interlocutor. “And you, my dear companion,” said he, “you speak
of the baronesses, countesses, and princesses of others?”

“_Pardieu!_ I spoke of them because Porthos talked of them himself,
because he had paraded all these fine things before me. But be assured,
my dear Monsieur d’Artagnan, that if I had obtained them from any other
source, or if they had been confided to me, there exists no confessor
more discreet than myself.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” replied D’Artagnan; “but it seems to me that
you are tolerably familiar with coats of arms—a certain embroidered
handkerchief, for instance, to which I owe the honor of your
acquaintance?”

This time Aramis was not angry, but assumed the most modest air and
replied in a friendly tone, “My dear friend, do not forget that I wish
to belong to the Church, and that I avoid all mundane opportunities.
The handkerchief you saw had not been given to me, but it had been
forgotten and left at my house by one of my friends. I was obliged to
pick it up in order not to compromise him and the lady he loves. As for
myself, I neither have, nor desire to have, a mistress, following in
that respect the very judicious example of Athos, who has none any more
than I have.”

“But what the devil! You are not a priest, you are a Musketeer!”

“A Musketeer for a time, my friend, as the cardinal says, a Musketeer
against my will, but a churchman at heart, believe me. Athos and
Porthos dragged me into this to occupy me. I had, at the moment of
being ordained, a little difficulty with—But that would not interest
you, and I am taking up your valuable time.”

“Not at all; it interests me very much,” cried D’Artagnan; “and at this
moment I have absolutely nothing to do.”

“Yes, but I have my breviary to repeat,” answered Aramis; “then some
verses to compose, which Madame d’Aiguillon begged of me. Then I must
go to the Rue St. Honoré in order to purchase some rouge for Madame de
Chevreuse. So you see, my dear friend, that if you are not in a hurry,
I am very much in a hurry.”

Aramis held out his hand in a cordial manner to his young companion,
and took leave of him.

Notwithstanding all the pains he took, D’Artagnan was unable to learn
any more concerning his three new-made friends. He formed, therefore,
the resolution of believing for the present all that was said of their
past, hoping for more certain and extended revelations in the future.
In the meanwhile, he looked upon Athos as an Achilles, Porthos as an
Ajax, and Aramis as a Joseph.

As to the rest, the life of the four young friends was joyous enough.
Athos played, and that as a rule unfortunately. Nevertheless, he never
borrowed a sou of his companions, although his purse was ever at their
service; and when he had played upon honor, he always awakened his
creditor by six o’clock the next morning to pay the debt of the
preceding evening.

Porthos had his fits. On the days when he won he was insolent and
ostentatious; if he lost, he disappeared completely for several days,
after which he reappeared with a pale face and thinner person, but with
money in his purse.

As to Aramis, he never played. He was the worst Musketeer and the most
unconvivial companion imaginable. He had always something or other to
do. Sometimes in the midst of dinner, when everyone, under the
attraction of wine and in the warmth of conversation, believed they had
two or three hours longer to enjoy themselves at table, Aramis looked
at his watch, arose with a bland smile, and took leave of the company,
to go, as he said, to consult a casuist with whom he had an
appointment. At other times he would return home to write a treatise,
and requested his friends not to disturb him.

At this Athos would smile, with his charming, melancholy smile, which
so became his noble countenance, and Porthos would drink, swearing that
Aramis would never be anything but a village _curé_.

Planchet, D’Artagnan’s valet, supported his good fortune nobly. He
received thirty sous per day, and for a month he returned to his
lodgings gay as a chaffinch, and affable toward his master. When the
wind of adversity began to blow upon the housekeeping of the Rue des
Fossoyeurs—that is to say, when the forty pistoles of King Louis XIII.
were consumed or nearly so—he commenced complaints which Athos thought
nauseous, Porthos indecent, and Aramis ridiculous. Athos counseled
D’Artagnan to dismiss the fellow; Porthos was of the opinion that he
should give him a good thrashing first; and Aramis contended that a
master should never attend to anything but the civilities paid to him.

“This is all very easy for you to say,” replied D’Artagnan, “for you,
Athos, who live like a dumb man with Grimaud, who forbid him to speak,
and consequently never exchange ill words with him; for you, Porthos,
who carry matters in such a magnificent style, and are a god to your
valet, Mousqueton; and for you, Aramis, who, always abstracted by your
theological studies, inspire your servant, Bazin, a mild, religious
man, with a profound respect; but for me, who am without any settled
means and without resources—for me, who am neither a Musketeer nor even
a Guardsman, what am I to do to inspire either the affection, the
terror, or the respect in Planchet?”

“This is serious,” answered the three friends; “it is a family affair.
It is with valets as with wives, they must be placed at once upon the
footing in which you wish them to remain. Reflect upon it.”

D’Artagnan did reflect, and resolved to thrash Planchet provisionally;
which he did with the conscientiousness that D’Artagnan carried into
everything. After having well beaten him, he forbade him to leave his
service without his permission. “For,” added he, “the future cannot
fail to mend; I inevitably look for better times. Your fortune is
therefore made if you remain with me, and I am too good a master to
allow you to miss such a chance by granting you the dismissal you
require.”

This manner of acting roused much respect for D’Artagnan’s policy among
the Musketeers. Planchet was equally seized with admiration, and said
no more about going away.

The life of the four young men had become fraternal. D’Artagnan, who
had no settled habits of his own, as he came from his province into the
midst of a world quite new to him, fell easily into the habits of his
friends.

They rose about eight o’clock in the winter, about six in summer, and
went to take the countersign and see how things went on at M. de
Tréville’s. D’Artagnan, although he was not a Musketeer, performed the
duty of one with remarkable punctuality. He went on guard because he
always kept company with whoever of his friends was on duty. He was
well known at the Hôtel of the Musketeers, where everyone considered
him a good comrade. M. de Tréville, who had appreciated him at the
first glance and who bore him a real affection, never ceased
recommending him to the king.

On their side, the three Musketeers were much attached to their young
comrade. The friendship which united these four men, and the need they
felt of seeing another three or four times a day, whether for dueling,
business, or pleasure, caused them to be continually running after one
another like shadows; and the Inseparables were constantly to be met
with seeking one another, from the Luxembourg to the Place St. Sulpice,
or from the Rue du Vieux-Colombier to the Luxembourg.

In the meanwhile the promises of M. de Tréville went on prosperously.
One fine morning the king commanded M. de Chevalier Dessessart to admit
D’Artagnan as a cadet in his company of Guards. D’Artagnan, with a
sigh, donned his uniform, which he would have exchanged for that of a
Musketeer at the expense of ten years of his existence. But M. de
Tréville promised this favor after a novitiate of two years—a novitiate
which might besides be abridged if an opportunity should present itself
for D’Artagnan to render the king any signal service, or to distinguish
himself by some brilliant action. Upon this promise D’Artagnan
withdrew, and the next day he began service.

Then it became the turn of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis to mount guard
with D’Artagnan when he was on duty. The company of M. le Chevalier
Dessessart thus received four instead of one when it admitted
D’Artagnan.




Chapter VIII.
CONCERNING A COURT INTRIGUE


In the meantime, the forty pistoles of King Louis XIII., like all other
things of this world, after having had a beginning had an end, and
after this end our four companions began to be somewhat embarrassed. At
first, Athos supported the association for a time with his own means.

Porthos succeeded him; and thanks to one of those disappearances to
which he was accustomed, he was able to provide for the wants of all
for a fortnight. At last it became Aramis’s turn, who performed it with
a good grace and who succeeded—as he said, by selling some theological
books—in procuring a few pistoles.

Then, as they had been accustomed to do, they had recourse to M. de
Tréville, who made some advances on their pay; but these advances could
not go far with three Musketeers who were already much in arrears and a
Guardsman who as yet had no pay at all.

At length when they found they were likely to be really in want, they
got together, as a last effort, eight or ten pistoles, with which
Porthos went to the gaming table. Unfortunately he was in a bad vein;
he lost all, together with twenty-five pistoles for which he had given
his word.

Then the inconvenience became distress. The hungry friends, followed by
their lackeys, were seen haunting the quays and Guard rooms, picking up
among their friends abroad all the dinners they could meet with; for
according to the advice of Aramis, it was prudent to sow repasts right
and left in prosperity, in order to reap a few in time of need.

Athos was invited four times, and each time took his friends and their
lackeys with him. Porthos had six occasions, and contrived in the same
manner that his friends should partake of them; Aramis had eight of
them. He was a man, as must have been already perceived, who made but
little noise, and yet was much sought after.

As to D’Artagnan, who as yet knew nobody in the capital, he only found
one chocolate breakfast at the house of a priest of his own province,
and one dinner at the house of a cornet of the Guards. He took his army
to the priest’s, where they devoured as much provision as would have
lasted him for two months, and to the cornet’s, who performed wonders;
but as Planchet said, “People do not eat at once for all time, even
when they eat a good deal.”

D’Artagnan thus felt himself humiliated in having only procured one
meal and a half for his companions—as the breakfast at the priest’s
could only be counted as half a repast—in return for the feasts which
Athos, Porthos, and Aramis had procured him. He fancied himself a
burden to the society, forgetting in his perfectly juvenile good faith
that he had fed this society for a month; and he set his mind actively
to work. He reflected that this coalition of four young, brave,
enterprising, and active men ought to have some other object than
swaggering walks, fencing lessons, and practical jokes, more or less
witty.

In fact, four men such as they were—four men devoted to one another,
from their purses to their lives; four men always supporting one
another, never yielding, executing singly or together the resolutions
formed in common; four arms threatening the four cardinal points, or
turning toward a single point—must inevitably, either subterraneously,
in open day, by mining, in the trench, by cunning, or by force, open
themselves a way toward the object they wished to attain, however well
it might be defended, or however distant it may seem. The only thing
that astonished D’Artagnan was that his friends had never thought of
this.

He was thinking by himself, and even seriously racking his brain to
find a direction for this single force four times multiplied, with
which he did not doubt, as with the lever for which Archimedes sought,
they should succeed in moving the world, when someone tapped gently at
his door. D’Artagnan awakened Planchet and ordered him to open it.

From this phrase, “D’Artagnan awakened Planchet,” the reader must not
suppose it was night, or that day was hardly come. No, it had just
struck four. Planchet, two hours before, had asked his master for some
dinner, and he had answered him with the proverb, “He who sleeps,
dines.” And Planchet dined by sleeping.

A man was introduced of simple mien, who had the appearance of a
tradesman. Planchet, by way of dessert, would have liked to hear the
conversation; but the citizen declared to D’Artagnan that, what he had
to say being important and confidential, he desired to be left alone
with him.

D’Artagnan dismissed Planchet, and requested his visitor to be seated.
There was a moment of silence, during which the two men looked at each
other, as if to make a preliminary acquaintance, after which D’Artagnan
bowed, as a sign that he listened.

“I have heard Monsieur d’Artagnan spoken of as a very brave young man,”
said the citizen; “and this reputation which he justly enjoys had
decided me to confide a secret to him.”

“Speak, monsieur, speak,” said D’Artagnan, who instinctively scented
something advantageous.

The citizen made a fresh pause and continued, “I have a wife who is
seamstress to the queen, monsieur, and who is not deficient in either
virtue or beauty. I was induced to marry her about three years ago,
although she had but very little dowry, because Monsieur Laporte, the
queen’s cloak bearer, is her godfather, and befriends her.”

“Well, monsieur?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Well!” resumed the citizen, “well, monsieur, my wife was abducted
yesterday morning, as she was coming out of her workroom.”

“And by whom was your wife abducted?”

“I know nothing surely, monsieur, but I suspect someone.”

“And who is the person whom you suspect?”

“A man who has pursued her a long time.”

“The devil!”

“But allow me to tell you, monsieur,” continued the citizen, “that I am
convinced that there is less love than politics in all this.”

“Less love than politics,” replied D’Artagnan, with a reflective air;
“and what do you suspect?”

“I do not know whether I ought to tell you what I suspect.”

“Monsieur, I beg you to observe that I ask you absolutely nothing. It
is you who have come to me. It is you who have told me that you had a
secret to confide in me. Act, then, as you think proper; there is still
time to withdraw.”

“No, monsieur, no; you appear to be an honest young man, and I will
have confidence in you. I believe, then, that it is not on account of
any intrigues of her own that my wife has been arrested, but because of
those of a lady much greater than herself.”

“Ah, ah! Can it be on account of the amours of Madame de Bois-Tracy?”
said D’Artagnan, wishing to have the air, in the eyes of the citizen,
of being posted as to court affairs.

“Higher, monsieur, higher.”

“Of Madame d’Aiguillon?”

“Still higher.”

“Of Madame de Chevreuse?”

“Higher, much higher.”

“Of the—” D’Artagnan checked himself.

“Yes, monsieur,” replied the terrified citizen, in a tone so low that
he was scarcely audible.

“And with whom?”

“With whom can it be, if not the Duke of—”

“The Duke of—”

“Yes, monsieur,” replied the citizen, giving a still fainter intonation
to his voice.

“But how do you know all this?”

“How do I know it?”

“Yes, how do you know it? No half-confidence, or—you understand!”

“I know it from my wife, monsieur—from my wife herself.”

“Who learns it from whom?”

“From Monsieur Laporte. Did I not tell you that she was the goddaughter
of Monsieur Laporte, the confidential man of the queen? Well, Monsieur
Laporte placed her near her Majesty in order that our poor queen might
at least have someone in whom she could place confidence, abandoned as
she is by the king, watched as she is by the cardinal, betrayed as she
is by everybody.”

“Ah, ah! It begins to develop itself,” said D’Artagnan.

“Now, my wife came home four days ago, monsieur. One of her conditions
was that she should come and see me twice a week; for, as I had the
honor to tell you, my wife loves me dearly—my wife, then, came and
confided to me that the queen at that very moment entertained great
fears.”

“Truly!”

“Yes. The cardinal, as it appears, pursues her and persecutes her more
than ever. He cannot pardon her the history of the Saraband. You know
the history of the Saraband?”

“_Pardieu!_ Know it!” replied D’Artagnan, who knew nothing about it,
but who wished to appear to know everything that was going on.

“So that now it is no longer hatred, but vengeance.”

“Indeed!”

“And the queen believes—”

“Well, what does the queen believe?”

“She believes that someone has written to the Duke of Buckingham in her
name.”

“In the queen’s name?”

“Yes, to make him come to Paris; and when once come to Paris, to draw
him into some snare.”

“The devil! But your wife, monsieur, what has she to do with all this?”

“Her devotion to the queen is known; and they wish either to remove her
from her mistress, or to intimidate her, in order to obtain her
Majesty’s secrets, or to seduce her and make use of her as a spy.”

“That is likely,” said D’Artagnan; “but the man who has abducted her—do
you know him?”

“I have told you that I believe I know him.”

“His name?”

“I do not know that; what I do know is that he is a creature of the
cardinal, his evil genius.”

“But you have seen him?”

“Yes, my wife pointed him out to me one day.”

“Has he anything remarkable about him by which one may recognize him?”

“Oh, certainly; he is a noble of very lofty carriage, black hair,
swarthy complexion, piercing eye, white teeth, and has a scar on his
temple.”

“A scar on his temple!” cried D’Artagnan; “and with that, white teeth,
a piercing eye, dark complexion, black hair, and haughty carriage—why,
that’s my man of Meung.”

“He is your man, do you say?”

“Yes, yes; but that has nothing to do with it. No, I am wrong. On the
contrary, that simplifies the matter greatly. If your man is mine, with
one blow I shall obtain two revenges, that’s all; but where to find
this man?”

“I know not.”

“Have you no information as to his abiding place?”

“None. One day, as I was conveying my wife back to the Louvre, he was
coming out as she was going in, and she showed him to me.”

“The devil! The devil!” murmured D’Artagnan; “all this is vague enough.
From whom have you learned of the abduction of your wife?”

“From Monsieur Laporte.”

“Did he give you any details?”

“He knew none himself.”

“And you have learned nothing from any other quarter?”

“Yes, I have received—”

“What?”

“I fear I am committing a great imprudence.”

“You always come back to that; but I must make you see this time that
it is too late to retreat.”

“I do not retreat, _mordieu!_” cried the citizen, swearing in order to
rouse his courage. “Besides, by the faith of Bonacieux—”

“You call yourself Bonacieux?” interrupted D’Artagnan.

“Yes, that is my name.”

“You said, then, by the word of Bonacieux. Pardon me for interrupting
you, but it appears to me that that name is familiar to me.”

“Possibly, monsieur. I am your landlord.”

“Ah, ah!” said D’Artagnan, half rising and bowing; “you are my
landlord?”

“Yes, monsieur, yes. And as it is three months since you have been
here, and though, distracted as you must be in your important
occupations, you have forgotten to pay me my rent—as, I say, I have not
tormented you a single instant, I thought you would appreciate my
delicacy.”

“How can it be otherwise, my dear Bonacieux?” replied D’Artagnan;
“trust me, I am fully grateful for such unparalleled conduct, and if,
as I told you, I can be of any service to you—”

“I believe you, monsieur, I believe you; and as I was about to say, by
the word of Bonacieux, I have confidence in you.”

“Finish, then, what you were about to say.”

The citizen took a paper from his pocket, and presented it to
D’Artagnan.

“A letter?” said the young man.

“Which I received this morning.”

D’Artagnan opened it, and as the day was beginning to decline, he
approached the window to read it. The citizen followed him.

“‘Do not seek your wife,’” read D’Artagnan; “‘she will be restored to
you when there is no longer occasion for her. If you make a single step
to find her you are lost.’

“That’s pretty positive,” continued D’Artagnan; “but after all, it is
but a menace.”

“Yes; but that menace terrifies me. I am not a fighting man at all,
monsieur, and I am afraid of the Bastille.”

“Hum!” said D’Artagnan. “I have no greater regard for the Bastille than
you. If it were nothing but a sword thrust, why then—”

“I have counted upon you on this occasion, monsieur.”

“Yes?”

“Seeing you constantly surrounded by Musketeers of a very superb
appearance, and knowing that these Musketeers belong to Monsieur de
Tréville, and were consequently enemies of the cardinal, I thought that
you and your friends, while rendering justice to your poor queen, would
be pleased to play his Eminence an ill turn.”

“Without doubt.”

“And then I have thought that considering three months’ lodging, about
which I have said nothing—”

“Yes, yes; you have already given me that reason, and I find it
excellent.”

“Reckoning still further, that as long as you do me the honor to remain
in my house I shall never speak to you about rent—”

“Very kind!”

“And adding to this, if there be need of it, meaning to offer you fifty
pistoles, if, against all probability, you should be short at the
present moment.”

“Admirable! You are rich then, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux?”

“I am comfortably off, monsieur, that’s all; I have scraped together
some such things as an income of two or three thousand crowns in the
haberdashery business, but more particularly in venturing some funds in
the last voyage of the celebrated navigator Jean Moquet; so that you
understand, monsieur—But!—” cried the citizen.

“What!” demanded D’Artagnan.

“Whom do I see yonder?”

“Where?”

“In the street, facing your window, in the embrasure of that door—a man
wrapped in a cloak.”

“It is he!” cried D’Artagnan and the citizen at the same time, each
having recognized his man.

“Ah, this time,” cried D’Artagnan, springing to his sword, “this time
he will not escape me!”

Drawing his sword from its scabbard, he rushed out of the apartment. On
the staircase he met Athos and Porthos, who were coming to see him.
They separated, and D’Artagnan rushed between them like a dart.

“Pah! Where are you going?” cried the two Musketeers in a breath.

“The man of Meung!” replied D’Artagnan, and disappeared.

D’Artagnan had more than once related to his friends his adventure with
the stranger, as well as the apparition of the beautiful foreigner, to
whom this man had confided some important missive.

The opinion of Athos was that D’Artagnan had lost his letter in the
skirmish. A gentleman, in his opinion—and according to D’Artagnan’s
portrait of him, the stranger must be a gentleman—would be incapable of
the baseness of stealing a letter.

Porthos saw nothing in all this but a love meeting, given by a lady to
a cavalier, or by a cavalier to a lady, which had been disturbed by the
presence of D’Artagnan and his yellow horse.

Aramis said that as these sorts of affairs were mysterious, it was
better not to fathom them.

They understood, then, from the few words which escaped from
D’Artagnan, what affair was in hand, and as they thought that
overtaking his man, or losing sight of him, D’Artagnan would return to
his rooms, they kept on their way.

When they entered D’Artagnan’s chamber, it was empty; the landlord,
dreading the consequences of the encounter which was doubtless about to
take place between the young man and the stranger, had, consistent with
the character he had given himself, judged it prudent to decamp.




Chapter IX.
D’ARTAGNAN SHOWS HIMSELF


As Athos and Porthos had foreseen, at the expiration of a half hour,
D’Artagnan returned. He had again missed his man, who had disappeared
as if by enchantment. D’Artagnan had run, sword in hand, through all
the neighboring streets, but had found nobody resembling the man he
sought for. Then he came back to the point where, perhaps, he ought to
have begun, and that was to knock at the door against which the
stranger had leaned; but this proved useless—for though he knocked ten
or twelve times in succession, no one answered, and some of the
neighbors, who put their noses out of their windows or were brought to
their doors by the noise, had assured him that that house, all the
openings of which were tightly closed, had not been inhabited for six
months.

While D’Artagnan was running through the streets and knocking at doors,
Aramis had joined his companions; so that on returning home D’Artagnan
found the reunion complete.

“Well!” cried the three Musketeers all together, on seeing D’Artagnan
enter with his brow covered with perspiration and his countenance upset
with anger.

“Well!” cried he, throwing his sword upon the bed, “this man must be
the devil in person; he has disappeared like a phantom, like a shade,
like a specter.”

“Do you believe in apparitions?” asked Athos of Porthos.

“I never believe in anything I have not seen, and as I never have seen
apparitions, I don’t believe in them.”

“The Bible,” said Aramis, “makes our belief in them a law; the ghost of
Samuel appeared to Saul, and it is an article of faith that I should be
very sorry to see any doubt thrown upon, Porthos.”

“At all events, man or devil, body or shadow, illusion or reality, this
man is born for my damnation; for his flight has caused us to miss a
glorious affair, gentlemen—an affair by which there were a hundred
pistoles, and perhaps more, to be gained.”

“How is that?” cried Porthos and Aramis in a breath.

As to Athos, faithful to his system of reticence, he contented himself
with interrogating D’Artagnan by a look.

“Planchet,” said D’Artagnan to his domestic, who just then insinuated
his head through the half-open door in order to catch some fragments of
the conversation, “go down to my landlord, Monsieur Bonacieux, and ask
him to send me half a dozen bottles of Beaugency wine; I prefer that.”

“Ah, ah! You have credit with your landlord, then?” asked Porthos.

“Yes,” replied D’Artagnan, “from this very day; and mind, if the wine
is bad, we will send him to find better.”

“We must use, and not abuse,” said Aramis, sententiously.

“I always said that D’Artagnan had the longest head of the four,” said
Athos, who, having uttered his opinion, to which D’Artagnan replied
with a bow, immediately resumed his accustomed silence.

“But come, what is this about?” asked Porthos.

“Yes,” said Aramis, “impart it to us, my dear friend, unless the honor
of any lady be hazarded by this confidence; in that case you would do
better to keep it to yourself.”

“Be satisfied,” replied D’Artagnan; “the honor of no one will have
cause to complain of what I have to tell.”

He then related to his friends, word for word, all that had passed
between him and his host, and how the man who had abducted the wife of
his worthy landlord was the same with whom he had had the difference at
the hostelry of the Jolly Miller.

“Your affair is not bad,” said Athos, after having tasted like a
connoisseur and indicated by a nod of his head that he thought the wine
good; “and one may draw fifty or sixty pistoles from this good man.
Then there only remains to ascertain whether these fifty or sixty
pistoles are worth the risk of four heads.”

“But observe,” cried D’Artagnan, “that there is a woman in the affair—a
woman carried off, a woman who is doubtless threatened, tortured
perhaps, and all because she is faithful to her mistress.”

“Beware, D’Artagnan, beware,” said Aramis. “You grow a little too warm,
in my opinion, about the fate of Madame Bonacieux. Woman was created
for our destruction, and it is from her we inherit all our miseries.”

At this speech of Aramis, the brow of Athos became clouded and he bit
his lips.

“It is not Madame Bonacieux about whom I am anxious,” cried D’Artagnan,
“but the queen, whom the king abandons, whom the cardinal persecutes,
and who sees the heads of all her friends fall, one after the other.”

“Why does she love what we hate most in the world, the Spaniards and
the English?”

“Spain is her country,” replied D’Artagnan; “and it is very natural
that she should love the Spanish, who are the children of the same soil
as herself. As to the second reproach, I have heard it said that she
does not love the English, but an Englishman.”

“Well, and by my faith,” said Athos, “it must be acknowledged that this
Englishman is worthy of being loved. I never saw a man with a nobler
air than his.”

“Without reckoning that he dresses as nobody else can,” said Porthos.
“I was at the Louvre on the day when he scattered his pearls; and,
_pardieu_, I picked up two that I sold for ten pistoles each. Do you
know him, Aramis?”

“As well as you do, gentlemen; for I was among those who seized him in
the garden at Amiens, into which Monsieur Putange, the queen’s equerry,
introduced me. I was at school at the time, and the adventure appeared
to me to be cruel for the king.”

“Which would not prevent me,” said D’Artagnan, “if I knew where the
Duke of Buckingham was, from taking him by the hand and conducting him
to the queen, were it only to enrage the cardinal, and if we could find
means to play him a sharp turn, I vow that I would voluntarily risk my
head in doing it.”

“And did the mercer*,” rejoined Athos, “tell you, D’Artagnan, that the
queen thought that Buckingham had been brought over by a forged
letter?”

* Haberdasher


“She is afraid so.”

“Wait a minute, then,” said Aramis.

“What for?” demanded Porthos.

“Go on, while I endeavor to recall circumstances.”

“And now I am convinced,” said D’Artagnan, “that this abduction of the
queen’s woman is connected with the events of which we are speaking,
and perhaps with the presence of Buckingham in Paris.”

“The Gascon is full of ideas,” said Porthos, with admiration.

“I like to hear him talk,” said Athos; “his dialect amuses me.”

“Gentlemen,” cried Aramis, “listen to this.”

“Listen to Aramis,” said his three friends.

“Yesterday I was at the house of a doctor of theology, whom I sometimes
consult about my studies.”

Athos smiled.

“He resides in a quiet quarter,” continued Aramis; “his tastes and his
profession require it. Now, at the moment when I left his house—”

Here Aramis paused.

“Well,” cried his auditors; “at the moment you left his house?”

Aramis appeared to make a strong inward effort, like a man who, in the
full relation of a falsehood, finds himself stopped by some unforeseen
obstacle; but the eyes of his three companions were fixed upon him,
their ears were wide open, and there were no means of retreat.

“This doctor has a niece,” continued Aramis.

“Ah, he has a niece!” interrupted Porthos.

“A very respectable lady,” said Aramis.

The three friends burst into laughter.

“Ah, if you laugh, if you doubt me,” replied Aramis, “you shall know
nothing.”

“We believe like Mohammedans, and are as mute as tombstones,” said
Athos.

“I will continue, then,” resumed Aramis. “This niece comes sometimes to
see her uncle; and by chance was there yesterday at the same time that
I was, and it was my duty to offer to conduct her to her carriage.”

“Ah! She has a carriage, then, this niece of the doctor?” interrupted
Porthos, one of whose faults was a great looseness of tongue. “A nice
acquaintance, my friend!”

“Porthos,” replied Aramis, “I have had the occasion to observe to you
more than once that you are very indiscreet; and that is injurious to
you among the women.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” cried D’Artagnan, who began to get a glimpse of
the result of the adventure, “the thing is serious. Let us try not to
jest, if we can. Go on Aramis, go on.”

“All at once, a tall, dark gentleman—just like yours, D’Artagnan.”

“The same, perhaps,” said he.

“Possibly,” continued Aramis, “came toward me, accompanied by five or
six men who followed about ten paces behind him; and in the politest
tone, ‘Monsieur Duke,’ said he to me, ‘and you madame,’ continued he,
addressing the lady on my arm—”

“The doctor’s niece?”

“Hold your tongue, Porthos,” said Athos; “you are insupportable.”

“‘—will you enter this carriage, and that without offering the least
resistance, without making the least noise?’”

“He took you for Buckingham!” cried D’Artagnan.

“I believe so,” replied Aramis.

“But the lady?” asked Porthos.

“He took her for the queen!” said D’Artagnan.

“Just so,” replied Aramis.

“The Gascon is the devil!” cried Athos; “nothing escapes him.”

“The fact is,” said Porthos, “Aramis is of the same height, and
something of the shape of the duke; but it nevertheless appears to me
that the dress of a Musketeer—”

“I wore an enormous cloak,” said Aramis.

“In the month of July? The devil!” said Porthos. “Is the doctor afraid
that you may be recognized?”

“I can comprehend that the spy may have been deceived by the person;
but the face—”

“I had a large hat,” said Aramis.

“Oh, good lord,” cried Porthos, “what precautions for the study of
theology!”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, “do not let us lose our time
in jesting. Let us separate, and let us seek the mercer’s wife—that is
the key of the intrigue.”

“A woman of such inferior condition! Can you believe so?” said Porthos,
protruding his lips with contempt.

“She is goddaughter to Laporte, the confidential valet of the queen.
Have I not told you so, gentlemen? Besides, it has perhaps been her
Majesty’s calculation to seek on this occasion for support so lowly.
High heads expose themselves from afar, and the cardinal is
longsighted.”

“Well,” said Porthos, “in the first place make a bargain with the
mercer, and a good bargain.”

“That’s useless,” said D’Artagnan; “for I believe if he does not pay
us, we shall be well enough paid by another party.”

At this moment a sudden noise of footsteps was heard upon the stairs;
the door was thrown violently open, and the unfortunate mercer rushed
into the chamber in which the council was held.

“Save me, gentlemen, for the love of heaven, save me!” cried he. “There
are four men come to arrest me. Save me! Save me!”

Porthos and Aramis arose.

“A moment,” cried D’Artagnan, making them a sign to replace in the
scabbard their half-drawn swords. “It is not courage that is needed; it
is prudence.”

“And yet,” cried Porthos, “we will not leave—”

“You will leave D’Artagnan to act as he thinks proper,” said Athos. “He
has, I repeat, the longest head of the four, and for my part I declare
that I will obey him. Do as you think best, D’Artagnan.”

At this moment the four Guards appeared at the door of the antechamber,
but seeing four Musketeers standing, and their swords by their sides,
they hesitated about going farther.

“Come in, gentlemen, come in,” called D’Artagnan; “you are here in my
apartment, and we are all faithful servants of the king and cardinal.”

“Then, gentlemen, you will not oppose our executing the orders we have
received?” asked one who appeared to be the leader of the party.

“On the contrary, gentlemen, we would assist you if it were necessary.”

“What does he say?” grumbled Porthos.

“You are a simpleton,” said Athos. “Silence!”

“But you promised me—” whispered the poor mercer.

“We can only save you by being free ourselves,” replied D’Artagnan, in
a rapid, low tone; “and if we appear inclined to defend you, they will
arrest us with you.”

“It seems, nevertheless—”

“Come, gentlemen, come!” said D’Artagnan, aloud; “I have no motive for
defending Monsieur. I saw him today for the first time, and he can tell
you on what occasion; he came to demand the rent of my lodging. Is that
not true, Monsieur Bonacieux? Answer!”

“That is the very truth,” cried the mercer; “but Monsieur does not tell
you—”

“Silence, with respect to me, silence, with respect to my friends;
silence about the queen, above all, or you will ruin everybody without
saving yourself! Come, come, gentlemen, remove the fellow.” And
D’Artagnan pushed the half-stupefied mercer among the Guards, saying to
him, “You are a shabby old fellow, my dear. You come to demand money of
me—of a Musketeer! To prison with him! Gentlemen, once more, take him
to prison, and keep him under key as long as possible; that will give
me time to pay him.”

The officers were full of thanks, and took away their prey. As they
were going down D’Artagnan laid his hand on the shoulder of their
leader.

“May I not drink to your health, and you to mine?” said D’Artagnan,
filling two glasses with the Beaugency wine which he had obtained from
the liberality of M. Bonacieux.

“That will do me great honor,” said the leader of the posse, “and I
accept thankfully.”

“Then to yours, monsieur—what is your name?”

“Boisrenard.”

“Monsieur Boisrenard.”

“To yours, my gentlemen! What is your name, in your turn, if you
please?”

“D’Artagnan.”

“To yours, monsieur.”

“And above all others,” cried D’Artagnan, as if carried away by his
enthusiasm, “to that of the king and the cardinal.”

The leader of the posse would perhaps have doubted the sincerity of
D’Artagnan if the wine had been bad; but the wine was good, and he was
convinced.

“What diabolical villainy you have performed here,” said Porthos, when
the officer had rejoined his companions and the four friends found
themselves alone. “Shame, shame, for four Musketeers to allow an
unfortunate fellow who cried for help to be arrested in their midst!
And a gentleman to hobnob with a bailiff!”

“Porthos,” said Aramis, “Athos has already told you that you are a
simpleton, and I am quite of his opinion. D’Artagnan, you are a great
man; and when you occupy Monsieur de Tréville’s place, I will come and
ask your influence to secure me an abbey.”

“Well, I am in a maze,” said Porthos; “do _you_ approve of what
D’Artagnan has done?”

“_Parbleu!_ Indeed I do,” said Athos; “I not only approve of what he
has done, but I congratulate him upon it.”

“And now, gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, without stopping to explain his
conduct to Porthos, “All for one, one for all—that is our motto, is it
not?”

“And yet—” said Porthos.

“Hold out your hand and swear!” cried Athos and Aramis at once.

Overcome by example, grumbling to himself, nevertheless, Porthos
stretched out his hand, and the four friends repeated with one voice
the formula dictated by D’Artagnan:

“All for one, one for all.”

“That’s well! Now let us everyone retire to his own home,” said
D’Artagnan, as if he had done nothing but command all his life; “and
attention! For from this moment we are at feud with the cardinal.”




Chapter X.
A MOUSETRAP IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY


The invention of the mousetrap does not date from our days; as soon as
societies, in forming, had invented any kind of police, that police
invented mousetraps.

As perhaps our readers are not familiar with the slang of the Rue de
Jerusalem, and as it is fifteen years since we applied this word for
the first time to this thing, allow us to explain to them what is a
mousetrap.

When in a house, of whatever kind it may be, an individual suspected of
any crime is arrested, the arrest is held secret. Four or five men are
placed in ambuscade in the first room. The door is opened to all who
knock. It is closed after them, and they are arrested; so that at the
end of two or three days they have in their power almost all the
_habitués_ of the establishment. And that is a mousetrap.

The apartment of M. Bonacieux, then, became a mousetrap; and whoever
appeared there was taken and interrogated by the cardinal’s people. It
must be observed that as a separate passage led to the first floor, in
which D’Artagnan lodged, those who called on him were exempted from
this detention.

Besides, nobody came thither but the three Musketeers; they had all
been engaged in earnest search and inquiries, but had discovered
nothing. Athos had even gone so far as to question M. de Tréville—a
thing which, considering the habitual reticence of the worthy
Musketeer, had very much astonished his captain. But M. de Tréville
knew nothing, except that the last time he had seen the cardinal, the
king, and the queen, the cardinal looked very thoughtful, the king
uneasy, and the redness of the queen’s eyes donated that she had been
sleepless or tearful. But this last circumstance was not striking, as
the queen since her marriage had slept badly and wept much.

M. de Tréville requested Athos, whatever might happen, to be observant
of his duty to the king, but particularly to the queen, begging him to
convey his desires to his comrades.

As to D’Artagnan, he did not budge from his apartment. He converted his
chamber into an observatory. From his windows he saw all the visitors
who were caught. Then, having removed a plank from his floor, and
nothing remaining but a simple ceiling between him and the room
beneath, in which the interrogatories were made, he heard all that
passed between the inquisitors and the accused.

The interrogatories, preceded by a minute search operated upon the
persons arrested, were almost always framed thus: “Has Madame Bonacieux
sent anything to you for her husband, or any other person? Has Monsieur
Bonacieux sent anything to you for his wife, or for any other person?
Has either of them confided anything to you by word of mouth?”

“If they knew anything, they would not question people in this manner,”
said D’Artagnan to himself. “Now, what is it they want to know? Why,
they want to know if the Duke of Buckingham is in Paris, and if he has
had, or is likely to have, an interview with the queen.”

D’Artagnan held onto this idea, which, from what he had heard, was not
wanting in probability.

In the meantime, the mousetrap continued in operation, and likewise
D’Artagnan’s vigilance.

On the evening of the day after the arrest of poor Bonacieux, as Athos
had just left D’Artagnan to report at M. de Tréville’s, as nine o’clock
had just struck, and as Planchet, who had not yet made the bed, was
beginning his task, a knocking was heard at the street door. The door
was instantly opened and shut; someone was taken in the mousetrap.

D’Artagnan flew to his hole, laid himself down on the floor at full
length, and listened.

Cries were soon heard, and then moans, which someone appeared to be
endeavoring to stifle. There were no questions.

“The devil!” said D’Artagnan to himself. “It seems like a woman! They
search her; she resists; they use force—the scoundrels!”

In spite of his prudence, D’Artagnan restrained himself with great
difficulty from taking a part in the scene that was going on below.

“But I tell you that I am the mistress of the house, gentlemen! I tell
you I am Madame Bonacieux; I tell you I belong to the queen!” cried the
unfortunate woman.

“Madame Bonacieux!” murmured D’Artagnan. “Can I be so lucky as to find
what everybody is seeking for?”

The voice became more and more indistinct; a tumultuous movement shook
the partition. The victim resisted as much as a woman could resist four
men.

“Pardon, gentlemen—par—” murmured the voice, which could now only be
heard in inarticulate sounds.

“They are binding her; they are going to drag her away,” cried
D’Artagnan to himself, springing up from the floor. “My sword! Good, it
is by my side! Planchet!”

“Monsieur.”

“Run and seek Athos, Porthos and Aramis. One of the three will
certainly be at home, perhaps all three. Tell them to take arms, to
come here, and to run! Ah, I remember, Athos is at Monsieur de
Tréville’s.”

“But where are you going, monsieur, where are you going?”

“I am going down by the window, in order to be there the sooner,” cried
D’Artagnan. “You put back the boards, sweep the floor, go out at the
door, and run as I told you.”

“Oh, monsieur! Monsieur! You will kill yourself,” cried Planchet.

“Hold your tongue, stupid fellow,” said D’Artagnan; and laying hold of
the casement, he let himself gently down from the first story, which
fortunately was not very elevated, without doing himself the slightest
injury.

He then went straight to the door and knocked, murmuring, “I will go
myself and be caught in the mousetrap, but woe be to the cats that
shall pounce upon such a mouse!”

The knocker had scarcely sounded under the hand of the young man before
the tumult ceased, steps approached, the door was opened, and
D’Artagnan, sword in hand, rushed into the rooms of M. Bonacieux, the
door of which, doubtless acted upon by a spring, closed after him.

Then those who dwelt in Bonacieux’s unfortunate house, together with
the nearest neighbors, heard loud cries, stamping of feet, clashing of
swords, and breaking of furniture. A moment after, those who, surprised
by this tumult, had gone to their windows to learn the cause of it, saw
the door open, and four men, clothed in black, not _come_ out of it,
but _fly_, like so many frightened crows, leaving on the ground and on
the corners of the furniture, feathers from their wings; that is to
say, patches of their clothes and fragments of their cloaks.

D’Artagnan was conqueror—without much effort, it must be confessed, for
only one of the officers was armed, and even he defended himself for
form’s sake. It is true that the three others had endeavored to knock
the young man down with chairs, stools, and crockery; but two or three
scratches made by the Gascon’s blade terrified them. Ten minutes
sufficed for their defeat, and D’Artagnan remained master of the field
of battle.

The neighbors who had opened their windows, with the coolness peculiar
to the inhabitants of Paris in these times of perpetual riots and
disturbances, closed them again as soon as they saw the four men in
black flee—their instinct telling them that for the time all was over.
Besides, it began to grow late, and then, as today, people went to bed
early in the quarter of the Luxembourg.

On being left alone with Mme. Bonacieux, D’Artagnan turned toward her;
the poor woman reclined where she had been left, half-fainting upon an
armchair. D’Artagnan examined her with a rapid glance.

She was a charming woman of twenty-five or twenty-six years, with dark
hair, blue eyes, and a nose slightly turned up, admirable teeth, and a
complexion marbled with rose and opal. There, however, ended the signs
which might have confounded her with a lady of rank. The hands were
white, but without delicacy; the feet did not bespeak the woman of
quality. Happily, D’Artagnan was not yet acquainted with such niceties.

While D’Artagnan was examining Mme. Bonacieux, and was, as we have
said, close to her, he saw on the ground a fine cambric handkerchief,
which he picked up, as was his habit, and at the corner of which he
recognized the same cipher he had seen on the handkerchief which had
nearly caused him and Aramis to cut each other’s throat.

From that time, D’Artagnan had been cautious with respect to
handkerchiefs with arms on them, and he therefore placed in the pocket
of Mme. Bonacieux the one he had just picked up.

At that moment Mme. Bonacieux recovered her senses. She opened her
eyes, looked around her with terror, saw that the apartment was empty
and that she was alone with her liberator. She extended her hands to
him with a smile. Mme. Bonacieux had the sweetest smile in the world.

“Ah, monsieur!” said she, “you have saved me; permit me to thank you.”

“Madame,” said D’Artagnan, “I have only done what every gentleman would
have done in my place; you owe me no thanks.”

“Oh, yes, monsieur, oh, yes; and I hope to prove to you that you have
not served an ingrate. But what could these men, whom I at first took
for robbers, want with me, and why is Monsieur Bonacieux not here?”

“Madame, those men were more dangerous than any robbers could have
been, for they are the agents of the cardinal; and as to your husband,
Monsieur Bonacieux, he is not here because he was yesterday evening
conducted to the Bastille.”

“My husband in the Bastille!” cried Mme. Bonacieux. “Oh, my God! What
has he done? Poor dear man, he is innocence itself!”

And something like a faint smile lighted the still-terrified features
of the young woman.

“What has he done, madame?” said D’Artagnan. “I believe that his only
crime is to have at the same time the good fortune and the misfortune
to be your husband.”

“But, monsieur, you know then—”

“I know that you have been abducted, madame.”

“And by whom? Do you know him? Oh, if you know him, tell me!”

“By a man of from forty to forty-five years, with black hair, a dark
complexion, and a scar on his left temple.”

“That is he, that is he; but his name?”

“Ah, his name? I do not know that.”

“And did my husband know I had been carried off?”

“He was informed of it by a letter, written to him by the abductor
himself.”

“And does he suspect,” said Mme. Bonacieux, with some embarrassment,
“the cause of this event?”

“He attributed it, I believe, to a political cause.”

“I doubted from the first; and now I think entirely as he does. Then my
dear Monsieur Bonacieux has not suspected me a single instant?”

“So far from it, madame, he was too proud of your prudence, and above
all, of your love.”

A second smile, almost imperceptible, stole over the rosy lips of the
pretty young woman.

“But,” continued D’Artagnan, “how did you escape?”

“I took advantage of a moment when they left me alone; and as I had
known since morning the reason of my abduction, with the help of the
sheets I let myself down from the window. Then, as I believed my
husband would be at home, I hastened hither.”

“To place yourself under his protection?”

“Oh, no, poor dear man! I knew very well that he was incapable of
defending me; but as he could serve us in other ways, I wished to
inform him.”

“Of what?”

“Oh, that is not my secret; I must not, therefore, tell you.”

“Besides,” said D’Artagnan, “pardon me, madame, if, guardsman as I am,
I remind you of prudence—besides, I believe we are not here in a very
proper place for imparting confidences. The men I have put to flight
will return reinforced; if they find us here, we are lost. I have sent
for three of my friends, but who knows whether they were at home?”

“Yes, yes! You are right,” cried the affrighted Mme. Bonacieux; “let us
fly! Let us save ourselves.”

At these words she passed her arm under that of D’Artagnan, and urged
him forward eagerly.

“But whither shall we fly—whither escape?”

“Let us first withdraw from this house; afterward we shall see.”

The young woman and the young man, without taking the trouble to shut
the door after them, descended the Rue des Fossoyeurs rapidly, turned
into the Rue des Fossés-Monsieur-le-Prince, and did not stop till they
came to the Place St. Sulpice.

“And now what are we to do, and where do you wish me to conduct you?”
asked D’Artagnan.

“I am at quite a loss how to answer you, I admit,” said Mme. Bonacieux.
“My intention was to inform Monsieur Laporte, through my husband, in
order that Monsieur Laporte might tell us precisely what had taken
place at the Louvre in the last three days, and whether there is any
danger in presenting myself there.”

“But I,” said D’Artagnan, “can go and inform Monsieur Laporte.”

“No doubt you could, only there is one misfortune, and that is that
Monsieur Bonacieux is known at the Louvre, and would be allowed to
pass; whereas you are not known there, and the gate would be closed
against you.”

“Ah, bah!” said D’Artagnan; “you have at some wicket of the Louvre a
_concierge_ who is devoted to you, and who, thanks to a password,
would—”

Mme. Bonacieux looked earnestly at the young man.

“And if I give you this password,” said she, “would you forget it as
soon as you used it?”

“By my honor, by the faith of a gentleman!” said D’Artagnan, with an
accent so truthful that no one could mistake it.

“Then I believe you. You appear to be a brave young man; besides, your
fortune may perhaps be the result of your devotedness.”

“I will do, without a promise and voluntarily, all that I can do to
serve the king and be agreeable to the queen. Dispose of me, then, as a
friend.”

“But I—where shall I go meanwhile?”

“Is there nobody from whose house Monsieur Laporte can come and fetch
you?”

“No, I can trust nobody.”

“Stop,” said D’Artagnan; “we are near Athos’s door. Yes, here it is.”

“Who is this Athos?”

“One of my friends.”

“But if he should be at home and see me?”

“He is not at home, and I will carry away the key, after having placed
you in his apartment.”

“But if he should return?”

“Oh, he won’t return; and if he should, he will be told that I have
brought a woman with me, and that woman is in his apartment.”

“But that will compromise me sadly, you know.”

“Of what consequence? Nobody knows you. Besides, we are in a situation
to overlook ceremony.”

“Come, then, let us go to your friend’s house. Where does he live?”

“Rue Férou, two steps from here.”

“Let us go!”

Both resumed their way. As D’Artagnan had foreseen, Athos was not
within. He took the key, which was customarily given him as one of the
family, ascended the stairs, and introduced Mme. Bonacieux into the
little apartment of which we have given a description.

“You are at home,” said he. “Remain here, fasten the door inside, and
open it to nobody unless you hear three taps like this;” and he tapped
thrice—two taps close together and pretty hard, the other after an
interval, and lighter.

“That is well,” said Mme. Bonacieux. “Now, in my turn, let me give you
my instructions.”

“I am all attention.”

“Present yourself at the wicket of the Louvre, on the side of the Rue
de l’Echelle, and ask for Germain.”

“Well, and then?”

“He will ask you what you want, and you will answer by these two words,
‘Tours’ and ‘Bruxelles.’ He will at once put himself at your orders.”

“And what shall I command him?”

“To go and fetch Monsieur Laporte, the queen’s _valet de chambre_.”

“And when he shall have informed him, and Monsieur Laporte is come?”

“You will send him to me.”

“That is well; but where and how shall I see you again?”

“Do you wish to see me again?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, let that care be mine, and be at ease.”

“I depend upon your word.”

“You may.”

D’Artagnan bowed to Mme. Bonacieux, darting at her the most loving
glance that he could possibly concentrate upon her charming little
person; and while he descended the stairs, he heard the door closed and
double-locked. In two bounds he was at the Louvre; as he entered the
wicket of L’Echelle, ten o’clock struck. All the events we have
described had taken place within a half hour.

Everything fell out as Mme. Bonacieux prophesied. On hearing the
password, Germain bowed. In a few minutes, Laporte was at the lodge; in
two words D’Artagnan informed him where Mme. Bonacieux was. Laporte
assured himself, by having it twice repeated, of the accurate address,
and set off at a run. Hardly, however, had he taken ten steps before he
returned.

“Young man,” said he to D’Artagnan, “a suggestion.”

“What?”

“You may get into trouble by what has taken place.”

“You believe so?”

“Yes. Have you any friend whose clock is too slow?”

“Well?”

“Go and call upon him, in order that he may give evidence of your
having been with him at half past nine. In a court of justice that is
called an alibi.”

D’Artagnan found his advice prudent. He took to his heels, and was soon
at M. de Tréville’s; but instead of going into the saloon with the rest
of the crowd, he asked to be introduced to M. de Tréville’s office. As
D’Artagnan so constantly frequented the hôtel, no difficulty was made
in complying with his request, and a servant went to inform M. de
Tréville that his young compatriot, having something important to
communicate, solicited a private audience. Five minutes after, M. de
Tréville was asking D’Artagnan what he could do to serve him, and what
caused his visit at so late an hour.

“Pardon me, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, who had profited by the moment
he had been left alone to put back M. de Tréville’s clock
three-quarters of an hour, “but I thought, as it was yet only
twenty-five minutes past nine, it was not too late to wait upon you.”

“Twenty-five minutes past nine!” cried M. de Tréville, looking at the
clock; “why, that’s impossible!”

“Look, rather, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, “the clock shows it.”

“That’s true,” said M. de Tréville; “I believed it later. But what can
I do for you?”

Then D’Artagnan told M. de Tréville a long history about the queen. He
expressed to him the fears he entertained with respect to her Majesty;
he related to him what he had heard of the projects of the cardinal
with regard to Buckingham, and all with a tranquillity and candor of
which M. de Tréville was the more the dupe, from having himself, as we
have said, observed something fresh between the cardinal, the king, and
the queen.

As ten o’clock was striking, D’Artagnan left M. de Tréville, who
thanked him for his information, recommended him to have the service of
the king and queen always at heart, and returned to the saloon; but at
the foot of the stairs, D’Artagnan remembered he had forgotten his
cane. He consequently sprang up again, re-entered the office, with a
turn of his finger set the clock right again, that it might not be
perceived the next day that it had been put wrong, and certain from
that time that he had a witness to prove his alibi, he ran downstairs
and soon found himself in the street.




Chapter XI.
IN WHICH THE PLOT THICKENS


His visit to M. de Tréville being paid, the pensive D’Artagnan took the
longest way homeward.

On what was D’Artagnan thinking, that he strayed thus from his path,
gazing at the stars of heaven, and sometimes sighing, sometimes
smiling?

He was thinking of Mme. Bonacieux. For an apprentice Musketeer the
young woman was almost an ideal of love. Pretty, mysterious, initiated
in almost all the secrets of the court, which reflected such a charming
gravity over her pleasing features, it might be surmised that she was
not wholly unmoved; and this is an irresistible charm to novices in
love. Moreover, D’Artagnan had delivered her from the hands of the
demons who wished to search and ill treat her; and this important
service had established between them one of those sentiments of
gratitude which so easily assume a more tender character.

D’Artagnan already fancied himself, so rapid is the flight of our
dreams upon the wings of imagination, accosted by a messenger from the
young woman, who brought him some billet appointing a meeting, a gold
chain, or a diamond. We have observed that young cavaliers received
presents from their king without shame. Let us add that in these times
of lax morality they had no more delicacy with respect to the
mistresses; and that the latter almost always left them valuable and
durable remembrances, as if they essayed to conquer the fragility of
their sentiments by the solidity of their gifts.

Without a blush, men made their way in the world by the means of women
blushing. Such as were only beautiful gave their beauty, whence,
without doubt, comes the proverb, “The most beautiful girl in the world
can only give what she has.” Such as were rich gave in addition a part
of their money; and a vast number of heroes of that gallant period may
be cited who would neither have won their spurs in the first place, nor
their battles afterward, without the purse, more or less furnished,
which their mistress fastened to the saddle bow.

D’Artagnan owned nothing. Provincial diffidence, that slight varnish,
the ephemeral flower, that down of the peach, had evaporated to the
winds through the little orthodox counsels which the three Musketeers
gave their friend. D’Artagnan, following the strange custom of the
times, considered himself at Paris as on a campaign, neither more nor
less than if he had been in Flanders—Spain yonder, woman here. In each
there was an enemy to contend with, and contributions to be levied.

But, we must say, at the present moment D’Artagnan was ruled by a
feeling much more noble and disinterested. The mercer had said that he
was rich; the young man might easily guess that with so weak a man as
M. Bonacieux; and interest was almost foreign to this commencement of
love, which had been the consequence of it. We say _almost_, for the
idea that a young, handsome, kind, and witty woman is at the same time
rich takes nothing from the beginning of love, but on the contrary
strengthens it.

There are in affluence a crowd of aristocratic cares and caprices which
are highly becoming to beauty. A fine and white stocking, a silken
robe, a lace kerchief, a pretty slipper on the foot, a tasty ribbon on
the head do not make an ugly woman pretty, but they make a pretty woman
beautiful, without reckoning the hands, which gain by all this; the
hands, among women particularly, to be beautiful must be idle.

Then D’Artagnan, as the reader, from whom we have not concealed the
state of his fortune, very well knows—D’Artagnan was not a millionaire;
he hoped to become one someday, but the time which in his own mind he
fixed upon for this happy change was still far distant. In the
meanwhile, how disheartening to see the woman one loves long for those
thousands of nothings which constitute a woman’s happiness, and be
unable to give her those thousands of nothings. At least, when the
woman is rich and the lover is not, that which he cannot offer she
offers to herself; and although it is generally with her husband’s
money that she procures herself this indulgence, the gratitude for it
seldom reverts to him.

Then D’Artagnan, disposed to become the most tender of lovers, was at
the same time a very devoted friend. In the midst of his amorous
projects for the mercer’s wife, he did not forget his friends. The
pretty Mme. Bonacieux was just the woman to walk with in the Plain St.
Denis or in the fair of St. Germain, in company with Athos, Porthos,
and Aramis, to whom D’Artagnan had often remarked this. Then one could
enjoy charming little dinners, where one touches on one side the hand
of a friend, and on the other the foot of a mistress. Besides, on
pressing occasions, in extreme difficulties, D’Artagnan would become
the preserver of his friends.

And M. Bonacieux, whom D’Artagnan had pushed into the hands of the
officers, denying him aloud although he had promised in a whisper to
save him? We are compelled to admit to our readers that D’Artagnan
thought nothing about him in any way; or that if he did think of him,
it was only to say to himself that he was very well where he was,
wherever it might be. Love is the most selfish of all the passions.

Let our readers reassure themselves. If D’Artagnan forgets his host, or
appears to forget him, under the pretense of not knowing where he has
been carried, we will not forget him, and we know where he is. But for
the moment, let us do as did the amorous Gascon; we will see after the
worthy mercer later.

D’Artagnan, reflecting on his future amours, addressing himself to the
beautiful night, and smiling at the stars, ascended the Rue
Cherish-Midi, or Chase-Midi, as it was then called. As he found himself
in the quarter in which Aramis lived, he took it into his head to pay
his friend a visit in order to explain the motives which had led him to
send Planchet with a request that he would come instantly to the
mousetrap. Now, if Aramis had been at home when Planchet came to his
abode, he had doubtless hastened to the Rue des Fossoyeurs, and finding
nobody there but his other two companions perhaps, they would not be
able to conceive what all this meant. This mystery required an
explanation; at least, so D’Artagnan declared to himself.

He likewise thought this was an opportunity for talking about pretty
little Mme. Bonacieux, of whom his head, if not his heart, was already
full. We must never look for discretion in first love. First love is
accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy be allowed to
overflow, it will stifle you.

Paris for two hours past had been dark, and seemed a desert. Eleven
o’clock sounded from all the clocks of the Faubourg St. Germain. It was
delightful weather. D’Artagnan was passing along a lane on the spot
where the Rue d’Assas is now situated, breathing the balmy emanations
which were borne upon the wind from the Rue de Vaugirard, and which
arose from the gardens refreshed by the dews of evening and the breeze
of night. From a distance resounded, deadened, however, by good
shutters, the songs of the tipplers, enjoying themselves in the
cabarets scattered along the plain. Arrived at the end of the lane,
D’Artagnan turned to the left. The house in which Aramis dwelt was
situated between the Rue Cassette and the Rue Servandoni.

D’Artagnan had just passed the Rue Cassette, and already perceived the
door of his friend’s house, shaded by a mass of sycamores and clematis
which formed a vast arch opposite the front of it, when he perceived
something like a shadow issuing from the Rue Servandoni. This something
was enveloped in a cloak, and D’Artagnan at first believed it was a
man; but by the smallness of the form, the hesitation of the walk, and
the indecision of the step, he soon discovered that it was a woman.
Further, this woman, as if not certain of the house she was seeking,
lifted up her eyes to look around her, stopped, went backward, and then
returned again. D’Artagnan was perplexed.

“Shall I go and offer her my services?” thought he. “By her step she
must be young; perhaps she is pretty. Oh, yes! But a woman who wanders
in the streets at this hour only ventures out to meet her lover. If I
should disturb a rendezvous, that would not be the best means of
commencing an acquaintance.”

Meantime the young woman continued to advance, counting the houses and
windows. This was neither long nor difficult. There were but three
hôtels in this part of the street; and only two windows looking toward
the road, one of which was in a pavilion parallel to that which Aramis
occupied, the other belonging to Aramis himself.

“_Pardieu!_” said D’Artagnan to himself, to whose mind the niece of the
theologian reverted, “_pardieu_, it would be droll if this belated dove
should be in search of our friend’s house. But on my soul, it looks so.
Ah, my dear Aramis, this time I shall find you out.” And D’Artagnan,
making himself as small as he could, concealed himself in the darkest
side of the street near a stone bench placed at the back of a niche.

The young woman continued to advance; and in addition to the lightness
of her step, which had betrayed her, she emitted a little cough which
denoted a sweet voice. D’Artagnan believed this cough to be a signal.

Nevertheless, whether the cough had been answered by a similar signal
which had fixed the irresolution of the nocturnal seeker, or whether
without this aid she saw that she had arrived at the end of her
journey, she resolutely drew near to Aramis’s shutter, and tapped, at
three equal intervals, with her bent finger.

“This is all very fine, dear Aramis,” murmured D’Artagnan. “Ah,
Monsieur Hypocrite, I understand how you study theology.”

The three blows were scarcely struck, when the inside blind was opened
and a light appeared through the panes of the outside shutter.

“Ah, ah!” said the listener, “not through doors, but through windows!
Ah, this visit was expected. We shall see the windows open, and the
lady enter by escalade. Very pretty!”

But to the great astonishment of D’Artagnan, the shutter remained
closed. Still more, the light which had shone for an instant
disappeared, and all was again in obscurity.

D’Artagnan thought this could not last long, and continued to look with
all his eyes and listen with all his ears.

He was right; at the end of some seconds two sharp taps were heard
inside. The young woman in the street replied by a single tap, and the
shutter was opened a little way.

It may be judged whether D’Artagnan looked or listened with avidity.
Unfortunately the light had been removed into another chamber; but the
eyes of the young man were accustomed to the night. Besides, the eyes
of the Gascons have, as it is asserted, like those of cats, the faculty
of seeing in the dark.

D’Artagnan then saw that the young woman took from her pocket a white
object, which she unfolded quickly, and which took the form of a
handkerchief. She made her interlocutor observe the corner of this
unfolded object.

This immediately recalled to D’Artagnan’s mind the handkerchief which
he had found at the feet of Mme. Bonacieux, which had reminded him of
that which he had dragged from under the feet of Aramis.

“What the devil could that handkerchief signify?”

Placed where he was, D’Artagnan could not perceive the face of Aramis.
We say Aramis, because the young man entertained no doubt that it was
his friend who held this dialogue from the interior with the lady of
the exterior. Curiosity prevailed over prudence; and profiting by the
preoccupation into which the sight of the handkerchief appeared to have
plunged the two personages now on the scene, he stole from his hiding
place, and quick as lightning, but stepping with utmost caution, he ran
and placed himself close to the angle of the wall, from which his eye
could pierce the interior of Aramis’s room.

Upon gaining this advantage D’Artagnan was near uttering a cry of
surprise; it was not Aramis who was conversing with the nocturnal
visitor, it was a woman! D’Artagnan, however, could only see enough to
recognize the form of her vestments, not enough to distinguish her
features.

At the same instant the woman inside drew a second handkerchief from
her pocket, and exchanged it for that which had just been shown to her.
Then some words were spoken by the two women. At length the shutter
closed. The woman who was outside the window turned round, and passed
within four steps of D’Artagnan, pulling down the hood of her mantle;
but the precaution was too late, D’Artagnan had already recognized Mme.
Bonacieux.

Mme. Bonacieux! The suspicion that it was she had crossed the mind of
D’Artagnan when she drew the handkerchief from her pocket; but what
probability was there that Mme. Bonacieux, who had sent for M. Laporte
in order to be reconducted to the Louvre, should be running about the
streets of Paris at half past eleven at night, at the risk of being
abducted a second time?

This must be, then, an affair of importance; and what is the most
important affair to a woman of twenty-five! Love.

But was it on her own account, or on account of another, that she
exposed herself to such hazards? This was a question the young man
asked himself, whom the demon of jealousy already gnawed, being in
heart neither more nor less than an accepted lover.

There was a very simple means of satisfying himself whither Mme.
Bonacieux was going; that was to follow her. This method was so simple
that D’Artagnan employed it quite naturally and instinctively.

But at the sight of the young man, who detached himself from the wall
like a statue walking from its niche, and at the noise of the steps
which she heard resound behind her, Mme. Bonacieux uttered a little cry
and fled.

D’Artagnan ran after her. It was not difficult for him to overtake a
woman embarrassed with her cloak. He came up with her before she had
traversed a third of the street. The unfortunate woman was exhausted,
not by fatigue, but by terror, and when D’Artagnan placed his hand upon
her shoulder, she sank upon one knee, crying in a choking voice, “Kill
me, if you please, you shall know nothing!”

D’Artagnan raised her by passing his arm round her waist; but as he
felt by her weight she was on the point of fainting, he made haste to
reassure her by protestations of devotedness. These protestations were
nothing for Mme. Bonacieux, for such protestations may be made with the
worst intentions in the world; but the voice was all. Mme. Bonacieux
thought she recognized the sound of that voice; she reopened her eyes,
cast a quick glance upon the man who had terrified her so, and at once
perceiving it was D’Artagnan, she uttered a cry of joy, “Oh, it is you,
it is you! Thank God, thank God!”

“Yes, it is I,” said D’Artagnan, “it is I, whom God has sent to watch
over you.”

“Was it with that intention you followed me?” asked the young woman,
with a coquettish smile, whose somewhat bantering character resumed its
influence, and with whom all fear had disappeared from the moment in
which she recognized a friend in one she had taken for an enemy.

“No,” said D’Artagnan; “no, I confess it. It was chance that threw me
in your way; I saw a woman knocking at the window of one of my
friends.”

“One of your friends?” interrupted Mme. Bonacieux.

“Without doubt; Aramis is one of my best friends.”

“Aramis! Who is he?”

“Come, come, you won’t tell me you don’t know Aramis?”

“This is the first time I ever heard his name pronounced.”

“It is the first time, then, that you ever went to that house?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“And you did not know that it was inhabited by a young man?”

“No.”

“By a Musketeer?”

“No, indeed!”

“It was not he, then, you came to seek?”

“Not the least in the world. Besides, you must have seen that the
person to whom I spoke was a woman.”

“That is true; but this woman is a friend of Aramis—”

“I know nothing of that.”

“—since she lodges with him.”

“That does not concern me.”

“But who is she?”

“Oh, that is not my secret.”

“My dear Madame Bonacieux, you are charming; but at the same time you
are one of the most mysterious women.”

“Do I lose by that?”

“No; you are, on the contrary, adorable.”

“Give me your arm, then.”

“Most willingly. And now?”

“Now escort me.”

“Where?”

“Where I am going.”

“But where are you going?”

“You will see, because you will leave me at the door.”

“Shall I wait for you?”

“That will be useless.”

“You will return alone, then?”

“Perhaps yes, perhaps no.”

“But will the person who shall accompany you afterward be a man or a
woman?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“But I will know it!”

“How so?”

“I will wait until you come out.”

“In that case, adieu.”

“Why so?”

“I do not want you.”

“But you have claimed—”

“The aid of a gentleman, not the watchfulness of a spy.”

“The word is rather hard.”

“How are they called who follow others in spite of them?”

“They are indiscreet.”

“The word is too mild.”

“Well, madame, I perceive I must do as you wish.”

“Why did you deprive yourself of the merit of doing so at once?”

“Is there no merit in repentance?”

“And do you really repent?”

“I know nothing about it myself. But what I know is that I promise to
do all you wish if you allow me to accompany you where you are going.”

“And you will leave me then?”

“Yes.”

“Without waiting for my coming out again?”

“Yes.”

“Word of honor?”

“By the faith of a gentleman. Take my arm, and let us go.”

D’Artagnan offered his arm to Mme. Bonacieux, who willingly took it,
half laughing, half trembling, and both gained the top of Rue de la
Harpe. Arriving there, the young woman seemed to hesitate, as she had
before done in the Rue Vaugirard. She seemed, however, by certain
signs, to recognize a door, and approaching that door, “And now,
monsieur,” said she, “it is here I have business; a thousand thanks for
your honorable company, which has saved me from all the dangers to
which, alone, I was exposed. But the moment is come to keep your word;
I have reached my destination.”

“And you will have nothing to fear on your return?”

“I shall have nothing to fear but robbers.”

“And that is nothing?”

“What could they take from me? I have not a penny about me.”

“You forget that beautiful handkerchief with the coat of arms.”

“Which?”

“That which I found at your feet, and replaced in your pocket.”

“Hold your tongue, imprudent man! Do you wish to destroy me?”

“You see very plainly that there is still danger for you, since a
single word makes you tremble; and you confess that if that word were
heard you would be ruined. Come, come, madame!” cried D’Artagnan,
seizing her hands, and surveying her with an ardent glance, “come, be
more generous. Confide in me. Have you not read in my eyes that there
is nothing but devotion and sympathy in my heart?”

“Yes,” replied Mme. Bonacieux; “therefore, ask my own secrets, and I
will reveal them to you; but those of others—that is quite another
thing.”

“Very well,” said D’Artagnan, “I shall discover them; as these secrets
may have an influence over your life, these secrets must become mine.”

“Beware of what you do!” cried the young woman, in a manner so serious
as to make D’Artagnan start in spite of himself. “Oh, meddle in nothing
which concerns me. Do not seek to assist me in that which I am
accomplishing. This I ask of you in the name of the interest with which
I inspire you, in the name of the service you have rendered me and
which I never shall forget while I have life. Rather, place faith in
what I tell you. Have no more concern about me; I exist no longer for
you, any more than if you had never seen me.”

“Must Aramis do as much as I, madame?” said D’Artagnan, deeply piqued.

“This is the second or third time, monsieur, that you have repeated
that name, and yet I have told you that I do not know him.”

“You do not know the man at whose shutter you have just knocked?
Indeed, madame, you believe me too credulous!”

“Confess that it is for the sake of making me talk that you invent this
story and create this personage.”

“I invent nothing, madame; I create nothing. I only speak that exact
truth.”

“And you say that one of your friends lives in that house?”

“I say so, and I repeat it for the third time; that house is one
inhabited by my friend, and that friend is Aramis.”

“All this will be cleared up at a later period,” murmured the young
woman; “no, monsieur, be silent.”

“If you could see my heart,” said D’Artagnan, “you would there read so
much curiosity that you would pity me and so much love that you would
instantly satisfy my curiosity. We have nothing to fear from those who
love us.”

“You speak very suddenly of love, monsieur,” said the young woman,
shaking her head.

“That is because love has come suddenly upon me, and for the first
time; and because I am only twenty.”

The young woman looked at him furtively.

“Listen; I am already upon the scent,” resumed D’Artagnan. “About three
months ago I was near having a duel with Aramis concerning a
handkerchief resembling the one you showed to the woman in his
house—for a handkerchief marked in the same manner, I am sure.”

“Monsieur,” said the young woman, “you weary me very much, I assure
you, with your questions.”

“But you, madame, prudent as you are, think, if you were to be arrested
with that handkerchief, and that handkerchief were to be seized, would
you not be compromised?”

“In what way? The initials are only mine—C. B., Constance Bonacieux.”

“Or Camille de Bois-Tracy.”

“Silence, monsieur! Once again, silence! Ah, since the dangers I incur
on my own account cannot stop you, think of those you may yourself
run!”

“Me?”

“Yes; there is peril of imprisonment, risk of life in knowing me.”

“Then I will not leave you.”

“Monsieur!” said the young woman, supplicating him and clasping her
hands together, “monsieur, in the name of heaven, by the honor of a
soldier, by the courtesy of a gentleman, depart! There, there midnight
sounds! That is the hour when I am expected.”

“Madame,” said the young man, bowing; “I can refuse nothing asked of me
thus. Be content; I will depart.”

“But you will not follow me; you will not watch me?”

“I will return home instantly.”

“Ah, I was quite sure you were a good and brave young man,” said Mme.
Bonacieux, holding out her hand to him, and placing the other upon the
knocker of a little door almost hidden in the wall.

D’Artagnan seized the hand held out to him, and kissed it ardently.

“Ah! I wish I had never seen you!” cried D’Artagnan, with that
ingenuous roughness which women often prefer to the affectations of
politeness, because it betrays the depths of the thought and proves
that feeling prevails over reason.

“Well!” resumed Mme. Bonacieux, in a voice almost caressing, and
pressing the hand of D’Artagnan, who had not relinquished hers, “well:
I will not say as much as you do; what is lost for today may not be
lost forever. Who knows, when I shall be at liberty, that I may not
satisfy your curiosity?”

“And will you make the same promise to my love?” cried D’Artagnan,
beside himself with joy.

“Oh, as to that, I do not engage myself. That depends upon the
sentiments with which you may inspire me.”

“Then today, madame—”

“Oh, today, I am no further than gratitude.”

“Ah! You are too charming,” said D’Artagnan, sorrowfully; “and you
abuse my love.”

“No, I use your generosity, that’s all. But be of good cheer; with
certain people, everything comes round.”

“Oh, you render me the happiest of men! Do not forget this evening—do
not forget that promise.”

“Be satisfied. In the proper time and place I will remember everything.
Now then, go, go, in the name of heaven! I was expected at sharp
midnight, and I am late.”

“By five minutes.”

“Yes; but in certain circumstances five minutes are five ages.”

“When one loves.”

“Well! And who told you I had no affair with a lover?”

“It is a man, then, who expects you?” cried D’Artagnan. “A man!”

“The discussion is going to begin again!” said Mme. Bonacieux, with a
half-smile which was not exempt from a tinge of impatience.

“No, no; I go, I depart! I believe in you, and I would have all the
merit of my devotion, even if that devotion were stupidity. Adieu,
madame, adieu!”

And as if he only felt strength to detach himself by a violent effort
from the hand he held, he sprang away, running, while Mme. Bonacieux
knocked, as at the shutter, three light and regular taps. When he had
gained the angle of the street, he turned. The door had been opened,
and shut again; the mercer’s pretty wife had disappeared.

D’Artagnan pursued his way. He had given his word not to watch Mme.
Bonacieux, and if his life had depended upon the spot to which she was
going or upon the person who should accompany her, D’Artagnan would
have returned home, since he had so promised. Five minutes later he was
in the Rue des Fossoyeurs.

“Poor Athos!” said he; “he will never guess what all this means. He
will have fallen asleep waiting for me, or else he will have returned
home, where he will have learned that a woman had been there. A woman
with Athos! After all,” continued D’Artagnan, “there was certainly one
with Aramis. All this is very strange; and I am curious to know how it
will end.”

“Badly, monsieur, badly!” replied a voice which the young man
recognized as that of Planchet; for, soliloquizing aloud, as very
preoccupied people do, he had entered the alley, at the end of which
were the stairs which led to his chamber.

“How, badly? What do you mean by that, you idiot?” asked D’Artagnan.
“What has happened?”

“All sorts of misfortunes.”

“What?”

“In the first place, Monsieur Athos is arrested.”

“Arrested! Athos arrested! What for?”

“He was found in your lodging; they took him for you.”

“And by whom was he arrested?”

“By Guards brought by the men in black whom you put to flight.”

“Why did he not tell them his name? Why did he not tell them he knew
nothing about this affair?”

“He took care not to do so, monsieur; on the contrary, he came up to me
and said, ‘It is your master that needs his liberty at this moment and
not I, since he knows everything and I know nothing. They will believe
he is arrested, and that will give him time; in three days I will tell
them who I am, and they cannot fail to let me go.’”

“Bravo, Athos! Noble heart!” murmured D’Artagnan. “I know him well
there! And what did the officers do?”

“Four conveyed him away, I don’t know where—to the Bastille or Fort
l’Evêque. Two remained with the men in black, who rummaged every place
and took all the papers. The last two mounted guard at the door during
this examination; then, when all was over, they went away, leaving the
house empty and exposed.”

“And Porthos and Aramis?”

“I could not find them; they did not come.”

“But they may come any moment, for you left word that I awaited them?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Well, don’t budge, then; if they come, tell them what has happened.
Let them wait for me at the Pomme-de-Pin. Here it would be dangerous;
the house may be watched. I will run to Monsieur de Tréville to tell
them all this, and will meet them there.”

“Very well, monsieur,” said Planchet.

“But you will remain; you are not afraid?” said D’Artagnan, coming back
to recommend courage to his lackey.

“Be easy, monsieur,” said Planchet; “you do not know me yet. I am brave
when I set about it. It is all in beginning. Besides, I am a Picard.”

“Then it is understood,” said D’Artagnan; “you would rather be killed
than desert your post?”

“Yes, monsieur; and there is nothing I would not do to prove to
Monsieur that I am attached to him.”

“Good!” said D’Artagnan to himself. “It appears that the method I have
adopted with this boy is decidedly the best. I shall use it again upon
occasion.”

And with all the swiftness of his legs, already a little fatigued,
however, with the perambulations of the day, D’Artagnan directed his
course toward M. de Tréville’s.

M. de Tréville was not at his hôtel. His company was on guard at the
Louvre; he was at the Louvre with his company.

It was necessary to reach M. de Tréville; it was important that he
should be informed of what was passing. D’Artagnan resolved to try and
enter the Louvre. His costume of Guardsman in the company of M.
Dessessart ought to be his passport.

He therefore went down the Rue des Petits Augustins, and came up to the
quay, in order to take the New Bridge. He had at first an idea of
crossing by the ferry; but on gaining the riverside, he had
mechanically put his hand into his pocket, and perceived that he had
not wherewithal to pay his passage.

As he gained the top of the Rue Guénegaud, he saw two persons coming
out of the Rue Dauphine whose appearance very much struck him. Of the
two persons who composed this group, one was a man and the other a
woman. The woman had the outline of Mme. Bonacieux; the man resembled
Aramis so much as to be mistaken for him.

Besides, the woman wore that black mantle which D’Artagnan could still
see outlined on the shutter of the Rue de Vaugirard and on the door of
the Rue de la Harpe; still further, the man wore the uniform of a
Musketeer.

The woman’s hood was pulled down, and the man held a handkerchief to
his face. Both, as this double precaution indicated, had an interest in
not being recognized.

They took the bridge. That was D’Artagnan’s road, as he was going to
the Louvre. D’Artagnan followed them.

He had not gone twenty steps before he became convinced that the woman
was really Mme. Bonacieux and that the man was Aramis.

He felt at that instant all the suspicions of jealousy agitating his
heart. He felt himself doubly betrayed, by his friend and by her whom
he already loved like a mistress. Mme. Bonacieux had declared to him,
by all the gods, that she did not know Aramis; and a quarter of an hour
after having made this assertion, he found her hanging on the arm of
Aramis.

D’Artagnan did not reflect that he had only known the mercer’s pretty
wife for three hours; that she owed him nothing but a little gratitude
for having delivered her from the men in black, who wished to carry her
off, and that she had promised him nothing. He considered himself an
outraged, betrayed, and ridiculed lover. Blood and anger mounted to his
face; he was resolved to unravel the mystery.

The young man and young woman perceived they were watched, and
redoubled their speed. D’Artagnan determined upon his course. He passed
them, then returned so as to meet them exactly before the Samaritaine,
which was illuminated by a lamp which threw its light over all that
part of the bridge.

D’Artagnan stopped before them, and they stopped before him.

“What do you want, monsieur?” demanded the Musketeer, recoiling a step,
and with a foreign accent, which proved to D’Artagnan that he was
deceived in one of his conjectures.

“It is not Aramis!” cried he.

“No, monsieur, it is not Aramis; and by your exclamation I perceive you
have mistaken me for another, and pardon you.”

“You pardon me?” cried D’Artagnan.

“Yes,” replied the stranger. “Allow me, then, to pass on, since it is
not with me you have anything to do.”

“You are right, monsieur, it is not with you that I have anything to
do; it is with Madame.”

“With Madame! You do not know her,” replied the stranger.

“You are deceived, monsieur; I know her very well.”

“Ah,” said Mme. Bonacieux; in a tone of reproach, “ah, monsieur, I had
your promise as a soldier and your word as a gentleman. I hoped to be
able to rely upon that.”

“And I, madame!” said D’Artagnan, embarrassed; “you promised me—”

“Take my arm, madame,” said the stranger, “and let us continue our
way.”

D’Artagnan, however, stupefied, cast down, annihilated by all that
happened, stood, with crossed arms, before the Musketeer and Mme.
Bonacieux.

The Musketeer advanced two steps, and pushed D’Artagnan aside with his
hand. D’Artagnan made a spring backward and drew his sword. At the same
time, and with the rapidity of lightning, the stranger drew his.

“In the name of heaven, my Lord!” cried Mme. Bonacieux, throwing
herself between the combatants and seizing the swords with her hands.

“My Lord!” cried D’Artagnan, enlightened by a sudden idea, “my Lord!
Pardon me, monsieur, but you are not—”

“My Lord the Duke of Buckingham,” said Mme. Bonacieux, in an undertone;
“and now you may ruin us all.”

“My Lord, Madame, I ask a hundred pardons! But I love her, my Lord, and
was jealous. You know what it is to love, my Lord. Pardon me, and then
tell me how I can risk my life to serve your Grace?”

“You are a brave young man,” said Buckingham, holding out his hand to
D’Artagnan, who pressed it respectfully. “You offer me your services;
with the same frankness I accept them. Follow us at a distance of
twenty paces, as far as the Louvre, and if anyone watches us, slay
him!”

D’Artagnan placed his naked sword under his arm, allowed the duke and
Mme. Bonacieux to take twenty steps ahead, and then followed them,
ready to execute the instructions of the noble and elegant minister of
Charles I.

Fortunately, he had no opportunity to give the duke this proof of his
devotion, and the young woman and the handsome Musketeer entered the
Louvre by the wicket of the Echelle without any interference.

As for D’Artagnan, he immediately repaired to the cabaret of the
Pomme-de-Pin, where he found Porthos and Aramis awaiting him. Without
giving them any explanation of the alarm and inconvenience he had
caused them, he told them that he had terminated the affair alone in
which he had for a moment believed he should need their assistance.

Meanwhile, carried away as we are by our narrative, we must leave our
three friends to themselves, and follow the Duke of Buckingham and his
guide through the labyrinths of the Louvre.




Chapter XII.
GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM


Mme. Bonacieux and the duke entered the Louvre without difficulty. Mme.
Bonacieux was known to belong to the queen; the duke wore the uniform
of the Musketeers of M. de Tréville, who, as we have said, were that
evening on guard. Besides, Germain was in the interests of the queen;
and if anything should happen, Mme. Bonacieux would be accused of
having introduced her lover into the Louvre, that was all. She took the
risk upon herself. Her reputation would be lost, it is true; but of
what value in the world was the reputation of the little wife of a
mercer?

Once within the interior of the court, the duke and the young woman
followed the wall for the space of about twenty-five steps. This space
passed, Mme. Bonacieux pushed a little servants’ door, open by day but
generally closed at night. The door yielded. Both entered, and found
themselves in darkness; but Mme. Bonacieux was acquainted with all the
turnings and windings of this part of the Louvre, appropriated for the
people of the household. She closed the door after her, took the duke
by the hand, and after a few experimental steps, grasped a balustrade,
put her foot upon the bottom step, and began to ascend the staircase.
The duke counted two stories. She then turned to the right, followed
the course of a long corridor, descended a flight, went a few steps
farther, introduced a key into a lock, opened a door, and pushed the
duke into an apartment lighted only by a lamp, saying, “Remain here, my
Lord Duke; someone will come.” She then went out by the same door,
which she locked, so that the duke found himself literally a prisoner.

Nevertheless, isolated as he was, we must say that the Duke of
Buckingham did not experience an instant of fear. One of the salient
points of his character was the search for adventures and a love of
romance. Brave, rash, and enterprising, this was not the first time he
had risked his life in such attempts. He had learned that the pretended
message from Anne of Austria, upon the faith of which he had come to
Paris, was a snare; but instead of regaining England, he had, abusing
the position in which he had been placed, declared to the queen that he
would not depart without seeing her. The queen had at first positively
refused; but at length became afraid that the duke, if exasperated,
would commit some folly. She had already decided upon seeing him and
urging his immediate departure, when, on the very evening of coming to
this decision, Mme. Bonacieux, who was charged with going to fetch the
duke and conducting him to the Louvre, was abducted. For two days no
one knew what had become of her, and everything remained in suspense;
but once free, and placed in communication with Laporte, matters
resumed their course, and she accomplished the perilous enterprise
which, but for her arrest, would have been executed three days earlier.

Buckingham, left alone, walked toward a mirror. His Musketeer’s uniform
became him marvelously.

At thirty-five, which was then his age, he passed, with just title, for
the handsomest gentleman and the most elegant cavalier of France or
England.

The favorite of two kings, immensely rich, all-powerful in a kingdom
which he disordered at his fancy and calmed again at his caprice,
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, had lived one of those fabulous
existences which survive, in the course of centuries, to astonish
posterity.

Sure of himself, convinced of his own power, certain that the laws
which rule other men could not reach him, he went straight to the
object he aimed at, even were this object so elevated and so dazzling
that it would have been madness for any other even to have contemplated
it. It was thus he had succeeded in approaching several times the
beautiful and proud Anne of Austria, and in making himself loved by
dazzling her.

George Villiers placed himself before the glass, as we have said,
restored the undulations to his beautiful hair, which the weight of his
hat had disordered, twisted his mustache, and, his heart swelling with
joy, happy and proud at being near the moment he had so long sighed
for, he smiled upon himself with pride and hope.

At this moment a door concealed in the tapestry opened, and a woman
appeared. Buckingham saw this apparition in the glass; he uttered a
cry. It was the queen!

Anne of Austria was then twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age; that
is to say, she was in the full splendor of her beauty.

Her carriage was that of a queen or a goddess; her eyes, which cast the
brilliancy of emeralds, were perfectly beautiful, and yet were at the
same time full of sweetness and majesty.

Her mouth was small and rosy; and although her underlip, like that of
all princes of the House of Austria, protruded slightly beyond the
other, it was eminently lovely in its smile, but as profoundly
disdainful in its contempt.

Her skin was admired for its velvety softness; her hands and arms were
of surpassing beauty, all the poets of the time singing them as
incomparable.

Lastly, her hair, which, from being light in her youth, had become
chestnut, and which she wore curled very plainly, and with much powder,
admirably set off her face, in which the most rigid critic could only
have desired a little less rouge, and the most fastidious sculptor a
little more fineness in the nose.

Buckingham remained for a moment dazzled. Never had Anne of Austria
appeared to him so beautiful, amid balls, fêtes, or carousals, as she
appeared to him at this moment, dressed in a simple robe of white
satin, and accompanied by Donna Estafania—the only one of her Spanish
women who had not been driven from her by the jealousy of the king or
by the persecutions of Richelieu.

Anne of Austria took two steps forward. Buckingham threw himself at her
feet, and before the queen could prevent him, kissed the hem of her
robe.

“Duke, you already know that it is not I who caused you to be written
to.”

“Yes, yes, madame! Yes, your Majesty!” cried the duke. “I know that I
must have been mad, senseless, to believe that snow would become
animated or marble warm; but what then! They who love believe easily in
love. Besides, I have lost nothing by this journey because I see you.”

“Yes,” replied Anne, “but you know why and how I see you; because,
insensible to all my sufferings, you persist in remaining in a city
where, by remaining, you run the risk of your life, and make me run the
risk of my honor. I see you to tell you that everything separates
us—the depths of the sea, the enmity of kingdoms, the sanctity of vows.
It is sacrilege to struggle against so many things, my Lord. In short,
I see you to tell you that we must never see each other again.”

“Speak on, madame, speak on, Queen,” said Buckingham; “the sweetness of
your voice covers the harshness of your words. You talk of sacrilege!
Why, the sacrilege is the separation of two hearts formed by God for
each other.”

“My Lord,” cried the queen, “you forget that I have never said that I
love you.”

“But you have never told me that you did not love me; and truly, to
speak such words to me would be, on the part of your Majesty, too great
an ingratitude. For tell me, where can you find a love like mine—a love
which neither time, nor absence, nor despair can extinguish, a love
which contents itself with a lost ribbon, a stray look, or a chance
word? It is now three years, madame, since I saw you for the first
time, and during those three years I have loved you thus. Shall I tell
you each ornament of your toilet? Mark! I see you now. You were seated
upon cushions in the Spanish fashion; you wore a robe of green satin
embroidered with gold and silver, hanging sleeves knotted upon your
beautiful arms—those lovely arms—with large diamonds. You wore a close
ruff, a small cap upon your head of the same color as your robe, and in
that cap a heron’s feather. Hold! Hold! I shut my eyes, and I can see
you as you then were; I open them again, and I see what you are now—a
hundred times more beautiful!”

“What folly,” murmured Anne of Austria, who had not the courage to find
fault with the duke for having so well preserved her portrait in his
heart, “what folly to feed a useless passion with such remembrances!”

“And upon what then must I live? I have nothing but memory. It is my
happiness, my treasure, my hope. Every time I see you is a fresh
diamond which I enclose in the casket of my heart. This is the fourth
which you have let fall and I have picked up; for in three years,
madame, I have only seen you four times—the first, which I have
described to you; the second, at the mansion of Madame de Chevreuse;
the third, in the gardens of Amiens.”

“Duke,” said the queen, blushing, “never speak of that evening.”

“Oh, let us speak of it; on the contrary, let us speak of it! That is
the most happy and brilliant evening of my life! You remember what a
beautiful night it was? How soft and perfumed was the air; how lovely
the blue heavens and star-enameled sky! Ah, then, madame, I was able
for one instant to be alone with you. Then you were about to tell me
all—the isolation of your life, the griefs of your heart. You leaned
upon my arm—upon this, madame! I felt, in bending my head toward you,
your beautiful hair touch my cheek; and every time that it touched me I
trembled from head to foot. Oh, Queen! Queen! You do not know what
felicity from heaven, what joys from paradise, are comprised in a
moment like that. Take my wealth, my fortune, my glory, all the days I
have to live, for such an instant, for a night like that. For that
night, madame, that night you loved me, I will swear it.”

“My Lord, yes; it is possible that the influence of the place, the
charm of the beautiful evening, the fascination of your look—the
thousand circumstances, in short, which sometimes unite to destroy a
woman—were grouped around me on that fatal evening; but, my Lord, you
saw the queen come to the aid of the woman who faltered. At the first
word you dared to utter, at the first freedom to which I had to reply,
I called for help.”

“Yes, yes, that is true. And any other love but mine would have sunk
beneath this ordeal; but my love came out from it more ardent and more
eternal. You believed that you would fly from me by returning to Paris;
you believed that I would not dare to quit the treasure over which my
master had charged me to watch. What to me were all the treasures in
the world, or all the kings of the earth! Eight days after, I was back
again, madame. That time you had nothing to say to me; I had risked my
life and favor to see you but for a second. I did not even touch your
hand, and you pardoned me on seeing me so submissive and so repentant.”

“Yes, but calumny seized upon all those follies in which I took no
part, as you well know, my Lord. The king, excited by the cardinal,
made a terrible clamor. Madame de Vernet was driven from me, Putange
was exiled, Madame de Chevreuse fell into disgrace, and when you wished
to come back as ambassador to France, the king himself—remember, my
lord—the king himself opposed it.”

“Yes, and France is about to pay for her king’s refusal with a war. I
am not allowed to see you, madame, but you shall every day hear of me.
What object, think you, have this expedition to Ré and this league with
the Protestants of La Rochelle which I am projecting? The pleasure of
seeing you. I have no hope of penetrating, sword in hand, to Paris, I
know that well. But this war may bring round a peace; this peace will
require a negotiator; that negotiator will be me. They will not dare to
refuse me then; and I will return to Paris, and will see you again, and
will be happy for an instant. Thousands of men, it is true, will have
to pay for my happiness with their lives; but what is that to me,
provided I see you again! All this is perhaps folly—perhaps insanity;
but tell me what woman has a lover more truly in love; what queen a
servant more ardent?”

“My Lord, my Lord, you invoke in your defense things which accuse you
more strongly. All these proofs of love which you would give me are
almost crimes.”

“Because you do not love me, madame! If you loved me, you would view
all this otherwise. If you loved me, oh, if you loved me, that would be
too great happiness, and I should run mad. Ah, Madame de Chevreuse was
less cruel than you. Holland loved her, and she responded to his love.”

“Madame de Chevreuse was not queen,” murmured Anne of Austria,
overcome, in spite of herself, by the expression of so profound a
passion.

“You would love me, then, if you were not queen! Madame, say that you
would love me then! I can believe that it is the dignity of your rank
alone which makes you cruel to me; I can believe that, had you been
Madame de Chevreuse, poor Buckingham might have hoped. Thanks for those
sweet words! Oh, my beautiful sovereign, a hundred times, thanks!”

“Oh, my Lord! You have ill understood, wrongly interpreted; I did not
mean to say—”

“Silence, silence!” cried the duke. “If I am happy in an error, do not
have the cruelty to lift me from it. You have told me yourself, madame,
that I have been drawn into a snare; I, perhaps, may leave my life in
it—for, although it may be strange, I have for some time had a
presentiment that I should shortly die.” And the duke smiled, with a
smile at once sad and charming.

“Oh, my God!” cried Anne of Austria, with an accent of terror which
proved how much greater an interest she took in the duke than she
ventured to tell.

“I do not tell you this, madame, to terrify you; no, it is even
ridiculous for me to name it to you, and, believe me, I take no heed of
such dreams. But the words you have just spoken, the hope you have
almost given me, will have richly paid all—were it my life.”

“Oh, but I,” said Anne, “I also, duke, have had presentiments; I also
have had dreams. I dreamed that I saw you lying bleeding, wounded.”

“In the left side, was it not, and with a knife?” interrupted
Buckingham.

“Yes, it was so, my Lord, it was so—in the left side, and with a knife.
Who can possibly have told you I had had that dream? I have imparted it
to no one but my God, and that in my prayers.”

“I ask for no more. You love me, madame; it is enough.”

“I love you, I?”

“Yes, yes. Would God send the same dreams to you as to me if you did
not love me? Should we have the same presentiments if our existences
did not touch at the heart? You love me, my beautiful queen, and you
will weep for me?”

“Oh, my God, my God!” cried Anne of Austria, “this is more than I can
bear. In the name of heaven, Duke, leave me, go! I do not know whether
I love you or love you not; but what I know is that I will not be
perjured. Take pity on me, then, and go! Oh, if you are struck in
France, if you die in France, if I could imagine that your love for me
was the cause of your death, I could not console myself; I should run
mad. Depart then, depart, I implore you!”

“Oh, how beautiful you are thus! Oh, how I love you!” said Buckingham.

“Go, go, I implore you, and return hereafter! Come back as ambassador,
come back as minister, come back surrounded with guards who will defend
you, with servants who will watch over you, and then I shall no longer
fear for your days, and I shall be happy in seeing you.”

“Oh, is this true what you say?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, then, some pledge of your indulgence, some object which came from
you, and may remind me that I have not been dreaming; something you
have worn, and that I may wear in my turn—a ring, a necklace, a chain.”

“Will you depart—will you depart, if I give you that you demand?”

“Yes.”

“This very instant?”

“Yes.”

“You will leave France, you will return to England?”

“I will, I swear to you.”

“Wait, then, wait.”

Anne of Austria re-entered her apartment, and came out again almost
immediately, holding a rosewood casket in her hand, with her cipher
encrusted with gold.

“Here, my Lord, here,” said she, “keep this in memory of me.”

Buckingham took the casket, and fell a second time on his knees.

“You have promised me to go,” said the queen.

“And I keep my word. Your hand, madame, your hand, and I depart!”

Anne of Austria stretched forth her hand, closing her eyes, and leaning
with the other upon Estafania, for she felt that her strength was about
to fail her.

Buckingham pressed his lips passionately to that beautiful hand, and
then rising, said, “Within six months, if I am not dead, I shall have
seen you again, madame—even if I have to overturn the world.” And
faithful to the promise he had made, he rushed out of the apartment.

In the corridor he met Mme. Bonacieux, who waited for him, and who,
with the same precautions and the same good luck, conducted him out of
the Louvre.




Chapter XIII.
MONSIEUR BONACIEUX


There was in all this, as may have been observed, one personage
concerned, of whom, notwithstanding his precarious position, we have
appeared to take but very little notice. This personage was M.
Bonacieux, the respectable martyr of the political and amorous
intrigues which entangled themselves so nicely together at this gallant
and chivalric period.

Fortunately, the reader may remember, or may not remember—fortunately
we have promised not to lose sight of him.

The officers who arrested him conducted him straight to the Bastille,
where he passed trembling before a party of soldiers who were loading
their muskets. Thence, introduced into a half-subterranean gallery, he
became, on the part of those who had brought him, the object of the
grossest insults and the harshest treatment. The officers perceived
that they had not to deal with a gentleman, and they treated him like a
very peasant.

At the end of half an hour or thereabouts, a clerk came to put an end
to his tortures, but not to his anxiety, by giving the order to conduct
M. Bonacieux to the Chamber of Examination. Ordinarily, prisoners were
interrogated in their cells; but they did not do so with M. Bonacieux.

Two guards attended the mercer who made him traverse a court and enter
a corridor in which were three sentinels, opened a door and pushed him
unceremoniously into a low room, where the only furniture was a table,
a chair, and a commissary. The commissary was seated in the chair, and
was writing at the table.

The two guards led the prisoner toward the table, and upon a sign from
the commissary drew back so far as to be unable to hear anything.

The commissary, who had till this time held his head down over his
papers, looked up to see what sort of person he had to do with. This
commissary was a man of very repulsive mien, with a pointed nose, with
yellow and salient cheek bones, with eyes small but keen and
penetrating, and an expression of countenance resembling at once the
polecat and the fox. His head, supported by a long and flexible neck,
issued from his large black robe, balancing itself with a motion very
much like that of the tortoise thrusting his head out of his shell. He
began by asking M. Bonacieux his name, age, condition, and abode.

The accused replied that his name was Jacques Michel Bonacieux, that he
was fifty-one years old, a retired mercer, and lived Rue des
Fossoyeurs, No. 14.

The commissary then, instead of continuing to interrogate him, made him
a long speech upon the danger there is for an obscure citizen to meddle
with public matters. He complicated this exordium by an exposition in
which he painted the power and the deeds of the cardinal, that
incomparable minister, that conqueror of past ministers, that example
for ministers to come—deeds and power which none could thwart with
impunity.

After this second part of his discourse, fixing his hawk’s eye upon
poor Bonacieux, he bade him reflect upon the gravity of his situation.

The reflections of the mercer were already made; he cursed the instant
when M. Laporte formed the idea of marrying him to his goddaughter, and
particularly the moment when that goddaughter had been received as Lady
of the Linen to her Majesty.

At bottom the character of M. Bonacieux was one of profound selfishness
mixed with sordid avarice, the whole seasoned with extreme cowardice.
The love with which his young wife had inspired him was a secondary
sentiment, and was not strong enough to contend with the primitive
feelings we have just enumerated. Bonacieux indeed reflected on what
had just been said to him.

“But, Monsieur Commissary,” said he, calmly, “believe that I know and
appreciate, more than anybody, the merit of the incomparable eminence
by whom we have the honor to be governed.”

“Indeed?” asked the commissary, with an air of doubt. “If that is
really so, how came you in the Bastille?”

“How I came there, or rather why I am there,” replied Bonacieux, “that
is entirely impossible for me to tell you, because I don’t know myself;
but to a certainty it is not for having, knowingly at least, disobliged
Monsieur the Cardinal.”

“You must, nevertheless, have committed a crime, since you are here and
are accused of high treason.”

“Of high treason!” cried Bonacieux, terrified; “of high treason! How is
it possible for a poor mercer, who detests Huguenots and who abhors
Spaniards, to be accused of high treason? Consider, monsieur, the thing
is absolutely impossible.”

“Monsieur Bonacieux,” said the commissary, looking at the accused as if
his little eyes had the faculty of reading to the very depths of
hearts, “you have a wife?”

“Yes, monsieur,” replied the mercer, in a tremble, feeling that it was
at this point affairs were likely to become perplexing; “that is to
say, I _had_ one.”

“What, you ‘_had_ one’? What have you done with her, then, if you have
her no longer?”

“They have abducted her, monsieur.”

“They have abducted her? Ah!”

Bonacieux inferred from this “Ah” that the affair grew more and more
intricate.

“They have abducted her,” added the commissary; “and do you know the
man who has committed this deed?”

“I think I know him.”

“Who is he?”

“Remember that I affirm nothing, Monsieur the Commissary, and that I
only suspect.”

“Whom do you suspect? Come, answer freely.”

M. Bonacieux was in the greatest perplexity possible. Had he better
deny everything or tell everything? By denying all, it might be
suspected that he must know too much to avow; by confessing all he
might prove his good will. He decided, then, to tell all.

“I suspect,” said he, “a tall, dark man, of lofty carriage, who has the
air of a great lord. He has followed us several times, as I think, when
I have waited for my wife at the wicket of the Louvre to escort her
home.”

The commissary now appeared to experience a little uneasiness.

“And his name?” said he.

“Oh, as to his name, I know nothing about it; but if I were ever to
meet him, I should recognize him in an instant, I will answer for it,
were he among a thousand persons.”

The face of the commissary grew still darker.

“You should recognize him among a thousand, say you?” continued he.

“That is to say,” cried Bonacieux, who saw he had taken a false step,
“that is to say—”

“You have answered that you should recognize him,” said the commissary.
“That is all very well, and enough for today; before we proceed
further, someone must be informed that you know the ravisher of your
wife.”

“But I have not told you that I know him!” cried Bonacieux, in despair.
“I told you, on the contrary—”

“Take away the prisoner,” said the commissary to the two guards.

“Where must we place him?” demanded the chief.

“In a dungeon.”

“Which?”

“Good Lord! In the first one handy, provided it is safe,” said the
commissary, with an indifference which penetrated poor Bonacieux with
horror.

“Alas, alas!” said he to himself, “misfortune is over my head; my wife
must have committed some frightful crime. They believe me her
accomplice, and will punish me with her. She must have spoken; she must
have confessed everything—a woman is so weak! A dungeon! The first he
comes to! That’s it! A night is soon passed; and tomorrow to the wheel,
to the gallows! Oh, my God, my God, have pity on me!”

Without listening the least in the world to the lamentations of M.
Bonacieux—lamentations to which, besides, they must have been pretty
well accustomed—the two guards took the prisoner each by an arm, and
led him away, while the commissary wrote a letter in haste and
dispatched it by an officer in waiting.

Bonacieux could not close his eyes; not because his dungeon was so very
disagreeable, but because his uneasiness was so great. He sat all night
on his stool, starting at the least noise; and when the first rays of
the sun penetrated into his chamber, the dawn itself appeared to him to
have taken funereal tints.

All at once he heard his bolts drawn, and made a terrified bound. He
believed they were come to conduct him to the scaffold; so that when he
saw merely and simply, instead of the executioner he expected, only his
commissary of the preceding evening, attended by his clerk, he was
ready to embrace them both.

“Your affair has become more complicated since yesterday evening, my
good man, and I advise you to tell the whole truth; for your repentance
alone can remove the anger of the cardinal.”

“Why, I am ready to tell everything,” cried Bonacieux, “at least, all
that I know. Interrogate me, I entreat you!”

“Where is your wife, in the first place?”

“Why, did not I tell you she had been stolen from me?”

“Yes, but yesterday at five o’clock in the afternoon, thanks to you,
she escaped.”

“My wife escaped!” cried Bonacieux. “Oh, unfortunate creature!
Monsieur, if she has escaped, it is not my fault, I swear.”

“What business had you, then, to go into the chamber of Monsieur
d’Artagnan, your neighbor, with whom you had a long conference during
the day?”

“Ah, yes, Monsieur Commissary; yes, that is true, and I confess that I
was in the wrong. I did go to Monsieur d’Artagnan’s.”

“What was the aim of that visit?”

“To beg him to assist me in finding my wife. I believed I had a right
to endeavor to find her. I was deceived, as it appears, and I ask your
pardon.”

“And what did Monsieur d’Artagnan reply?”

“Monsieur d’Artagnan promised me his assistance; but I soon found out
that he was betraying me.”

“You impose upon justice. Monsieur d’Artagnan made a compact with you;
and in virtue of that compact put to flight the police who had arrested
your wife, and has placed her beyond reach.”

“M. d’Artagnan has abducted my wife! Come now, what are you telling
me?”

“Fortunately, Monsieur d’Artagnan is in our hands, and you shall be
confronted with him.”

“By my faith, I ask no better,” cried Bonacieux; “I shall not be sorry
to see the face of an acquaintance.”

“Bring in the Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the commissary to the guards.
The two guards led in Athos.

“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the commissary, addressing Athos, “declare
all that passed yesterday between you and Monsieur.”

“But,” cried Bonacieux, “this is not Monsieur d’Artagnan whom you show
me.”

“What! Not Monsieur d’Artagnan?” exclaimed the commissary.

“Not the least in the world,” replied Bonacieux.

“What is this gentleman’s name?” asked the commissary.

“I cannot tell you; I don’t know him.”

“How! You don’t know him?”

“No.”

“Did you never see him?”

“Yes, I have seen him, but I don’t know what he calls himself.”

“Your name?” replied the commissary.

“Athos,” replied the Musketeer.

“But that is not a man’s name; that is the name of a mountain,” cried
the poor questioner, who began to lose his head.

“That is my name,” said Athos, quietly.

“But you said that your name was D’Artagnan.”

“Who, I?”

“Yes, you.”

“Somebody said to me, ‘You are Monsieur d’Artagnan?’ I answered, ‘You
think so?’ My guards exclaimed that they were sure of it. I did not
wish to contradict them; besides, I might be deceived.”

“Monsieur, you insult the majesty of justice.”

“Not at all,” said Athos, calmly.

“You are Monsieur d’Artagnan.”

“You see, monsieur, that you say it again.”

“But I tell you, Monsieur Commissary,” cried Bonacieux, in his turn,
“there is not the least doubt about the matter. Monsieur d’Artagnan is
my tenant, although he does not pay me my rent—and even better on that
account ought I to know him. Monsieur d’Artagnan is a young man,
scarcely nineteen or twenty, and this gentleman must be thirty at
least. Monsieur d’Artagnan is in Monsieur Dessessart’s Guards, and this
gentleman is in the company of Monsieur de Tréville’s Musketeers. Look
at his uniform, Monsieur Commissary, look at his uniform!”

“That’s true,” murmured the commissary; “_pardieu_, that’s true.”

At this moment the door was opened quickly, and a messenger, introduced
by one of the gatekeepers of the Bastille, gave a letter to the
commissary.

“Oh, unhappy woman!” cried the commissary.

“How? What do you say? Of whom do you speak? It is not of my wife, I
hope!”

“On the contrary, it is of her. Yours is a pretty business.”

“But,” said the agitated mercer, “do me the pleasure, monsieur, to tell
me how my own proper affair can become worse by anything my wife does
while I am in prison?”

“Because that which she does is part of a plan concerted between you—of
an infernal plan.”

“I swear to you, Monsieur Commissary, that you are in the profoundest
error, that I know nothing in the world about what my wife had to do,
that I am entirely a stranger to what she has done; and that if she has
committed any follies, I renounce her, I abjure her, I curse her!”

“Bah!” said Athos to the commissary, “if you have no more need of me,
send me somewhere. Your Monsieur Bonacieux is very tiresome.”

The commissary designated by the same gesture Athos and Bonacieux, “Let
them be guarded more closely than ever.”

“And yet,” said Athos, with his habitual calmness, “if it be Monsieur
d’Artagnan who is concerned in this matter, I do not perceive how I can
take his place.”

“Do as I bade you,” cried the commissary, “and preserve absolute
secrecy. You understand!”

Athos shrugged his shoulders, and followed his guards silently, while
M. Bonacieux uttered lamentations enough to break the heart of a tiger.

They locked the mercer in the same dungeon where he had passed the
night, and left him to himself during the day. Bonacieux wept all day,
like a true mercer, not being at all a military man, as he himself
informed us. In the evening, about nine o’clock, at the moment he had
made up his mind to go to bed, he heard steps in his corridor. These
steps drew near to his dungeon, the door was thrown open, and the
guards appeared.

“Follow me,” said an officer, who came up behind the guards.

“Follow you!” cried Bonacieux, “follow you at this hour! Where, my
God?”

“Where we have orders to lead you.”

“But that is not an answer.”

“It is, nevertheless, the only one we can give.”

“Ah, my God, my God!” murmured the poor mercer, “now, indeed, I am
lost!” And he followed the guards who came for him, mechanically and
without resistance.

He passed along the same corridor as before, crossed one court, then a
second side of a building; at length, at the gate of the entrance court
he found a carriage surrounded by four guards on horseback. They made
him enter this carriage, the officer placed himself by his side, the
door was locked, and they were left in a rolling prison. The carriage
was put in motion as slowly as a funeral car. Through the closely
fastened windows the prisoner could perceive the houses and the
pavement, that was all; but, true Parisian as he was, Bonacieux could
recognize every street by the milestones, the signs, and the lamps. At
the moment of arriving at St. Paul—the spot where such as were
condemned at the Bastille were executed—he was near fainting and
crossed himself twice. He thought the carriage was about to stop there.
The carriage, however, passed on.

Farther on, a still greater terror seized him on passing by the
cemetery of St. Jean, where state criminals were buried. One thing,
however, reassured him; he remembered that before they were buried
their heads were generally cut off, and he felt that his head was still
on his shoulders. But when he saw the carriage take the way to La
Grêve, when he perceived the pointed roof of the Hôtel de Ville, and
the carriage passed under the arcade, he believed it was over with him.
He wished to confess to the officer, and upon his refusal, uttered such
pitiable cries that the officer told him that if he continued to deafen
him thus, he should put a gag in his mouth.

This measure somewhat reassured Bonacieux. If they meant to execute him
at La Grêve, it could scarcely be worth while to gag him, as they had
nearly reached the place of execution. Indeed, the carriage crossed the
fatal spot without stopping. There remained, then, no other place to
fear but the Traitor’s Cross; the carriage was taking the direct road
to it.

This time there was no longer any doubt; it was at the Traitor’s Cross
that lesser criminals were executed. Bonacieux had flattered himself in
believing himself worthy of St. Paul or of the Place de Grêve; it was
at the Traitor’s Cross that his journey and his destiny were about to
end! He could not yet see that dreadful cross, but he felt somehow as
if it were coming to meet him. When he was within twenty paces of it,
he heard a noise of people and the carriage stopped. This was more than
poor Bonacieux could endure, depressed as he was by the successive
emotions which he had experienced; he uttered a feeble groan which
might have been taken for the last sigh of a dying man, and fainted.




Chapter XIV.
THE MAN OF MEUNG


The crowd was caused, not by the expectation of a man to be hanged, but
by the contemplation of a man who was hanged.

The carriage, which had been stopped for a minute, resumed its way,
passed through the crowd, threaded the Rue St. Honoré, turned into the
Rue des Bons Enfants, and stopped before a low door.

The door opened; two guards received Bonacieux in their arms from the
officer who supported him. They carried him through an alley, up a
flight of stairs, and deposited him in an antechamber.

All these movements had been effected mechanically, as far as he was
concerned. He had walked as one walks in a dream; he had a glimpse of
objects as through a fog. His ears had perceived sounds without
comprehending them; he might have been executed at that moment without
his making a single gesture in his own defense or uttering a cry to
implore mercy.

He remained on the bench, with his back leaning against the wall and
his hands hanging down, exactly on the spot where the guards placed
him.

On looking around him, however, as he could perceive no threatening
object, as nothing indicated that he ran any real danger, as the bench
was comfortably covered with a well-stuffed cushion, as the wall was
ornamented with a beautiful Cordova leather, and as large red damask
curtains, fastened back by gold clasps, floated before the window, he
perceived by degrees that his fear was exaggerated, and he began to
turn his head to the right and the left, upward and downward.

At this movement, which nobody opposed, he resumed a little courage,
and ventured to draw up one leg and then the other. At length, with the
help of his two hands he lifted himself from the bench, and found
himself on his feet.

At this moment an officer with a pleasant face opened a door, continued
to exchange some words with a person in the next chamber and then came
up to the prisoner. “Is your name Bonacieux?” said he.

“Yes, Monsieur Officer,” stammered the mercer, more dead than alive,
“at your service.”

“Come in,” said the officer.

And he moved out of the way to let the mercer pass. The latter obeyed
without reply, and entered the chamber, where he appeared to be
expected.

It was a large cabinet, close and stifling, with the walls furnished
with arms offensive and defensive, and in which there was already a
fire, although it was scarcely the end of the month of September. A
square table, covered with books and papers, upon which was unrolled an
immense plan of the city of La Rochelle, occupied the center of the
room.

Standing before the chimney was a man of middle height, of a haughty,
proud mien; with piercing eyes, a large brow, and a thin face, which
was made still longer by a _royal_ (or _imperial_, as it is now
called), surmounted by a pair of mustaches. Although this man was
scarcely thirty-six or thirty-seven years of age, hair, mustaches, and
royal, all began to be gray. This man, except a sword, had all the
appearance of a soldier; and his buff boots, still slightly covered
with dust, indicated that he had been on horseback in the course of the
day.

This man was Armand Jean Duplessis, Cardinal de Richelieu; not such as
he is now represented—broken down like an old man, suffering like a
martyr, his body bent, his voice failing, buried in a large armchair as
in an anticipated tomb; no longer living but by the strength of his
genius, and no longer maintaining the struggle with Europe but by the
eternal application of his thoughts—but such as he really was at this
period; that is to say, an active and gallant cavalier, already weak of
body, but sustained by that moral power which made of him one of the
most extraordinary men that ever lived, preparing, after having
supported the Duc de Nevers in his duchy of Mantua, after having taken
Nîmes, Castres, and Uzes, to drive the English from the Isle of Ré and
lay siege to La Rochelle.

At first sight, nothing denoted the cardinal; and it was impossible for
those who did not know his face to guess in whose presence they were.

The poor mercer remained standing at the door, while the eyes of the
personage we have just described were fixed upon him, and appeared to
wish to penetrate even into the depths of the past.

“Is this that Bonacieux?” asked he, after a moment of silence.

“Yes, monseigneur,” replied the officer.

“That’s well. Give me those papers, and leave us.”

The officer took from the table the papers pointed out, gave them to
him who asked for them, bowed to the ground, and retired.

Bonacieux recognized in these papers his interrogatories of the
Bastille. From time to time the man by the chimney raised his eyes from
the writings, and plunged them like poniards into the heart of the poor
mercer.

At the end of ten minutes of reading and ten seconds of examination,
the cardinal was satisfied.

“That head has never conspired,” murmured he, “but it matters not; we
will see.”

“You are accused of high treason,” said the cardinal, slowly.

“So I have been told already, monseigneur,” cried Bonacieux, giving his
interrogator the title he had heard the officer give him, “but I swear
to you that I know nothing about it.”

The cardinal repressed a smile.

“You have conspired with your wife, with Madame de Chevreuse, and with
my Lord Duke of Buckingham.”

“Indeed, monseigneur,” responded the mercer, “I have heard her
pronounce all those names.”

“And on what occasion?”

“She said that the Cardinal de Richelieu had drawn the Duke of
Buckingham to Paris to ruin him and to ruin the queen.”

“She said that?” cried the cardinal, with violence.

“Yes, monseigneur, but I told her she was wrong to talk about such
things; and that his Eminence was incapable—”

“Hold your tongue! You are stupid,” replied the cardinal.

“That’s exactly what my wife said, monseigneur.”

“Do you know who carried off your wife?”

“No, monseigneur.”

“You have suspicions, nevertheless?”

“Yes, monseigneur; but these suspicions appeared to be disagreeable to
Monsieur the Commissary, and I no longer have them.”

“Your wife has escaped. Did you know that?”

“No, monseigneur. I learned it since I have been in prison, and that
from the conversation of Monsieur the Commissary—an amiable man.”

The cardinal repressed another smile.

“Then you are ignorant of what has become of your wife since her
flight.”

“Absolutely, monseigneur; but she has most likely returned to the
Louvre.”

“At one o’clock this morning she had not returned.”

“My God! What can have become of her, then?”

“We shall know, be assured. Nothing is concealed from the cardinal; the
cardinal knows everything.”

“In that case, monseigneur, do you believe the cardinal will be so kind
as to tell me what has become of my wife?”

“Perhaps he may; but you must, in the first place, reveal to the
cardinal all you know of your wife’s relations with Madame de
Chevreuse.”

“But, monseigneur, I know nothing about them; I have never seen her.”

“When you went to fetch your wife from the Louvre, did you always
return directly home?”

“Scarcely ever; she had business to transact with linen drapers, to
whose houses I conducted her.”

“And how many were there of these linen drapers?”

“Two, monseigneur.”

“And where did they live?”

“One in Rue de Vaugirard, the other Rue de la Harpe.”

“Did you go into these houses with her?”

“Never, monseigneur; I waited at the door.”

“And what excuse did she give you for entering all alone?”

“She gave me none; she told me to wait, and I waited.”

“You are a very complacent husband, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux,” said
the cardinal.

“He calls me his dear Monsieur,” said the mercer to himself. “_Peste!_
Matters are going all right.”

“Should you know those doors again?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the numbers?”

“Yes.”

“What are they?”

“No. 25 in the Rue de Vaugirard; 75 in the Rue de la Harpe.”

“That’s well,” said the cardinal.

At these words he took up a silver bell, and rang it; the officer
entered.

“Go,” said he, in a subdued voice, “and find Rochefort. Tell him to
come to me immediately, if he has returned.”

“The count is here,” said the officer, “and requests to speak with your
Eminence instantly.”

“Let him come in, then!” said the cardinal, quickly.

The officer sprang out of the apartment with that alacrity which all
the servants of the cardinal displayed in obeying him.

“To your Eminence!” murmured Bonacieux, rolling his eyes round in
astonishment.

Five seconds has scarcely elapsed after the disappearance of the
officer, when the door opened, and a new personage entered.

“It is he!” cried Bonacieux.

“He! What he?” asked the cardinal.

“The man who abducted my wife.”

The cardinal rang a second time. The officer reappeared.

“Place this man in the care of his guards again, and let him wait till
I send for him.”

“No, monseigneur, no, it is not he!” cried Bonacieux; “no, I was
deceived. This is quite another man, and does not resemble him at all.
Monsieur is, I am sure, an honest man.”

“Take away that fool!” said the cardinal.

The officer took Bonacieux by the arm, and led him into the
antechamber, where he found his two guards.

The newly introduced personage followed Bonacieux impatiently with his
eyes till he had gone out; and the moment the door closed, “They have
seen each other;” said he, approaching the cardinal eagerly.

“Who?” asked his Eminence.

“He and she.”

“The queen and the duke?” cried Richelieu.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“At the Louvre.”

“Are you sure of it?”

“Perfectly sure.”

“Who told you of it?”

“Madame de Lannoy, who is devoted to your Eminence, as you know.”

“Why did she not let me know sooner?”

“Whether by chance or mistrust, the queen made Madame de Surgis sleep
in her chamber, and detained her all day.”

“Well, we are beaten! Now let us try to take our revenge.”

“I will assist you with all my heart, monseigneur; be assured of that.”

“How did it come about?”

“At half past twelve the queen was with her women—”

“Where?”

“In her bedchamber—”

“Go on.”

“When someone came and brought her a handkerchief from her laundress.”

“And then?”

“The queen immediately exhibited strong emotion; and despite the rouge
with which her face was covered evidently turned pale—”

“And then, and then?”

“She then arose, and with altered voice, ‘Ladies,’ said she, ‘wait for
me ten minutes, I shall soon return.’ She then opened the door of her
alcove, and went out.”

“Why did not Madame de Lannoy come and inform you instantly?”

“Nothing was certain; besides, her Majesty had said, ‘Ladies, wait for
me,’ and she did not dare to disobey the queen.”

“How long did the queen remain out of the chamber?”

“Three-quarters of an hour.”

“None of her women accompanied her?”

“Only Donna Estafania.”

“Did she afterward return?”

“Yes; but only to take a little rosewood casket, with her cipher upon
it, and went out again immediately.”

“And when she finally returned, did she bring that casket with her?”

“No.”

“Does Madame de Lannoy know what was in that casket?”

“Yes; the diamond studs which his Majesty gave the queen.”

“And she came back without this casket?”

“Yes.”

“Madame de Lannoy, then, is of opinion that she gave them to
Buckingham?”

“She is sure of it.”

“How can she be so?”

“In the course of the day Madame de Lannoy, in her quality of
tire-woman of the queen, looked for this casket, appeared uneasy at not
finding it, and at length asked information of the queen.”

“And then the queen?”

“The queen became exceedingly red, and replied that having in the
evening broken one of those studs, she had sent it to her goldsmith to
be repaired.”

“He must be called upon, and so ascertain if the thing be true or not.”

“I have just been with him.”

“And the goldsmith?”

“The goldsmith has heard nothing of it.”

“Well, well! Rochefort, all is not lost; and perhaps—perhaps everything
is for the best.”

“The fact is that I do not doubt your Eminence’s genius—”

“Will repair the blunders of his agent—is that it?”

“That is exactly what I was going to say, if your Eminence had let me
finish my sentence.”

“Meanwhile, do you know where the Duchesse de Chevreuse and the Duke of
Buckingham are now concealed?”

“No, monseigneur; my people could tell me nothing on that head.”

“But I know.”

“You, monseigneur?”

“Yes; or at least I guess. They were, one in the Rue de Vaugirard, No.
25; the other in the Rue de la Harpe, No. 75.”

“Does your Eminence command that they both be instantly arrested?”

“It will be too late; they will be gone.”

“But still, we can make sure that they are so.”

“Take ten men of my Guardsmen, and search the two houses thoroughly.”

“Instantly, monseigneur.” And Rochefort went hastily out of the
apartment.

The cardinal, being left alone, reflected for an instant and then rang
the bell a third time. The same officer appeared.

“Bring the prisoner in again,” said the cardinal.

M. Bonacieux was introduced afresh, and upon a sign from the cardinal,
the officer retired.

“You have deceived me!” said the cardinal, sternly.

“I,” cried Bonacieux, “I deceive your Eminence!”

“Your wife, in going to Rue de Vaugirard and Rue de la Harpe, did not
go to find linen drapers.”

“Then why did she go, just God?”

“She went to meet the Duchesse de Chevreuse and the Duke of
Buckingham.”

“Yes,” cried Bonacieux, recalling all his remembrances of the
circumstances, “yes, that’s it. Your Eminence is right. I told my wife
several times that it was surprising that linen drapers should live in
such houses as those, in houses that had no signs; but she always
laughed at me. Ah, monseigneur!” continued Bonacieux, throwing himself
at his Eminence’s feet, “ah, how truly you are the cardinal, the great
cardinal, the man of genius whom all the world reveres!”

The cardinal, however contemptible might be the triumph gained over so
vulgar a being as Bonacieux, did not the less enjoy it for an instant;
then, almost immediately, as if a fresh thought has occurred, a smile
played upon his lips, and he said, offering his hand to the mercer,
“Rise, my friend, you are a worthy man.”

“The cardinal has touched me with his hand! I have touched the hand of
the great man!” cried Bonacieux. “The great man has called me his
friend!”

“Yes, my friend, yes,” said the cardinal, with that paternal tone which
he sometimes knew how to assume, but which deceived none who knew him;
“and as you have been unjustly suspected, well, you must be
indemnified. Here, take this purse of a hundred pistoles, and pardon
me.”

“I pardon you, monseigneur!” said Bonacieux, hesitating to take the
purse, fearing, doubtless, that this pretended gift was but a
pleasantry. “But you are able to have me arrested, you are able to have
me tortured, you are able to have me hanged; you are the master, and I
could not have the least word to say. Pardon you, monseigneur! You
cannot mean that!”

“Ah, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux, you are generous in this matter. I see
it and I thank you for it. Thus, then, you will take this bag, and you
will go away without being too malcontent.”

“I go away enchanted.”

“Farewell, then, or rather, _au revoir_, for I hope we shall meet
again.”

“Whenever Monseigneur wishes, I am always at at his Eminence’s orders.”

“That will be frequently, I assure you, for I have found something
extremely agreeable in your conversation.”

“Oh! Monseigneur!”

“_Au revoir_, Monsieur Bonacieux, _au revoir!_”

And the cardinal made him a sign with his hand, to which Bonacieux
replied by bowing to the ground. He then went out backward, and when he
was in the antechamber the cardinal heard him, in his enthusiasm,
crying aloud, “Long life to the Monseigneur! Long life to his Eminence!
Long life to the great cardinal!” The cardinal listened with a smile to
this vociferous manifestation of the feelings of M. Bonacieux; and
then, when Bonacieux’s cries were no longer audible, “Good!” said he,
“that man would henceforward lay down his life for me.” And the
cardinal began to examine with the greatest attention the map of La
Rochelle, which, as we have said, lay open on the desk, tracing with a
pencil the line in which the famous dyke was to pass which, eighteen
months later, shut up the port of the besieged city. As he was in the
deepest of his strategic meditations, the door opened, and Rochefort
returned.

“Well?” said the cardinal, eagerly, rising with a promptitude which
proved the degree of importance he attached to the commission with
which he had charged the count.

“Well,” said the latter, “a young woman of about twenty-six or
twenty-eight years of age, and a man of from thirty-five to forty, have
indeed lodged at the two houses pointed out by your Eminence; but the
woman left last night, and the man this morning.”

“It was they!” cried the cardinal, looking at the clock; “and now it is
too late to have them pursued. The duchess is at Tours, and the duke at
Boulogne. It is in London they must be found.”

“What are your Eminence’s orders?”

“Not a word of what has passed. Let the queen remain in perfect
security; let her be ignorant that we know her secret. Let her believe
that we are in search of some conspiracy or other. Send me the keeper
of the seals, Séguier.”

“And that man, what has your Eminence done with him?”

“What man?” asked the cardinal.

“That Bonacieux.”

“I have done with him all that could be done. I have made him a spy
upon his wife.”

The Comte de Rochefort bowed like a man who acknowledges the
superiority of the master as great, and retired.

Left alone, the cardinal seated himself again and wrote a letter, which
he secured with his special seal. Then he rang. The officer entered for
the fourth time.

“Tell Vitray to come to me,” said he, “and tell him to get ready for a
journey.”

An instant after, the man he asked for was before him, booted and
spurred.

“Vitray,” said he, “you will go with all speed to London. You must not
stop an instant on the way. You will deliver this letter to Milady.
Here is an order for two hundred pistoles; call upon my treasurer and
get the money. You shall have as much again if you are back within six
days, and have executed your commission well.”

The messenger, without replying a single word, bowed, took the letter,
with the order for the two hundred pistoles, and retired.

Here is what the letter contained:

MILADY, Be at the first ball at which the Duke of Buckingham shall be
present. He will wear on his doublet twelve diamond studs; get as near
to him as you can, and cut off two.

As soon as these studs shall be in your possession, inform me.




Chapter XV.
MEN OF THE ROBE AND MEN OF THE SWORD


On the day after these events had taken place, Athos not having
reappeared, M. de Tréville was informed by D’Artagnan and Porthos of
the circumstance. As to Aramis, he had asked for leave of absence for
five days, and was gone, it was said, to Rouen on family business.

M. de Tréville was the father of his soldiers. The lowest or the least
known of them, as soon as he assumed the uniform of the company, was as
sure of his aid and support as if he had been his own brother.

He repaired, then, instantly to the office of the
_lieutenant-criminel_. The officer who commanded the post of the Red
Cross was sent for, and by successive inquiries they learned that Athos
was then lodged in Fort l’Evêque.

Athos had passed through all the examinations we have seen Bonacieux
undergo.

We were present at the scene in which the two captives were confronted
with each other. Athos, who had till that time said nothing for fear
that D’Artagnan, interrupted in his turn, should not have the time
necessary, from this moment declared that his name was Athos, and not
D’Artagnan. He added that he did not know either M. or Mme. Bonacieux;
that he had never spoken to the one or the other; that he had come, at
about ten o’clock in the evening, to pay a visit to his friend M.
d’Artagnan, but that till that hour he had been at M. de Tréville’s,
where he had dined. “Twenty witnesses,” added he, “could attest the
fact”; and he named several distinguished gentlemen, and among them was
M. le Duc de la Trémouille.

The second commissary was as much bewildered as the first had been by
the simple and firm declaration of the Musketeer, upon whom he was
anxious to take the revenge which men of the robe like at all times to
gain over men of the sword; but the name of M. de Tréville, and that of
M. de la Trémouille, commanded a little reflection.

Athos was then sent to the cardinal; but unfortunately the cardinal was
at the Louvre with the king.

It was precisely at this moment that M. de Tréville, on leaving the
residence of the _lieutenant-criminel_ and the governor of Fort
l’Evêque without being able to find Athos, arrived at the palace.

As captain of the Musketeers, M. de Tréville had the right of entry at
all times.

It is well known how violent the king’s prejudices were against the
queen, and how carefully these prejudices were kept up by the cardinal,
who in affairs of intrigue mistrusted women infinitely more than men.
One of the grand causes of this prejudice was the friendship of Anne of
Austria for Mme. de Chevreuse. These two women gave him more uneasiness
than the war with Spain, the quarrel with England, or the embarrassment
of the finances. In his eyes and to his conviction, Mme. de Chevreuse
not only served the queen in her political intrigues, but, what
tormented him still more, in her amorous intrigues.

At the first word the cardinal spoke of Mme. de Chevreuse—who, though
exiled to Tours and believed to be in that city, had come to Paris,
remained there five days, and outwitted the police—the king flew into a
furious passion. Capricious and unfaithful, the king wished to be
called Louis the Just and Louis the Chaste. Posterity will find a
difficulty in understanding this character, which history explains only
by facts and never by reason.

But when the cardinal added that not only Mme. de Chevreuse had been in
Paris, but still further, that the queen had renewed with her one of
those mysterious correspondences which at that time was named a
_cabal;_ when he affirmed that he, the cardinal, was about to unravel
the most closely twisted thread of this intrigue; that at the moment of
arresting in the very act, with all the proofs about her, the queen’s
emissary to the exiled duchess, a Musketeer had dared to interrupt the
course of justice violently, by falling sword in hand upon the honest
men of the law, charged with investigating impartially the whole affair
in order to place it before the eyes of the king—Louis XIII. could not
contain himself, and he made a step toward the queen’s apartment with
that pale and mute indignation which, when it broke out, led this
prince to the commission of the most pitiless cruelty. And yet, in all
this, the cardinal had not yet said a word about the Duke of
Buckingham.

At this instant M. de Tréville entered, cool, polite, and in
irreproachable costume.

Informed of what had passed by the presence of the cardinal and the
alteration in the king’s countenance, M. de Tréville felt himself
something like Samson before the Philistines.

Louis XIII. had already placed his hand on the knob of the door; at the
noise of M. de Tréville’s entrance he turned round. “You arrive in good
time, monsieur,” said the king, who, when his passions were raised to a
certain point, could not dissemble; “I have learned some fine things
concerning your Musketeers.”

“And I,” said Tréville, coldly, “I have some pretty things to tell your
Majesty concerning these gownsmen.”

“What?” said the king, with hauteur.

“I have the honor to inform your Majesty,” continued M. de Tréville, in
the same tone, “that a party of _procureurs_, commissaries, and men of
the police—very estimable people, but very inveterate, as it appears,
against the uniform—have taken upon themselves to arrest in a house, to
lead away through the open street, and throw into Fort l’Evêque, all
upon an order which they have refused to show me, one of my, or rather
your Musketeers, sire, of irreproachable conduct, of an almost
illustrious reputation, and whom your Majesty knows favorably, Monsieur
Athos.”

“Athos,” said the king, mechanically; “yes, certainly I know that
name.”

“Let your Majesty remember,” said Tréville, “that Monsieur Athos is the
Musketeer who, in the annoying duel which you are acquainted with, had
the misfortune to wound Monsieur de Cahusac so seriously. _A propos_,
monseigneur,” continued Tréville, addressing the cardinal, “Monsieur de
Cahusac is quite recovered, is he not?”

“Thank you,” said the cardinal, biting his lips with anger.

“Athos, then, went to pay a visit to one of his friends absent at the
time,” continued Tréville, “to a young Béarnais, a cadet in his
Majesty’s Guards, the company of Monsieur Dessessart, but scarcely had
he arrived at his friend’s and taken up a book, while waiting his
return, when a mixed crowd of bailiffs and soldiers came and laid siege
to the house, broke open several doors—”

The cardinal made the king a sign, which signified, “That was on
account of the affair about which I spoke to you.”

“We all know that,” interrupted the king; “for all that was done for
our service.”

“Then,” said Tréville, “it was also for your Majesty’s service that one
of my Musketeers, who was innocent, has been seized, that he has been
placed between two guards like a malefactor, and that this gallant man,
who has ten times shed his blood in your Majesty’s service and is ready
to shed it again, has been paraded through the midst of an insolent
populace?”

“Bah!” said the king, who began to be shaken, “was it so managed?”

“Monsieur de Tréville,” said the cardinal, with the greatest phlegm,
“does not tell your Majesty that this innocent Musketeer, this gallant
man, had only an hour before attacked, sword in hand, four commissaries
of inquiry, who were delegated by myself to examine into an affair of
the highest importance.”

“I defy your Eminence to prove it,” cried Tréville, with his Gascon
freedom and military frankness; “for one hour before, Monsieur Athos,
who, I will confide it to your Majesty, is really a man of the highest
quality, did me the honor after having dined with me to be conversing
in the saloon of my hôtel, with the Duc de la Trémouille and the Comte
de Châlus, who happened to be there.”

The king looked at the cardinal.

“A written examination attests it,” said the cardinal, replying aloud
to the mute interrogation of his Majesty; “and the ill-treated people
have drawn up the following, which I have the honor to present to your
Majesty.”

“And is the written report of the gownsmen to be placed in comparison
with the word of honor of a swordsman?” replied Tréville haughtily.

“Come, come, Tréville, hold your tongue,” said the king.

“If his Eminence entertains any suspicion against one of my
Musketeers,” said Tréville, “the justice of Monsieur the Cardinal is so
well known that I demand an inquiry.”

“In the house in which the judicial inquiry was made,” continued the
impassive cardinal, “there lodges, I believe, a young Béarnais, a
friend of the Musketeer.”

“Your Eminence means Monsieur d’Artagnan.”

“I mean a young man whom you patronize, Monsieur de Tréville.”

“Yes, your Eminence, it is the same.”

“Do you not suspect this young man of having given bad counsel?”

“To Athos, to a man double his age?” interrupted Tréville. “No,
monseigneur. Besides, D’Artagnan passed the evening with me.”

“Well,” said the cardinal, “everybody seems to have passed the evening
with you.”

“Does your Eminence doubt my word?” said Tréville, with a brow flushed
with anger.

“No, God forbid,” said the cardinal; “only, at what hour was he with
you?”

“Oh, as to that I can speak positively, your Eminence; for as he came
in I remarked that it was but half past nine by the clock, although I
had believed it to be later.”

“At what hour did he leave your hôtel?”

“At half past ten—an hour after the event.”

“Well,” replied the cardinal, who could not for an instant suspect the
loyalty of Tréville, and who felt that the victory was escaping him,
“well, but Athos _was_ taken in the house in the Rue des Fossoyeurs.”

“Is one friend forbidden to visit another, or a Musketeer of my company
to fraternize with a Guard of Dessessart’s company?”

“Yes, when the house where he fraternizes is suspected.”

“That house is suspected, Tréville,” said the king; “perhaps you did
not know it?”

“Indeed, sire, I did not. The house may be suspected; but I deny that
it is so in the part of it inhabited by Monsieur d’Artagnan, for I can
affirm, sire, if I can believe what he says, that there does not exist
a more devoted servant of your Majesty, or a more profound admirer of
Monsieur the Cardinal.”

“Was it not this D’Artagnan who wounded Jussac one day, in that
unfortunate encounter which took place near the Convent of the
Carmes-Déchaussés?” asked the king, looking at the cardinal, who
colored with vexation.

“And the next day, Bernajoux. Yes, sire, yes, it is the same; and your
Majesty has a good memory.”

“Come, how shall we decide?” said the king.

“That concerns your Majesty more than me,” said the cardinal. “I should
affirm the culpability.”

“And I deny it,” said Tréville. “But his Majesty has judges, and these
judges will decide.”

“That is best,” said the king. “Send the case before the judges; it is
their business to judge, and they shall judge.”

“Only,” replied Tréville, “it is a sad thing that in the unfortunate
times in which we live, the purest life, the most incontestable virtue,
cannot exempt a man from infamy and persecution. The army, I will
answer for it, will be but little pleased at being exposed to rigorous
treatment on account of police affairs.”

The expression was imprudent; but M. de Tréville launched it with
knowledge of his cause. He was desirous of an explosion, because in
that case the mine throws forth fire, and fire enlightens.

“Police affairs!” cried the king, taking up Tréville’s words, “police
affairs! And what do you know about them, Monsieur? Meddle with your
Musketeers, and do not annoy me in this way. It appears, according to
your account, that if by mischance a Musketeer is arrested, France is
in danger. What a noise about a Musketeer! I would arrest ten of them,
_ventrebleu_, a hundred, even, all the company, and I would not allow a
whisper.”

“From the moment they are suspected by your Majesty,” said Tréville,
“the Musketeers are guilty; therefore, you see me prepared to surrender
my sword—for after having accused my soldiers, there can be no doubt
that Monsieur the Cardinal will end by accusing me. It is best to
constitute myself at once a prisoner with Athos, who is already
arrested, and with D’Artagnan, who most probably will be.”

“Gascon-headed man, will you have done?” said the king.

“Sire,” replied Tréville, without lowering his voice in the least,
“either order my Musketeer to be restored to me, or let him be tried.”

“He shall be tried,” said the cardinal.

“Well, so much the better; for in that case I shall demand of his
Majesty permission to plead for him.”

The king feared an outbreak.

“If his Eminence,” said he, “did not have personal motives—”

The cardinal saw what the king was about to say and interrupted him:

“Pardon me,” said he; “but the instant your Majesty considers me a
prejudiced judge, I withdraw.”

“Come,” said the king, “will you swear, by my father, that Athos was at
your residence during the event and that he took no part in it?”

“By your glorious father, and by yourself, whom I love and venerate
above all the world, I swear it.”

“Be so kind as to reflect, sire,” said the cardinal. “If we release the
prisoner thus, we shall never know the truth.”

“Athos may always be found,” replied Tréville, “ready to answer, when
it shall please the gownsmen to interrogate him. He will not desert,
Monsieur the Cardinal, be assured of that; I will answer for him.”

“No, he will not desert,” said the king; “he can always be found, as
Tréville says. Besides,” added he, lowering his voice and looking with
a suppliant air at the cardinal, “let us give them apparent security;
that is policy.”

This policy of Louis XIII. made Richelieu smile.

“Order it as you please, sire; you possess the right of pardon.”

“The right of pardoning only applies to the guilty,” said Tréville, who
was determined to have the last word, “and my Musketeer is innocent. It
is not mercy, then, that you are about to accord, sire, it is justice.”

“And he is in the Fort l’Evêque?” said the king.

“Yes, sire, in solitary confinement, in a dungeon, like the lowest
criminal.”

“The devil!” murmured the king; “what must be done?”

“Sign an order for his release, and all will be said,” replied the
cardinal. “I believe with your Majesty that Monsieur de Tréville’s
guarantee is more than sufficient.”

Tréville bowed very respectfully, with a joy that was not unmixed with
fear; he would have preferred an obstinate resistance on the part of
the cardinal to this sudden yielding.

The king signed the order for release, and Tréville carried it away
without delay. As he was about to leave the presence, the cardinal gave
him a friendly smile, and said, “A perfect harmony reigns, sire,
between the leaders and the soldiers of your Musketeers, which must be
profitable for the service and honorable to all.”

“He will play me some dog’s trick or other, and that immediately,” said
Tréville. “One has never the last word with such a man. But let us be
quick—the king may change his mind in an hour; and at all events it is
more difficult to replace a man in the Fort l’Evêque or the Bastille
who has got out, than to keep a prisoner there who is in.”

M. de Tréville made his entrance triumphantly into the Fort l’Evêque,
whence he delivered the Musketeer, whose peaceful indifference had not
for a moment abandoned him.

The first time he saw D’Artagnan, “You have come off well,” said he to
him; “there is your Jussac thrust paid for. There still remains that of
Bernajoux, but you must not be too confident.”

As to the rest, M. de Tréville had good reason to mistrust the cardinal
and to think that all was not over, for scarcely had the captain of the
Musketeers closed the door after him, than his Eminence said to the
king, “Now that we are at length by ourselves, we will, if your Majesty
pleases, converse seriously. Sire, Buckingham has been in Paris five
days, and only left this morning.”




Chapter XVI.
IN WHICH M. SÉGUIER, KEEPER OF THE SEALS, LOOKS MORE THAN ONCE FOR THE
BELL


It is impossible to form an idea of the impression these few words made
upon Louis XIII. He grew pale and red alternately; and the cardinal saw
at once that he had recovered by a single blow all the ground he had
lost.

“Buckingham in Paris!” cried he, “and why does he come?”

“To conspire, no doubt, with your enemies, the Huguenots and the
Spaniards.”

“No, _pardieu_, no! To conspire against my honor with Madame de
Chevreuse, Madame de Longueville, and the Condés.”

“Oh, sire, what an idea! The queen is too virtuous; and besides, loves
your Majesty too well.”

“Woman is weak, Monsieur Cardinal,” said the king; “and as to loving me
much, I have my own opinion as to that love.”

“I not the less maintain,” said the cardinal, “that the Duke of
Buckingham came to Paris for a project wholly political.”

“And I am sure that he came for quite another purpose, Monsieur
Cardinal; but if the queen be guilty, let her tremble!”

“Indeed,” said the cardinal, “whatever repugnance I may have to
directing my mind to such a treason, your Majesty compels me to think
of it. Madame de Lannoy, whom, according to your Majesty’s command, I
have frequently interrogated, told me this morning that the night
before last her Majesty sat up very late, that this morning she wept
much, and that she was writing all day.”

“That’s it!” cried the king; “to him, no doubt. Cardinal, I must have
the queen’s papers.”

“But how to take them, sire? It seems to me that it is neither your
Majesty nor myself who can charge himself with such a mission.”

“How did they act with regard to the Maréchale d’Ancre?” cried the
king, in the highest state of choler; “first her closets were
thoroughly searched, and then she herself.”

“The Maréchale d’Ancre was no more than the Maréchale d’Ancre. A
Florentine adventurer, sire, and that was all; while the august spouse
of your Majesty is Anne of Austria, Queen of France—that is to say, one
of the greatest princesses in the world.”

“She is not the less guilty, Monsieur Duke! The more she has forgotten
the high position in which she was placed, the more degrading is her
fall. Besides, I long ago determined to put an end to all these petty
intrigues of policy and love. She has near her a certain Laporte.”

“Who, I believe, is the mainspring of all this, I confess,” said the
cardinal.

“You think then, as I do, that she deceives me?” said the king.

“I believe, and I repeat it to your Majesty, that the queen conspires
against the power of the king, but I have not said against his honor.”

“And I—I tell you against both. I tell you the queen does not love me;
I tell you she loves another; I tell you she loves that infamous
Buckingham! Why did you not have him arrested while in Paris?”

“Arrest the Duke! Arrest the prime minister of King Charles I.! Think
of it, sire! What a scandal! And if the suspicions of your Majesty,
which I still continue to doubt, should prove to have any foundation,
what a terrible disclosure, what a fearful scandal!”

“But as he exposed himself like a vagabond or a thief, he should have
been—”

Louis XIII. stopped, terrified at what he was about to say, while
Richelieu, stretching out his neck, waited uselessly for the word which
had died on the lips of the king.

“He should have been—?”

“Nothing,” said the king, “nothing. But all the time he was in Paris,
you, of course, did not lose sight of him?”

“No, sire.”

“Where did he lodge?”

“Rue de la Harpe. No. 75.”

“Where is that?”

“By the side of the Luxembourg.”

“And you are certain that the queen and he did not see each other?”

“I believe the queen to have too high a sense of her duty, sire.”

“But they have corresponded; it is to him that the queen has been
writing all the day. Monsieur Duke, I must have those letters!”

“Sire, notwithstanding—”

“Monsieur Duke, at whatever price it may be, I will have them.”

“I would, however, beg your Majesty to observe—”

“Do you, then, also join in betraying me, Monsieur Cardinal, by thus
always opposing my will? Are you also in accord with Spain and England,
with Madame de Chevreuse and the queen?”

“Sire,” replied the cardinal, sighing, “I believed myself secure from
such a suspicion.”

“Monsieur Cardinal, you have heard me; I will have those letters.”

“There is but one way.”

“What is that?”

“That would be to charge Monsieur de Séguier, the keeper of the seals,
with this mission. The matter enters completely into the duties of the
post.”

“Let him be sent for instantly.”

“He is most likely at my hôtel. I requested him to call, and when I
came to the Louvre I left orders if he came, to desire him to wait.”

“Let him be sent for instantly.”

“Your Majesty’s orders shall be executed; but—”

“But what?”

“But the queen will perhaps refuse to obey.”

“My orders?”

“Yes, if she is ignorant that these orders come from the king.”

“Well, that she may have no doubt on that head, I will go and inform
her myself.”

“Your Majesty will not forget that I have done everything in my power
to prevent a rupture.”

“Yes, Duke, yes, I know you are very indulgent toward the queen, too
indulgent, perhaps; we shall have occasion, I warn you, at some future
period to speak of that.”

“Whenever it shall please your Majesty; but I shall be always happy and
proud, sire, to sacrifice myself to the harmony which I desire to see
reign between you and the Queen of France.”

“Very well, Cardinal, very well; but, meantime, send for Monsieur the
Keeper of the Seals. I will go to the queen.”

And Louis XIII., opening the door of communication, passed into the
corridor which led from his apartments to those of Anne of Austria.

The queen was in the midst of her women—Mme. de Guitaut, Mme. de Sable,
Mme. de Montbazon, and Mme. de Guémené. In a corner was the Spanish
companion, Donna Estafania, who had followed her from Madrid. Mme.
Guémené was reading aloud, and everybody was listening to her with
attention with the exception of the queen, who had, on the contrary,
desired this reading in order that she might be able, while feigning to
listen, to pursue the thread of her own thoughts.

These thoughts, gilded as they were by a last reflection of love, were
not the less sad. Anne of Austria, deprived of the confidence of her
husband, pursued by the hatred of the cardinal, who could not pardon
her for having repulsed a more tender feeling, having before her eyes
the example of the queen-mother whom that hatred had tormented all her
life—though Marie de Médicis, if the memoirs of the time are to be
believed, had begun by according to the cardinal that sentiment which
Anne of Austria always refused him—Anne of Austria had seen her most
devoted servants fall around her, her most intimate confidants, her
dearest favorites. Like those unfortunate persons endowed with a fatal
gift, she brought misfortune upon everything she touched. Her
friendship was a fatal sign which called down persecution. Mme. de
Chevreuse and Mme. de Bernet were exiled, and Laporte did not conceal
from his mistress that he expected to be arrested every instant.

It was at the moment when she was plunged in the deepest and darkest of
these reflections that the door of the chamber opened, and the king
entered.

The reader hushed herself instantly. All the ladies rose, and there was
a profound silence. As to the king, he made no demonstration of
politeness, only stopping before the queen. “Madame,” said he, “you are
about to receive a visit from the chancellor, who will communicate
certain matters to you with which I have charged him.”

The unfortunate queen, who was constantly threatened with divorce,
exile, and trial even, turned pale under her rouge, and could not
refrain from saying, “But why this visit, sire? What can the chancellor
have to say to me that your Majesty could not say yourself?”

The king turned upon his heel without reply, and almost at the same
instant the captain of the Guards, M. de Guitant, announced the visit
of the chancellor.

When the chancellor appeared, the king had already gone out by another
door.

The chancellor entered, half smiling, half blushing. As we shall
probably meet with him again in the course of our history, it may be
well for our readers to be made at once acquainted with him.

This chancellor was a pleasant man. He was Des Roches le Masle, canon
of Notre Dame, who had formerly been valet of a bishop, who introduced
him to his Eminence as a perfectly devout man. The cardinal trusted
him, and therein found his advantage.

There are many stories related of him, and among them this. After a
wild youth, he had retired into a convent, there to expiate, at least
for some time, the follies of adolescence. On entering this holy place,
the poor penitent was unable to shut the door so close as to prevent
the passions he fled from entering with him. He was incessantly
attacked by them, and the superior, to whom he had confided this
misfortune, wishing as much as in him lay to free him from them, had
advised him, in order to conjure away the tempting demon, to have
recourse to the bell rope, and ring with all his might. At the
denunciating sound, the monks would be rendered aware that temptation
was besieging a brother, and all the community would go to prayers.

This advice appeared good to the future chancellor. He conjured the
evil spirit with abundance of prayers offered up by the monks. But the
devil does not suffer himself to be easily dispossessed from a place in
which he has fixed his garrison. In proportion as they redoubled the
exorcisms he redoubled the temptations; so that day and night the bell
was ringing full swing, announcing the extreme desire for mortification
which the penitent experienced.

The monks had no longer an instant of repose. By day they did nothing
but ascend and descend the steps which led to the chapel; at night, in
addition to complines and matins, they were further obliged to leap
twenty times out of their beds and prostrate themselves on the floor of
their cells.

It is not known whether it was the devil who gave way, or the monks who
grew tired; but within three months the penitent reappeared in the
world with the reputation of being the most terrible _possessed_ that
ever existed.

On leaving the convent he entered into the magistracy, became president
on the place of his uncle, embraced the cardinal’s party, which did not
prove want of sagacity, became chancellor, served his Eminence with
zeal in his hatred against the queen-mother and his vengeance against
Anne of Austria, stimulated the judges in the affair of Calais,
encouraged the attempts of M. de Laffemas, chief gamekeeper of France;
then, at length, invested with the entire confidence of the cardinal—a
confidence which he had so well earned—he received the singular
commission for the execution of which he presented himself in the
queen’s apartments.

The queen was still standing when he entered; but scarcely had she
perceived him then she reseated herself in her armchair, and made a
sign to her women to resume their cushions and stools, and with an air
of supreme hauteur, said, “What do you desire, monsieur, and with what
object do you present yourself here?”

“To make, madame, in the name of the king, and without prejudice to the
respect which I have the honor to owe to your Majesty a close
examination into all your papers.”

“How, monsieur, an investigation of my papers—mine! Truly, this is an
indignity!”

“Be kind enough to pardon me, madame; but in this circumstance I am but
the instrument which the king employs. Has not his Majesty just left
you, and has he not himself asked you to prepare for this visit?”

“Search, then, monsieur! I am a criminal, as it appears. Estafania,
give up the keys of my drawers and my desks.”

For form’s sake the chancellor paid a visit to the pieces of furniture
named; but he well knew that it was not in a piece of furniture that
the queen would place the important letter she had written that day.

When the chancellor had opened and shut twenty times the drawers of the
secretaries, it became necessary, whatever hesitation he might
experience—it became necessary, I say, to come to the conclusion of the
affair; that is to say, to search the queen herself. The chancellor
advanced, therefore, toward Anne of Austria, and said with a very
perplexed and embarrassed air, “And now it remains for me to make the
principal examination.”

“What is that?” asked the queen, who did not understand, or rather was
not willing to understand.

“His majesty is certain that a letter has been written by you during
the day; he knows that it has not yet been sent to its address. This
letter is not in your table nor in your secretary; and yet this letter
must be somewhere.”

“Would you dare to lift your hand to your queen?” said Anne of Austria,
drawing herself up to her full height, and fixing her eyes upon the
chancellor with an expression almost threatening.

“I am a faithful subject of the king, madame, and all that his Majesty
commands I shall do.”

“Well, it is true!” said Anne of Austria; “and the spies of the
cardinal have served him faithfully. I have written a letter today;
that letter is not yet gone. The letter is here.” And the queen laid
her beautiful hand on her bosom.

“Then give me that letter, madame,” said the chancellor.

“I will give it to none but the king, monsieur,” said Anne.

“If the king had desired that the letter should be given to him,
madame, he would have demanded it of you himself. But I repeat to you,
I am charged with reclaiming it; and if you do not give it up—”

“Well?”

“He has, then, charged me to take it from you.”

“How! What do you say?”

“That my orders go far, madame; and that I am authorized to seek for
the suspected paper, even on the person of your Majesty.”

“What horror!” cried the queen.

“Be kind enough, then, madame, to act more compliantly.”

“The conduct is infamously violent! Do you know that, monsieur?”

“The king commands it, madame; excuse me.”

“I will not suffer it! No, no, I would rather die!” cried the queen, in
whom the imperious blood of Spain and Austria began to rise.

The chancellor made a profound reverence. Then, with the intention
quite patent of not drawing back a foot from the accomplishment of the
commission with which he was charged, and as the attendant of an
executioner might have done in the chamber of torture, he approached
Anne of Austria, from whose eyes at the same instant sprang tears of
rage.

The queen was, as we have said, of great beauty. The commission might
well be called delicate; and the king had reached, in his jealousy of
Buckingham, the point of not being jealous of anyone else.

Without doubt the chancellor Séguier looked about at that moment for
the rope of the famous bell; but not finding it he summoned his
resolution, and stretched forth his hands toward the place where the
queen had acknowledged the paper was to be found.

Anne of Austria took one step backward, became so pale that it might be
said she was dying, and leaning with her left hand upon a table behind
her to keep herself from falling, she with her right hand drew the
paper from her bosom and held it out to the keeper of the seals.

“There, monsieur, there is that letter!” cried the queen, with a broken
and trembling voice; “take it, and deliver me from your odious
presence.”

The chancellor, who, on his part, trembled with an emotion easily to be
conceived, took the letter, bowed to the ground, and retired. The door
was scarcely closed upon him, when the queen sank, half fainting, into
the arms of her women.

The chancellor carried the letter to the king without having read a
single word of it. The king took it with a trembling hand, looked for
the address, which was wanting, became very pale, opened it slowly,
then seeing by the first words that it was addressed to the King of
Spain, he read it rapidly.

It was nothing but a plan of attack against the cardinal. The queen
pressed her brother and the Emperor of Austria to appear to be wounded,
as they really were, by the policy of Richelieu—the eternal object of
which was the abasement of the house of Austria—to declare war against
France, and as a condition of peace, to insist upon the dismissal of
the cardinal; but as to love, there was not a single word about it in
all the letter.

The king, quite delighted, inquired if the cardinal was still at the
Louvre; he was told that his Eminence awaited the orders of his Majesty
in the business cabinet.

The king went straight to him.

“There, Duke,” said he, “you were right and I was wrong. The whole
intrigue is political, and there is not the least question of love in
this letter; but, on the other hand, there is abundant question of
you.”

The cardinal took the letter, and read it with the greatest attention;
then, when he had arrived at the end of it, he read it a second time.
“Well, your Majesty,” said he, “you see how far my enemies go; they
menace you with two wars if you do not dismiss me. In your place, in
truth, sire, I should yield to such powerful instance; and on my part,
it would be a real happiness to withdraw from public affairs.”

“What say you, Duke?”

“I say, sire, that my health is sinking under these excessive struggles
and these never-ending labors. I say that according to all probability
I shall not be able to undergo the fatigues of the siege of La
Rochelle, and that it would be far better that you should appoint there
either Monsieur de Condé, Monsieur de Bassopierre, or some valiant
gentleman whose business is war, and not me, who am a churchman, and
who am constantly turned aside for my real vocation to look after
matters for which I have no aptitude. You would be the happier for it
at home, sire, and I do not doubt you would be the greater for it
abroad.”

“Monsieur Duke,” said the king, “I understand you. Be satisfied, all
who are named in that letter shall be punished as they deserve, even
the queen herself.”

“What do you say, sire? God forbid that the queen should suffer the
least inconvenience or uneasiness on my account! She has always
believed me, sire, to be her enemy; although your Majesty can bear
witness that I have always taken her part warmly, even against you. Oh,
if she betrayed your Majesty on the side of your honor, it would be
quite another thing, and I should be the first to say, ‘No grace,
sire—no grace for the guilty!’ Happily, there is nothing of the kind,
and your Majesty has just acquired a new proof of it.”

“That is true, Monsieur Cardinal,” said the king, “and you were right,
as you always are; but the queen, not the less, deserves all my anger.”

“It is you, sire, who have now incurred hers. And even if she were to
be seriously offended, I could well understand it; your Majesty has
treated her with a severity—”

“It is thus I will always treat my enemies and yours, Duke, however
high they may be placed, and whatever peril I may incur in acting
severely toward them.”

“The queen is my enemy, but is not yours, sire; on the contrary, she is
a devoted, submissive, and irreproachable wife. Allow me, then, sire,
to intercede for her with your Majesty.”

“Let her humble herself, then, and come to me first.”

“On the contrary, sire, set the example. You have committed the first
wrong, since it was you who suspected the queen.”

“What! I make the first advances?” said the king. “Never!”

“Sire, I entreat you to do so.”

“Besides, in what manner can I make advances first?”

“By doing a thing which you know will be agreeable to her.”

“What is that?”

“Give a ball; you know how much the queen loves dancing. I will answer
for it, her resentment will not hold out against such an attention.”

“Monsieur Cardinal, you know that I do not like worldly pleasures.”

“The queen will only be the more grateful to you, as she knows your
antipathy for that amusement; besides, it will be an opportunity for
her to wear those beautiful diamonds which you gave her recently on her
birthday and with which she has since had no occasion to adorn
herself.”

“We shall see, Monsieur Cardinal, we shall see,” said the king, who, in
his joy at finding the queen guilty of a crime which he cared little
about, and innocent of a fault of which he had great dread, was ready
to make up all differences with her, “we shall see, but upon my honor,
you are too indulgent toward her.”

“Sire,” said the cardinal, “leave severity to your ministers. Clemency
is a royal virtue; employ it, and you will find that you derive
advantage therein.”

Thereupon the cardinal, hearing the clock strike eleven, bowed low,
asking permission of the king to retire, and supplicating him to come
to a good understanding with the queen.

Anne of Austria, who, in consequence of the seizure of her letter,
expected reproaches, was much astonished the next day to see the king
make some attempts at reconciliation with her. Her first movement was
repellent. Her womanly pride and her queenly dignity had both been so
cruelly offended that she could not come round at the first advance;
but, overpersuaded by the advice of her women, she at last had the
appearance of beginning to forget. The king took advantage of this
favorable moment to tell her that he had the intention of shortly
giving a fête.

A fête was so rare a thing for poor Anne of Austria that at this
announcement, as the cardinal had predicted, the last trace of her
resentment disappeared, if not from her heart, at least from her
countenance. She asked upon what day this fête would take place, but
the king replied that he must consult the cardinal upon that head.

Indeed, every day the king asked the cardinal when this fête should
take place; and every day the cardinal, under some pretext, deferred
fixing it. Ten days passed away thus.

On the eighth day after the scene we have described, the cardinal
received a letter with the London stamp which only contained these
lines: “I have them; but I am unable to leave London for want of money.
Send me five hundred pistoles, and four or five days after I have
received them I shall be in Paris.”

On the same day the cardinal received this letter the king put his
customary question to him.

Richelieu counted on his fingers, and said to himself, “She will
arrive, she says, four or five days after having received the money. It
will require four or five days for the transmission of the money, four
or five days for her to return; that makes ten days. Now, allowing for
contrary winds, accidents, and a woman’s weakness, there are twelve
days.”

“Well, Monsieur Duke,” said the king, “have you made your
calculations?”

“Yes, sire. Today is the twentieth of September. The aldermen of the
city give a fête on the third of October. That will fall in wonderfully
well; you will not appear to have gone out of your way to please the
queen.”

Then the cardinal added, “_A propos_, sire, do not forget to tell her
Majesty the evening before the fête that you should like to see how her
diamond studs become her.”




Chapter XVII.
BONACIEUX AT HOME


It was the second time the cardinal had mentioned these diamond studs
to the king. Louis XIII. was struck with this insistence, and began to
fancy that this recommendation concealed some mystery.

More than once the king had been humiliated by the cardinal, whose
police, without having yet attained the perfection of the modern
police, were excellent, being better informed than himself, even upon
what was going on in his own household. He hoped, then, in a
conversation with Anne of Austria, to obtain some information from that
conversation, and afterward to come upon his Eminence with some secret
which the cardinal either knew or did not know, but which, in either
case, would raise him infinitely in the eyes of his minister.

He went then to the queen, and according to custom accosted her with
fresh menaces against those who surrounded her. Anne of Austria lowered
her head, allowed the torrent to flow on without replying, hoping that
it would cease of itself; but this was not what Louis XIII. meant. Louis
XIII. wanted a discussion from which some light or other might break,
convinced as he was that the cardinal had some afterthought and was
preparing for him one of those terrible surprises which his Eminence
was so skillful in getting up. He arrived at this end by his
persistence in accusation.

“But,” cried Anne of Austria, tired of these vague attacks, “but, sire,
you do not tell me all that you have in your heart. What have I done,
then? Let me know what crime I have committed. It is impossible that
your Majesty can make all this ado about a letter written to my
brother.”

The king, attacked in a manner so direct, did not know what to answer;
and he thought that this was the moment for expressing the desire which
he was not going to have made until the evening before the fête.

“Madame,” said he, with dignity, “there will shortly be a ball at the
Hôtel de Ville. I wish, in order to honor our worthy aldermen, you
should appear in ceremonial costume, and above all, ornamented with the
diamond studs which I gave you on your birthday. That is my answer.”

The answer was terrible. Anne of Austria believed that Louis XIII. knew
all, and that the cardinal had persuaded him to employ this long
dissimulation of seven or eight days, which, likewise, was
characteristic. She became excessively pale, leaned her beautiful hand
upon a _console_, which hand appeared then like one of wax, and looking
at the king with terror in her eyes, she was unable to reply by a
single syllable.

“You hear, madame,” said the king, who enjoyed the embarrassment to its
full extent, but without guessing the cause. “You hear, madame?”

“Yes, sire, I hear,” stammered the queen.

“You will appear at this ball?”

“Yes.”

“With those studs?”

“Yes.”

The queen’s paleness, if possible, increased; the king perceived it,
and enjoyed it with that cold cruelty which was one of the worst sides
of his character.

“Then that is agreed,” said the king, “and that is all I had to say to
you.”

“But on what day will this ball take place?” asked Anne of Austria.

Louis XIII. felt instinctively that he ought not to reply to this
question, the queen having put it in an almost dying voice.

“Oh, very shortly, madame,” said he; “but I do not precisely recollect
the date of the day. I will ask the cardinal.”

“It was the cardinal, then, who informed you of this fête?”

“Yes, madame,” replied the astonished king; “but why do you ask that?”

“It was he who told you to invite me to appear with these studs?”

“That is to say, madame—”

“It was he, sire, it was he!”

“Well, and what does it signify whether it was he or I? Is there any
crime in this request?”

“No, sire.”

“Then you will appear?”

“Yes, sire.”

“That is well,” said the king, retiring, “that is well; I count upon
it.”

The queen made a curtsy, less from etiquette than because her knees
were sinking under her. The king went away enchanted.

“I am lost,” murmured the queen, “lost!—for the cardinal knows all, and
it is he who urges on the king, who as yet knows nothing but will soon
know everything. I am lost! My God, my God, my God!”

She knelt upon a cushion and prayed, with her head buried between her
palpitating arms.

In fact, her position was terrible. Buckingham had returned to London;
Mme. de Chevreuse was at Tours. More closely watched than ever, the
queen felt certain, without knowing how to tell which, that one of her
women had betrayed her. Laporte could not leave the Louvre; she had not
a soul in the world in whom she could confide. Thus, while
contemplating the misfortune which threatened her and the abandonment
in which she was left, she broke out into sobs and tears.

“Can I be of service to your Majesty?” said all at once a voice full of
sweetness and pity.

The queen turned sharply round, for there could be no deception in the
expression of that voice; it was a friend who spoke thus.

In fact, at one of the doors which opened into the queen’s apartment
appeared the pretty Mme. Bonacieux. She had been engaged in arranging
the dresses and linen in a closet when the king entered; she could not
get out and had heard all.

The queen uttered a piercing cry at finding herself surprised—for in
her trouble she did not at first recognize the young woman who had been
given to her by Laporte.

“Oh, fear nothing, madame!” said the young woman, clasping her hands
and weeping herself at the queen’s sorrows; “I am your Majesty’s, body
and soul, and however far I may be from you, however inferior may be my
position, I believe I have discovered a means of extricating your
Majesty from your trouble.”

“You, oh, heaven, you!” cried the queen; “but look me in the face. I am
betrayed on all sides. Can I trust in you?”

“Oh, madame!” cried the young woman, falling on her knees; “upon my
soul, I am ready to die for your Majesty!”

This expression sprang from the very bottom of the heart, and, like the
first, there was no mistaking it.

“Yes,” continued Mme. Bonacieux, “yes, there are traitors here; but by
the holy name of the Virgin, I swear that no one is more devoted to
your Majesty than I am. Those studs which the king speaks of, you gave
them to the Duke of Buckingham, did you not? Those studs were enclosed
in a little rosewood box which he held under his arm? Am I deceived? Is
it not so, madame?”

“Oh, my God, my God!” murmured the queen, whose teeth chattered with
fright.

“Well, those studs,” continued Mme. Bonacieux, “we must have them back
again.”

“Yes, without doubt, it is necessary,” cried the queen; “but how am I
to act? How can it be effected?”

“Someone must be sent to the duke.”

“But who, who? In whom can I trust?”

“Place confidence in me, madame; do me that honor, my queen, and I will
find a messenger.”

“But I must write.”

“Oh, yes; that is indispensable. Two words from the hand of your
Majesty and your private seal.”

“But these two words would bring about my condemnation, divorce,
exile!”

“Yes, if they fell into infamous hands. But I will answer for these two
words being delivered to their address.”

“Oh, my God! I must then place my life, my honor, my reputation, in
your hands?”

“Yes, yes, madame, you must; and I will save them all.”

“But how? Tell me at least the means.”

“My husband had been at liberty these two or three days. I have not yet
had time to see him again. He is a worthy, honest man who entertains
neither love nor hatred for anybody. He will do anything I wish. He
will set out upon receiving an order from me, without knowing what he
carries, and he will carry your Majesty’s letter, without even knowing
it is from your Majesty, to the address which is on it.”

The queen took the two hands of the young woman with a burst of
emotion, gazed at her as if to read her very heart, and, seeing nothing
but sincerity in her beautiful eyes, embraced her tenderly.

“Do that,” cried she, “and you will have saved my life, you will have
saved my honor!”

“Do not exaggerate the service I have the happiness to render your
Majesty. I have nothing to save for your Majesty; you are only the
victim of perfidious plots.”

“That is true, that is true, my child,” said the queen, “you are
right.”

“Give me then, that letter, madame; time presses.”

The queen ran to a little table, on which were ink, paper, and pens.
She wrote two lines, sealed the letter with her private seal, and gave
it to Mme. Bonacieux.

“And now,” said the queen, “we are forgetting one very necessary
thing.”

“What is that, madame?”

“Money.”

Mme. Bonacieux blushed.

“Yes, that is true,” said she, “and I will confess to your Majesty that
my husband—”

“Your husband has none. Is that what you would say?”

“He has some, but he is very avaricious; that is his fault.
Nevertheless, let not your Majesty be uneasy, we will find means.”

“And I have none, either,” said the queen. Those who have read the
_Memoirs_ of Mme. de Motteville will not be astonished at this reply.
“But wait a minute.”

Anne of Austria ran to her jewel case.

“Here,” said she, “here is a ring of great value, as I have been
assured. It came from my brother, the King of Spain. It is mine, and I
am at liberty to dispose of it. Take this ring; raise money with it,
and let your husband set out.”

“In an hour you shall be obeyed.”

“You see the address,” said the queen, speaking so low that Mme.
Bonacieux could hardly hear what she said, “To my Lord Duke of
Buckingham, London.”

“The letter shall be given to himself.”

“Generous girl!” cried Anne of Austria.

Mme. Bonacieux kissed the hands of the queen, concealed the paper in
the bosom of her dress, and disappeared with the lightness of a bird.

Ten minutes afterward she was at home. As she told the queen, she had
not seen her husband since his liberation; she was ignorant of the
change that had taken place in him with respect to the cardinal—a
change which had since been strengthened by two or three visits from
the Comte de Rochefort, who had become the best friend of Bonacieux,
and had persuaded him, without much trouble, that no culpable
sentiments had prompted the abduction of his wife, but that it was only
a political precaution.

She found M. Bonacieux alone; the poor man was recovering with
difficulty the order in his house, in which he had found most of the
furniture broken and the closets nearly emptied—justice not being one
of the three things which King Solomon names as leaving no traces of
their passage. As to the servant, she had run away at the moment of her
master’s arrest. Terror had had such an effect upon the poor girl that
she had never ceased walking from Paris till she reached Burgundy, her
native place.

The worthy mercer had, immediately upon re-entering his house, informed
his wife of his happy return, and his wife had replied by
congratulating him, and telling him that the first moment she could
steal from her duties should be devoted to paying him a visit.

This first moment had been delayed five days, which, under any other
circumstances, might have appeared rather long to M. Bonacieux; but he
had, in the visit he had made to the cardinal and in the visits
Rochefort had made him, ample subjects for reflection, and as everybody
knows, nothing makes time pass more quickly than reflection.

This was the more so because Bonacieux’s reflections were all
rose-colored. Rochefort called him his friend, his dear Bonacieux, and
never ceased telling him that the cardinal had a great respect for him.
The mercer fancied himself already on the high road to honors and
fortune.

On her side Mme. Bonacieux had also reflected; but, it must be
admitted, upon something widely different from ambition. In spite of
herself her thoughts constantly reverted to that handsome young man who
was so brave and appeared to be so much in love. Married at eighteen to
M. Bonacieux, having always lived among her husband’s friends—people
little capable of inspiring any sentiment whatever in a young woman
whose heart was above her position—Mme. Bonacieux had remained
insensible to vulgar seductions; but at this period the title of
gentleman had great influence with the citizen class, and D’Artagnan
was a gentleman. Besides, he wore the uniform of the Guards, which,
next to that of the Musketeers, was most admired by the ladies. He was,
we repeat, handsome, young, and bold; he spoke of love like a man who
did love and was anxious to be loved in return. There was certainly
enough in all this to turn a head only twenty-three years old, and Mme.
Bonacieux had just attained that happy period of life.

The couple, then, although they had not seen each other for eight days,
and during that time serious events had taken place in which both were
concerned, accosted each other with a degree of preoccupation.
Nevertheless, Bonacieux manifested real joy, and advanced toward his
wife with open arms. Madame Bonacieux presented her cheek to him.

“Let us talk a little,” said she.

“How!” said Bonacieux, astonished.

“Yes, I have something of the highest importance to tell you.”

“True,” said he, “and I have some questions sufficiently serious to put
to you. Describe to me your abduction, I pray you.”

“Oh, that’s of no consequence just now,” said Mme. Bonacieux.

“And what does it concern, then—my captivity?”

“I heard of it the day it happened; but as you were not guilty of any
crime, as you were not guilty of any intrigue, as you, in short, knew
nothing that could compromise yourself or anybody else, I attached no
more importance to that event than it merited.”

“You speak very much at your ease, madame,” said Bonacieux, hurt at the
little interest his wife showed in him. “Do you know that I was plunged
during a day and night in a dungeon of the Bastille?”

“Oh, a day and night soon pass away. Let us return to the object that
brings me here.”

“What, that which brings you home to me? Is it not the desire of seeing
a husband again from whom you have been separated for a week?” asked
the mercer, piqued to the quick.

“Yes, that first, and other things afterward.”

“Speak.”

“It is a thing of the highest interest, and upon which our future
fortune perhaps depends.”

“The complexion of our fortune has changed very much since I saw you,
Madame Bonacieux, and I should not be astonished if in the course of a
few months it were to excite the envy of many folks.”

“Yes, particularly if you follow the instructions I am about to give
you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. There is good and holy action to be performed, monsieur, and
much money to be gained at the same time.”

Mme. Bonacieux knew that in talking of money to her husband, she took
him on his weak side. But a man, were he even a mercer, when he had
talked for ten minutes with Cardinal Richelieu, is no longer the same
man.

“Much money to be gained?” said Bonacieux, protruding his lip.

“Yes, much.”

“About how much?”

“A thousand pistoles, perhaps.”

“What you demand of me is serious, then?”

“It is indeed.”

“What must be done?”

“You must go away immediately. I will give you a paper which you must
not part with on any account, and which you will deliver into the
proper hands.”

“And whither am I to go?”

“To London.”

“I go to London? Go to! You jest! I have no business in London.”

“But others wish that you should go there.”

“But who are those others? I warn you that I will never again work in
the dark, and that I will know not only to what I expose myself, but
for whom I expose myself.”

“An illustrious person sends you; an illustrious person awaits you. The
recompense will exceed your expectations; that is all I promise you.”

“More intrigues! Nothing but intrigues! Thank you, madame, I am aware
of them now; Monsieur Cardinal has enlightened me on that head.”

“The cardinal?” cried Mme. Bonacieux. “Have you seen the cardinal?”

“He sent for me,” answered the mercer, proudly.

“And you responded to his bidding, you imprudent man?”

“Well, I can’t say I had much choice of going or not going, for I was
taken to him between two guards. It is true also, that as I did not
then know his Eminence, if I had been able to dispense with the visit,
I should have been enchanted.”

“He ill-treated you, then; he threatened you?”

“He gave me his hand, and called me his friend. His friend! Do you hear
that, madame? I am the friend of the great cardinal!”

“Of the great cardinal!”

“Perhaps you would contest his right to that title, madame?”

“I would contest nothing; but I tell you that the favor of a minister
is ephemeral, and that a man must be mad to attach himself to a
minister. There are powers above his which do not depend upon a man or
the issue of an event; it is to these powers we should rally.”

“I am sorry for it, madame, but I acknowledge no other power but that
of the great man whom I have the honor to serve.”

“You serve the cardinal?”

“Yes, madame; and as his servant, I will not allow you to be concerned
in plots against the safety of the state, or to serve the intrigues of
a woman who is not French and who has a Spanish heart. Fortunately we
have the great cardinal; his vigilant eye watches over and penetrates
to the bottom of the heart.”

Bonacieux was repeating, word for word, a sentence which he had heard
from the Comte de Rochefort; but the poor wife, who had reckoned on her
husband, and who, in that hope, had answered for him to the queen, did
not tremble the less, both at the danger into which she had nearly cast
herself and at the helpless state to which she was reduced.
Nevertheless, knowing the weakness of her husband, and more
particularly his cupidity, she did not despair of bringing him round to
her purpose.

“Ah, you are a cardinalist, then, monsieur, are you?” cried she; “and
you serve the party of those who maltreat your wife and insult your
queen?”

“Private interests are as nothing before the interests of all. I am for
those who save the state,” said Bonacieux, emphatically.

“And what do you know about the state you talk of?” said Mme.
Bonacieux, shrugging her shoulders. “Be satisfied with being a plain,
straightforward citizen, and turn to that side which offers the most
advantages.”

“Eh, eh!” said Bonacieux, slapping a plump, round bag, which returned
of sound a money; “what do you think of this, Madame Preacher?”

“Whence comes that money?”

“You do not guess?”

“From the cardinal?”

“From him, and from my friend the Comte de Rochefort.”

“The Comte de Rochefort! Why, it was he who carried me off!”

“That may be, madame!”

“And you receive silver from that man?”

“Have you not said that that abduction was entirely political?”

“Yes; but that abduction had for its object the betrayal of my
mistress, to draw from me by torture confessions that might compromise
the honor, and perhaps the life, of my august mistress.”

“Madame,” replied Bonacieux, “your august mistress is a perfidious
Spaniard, and what the cardinal does is well done.”

“Monsieur,” said the young woman, “I know you to be cowardly,
avaricious, and foolish, but I never till now believed you infamous!”

“Madame,” said Bonacieux, who had never seen his wife in a passion, and
who recoiled before this conjugal anger, “madame, what do you say?”

“I say you are a miserable creature!” continued Mme. Bonacieux, who saw
she was regaining some little influence over her husband. “You meddle
with politics, do you—and still more, with cardinalist politics? Why,
you sell yourself, body and soul, to the demon, the devil, for money!”

“No, to the cardinal.”

“It’s the same thing,” cried the young woman. “Who calls Richelieu
calls Satan.”

“Hold your tongue, hold your tongue, madame! You may be overheard.”

“Yes, you are right; I should be ashamed for anyone to know your
baseness.”

“But what do you require of me, then? Let us see.”

“I have told you. You must depart instantly, monsieur. You must
accomplish loyally the commission with which I deign to charge you, and
on that condition I pardon everything, I forget everything; and what is
more,” and she held out her hand to him, “I restore my love.”

Bonacieux was cowardly and avaricious, but he loved his wife. He was
softened. A man of fifty cannot long bear malice with a wife of
twenty-three. Mme. Bonacieux saw that he hesitated.

“Come! Have you decided?” said she.

“But, my dear love, reflect a little upon what you require of me.
London is far from Paris, very far, and perhaps the commission with
which you charge me is not without dangers?”

“What matters it, if you avoid them?”

“Hold, Madame Bonacieux,” said the mercer, “hold! I positively refuse;
intrigues terrify me. I have seen the Bastille. My! Whew! That’s a
frightful place, that Bastille! Only to think of it makes my flesh
crawl. They threatened me with torture. Do you know what torture is?
Wooden points that they stick in between your legs till your bones
stick out! No, positively I will not go. And, _morbleu_, why do you not
go yourself? For in truth, I think I have hitherto been deceived in
you. I really believe you are a man, and a violent one, too.”

“And you, you are a woman—a miserable woman, stupid and brutal. You are
afraid, are you? Well, if you do not go this very instant, I will have
you arrested by the queen’s orders, and I will have you placed in the
Bastille which you dread so much.”

Bonacieux fell into a profound reflection. He weighed the two angers in
his brain—that of the cardinal and that of the queen; that of the
cardinal predominated enormously.

“Have me arrested on the part of the queen,” said he, “and I—I will
appeal to his Eminence.”

At once Mme. Bonacieux saw that she had gone too far, and she was
terrified at having communicated so much. She for a moment contemplated
with fright that stupid countenance, impressed with the invincible
resolution of a fool that is overcome by fear.

“Well, be it so!” said she. “Perhaps, when all is considered, you are
right. In the long run, a man knows more about politics than a woman,
particularly such as, like you, Monsieur Bonacieux, have conversed with
the cardinal. And yet it is very hard,” added she, “that a man upon
whose affection I thought I might depend, treats me thus unkindly and
will not comply with any of my fancies.”

“That is because your fancies go too far,” replied the triumphant
Bonacieux, “and I mistrust them.”

“Well, I will give it up, then,” said the young woman, sighing. “It is
well as it is; say no more about it.”

“At least you should tell me what I should have to do in London,”
replied Bonacieux, who remembered a little too late that Rochefort had
desired him to endeavor to obtain his wife’s secrets.

“It is of no use for you to know anything about it,” said the young
woman, whom an instinctive mistrust now impelled to draw back. “It was
about one of those purchases that interest women—a purchase by which
much might have been gained.”

But the more the young woman excused herself, the more important
Bonacieux thought the secret which she declined to confide to him. He
resolved then to hasten immediately to the residence of the Comte de
Rochefort, and tell him that the queen was seeking for a messenger to
send to London.

“Pardon me for quitting you, my dear Madame Bonacieux,” said he; “but,
not knowing you would come to see me, I had made an engagement with a
friend. I shall soon return; and if you will wait only a few minutes
for me, as soon as I have concluded my business with that friend, as it
is growing late, I will come back and reconduct you to the Louvre.”

“Thank you, monsieur, you are not brave enough to be of any use to me
whatever,” replied Mme. Bonacieux. “I shall return very safely to the
Louvre all alone.”

“As you please, Madame Bonacieux,” said the ex-mercer. “Shall I see you
again soon?”

“Next week I hope my duties will afford me a little liberty, and I will
take advantage of it to come and put things in order here, as they must
necessarily be much deranged.”

“Very well; I shall expect you. You are not angry with me?”

“Not the least in the world.”

“Till then, then?”

“Till then.”

Bonacieux kissed his wife’s hand, and set off at a quick pace.

“Well,” said Mme. Bonacieux, when her husband had shut the street door
and she found herself alone; “that imbecile lacked but one thing: to
become a cardinalist. And I, who have answered for him to the queen—I,
who have promised my poor mistress—ah, my God, my God! She will take me
for one of those wretches with whom the palace swarms and who are
placed about her as spies! Ah, Monsieur Bonacieux, I never did love you
much, but now it is worse than ever. I hate you, and on my word you
shall pay for this!”

At the moment she spoke these words a rap on the ceiling made her raise
her head, and a voice which reached her through the ceiling cried,
“Dear Madame Bonacieux, open for me the little door on the alley, and I
will come down to you.”




Chapter XVIII.
LOVER AND HUSBAND


Ah, Madame,” said D’Artagnan, entering by the door which the young
woman opened for him, “allow me to tell you that you have a bad sort of
a husband.”

“You have, then, overheard our conversation?” asked Mme. Bonacieux,
eagerly, and looking at D’Artagnan with disquiet.

“The whole.”

“But how, my God?”

“By a mode of proceeding known to myself, and by which I likewise
overheard the more animated conversation which he had with the
cardinal’s police.”

“And what did you understand by what we said?”

“A thousand things. In the first place, that, unfortunately, your
husband is a simpleton and a fool; in the next place, you are in
trouble, of which I am very glad, as it gives me an opportunity of
placing myself at your service, and God knows I am ready to throw
myself into the fire for you; finally, that the queen wants a brave,
intelligent, devoted man to make a journey to London for her. I have at
least two of the three qualities you stand in need of, and here I am.”

Mme. Bonacieux made no reply; but her heart beat with joy and secret
hope shone in her eyes.

“And what guarantee will you give me,” asked she, “if I consent to
confide this message to you?”

“My love for you. Speak! Command! What is to be done?”

“My God, my God!” murmured the young woman, “ought I to confide such a
secret to you, monsieur? You are almost a boy.”

“I see that you require someone to answer for me?”

“I admit that would reassure me greatly.”

“Do you know Athos?”

“No.”

“Porthos?”

“No.”

“Aramis?”

“No. Who are these gentleman?”

“Three of the king’s Musketeers. Do you know Monsieur de Tréville,
their captain?”

“Oh, yes, him! I know him; not personally, but from having heard the
queen speak of him more than once as a brave and loyal gentleman.”

“You do not fear lest he should betray you to the cardinal?”

“Oh, no, certainly not!”

“Well, reveal your secret to him, and ask him whether, however
important, however valuable, however terrible it may be, you may not
confide it to me.”

“But this secret is not mine, and I cannot reveal it in this manner.”

“You were about to confide it to Monsieur Bonacieux,” said D’Artagnan,
with chagrin.

“As one confides a letter to the hollow of a tree, to the wing of a
pigeon, to the collar of a dog.”

“And yet, me—you see plainly that I love you.”

“You say so.”

“I am an honorable man.”

“You say so.”

“I am a gallant fellow.”

“I believe it.”

“I am brave.”

“Oh, I am sure of that!”

“Then, put me to the proof.”

Mme. Bonacieux looked at the young man, restrained for a minute by a
last hesitation; but there was such an ardor in his eyes, such
persuasion in his voice, that she felt herself constrained to confide
in him. Besides, she found herself in circumstances where everything
must be risked for the sake of everything. The queen might be as much
injured by too much reticence as by too much confidence; and—let us
admit it—the involuntary sentiment which she felt for her young
protector decided her to speak.

“Listen,” said she; “I yield to your protestations, I yield to your
assurances. But I swear to you, before God who hears us, that if you
betray me, and my enemies pardon me, I will kill myself, while accusing
you of my death.”

“And I—I swear to you before God, madame,” said D’Artagnan, “that if I
am taken while accomplishing the orders you give me, I will die sooner
than do anything that may compromise anyone.”

Then the young woman confided in him the terrible secret of which
chance had already communicated to him a part in front of the
Samaritaine. This was their mutual declaration of love.

D’Artagnan was radiant with joy and pride. This secret which he
possessed, this woman whom he loved! Confidence and love made him a
giant.

“I go,” said he; “I go at once.”

“How, you will go!” said Mme. Bonacieux; “and your regiment, your
captain?”

“By my soul, you had made me forget all that, dear Constance! Yes, you
are right; a furlough is needful.”

“Still another obstacle,” murmured Mme. Bonacieux, sorrowfully.

“As to that,” cried D’Artagnan, after a moment of reflection, “I shall
surmount it, be assured.”

“How so?”

“I will go this very evening to Tréville, whom I will request to ask
this favor for me of his brother-in-law, Monsieur Dessessart.”

“But another thing.”

“What?” asked D’Artagnan, seeing that Mme. Bonacieux hesitated to
continue.

“You have, perhaps, no money?”

“_Perhaps_ is too much,” said D’Artagnan, smiling.

“Then,” replied Mme. Bonacieux, opening a cupboard and taking from it
the very bag which a half hour before her husband had caressed so
affectionately, “take this bag.”

“The cardinal’s?” cried D’Artagnan, breaking into a loud laugh, he
having heard, as may be remembered, thanks to the broken boards, every
syllable of the conversation between the mercer and his wife.

“The cardinal’s,” replied Mme. Bonacieux. “You see it makes a very
respectable appearance.”

“_Pardieu_,” cried D’Artagnan, “it will be a double amusing affair to
save the queen with the cardinal’s money!”

“You are an amiable and charming young man,” said Mme. Bonacieux. “Be
assured you will not find her Majesty ungrateful.”

“Oh, I am already grandly recompensed!” cried D’Artagnan. “I love you;
you permit me to tell you that I do—that is already more happiness than
I dared to hope.”

“Silence!” said Mme. Bonacieux, starting.

“What!”

“Someone is talking in the street.”

“It is the voice of—”

“Of my husband! Yes, I recognize it!”

D’Artagnan ran to the door and pushed the bolt.

“He shall not come in before I am gone,” said he; “and when I am gone,
you can open to him.”

“But I ought to be gone, too. And the disappearance of his money; how
am I to justify it if I am here?”

“You are right; we must go out.”

“Go out? How? He will see us if we go out.”

“Then you must come up into my room.”

“Ah,” said Mme. Bonacieux, “you speak that in a tone that frightens
me!”

Mme. Bonacieux pronounced these words with tears in her eyes.
D’Artagnan saw those tears, and much disturbed, softened, he threw
himself at her feet.

“With me you will be as safe as in a temple; I give you my word of a
gentleman.”

“Let us go,” said she, “I place full confidence in you, my friend!”

D’Artagnan drew back the bolt with precaution, and both, light as
shadows, glided through the interior door into the passage, ascended
the stairs as quietly as possible, and entered D’Artagnan’s chambers.

Once there, for greater security, the young man barricaded the door.
They both approached the window, and through a slit in the shutter they
saw Bonacieux talking with a man in a cloak.

At sight of this man, D’Artagnan started, and half drawing his sword,
sprang toward the door.

It was the man of Meung.

“What are you going to do?” cried Mme. Bonacieux; “you will ruin us
all!”

“But I have sworn to kill that man!” said D’Artagnan.

“Your life is devoted from this moment, and does not belong to you. In
the name of the queen I forbid you to throw yourself into any peril
which is foreign to that of your journey.”

“And do you command nothing in your own name?”

“In my name,” said Mme. Bonacieux, with great emotion, “in my name I
beg you! But listen; they appear to be speaking of me.”

D’Artagnan drew near the window, and lent his ear.

M. Bonacieux had opened his door, and seeing the apartment, had
returned to the man in the cloak, whom he had left alone for an
instant.

“She is gone,” said he; “she must have returned to the Louvre.”

“You are sure,” replied the stranger, “that she did not suspect the
intentions with which you went out?”

“No,” replied Bonacieux, with a self-sufficient air, “she is too
superficial a woman.”

“Is the young Guardsman at home?”

“I do not think he is; as you see, his shutter is closed, and you can
see no light shine through the chinks of the shutters.”

“All the same, it is well to be certain.”

“How so?”

“By knocking at his door. Go.”

“I will ask his servant.”

Bonacieux re-entered the house, passed through the same door that had
afforded a passage for the two fugitives, went up to D’Artagnan’s door,
and knocked.

No one answered. Porthos, in order to make a greater display, had that
evening borrowed Planchet. As to D’Artagnan, he took care not to give
the least sign of existence.

The moment the hand of Bonacieux sounded on the door, the two young
people felt their hearts bound within them.

“There is nobody within,” said Bonacieux.

“Never mind. Let us return to your apartment. We shall be safer there
than in the doorway.”

“Ah, my God!” whispered Mme. Bonacieux, “we shall hear no more.”

“On the contrary,” said D’Artagnan, “we shall hear better.”

D’Artagnan raised the three or four boards which made his chamber
another ear of Dionysius, spread a carpet on the floor, went upon his
knees, and made a sign to Mme. Bonacieux to stoop as he did toward the
opening.

“You are sure there is nobody there?” said the stranger.

“I will answer for it,” said Bonacieux.

“And you think that your wife—”

“Has returned to the Louvre.”

“Without speaking to anyone but yourself?”

“I am sure of it.”

“That is an important point, do you understand?”

“Then the news I brought you is of value?”

“The greatest, my dear Bonacieux; I don’t conceal this from you.”

“Then the cardinal will be pleased with me?”

“I have no doubt of it.”

“The great cardinal!”

“Are you sure, in her conversation with you, that your wife mentioned
no names?”

“I think not.”

“She did not name Madame de Chevreuse, the Duke of Buckingham, or
Madame de Vernet?”

“No; she only told me she wished to send me to London to serve the
interests of an illustrious personage.”

“The traitor!” murmured Mme. Bonacieux.

“Silence!” said D’Artagnan, taking her hand, which, without thinking of
it, she abandoned to him.

“Never mind,” continued the man in the cloak; “you were a fool not to
have pretended to accept the mission. You would then be in present
possession of the letter. The state, which is now threatened, would be
safe, and you—”

“And I?”

“Well you—the cardinal would have given you letters of nobility.”

“Did he tell you so?”

“Yes, I know that he meant to afford you that agreeable surprise.”

“Be satisfied,” replied Bonacieux; “my wife adores me, and there is yet
time.”

“The ninny!” murmured Mme. Bonacieux.

“Silence!” said D’Artagnan, pressing her hand more closely.

“How is there still time?” asked the man in the cloak.

“I go to the Louvre; I ask for Mme. Bonacieux; I say that I have
reflected; I renew the affair; I obtain the letter, and I run directly
to the cardinal.”

“Well, go quickly! I will return soon to learn the result of your
trip.”

The stranger went out.

“Infamous!” said Mme. Bonacieux, addressing this epithet to her
husband.

“Silence!” said D’Artagnan, pressing her hand still more warmly.

A terrible howling interrupted these reflections of D’Artagnan and Mme.
Bonacieux. It was her husband, who had discovered the disappearance of
the moneybag, and was crying “Thieves!”

“Oh, my God!” cried Mme. Bonacieux, “he will rouse the whole quarter.”

Bonacieux called a long time; but as such cries, on account of their
frequency, brought nobody in the Rue des Fossoyeurs, and as lately the
mercer’s house had a bad name, finding that nobody came, he went out
continuing to call, his voice being heard fainter and fainter as he
went in the direction of the Rue du Bac.

“Now he is gone, it is your turn to get out,” said Mme. Bonacieux.
“Courage, my friend, but above all, prudence, and think what you owe to
the queen.”

“To her and to you!” cried D’Artagnan. “Be satisfied, beautiful
Constance. I shall become worthy of her gratitude; but shall I likewise
return worthy of your love?”

The young woman only replied by the beautiful glow which mounted to her
cheeks. A few seconds afterward D’Artagnan also went out enveloped in a
large cloak, which ill-concealed the sheath of a long sword.

Mme. Bonacieux followed him with her eyes, with that long, fond look
with which he had turned the angle of the street, she fell on her
knees, and clasping her hands, “Oh, my God,” cried she, “protect the
queen, protect me!”




Chapter XIX.
PLAN OF CAMPAIGN


D’Artagnan went straight to M. de Tréville’s. He had reflected that in
a few minutes the cardinal would be warned by this cursed stranger, who
appeared to be his agent, and he judged, with reason, he had not a
moment to lose.

The heart of the young man overflowed with joy. An opportunity
presented itself to him in which there would be at the same time glory
to be acquired, and money to be gained; and as a far higher
encouragement, it brought him into close intimacy with a woman he
adored. This chance did, then, for him at once more than he would have
dared to ask of Providence.

M. de Tréville was in his saloon with his habitual court of gentlemen.
D’Artagnan, who was known as a familiar of the house, went straight to
his office, and sent word that he wished to see him on something of
importance.

D’Artagnan had been there scarcely five minutes when M. de Tréville
entered. At the first glance, and by the joy which was painted on his
countenance, the worthy captain plainly perceived that something new
was on foot.

All the way along D’Artagnan had been consulting with himself whether
he should place confidence in M. de Tréville, or whether he should only
ask him to give him _carte blanche_ for some secret affair. But M. de
Tréville had always been so thoroughly his friend, had always been so
devoted to the king and queen, and hated the cardinal so cordially,
that the young man resolved to tell him everything.

“Did you ask for me, my good friend?” said M. de Tréville.

“Yes, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, lowering his voice, “and you will
pardon me, I hope, for having disturbed you when you know the
importance of my business.”

“Speak, then, I am all attention.”

“It concerns nothing less,” said D’Artagnan, “than the honor, perhaps
the life of the queen.”

“What did you say?” asked M. de Tréville, glancing round to see if they
were surely alone, and then fixing his questioning look upon
D’Artagnan.

“I say, monsieur, that chance has rendered me master of a secret—”

“Which you will guard, I hope, young man, as your life.”

“But which I must impart to you, monsieur, for you alone can assist me
in the mission I have just received from her Majesty.”

“Is this secret your own?”

“No, monsieur; it is her Majesty’s.”

“Are you authorized by her Majesty to communicate it to me?”

“No, monsieur, for, on the contrary, I am desired to preserve the
profoundest mystery.”

“Why, then, are you about to betray it to me?”

“Because, as I said, without you I can do nothing; and I am afraid you
will refuse me the favor I come to ask if you do not know to what end I
ask it.”

“Keep your secret, young man, and tell me what you wish.”

“I wish you to obtain for me, from Monsieur Dessessart, leave of
absence for fifteen days.”

“When?”

“This very night.”

“You leave Paris?”

“I am going on a mission.”

“May you tell me whither?”

“To London.”

“Has anyone an interest in preventing your arrival there?”

“The cardinal, I believe, would give the world to prevent my success.”

“And you are going alone?”

“I am going alone.”

“In that case you will not get beyond Bondy. I tell you so, by the
faith of de Tréville.”

“How so?”

“You will be assassinated.”

“And I shall die in the performance of my duty.”

“But your mission will not be accomplished.”

“That is true,” replied D’Artagnan.

“Believe me,” continued Tréville, “in enterprises of this kind, in
order that one may arrive, four must set out.”

“Ah, you are right, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan; “but you know Athos,
Porthos, and Aramis, and you know if I can dispose of them.”

“Without confiding to them the secret which I am not willing to know?”

“We are sworn, once for all, to implicit confidence and devotedness
against all proof. Besides, you can tell them that you have full
confidence in me, and they will not be more incredulous than you.”

“I can send to each of them leave of absence for fifteen days, that is
all—to Athos, whose wound still makes him suffer, to go to the waters
of Forges; to Porthos and Aramis to accompany their friend, whom they
are not willing to abandon in such a painful condition. Sending their
leave of absence will be proof enough that I authorize their journey.”

“Thanks, monsieur. You are a hundred times too good.”

“Begone, then, find them instantly, and let all be done tonight! Ha!
But first write your request to Dessessart. Perhaps you had a spy at
your heels; and your visit, if it should ever be known to the cardinal,
will thus seem legitimate.”

D’Artagnan drew up his request, and M. de Tréville, on receiving it,
assured him that by two o’clock in the morning the four leaves of
absence should be at the respective domiciles of the travelers.

“Have the goodness to send mine to Athos’s residence. I should dread
some disagreeable encounter if I were to go home.”

“Be easy. Adieu, and a prosperous voyage. _A propos_,” said M. de
Tréville, calling him back.

D’Artagnan returned.

“Have you any money?”

D’Artagnan tapped the bag he had in his pocket.

“Enough?” asked M. de Tréville.

“Three hundred pistoles.”

“Oh, plenty! That would carry you to the end of the world. Begone,
then!”

D’Artagnan saluted M. de Tréville, who held out his hand to him;
D’Artagnan pressed it with a respect mixed with gratitude. Since his
first arrival at Paris, he had had constant occasion to honor this
excellent man, whom he had always found worthy, loyal, and great.

His first visit was to Aramis, at whose residence he had not been since
the famous evening on which he had followed Mme. Bonacieux. Still
further, he had seldom seen the young Musketeer; but every time he had
seen him, he had remarked a deep sadness imprinted on his countenance.

This evening, especially, Aramis was melancholy and thoughtful.
D’Artagnan asked some questions about this prolonged melancholy. Aramis
pleaded as his excuse a commentary upon the eighteenth chapter of St.
Augustine, which he was forced to write in Latin for the following
week, and which preoccupied him a good deal.

After the two friends had been chatting a few moments, a servant from
M. de Tréville entered, bringing a sealed packet.

“What is that?” asked Aramis.

“The leave of absence Monsieur has asked for,” replied the lackey.

“For me! I have asked for no leave of absence.”

“Hold your tongue and take it!” said D’Artagnan. “And you, my friend,
there is a demipistole for your trouble; you will tell Monsieur de
Tréville that Monsieur Aramis is very much obliged to him. Go.”

The lackey bowed to the ground and departed.

“What does all this mean?” asked Aramis.

“Pack up all you want for a journey of a fortnight, and follow me.”

“But I cannot leave Paris just now without knowing—”

Aramis stopped.

“What is become of her? I suppose you mean—” continued D’Artagnan.

“Become of whom?” replied Aramis.

“The woman who was here—the woman with the embroidered handkerchief.”

“Who told you there was a woman here?” replied Aramis, becoming as pale
as death.

“I saw her.”

“And you know who she is?”

“I believe I can guess, at least.”

“Listen!” said Aramis. “Since you appear to know so many things, can
you tell me what is become of that woman?”

“I presume that she has returned to Tours.”

“To Tours? Yes, that may be. You evidently know her. But why did she
return to Tours without telling me anything?”

“Because she was in fear of being arrested.”

“Why has she not written to me, then?”

“Because she was afraid of compromising you.”

“D’Artagnan, you restore me to life!” cried Aramis. “I fancied myself
despised, betrayed. I was so delighted to see her again! I could not
have believed she would risk her liberty for me, and yet for what other
cause could she have returned to Paris?”

“For the cause which today takes us to England.”

“And what is this cause?” demanded Aramis.

“Oh, you’ll know it someday, Aramis; but at present I must imitate the
discretion of ‘the doctor’s niece.’”

Aramis smiled, as he remembered the tale he had told his friends on a
certain evening. “Well, then, since she has left Paris, and you are
sure of it, D’Artagnan, nothing prevents me, and I am ready to follow
you. You say we are going—”

“To see Athos now, and if you will come thither, I beg you to make
haste, for we have lost much time already. _A propos_, inform Bazin.”

“Will Bazin go with us?” asked Aramis.

“Perhaps so. At all events, it is best that he should follow us to
Athos’s.”

Aramis called Bazin, and, after having ordered him to join them at
Athos’s residence, said “Let us go then,” at the same time taking his
cloak, sword, and three pistols, opening uselessly two or three drawers
to see if he could not find stray coin. When well assured this search
was superfluous, he followed D’Artagnan, wondering to himself how this
young Guardsman should know so well who the lady was to whom he had
given hospitality, and that he should know better than himself what had
become of her.

Only as they went out Aramis placed his hand upon the arm of
D’Artagnan, and looking at him earnestly, “You have not spoken of this
lady?” said he.

“To nobody in the world.”

“Not even to Athos or Porthos?”

“I have not breathed a syllable to them.”

“Good enough!”

Tranquil on this important point, Aramis continued his way with
D’Artagnan, and both soon arrived at Athos’s dwelling. They found him
holding his leave of absence in one hand, and M. de Tréville’s note in
the other.

“Can you explain to me what signify this leave of absence and this
letter, which I have just received?” said the astonished Athos.

MY DEAR ATHOS,
    I wish, as your health absolutely requires it, that you should rest
    for a fortnight. Go, then, and take the waters of Forges, or any
    that may be more agreeable to you, and recuperate yourself as
    quickly as possible.


Yours affectionate,
DE TRÉVILLE


“Well, this leave of absence and that letter mean that you must follow
me, Athos.”

“To the waters of Forges?”

“There or elsewhere.”

“In the king’s service?”

“Either the king’s or the queen’s. Are we not their Majesties’
servants?”

At that moment Porthos entered. “_Pardieu!_” said he, “here is a
strange thing! Since when, I wonder, in the Musketeers, did they grant
men leave of absence without their asking for it?”

“Since,” said D’Artagnan, “they have friends who ask it for them.”

“Ah, ah!” said Porthos, “it appears there’s something fresh here.”

“Yes, we are going—” said Aramis.

“To what country?” demanded Porthos.

“My faith! I don’t know much about it,” said Athos. “Ask D’Artagnan.”

“To London, gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan.

“To London!” cried Porthos; “and what the devil are we going to do in
London?”

“That is what I am not at liberty to tell you, gentlemen; you must
trust to me.”

“But in order to go to London,” added Porthos, “money is needed, and I
have none.”

“Nor I,” said Aramis.

“Nor I,” said Athos.

“I have,” replied D’Artagnan, pulling out his treasure from his pocket,
and placing it on the table. “There are in this bag three hundred
pistoles. Let each take seventy-five; that is enough to take us to
London and back. Besides, make yourselves easy; we shall not all arrive
at London.”

“Why so?”

“Because, in all probability, some one of us will be left on the road.”

“Is this, then, a campaign upon which we are now entering?”

“One of a most dangerous kind, I give you notice.”

“Ah! But if we do risk being killed,” said Porthos, “at least I should
like to know what for.”

“You would be all the wiser,” said Athos.

“And yet,” said Aramis, “I am somewhat of Porthos’s opinion.”

“Is the king accustomed to give you such reasons? No. He says to you
jauntily, ‘Gentlemen, there is fighting going on in Gascony or in
Flanders; go and fight,’ and you go there. Why? You need give
yourselves no more uneasiness about this.”

“D’Artagnan is right,” said Athos; “here are our three leaves of
absence which came from Monsieur de Tréville, and here are three
hundred pistoles which came from I don’t know where. So let us go and
get killed where we are told to go. Is life worth the trouble of so
many questions? D’Artagnan, I am ready to follow you.”

“And I also,” said Porthos.

“And I also,” said Aramis. “And, indeed, I am not sorry to quit Paris;
I had need of distraction.”

“Well, you will have distractions enough, gentlemen, be assured,” said
D’Artagnan.

“And, now, when are we to go?” asked Athos.

“Immediately,” replied D’Artagnan; “we have not a minute to lose.”

“Hello, Grimaud! Planchet! Mousqueton! Bazin!” cried the four young
men, calling their lackeys, “clean my boots, and fetch the horses from
the hôtel.”

Each Musketeer was accustomed to leave at the general hôtel, as at a
barrack, his own horse and that of his lackey. Planchet, Grimaud,
Mousqueton, and Bazin set off at full speed.

“Now let us lay down the plan of campaign,” said Porthos. “Where do we
go first?”

“To Calais,” said D’Artagnan; “that is the most direct line to London.”

“Well,” said Porthos, “this is my advice—”

“Speak!”

“Four men traveling together would be suspected. D’Artagnan will give
each of us his instructions. I will go by the way of Boulogne to clear
the way; Athos will set out two hours after, by that of Amiens; Aramis
will follow us by that of Noyon; as to D’Artagnan, he will go by what
route he thinks is best, in Planchet’s clothes, while Planchet will
follow us like D’Artagnan, in the uniform of the Guards.”

“Gentlemen,” said Athos, “my opinion is that it is not proper to allow
lackeys to have anything to do in such an affair. A secret may, by
chance, be betrayed by gentlemen; but it is almost always sold by
lackeys.”

“Porthos’s plan appears to me to be impracticable,” said D’Artagnan,
“inasmuch as I am myself ignorant of what instructions I can give you.
I am the bearer of a letter, that is all. I have not, and I cannot make
three copies of that letter, because it is sealed. We must, then, as it
appears to me, travel in company. This letter is here, in this pocket,”
and he pointed to the pocket which contained the letter. “If I should
be killed, one of you must take it, and continue the route; if he be
killed, it will be another’s turn, and so on—provided a single one
arrives, that is all that is required.”

“Bravo, D’Artagnan, your opinion is mine,” cried Athos, “Besides, we
must be consistent; I am going to take the waters, you will accompany
me. Instead of taking the waters of Forges, I go and take sea waters; I
am free to do so. If anyone wishes to stop us, I will show Monsieur de
Tréville’s letter, and you will show your leaves of absence. If we are
attacked, we will defend ourselves; if we are tried, we will stoutly
maintain that we were only anxious to dip ourselves a certain number of
times in the sea. They would have an easy bargain of four isolated men;
whereas four men together make a troop. We will arm our four lackeys
with pistols and musketoons; if they send an army out against us, we
will give battle, and the survivor, as D’Artagnan says, will carry the
letter.”

“Well said,” cried Aramis; “you don’t often speak, Athos, but when you
do speak, it is like St. John of the Golden Mouth. I agree to Athos’s
plan. And you, Porthos?”

“I agree to it, too,” said Porthos, “if D’Artagnan approves of it.
D’Artagnan, being the bearer of the letter, is naturally the head of
the enterprise; let him decide, and we will execute.”

“Well,” said D’Artagnan, “I decide that we should adopt Athos’s plan,
and that we set off in half an hour.”

“Agreed!” shouted the three Musketeers in chorus.

Each one, stretching out his hand to the bag, took his seventy-five
pistoles, and made his preparations to set out at the time appointed.




Chapter XX.
THE JOURNEY


At two o’clock in the morning, our four adventurers left Paris by the
Barrière St. Denis. As long as it was dark they remained silent; in
spite of themselves they submitted to the influence of the obscurity,
and apprehended ambushes on every side.

With the first rays of day their tongues were loosened; with the sun
gaiety revived. It was like the eve of a battle; the heart beat, the
eyes laughed, and they felt that the life they were perhaps going to
lose, was, after all, a good thing.

Besides, the appearance of the caravan was formidable. The black horses
of the Musketeers, their martial carriage, with the regimental step of
these noble companions of the soldier, would have betrayed the most
strict incognito. The lackeys followed, armed to the teeth.

All went well till they arrived at Chantilly, which they reached about
eight o’clock in the morning. They needed breakfast, and alighted at
the door of an _auberge_, recommended by a sign representing St. Martin
giving half his cloak to a poor man. They ordered the lackeys not to
unsaddle the horses, and to hold themselves in readiness to set off
again immediately.

They entered the common hall, and placed themselves at table. A
gentleman, who had just arrived by the route of Dammartin, was seated
at the same table, and was breakfasting. He opened the conversation
about rain and fine weather; the travelers replied. He drank to their
good health, and the travelers returned his politeness.

But at the moment Mousqueton came to announce that the horses were
ready, and they were arising from table, the stranger proposed to
Porthos to drink the health of the cardinal. Porthos replied that he
asked no better if the stranger, in his turn, would drink the health of
the king. The stranger cried that he acknowledged no other king but his
Eminence. Porthos called him drunk, and the stranger drew his sword.

“You have committed a piece of folly,” said Athos, “but it can’t be
helped; there is no drawing back. Kill the fellow, and rejoin us as
soon as you can.”

All three remounted their horses, and set out at a good pace, while
Porthos was promising his adversary to perforate him with all the
thrusts known in the fencing schools.

“There goes one!” cried Athos, at the end of five hundred paces.

“But why did that man attack Porthos rather than any other one of us?”
asked Aramis.

“Because, as Porthos was talking louder than the rest of us, he took
him for the chief,” said D’Artagnan.

“I always said that this cadet from Gascony was a well of wisdom,”
murmured Athos; and the travelers continued their route.

At Beauvais they stopped two hours, as well to breathe their horses a
little as to wait for Porthos. At the end of two hours, as Porthos did
not come, not any news of him, they resumed their journey.

At a league from Beauvais, where the road was confined between two high
banks, they fell in with eight or ten men who, taking advantage of the
road being unpaved in this spot, appeared to be employed in digging
holes and filling up the ruts with mud.

Aramis, not liking to soil his boots with this artificial mortar,
apostrophized them rather sharply. Athos wished to restrain him, but it
was too late. The laborers began to jeer the travelers and by their
insolence disturbed the equanimity even of the cool Athos, who urged on
his horse against one of them.

Then each of these men retreated as far as the ditch, from which each
took a concealed musket; the result was that our seven travelers were
outnumbered in weapons. Aramis received a ball which passed through his
shoulder, and Mousqueton another ball which lodged in the fleshy part
which prolongs the lower portion of the loins. Therefore Mousqueton
alone fell from his horse, not because he was severely wounded, but not
being able to see the wound, he judged it to be more serious than it
really was.

“It was an ambuscade!” shouted D’Artagnan. “Don’t waste a charge!
Forward!”

Aramis, wounded as he was, seized the mane of his horse, which carried
him on with the others. Mousqueton’s horse rejoined them, and galloped
by the side of his companions.

“That will serve us for a relay,” said Athos.

“I would rather have had a hat,” said D’Artagnan. “Mine was carried
away by a ball. By my faith, it is very fortunate that the letter was
not in it.”

“They’ll kill poor Porthos when he comes up,” said Aramis.

“If Porthos were on his legs, he would have rejoined us by this time,”
said Athos. “My opinion is that on the ground the drunken man was not
intoxicated.”

They continued at their best speed for two hours, although the horses
were so fatigued that it was to be feared they would soon refuse
service.

The travelers had chosen crossroads in the hope that they might meet
with less interruption; but at Crèvecœur, Aramis declared he could
proceed no farther. In fact, it required all the courage which he
concealed beneath his elegant form and polished manners to bear him so
far. He grew more pale every minute, and they were obliged to support
him on his horse. They lifted him off at the door of a cabaret, left
Bazin with him, who, besides, in a skirmish was more embarrassing than
useful, and set forward again in the hope of sleeping at Amiens.

“_Morbleu_,” said Athos, as soon as they were again in motion, “reduced
to two masters and Grimaud and Planchet! _Morbleu!_ I won’t be their
dupe, I will answer for it. I will neither open my mouth nor draw my
sword between this and Calais. I swear by—”

“Don’t waste time in swearing,” said D’Artagnan; “let us gallop, if our
horses will consent.”

And the travelers buried their rowels in their horses’ flanks, who thus
vigorously stimulated recovered their energies. They arrived at Amiens
at midnight, and alighted at the _auberge_ of the Golden Lily.

The host had the appearance of as honest a man as any on earth. He
received the travelers with his candlestick in one hand and his cotton
nightcap in the other. He wished to lodge the two travelers each in a
charming chamber; but unfortunately these charming chambers were at the
opposite extremities of the hôtel. D’Artagnan and Athos refused them.
The host replied that he had no other worthy of their Excellencies; but
the travelers declared they would sleep in the common chamber, each on
a mattress which might be thrown upon the ground. The host insisted;
but the travelers were firm, and he was obliged to do as they wished.

They had just prepared their beds and barricaded their door within,
when someone knocked at the yard shutter; they demanded who was there,
and recognizing the voices of their lackeys, opened the shutter. It was
indeed Planchet and Grimaud.

“Grimaud can take care of the horses,” said Planchet. “If you are
willing, gentlemen, I will sleep across your doorway, and you will then
be certain that nobody can reach you.”

“And on what will you sleep?” said D’Artagnan.

“Here is my bed,” replied Planchet, producing a bundle of straw.

“Come, then,” said D’Artagnan, “you are right. Mine host’s face does
not please me at all; it is too gracious.”

“Nor me either,” said Athos.

Planchet mounted by the window and installed himself across the
doorway, while Grimaud went and shut himself up in the stable,
undertaking that by five o’clock in the morning he and the four horses
should be ready.

The night was quiet enough. Toward two o’clock in the morning somebody
endeavored to open the door; but as Planchet awoke in an instant and
cried, “Who goes there?” somebody replied that he was mistaken, and
went away.

At four o’clock in the morning they heard a terrible riot in the
stables. Grimaud had tried to waken the stable boys, and the stable
boys had beaten him. When they opened the window, they saw the poor lad
lying senseless, with his head split by a blow with a pitchfork.

Planchet went down into the yard, and wished to saddle the horses; but
the horses were all used up. Mousqueton’s horse which had traveled for
five or six hours without a rider the day before, might have been able
to pursue the journey; but by an inconceivable error the veterinary
surgeon, who had been sent for, as it appeared, to bleed one of the
host’s horses, had bled Mousqueton’s.

This began to be annoying. All these successive accidents were perhaps
the result of chance; but they might be the fruits of a plot. Athos and
D’Artagnan went out, while Planchet was sent to inquire if there were
not three horses for sale in the neighborhood. At the door stood two
horses, fresh, strong, and fully equipped. These would just have suited
them. He asked where their masters were, and was informed that they had
passed the night in the inn, and were then settling their bill with the
host.

Athos went down to pay the reckoning, while D’Artagnan and Planchet
stood at the street door. The host was in a lower and back room, to
which Athos was requested to go.

Athos entered without the least mistrust, and took out two pistoles to
pay the bill. The host was alone, seated before his desk, one of the
drawers of which was partly open. He took the money which Athos offered
to him, and after turning and turning it over and over in his hands,
suddenly cried out that it was bad, and that he would have him and his
companions arrested as forgers.

“You blackguard!” cried Athos, going toward him, “I’ll cut your ears
off!”

At the same instant, four men, armed to the teeth, entered by side
doors, and rushed upon Athos.

“I am taken!” shouted Athos, with all the power of his lungs. “Go on,
D’Artagnan! Spur, spur!” and he fired two pistols.

D’Artagnan and Planchet did not require twice bidding; they unfastened
the two horses that were waiting at the door, leaped upon them, buried
their spurs in their sides, and set off at full gallop.

“Do you know what has become of Athos?” asked D’Artagnan of Planchet,
as they galloped on.

“Ah, monsieur,” said Planchet, “I saw one fall at each of his two
shots, and he appeared to me, through the glass door, to be fighting
with his sword with the others.”

“Brave Athos!” murmured D’Artagnan, “and to think that we are compelled
to leave him; maybe the same fate awaits us two paces hence. Forward,
Planchet, forward! You are a brave fellow.”

“As I told you, monsieur,” replied Planchet, “Picards are found out by
being used. Besides, I am here in my own country, and that excites me.”

And both, with free use of the spur, arrived at St. Omer without
drawing bit. At St. Omer they breathed their horses with the bridles
passed under their arms for fear of accident, and ate a morsel from
their hands on the stones of the street, after they departed again.

At a hundred paces from the gates of Calais, D’Artagnan’s horse gave
out, and could not by any means be made to get up again, the blood
flowing from his eyes and his nose. There still remained Planchet’s
horse; but he stopped short, and could not be made to move a step.

Fortunately, as we have said, they were within a hundred paces of the
city; they left their two nags upon the high road, and ran toward the
quay. Planchet called his master’s attention to a gentleman who had
just arrived with his lackey, and only preceded them by about fifty
paces. They made all speed to come up to this gentleman, who appeared
to be in great haste. His boots were covered with dust, and he inquired
if he could not instantly cross over to England.

“Nothing would be more easy,” said the captain of a vessel ready to set
sail, “but this morning came an order to let no one leave without
express permission from the cardinal.”

“I have that permission,” said the gentleman, drawing the paper from
his pocket; “here it is.”

“Have it examined by the governor of the port,” said the shipmaster,
“and give me the preference.”

“Where shall I find the governor?”

“At his country house.”

“And that is situated?”

“At a quarter of a league from the city. Look, you may see it from
here—at the foot of that little hill, that slated roof.”

“Very well,” said the gentleman. And, with his lackey, he took the road
to the governor’s country house.

D’Artagnan and Planchet followed the gentleman at a distance of five
hundred paces. Once outside the city, D’Artagnan overtook the gentleman
as he was entering a little wood.

“Monsieur, you appear to be in great haste?”

“No one can be more so, monsieur.”

“I am sorry for that,” said D’Artagnan; “for as I am in great haste
likewise, I wish to beg you to render me a service.”

“What?”

“To let me sail first.”

“That’s impossible,” said the gentleman; “I have traveled sixty leagues
in forty hours, and by tomorrow at midday I must be in London.”

“I have performed that same distance in forty hours, and by ten o’clock
in the morning I must be in London.”

“Very sorry, monsieur; but I was here first, and will not sail second.”

“I am sorry, too, monsieur; but I arrived second, and must sail first.”

“The king’s service!” said the gentleman.

“My own service!” said D’Artagnan.

“But this is a needless quarrel you seek with me, as it seems to me.”

“_Parbleu!_ What do you desire it to be?”

“What do you want?”

“Would you like to know?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, then, I wish that order of which you are bearer, seeing that I
have not one of my own and must have one.”

“You jest, I presume.”

“I never jest.”

“Let me pass!”

“You shall not pass.”

“My brave young man, I will blow out your brains. _Hola_, Lubin, my
pistols!”

“Planchet,” called out D’Artagnan, “take care of the lackey; I will
manage the master.”

Planchet, emboldened by the first exploit, sprang upon Lubin; and being
strong and vigorous, he soon got him on the broad of his back, and
placed his knee upon his breast.

“Go on with your affair, monsieur,” cried Planchet; “I have finished
mine.”

Seeing this, the gentleman drew his sword, and sprang upon D’Artagnan;
but he had too strong an adversary. In three seconds D’Artagnan had
wounded him three times, exclaiming at each thrust, “One for Athos, one
for Porthos; and one for Aramis!”

At the third hit the gentleman fell like a log. D’Artagnan believed him
to be dead, or at least insensible, and went toward him for the purpose
of taking the order; but the moment he extended his hand to search for
it, the wounded man, who had not dropped his sword, plunged the point
into D’Artagnan’s breast, crying, “One for you!”

“And one for me—the best for last!” cried D’Artagnan, furious, nailing
him to the earth with a fourth thrust through his body.

This time the gentleman closed his eyes and fainted. D’Artagnan
searched his pockets, and took from one of them the order for the
passage. It was in the name of Comte de Wardes.

Then, casting a glance on the handsome young man, who was scarcely
twenty-five years of age, and whom he was leaving in his gore, deprived
of sense and perhaps dead, he gave a sigh for that unaccountable
destiny which leads men to destroy each other for the interests of
people who are strangers to them and who often do not even know that
they exist. But he was soon aroused from these reflections by Lubin,
who uttered loud cries and screamed for help with all his might.

Planchet grasped him by the throat, and pressed as hard as he could.
“Monsieur,” said he, “as long as I hold him in this manner, he can’t
cry, I’ll be bound; but as soon as I let go he will howl again. I know
him for a Norman, and Normans are obstinate.”

In fact, tightly held as he was, Lubin endeavored still to cry out.

“Stay!” said D’Artagnan; and taking out his handkerchief, he gagged
him.

“Now,” said Planchet, “let us bind him to a tree.”

This being properly done, they drew the Comte de Wardes close to his
servant; and as night was approaching, and as the wounded man and the
bound man were at some little distance within the wood, it was evident
they were likely to remain there till the next day.

“And now,” said D’Artagnan, “to the Governor’s.”

“But you are wounded, it seems,” said Planchet.

“Oh, that’s nothing! Let us attend to what is more pressing first, and
then we will attend to my wound; besides, it does not seem very
dangerous.”

And they both set forward as fast as they could toward the country
house of the worthy functionary.

The Comte de Wardes was announced, and D’Artagnan was introduced.

“You have an order signed by the cardinal?” said the governor.

“Yes, monsieur,” replied D’Artagnan; “here it is.”

“Ah, ah! It is quite regular and explicit,” said the governor.

“Most likely,” said D’Artagnan; “I am one of his most faithful
servants.”

“It appears that his Eminence is anxious to prevent someone from
crossing to England?”

“Yes; a certain D’Artagnan, a Béarnese gentleman who left Paris in
company with three of his friends, with the intention of going to
London.”

“Do you know him personally?” asked the governor.

“Whom?”

“This D’Artagnan.”

“Perfectly well.”

“Describe him to me, then.”

“Nothing more easy.”

And D’Artagnan gave, feature for feature, a description of the Comte de
Wardes.

“Is he accompanied?”

“Yes; by a lackey named Lubin.”

“We will keep a sharp lookout for them; and if we lay hands on them his
Eminence may be assured they will be reconducted to Paris under a good
escort.”

“And by doing so, Monsieur the Governor,” said D’Artagnan, “you will
deserve well of the cardinal.”

“Shall you see him on your return, Monsieur Count?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Tell him, I beg you, that I am his humble servant.”

“I will not fail.”

Delighted with this assurance the governor countersigned the passport
and delivered it to D’Artagnan. D’Artagnan lost no time in useless
compliments. He thanked the governor, bowed, and departed. Once
outside, he and Planchet set off as fast as they could; and by making a
long detour avoided the wood and reentered the city by another gate.

The vessel was quite ready to sail, and the captain was waiting on the
wharf. “Well?” said he, on perceiving D’Artagnan.

“Here is my pass countersigned,” said the latter.

“And that other gentleman?

“He will not go today,” said D’Artagnan; “but here, I’ll pay you for us
two.”

“In that case let us go,” said the shipmaster.

“Let us go,” repeated D’Artagnan.

He leaped with Planchet into the boat, and five minutes after they were
on board. It was time; for they had scarcely sailed half a league, when
D’Artagnan saw a flash and heard a detonation. It was the cannon which
announced the closing of the port.

He had now leisure to look to his wound. Fortunately, as D’Artagnan had
thought, it was not dangerous. The point of the sword had touched a
rib, and glanced along the bone. Still further, his shirt had stuck to
the wound, and he had lost only a few drops of blood.

D’Artagnan was worn out with fatigue. A mattress was laid upon the deck
for him. He threw himself upon it, and fell asleep.

On the morrow, at break of day, they were still three or four leagues
from the coast of England. The breeze had been so light all night, they
had made but little progress. At ten o’clock the vessel cast anchor in
the harbor of Dover, and at half past ten D’Artagnan placed his foot on
English land, crying, “Here I am at last!”

But that was not all; they must get to London. In England the post was
well served. D’Artagnan and Planchet took each a post horse, and a
postillion rode before them. In a few hours they were in the capital.

D’Artagnan did not know London; he did not know a word of English; but
he wrote the name of Buckingham on a piece of paper, and everyone
pointed out to him the way to the duke’s hôtel.

The duke was at Windsor hunting with the king. D’Artagnan inquired for
the confidential valet of the duke, who, having accompanied him in all
his voyages, spoke French perfectly well; he told him that he came from
Paris on an affair of life and death, and that he must speak with his
master instantly.

The confidence with which D’Artagnan spoke convinced Patrick, which was
the name of this minister of the minister. He ordered two horses to be
saddled, and himself went as guide to the young Guardsman. As for
Planchet, he had been lifted from his horse as stiff as a rush; the
poor lad’s strength was almost exhausted. D’Artagnan seemed iron.

On their arrival at the castle they learned that Buckingham and the
king were hawking in the marshes two or three leagues away. In twenty
minutes they were on the spot named. Patrick soon caught the sound of
his master’s voice calling his falcon.

“Whom must I announce to my Lord Duke?” asked Patrick.

“The young man who one evening sought a quarrel with him on the Pont
Neuf, opposite the Samaritaine.”

“A singular introduction!”

“You will find that it is as good as another.”

Patrick galloped off, reached the duke, and announced to him in the
terms directed that a messenger awaited him.

Buckingham at once remembered the circumstance, and suspecting that
something was going on in France of which it was necessary he should be
informed, he only took the time to inquire where the messenger was, and
recognizing from afar the uniform of the Guards, he put his horse into
a gallop, and rode straight up to D’Artagnan. Patrick discreetly kept
in the background.

“No misfortune has happened to the queen?” cried Buckingham, the
instant he came up, throwing all his fear and love into the question.

“I believe not; nevertheless I believe she runs some great peril from
which your Grace alone can extricate her.”

“I!” cried Buckingham. “What is it? I should be too happy to be of any
service to her. Speak, speak!”

“Take this letter,” said D’Artagnan.

“This letter! From whom comes this letter?”

“From her Majesty, as I think.”

“From her Majesty!” said Buckingham, becoming so pale that D’Artagnan
feared he would faint as he broke the seal.

“What is this rent?” said he, showing D’Artagnan a place where it had
been pierced through.

“Ah,” said D’Artagnan, “I did not see that; it was the sword of the
Comte de Wardes which made that hole, when he gave me a good thrust in
the breast.”

“You are wounded?” asked Buckingham, as he opened the letter.

“Oh, nothing but a scratch,” said D’Artagnan.

“Just heaven, what have I read?” cried the duke. “Patrick, remain here,
or rather join the king, wherever he may be, and tell his Majesty that
I humbly beg him to excuse me, but an affair of the greatest importance
recalls me to London. Come, monsieur, come!” and both set off towards
the capital at full gallop.




Chapter XXI.
THE COUNTESS DE WINTER


As they rode along, the duke endeavored to draw from D’Artagnan, not
all that had happened, but what D’Artagnan himself knew. By adding all
that he heard from the mouth of the young man to his own remembrances,
he was enabled to form a pretty exact idea of a position of the
seriousness of which, for the rest, the queen’s letter, short but
explicit, gave him the clue. But that which astonished him most was
that the cardinal, so deeply interested in preventing this young man
from setting his foot in England, had not succeeded in arresting him on
the road. It was then, upon the manifestation of this astonishment,
that D’Artagnan related to him the precaution taken, and how, thanks to
the devotion of his three friends, whom he had left scattered and
bleeding on the road, he had succeeded in coming off with a single
sword thrust, which had pierced the queen’s letter and for which he had
repaid M. de Wardes with such terrible coin. While he was listening to
this recital, delivered with the greatest simplicity, the duke looked
from time to time at the young man with astonishment, as if he could
not comprehend how so much prudence, courage, and devotedness could be
allied with a countenance which indicated not more than twenty years.

The horses went like the wind, and in a few minutes they were at the
gates of London. D’Artagnan imagined that on arriving in town the duke
would slacken his pace, but it was not so. He kept on his way at the
same rate, heedless about upsetting those whom he met on the road. In
fact, in crossing the city two or three accidents of this kind
happened; but Buckingham did not even turn his head to see what became
of those he had knocked down. D’Artagnan followed him amid cries which
strongly resembled curses.

On entering the court of his hôtel, Buckingham sprang from his horse,
and without thinking what became of the animal, threw the bridle on his
neck, and sprang toward the vestibule. D’Artagnan did the same, with a
little more concern, however, for the noble creatures, whose merits he
fully appreciated; but he had the satisfaction of seeing three or four
grooms run from the kitchens and the stables, and busy themselves with
the steeds.

The duke walked so fast that D’Artagnan had some trouble in keeping up
with him. He passed through several apartments, of an elegance of which
even the greatest nobles of France had not even an idea, and arrived at
length in a bedchamber which was at once a miracle of taste and of
richness. In the alcove of this chamber was a door concealed in the
tapestry which the duke opened with a little gold key which he wore
suspended from his neck by a chain of the same metal. With discretion
D’Artagnan remained behind; but at the moment when Buckingham crossed
the threshold, he turned round, and seeing the hesitation of the young
man, “Come in!” cried he, “and if you have the good fortune to be
admitted to her Majesty’s presence, tell her what you have seen.”

Encouraged by this invitation, D’Artagnan followed the duke, who closed
the door after them. The two found themselves in a small chapel covered
with a tapestry of Persian silk worked with gold, and brilliantly
lighted with a vast number of candles. Over a species of altar, and
beneath a canopy of blue velvet, surmounted by white and red plumes,
was a full-length portrait of Anne of Austria, so perfect in its
resemblance that D’Artagnan uttered a cry of surprise on beholding it.
One might believe the queen was about to speak. On the altar, and
beneath the portrait, was the casket containing the diamond studs.

The duke approached the altar, knelt as a priest might have done before
a crucifix, and opened the casket. “There,” said he, drawing from the
casket a large bow of blue ribbon all sparkling with diamonds, “there
are the precious studs which I have taken an oath should be buried with
me. The queen gave them to me, the queen requires them again. Her will
be done, like that of God, in all things.”

Then, he began to kiss, one after the other, those dear studs with
which he was about to part. All at once he uttered a terrible cry.

“What is the matter?” exclaimed D’Artagnan, anxiously; “what has
happened to you, my Lord?”

“All is lost!” cried Buckingham, becoming as pale as a corpse; “two of
the studs are wanting, there are only ten.”

“Can you have lost them, my Lord, or do you think they have been
stolen?”

“They have been stolen,” replied the duke, “and it is the cardinal who
has dealt this blow. Hold; see! The ribbons which held them have been
cut with scissors.”

“If my Lord suspects they have been stolen, perhaps the person who
stole them still has them in his hands.”

“Wait, wait!” said the duke. “The only time I have worn these studs was
at a ball given by the king eight days ago at Windsor. The Comtesse de
Winter, with whom I had quarreled, became reconciled to me at that
ball. That reconciliation was nothing but the vengeance of a jealous
woman. I have never seen her from that day. The woman is an agent of
the cardinal.”

“He has agents, then, throughout the world?” cried D’Artagnan.

“Oh, yes,” said Buckingham, grating his teeth with rage. “Yes, he is a
terrible antagonist. But when is this ball to take place?”

“Monday next.”

“Monday next! Still five days before us. That’s more time than we want.
Patrick!” cried the duke, opening the door of the chapel, “Patrick!”
His confidential valet appeared.

“My jeweler and my secretary.”

The valet went out with a mute promptitude which showed him accustomed
to obey blindly and without reply.

But although the jeweler had been mentioned first, it was the secretary
who first made his appearance. This was simply because he lived in the
hôtel. He found Buckingham seated at a table in his bedchamber, writing
orders with his own hand.

“Mr. Jackson,” said he, “go instantly to the Lord Chancellor, and tell
him that I charge him with the execution of these orders. I wish them
to be promulgated immediately.”

“But, my Lord, if the Lord Chancellor interrogates me upon the motives
which may have led your Grace to adopt such an extraordinary measure,
what shall I reply?”

“That such is my pleasure, and that I answer for my will to no man.”

“Will that be the answer,” replied the secretary, smiling, “which he
must transmit to his Majesty if, by chance, his Majesty should have the
curiosity to know why no vessel is to leave any of the ports of Great
Britain?”

“You are right, Mr. Jackson,” replied Buckingham. “He will say, in that
case, to the king that I am determined on war, and that this measure is
my first act of hostility against France.”

The secretary bowed and retired.

“We are safe on that side,” said Buckingham, turning toward D’Artagnan.
“If the studs are not yet gone to Paris, they will not arrive till
after you.”

“How so?”

“I have just placed an embargo on all vessels at present in his
Majesty’s ports, and without particular permission, not one dare lift
an anchor.”

D’Artagnan looked with stupefaction at a man who thus employed the
unlimited power with which he was clothed by the confidence of a king
in the prosecution of his intrigues. Buckingham saw by the expression
of the young man’s face what was passing in his mind, and he smiled.

“Yes,” said he, “yes, Anne of Austria is my true queen. Upon a word
from her, I would betray my country, I would betray my king, I would
betray my God. She asked me not to send the Protestants of La Rochelle
the assistance I promised them; I have not done so. I broke my word, it
is true; but what signifies that? I obeyed my love; and have I not been
richly paid for that obedience? It was to that obedience I owe her
portrait.”

D’Artagnan was amazed to note by what fragile and unknown threads the
destinies of nations and the lives of men are suspended. He was lost in
these reflections when the goldsmith entered. He was an Irishman—one of
the most skillful of his craft, and who himself confessed that he
gained a hundred thousand livres a year by the Duke of Buckingham.

“Mr. O’Reilly,” said the duke, leading him into the chapel, “look at
these diamond studs, and tell me what they are worth apiece.”

The goldsmith cast a glance at the elegant manner in which they were
set, calculated, one with another, what the diamonds were worth, and
without hesitation said, “Fifteen hundred pistoles each, my Lord.”

“How many days would it require to make two studs exactly like them?
You see there are two wanting.”

“Eight days, my Lord.”

“I will give you three thousand pistoles apiece if I can have them by
the day after tomorrow.”

“My Lord, they shall be yours.”

“You are a jewel of a man, Mr. O’Reilly; but that is not all. These
studs cannot be trusted to anybody; it must be done in the palace.”

“Impossible, my Lord! There is no one but myself can so execute them
that one cannot tell the new from the old.”

“Therefore, my dear Mr. O’Reilly, you are my prisoner. And if you wish
ever to leave my palace, you cannot; so make the best of it. Name to me
such of your workmen as you need, and point out the tools they must
bring.”

The goldsmith knew the duke. He knew all objection would be useless,
and instantly determined how to act.

“May I be permitted to inform my wife?” said he.

“Oh, you may even see her if you like, my dear Mr. O’Reilly. Your
captivity shall be mild, be assured; and as every inconvenience
deserves its indemnification, here is, in addition to the price of the
studs, an order for a thousand pistoles, to make you forget the
annoyance I cause you.”

D’Artagnan could not get over the surprise created in him by this
minister, who thus open-handed, sported with men and millions.

As to the goldsmith, he wrote to his wife, sending her the order for
the thousand pistoles, and charging her to send him, in exchange, his
most skillful apprentice, an assortment of diamonds, of which he gave
the names and the weight, and the necessary tools.

Buckingham conducted the goldsmith to the chamber destined for him, and
which, at the end of half an hour, was transformed into a workshop.
Then he placed a sentinel at each door, with an order to admit nobody
upon any pretense but his _valet de chambre_, Patrick. We need not add
that the goldsmith, O’Reilly, and his assistant, were prohibited from
going out under any pretext. This point, settled, the duke turned to
D’Artagnan. “Now, my young friend,” said he, “England is all our own.
What do you wish for? What do you desire?”

“A bed, my Lord,” replied D’Artagnan. “At present, I confess, that is
the thing I stand most in need of.”

Buckingham gave D’Artagnan a chamber adjoining his own. He wished to
have the young man at hand—not that he at all mistrusted him, but for
the sake of having someone to whom he could constantly talk of the
queen.

In one hour after, the ordinance was published in London that no vessel
bound for France should leave port, not even the packet boat with
letters. In the eyes of everybody this was a declaration of war between
the two kingdoms.

On the day after the morrow, by eleven o’clock, the two diamond studs
were finished, and they were so completely imitated, so perfectly
alike, that Buckingham could not tell the new ones from the old ones,
and experts in such matters would have been deceived as he was. He
immediately called D’Artagnan. “Here,” said he to him, “are the diamond
studs that you came to bring; and be my witness that I have done all
that human power could do.”

“Be satisfied, my Lord, I will tell all that I have seen. But does your
Grace mean to give me the studs without the casket?”

“The casket would encumber you. Besides, the casket is the more
precious from being all that is left to me. You will say that I keep
it.”

“I will perform your commission, word for word, my Lord.”

“And now,” resumed Buckingham, looking earnestly at the young man, “how
shall I ever acquit myself of the debt I owe you?”

D’Artagnan blushed up to the whites of his eyes. He saw that the duke
was searching for a means of making him accept something and the idea
that the blood of his friends and himself was about to be paid for with
English gold was strangely repugnant to him.

“Let us understand each other, my Lord,” replied D’Artagnan, “and let
us make things clear beforehand in order that there may be no mistake.
I am in the service of the King and Queen of France, and form part of
the company of Monsieur Dessessart, who, as well as his brother-in-law,
Monsieur de Tréville, is particularly attached to their Majesties. What
I have done, then, has been for the queen, and not at all for your
Grace. And still further, it is very probable I should not have done
anything of this, if it had not been to make myself agreeable to
someone who is my lady, as the queen is yours.”

“Yes,” said the duke, smiling, “and I even believe that I know that
other person; it is—”

“My Lord, I have not named her!” interrupted the young man, warmly.

“That is true,” said the duke; “and it is to this person I am bound to
discharge my debt of gratitude.”

“You have said, my Lord; for truly, at this moment when there is
question of war, I confess to you that I see nothing in your Grace but
an Englishman, and consequently an enemy whom I should have much
greater pleasure in meeting on the field of battle than in the park at
Windsor or the corridors of the Louvre—all which, however, will not
prevent me from executing to the very point my commission or from
laying down my life, if there be need of it, to accomplish it; but I
repeat it to your Grace, without your having personally on that account
more to thank me for in this second interview than for what I did for
you in the first.”

“We say, ‘Proud as a Scotsman,’” murmured the Duke of Buckingham.

“And we say, ‘Proud as a Gascon,’” replied D’Artagnan. “The Gascons are
the Scots of France.”

D’Artagnan bowed to the duke, and was retiring.

“Well, are you going away in that manner? Where, and how?”

“That’s true!”

“Fore Gad, these Frenchmen have no consideration!”

“I had forgotten that England was an island, and that you were the king
of it.”

“Go to the riverside, ask for the brig _Sund_, and give this letter to
the captain; he will convey you to a little port, where certainly you
are not expected, and which is ordinarily only frequented by
fishermen.”

“The name of that port?”

“St. Valery; but listen. When you have arrived there you will go to a
mean tavern, without a name and without a sign—a mere fisherman’s hut.
You cannot be mistaken; there is but one.”

“Afterward?”

“You will ask for the host, and will repeat to him the word ‘Forward!’”

“Which means?”

“In French, _En avant_. It is the password. He will give you a horse
all saddled, and will point out to you the road you ought to take. You
will find, in the same way, four relays on your route. If you will give
at each of these relays your address in Paris, the four horses will
follow you thither. You already know two of them, and you appeared to
appreciate them like a judge. They were those we rode on; and you may
rely upon me for the others not being inferior to them. These horses
are equipped for the field. However proud you may be, you will not
refuse to accept one of them, and to request your three companions to
accept the others—that is, in order to make war against us. Besides,
the end justified the means, as you Frenchmen say, does it not?”

“Yes, my Lord, I accept them,” said D’Artagnan; “and if it please God,
we will make a good use of your presents.”

“Well, now, your hand, young man. Perhaps we shall soon meet on the
field of battle; but in the meantime we shall part good friends, I
hope.”

“Yes, my Lord; but with the hope of soon becoming enemies.”

“Be satisfied; I promise you that.”

“I depend upon your word, my Lord.”

D’Artagnan bowed to the duke, and made his way as quickly as possible
to the riverside. Opposite the Tower of London he found the vessel that
had been named to him, delivered his letter to the captain, who after
having it examined by the governor of the port made immediate
preparations to sail.

Fifty vessels were waiting to set out. Passing alongside one of them,
D’Artagnan fancied he perceived on board it the woman of Meung—the same
whom the unknown gentleman had called Milady, and whom D’Artagnan had
thought so handsome; but thanks to the current of the stream and a fair
wind, his vessel passed so quickly that he had little more than a
glimpse of her.

The next day about nine o’clock in the morning, he landed at St.
Valery. D’Artagnan went instantly in search of the inn, and easily
discovered it by the riotous noise which resounded from it. War between
England and France was talked of as near and certain, and the jolly
sailors were having a carousal.

D’Artagnan made his way through the crowd, advanced toward the host,
and pronounced the word “Forward!” The host instantly made him a sign
to follow, went out with him by a door which opened into a yard, led
him to the stable, where a saddled horse awaited him, and asked him if
he stood in need of anything else.

“I want to know the route I am to follow,” said D’Artagnan.

“Go from hence to Blangy, and from Blangy to Neufchâtel. At Neufchâtel,
go to the tavern of the Golden Harrow, give the password to the
landlord, and you will find, as you have here, a horse ready saddled.”

“Have I anything to pay?” demanded D’Artagnan.

“Everything is paid,” replied the host, “and liberally. Begone, and may
God guide you!”

“Amen!” cried the young man, and set off at full gallop.

Four hours later he was in Neufchâtel. He strictly followed the
instructions he had received. At Neufchâtel, as at St. Valery, he found
a horse quite ready and awaiting him. He was about to remove the
pistols from the saddle he had quit to the one he was about to fill,
but he found the holsters furnished with similar pistols.

“Your address at Paris?”

“Hôtel of the Guards, company of Dessessart.”

“Enough,” replied the questioner.

“Which route must I take?” demanded D’Artagnan, in his turn.

“That of Rouen; but you will leave the city on your right. You must
stop at the little village of Eccuis, in which there is but one
tavern—the Shield of France. Don’t condemn it from appearances; you
will find a horse in the stables quite as good as this.”

“The same password?”

“Exactly.”

“Adieu, master!”

“A good journey, gentlemen! Do you want anything?”

D’Artagnan shook his head, and set off at full speed. At Eccuis, the
same scene was repeated. He found as provident a host and a fresh
horse. He left his address as he had done before, and set off again at
the same pace for Pontoise. At Pontoise he changed his horse for the
last time, and at nine o’clock galloped into the yard of Tréville’s
hôtel. He had made nearly sixty leagues in little more than twelve
hours.

M. de Tréville received him as if he had seen him that same morning;
only, when pressing his hand a little more warmly than usual, he
informed him that the company of Dessessart was on duty at the Louvre,
and that he might repair at once to his post.




Chapter XXII.
THE BALLET OF LA MERLAISON


On the morrow, nothing was talked of in Paris but the ball which the
aldermen of the city were to give to the king and queen, and in which
their Majesties were to dance the famous La Merlaison—the favorite
ballet of the king.

Eight days had been occupied in preparations at the Hôtel de Ville for
this important evening. The city carpenters had erected scaffolds upon
which the invited ladies were to be placed; the city grocer had
ornamented the chambers with two hundred _flambeaux_ of white wax, a
piece of luxury unheard of at that period; and twenty violins were
ordered, and the price for them fixed at double the usual rate, upon
condition, said the report, that they should be played all night.

At ten o’clock in the morning the Sieur de la Coste, ensign in the
king’s Guards, followed by two officers and several archers of that
body, came to the city registrar, named Clement, and demanded of him
all the keys of the rooms and offices of the hôtel. These keys were
given up to him instantly. Each of them had a ticket attached to it, by
which it might be recognized; and from that moment the Sieur de la
Coste was charged with the care of all the doors and all the avenues.

At eleven o’clock came in his turn Duhallier, captain of the Guards,
bringing with him fifty archers, who were distributed immediately
through the Hôtel de Ville, at the doors assigned them.

At three o’clock came two companies of the Guards, one French, the
other Swiss. The company of French guards was composed of half of M.
Duhallier’s men and half of M. Dessessart’s men.

At six in the evening the guests began to come. As fast as they
entered, they were placed in the grand saloon, on the platforms
prepared for them.

At nine o’clock Madame la Première Présidente arrived. As next to the
queen, she was the most considerable personage of the fête, she was
received by the city officials, and placed in a box opposite to that
which the queen was to occupy.

At ten o’clock, the king’s collation, consisting of preserves and other
delicacies, was prepared in the little room on the side of the church
of St. Jean, in front of the silver buffet of the city, which was
guarded by four archers.

At midnight great cries and loud acclamations were heard. It was the
king, who was passing through the streets which led from the Louvre to
the Hôtel de Ville, and which were all illuminated with colored
lanterns.

Immediately the aldermen, clothed in their cloth robes and preceded by
six sergeants, each holding a _flambeau_ in his hand, went to attend
upon the king, whom they met on the steps, where the provost of the
merchants made him the speech of welcome—a compliment to which his
Majesty replied with an apology for coming so late, laying the blame
upon the cardinal, who had detained him till eleven o’clock, talking of
affairs of state.

His Majesty, in full dress, was accompanied by his royal Highness, M.
le Comte de Soissons, by the Grand Prior, by the Duc de Longueville, by
the Duc d’Eubœuf, by the Comte d’Harcourt, by the Comte de la
Roche-Guyon, by M. de Liancourt, by M. de Baradas, by the Comte de
Cramail, and by the Chevalier de Souveray. Everybody noticed that the
king looked dull and preoccupied.

A private room had been prepared for the king and another for Monsieur.
In each of these closets were placed masquerade dresses. The same had
been done for the queen and Madame the President. The nobles and ladies
of their Majesties’ suites were to dress, two by two, in chambers
prepared for the purpose. Before entering his closet the king desired
to be informed the moment the cardinal arrived.

Half an hour after the entrance of the king, fresh acclamations were
heard; these announced the arrival of the queen. The aldermen did as
they had done before, and preceded by their sergeants, advanced to
receive their illustrious guest. The queen entered the great hall; and
it was remarked that, like the king, she looked dull and even weary.

At the moment she entered, the curtain of a small gallery which to that
time had been closed, was drawn, and the pale face of the cardinal
appeared, he being dressed as a Spanish cavalier. His eyes were fixed
upon those of the queen, and a smile of terrible joy passed over his
lips; the queen did not wear her diamond studs.

The queen remained for a short time to receive the compliments of the
city dignitaries and to reply to the salutations of the ladies. All at
once the king appeared with the cardinal at one of the doors of the
hall. The cardinal was speaking to him in a low voice, and the king was
very pale.

The king made his way through the crowd without a mask, and the ribbons
of his doublet scarcely tied. He went straight to the queen, and in an
altered voice said, “Why, madame, have you not thought proper to wear
your diamond studs, when you know it would give me so much
gratification?”

The queen cast a glance around her, and saw the cardinal behind, with a
diabolical smile on his countenance.

“Sire,” replied the queen, with a faltering voice, “because, in the
midst of such a crowd as this, I feared some accident might happen to
them.”

“And you were wrong, madame. If I made you that present it was that you
might adorn yourself therewith. I tell you that you were wrong.”

The voice of the king was tremulous with anger. Everybody looked and
listened with astonishment, comprehending nothing of what passed.

“Sire,” said the queen, “I can send for them to the Louvre, where they
are, and thus your Majesty’s wishes will be complied with.”

“Do so, madame, do so, and that at once; for within an hour the ballet
will commence.”

The queen bent in token of submission, and followed the ladies who were
to conduct her to her room. On his part the king returned to his
apartment.

There was a moment of trouble and confusion in the assembly. Everybody
had remarked that something had passed between the king and queen; but
both of them had spoken so low that everybody, out of respect, withdrew
several steps, so that nobody had heard anything. The violins began to
sound with all their might, but nobody listened to them.

The king came out first from his room. He was in a most elegant hunting
costume; and Monsieur and the other nobles were dressed like him. This
was the costume that best became the king. So dressed, he really
appeared the first gentleman of his kingdom.

The cardinal drew near to the king, and placed in his hand a small
casket. The king opened it, and found in it two diamond studs.

“What does this mean?” demanded he of the cardinal.

“Nothing,” replied the latter; “only, if the queen has the studs, which
I very much doubt, count them, sire, and if you only find ten, ask her
Majesty who can have stolen from her the two studs that are here.”

The king looked at the cardinal as if to interrogate him; but he had
not time to address any question to him—a cry of admiration burst from
every mouth. If the king appeared to be the first gentleman of his
kingdom, the queen was without doubt the most beautiful woman in
France.

It is true that the habit of a huntress became her admirably. She wore
a beaver hat with blue feathers, a surtout of gray-pearl velvet,
fastened with diamond clasps, and a petticoat of blue satin,
embroidered with silver. On her left shoulder sparkled the diamond
studs, on a bow of the same color as the plumes and the petticoat.

The king trembled with joy and the cardinal with vexation; although,
distant as they were from the queen, they could not count the studs.
The queen had them. The only question was, had she ten or twelve?

At that moment the violins sounded the signal for the ballet. The king
advanced toward Madame the President, with whom he was to dance, and
his Highness Monsieur with the queen. They took their places, and the
ballet began.

The king danced facing the queen, and every time he passed by her, he
devoured with his eyes those studs of which he could not ascertain the
number. A cold sweat covered the brow of the cardinal.

The ballet lasted an hour, and had sixteen _entrées_. The ballet ended
amid the applause of the whole assemblage, and everyone reconducted his
lady to her place; but the king took advantage of the privilege he had
of leaving his lady, to advance eagerly toward the queen.

“I thank you, madame,” said he, “for the deference you have shown to my
wishes, but I think you want two of the studs, and I bring them back to
you.”

With these words he held out to the queen the two studs the cardinal
had given him.

“How, sire?” cried the young queen, affecting surprise, “you are giving
me, then, two more: I shall have fourteen.”

In fact the king counted them, and the twelve studs were all on her
Majesty’s shoulder.

The king called the cardinal.

“What does this mean, Monsieur Cardinal?” asked the king in a severe
tone.

“This means, sire,” replied the cardinal, “that I was desirous of
presenting her Majesty with these two studs, and that not daring to
offer them myself, I adopted this means of inducing her to accept
them.”

“And I am the more grateful to your Eminence,” replied Anne of Austria,
with a smile that proved she was not the dupe of this ingenious
gallantry, “from being certain that these two studs alone have cost you
as much as all the others cost his Majesty.”

Then saluting the king and the cardinal, the queen resumed her way to
the chamber in which she had dressed, and where she was to take off her
costume.

The attention which we have been obliged to give, during the
commencement of the chapter, to the illustrious personages we have
introduced into it, has diverted us for an instant from him to whom
Anne of Austria owed the extraordinary triumph she had obtained over
the cardinal; and who, confounded, unknown, lost in the crowd gathered
at one of the doors, looked on at this scene, comprehensible only to
four persons—the king, the queen, his Eminence, and himself.

The queen had just regained her chamber, and D’Artagnan was about to
retire, when he felt his shoulder lightly touched. He turned and saw a
young woman, who made him a sign to follow her. The face of this young
woman was covered with a black velvet mask; but notwithstanding this
precaution, which was in fact taken rather against others than against
him, he at once recognized his usual guide, the light and intelligent
Mme. Bonacieux.

On the evening before, they had scarcely seen each other for a moment
at the apartment of the Swiss guard, Germain, whither D’Artagnan had
sent for her. The haste which the young woman was in to convey to the
queen the excellent news of the happy return of her messenger prevented
the two lovers from exchanging more than a few words. D’Artagnan
therefore followed Mme. Bonacieux moved by a double sentiment—love and
curiosity. All the way, and in proportion as the corridors became more
deserted, D’Artagnan wished to stop the young woman, seize her and gaze
upon her, were it only for a minute; but quick as a bird she glided
between his hands, and when he wished to speak to her, her finger
placed upon her mouth, with a little imperative gesture full of grace,
reminded him that he was under the command of a power which he must
blindly obey, and which forbade him even to make the slightest
complaint. At length, after winding about for a minute or two, Mme.
Bonacieux opened the door of a closet, which was entirely dark, and led
D’Artagnan into it. There she made a fresh sign of silence, and opened
a second door concealed by tapestry. The opening of this door disclosed
a brilliant light, and she disappeared.

D’Artagnan remained for a moment motionless, asking himself where he
could be; but soon a ray of light which penetrated through the chamber,
together with the warm and perfumed air which reached him from the same
aperture, the conversation of two of three ladies in language at once
respectful and refined, and the word “Majesty” several times repeated,
indicated clearly that he was in a closet attached to the queen’s
apartment. The young man waited in comparative darkness and listened.

The queen appeared cheerful and happy, which seemed to astonish the
persons who surrounded her and who were accustomed to see her almost
always sad and full of care. The queen attributed this joyous feeling
to the beauty of the fête, to the pleasure she had experienced in the
ballet; and as it is not permissible to contradict a queen, whether she
smile or weep, everybody expatiated on the gallantry of the aldermen of
the city of Paris.

Although D’Artagnan did not at all know the queen, he soon
distinguished her voice from the others, at first by a slightly foreign
accent, and next by that tone of domination naturally impressed upon
all royal words. He heard her approach and withdraw from the partially
open door; and twice or three times he even saw the shadow of a person
intercept the light.

At length a hand and an arm, surpassingly beautiful in their form and
whiteness, glided through the tapestry. D’Artagnan at once comprehended
that this was his recompense. He cast himself on his knees, seized the
hand, and touched it respectfully with his lips. Then the hand was
withdrawn, leaving in his an object which he perceived to be a ring.
The door immediately closed, and D’Artagnan found himself again in
complete obscurity.

D’Artagnan placed the ring on his finger, and again waited; it was
evident that all was not yet over. After the reward of his devotion,
that of his love was to come. Besides, although the ballet was danced,
the evening had scarcely begun. Supper was to be served at three, and
the clock of St. Jean had struck three quarters past two.

The sound of voices diminished by degrees in the adjoining chamber. The
company was then heard departing; then the door of the closet in which
D’Artagnan was, was opened, and Mme. Bonacieux entered.

“You at last?” cried D’Artagnan.

“Silence!” said the young woman, placing her hand upon his lips;
“silence, and go the same way you came!”

“But where and when shall I see you again?” cried D’Artagnan.

“A note which you will find at home will tell you. Begone, begone!”

At these words she opened the door of the corridor, and pushed
D’Artagnan out of the room. D’Artagnan obeyed like a child, without the
least resistance or objection, which proved that he was really in love.




Chapter XXIII.
THE RENDEZVOUS


D’Artagnan ran home immediately, and although it was three o’clock in
the morning and he had some of the worst quarters of Paris to traverse,
he met with no misadventure. Everyone knows that drunkards and lovers
have a protecting deity.

He found the door of his passage open, sprang up the stairs and knocked
softly in a manner agreed upon between him and his lackey. Planchet*,
whom he had sent home two hours before from the Hôtel de Ville, telling
him to sit up for him, opened the door for him.

* The reader may ask, “How came Planchet here?” when he was left “stiff
as a rush” in London. In the intervening time Buckingham perhaps sent
him to Paris, as he did the horses.


“Has anyone brought a letter for me?” asked D’Artagnan, eagerly.

“No one has _brought_ a letter, monsieur,” replied Planchet; “but one
has come of itself.”

“What do you mean, blockhead?”

“I mean to say that when I came in, although I had the key of your
apartment in my pocket, and that key had never quit me, I found a
letter on the green table cover in your bedroom.”

“And where is that letter?”

“I left it where I found it, monsieur. It is not natural for letters to
enter people’s houses in this manner. If the window had been open or
even ajar, I should think nothing of it; but, no—all was hermetically
sealed. Beware, monsieur; there is certainly some magic underneath.”

Meanwhile, the young man had darted in to his chamber, and opened the
letter. It was from Mme. Bonacieux, and was expressed in these terms:

“There are many thanks to be offered to you, and to be transmitted to
you. Be this evening about ten o’clock at St. Cloud, in front of the
pavilion which stands at the corner of the house of M. d’Estrées.—C.B.”

While reading this letter, D’Artagnan felt his heart dilated and
compressed by that delicious spasm which tortures and caresses the
hearts of lovers.

It was the first billet he had received; it was the first rendezvous
that had been granted him. His heart, swelled by the intoxication of
joy, felt ready to dissolve away at the very gate of that terrestrial
paradise called Love!

“Well, monsieur,” said Planchet, who had observed his master grow red
and pale successively, “did I not guess truly? Is it not some bad
affair?”

“You are mistaken, Planchet,” replied D’Artagnan; “and as a proof,
there is a crown to drink my health.”

“I am much obliged to Monsieur for the crown he has given me, and I
promise him to follow his instructions exactly; but it is not the less
true that letters which come in this way into shut-up houses—”

“Fall from heaven, my friend, fall from heaven.”

“Then Monsieur is satisfied?” asked Planchet.

“My dear Planchet, I am the happiest of men!”

“And I may profit by Monsieur’s happiness, and go to bed?”

“Yes, go.”

“May the blessings of heaven fall upon Monsieur! But it is not the less
true that that letter—”

And Planchet retired, shaking his head with an air of doubt, which the
liberality of D’Artagnan had not entirely effaced.

Left alone, D’Artagnan read and reread his billet. Then he kissed and
rekissed twenty times the lines traced by the hand of his beautiful
mistress. At length he went to bed, fell asleep, and had golden dreams.

At seven o’clock in the morning he arose and called Planchet, who at
the second summons opened the door, his countenance not yet quite freed
from the anxiety of the preceding night.

“Planchet,” said D’Artagnan, “I am going out for all day, perhaps. You
are, therefore, your own master till seven o’clock in the evening; but
at seven o’clock you must hold yourself in readiness with two horses.”

“There!” said Planchet. “We are going again, it appears, to have our
hides pierced in all sorts of ways.”

“You will take your musketoon and your pistols.”

“There, now! Didn’t I say so?” cried Planchet. “I was sure of it—the
cursed letter!”

“Don’t be afraid, you idiot; there is nothing in hand but a party of
pleasure.”

“Ah, like the charming journey the other day, when it rained bullets
and produced a crop of steel traps!”

“Well, if you are really afraid, Monsieur Planchet,” resumed
D’Artagnan, “I will go without you. I prefer traveling alone to having
a companion who entertains the least fear.”

“Monsieur does me wrong,” said Planchet; “I thought he had seen me at
work.”

“Yes, but I thought perhaps you had worn out all your courage the first
time.”

“Monsieur shall see that upon occasion I have some left; only I beg
Monsieur not to be too prodigal of it if he wishes it to last long.”

“Do you believe you have still a certain amount of it to expend this
evening?”

“I hope so, monsieur.”

“Well, then, I count on you.”

“At the appointed hour I shall be ready; only I believed that Monsieur
had but one horse in the Guard stables.”

“Perhaps there is but one at this moment; but by this evening there
will be four.”

“It appears that our journey was a remounting journey, then?”

“Exactly so,” said D’Artagnan; and nodding to Planchet, he went out.

M. Bonacieux was at his door. D’Artagnan’s intention was to go out
without speaking to the worthy mercer; but the latter made so polite
and friendly a salutation that his tenant felt obliged, not only to
stop, but to enter into conversation with him.

Besides, how is it possible to avoid a little condescension toward a
husband whose pretty wife has appointed a meeting with you that same
evening at St. Cloud, opposite D’Estrées’s pavilion? D’Artagnan
approached him with the most amiable air he could assume.

The conversation naturally fell upon the incarceration of the poor man.
M. Bonacieux, who was ignorant that D’Artagnan had overheard his
conversation with the stranger of Meung, related to his young tenant
the persecutions of that monster, M. de Laffemas, whom he never ceased
to designate, during his account, by the title of the “cardinal’s
executioner,” and expatiated at great length upon the Bastille, the
bolts, the wickets, the dungeons, the gratings, the instruments of
torture.

D’Artagnan listened to him with exemplary complaisance, and when he had
finished said, “And Madame Bonacieux, do you know who carried her
off?—For I do not forget that I owe to that unpleasant circumstance the
good fortune of having made your acquaintance.”

“Ah!” said Bonacieux, “they took good care not to tell me that; and my
wife, on her part, has sworn to me by all that’s sacred that she does
not know. But you,” continued M. Bonacieux, in a tone of perfect good
fellowship, “what has become of you all these days? I have not seen you
nor your friends, and I don’t think you could gather all that dust that
I saw Planchet brush off your boots yesterday from the pavement of
Paris.”

“You are right, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux, my friends and I have been
on a little journey.”

“Far from here?”

“Oh, Lord, no! About forty leagues only. We went to take Monsieur Athos
to the waters of Forges, where my friends still remain.”

“And you have returned, have you not?” replied M. Bonacieux, giving to
his countenance a most sly air. “A handsome young fellow like you does
not obtain long leaves of absence from his mistress; and we were
impatiently waited for at Paris, were we not?”

“My faith!” said the young man, laughing, “I confess it, and so much
more the readily, my dear Bonacieux, as I see there is no concealing
anything from you. Yes, I was expected, and very impatiently, I
acknowledge.”

A slight shade passed over the brow of Bonacieux, but so slight that
D’Artagnan did not perceive it.

“And we are going to be recompensed for our diligence?” continued the
mercer, with a trifling alteration in his voice—so trifling, indeed,
that D’Artagnan did not perceive it any more than he had the momentary
shade which, an instant before, had darkened the countenance of the
worthy man.

“Ah, may you be a true prophet!” said D’Artagnan, laughing.

“No; what I say,” replied Bonacieux, “is only that I may know whether I
am delaying you.”

“Why that question, my dear host?” asked D’Artagnan. “Do you intend to
sit up for me?”

“No; but since my arrest and the robbery that was committed in my
house, I am alarmed every time I hear a door open, particularly in the
night. What the deuce can you expect? I am no swordsman.”

“Well, don’t be alarmed if I return at one, two or three o’clock in the
morning; indeed, do not be alarmed if I do not come at all.”

This time Bonacieux became so pale that D’Artagnan could not help
perceiving it, and asked him what was the matter.

“Nothing,” replied Bonacieux, “nothing. Since my misfortunes I have
been subject to faintnesses, which seize me all at once, and I have
just felt a cold shiver. Pay no attention to it; you have nothing to
occupy yourself with but being happy.”

“Then I have full occupation, for I am so.”

“Not yet; wait a little! This evening, you said.”

“Well, this evening will come, thank God! And perhaps you look for it
with as much impatience as I do; perhaps this evening Madame Bonacieux
will visit the conjugal domicile.”

“Madame Bonacieux is not at liberty this evening,” replied the husband,
seriously; “she is detained at the Louvre this evening by her duties.”

“So much the worse for you, my dear host, so much the worse! When I am
happy, I wish all the world to be so; but it appears that is not
possible.”

The young man departed, laughing at the joke, which he thought he alone
could comprehend.

“Amuse yourself well!” replied Bonacieux, in a sepulchral tone.

But D’Artagnan was too far off to hear him; and if he had heard him in
the disposition of mind he then enjoyed, he certainly would not have
remarked it.

He took his way toward the hôtel of M. de Tréville; his visit of the
day before, it is to be remembered, had been very short and very little
explicative.

He found Tréville in a joyful mood. He had thought the king and queen
charming at the ball. It is true the cardinal had been particularly
ill-tempered. He had retired at one o’clock under the pretense of being
indisposed. As to their Majesties, they did not return to the Louvre
till six o’clock in the morning.

“Now,” said Tréville, lowering his voice, and looking into every corner
of the apartment to see if they were alone, “now let us talk about
yourself, my young friend; for it is evident that your happy return has
something to do with the joy of the king, the triumph of the queen, and
the humiliation of his Eminence. You must look out for yourself.”

“What have I to fear,” replied D’Artagnan, “as long as I shall have the
luck to enjoy the favor of their Majesties?”

“Everything, believe me. The cardinal is not the man to forget a
mystification until he has settled account with the mystifier; and the
mystifier appears to me to have the air of being a certain young Gascon
of my acquaintance.”

“Do you believe that the cardinal is as well posted as yourself, and
knows that I have been to London?”

“The devil! You have been to London! Was it from London you brought
that beautiful diamond that glitters on your finger? Beware, my dear
D’Artagnan! A present from an enemy is not a good thing. Are there not
some Latin verses upon that subject? Stop!”

“Yes, doubtless,” replied D’Artagnan, who had never been able to cram
the first rudiments of that language into his head, and who had by his
ignorance driven his master to despair, “yes, doubtless there is one.”

“There certainly is one,” said M. de Tréville, who had a tincture of
literature, “and Monsieur de Benserade was quoting it to me the other
day. Stop a minute—ah, this is it: ‘Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,’
which means, ‘Beware of the enemy who makes you presents.”

“This diamond does not come from an enemy, monsieur,” replied
D’Artagnan, “it comes from the queen.”

“From the queen! Oh, oh!” said M. de Tréville. “Why, it is indeed a
true royal jewel, which is worth a thousand pistoles if it is worth a
denier. By whom did the queen send you this jewel?”

“She gave it to me herself.”

“Where?”

“In the room adjoining the chamber in which she changed her toilet.”

“How?”

“Giving me her hand to kiss.”

“You have kissed the queen’s hand?” said M. de Tréville, looking
earnestly at D’Artagnan.

“Her Majesty did me the honor to grant me that favor.”

“And that in the presence of witnesses! Imprudent, thrice imprudent!”

“No, monsieur, be satisfied; nobody saw her,” replied D’Artagnan, and
he related to M. de Tréville how the affair came to pass.

“Oh, the women, the women!” cried the old soldier. “I know them by
their romantic imagination. Everything that savors of mystery charms
them. So you have seen the arm, that was all. You would meet the queen,
and she would not know who you are?”

“No; but thanks to this diamond,” replied the young man.

“Listen,” said M. de Tréville; “shall I give you counsel, good counsel,
the counsel of a friend?”

“You will do me honor, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan.

“Well, then, off to the nearest goldsmith’s, and sell that diamond for
the highest price you can get from him. However much of a Jew he may
be, he will give you at least eight hundred pistoles. Pistoles have no
name, young man, and that ring has a terrible one, which may betray him
who wears it.”

“Sell this ring, a ring which comes from my sovereign? Never!” said
D’Artagnan.

“Then, at least turn the gem inside, you silly fellow; for everybody
must be aware that a cadet from Gascony does not find such stones in
his mother’s jewel case.”

“You think, then, I have something to dread?” asked D’Artagnan.

“I mean to say, young man, that he who sleeps over a mine the match of
which is already lighted, may consider himself in safety in comparison
with you.”

“The devil!” said D’Artagnan, whom the positive tone of M. de Tréville
began to disquiet, “the devil! What must I do?”

“Above all things be always on your guard. The cardinal has a tenacious
memory and a long arm; you may depend upon it, he will repay you by
some ill turn.”

“But of what sort?”

“Eh! How can I tell? Has he not all the tricks of a demon at his
command? The least that can be expected is that you will be arrested.”

“What! Will they dare to arrest a man in his Majesty’s service?”

“_Pardieu!_ They did not scruple much in the case of Athos. At all
events, young man, rely upon one who has been thirty years at court. Do
not lull yourself in security, or you will be lost; but, on the
contrary—and it is I who say it—see enemies in all directions. If
anyone seeks a quarrel with you, shun it, were it with a child of ten
years old. If you are attacked by day or by night, fight, but retreat,
without shame; if you cross a bridge, feel every plank of it with your
foot, lest one should give way beneath you; if you pass before a house
which is being built, look up, for fear a stone should fall upon your
head; if you stay out late, be always followed by your lackey, and let
your lackey be armed—if, by the by, you can be sure of your lackey.
Mistrust everybody, your friend, your brother, your mistress—your
mistress above all.”

D’Artagnan blushed.

“My mistress above all,” repeated he, mechanically; “and why her rather
than another?”

“Because a mistress is one of the cardinal’s favorite means; he has not
one that is more expeditious. A woman will sell you for ten pistoles,
witness Delilah. You are acquainted with the Scriptures?”

D’Artagnan thought of the appointment Mme. Bonacieux had made with him
for that very evening; but we are bound to say, to the credit of our
hero, that the bad opinion entertained by M. de Tréville of women in
general, did not inspire him with the least suspicion of his pretty
hostess.

“But, _à propos_,” resumed M. de Tréville, “what has become of your
three companions?”

“I was about to ask you if you had heard any news of them?”

“None, monsieur.”

“Well, I left them on my road—Porthos at Chantilly, with a duel on his
hands; Aramis at Crèvecœur, with a ball in his shoulder; and Athos at
Amiens, detained by an accusation of coining.”

“See there, now!” said M. de Tréville; “and how the devil did you
escape?”

“By a miracle, monsieur, I must acknowledge, with a sword thrust in my
breast, and by nailing the Comte de Wardes on the byroad to Calais,
like a butterfly on a tapestry.”

“There again! De Wardes, one of the cardinal’s men, a cousin of
Rochefort! Stop, my friend, I have an idea.”

“Speak, monsieur.”

“In your place, I would do one thing.”

“What?”

“While his Eminence was seeking for me in Paris, I would take, without
sound of drum or trumpet, the road to Picardy, and would go and make
some inquiries concerning my three companions. What the devil! They
merit richly that piece of attention on your part.”

“The advice is good, monsieur, and tomorrow I will set out.”

“Tomorrow! Any why not this evening?”

“This evening, monsieur, I am detained in Paris by indispensable
business.”

“Ah, young man, young man, some flirtation or other. Take care, I
repeat to you, take care. It is woman who has ruined us, still ruins
us, and will ruin us, as long as the world stands. Take my advice and
set out this evening.”

“Impossible, monsieur.”

“You have given your word, then?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Ah, that’s quite another thing; but promise me, if you should not be
killed tonight, that you will go tomorrow.”

“I promise it.”

“Do you need money?”

“I have still fifty pistoles. That, I think, is as much as I shall
want.”

“But your companions?”

“I don’t think they can be in need of any. We left Paris, each with
seventy-five pistoles in his pocket.”

“Shall I see you again before your departure?”

“I think not, monsieur, unless something new should happen.”

“Well, a pleasant journey.”

“Thanks, monsieur.”

D’Artagnan left M. de Tréville, touched more than ever by his paternal
solicitude for his Musketeers.

He called successively at the abodes of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.
Neither of them had returned. Their lackeys likewise were absent, and
nothing had been heard of either the one or the other. He would have
inquired after them of their mistresses, but he was neither acquainted
with Porthos’s nor Aramis’s, and as to Athos, he had none.

As he passed the Hôtel des Gardes, he took a glance into the stables.
Three of the four horses had already arrived. Planchet, all
astonishment, was busy grooming them, and had already finished two.

“Ah, monsieur,” said Planchet, on perceiving D’Artagnan, “how glad I am
to see you.”

“Why so, Planchet?” asked the young man.

“Do you place confidence in our landlord—Monsieur Bonacieux?”

“I? Not the least in the world.”

“Oh, you do quite right, monsieur.”

“But why this question?”

“Because, while you were talking with him, I watched you without
listening to you; and, monsieur, his countenance changed color two or
three times!”

“Bah!”

“Preoccupied as Monsieur was with the letter he had received, he did
not observe that; but I, whom the strange fashion in which that letter
came into the house had placed on my guard—I did not lose a movement of
his features.”

“And you found it?”

“Traitorous, monsieur.”

“Indeed!”

“Still more; as soon as Monsieur had left and disappeared round the
corner of the street, Monsieur Bonacieux took his hat, shut his door,
and set off at a quick pace in an opposite direction.”

“It seems you are right, Planchet; all this appears to be a little
mysterious; and be assured that we will not pay him our rent until the
matter shall be categorically explained to us.”

“Monsieur jests, but Monsieur will see.”

“What would you have, Planchet? What must come is written.”

“Monsieur does not then renounce his excursion for this evening?”

“Quite the contrary, Planchet; the more ill will I have toward Monsieur
Bonacieux, the more punctual I shall be in keeping the appointment made
by that letter which makes you so uneasy.”

“Then that is Monsieur’s determination?”

“Undeniably, my friend. At nine o’clock, then, be ready here at the
hôtel, I will come and take you.”

Planchet seeing there was no longer any hope of making his master
renounce his project, heaved a profound sigh and set to work to groom
the third horse.

As to D’Artagnan, being at bottom a prudent youth, instead of returning
home, went and dined with the Gascon priest, who, at the time of the
distress of the four friends, had given them a breakfast of chocolate.




Chapter XXIV.
THE PAVILION


At nine o’clock D’Artagnan was at the Hôtel des Gardes; he found
Planchet all ready. The fourth horse had arrived.

Planchet was armed with his musketoon and a pistol. D’Artagnan had his
sword and placed two pistols in his belt; then both mounted and
departed quietly. It was quite dark, and no one saw them go out.
Planchet took place behind his master, and kept at a distance of ten
paces from him.

D’Artagnan crossed the quays, went out by the gate of La Conférence and
followed the road, much more beautiful then than it is now, which leads
to St. Cloud.

As long as he was in the city, Planchet kept at the respectful distance
he had imposed upon himself; but as soon as the road began to be more
lonely and dark, he drew softly nearer, so that when they entered the
Bois de Boulogne he found himself riding quite naturally side by side
with his master. In fact, we must not dissemble that the oscillation of
the tall trees and the reflection of the moon in the dark underwood
gave him serious uneasiness. D’Artagnan could not help perceiving that
something more than usual was passing in the mind of his lackey and
said, “Well, Monsieur Planchet, what is the matter with us now?”

“Don’t you think, monsieur, that woods are like churches?”

“How so, Planchet?”

“Because we dare not speak aloud in one or the other.”

“But why did you not dare to speak aloud, Planchet—because you are
afraid?”

“Afraid of being heard? Yes, monsieur.”

“Afraid of being heard! Why, there is nothing improper in our
conversation, my dear Planchet, and no one could find fault with it.”

“Ah, monsieur!” replied Planchet, recurring to his besetting idea,
“that Monsieur Bonacieux has something vicious in his eyebrows, and
something very unpleasant in the play of his lips.”

“What the devil makes you think of Bonacieux?”

“Monsieur, we think of what we can, and not of what we will.”

“Because you are a coward, Planchet.”

“Monsieur, we must not confound prudence with cowardice; prudence is a
virtue.”

“And you are very virtuous, are you not, Planchet?”

“Monsieur, is not that the barrel of a musket which glitters yonder?
Had we not better lower our heads?”

“In truth,” murmured D’Artagnan, to whom M. de Tréville’s
recommendation recurred, “this animal will end by making me afraid.”
And he put his horse into a trot.

Planchet followed the movements of his master as if he had been his
shadow, and was soon trotting by his side.

“Are we going to continue this pace all night?” asked Planchet.

“No; you are at your journey’s end.”

“How, monsieur! And you?”

“I am going a few steps farther.”

“And Monsieur leaves me here alone?”

“You are afraid, Planchet?”

“No; I only beg leave to observe to Monsieur that the night will be
very cold, that chills bring on rheumatism, and that a lackey who has
the rheumatism makes but a poor servant, particularly to a master as
active as Monsieur.”

“Well, if you are cold, Planchet, you can go into one of those cabarets
that you see yonder, and be in waiting for me at the door by six
o’clock in the morning.”

“Monsieur, I have eaten and drunk respectfully the crown you gave me
this morning, so that I have not a sou left in case I should be cold.”

“Here’s half a pistole. Tomorrow morning.”

D’Artagnan sprang from his horse, threw the bridle to Planchet, and
departed at a quick pace, folding his cloak around him.

“Good Lord, how cold I am!” cried Planchet, as soon as he had lost
sight of his master; and in such haste was he to warm himself that he
went straight to a house set out with all the attributes of a suburban
tavern, and knocked at the door.

In the meantime D’Artagnan, who had plunged into a bypath, continued
his route and reached St. Cloud; but instead of following the main
street he turned behind the château, reached a sort of retired lane,
and found himself soon in front of the pavilion named. It was situated
in a very private spot. A high wall, at the angle of which was the
pavilion, ran along one side of this lane, and on the other was a
little garden connected with a poor cottage which was protected by a
hedge from passers-by.

He gained the place appointed, and as no signal had been given him by
which to announce his presence, he waited.

Not the least noise was to be heard; it might be imagined that he was a
hundred miles from the capital. D’Artagnan leaned against the hedge,
after having cast a glance behind it. Beyond that hedge, that garden,
and that cottage, a dark mist enveloped with its folds that immensity
where Paris slept—a vast void from which glittered a few luminous
points, the funeral stars of that hell!

But for D’Artagnan all aspects were clothed happily, all ideas wore a
smile, all shades were diaphanous. The appointed hour was about to
strike. In fact, at the end of a few minutes the belfry of St. Cloud
let fall slowly ten strokes from its sonorous jaws. There was something
melancholy in this brazen voice pouring out its lamentations in the
middle of the night; but each of those strokes, which made up the
expected hour, vibrated harmoniously to the heart of the young man.

His eyes were fixed upon the little pavilion situated at the angle of
the wall, of which all the windows were closed with shutters, except
one on the first story. Through this window shone a mild light which
silvered the foliage of two or three linden trees which formed a group
outside the park. There could be no doubt that behind this little
window, which threw forth such friendly beams, the pretty Mme.
Bonacieux expected him.

Wrapped in this sweet idea, D’Artagnan waited half an hour without the
least impatience, his eyes fixed upon that charming little abode of
which he could perceive a part of the ceiling with its gilded moldings,
attesting the elegance of the rest of the apartment.

The belfry of St. Cloud sounded half past ten.

This time, without knowing why, D’Artagnan felt a cold shiver run
through his veins. Perhaps the cold began to affect him, and he took a
perfectly physical sensation for a moral impression.

Then the idea seized him that he had read incorrectly, and that the
appointment was for eleven o’clock. He drew near to the window, and
placing himself so that a ray of light should fall upon the letter as
he held it, he drew it from his pocket and read it again; but he had
not been mistaken, the appointment was for ten o’clock. He went and
resumed his post, beginning to be rather uneasy at this silence and
this solitude.

Eleven o’clock sounded.

D’Artagnan began now really to fear that something had happened to Mme.
Bonacieux. He clapped his hands three times—the ordinary signal of
lovers; but nobody replied to him, not even an echo.

He then thought, with a touch of vexation, that perhaps the young woman
had fallen asleep while waiting for him. He approached the wall, and
tried to climb it; but the wall had been recently pointed, and
D’Artagnan could get no hold.

At that moment he thought of the trees, upon whose leaves the light
still shone; and as one of them drooped over the road, he thought that
from its branches he might get a glimpse of the interior of the
pavilion.

The tree was easy to climb. Besides, D’Artagnan was but twenty years
old, and consequently had not yet forgotten his schoolboy habits. In an
instant he was among the branches, and his keen eyes plunged through
the transparent panes into the interior of the pavilion.

It was a strange thing, and one which made D’Artagnan tremble from the
sole of his foot to the roots of his hair, to find that this soft
light, this calm lamp, enlightened a scene of fearful disorder. One of
the windows was broken, the door of the chamber had been beaten in and
hung, split in two, on its hinges. A table, which had been covered with
an elegant supper, was overturned. The decanters broken in pieces, and
the fruits crushed, strewed the floor. Everything in the apartment gave
evidence of a violent and desperate struggle. D’Artagnan even fancied
he could recognize amid this strange disorder, fragments of garments,
and some bloody spots staining the cloth and the curtains. He hastened
to descend into the street, with a frightful beating at his heart; he
wished to see if he could find other traces of violence.

The little soft light shone on in the calmness of the night. D’Artagnan
then perceived a thing that he had not before remarked—for nothing had
led him to the examination—that the ground, trampled here and
hoofmarked there, presented confused traces of men and horses. Besides,
the wheels of a carriage, which appeared to have come from Paris, had
made a deep impression in the soft earth, which did not extend beyond
the pavilion, but turned again toward Paris.

At length D’Artagnan, in pursuing his researches, found near the wall a
woman’s torn glove. This glove, wherever it had not touched the muddy
ground, was of irreproachable odor. It was one of those perfumed gloves
that lovers like to snatch from a pretty hand.

As D’Artagnan pursued his investigations, a more abundant and more icy
sweat rolled in large drops from his forehead; his heart was oppressed
by a horrible anguish; his respiration was broken and short. And yet he
said, to reassure himself, that this pavilion perhaps had nothing in
common with Mme. Bonacieux; that the young woman had made an
appointment with him before the pavilion, and not in the pavilion; that
she might have been detained in Paris by her duties, or perhaps by the
jealousy of her husband.

But all these reasons were combated, destroyed, overthrown, by that
feeling of intimate pain which, on certain occasions, takes possession
of our being, and cries to us so as to be understood unmistakably that
some great misfortune is hanging over us.

Then D’Artagnan became almost wild. He ran along the high road, took
the path he had before taken, and reaching the ferry, interrogated the
boatman.

About seven o’clock in the evening, the boatman had taken over a young
woman, wrapped in a black mantle, who appeared to be very anxious not
to be recognized; but entirely on account of her precautions, the
boatman had paid more attention to her and discovered that she was
young and pretty.

There were then, as now, a crowd of young and pretty women who came to
St. Cloud, and who had reasons for not being seen, and yet D’Artagnan
did not for an instant doubt that it was Mme. Bonacieux whom the
boatman had noticed.

D’Artagnan took advantage of the lamp which burned in the cabin of the
ferryman to read the billet of Mme. Bonacieux once again, and satisfy
himself that he had not been mistaken, that the appointment was at St.
Cloud and not elsewhere, before the D’Estrées’s pavilion and not in
another street. Everything conspired to prove to D’Artagnan that his
presentiments had not deceived him, and that a great misfortune had
happened.

He again ran back to the château. It appeared to him that something
might have happened at the pavilion in his absence, and that fresh
information awaited him. The lane was still deserted, and the same calm
soft light shone through the window.

D’Artagnan then thought of that cottage, silent and obscure, which had
no doubt seen all, and could tell its tale. The gate of the enclosure
was shut; but he leaped over the hedge, and in spite of the barking of
a chained-up dog, went up to the cabin.

No one answered to his first knocking. A silence of death reigned in
the cabin as in the pavilion; but as the cabin was his last resource,
he knocked again.

It soon appeared to him that he heard a slight noise within—a timid
noise which seemed to tremble lest it should be heard.

Then D’Artagnan ceased knocking, and prayed with an accent so full of
anxiety and promises, terror and cajolery, that his voice was of a
nature to reassure the most fearful. At length an old, worm-eaten
shutter was opened, or rather pushed ajar, but closed again as soon as
the light from a miserable lamp which burned in the corner had shone
upon the baldric, sword belt, and pistol pommels of D’Artagnan.
Nevertheless, rapid as the movement had been, D’Artagnan had had time
to get a glimpse of the head of an old man.

“In the name of heaven!” cried he, “listen to me; I have been waiting
for someone who has not come. I am dying with anxiety. Has anything
particular happened in the neighborhood? Speak!”

The window was again opened slowly, and the same face appeared, only it
was now still more pale than before.

D’Artagnan related his story simply, with the omission of names. He
told how he had a rendezvous with a young woman before that pavilion,
and how, not seeing her come, he had climbed the linden tree, and by
the light of the lamp had seen the disorder of the chamber.

The old man listened attentively, making a sign only that it was all
so; and then, when D’Artagnan had ended, he shook his head with an air
that announced nothing good.

“What do you mean?” cried D’Artagnan. “In the name of heaven, explain
yourself!”

“Oh! Monsieur,” said the old man, “ask me nothing; for if I dared tell
you what I have seen, certainly no good would befall me.”

“You have, then, seen something?” replied D’Artagnan. “In that case, in
the name of heaven,” continued he, throwing him a pistole, “tell me
what you have seen, and I will pledge you the word of a gentleman that
not one of your words shall escape from my heart.”

The old man read so much truth and so much grief in the face of the
young man that he made him a sign to listen, and repeated in a low
voice: “It was scarcely nine o’clock when I heard a noise in the
street, and was wondering what it could be, when on coming to my door,
I found that somebody was endeavoring to open it. As I am very poor and
am not afraid of being robbed, I went and opened the gate and saw three
men at a few paces from it. In the shadow was a carriage with two
horses, and some saddlehorses. These horses evidently belonged to the
three men, who were dressed as cavaliers. ‘Ah, my worthy gentlemen,’
cried I, ‘what do you want?’ ‘You must have a ladder?’ said he who
appeared to be the leader of the party. ‘Yes, monsieur, the one with
which I gather my fruit.’ ‘Lend it to us, and go into your house again;
there is a crown for the annoyance we have caused you. Only remember
this—if you speak a word of what you may see or what you may hear (for
you will look and you will listen, I am quite sure, however we may
threaten you), you are lost.’ At these words he threw me a crown, which
I picked up, and he took the ladder. After shutting the gate behind
them, I pretended to return to the house, but I immediately went out a
back door, and stealing along in the shade of the hedge, I gained
yonder clump of elder, from which I could hear and see everything. The
three men brought the carriage up quietly, and took out of it a little
man, stout, short, elderly, and commonly dressed in clothes of a dark
color, who ascended the ladder very carefully, looked suspiciously in
at the window of the pavilion, came down as quietly as he had gone up,
and whispered, ‘It is she!’ Immediately, he who had spoken to me
approached the door of the pavilion, opened it with a key he had in his
hand, closed the door and disappeared, while at the same time the other
two men ascended the ladder. The little old man remained at the coach
door; the coachman took care of his horses, the lackey held the
saddlehorses. All at once great cries resounded in the pavilion, and a
woman came to the window, and opened it, as if to throw herself out of
it; but as soon as she perceived the other two men, she fell back and
they went into the chamber. Then I saw no more; but I heard the noise
of breaking furniture. The woman screamed, and cried for help; but her
cries were soon stifled. Two of the men appeared, bearing the woman in
their arms, and carried her to the carriage, into which the little old
man got after her. The leader closed the window, came out an instant
after by the door, and satisfied himself that the woman was in the
carriage. His two companions were already on horseback. He sprang into
his saddle; the lackey took his place by the coachman; the carriage
went off at a quick pace, escorted by the three horsemen, and all was
over. From that moment I have neither seen nor heard anything.”

D’Artagnan, entirely overcome by this terrible story, remained
motionless and mute, while all the demons of anger and jealousy were
howling in his heart.

“But, my good gentleman,” resumed the old man, upon whom this mute
despair certainly produced a greater effect than cries and tears would
have done, “do not take on so; they did not kill her, and that’s a
comfort.”

“Can you guess,” said D’Artagnan, “who was the man who headed this
infernal expedition?”

“I don’t know him.”

“But as you spoke to him you must have seen him.”

“Oh, it’s a description you want?”

“Exactly so.”

“A tall, dark man, with black mustaches, dark eyes, and the air of a
gentleman.”

“That’s the man!” cried D’Artagnan, “again he, forever he! He is my
demon, apparently. And the other?”

“Which?”

“The short one.”

“Oh, he was not a gentleman, I’ll answer for it; besides, he did not
wear a sword, and the others treated him with small consideration.”

“Some lackey,” murmured D’Artagnan. “Poor woman, poor woman, what have
they done with you?”

“You have promised to be secret, my good monsieur?” said the old man.

“And I renew my promise. Be easy, I am a gentleman. A gentleman has but
his word, and I have given you mine.”

With a heavy heart, D’Artagnan again bent his way toward the ferry.
Sometimes he hoped it could not be Mme. Bonacieux, and that he should
find her next day at the Louvre; sometimes he feared she had had an
intrigue with another, who, in a jealous fit, had surprised her and
carried her off. His mind was torn by doubt, grief, and despair.

“Oh, if I had my three friends here,” cried he, “I should have, at
least, some hopes of finding her; but who knows what has become of
them?”

It was past midnight; the next thing was to find Planchet. D’Artagnan
went successively into all the cabarets in which there was a light, but
could not find Planchet in any of them.

At the sixth he began to reflect that the search was rather dubious.
D’Artagnan had appointed six o’clock in the morning for his lackey, and
wherever he might be, he was right.

Besides, it came into the young man’s mind that by remaining in the
environs of the spot on which this sad event had passed, he would,
perhaps, have some light thrown upon the mysterious affair. At the
sixth cabaret, then, as we said, D’Artagnan stopped, asked for a bottle
of wine of the best quality, and placing himself in the darkest corner
of the room, determined thus to wait till daylight; but this time again
his hopes were disappointed, and although he listened with all his
ears, he heard nothing, amid the oaths, coarse jokes, and abuse which
passed between the laborers, servants, and carters who comprised the
honorable society of which he formed a part, which could put him upon
the least track of her who had been stolen from him. He was compelled,
then, after having swallowed the contents of his bottle, to pass the
time as well as to evade suspicion, to fall into the easiest position
in his corner and to sleep, whether well or ill. D’Artagnan, be it
remembered, was only twenty years old, and at that age sleep has its
imprescriptible rights which it imperiously insists upon, even with the
saddest hearts.

Toward six o’clock D’Artagnan awoke with that uncomfortable feeling
which generally accompanies the break of day after a bad night. He was
not long in making his toilet. He examined himself to see if advantage
had been taken of his sleep, and having found his diamond ring on his
finger, his purse in his pocket, and his pistols in his belt, he rose,
paid for his bottle, and went out to try if he could have any better
luck in his search after his lackey than he had had the night before.
The first thing he perceived through the damp gray mist was honest
Planchet, who, with the two horses in hand, awaited him at the door of
a little blind cabaret, before which D’Artagnan had passed without even
a suspicion of its existence.




Chapter XXV.
PORTHOS


Instead of returning directly home, D’Artagnan alighted at the door of
M. de Tréville, and ran quickly up the stairs. This time he had decided
to relate all that had passed. M. de Tréville would doubtless give him
good advice as to the whole affair. Besides, as M. de Tréville saw the
queen almost daily, he might be able to draw from her Majesty some
intelligence of the poor young woman, whom they were doubtless making
pay very dearly for her devotedness to her mistress.

M. de Tréville listened to the young man’s account with a seriousness
which proved that he saw something else in this adventure besides a
love affair. When D’Artagnan had finished, he said, “Hum! All this
savors of his Eminence, a league off.”

“But what is to be done?” said D’Artagnan.

“Nothing, absolutely nothing, at present, but quitting Paris, as I told
you, as soon as possible. I will see the queen; I will relate to her
the details of the disappearance of this poor woman, of which she is no
doubt ignorant. These details will guide her on her part, and on your
return, I shall perhaps have some good news to tell you. Rely on me.”

D’Artagnan knew that, although a Gascon, M. de Tréville was not in the
habit of making promises, and that when by chance he did promise, he
more than kept his word. He bowed to him, then, full of gratitude for
the past and for the future; and the worthy captain, who on his side
felt a lively interest in this young man, so brave and so resolute,
pressed his hand kindly, wishing him a pleasant journey.

Determined to put the advice of M. de Tréville in practice instantly,
D’Artagnan directed his course toward the Rue des Fossoyeurs, in order
to superintend the packing of his valise. On approaching the house, he
perceived M. Bonacieux in morning costume, standing at his threshold.
All that the prudent Planchet had said to him the preceding evening
about the sinister character of the old man recurred to the mind of
D’Artagnan, who looked at him with more attention than he had done
before. In fact, in addition to that yellow, sickly paleness which
indicates the insinuation of the bile in the blood, and which might,
besides, be accidental, D’Artagnan remarked something perfidiously
significant in the play of the wrinkled features of his countenance. A
rogue does not laugh in the same way that an honest man does; a
hypocrite does not shed the tears of a man of good faith. All falsehood
is a mask; and however well made the mask may be, with a little
attention we may always succeed in distinguishing it from the true
face.

It appeared, then, to D’Artagnan that M. Bonacieux wore a mask, and
likewise that that mask was most disagreeable to look upon. In
consequence of this feeling of repugnance, he was about to pass without
speaking to him, but, as he had done the day before, M. Bonacieux
accosted him.

“Well, young man,” said he, “we appear to pass rather gay nights! Seven
o’clock in the morning! _Peste!_ You seem to reverse ordinary customs,
and come home at the hour when other people are going out.”

“No one can reproach you for anything of the kind, Monsieur Bonacieux,”
said the young man; “you are a model for regular people. It is true
that when a man possesses a young and pretty wife, he has no need to
seek happiness elsewhere. Happiness comes to meet him, does it not,
Monsieur Bonacieux?”

Bonacieux became as pale as death, and grinned a ghastly smile.

“Ah, ah!” said Bonacieux, “you are a jocular companion! But where the
devil were you gadding last night, my young master? It does not appear
to be very clean in the crossroads.”

D’Artagnan glanced down at his boots, all covered with mud; but that
same glance fell upon the shoes and stockings of the mercer, and it
might have been said they had been dipped in the same mud heap. Both
were stained with splashes of mud of the same appearance.

Then a sudden idea crossed the mind of D’Artagnan. That little stout
man, short and elderly, that sort of lackey, dressed in dark clothes,
treated without ceremony by the men wearing swords who composed the
escort, was Bonacieux himself. The husband had presided at the
abduction of his wife.

A terrible inclination seized D’Artagnan to grasp the mercer by the
throat and strangle him; but, as we have said, he was a very prudent
youth, and he restrained himself. However, the revolution which
appeared upon his countenance was so visible that Bonacieux was
terrified at it, and he endeavored to draw back a step or two; but as
he was standing before the half of the door which was shut, the
obstacle compelled him to keep his place.

“Ah, but you are joking, my worthy man!” said D’Artagnan. “It appears
to me that if my boots need a sponge, your stockings and shoes stand in
equal need of a brush. May you not have been philandering a little
also, Monsieur Bonacieux? Oh, the devil! That’s unpardonable in a man
of your age, and who besides, has such a pretty wife as yours.”

“Oh, Lord! no,” said Bonacieux, “but yesterday I went to St. Mandé to
make some inquiries after a servant, as I cannot possibly do without
one; and the roads were so bad that I brought back all this mud, which
I have not yet had time to remove.”

The place named by Bonacieux as that which had been the object of his
journey was a fresh proof in support of the suspicions D’Artagnan had
conceived. Bonacieux had named Mandé because Mandé was in an exactly
opposite direction from St. Cloud. This probability afforded him his
first consolation. If Bonacieux knew where his wife was, one might, by
extreme means, force the mercer to open his teeth and let his secret
escape. The question, then, was how to change this probability into a
certainty.

“Pardon, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux, if I don’t stand upon ceremony,”
said D’Artagnan, “but nothing makes one so thirsty as want of sleep. I
am parched with thirst. Allow me to take a glass of water in your
apartment; you know that is never refused among neighbors.”

Without waiting for the permission of his host, D’Artagnan went quickly
into the house, and cast a rapid glance at the bed. It had not been
used. Bonacieux had not been abed. He had only been back an hour or
two; he had accompanied his wife to the place of her confinement, or
else at least to the first relay.

“Thanks, Monsieur Bonacieux,” said D’Artagnan, emptying his glass,
“that is all I wanted of you. I will now go up into my apartment. I
will make Planchet brush my boots; and when he has done, I will, if you
like, send him to you to brush your shoes.”

He left the mercer quite astonished at his singular farewell, and
asking himself if he had not been a little inconsiderate.

At the top of the stairs he found Planchet in a great fright.

“Ah, monsieur!” cried Planchet, as soon as he perceived his master,
“here is more trouble. I thought you would never come in.”

“What’s the matter now, Planchet?” demanded D’Artagnan.

“Oh! I give you a hundred, I give you a thousand times to guess,
monsieur, the visit I received in your absence.”

“When?”

“About half an hour ago, while you were at Monsieur de Tréville’s.”

“Who has been here? Come, speak.”

“Monsieur de Cavois.”

“Monsieur de Cavois?”

“In person.”

“The captain of the cardinal’s Guards?”

“Himself.”

“Did he come to arrest me?”

“I have no doubt that he did, monsieur, for all his wheedling manner.”

“Was he so sweet, then?”

“Indeed, he was all honey, monsieur.”

“Indeed!”

“He came, he said, on the part of his Eminence, who wished you well,
and to beg you to follow him to the Palais-Royal*.”

* It was called the Palais-Cardinal before Richelieu gave it to the
King.


“What did you answer him?”

“That the thing was impossible, seeing that you were not at home, as he
could see.”

“Well, what did he say then?”

“That you must not fail to call upon him in the course of the day; and
then he added in a low voice, ‘Tell your master that his Eminence is
very well disposed toward him, and that his fortune perhaps depends
upon this interview.’”

“The snare is rather _maladroit_ for the cardinal,” replied the young
man, smiling.

“Oh, I saw the snare, and I answered you would be quite in despair on
your return.

“‘Where has he gone?’ asked Monsieur de Cavois.

“‘To Troyes, in Champagne,’ I answered.

“‘And when did he set out?’

“‘Yesterday evening.’”

“Planchet, my friend,” interrupted D’Artagnan, “you are really a
precious fellow.”

“You will understand, monsieur, I thought there would be still time, if
you wish, to see Monsieur de Cavois to contradict me by saying you were
not yet gone. The falsehood would then lie at my door, and as I am not
a gentleman, I may be allowed to lie.”

“Be of good heart, Planchet, you shall preserve your reputation as a
veracious man. In a quarter of an hour we set off.”

“That’s the advice I was about to give Monsieur; and where are we
going, may I ask, without being too curious?”

_“Pardieu!_ In the opposite direction to that which you said I was
gone. Besides, are you not as anxious to learn news of Grimaud,
Mousqueton, and Bazin as I am to know what has become of Athos,
Porthos, and Aramis?”

“Yes, monsieur,” said Planchet, “and I will go as soon as you please.
Indeed, I think provincial air will suit us much better just now than
the air of Paris. So then—”

“So then, pack up our luggage, Planchet, and let us be off. On my part,
I will go out with my hands in my pockets, that nothing may be
suspected. You may join me at the Hôtel des Gardes. By the way,
Planchet, I think you are right with respect to our host, and that he
is decidedly a frightfully low wretch.”

“Ah, monsieur, you may take my word when I tell you anything. I am a
physiognomist, I assure you.”

D’Artagnan went out first, as had been agreed upon. Then, in order that
he might have nothing to reproach himself with, he directed his steps,
for the last time, toward the residences of his three friends. No news
had been received of them; only a letter, all perfumed and of an
elegant writing in small characters, had come for Aramis. D’Artagnan
took charge of it. Ten minutes afterward Planchet joined him at the
stables of the Hôtel des Gardes. D’Artagnan, in order that there might
be no time lost, had saddled his horse himself.

“That’s well,” said he to Planchet, when the latter added the
portmanteau to the equipment. “Now saddle the other three horses.”

“Do you think, then, monsieur, that we shall travel faster with two
horses apiece?” said Planchet, with his shrewd air.

“No, Monsieur Jester,” replied D’Artagnan; “but with our four horses we
may bring back our three friends, if we should have the good fortune to
find them living.”

“Which is a great chance,” replied Planchet, “but we must not despair
of the mercy of God.”

“Amen!” said D’Artagnan, getting into his saddle.

As they went from the Hôtel des Gardes, they separated, leaving the
street at opposite ends, one having to quit Paris by the Barrière de la
Villette and the other by the Barrière Montmartre, to meet again beyond
St. Denis—a strategic maneuver which, having been executed with equal
punctuality, was crowned with the most fortunate results. D’Artagnan
and Planchet entered Pierrefitte together.

Planchet was more courageous, it must be admitted, by day than by
night. His natural prudence, however, never forsook him for a single
instant. He had forgotten not one of the incidents of the first
journey, and he looked upon everybody he met on the road as an enemy.
It followed that his hat was forever in his hand, which procured him
some severe reprimands from D’Artagnan, who feared that his excess of
politeness would lead people to think he was the lackey of a man of no
consequence.

Nevertheless, whether the passengers were really touched by the
urbanity of Planchet or whether this time nobody was posted on the
young man’s road, our two travelers arrived at Chantilly without any
accident, and alighted at the tavern of Great St. Martin, the same at
which they had stopped on their first journey.

The host, on seeing a young man followed by a lackey with two extra
horses, advanced respectfully to the door. Now, as they had already
traveled eleven leagues, D’Artagnan thought it time to stop, whether
Porthos were or were not in the inn. Perhaps it would not be prudent to
ask at once what had become of the Musketeer. The result of these
reflections was that D’Artagnan, without asking information of any
kind, alighted, commended the horses to the care of his lackey, entered
a small room destined to receive those who wished to be alone, and
desired the host to bring him a bottle of his best wine and as good a
breakfast as possible—a desire which further corroborated the high
opinion the innkeeper had formed of the traveler at first sight.

D’Artagnan was therefore served with miraculous celerity. The regiment
of the Guards was recruited among the first gentlemen of the kingdom;
and D’Artagnan, followed by a lackey, and traveling with four
magnificent horses, despite the simplicity of his uniform, could not
fail to make a sensation. The host desired himself to serve him; which
D’Artagnan perceiving, ordered two glasses to be brought, and commenced
the following conversation.

“My faith, my good host,” said D’Artagnan, filling the two glasses, “I
asked for a bottle of your best wine, and if you have deceived me, you
will be punished in what you have sinned; for seeing that I hate
drinking by myself, you shall drink with me. Take your glass, then, and
let us drink. But what shall we drink to, so as to avoid wounding any
susceptibility? Let us drink to the prosperity of your establishment.”

“Your Lordship does me much honor,” said the host, “and I thank you
sincerely for your kind wish.”

“But don’t mistake,” said D’Artagnan, “there is more selfishness in my
toast than perhaps you may think—for it is only in prosperous
establishments that one is well received. In hôtels that do not
flourish, everything is in confusion, and the traveler is a victim to
the embarrassments of his host. Now, I travel a great deal,
particularly on this road, and I wish to see all innkeepers making a
fortune.”

“It seems to me,” said the host, “that this is not the first time I
have had the honor of seeing Monsieur.”

“Bah, I have passed perhaps ten times through Chantilly, and out of the
ten times I have stopped three or four times at your house at least.
Why I was here only ten or twelve days ago. I was conducting some
friends, Musketeers, one of whom, by the by, had a dispute with a
stranger—a man who sought a quarrel with him, for I don’t know what.”

“Exactly so,” said the host; “I remember it perfectly. It is not
Monsieur Porthos that your Lordship means?”

“Yes, that is my companion’s name. My God, my dear host, tell me if
anything has happened to him?”

“Your Lordship must have observed that he could not continue his
journey.”

“Why, to be sure, he promised to rejoin us, and we have seen nothing of
him.”

“He has done us the honor to remain here.”

“What, he had done you the honor to remain here?”

“Yes, monsieur, in this house; and we are even a little uneasy—”

“On what account?”

“Of certain expenses he has contracted.”

“Well, but whatever expenses he may have incurred, I am sure he is in a
condition to pay them.”

“Ah, monsieur, you infuse genuine balm into my blood. We have made
considerable advances; and this very morning the surgeon declared that
if Monsieur Porthos did not pay him, he should look to me, as it was I
who had sent for him.”

“Porthos is wounded, then?”

“I cannot tell you, monsieur.”

“What! You cannot tell me? Surely you ought to be able to tell me
better than any other person.”

“Yes; but in our situation we must not say all we know—particularly as
we have been warned that our ears should answer for our tongues.”

“Well, can I see Porthos?”

“Certainly, monsieur. Take the stairs on your right; go up the first
flight and knock at Number One. Only warn him that it is you.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Because, monsieur, some mischief might happen to you.”

“Of what kind, in the name of wonder?”

“Monsieur Porthos may imagine you belong to the house, and in a fit of
passion might run his sword through you or blow out your brains.”

“What have you done to him, then?”

“We have asked him for money.”

“The devil! Ah, I can understand that. It is a demand that Porthos
takes very ill when he is not in funds; but I know he must be so at
present.”

“We thought so, too, monsieur. As our house is carried on very
regularly, and we make out our bills every week, at the end of eight
days we presented our account; but it appeared we had chosen an unlucky
moment, for at the first word on the subject, he sent us to all the
devils. It is true he had been playing the day before.”

“Playing the day before! And with whom?”

“Lord, who can say, monsieur? With some gentleman who was traveling
this way, to whom he proposed a game of _lansquenet_.”

“That’s it, then, and the foolish fellow lost all he had?”

“Even to his horse, monsieur; for when the gentleman was about to set
out, we perceived that his lackey was saddling Monsieur Porthos’s
horse, as well as his master’s. When we observed this to him, he told
us all to trouble ourselves about our own business, as this horse
belonged to him. We also informed Monsieur Porthos of what was going
on; but he told us we were scoundrels to doubt a gentleman’s word, and
that as he had said the horse was his, it must be so.”

“That’s Porthos all over,” murmured D’Artagnan.

“Then,” continued the host, “I replied that as from the moment we
seemed not likely to come to a good understanding with respect to
payment, I hoped that he would have at least the kindness to grant the
favor of his custom to my brother host of the Golden Eagle; but
Monsieur Porthos replied that, my house being the best, he should
remain where he was. This reply was too flattering to allow me to
insist on his departure. I confined myself then to begging him to give
up his chamber, which is the handsomest in the hôtel, and to be
satisfied with a pretty little room on the third floor; but to this
Monsieur Porthos replied that as he every moment expected his mistress,
who was one of the greatest ladies in the court, I might easily
comprehend that the chamber he did me the honor to occupy in my house
was itself very mean for the visit of such a personage. Nevertheless,
while acknowledging the truth of what he said, I thought proper to
insist; but without even giving himself the trouble to enter into any
discussion with me, he took one of his pistols, laid it on his table,
day and night, and said that at the first word that should be spoken to
him about removing, either within the house or out of it, he would blow
out the brains of the person who should be so imprudent as to meddle
with a matter which only concerned himself. Since that time, monsieur,
nobody entered his chamber but his servant.”

“What! Mousqueton is here, then?”

“Oh, yes, monsieur. Five days after your departure, he came back, and
in a very bad condition, too. It appears that he had met with
disagreeableness, likewise, on his journey. Unfortunately, he is more
nimble than his master; so that for the sake of his master, he puts us
all under his feet, and as he thinks we might refuse what he asked for,
he takes all he wants without asking at all.”

“The fact is,” said D’Artagnan, “I have always observed a great degree
of intelligence and devotedness in Mousqueton.”

“That is possible, monsieur; but suppose I should happen to be brought
in contact, even four times a year, with such intelligence and
devotedness—why, I should be a ruined man!”

“No, for Porthos will pay you.”

“Hum!” said the host, in a doubtful tone.

“The favorite of a great lady will not be allowed to be inconvenienced
for such a paltry sum as he owes you.”

“If I durst say what I believe on that head—”

“What you believe?”

“I ought rather to say, what I know.”

“What you know?”

“And even what I am sure of.”

“And of what are you so sure?”

“I would say that I know this great lady.”

“You?”

“Yes; I.”

“And how do you know her?”

“Oh, monsieur, if I could believe I might trust in your discretion.”

“Speak! By the word of a gentleman, you shall have no cause to repent
of your confidence.”

“Well, monsieur, you understand that uneasiness makes us do many
things.”

“What have you done?”

“Oh, nothing which was not right in the character of a creditor.”

“Well?”

“Monsieur Porthos gave us a note for his duchess, ordering us to put it
in the post. This was before his servant came. As he could not leave
his chamber, it was necessary to charge us with this commission.”

“And then?”

“Instead of putting the letter in the post, which is never safe, I took
advantage of the journey of one of my lads to Paris, and ordered him to
convey the letter to this duchess himself. This was fulfilling the
intentions of Monsieur Porthos, who had desired us to be so careful of
this letter, was it not?”

“Nearly so.”

“Well, monsieur, do you know who this great lady is?”

“No; I have heard Porthos speak of her, that’s all.”

“Do you know who this pretended duchess is?

“I repeat to you, I don’t know her.”

“Why, she is the old wife of a procurator* of the Châtelet, monsieur,
named Madame Coquenard, who, although she is at least fifty, still
gives herself jealous airs. It struck me as very odd that a princess
should live in the Rue aux Ours.”

* Attorney


“But how do you know all this?”

“Because she flew into a great passion on receiving the letter, saying
that Monsieur Porthos was a weathercock, and that she was sure it was
for some woman he had received this wound.”

“Has he been wounded, then?”

“Oh, good Lord! What have I said?”

“You said that Porthos had received a sword cut.”

“Yes, but he has forbidden me so strictly to say so.”

“And why so.”

“Zounds, monsieur! Because he had boasted that he would perforate the
stranger with whom you left him in dispute; whereas the stranger, on
the contrary, in spite of all his rodomontades quickly threw him on his
back. As Monsieur Porthos is a very boastful man, he insists that
nobody shall know he has received this wound except the duchess, whom
he endeavored to interest by an account of his adventure.”

“It is a wound that confines him to his bed?”

“Ah, and a master stroke, too, I assure you. Your friend’s soul must
stick tight to his body.”

“Were you there, then?”

“Monsieur, I followed them from curiosity, so that I saw the combat
without the combatants seeing me.”

“And what took place?”

“Oh! The affair was not long, I assure you. They placed themselves on
guard; the stranger made a feint and a lunge, and that so rapidly that
when Monsieur Porthos came to the _parade_, he had already three inches
of steel in his breast. He immediately fell backward. The stranger
placed the point of his sword at his throat; and Monsieur Porthos,
finding himself at the mercy of his adversary, acknowledged himself
conquered. Upon which the stranger asked his name, and learning that it
was Porthos, and not D’Artagnan, he assisted him to rise, brought him
back to the hôtel, mounted his horse, and disappeared.”

“So it was with Monsieur d’Artagnan this stranger meant to quarrel?”

“It appears so.”

“And do you know what has become of him?”

“No, I never saw him until that moment, and have not seen him since.”

“Very well; I know all that I wish to know. Porthos’s chamber is, you
say, on the first story, Number One?”

“Yes, monsieur, the handsomest in the inn—a chamber that I could have
let ten times over.”

“Bah! Be satisfied,” said D’Artagnan, laughing, “Porthos will pay you
with the money of the Duchess Coquenard.”

“Oh, monsieur, procurator’s wife or duchess, if she will but loosen her
pursestrings, it will be all the same; but she positively answered that
she was tired of the exigencies and infidelities of Monsieur Porthos,
and that she would not send him a denier.”

“And did you convey this answer to your guest?”

“We took good care not to do that; he would have found in what fashion
we had executed his commission.”

“So that he still expects his money?”

“Oh, Lord, yes, monsieur! Yesterday he wrote again; but it was his
servant who this time put the letter in the post.”

“Do you say the procurator’s wife is old and ugly?”

“Fifty at least, monsieur, and not at all handsome, according to
Pathaud’s account.”

“In that case, you may be quite at ease; she will soon be softened.
Besides, Porthos cannot owe you much.”

“How, not much! Twenty good pistoles, already, without reckoning the
doctor. He denies himself nothing; it may easily be seen he has been
accustomed to live well.”

“Never mind; if his mistress abandons him, he will find friends, I will
answer for it. So, my dear host, be not uneasy, and continue to take
all the care of him that his situation requires.”

“Monsieur has promised me not to open his mouth about the procurator’s
wife, and not to say a word of the wound?”

“That’s agreed; you have my word.”

“Oh, he would kill me!”

“Don’t be afraid; he is not so much of a devil as he appears.”

Saying these words, D’Artagnan went upstairs, leaving his host a little
better satisfied with respect to two things in which he appeared to be
very much interested—his debt and his life.

At the top of the stairs, upon the most conspicuous door of the
corridor, was traced in black ink a gigantic number “1.” D’Artagnan
knocked, and upon the bidding to come in which came from inside, he
entered the chamber.

Porthos was in bed, and was playing a game at _lansquenet_ with
Mousqueton, to keep his hand in; while a spit loaded with partridges
was turning before the fire, and on each side of a large chimneypiece,
over two chafing dishes, were boiling two stewpans, from which exhaled
a double odor of rabbit and fish stews, rejoicing to the smell. In
addition to this he perceived that the top of a wardrobe and the marble
of a commode were covered with empty bottles.

At the sight of his friend, Porthos uttered a loud cry of joy; and
Mousqueton, rising respectfully, yielded his place to him, and went to
give an eye to the two stewpans, of which he appeared to have the
particular inspection.

“Ah, _pardieu!_ Is that you?” said Porthos to D’Artagnan. “You are
right welcome. Excuse my not coming to meet you; but,” added he,
looking at D’Artagnan with a certain degree of uneasiness, “you know
what has happened to me?”

“No.”

“Has the host told you nothing, then?”

“I asked after you, and came up as soon as I could.”

Porthos seemed to breathe more freely.

“And what has happened to you, my dear Porthos?” continued D’Artagnan.

“Why, on making a thrust at my adversary, whom I had already hit three
times, and whom I meant to finish with the fourth, I put my foot on a
stone, slipped, and strained my knee.”

“Truly?”

“Honor! Luckily for the rascal, for I should have left him dead on the
spot, I assure you.”

“And what has became of him?”

“Oh, I don’t know; he had enough, and set off without waiting for the
rest. But you, my dear D’Artagnan, what has happened to you?”

“So that this strain of the knee,” continued D’Artagnan, “my dear
Porthos, keeps you in bed?”

“My God, that’s all. I shall be about again in a few days.”

“Why did you not have yourself conveyed to Paris? You must be cruelly
bored here.”

“That was my intention; but, my dear friend, I have one thing to
confess to you.”

“What’s that?”

“It is that as I was cruelly bored, as you say, and as I had the
seventy-five pistoles in my pocket which you had distributed to me, in
order to amuse myself I invited a gentleman who was traveling this way
to walk up, and proposed a cast of dice. He accepted my challenge, and,
my faith, my seventy-five pistoles passed from my pocket to his,
without reckoning my horse, which he won into the bargain. But you, my
dear D’Artagnan?”

“What can you expect, my dear Porthos; a man is not privileged in all
ways,” said D’Artagnan. “You know the proverb ‘Unlucky at play, lucky
in love.’ You are too fortunate in your love for play not to take its
revenge. What consequence can the reverses of fortune be to you? Have
you not, happy rogue that you are—have you not your duchess, who cannot
fail to come to your aid?”

“Well, you see, my dear D’Artagnan, with what ill luck I play,” replied
Porthos, with the most careless air in the world. “I wrote to her to
send me fifty louis or so, of which I stood absolutely in need on
account of my accident.”

“Well?”

“Well, she must be at her country seat, for she has not answered me.”

“Truly?”

“No; so I yesterday addressed another epistle to her, still more
pressing than the first. But you are here, my dear fellow, let us speak
of you. I confess I began to be very uneasy on your account.”

“But your host behaves very well toward you, as it appears, my dear
Porthos,” said D’Artagnan, directing the sick man’s attention to the
full stewpans and the empty bottles.

“So, so,” replied Porthos. “Only three or four days ago the impertinent
jackanapes gave me his bill, and I was forced to turn both him and his
bill out of the door; so that I am here something in the fashion of a
conqueror, holding my position, as it were, my conquest. So you see,
being in constant fear of being forced from that position, I am armed
to the teeth.”

“And yet,” said D’Artagnan, laughing, “it appears to me that from time
to time you must make _sorties_.” And he again pointed to the bottles
and the stewpans.

“Not I, unfortunately!” said Porthos. “This miserable strain confines
me to my bed; but Mousqueton forages, and brings in provisions. Friend
Mousqueton, you see that we have a reinforcement, and we must have an
increase of supplies.”

“Mousqueton,” said D’Artagnan, “you must render me a service.”

“What, monsieur?”

“You must give your recipe to Planchet. I may be besieged in my turn,
and I shall not be sorry for him to be able to let me enjoy the same
advantages with which you gratify your master.”

“Lord, monsieur! There is nothing more easy,” said Mousqueton, with a
modest air. “One only needs to be sharp, that’s all. I was brought up
in the country, and my father in his leisure time was something of a
poacher.”

“And what did he do the rest of his time?”

“Monsieur, he carried on a trade which I have always thought
satisfactory.”

“Which?”

“As it was a time of war between the Catholics and the Huguenots, and
as he saw the Catholics exterminate the Huguenots and the Huguenots
exterminate the Catholics—all in the name of religion—he adopted a
mixed belief which permitted him to be sometimes Catholic, sometimes a
Huguenot. Now, he was accustomed to walk with his fowling piece on his
shoulder, behind the hedges which border the roads, and when he saw a
Catholic coming alone, the Protestant religion immediately prevailed in
his mind. He lowered his gun in the direction of the traveler; then,
when he was within ten paces of him, he commenced a conversation which
almost always ended by the traveler’s abandoning his purse to save his
life. It goes without saying that when he saw a Huguenot coming, he
felt himself filled with such ardent Catholic zeal that he could not
understand how, a quarter of an hour before, he had been able to have
any doubts upon the superiority of our holy religion. For my part,
monsieur, I am Catholic—my father, faithful to his principles, having
made my elder brother a Huguenot.”

“And what was the end of this worthy man?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Oh, of the most unfortunate kind, monsieur. One day he was surprised
in a lonely road between a Huguenot and a Catholic, with both of whom
he had before had business, and who both knew him again; so they united
against him and hanged him on a tree. Then they came and boasted of
their fine exploit in the cabaret of the next village, where my brother
and I were drinking.”

“And what did you do?” said D’Artagnan.

“We let them tell their story out,” replied Mousqueton. “Then, as in
leaving the cabaret they took different directions, my brother went and
hid himself on the road of the Catholic, and I on that of the Huguenot.
Two hours after, all was over; we had done the business of both,
admiring the foresight of our poor father, who had taken the precaution
to bring each of us up in a different religion.”

“Well, I must allow, as you say, your father was a very intelligent
fellow. And you say in his leisure moments the worthy man was a
poacher?”

“Yes, monsieur, and it was he who taught me to lay a snare and ground a
line. The consequence is that when I saw our laborers, which did not at
all suit two such delicate stomachs as ours, I had recourse to a little
of my old trade. While walking near the wood of Monsieur le Prince, I
laid a few snares in the runs; and while reclining on the banks of his
Highness’s pieces of water, I slipped a few lines into his fish ponds.
So that now, thanks be to God, we do not want, as Monsieur can testify,
for partridges, rabbits, carp or eels—all light, wholesome food,
suitable for the sick.”

“But the wine,” said D’Artagnan, “who furnishes the wine? Your host?”

“That is to say, yes and no.”

“How yes and no?”

“He furnishes it, it is true, but he does not know that he has that
honor.”

“Explain yourself, Mousqueton; your conversation is full of instructive
things.”

“That is it, monsieur. It has so chanced that I met with a Spaniard in
my peregrinations who had seen many countries, and among them the New
World.”

“What connection can the New World have with the bottles which are on
the commode and the wardrobe?”

“Patience, monsieur, everything will come in its turn.”

“This Spaniard had in his service a lackey who had accompanied him in
his voyage to Mexico. This lackey was my compatriot; and we became the
more intimate from there being many resemblances of character between
us. We loved sporting of all kinds better than anything; so that he
related to me how in the plains of the Pampas the natives hunt the
tiger and the wild bull with simple running nooses which they throw to
a distance of twenty or thirty paces the end of a cord with such
nicety; but in face of the proof I was obliged to acknowledge the truth
of the recital. My friend placed a bottle at the distance of thirty
paces, and at each cast he caught the neck of the bottle in his running
noose. I practiced this exercise, and as nature has endowed me with
some faculties, at this day I can throw the lasso with any man in the
world. Well, do you understand, monsieur? Our host has a well-furnished
cellar the key of which never leaves him; only this cellar has a
ventilating hole. Now through this ventilating hole I throw my lasso,
and as I now know in which part of the cellar is the best wine, that’s
my point for sport. You see, monsieur, what the New World has to do
with the bottles which are on the commode and the wardrobe. Now, will
you taste our wine, and without prejudice say what you think of it?”

“Thank you, my friend, thank you; unfortunately, I have just
breakfasted.”

“Well,” said Porthos, “arrange the table, Mousqueton, and while we
breakfast, D’Artagnan will relate to us what has happened to him during
the ten days since he left us.”

“Willingly,” said D’Artagnan.

While Porthos and Mousqueton were breakfasting, with the appetites of
convalescents and with that brotherly cordiality which unites men in
misfortune, D’Artagnan related how Aramis, being wounded, was obliged
to stop at Crèvecœur, how he had left Athos fighting at Amiens with
four men who accused him of being a coiner, and how he, D’Artagnan, had
been forced to run the Comtes de Wardes through the body in order to
reach England.

But there the confidence of D’Artagnan stopped. He only added that on
his return from Great Britain he had brought back four magnificent
horses—one for himself, and one for each of his companions; then he
informed Porthos that the one intended for him was already installed in
the stable of the tavern.

At this moment Planchet entered, to inform his master that the horses
were sufficiently refreshed and that it would be possible to sleep at
Clermont.

As D’Artagnan was tolerably reassured with regard to Porthos, and as he
was anxious to obtain news of his two other friends, he held out his
hand to the wounded man, and told him he was about to resume his route
in order to continue his researches. For the rest, as he reckoned upon
returning by the same route in seven or eight days, if Porthos were
still at the Great St. Martin, he would call for him on his way.

Porthos replied that in all probability his sprain would not permit him
to depart yet awhile. Besides, it was necessary he should stay at
Chantilly to wait for the answer from his duchess.

D’Artagnan wished that answer might be prompt and favorable; and having
again recommended Porthos to the care of Mousqueton, and paid his bill
to the host, he resumed his route with Planchet, already relieved of
one of his led horses.




Chapter XXVI.
ARAMIS AND HIS THESIS


D’Artagnan had said nothing to Porthos of his wound or of his
procurator’s wife. Our Béarnais was a prudent lad, however young he
might be. Consequently he had appeared to believe all that the
vainglorious Musketeer had told him, convinced that no friendship will
hold out against a surprised secret. Besides, we feel always a sort of
mental superiority over those whose lives we know better than they
suppose. In his projects of intrigue for the future, and determined as
he was to make his three friends the instruments of his fortune,
D’Artagnan was not sorry at getting into his grasp beforehand the
invisible strings by which he reckoned upon moving them.

And yet, as he journeyed along, a profound sadness weighed upon his
heart. He thought of that young and pretty Mme. Bonacieux who was to
have paid him the price of his devotedness; but let us hasten to say
that this sadness possessed the young man less from the regret of the
happiness he had missed, than from the fear he entertained that some
serious misfortune had befallen the poor woman. For himself, he had no
doubt she was a victim of the cardinal’s vengeance; and, as was well
known, the vengeance of his Eminence was terrible. How he had found
grace in the eyes of the minister, he did not know; but without doubt
M. de Cavois would have revealed this to him if the captain of the
Guards had found him at home.

Nothing makes time pass more quickly or more shortens a journey than a
thought which absorbs in itself all the faculties of the organization
of him who thinks. External existence then resembles a sleep of which
this thought is the dream. By its influence, time has no longer
measure, space has no longer distance. We depart from one place, and
arrive at another, that is all. Of the interval passed, nothing remains
in the memory but a vague mist in which a thousand confused images of
trees, mountains, and landscapes are lost. It was as a prey to this
hallucination that D’Artagnan traveled, at whatever pace his horse
pleased, the six or eight leagues that separated Chantilly from
Crèvecœur, without his being able to remember on his arrival in the
village any of the things he had passed or met with on the road.

There only his memory returned to him. He shook his head, perceived the
cabaret at which he had left Aramis, and putting his horse to the trot,
he shortly pulled up at the door.

This time it was not a host but a hostess who received him. D’Artagnan
was a physiognomist. His eye took in at a glance the plump, cheerful
countenance of the mistress of the place, and he at once perceived
there was no occasion for dissembling with her, or of fearing anything
from one blessed with such a joyous physiognomy.

“My good dame,” asked D’Artagnan, “can you tell me what has become of
one of my friends, whom we were obliged to leave here about a dozen
days ago?”

“A handsome young man, three- or four-and-twenty years old, mild,
amiable, and well made?”

“That is he—wounded in the shoulder.”

“Just so. Well, monsieur, he is still here.”

“Ah, _pardieu!_ My dear dame,” said D’Artagnan, springing from his
horse, and throwing the bridle to Planchet, “you restore me to life;
where is this dear Aramis? Let me embrace him, I am in a hurry to see
him again.”

“Pardon, monsieur, but I doubt whether he can see you at this moment.”

“Why so? Has he a lady with him?”

“Jesus! What do you mean by that? Poor lad! No, monsieur, he has not a
lady with him.”

“With whom is he, then?”

“With the curate of Montdidier and the superior of the Jesuits of
Amiens.”

“Good heavens!” cried D’Artagnan, “is the poor fellow worse, then?”

“No, monsieur, quite the contrary; but after his illness grace touched
him, and he determined to take orders.”

“That’s it!” said D’Artagnan, “I had forgotten that he was only a
Musketeer for a time.”

“Monsieur still insists upon seeing him?”

“More than ever.”

“Well, monsieur has only to take the right-hand staircase in the
courtyard, and knock at Number Five on the second floor.”

D’Artagnan walked quickly in the direction indicated, and found one of
those exterior staircases that are still to be seen in the yards of our
old-fashioned taverns. But there was no getting at the place of sojourn
of the future abbé; the defiles of the chamber of Aramis were as well
guarded as the gardens of Armida. Bazin was stationed in the corridor,
and barred his passage with the more intrepidity that, after many years
of trial, Bazin found himself near a result of which he had ever been
ambitious.

In fact, the dream of poor Bazin had always been to serve a churchman;
and he awaited with impatience the moment, always in the future, when
Aramis would throw aside the uniform and assume the cassock. The
daily-renewed promise of the young man that the moment would not long
be delayed, had alone kept him in the service of a Musketeer—a service
in which, he said, his soul was in constant jeopardy.

Bazin was then at the height of joy. In all probability, this time his
master would not retract. The union of physical pain with moral
uneasiness had produced the effect so long desired. Aramis, suffering
at once in body and mind, had at length fixed his eyes and his thoughts
upon religion, and he had considered as a warning from heaven the
double accident which had happened to him; that is to say, the sudden
disappearance of his mistress and the wound in his shoulder.

It may be easily understood that in the present disposition of his
master nothing could be more disagreeable to Bazin than the arrival of
D’Artagnan, which might cast his master back again into that vortex of
mundane affairs which had so long carried him away. He resolved, then,
to defend the door bravely; and as, betrayed by the mistress of the
inn, he could not say that Aramis was absent, he endeavored to prove to
the newcomer that it would be the height of indiscretion to disturb his
master in his pious conference, which had commenced with the morning
and would not, as Bazin said, terminate before night.

But D’Artagnan took very little heed of the eloquent discourse of M.
Bazin; and as he had no desire to support a polemic discussion with his
friend’s valet, he simply moved him out of the way with one hand, and
with the other turned the handle of the door of Number Five. The door
opened, and D’Artagnan went into the chamber.

Aramis, in a black gown, his head enveloped in a sort of round flat
cap, not much unlike a _calotte_, was seated before an oblong table,
covered with rolls of paper and enormous volumes in folio. At his right
hand was placed the superior of the Jesuits, and on his left the curate
of Montdidier. The curtains were half drawn, and only admitted the
mysterious light calculated for beatific reveries. All the mundane
objects that generally strike the eye on entering the room of a young
man, particularly when that young man is a Musketeer, had disappeared
as if by enchantment; and for fear, no doubt, that the sight of them
might bring his master back to ideas of this world, Bazin had laid his
hands upon sword, pistols, plumed hat, and embroideries and laces of
all kinds and sorts. In their stead D’Artagnan thought he perceived in
an obscure corner a discipline cord suspended from a nail in the wall.

At the noise made by D’Artagnan in entering, Aramis lifted up his head,
and beheld his friend; but to the great astonishment of the young man,
the sight of him did not produce much effect upon the Musketeer, so
completely was his mind detached from the things of this world.

“Good day, dear D’Artagnan,” said Aramis; “believe me, I am glad to see
you.”

“So am I delighted to see you,” said D’Artagnan, “although I am not yet
sure that it is Aramis I am speaking to.”

“To himself, my friend, to himself! But what makes you doubt it?”

“I was afraid I had made a mistake in the chamber, and that I had found
my way into the apartment of some churchman. Then another error seized
me on seeing you in company with these gentlemen—I was afraid you were
dangerously ill.”

The two men in black, who guessed D’Artagnan’s meaning, darted at him a
glance which might have been thought threatening; but D’Artagnan took
no heed of it.

“I disturb you, perhaps, my dear Aramis,” continued D’Artagnan, “for by
what I see, I am led to believe that you are confessing to these
gentlemen.”

Aramis colored imperceptibly. “You disturb me? Oh, quite the contrary,
dear friend, I swear; and as a proof of what I say, permit me to
declare I am rejoiced to see you safe and sound.”

“Ah, he’ll come round,” thought D’Artagnan; “that’s not bad!”

“This gentleman, who is my friend, has just escaped from a serious
danger,” continued Aramis, with unction, pointing to D’Artagnan with
his hand, and addressing the two ecclesiastics.

“Praise God, monsieur,” replied they, bowing together.

“I have not failed to do so, your Reverences,” replied the young man,
returning their salutation.

“You arrive in good time, dear D’Artagnan,” said Aramis, “and by taking
part in our discussion may assist us with your intelligence. Monsieur
the Principal of Amiens, Monsieur the Curate of Montdidier, and I are
arguing certain theological questions in which we have been much
interested; I shall be delighted to have your opinion.”

“The opinion of a swordsman can have very little weight,” replied
D’Artagnan, who began to be uneasy at the turn things were taking, “and
you had better be satisfied, believe me, with the knowledge of these
gentlemen.”

The two men in black bowed in their turn.

“On the contrary,” replied Aramis, “your opinion will be very valuable.
The question is this: Monsieur the Principal thinks that my thesis
ought to be dogmatic and didactic.”

“Your thesis! Are you then making a thesis?”

“Without doubt,” replied the Jesuit. “In the examination which precedes
ordination, a thesis is always a requisite.”

“Ordination!” cried D’Artagnan, who could not believe what the hostess
and Bazin had successively told him; and he gazed, half stupefied, upon
the three persons before him.

“Now,” continued Aramis, taking the same graceful position in his easy
chair that he would have assumed in bed, and complacently examining his
hand, which was as white and plump as that of a woman, and which he
held in the air to cause the blood to descend, “now, as you have heard,
D’Artagnan, Monsieur the Principal is desirous that my thesis should be
dogmatic, while I, for my part, would rather it should be ideal. This
is the reason why Monsieur the Principal has proposed to me the
following subject, which has not yet been treated upon, and in which I
perceive there is matter for magnificent elaboration—‘_Utraque manus in
benedicendo clericis inferioribus necessaria est_.’”

D’Artagnan, whose erudition we are well acquainted with, evinced no
more interest on hearing this quotation than he had at that of M. de
Tréville in allusion to the gifts he pretended that D’Artagnan had
received from the Duke of Buckingham.

“Which means,” resumed Aramis, that he might perfectly understand,
“‘The two hands are indispensable for priests of the inferior orders,
when they bestow the benediction.’”

“An admirable subject!” cried the Jesuit.

“Admirable and dogmatic!” repeated the curate, who, about as strong as
D’Artagnan with respect to Latin, carefully watched the Jesuit in order
to keep step with him, and repeated his words like an echo.

As to D’Artagnan, he remained perfectly insensible to the enthusiasm of
the two men in black.

“Yes, admirable! _prorsus admirabile!_” continued Aramis; “but which
requires a profound study of both the Scriptures and the Fathers. Now,
I have confessed to these learned ecclesiastics, and that in all
humility, that the duties of mounting guard and the service of the king
have caused me to neglect study a little. I should find myself,
therefore, more at my ease, _facilius natans_, in a subject of my own
choice, which would be to these hard theological questions what morals
are to metaphysics in philosophy.”

D’Artagnan began to be tired, and so did the curate.

“See what an exordium!” cried the Jesuit.

“Exordium,” repeated the curate, for the sake of saying something.
“_Quemadmodum inter cœlorum immensitatem_.”

Aramis cast a glance upon D’Artagnan to see what effect all this
produced, and found his friend gaping enough to split his jaws.

“Let us speak French, my father,” said he to the Jesuit; “Monsieur
d’Artagnan will enjoy our conversation better.”

“Yes,” replied D’Artagnan; “I am fatigued with reading, and all this
Latin confuses me.”

“Certainly,” replied the Jesuit, a little put out, while the curate,
greatly delighted, turned upon D’Artagnan a look full of gratitude.
“Well, let us see what is to be derived from this gloss. Moses, the
servant of God—he was but a servant, please to understand—Moses blessed
with the hands; he held out both his arms while the Hebrews beat their
enemies, and then he blessed them with his two hands. Besides, what
does the Gospel say? _Imponite manus_, and not _manum_—place the
_hands_, not the _hand_.”

“Place the _hands_,” repeated the curate, with a gesture.

“St. Peter, on the contrary, of whom the Popes are the successors,”
continued the Jesuit; “_porrige digitos_—present the fingers. Are you
there, now?”

“_Certes_,” replied Aramis, in a pleased tone, “but the thing is
subtle.”

“The _fingers_,” resumed the Jesuit, “St. Peter blessed with the
_fingers_. The Pope, therefore blesses with the fingers. And with how
many fingers does he bless? With _three_ fingers, to be sure—one for
the Father, one for the Son, and one for the Holy Ghost.”

All crossed themselves. D’Artagnan thought it was proper to follow this
example.

“The Pope is the successor of St. Peter, and represents the three
divine powers; the rest—_ordines inferiores_—of the ecclesiastical
hierarchy bless in the name of the holy archangels and angels. The most
humble clerks such as our deacons and sacristans, bless with holy water
sprinklers, which resemble an infinite number of blessing fingers.
There is the subject simplified. _Argumentum omni denudatum ornamento_.
I could make of that subject two volumes the size of this,” continued
the Jesuit; and in his enthusiasm he struck a St. Chrysostom in folio,
which made the table bend beneath its weight.

D’Artagnan trembled.

“_Certes_,” said Aramis, “I do justice to the beauties of this thesis;
but at the same time I perceive it would be overwhelming for me. I had
chosen this text—tell me, dear D’Artagnan, if it is not to your
taste—‘_Non inutile est desiderium in oblatione_’; that is, ‘A little
regret is not unsuitable in an offering to the Lord.’”

“Stop there!” cried the Jesuit, “for that thesis touches closely upon
heresy. There is a proposition almost like it in the _Augustinus_ of
the heresiarch Jansenius, whose book will sooner or later be burned by
the hands of the executioner. Take care, my young friend. You are
inclining toward false doctrines, my young friend; you will be lost.”

“You will be lost,” said the curate, shaking his head sorrowfully.

“You approach that famous point of free will which is a mortal rock.
You face the insinuations of the Pelagians and the semi-Pelagians.”

“But, my Reverend—” replied Aramis, a little amazed by the shower of
arguments that poured upon his head.

“How will you prove,” continued the Jesuit, without allowing him time
to speak, “that we ought to regret the world when we offer ourselves to
God? Listen to this dilemma: God is God, and the world is the devil. To
regret the world is to regret the devil; that is my conclusion.”

“And that is mine also,” said the curate.

“But, for heaven’s sake—” resumed Aramis.

“_Desideras diabolum_, unhappy man!” cried the Jesuit.

“He regrets the devil! Ah, my young friend,” added the curate,
groaning, “do not regret the devil, I implore you!”

D’Artagnan felt himself bewildered. It seemed to him as though he were
in a madhouse, and was becoming as mad as those he saw. He was,
however, forced to hold his tongue from not comprehending half the
language they employed.

“But listen to me, then,” resumed Aramis with politeness mingled with a
little impatience. “I do not say I regret; no, I will never pronounce
that sentence, which would not be orthodox.”

The Jesuit raised his hands toward heaven, and the curate did the same.

“No; but pray grant me that it is acting with an ill grace to offer to
the Lord only that with which we are perfectly disgusted! Don’t you
think so, D’Artagnan?”

“I think so, indeed,” cried he.

The Jesuit and the curate quite started from their chairs.

“This is the point of departure; it is a syllogism. The world is not
wanting in attractions. I quit the world; then I make a sacrifice. Now,
the Scripture says positively, ‘Make a sacrifice unto the Lord.’”

“That is true,” said his antagonists.

“And then,” said Aramis, pinching his ear to make it red, as he rubbed
his hands to make them white, “and then I made a certain _rondeau_ upon
it last year, which I showed to Monsieur Voiture, and that great man
paid me a thousand compliments.”

“A _rondeau!_” said the Jesuit, disdainfully.

“A _rondeau!_” said the curate, mechanically.

“Repeat it! Repeat it!” cried D’Artagnan; “it will make a little
change.”

“Not so, for it is religious,” replied Aramis; “it is theology in
verse.”

“The devil!” said D’Artagnan.

“Here it is,” said Aramis, with a little look of diffidence, which,
however, was not exempt from a shade of hypocrisy:

“Vous qui pleurez un passé plein de charmes,
    Et qui trainez des jours infortunés,
    Tous vos malheurs se verront terminés,
Quand à Dieu seul vous offrirez vos larmes,
        Vous qui pleurez!”


“You who weep for pleasures fled,
    While dragging on a life of care,
    All your woes will melt in air,
If to God your tears are shed,
        You who weep!”


D’Artagnan and the curate appeared pleased. The Jesuit persisted in his
opinion. “Beware of a profane taste in your theological style. What
says Augustine on this subject: ‘_Severus sit clericorum verbo_.’”

“Yes, let the sermon be clear,” said the curate.

“Now,” hastily interrupted the Jesuit, on seeing that his acolyte was
going astray, “now your thesis would please the ladies; it would have
the success of one of Monsieur Patru’s pleadings.”

“Please God!” cried Aramis, transported.

“There it is,” cried the Jesuit; “the world still speaks within you in
a loud voice, _altisimâ voce_. You follow the world, my young friend,
and I tremble lest grace prove not efficacious.”

“Be satisfied, my reverend father, I can answer for myself.”

“Mundane presumption!”

“I know myself, Father; my resolution is irrevocable.”

“Then you persist in continuing that thesis?”

“I feel myself called upon to treat that, and no other. I will see
about the continuation of it, and tomorrow I hope you will be satisfied
with the corrections I shall have made in consequence of your advice.”

“Work slowly,” said the curate; “we leave you in an excellent tone of
mind.”

“Yes, the ground is all sown,” said the Jesuit, “and we have not to
fear that one portion of the seed may have fallen upon stone, another
upon the highway, or that the birds of heaven have eaten the rest,
_aves cœli comederunt illam_.”

“Plague stifle you and your Latin!” said D’Artagnan, who began to feel
all his patience exhausted.

“Farewell, my son,” said the curate, “till tomorrow.”

“Till tomorrow, rash youth,” said the Jesuit. “You promise to become
one of the lights of the Church. Heaven grant that this light prove not
a devouring fire!”

D’Artagnan, who for an hour past had been gnawing his nails with
impatience, was beginning to attack the quick.

The two men in black rose, bowed to Aramis and D’Artagnan, and advanced
toward the door. Bazin, who had been standing listening to all this
controversy with a pious jubilation, sprang toward them, took the
breviary of the curate and the missal of the Jesuit, and walked
respectfully before them to clear their way.

Aramis conducted them to the foot of the stairs, and then immediately
came up again to D’Artagnan, whose senses were still in a state of
confusion.

When left alone, the two friends at first kept an embarrassed silence.
It however became necessary for one of them to break it first, and as
D’Artagnan appeared determined to leave that honor to his companion,
Aramis said, “you see that I am returned to my fundamental ideas.”

“Yes, efficacious grace has touched you, as that gentleman said just
now.”

“Oh, these plans of retreat have been formed for a long time. You have
often heard me speak of them, have you not, my friend?”

“Yes; but I confess I always thought you jested.”

“With such things! Oh, D’Artagnan!”

“The devil! Why, people jest with death.”

“And people are wrong, D’Artagnan; for death is the door which leads to
perdition or to salvation.”

“Granted; but if you please, let us not theologize, Aramis. You must
have had enough for today. As for me, I have almost forgotten the
little Latin I have ever known. Then I confess to you that I have eaten
nothing since ten o’clock this morning, and I am devilish hungry.”

“We will dine directly, my friend; only you must please to remember
that this is Friday. Now, on such a day I can neither eat flesh nor see
it eaten. If you can be satisfied with my dinner—it consists of cooked
tetragones and fruits.”

“What do you mean by tetragones?” asked D’Artagnan, uneasily.

“I mean spinach,” replied Aramis; “but on your account I will add some
eggs, and that is a serious infraction of the rule—for eggs are meat,
since they engender chickens.”

“This feast is not very succulent; but never mind, I will put up with
it for the sake of remaining with you.”

“I am grateful to you for the sacrifice,” said Aramis; “but if your
body be not greatly benefited by it, be assured your soul will.”

“And so, Aramis, you are decidedly going into the Church? What will our
two friends say? What will Monsieur de Tréville say? They will treat
you as a deserter, I warn you.”

“I do not enter the Church; I re-enter it. I deserted the Church for
the world, for you know that I forced myself when I became a
Musketeer.”

“I? I know nothing about it.”

“You don’t know I quit the seminary?”

“Not at all.”

“This is my story, then. Besides, the Scriptures say, ‘Confess
yourselves to one another,’ and I confess to you, D’Artagnan.”

“And I give you absolution beforehand. You see I am a good sort of a
man.”

“Do not jest about holy things, my friend.”

“Go on, then, I listen.”

“I had been at the seminary from nine years old; in three days I should
have been twenty. I was about to become an abbé, and all was arranged.
One evening I went, according to custom, to a house which I frequented
with much pleasure: when one is young, what can be expected?—one is
weak. An officer who saw me, with a jealous eye, reading the _Lives of
the Saints_ to the mistress of the house, entered suddenly and without
being announced. That evening I had translated an episode of Judith,
and had just communicated my verses to the lady, who gave me all sorts
of compliments, and leaning on my shoulder, was reading them a second
time with me. Her pose, which I must admit was rather free, wounded
this officer. He said nothing; but when I went out he followed, and
quickly came up with me. ‘Monsieur the Abbé,’ said he, ‘do you like
blows with a cane?’ ‘I cannot say, monsieur,’ answered I; ‘no one has
ever dared to give me any.’ ‘Well, listen to me, then, Monsieur the
Abbé! If you venture again into the house in which I have met you this
evening, I will dare it myself.’ I really think I must have been
frightened. I became very pale; I felt my legs fail me; I sought for a
reply, but could find none—I was silent. The officer waited for his
reply, and seeing it so long coming, he burst into a laugh, turned upon
his heel, and re-entered the house. I returned to the seminary.

“I am a gentleman born, and my blood is warm, as you may have remarked,
my dear D’Artagnan. The insult was terrible, and although unknown to
the rest of the world, I felt it live and fester at the bottom of my
heart. I informed my superiors that I did not feel myself sufficiently
prepared for ordination, and at my request the ceremony was postponed
for a year. I sought out the best fencing master in Paris, I made an
agreement with him to take a lesson every day, and every day for a year
I took that lesson. Then, on the anniversary of the day on which I had
been insulted, I hung my cassock on a peg, assumed the costume of a
cavalier, and went to a ball given by a lady friend of mine and to
which I knew my man was invited. It was in the Rue des
France-Bourgeois, close to La Force. As I expected, my officer was
there. I went up to him as he was singing a love ditty and looking
tenderly at a lady, and interrupted him exactly in the middle of the
second couplet. ‘Monsieur,’ said I, ‘does it still displease you that I
should frequent a certain house of La Rue Payenne? And would you still
cane me if I took it into my head to disobey you? The officer looked at
me with astonishment, and then said, ‘What is your business with me,
monsieur? I do not know you.’ ‘I am,’ said I, ‘the little abbé who
reads _Lives of the Saints_, and translates Judith into verse.’ ‘Ah,
ah! I recollect now,’ said the officer, in a jeering tone; ‘well, what
do you want with me?’ ‘I want you to spare time to take a walk with
me.’ ‘Tomorrow morning, if you like, with the greatest pleasure.’ ‘No,
not tomorrow morning, if you please, but immediately.’ ‘If you
absolutely insist.’ ‘I do insist upon it.’ ‘Come, then. Ladies,’ said
the officer, ‘do not disturb yourselves; allow me time just to kill
this gentleman, and I will return and finish the last couplet.’

“We went out. I took him to the Rue Payenne, to exactly the same spot
where, a year before, at the very same hour, he had paid me the
compliment I have related to you. It was a superb moonlight night. We
immediately drew, and at the first pass I laid him stark dead.”

“The devil!” cried D’Artagnan.

“Now,” continued Aramis, “as the ladies did not see the singer come
back, and as he was found in the Rue Payenne with a great sword wound
through his body, it was supposed that I had accommodated him thus; and
the matter created some scandal which obliged me to renounce the
cassock for a time. Athos, whose acquaintance I made about that period,
and Porthos, who had in addition to my lessons taught me some effective
tricks of fence, prevailed upon me to solicit the uniform of a
Musketeer. The king entertained great regard for my father, who had
fallen at the siege of Arras, and the uniform was granted. You may
understand that the moment has come for me to re-enter the bosom of the
Church.”

“And why today, rather than yesterday or tomorrow? What has happened to
you today, to raise all these melancholy ideas?”

“This wound, my dear D’Artagnan, has been a warning to me from heaven.”

“This wound? Bah, it is now nearly healed, and I am sure it is not that
which gives you the most pain.”

“What, then?” said Aramis, blushing.

“You have one at heart, Aramis, one deeper and more painful—a wound
made by a woman.”

The eye of Aramis kindled in spite of himself.

“Ah,” said he, dissembling his emotion under a feigned carelessness,
“do not talk of such things, and suffer love pains? _Vanitas
vanitatum!_ According to your idea, then, my brain is turned. And for
whom—for some _grisette_, some chambermaid with whom I have trifled in
some garrison? Fie!”

“Pardon, my dear Aramis, but I thought you carried your eyes higher.”

“Higher? And who am I, to nourish such ambition? A poor Musketeer, a
beggar, an unknown—who hates slavery, and finds himself ill-placed in
the world.”

“Aramis, Aramis!” cried D’Artagnan, looking at his friend with an air
of doubt.

“Dust I am, and to dust I return. Life is full of humiliations and
sorrows,” continued he, becoming still more melancholy; “all the ties
which attach him to life break in the hand of man, particularly the
golden ties. Oh, my dear D’Artagnan,” resumed Aramis, giving to his
voice a slight tone of bitterness, “trust me! Conceal your wounds when
you have any; silence is the last joy of the unhappy. Beware of giving
anyone the clue to your griefs; the curious suck our tears as flies
suck the blood of a wounded hart.”

“Alas, my dear Aramis,” said D’Artagnan, in his turn heaving a profound
sigh, “that is my story you are relating!”

“How?”

“Yes; a woman whom I love, whom I adore, has just been torn from me by
force. I do not know where she is or whither they have conducted her.
She is perhaps a prisoner; she is perhaps dead!”

“Yes, but you have at least this consolation, that you can say to
yourself she has not quit you voluntarily, that if you learn no news of
her, it is because all communication with you is interdicted; while I—”

“Well?”

“Nothing,” replied Aramis, “nothing.”

“So you renounce the world, then, forever; that is a settled thing—a
resolution registered!”

“Forever! You are my friend today; tomorrow you will be no more to me
than a shadow, or rather, even, you will no longer exist. As for the
world, it is a sepulcher and nothing else.”

“The devil! All this is very sad which you tell me.”

“What will you? My vocation commands me; it carries me away.”

D’Artagnan smiled, but made no answer.

Aramis continued, “And yet, while I do belong to the earth, I wish to
speak of you—of our friends.”

“And on my part,” said D’Artagnan, “I wished to speak of you, but I
find you so completely detached from everything! To love you cry, ‘Fie!
Friends are shadows! The world is a sepulcher!’”

“Alas, you will find it so yourself,” said Aramis, with a sigh.

“Well, then, let us say no more about it,” said D’Artagnan; “and let us
burn this letter, which, no doubt, announces to you some fresh
infidelity of your _grisette_ or your chambermaid.”

“What letter?” cried Aramis, eagerly.

“A letter which was sent to your abode in your absence, and which was
given to me for you.”

“But from whom is that letter?”

“Oh, from some heartbroken waiting woman, some desponding _grisette;_
from Madame de Chevreuse’s chambermaid, perhaps, who was obliged to
return to Tours with her mistress, and who, in order to appear smart
and attractive, stole some perfumed paper, and sealed her letter with a
duchess’s coronet.”

“What do you say?”

“Hold! I must have lost it,” said the young man maliciously, pretending
to search for it. “But fortunately the world is a sepulcher; the men,
and consequently the women, are but shadows, and love is a sentiment to
which you cry, ‘Fie! Fie!’”

“D’Artagnan, D’Artagnan,” cried Aramis, “you are killing me!”

“Well, here it is at last!” said D’Artagnan, as he drew the letter from
his pocket.

Aramis made a bound, seized the letter, read it, or rather devoured it,
his countenance radiant.

“This same waiting maid seems to have an agreeable style,” said the
messenger, carelessly.

“Thanks, D’Artagnan, thanks!” cried Aramis, almost in a state of
delirium. “She was forced to return to Tours; she is not faithless; she
still loves me! Come, my friend, come, let me embrace you. Happiness
almost stifles me!”

The two friends began to dance around the venerable St. Chrysostom,
kicking about famously the sheets of the thesis, which had fallen on
the floor.

At that moment Bazin entered with the spinach and the omelet.

“Be off, you wretch!” cried Aramis, throwing his skullcap in his face.
“Return whence you came; take back those horrible vegetables, and that
poor kickshaw! Order a larded hare, a fat capon, mutton leg dressed
with garlic, and four bottles of old Burgundy.”

Bazin, who looked at his master, without comprehending the cause of
this change, in a melancholy manner, allowed the omelet to slip into
the spinach, and the spinach onto the floor.

“Now this is the moment to consecrate your existence to the King of
kings,” said D’Artagnan, “if you persist in offering him a civility.
_Non inutile desiderium oblatione_.”

“Go to the devil with your Latin. Let us drink, my dear D’Artagnan,
_morbleu!_ Let us drink while the wine is fresh! Let us drink heartily,
and while we do so, tell me a little of what is going on in the world
yonder.”




Chapter XXVII.
THE WIFE OF ATHOS


We have now to search for Athos,” said D’Artagnan to the vivacious
Aramis, when he had informed him of all that had passed since their
departure from the capital, and an excellent dinner had made one of
them forget his thesis and the other his fatigue.

“Do you think, then, that any harm can have happened to him?” asked
Aramis. “Athos is so cool, so brave, and handles his sword so
skillfully.”

“No doubt. Nobody has a higher opinion of the courage and skill of
Athos than I have; but I like better to hear my sword clang against
lances than against staves. I fear lest Athos should have been beaten
down by serving men. Those fellows strike hard, and don’t leave off in
a hurry. This is why I wish to set out again as soon as possible.”

“I will try to accompany you,” said Aramis, “though I scarcely feel in
a condition to mount on horseback. Yesterday I undertook to employ that
cord which you see hanging against the wall, but pain prevented my
continuing the pious exercise.”

“That’s the first time I ever heard of anybody trying to cure gunshot
wounds with cat-o’-nine-tails; but you were ill, and illness renders
the head weak, therefore you may be excused.”

“When do you mean to set out?”

“Tomorrow at daybreak. Sleep as soundly as you can tonight, and
tomorrow, if you can, we will take our departure together.”

“Till tomorrow, then,” said Aramis; “for iron-nerved as you are, you
must need repose.”

The next morning, when D’Artagnan entered Aramis’s chamber, he found
him at the window.

“What are you looking at?” asked D’Artagnan.

“My faith! I am admiring three magnificent horses which the stable boys
are leading about. It would be a pleasure worthy of a prince to travel
upon such horses.”

“Well, my dear Aramis, you may enjoy that pleasure, for one of those
three horses is yours.”

“Ah, bah! Which?”

“Whichever of the three you like, I have no preference.”

“And the rich caparison, is that mine, too?”

“Without doubt.”

“You laugh, D’Artagnan.”

“No, I have left off laughing, now that you speak French.”

“What, those rich holsters, that velvet housing, that saddle studded
with silver—are they all for me?”

“For you and nobody else, as the horse which paws the ground is mine,
and the other horse, which is caracoling, belongs to Athos.”

“_Peste!_ They are three superb animals!”

“I am glad they please you.”

“Why, it must have been the king who made you such a present.”

“Certainly it was not the cardinal; but don’t trouble yourself whence
they come, think only that one of the three is your property.”

“I choose that which the red-headed boy is leading.”

“It is yours!”

“Good heaven! That is enough to drive away all my pains; I could mount
him with thirty balls in my body. On my soul, handsome stirrups!
_Holà_, Bazin, come here this minute.”

Bazin appeared on the threshold, dull and spiritless.

“That last order is useless,” interrupted D’Artagnan; “there are loaded
pistols in your holsters.”

Bazin sighed.

“Come, Monsieur Bazin, make yourself easy,” said D’Artagnan; “people of
all conditions gain the kingdom of heaven.”

“Monsieur was already such a good theologian,” said Bazin, almost
weeping; “he might have become a bishop, and perhaps a cardinal.”

“Well, but my poor Bazin, reflect a little. Of what use is it to be a
churchman, pray? You do not avoid going to war by that means; you see,
the cardinal is about to make the next campaign, helm on head and
partisan in hand. And Monsieur de Nogaret de la Valette, what do you
say of him? He is a cardinal likewise. Ask his lackey how often he has
had to prepare lint of him.”

“Alas!” sighed Bazin. “I know it, monsieur; everything is turned
topsy-turvy in the world nowadays.”

While this dialogue was going on, the two young men and the poor lackey
descended.

“Hold my stirrup, Bazin,” cried Aramis; and Aramis sprang into the
saddle with his usual grace and agility, but after a few vaults and
curvets of the noble animal his rider felt his pains come on so
insupportably that he turned pale and became unsteady in his seat.
D’Artagnan, who, foreseeing such an event, had kept his eye on him,
sprang toward him, caught him in his arms, and assisted him to his
chamber.

“That’s all right, my dear Aramis, take care of yourself,” said he; “I
will go alone in search of Athos.”

“You are a man of brass,” replied Aramis.

“No, I have good luck, that is all. But how do you mean to pass your
time till I come back? No more theses, no more glosses upon the fingers
or upon benedictions, hey?”

Aramis smiled. “I will make verses,” said he.

“Yes, I dare say; verses perfumed with the odor of the billet from the
attendant of Madame de Chevreuse. Teach Bazin prosody; that will
console him. As to the horse, ride him a little every day, and that
will accustom you to his maneuvers.”

“Oh, make yourself easy on that head,” replied Aramis. “You will find
me ready to follow you.”

They took leave of each other, and in ten minutes, after having
commended his friend to the cares of the hostess and Bazin, D’Artagnan
was trotting along in the direction of Amiens.

How was he going to find Athos? Should he find him at all? The position
in which he had left him was critical. He probably had succumbed. This
idea, while darkening his brow, drew several sighs from him, and caused
him to formulate to himself a few vows of vengeance. Of all his
friends, Athos was the eldest, and the least resembling him in
appearance, in his tastes and sympathies.

Yet he entertained a marked preference for this gentleman. The noble
and distinguished air of Athos, those flashes of greatness which from
time to time broke out from the shade in which he voluntarily kept
himself, that unalterable equality of temper which made him the most
pleasant companion in the world, that forced and cynical gaiety, that
bravery which might have been termed blind if it had not been the
result of the rarest coolness—such qualities attracted more than the
esteem, more than the friendship of D’Artagnan; they attracted his
admiration.

Indeed, when placed beside M. de Tréville, the elegant and noble
courtier, Athos in his most cheerful days might advantageously sustain
a comparison. He was of middle height; but his person was so admirably
shaped and so well proportioned that more than once in his struggles
with Porthos he had overcome the giant whose physical strength was
proverbial among the Musketeers. His head, with piercing eyes, a
straight nose, a chin cut like that of Brutus, had altogether an
indefinable character of grandeur and grace. His hands, of which he
took little care, were the despair of Aramis, who cultivated his with
almond paste and perfumed oil. The sound of his voice was at once
penetrating and melodious; and then, that which was inconceivable in
Athos, who was always retiring, was that delicate knowledge of the
world and of the usages of the most brilliant society—those manners of
a high degree which appeared, as if unconsciously to himself, in his
least actions.

If a repast were on foot, Athos presided over it better than any other,
placing every guest exactly in the rank which his ancestors had earned
for him or that he had made for himself. If a question in heraldry were
started, Athos knew all the noble families of the kingdom, their
genealogy, their alliances, their coats of arms, and the origin of
them. Etiquette had no minutiæ unknown to him. He knew what were the
rights of the great land owners. He was profoundly versed in hunting
and falconry, and had one day when conversing on this great art
astonished even Louis XIII. himself, who took a pride in being
considered a past master therein.

Like all the great nobles of that period, Athos rode and fenced to
perfection. But still further, his education had been so little
neglected, even with respect to scholastic studies, so rare at this
time among gentlemen, that he smiled at the scraps of Latin which
Aramis sported and which Porthos pretended to understand. Two or three
times, even, to the great astonishment of his friends, he had, when
Aramis allowed some rudimental error to escape him, replaced a verb in
its right tense and a noun in its case. Besides, his probity was
irreproachable, in an age in which soldiers compromised so easily with
their religion and their consciences, lovers with the rigorous delicacy
of our era, and the poor with God’s Seventh Commandment. This Athos,
then, was a very extraordinary man.

And yet this nature so distinguished, this creature so beautiful, this
essence so fine, was seen to turn insensibly toward material life, as
old men turn toward physical and moral imbecility. Athos, in his hours
of gloom—and these hours were frequent—was extinguished as to the whole
of the luminous portion of him, and his brilliant side disappeared as
into profound darkness.

Then the demigod vanished; he remained scarcely a man. His head hanging
down, his eye dull, his speech slow and painful, Athos would look for
hours together at his bottle, his glass, or at Grimaud, who, accustomed
to obey him by signs, read in the faint glance of his master his least
desire, and satisfied it immediately. If the four friends were
assembled at one of these moments, a word, thrown forth occasionally
with a violent effort, was the share Athos furnished to the
conversation. In exchange for his silence Athos drank enough for four,
and without appearing to be otherwise affected by wine than by a more
marked constriction of the brow and by a deeper sadness.

D’Artagnan, whose inquiring disposition we are acquainted with, had
not—whatever interest he had in satisfying his curiosity on this
subject—been able to assign any cause for these fits, or for the
periods of their recurrence. Athos never received any letters; Athos
never had concerns which all his friends did not know.

It could not be said that it was wine which produced this sadness; for
in truth he only drank to combat this sadness, which wine however, as
we have said, rendered still darker. This excess of bilious humor could
not be attributed to play; for unlike Porthos, who accompanied the
variations of chance with songs or oaths, Athos when he won remained as
unmoved as when he lost. He had been known, in the circle of the
Musketeers, to win in one night three thousand pistoles; to lose them
even to the gold-embroidered belt for gala days, win all this again
with the addition of a hundred louis, without his beautiful eyebrow
being heightened or lowered half a line, without his hands losing their
pearly hue, without his conversation, which was cheerful that evening,
ceasing to be calm and agreeable.

Neither was it, as with our neighbors, the English, an atmospheric
influence which darkened his countenance; for the sadness generally
became more intense toward the fine season of the year. June and July
were the terrible months with Athos.

For the present he had no anxiety. He shrugged his shoulders when
people spoke of the future. His secret, then, was in the past, as had
often been vaguely said to D’Artagnan.

This mysterious shade, spread over his whole person, rendered still
more interesting the man whose eyes or mouth, even in the most complete
intoxication, had never revealed anything, however skillfully questions
had been put to him.

“Well,” thought D’Artagnan, “poor Athos is perhaps at this moment dead,
and dead by my fault—for it was I who dragged him into this affair, of
which he did not know the origin, of which he is ignorant of the
result, and from which he can derive no advantage.”

“Without reckoning, monsieur,” added Planchet to his master’s audibly
expressed reflections, “that we perhaps owe our lives to him. Do you
remember how he cried, ‘On, D’Artagnan, on, I am taken’? And when he
had discharged his two pistols, what a terrible noise he made with his
sword! One might have said that twenty men, or rather twenty mad
devils, were fighting.”

These words redoubled the eagerness of D’Artagnan, who urged his horse,
though he stood in need of no incitement, and they proceeded at a rapid
pace. About eleven o’clock in the morning they perceived Amiens, and at
half past eleven they were at the door of the cursed inn.

D’Artagnan had often meditated against the perfidious host one of those
hearty vengeances which offer consolation while they are hoped for. He
entered the hostelry with his hat pulled over his eyes, his left hand
on the pommel of the sword, and cracking his whip with his right hand.

“Do you remember me?” said he to the host, who advanced to greet him.

“I have not that honor, monseigneur,” replied the latter, his eyes
dazzled by the brilliant style in which D’Artagnan traveled.

“What, you don’t know me?”

“No, monseigneur.”

“Well, two words will refresh your memory. What have you done with that
gentleman against whom you had the audacity, about twelve days ago, to
make an accusation of passing false money?”

The host became as pale as death; for D’Artagnan had assumed a
threatening attitude, and Planchet modeled himself after his master.

“Ah, monseigneur, do not mention it!” cried the host, in the most
pitiable voice imaginable. “Ah, monseigneur, how dearly have I paid for
that fault, unhappy wretch as I am!”

“That gentleman, I say, what has become of him?”

“Deign to listen to me, monseigneur, and be merciful! Sit down, in
mercy!”

D’Artagnan, mute with anger and anxiety, took a seat in the threatening
attitude of a judge. Planchet glared fiercely over the back of his
armchair.

“Here is the story, monseigneur,” resumed the trembling host; “for I
now recollect you. It was you who rode off at the moment I had that
unfortunate difference with the gentleman you speak of.”

“Yes, it was I; so you may plainly perceive that you have no mercy to
expect if you do not tell me the whole truth.”

“Condescend to listen to me, and you shall know all.”

“I listen.”

“I had been warned by the authorities that a celebrated coiner of bad
money would arrive at my inn, with several of his companions, all
disguised as Guards or Musketeers. Monseigneur, I was furnished with a
description of your horses, your lackeys, your countenances—nothing was
omitted.”

“Go on, go on!” said D’Artagnan, who quickly understood whence such an
exact description had come.

“I took then, in conformity with the orders of the authorities, who
sent me a reinforcement of six men, such measures as I thought
necessary to get possession of the persons of the pretended coiners.”

“Again!” said D’Artagnan, whose ears chafed terribly under the
repetition of this word _coiners_.

“Pardon me, monseigneur, for saying such things, but they form my
excuse. The authorities had terrified me, and you know that an
innkeeper must keep on good terms with the authorities.”

“But once again, that gentleman—where is he? What has become of him? Is
he dead? Is he living?”

“Patience, monseigneur, we are coming to it. There happened then that
which you know, and of which your precipitate departure,” added the
host, with an acuteness that did not escape D’Artagnan, “appeared to
authorize the issue. That gentleman, your friend, defended himself
desperately. His lackey, who, by an unforeseen piece of ill luck, had
quarreled with the officers, disguised as stable lads—”

“Miserable scoundrel!” cried D’Artagnan, “you were all in the plot,
then! And I really don’t know what prevents me from exterminating you
all.”

“Alas, monseigneur, we were not in the plot, as you will soon see.
Monsieur your friend (pardon for not calling him by the honorable name
which no doubt he bears, but we do not know that name), Monsieur your
friend, having disabled two men with his pistols, retreated fighting
with his sword, with which he disabled one of my men, and stunned me
with a blow of the flat side of it.”

“You villain, will you finish?” cried D’Artagnan, “Athos—what has
become of Athos?”

“While fighting and retreating, as I have told Monseigneur, he found
the door of the cellar stairs behind him, and as the door was open, he
took out the key, and barricaded himself inside. As we were sure of
finding him there, we left him alone.”

“Yes,” said D’Artagnan, “you did not really wish to kill; you only
wished to imprison him.”

“Good God! To imprison him, monseigneur? Why, he imprisoned himself, I
swear to you he did. In the first place he had made rough work of it;
one man was killed on the spot, and two others were severely wounded.
The dead man and the two wounded were carried off by their comrades,
and I have heard nothing of either of them since. As for myself, as
soon as I recovered my senses I went to Monsieur the Governor, to whom
I related all that had passed, and asked, what I should do with my
prisoner. Monsieur the Governor was all astonishment. He told me he
knew nothing about the matter, that the orders I had received did not
come from him, and that if I had the audacity to mention his name as
being concerned in this disturbance he would have me hanged. It appears
that I had made a mistake, monsieur, that I had arrested the wrong
person, and that he whom I ought to have arrested had escaped.”

“But Athos!” cried D’Artagnan, whose impatience was increased by the
disregard of the authorities, “Athos, where is he?”

“As I was anxious to repair the wrongs I had done the prisoner,”
resumed the innkeeper, “I took my way straight to the cellar in order
to set him at liberty. Ah, monsieur, he was no longer a man, he was a
devil! To my offer of liberty, he replied that it was nothing but a
snare, and that before he came out he intended to impose his own
conditions. I told him very humbly—for I could not conceal from myself
the scrape I had got into by laying hands on one of his Majesty’s
Musketeers—I told him I was quite ready to submit to his conditions.

“‘In the first place,’ said he, ‘I wish my lackey placed with me, fully
armed.’ We hastened to obey this order; for you will please to
understand, monsieur, we were disposed to do everything your friend
could desire. Monsieur Grimaud (he told us his name, although he does
not talk much)—Monsieur Grimaud, then, went down to the cellar, wounded
as he was; then his master, having admitted him, barricaded the door
afresh, and ordered us to remain quietly in our own bar.”

“But where is Athos now?” cried D’Artagnan. “Where is Athos?”

“In the cellar, monsieur.”

“What, you scoundrel! Have you kept him in the cellar all this time?”

“Merciful heaven! No, monsieur! We keep him in the cellar! You do not
know what he is about in the cellar. Ah! If you could but persuade him
to come out, monsieur, I should owe you the gratitude of my whole life;
I should adore you as my patron saint!”

“Then he is there? I shall find him there?”

“Without doubt you will, monsieur; he persists in remaining there. We
every day pass through the air hole some bread at the end of a fork,
and some meat when he asks for it; but alas! It is not of bread and
meat of which he makes the greatest consumption. I once endeavored to
go down with two of my servants; but he flew into terrible rage. I
heard the noise he made in loading his pistols, and his servant in
loading his musketoon. Then, when we asked them what were their
intentions, the master replied that he had forty charges to fire, and
that he and his lackey would fire to the last one before he would allow
a single soul of us to set foot in the cellar. Upon this I went and
complained to the governor, who replied that I only had what I
deserved, and that it would teach me to insult honorable gentlemen who
took up their abode in my house.”

“So that since that time—” replied D’Artagnan, totally unable to
refrain from laughing at the pitiable face of the host.

“So from that time, monsieur,” continued the latter, “we have led the
most miserable life imaginable; for you must know, monsieur, that all
our provisions are in the cellar. There is our wine in bottles, and our
wine in casks; the beer, the oil, and the spices, the bacon, and
sausages. And as we are prevented from going down there, we are forced
to refuse food and drink to the travelers who come to the house; so
that our hostelry is daily going to ruin. If your friend remains
another week in my cellar I shall be a ruined man.”

“And not more than justice, either, you ass! Could you not perceive by
our appearance that we were people of quality, and not coiners—say?”

“Yes, monsieur, you are right,” said the host. “But, hark, hark! There
he is!”

“Somebody has disturbed him, without doubt,” said D’Artagnan.

“But he must be disturbed,” cried the host; “Here are two English
gentlemen just arrived.”

“Well?”

“Well, the English like good wine, as you may know, monsieur; these
have asked for the best. My wife has perhaps requested permission of
Monsieur Athos to go into the cellar to satisfy these gentlemen; and
he, as usual, has refused. Ah, good heaven! There is the hullabaloo
louder than ever!”

D’Artagnan, in fact, heard a great noise on the side next the cellar.
He rose, and preceded by the host wringing his hands, and followed by
Planchet with his musketoon ready for use, he approached the scene of
action.

The two gentlemen were exasperated; they had had a long ride, and were
dying with hunger and thirst.

“But this is tyranny!” cried one of them, in very good French, though
with a foreign accent, “that this madman will not allow these good
people access to their own wine! Nonsense, let us break open the door,
and if he is too far gone in his madness, well, we will kill him!”

“Softly, gentlemen!” said D’Artagnan, drawing his pistols from his
belt, “you will kill nobody, if you please!”

“Good, good!” cried the calm voice of Athos, from the other side of the
door, “let them just come in, these devourers of little children, and
we shall see!”

Brave as they appeared to be, the two English gentlemen looked at each
other hesitatingly. One might have thought there was in that cellar one
of those famished ogres—the gigantic heroes of popular legends, into
whose cavern nobody could force their way with impunity.

There was a moment of silence; but at length the two Englishmen felt
ashamed to draw back, and the angrier one descended the five or six
steps which led to the cellar, and gave a kick against the door enough
to split a wall.

“Planchet,” said D’Artagnan, cocking his pistols, “I will take charge
of the one at the top; you look to the one below. Ah, gentlemen, you
want battle; and you shall have it.”

“Good God!” cried the hollow voice of Athos, “I can hear D’Artagnan, I
think.”

“Yes,” cried D’Artagnan, raising his voice in turn, “I am here, my
friend.”

“Ah, good, then,” replied Athos, “we will teach them, these door
breakers!”

The gentlemen had drawn their swords, but they found themselves taken
between two fires. They still hesitated an instant; but, as before,
pride prevailed, and a second kick split the door from bottom to top.

“Stand on one side, D’Artagnan, stand on one side,” cried Athos. “I am
going to fire!”

“Gentlemen,” exclaimed D’Artagnan, whom reflection never abandoned,
“gentlemen, think of what you are about. Patience, Athos! You are
running your heads into a very silly affair; you will be riddled. My
lackey and I will have three shots at you, and you will get as many
from the cellar. You will then have our swords, with which, I can
assure you, my friend and I can play tolerably well. Let me conduct
your business and my own. You shall soon have something to drink; I
give you my word.”

“If there is any left,” grumbled the jeering voice of Athos.

The host felt a cold sweat creep down his back.

“How! ‘If there is any left!’” murmured he.

“What the devil! There must be plenty left,” replied D’Artagnan. “Be
satisfied of that; these two cannot have drunk all the cellar.
Gentlemen, return your swords to their scabbards.”

“Well, provided you replace your pistols in your belt.”

“Willingly.”

And D’Artagnan set the example. Then, turning toward Planchet, he made
him a sign to uncock his musketoon.

The Englishmen, convinced of these peaceful proceedings, sheathed their
swords grumblingly. The history of Athos’s imprisonment was then
related to them; and as they were really gentlemen, they pronounced the
host in the wrong.

“Now, gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, “go up to your room again; and in
ten minutes, I will answer for it, you shall have all you desire.”

The Englishmen bowed and went upstairs.

“Now I am alone, my dear Athos,” said D’Artagnan; “open the door, I beg
of you.”

“Instantly,” said Athos.

Then was heard a great noise of fagots being removed and of the
groaning of posts; these were the counterscarps and bastions of Athos,
which the besieged himself demolished.

An instant after, the broken door was removed, and the pale face of
Athos appeared, who with a rapid glance took a survey of the
surroundings.

D’Artagnan threw himself on his neck and embraced him tenderly. He then
tried to draw him from his moist abode, but to his surprise he
perceived that Athos staggered.

“You are wounded,” said he.

“I! Not at all. I am dead drunk, that’s all, and never did a man more
strongly set about getting so. By the Lord, my good host! I must at
least have drunk for my part a hundred and fifty bottles.”

“Mercy!” cried the host, “if the lackey has drunk only half as much as
the master, I am a ruined man.”

“Grimaud is a well-bred lackey. He would never think of faring in the
same manner as his master; he only drank from the cask. Hark! I don’t
think he put the faucet in again. Do you hear it? It is running now.”

D’Artagnan burst into a laugh which changed the shiver of the host into
a burning fever.

In the meantime, Grimaud appeared in his turn behind his master, with
the musketoon on his shoulder, and his head shaking. Like one of those
drunken satyrs in the pictures of Rubens. He was moistened before and
behind with a greasy liquid which the host recognized as his best olive
oil.

The four crossed the public room and proceeded to take possession of
the best apartment in the house, which D’Artagnan occupied with
authority.

In the meantime the host and his wife hurried down with lamps into the
cellar, which had so long been interdicted to them and where a
frightful spectacle awaited them.

Beyond the fortifications through which Athos had made a breach in
order to get out, and which were composed of fagots, planks, and empty
casks, heaped up according to all the rules of the strategic art, they
found, swimming in puddles of oil and wine, the bones and fragments of
all the hams they had eaten; while a heap of broken bottles filled the
whole left-hand corner of the cellar, and a tun, the cock of which was
left running, was yielding, by this means, the last drop of its blood.
“The image of devastation and death,” as the ancient poet says,
“reigned as over a field of battle.”

Of fifty large sausages, suspended from the joists, scarcely ten
remained.

Then the lamentations of the host and hostess pierced the vault of the
cellar. D’Artagnan himself was moved by them. Athos did not even turn
his head.

To grief succeeded rage. The host armed himself with a spit, and rushed
into the chamber occupied by the two friends.

“Some wine!” said Athos, on perceiving the host.

“Some wine!” cried the stupefied host, “some wine? Why you have drunk
more than a hundred pistoles’ worth! I am a ruined man, lost,
destroyed!”

“Bah,” said Athos, “we were always dry.”

“If you had been contented with drinking, well and good; but you have
broken all the bottles.”

“You pushed me upon a heap which rolled down. That was your fault.”

“All my oil is lost!”

“Oil is a sovereign balm for wounds; and my poor Grimaud here was
obliged to dress those you had inflicted on him.”

“All my sausages are gnawed!”

“There is an enormous quantity of rats in that cellar.”

“You shall pay me for all this,” cried the exasperated host.

“Triple ass!” said Athos, rising; but he sank down again immediately.
He had tried his strength to the utmost. D’Artagnan came to his relief
with his whip in his hand.

The host drew back and burst into tears.

“This will teach you,” said D’Artagnan, “to treat the guests God sends
you in a more courteous fashion.”

“God? Say the devil!”

“My dear friend,” said D’Artagnan, “if you annoy us in this manner we
will all four go and shut ourselves up in your cellar, and we will see
if the mischief is as great as you say.”

“Oh, gentlemen,” said the host, “I have been wrong. I confess it, but
pardon to every sin! You are gentlemen, and I am a poor innkeeper. You
will have pity on me.”

“Ah, if you speak in that way,” said Athos, “you will break my heart,
and the tears will flow from my eyes as the wine flowed from the cask.
We are not such devils as we appear to be. Come hither, and let us
talk.”

The host approached with hesitation.

“Come hither, I say, and don’t be afraid,” continued Athos. “At the
very moment when I was about to pay you, I had placed my purse on the
table.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“That purse contained sixty pistoles; where is it?”

“Deposited with the justice; they said it was bad money.”

“Very well; get me my purse back and keep the sixty pistoles.”

“But Monseigneur knows very well that justice never lets go that which
it once lays hold of. If it were bad money, there might be some hopes;
but unfortunately, those were all good pieces.”

“Manage the matter as well as you can, my good man; it does not concern
me, the more so as I have not a livre left.”

“Come,” said D’Artagnan, “let us inquire further. Athos’s horse, where
is that?”

“In the stable.”

“How much is it worth?”

“Fifty pistoles at most.”

“It’s worth eighty. Take it, and there ends the matter.”

“What,” cried Athos, “are you selling my horse—my Bajazet? And pray
upon what shall I make my campaign; upon Grimaud?”

“I have brought you another,” said D’Artagnan.

“Another?”

“And a magnificent one!” cried the host.

“Well, since there is another finer and younger, why, you may take the
old one; and let us drink.”

“What?” asked the host, quite cheerful again.

“Some of that at the bottom, near the laths. There are twenty-five
bottles of it left; all the rest were broken by my fall. Bring six of
them.”

“Why, this man is a cask!” said the host, aside. “If he only remains
here a fortnight, and pays for what he drinks, I shall soon
re-establish my business.”

“And don’t forget,” said D’Artagnan, “to bring up four bottles of the
same sort for the two English gentlemen.”

“And now,” said Athos, “while they bring the wine, tell me, D’Artagnan,
what has become of the others, come!”

D’Artagnan related how he had found Porthos in bed with a strained
knee, and Aramis at a table between two theologians. As he finished,
the host entered with the wine ordered and a ham which, fortunately for
him, had been left out of the cellar.

“That’s well!” said Athos, filling his glass and that of his friend;
“here’s to Porthos and Aramis! But you, D’Artagnan, what is the matter
with you, and what has happened to you personally? You have a sad air.”

“Alas,” said D’Artagnan, “it is because I am the most unfortunate.”

“Tell me.”

“Presently,” said D’Artagnan.

“Presently! And why presently? Because you think I am drunk?
D’Artagnan, remember this! My ideas are never so clear as when I have
had plenty of wine. Speak, then, I am all ears.”

D’Artagnan related his adventure with Mme. Bonacieux. Athos listened to
him without a frown; and when he had finished, said, “Trifles, only
trifles!” That was his favorite word.

“You always say _trifles_, my dear Athos!” said D’Artagnan, “and that
comes very ill from you, who have never loved.”

The drink-deadened eye of Athos flashed out, but only for a moment; it
became as dull and vacant as before.

“That’s true,” said he, quietly, “for my part I have never loved.”

“Acknowledge, then, you stony heart,” said D’Artagnan, “that you are
wrong to be so hard upon us tender hearts.”

“Tender hearts! Pierced hearts!” said Athos.

“What do you say?”

“I say that love is a lottery in which he who wins, wins death! You are
very fortunate to have lost, believe me, my dear D’Artagnan. And if I
have any counsel to give, it is, always lose!”

“She seemed to love me so!”

“She _seemed_, did she?”

“Oh, she _did_ love me!”

“You child, why, there is not a man who has not believed, as you do,
that his mistress loved him, and there lives not a man who has not been
deceived by his mistress.”

“Except you, Athos, who never had one.”

“That’s true,” said Athos, after a moment’s silence, “that’s true! I
never had one! Let us drink!”

“But then, philosopher that you are,” said D’Artagnan, “instruct me,
support me. I stand in need of being taught and consoled.”

“Consoled for what?”

“For my misfortune.”

“Your misfortune is laughable,” said Athos, shrugging his shoulders; “I
should like to know what you would say if I were to relate to you a
real tale of love!”

“Which has happened to you?”

“Or one of my friends, what matters?”

“Tell it, Athos, tell it.”

“Better if I drink.”

“Drink and relate, then.”

“Not a bad idea!” said Athos, emptying and refilling his glass. “The
two things agree marvelously well.”

“I am all attention,” said D’Artagnan.

Athos collected himself, and in proportion as he did so, D’Artagnan saw
that he became pale. He was at that period of intoxication in which
vulgar drinkers fall on the floor and go to sleep. He kept himself
upright and dreamed, without sleeping. This somnambulism of drunkenness
had something frightful in it.

“You particularly wish it?” asked he.

“I pray for it,” said D’Artagnan.

“Be it then as you desire. One of my friends—one of my friends, please
to observe, not myself,” said Athos, interrupting himself with a
melancholy smile, “one of the counts of my province—that is to say, of
Berry—noble as a Dandolo or a Montmorency, at twenty-five years of age
fell in love with a girl of sixteen, beautiful as fancy can paint.
Through the ingenuousness of her age beamed an ardent mind, not of the
woman, but of the poet. She did not please; she intoxicated. She lived
in a small town with her brother, who was a curate. Both had recently
come into the country. They came nobody knew whence; but when seeing
her so lovely and her brother so pious, nobody thought of asking whence
they came. They were said, however, to be of good extraction. My
friend, who was seigneur of the country, might have seduced her, or
taken her by force, at his will—for he was master. Who would have come
to the assistance of two strangers, two unknown persons? Unfortunately
he was an honorable man; he married her. The fool! The ass! The idiot!”

“How so, if he loved her?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Wait,” said Athos. “He took her to his château, and made her the first
lady in the province; and in justice it must be allowed that she
supported her rank becomingly.”

“Well?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Well, one day when she was hunting with her husband,” continued Athos,
in a low voice, and speaking very quickly, “she fell from her horse and
fainted. The count flew to her to help, and as she appeared to be
oppressed by her clothes, he ripped them open with his poniard, and in
so doing laid bare her shoulder. D’Artagnan,” said Athos, with a
maniacal burst of laughter, “guess what she had on her shoulder.”

“How can I tell?” said D’Artagnan.

“A _fleur-de-lis_,” said Athos. “She was branded.”

Athos emptied at a single draught the glass he held in his hand.

“Horror!” cried D’Artagnan. “What do you tell me?”

“Truth, my friend. The angel was a demon; the poor young girl had
stolen the sacred vessels from a church.”

“And what did the count do?”

“The count was of the highest nobility. He had on his estates the
rights of high and low tribunals. He tore the dress of the countess to
pieces; he tied her hands behind her, and hanged her on a tree.”

“Heavens, Athos, a murder?” cried D’Artagnan.

“No less,” said Athos, as pale as a corpse. “But methinks I need wine!”
and he seized by the neck the last bottle that was left, put it to his
mouth, and emptied it at a single draught, as he would have emptied an
ordinary glass.

Then he let his head sink upon his two hands, while D’Artagnan stood
before him, stupefied.

“That has cured me of beautiful, poetical, and loving women,” said
Athos, after a considerable pause, raising his head, and forgetting to
continue the fiction of the count. “God grant you as much! Let us
drink.”

“Then she is dead?” stammered D’Artagnan.

“_Parbleu!_” said Athos. “But hold out your glass. Some ham, my boy, or
we can’t drink.”

“And her brother?” added D’Artagnan, timidly.

“Her brother?” replied Athos.

“Yes, the priest.”

“Oh, I inquired after him for the purpose of hanging him likewise; but
he was beforehand with me, he had quit the curacy the night before.”

“Was it ever known who this miserable fellow was?”

“He was doubtless the first lover and accomplice of the fair lady. A
worthy man, who had pretended to be a curate for the purpose of getting
his mistress married, and securing her a position. He has been hanged
and quartered, I hope.”

“My God, my God!” cried D’Artagnan, quite stunned by the relation of
this horrible adventure.

“Taste some of this ham, D’Artagnan; it is exquisite,” said Athos,
cutting a slice, which he placed on the young man’s plate.

“What a pity it is there were only four like this in the cellar. I
could have drunk fifty bottles more.”

D’Artagnan could no longer endure this conversation, which had made him
bewildered. Allowing his head to sink upon his two hands, he pretended
to sleep.

“These young fellows can none of them drink,” said Athos, looking at
him with pity, “and yet this is one of the best!”




Chapter XXVIII.
THE RETURN


D’Artagnan was astounded by the terrible confidence of Athos; yet many
things appeared very obscure to him in this half revelation. In the
first place it had been made by a man quite drunk to one who was half
drunk; and yet, in spite of the incertainty which the vapor of three or
four bottles of Burgundy carries with it to the brain, D’Artagnan, when
awaking on the following morning, had all the words of Athos as present
to his memory as if they then fell from his mouth—they had been so
impressed upon his mind. All this doubt only gave rise to a more lively
desire of arriving at a certainty, and he went into his friend’s
chamber with a fixed determination of renewing the conversation of the
preceding evening; but he found Athos quite himself again—that is to
say, the most shrewd and impenetrable of men. Besides which, the
Musketeer, after having exchanged a hearty shake of the hand with him,
broached the matter first.

“I was pretty drunk yesterday, D’Artagnan,” said he, “I can tell that
by my tongue, which was swollen and hot this morning, and by my pulse,
which was very tremulous. I wager that I uttered a thousand
extravagances.”

While saying this he looked at his friend with an earnestness that
embarrassed him.

“No,” replied D’Artagnan, “if I recollect well what you said, it was
nothing out of the common way.”

“Ah, you surprise me. I thought I had told you a most lamentable
story.” And he looked at the young man as if he would read the bottom
of his heart.

“My faith,” said D’Artagnan, “it appears that I was more drunk than
you, since I remember nothing of the kind.”

Athos did not trust this reply, and he resumed; “you cannot have failed
to remark, my dear friend, that everyone has his particular kind of
drunkenness, sad or gay. My drunkenness is always sad, and when I am
thoroughly drunk my mania is to relate all the lugubrious stories which
my foolish nurse inculcated into my brain. That is my failing—a capital
failing, I admit; but with that exception, I am a good drinker.”

Athos spoke this in so natural a manner that D’Artagnan was shaken in
his conviction.

“It is that, then,” replied the young man, anxious to find out the
truth, “it is that, then, I remember as we remember a dream. We were
speaking of hanging.”

“Ah, you see how it is,” said Athos, becoming still paler, but yet
attempting to laugh; “I was sure it was so—the hanging of people is my
nightmare.”

“Yes, yes,” replied D’Artagnan. “I remember now; yes, it was about—stop
a minute—yes, it was about a woman.”

“That’s it,” replied Athos, becoming almost livid; “that is my grand
story of the fair lady, and when I relate that, I must be very drunk.”

“Yes, that was it,” said D’Artagnan, “the story of a tall, fair lady,
with blue eyes.”

“Yes, who was hanged.”

“By her husband, who was a nobleman of your acquaintance,” continued
D’Artagnan, looking intently at Athos.

“Well, you see how a man may compromise himself when he does not know
what he says,” replied Athos, shrugging his shoulders as if he thought
himself an object of pity. “I certainly never will get drunk again,
D’Artagnan; it is too bad a habit.”

D’Artagnan remained silent; and then changing the conversation all at
once, Athos said:

“By the by, I thank you for the horse you have brought me.”

“Is it to your mind?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Yes; but it is not a horse for hard work.”

“You are mistaken; I rode him nearly ten leagues in less than an hour
and a half, and he appeared no more distressed than if he had only made
the tour of the Place St. Sulpice.”

“Ah, you begin to awaken my regret.”

“Regret?”

“Yes; I have parted with him.”

“How?”

“Why, here is the simple fact. This morning I awoke at six o’clock. You
were still fast asleep, and I did not know what to do with myself; I
was still stupid from our yesterday’s debauch. As I came into the
public room, I saw one of our Englishman bargaining with a dealer for a
horse, his own having died yesterday from bleeding. I drew near, and
found he was bidding a hundred pistoles for a chestnut nag.
‘_Pardieu_,’ said I, ‘my good gentleman, I have a horse to sell, too.’
‘Ay, and a very fine one! I saw him yesterday; your friend’s lackey was
leading him.’ ‘Do you think he is worth a hundred pistoles?’ ‘Yes! Will
you sell him to me for that sum?’ ‘No; but I will play for him.’
‘What?’ ‘At dice.’ No sooner said than done, and I lost the horse. Ah,
ah! But please to observe I won back the equipage,” cried Athos.

D’Artagnan looked much disconcerted.

“This vexes you?” said Athos.

“Well, I must confess it does,” replied D’Artagnan. “That horse was to
have identified us in the day of battle. It was a pledge, a
remembrance. Athos, you have done wrong.”

“But, my dear friend, put yourself in my place,” replied the Musketeer.
“I was hipped to death; and still further, upon my honor, I don’t like
English horses. If it is only to be recognized, why the saddle will
suffice for that; it is quite remarkable enough. As to the horse, we
can easily find some excuse for its disappearance. Why the devil! A
horse is mortal; suppose mine had had the glanders or the farcy?”

D’Artagnan did not smile.

“It vexes me greatly,” continued Athos, “that you attach so much
importance to these animals, for I am not yet at the end of my story.”

“What else have you done.”

“After having lost my own horse, nine against ten—see how near—I formed
an idea of staking yours.”

“Yes; but you stopped at the idea, I hope?”

“No; for I put it in execution that very minute.”

“And the consequence?” said D’Artagnan, in great anxiety.

“I threw, and I lost.”

“What, my horse?”

“Your horse, seven against eight; a point short—you know the proverb.”

“Athos, you are not in your right senses, I swear.”

“My dear lad, that was yesterday, when I was telling you silly stories,
it was proper to tell me that, and not this morning. I lost him then,
with all his appointments and furniture.”

“Really, this is frightful.”

“Stop a minute; you don’t know all yet. I should make an excellent
gambler if I were not too hot-headed; but I was hot-headed, just as if
I had been drinking. Well, I was not hot-headed then—”

“Well, but what else could you play for? You had nothing left?”

“Oh, yes, my friend; there was still that diamond left which sparkles
on your finger, and which I had observed yesterday.”

“This diamond!” said D’Artagnan, placing his hand eagerly on his ring.

“And as I am a connoisseur in such things, having had a few of my own
once, I estimated it at a thousand pistoles.”

“I hope,” said D’Artagnan, half dead with fright, “you made no mention
of my diamond?”

“On the contrary, my dear friend, this diamond became our only
resource; with it I might regain our horses and their harnesses, and
even money to pay our expenses on the road.”

“Athos, you make me tremble!” cried D’Artagnan.

“I mentioned your diamond then to my adversary, who had likewise
remarked it. What the devil, my dear, do you think you can wear a star
from heaven on your finger, and nobody observe it? Impossible!”

“Go on, go on, my dear fellow!” said D’Artagnan; “for upon my honor,
you will kill me with your indifference.”

“We divided, then, this diamond into ten parts of a hundred pistoles
each.”

“You are laughing at me, and want to try me!” said D’Artagnan, whom
anger began to take by the hair, as Minerva takes Achilles, in the
_Iliad_.

“No, I do not jest, _mordieu!_ I should like to have seen you in my
place! I had been fifteen days without seeing a human face, and had
been left to brutalize myself in the company of bottles.”

“That was no reason for staking my diamond!” replied D’Artagnan,
closing his hand with a nervous spasm.

“Hear the end. Ten parts of a hundred pistoles each, in ten throws,
without revenge; in thirteen throws I had lost all—in thirteen throws.
The number thirteen was always fatal to me; it was on the thirteenth of
July that—”

“_Ventrebleu!_” cried D’Artagnan, rising from the table, the story of
the present day making him forget that of the preceding one.

“Patience!” said Athos; “I had a plan. The Englishman was an original;
I had seen him conversing that morning with Grimaud, and Grimaud had
told me that he had made him proposals to enter into his service. I
staked Grimaud, the silent Grimaud, divided into ten portions.”

“Well, what next?” said D’Artagnan, laughing in spite of himself.

“Grimaud himself, understand; and with the ten parts of Grimaud, which
are not worth a ducatoon, I regained the diamond. Tell me, now, if
persistence is not a virtue?”

“My faith! But this is droll,” cried D’Artagnan, consoled, and holding
his sides with laughter.

“You may guess, finding the luck turned, that I again staked the
diamond.”

“The devil!” said D’Artagnan, becoming angry again.

“I won back your harness, then your horse, then my harness, then my
horse, and then I lost again. In brief, I regained your harness and
then mine. That’s where we are. That was a superb throw, so I left off
there.”

D’Artagnan breathed as if the whole hostelry had been removed from his
breast.

“Then the diamond is safe?” said he, timidly.

“Intact, my dear friend; besides the harness of your Bucephalus and
mine.”

“But what is the use of harnesses without horses?”

“I have an idea about them.”

“Athos, you make me shudder.”

“Listen to me. You have not played for a long time, D’Artagnan.”

“And I have no inclination to play.”

“Swear to nothing. You have not played for a long time, I said; you
ought, then, to have a good hand.”

“Well, what then?”

“Well; the Englishman and his companion are still here. I remarked that
he regretted the horse furniture very much. You appear to think much of
your horse. In your place I would stake the furniture against the
horse.”

“But he will not wish for only one harness.”

“Stake both, _pardieu!_ I am not selfish, as you are.”

“You would do so?” said D’Artagnan, undecided, so strongly did the
confidence of Athos begin to prevail, in spite of himself.

“On my honor, in one single throw.”

“But having lost the horses, I am particularly anxious to preserve the
harnesses.”

“Stake your diamond, then.”

“This? That’s another matter. Never, never!”

“The devil!” said Athos. “I would propose to you to stake Planchet, but
as that has already been done, the Englishman would not, perhaps, be
willing.”

“Decidedly, my dear Athos,” said D’Artagnan, “I should like better not
to risk anything.”

“That’s a pity,” said Athos, coolly. “The Englishman is overflowing
with pistoles. Good Lord, try one throw! One throw is soon made!”

“And if I lose?”

“You will win.”

“But if I lose?”

“Well, you will surrender the harnesses.”

“Have with you for one throw!” said D’Artagnan.

Athos went in quest of the Englishman, whom he found in the stable,
examining the harnesses with a greedy eye. The opportunity was good. He
proposed the conditions—the two harnesses, either against one horse or
a hundred pistoles. The Englishman calculated fast; the two harnesses
were worth three hundred pistoles. He consented.

D’Artagnan threw the dice with a trembling hand, and turned up the
number three; his paleness terrified Athos, who, however, consented
himself with saying, “That’s a sad throw, comrade; you will have the
horses fully equipped, monsieur.”

The Englishman, quite triumphant, did not even give himself the trouble
to shake the dice. He threw them on the table without looking at them,
so sure was he of victory; D’Artagnan turned aside to conceal his ill
humor.

“Hold, hold, hold!” said Athos, wit his quiet tone; “that throw of the
dice is extraordinary. I have not seen such a one four times in my
life. Two aces!”

The Englishman looked, and was seized with astonishment. D’Artagnan
looked, and was seized with pleasure.

“Yes,” continued Athos, “four times only; once at the house of Monsieur
Créquy; another time at my own house in the country, in my château
at—when I had a château; a third time at Monsieur de Tréville’s where
it surprised us all; and the fourth time at a cabaret, where it fell to
my lot, and where I lost a hundred louis and a supper on it.”

“Then Monsieur takes his horse back again,” said the Englishman.

“Certainly,” said D’Artagnan.

“Then there is no revenge?”

“Our conditions said, ‘No revenge,’ you will please to recollect.”

“That is true; the horse shall be restored to your lackey, monsieur.”

“A moment,” said Athos; “with your permission, monsieur, I wish to
speak a word with my friend.”

“Say on.”

Athos drew D’Artagnan aside.

“Well, Tempter, what more do you want with me?” said D’Artagnan. “You
want me to throw again, do you not?”

“No, I would wish you to reflect.”

“On what?”

“You mean to take your horse?”

“Without doubt.”

“You are wrong, then. I would take the hundred pistoles. You know you
have staked the harnesses against the horse or a hundred pistoles, at
your choice.”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, I repeat, you are wrong. What is the use of one horse for
us two? I could not ride behind. We should look like the two sons of
Aymon, who had lost their brother. You cannot think of humiliating me
by prancing along by my side on that magnificent charger. For my part,
I should not hesitate a moment; I should take the hundred pistoles. We
want money for our return to Paris.”

“I am much attached to that horse, Athos.”

“And there again you are wrong. A horse slips and injures a joint; a
horse stumbles and breaks his knees to the bone; a horse eats out of a
manger in which a glandered horse has eaten. There is a horse, while on
the contrary, the hundred pistoles feed their master.”

“But how shall we get back?”

“Upon our lackey’s horses, _pardieu_. Anybody may see by our bearing
that we are people of condition.”

“Pretty figures we shall cut on ponies while Aramis and Porthos
caracole on their steeds.”

“Aramis! Porthos!” cried Athos, and laughed aloud.

“What is it?” asked D’Artagnan, who did not at all comprehend the
hilarity of his friend.

“Nothing, nothing! Go on!”

“Your advice, then?”

“To take the hundred pistoles, D’Artagnan. With the hundred pistoles we
can live well to the end of the month. We have undergone a great deal
of fatigue, remember, and a little rest will do no harm.”

“I rest? Oh, no, Athos. Once in Paris, I shall prosecute my search for
that unfortunate woman!”

“Well, you may be assured that your horse will not be half so
serviceable to you for that purpose as good golden louis. Take the
hundred pistoles, my friend; take the hundred pistoles!”

D’Artagnan only required one reason to be satisfied. This last reason
appeared convincing. Besides, he feared that by resisting longer he
should appear selfish in the eyes of Athos. He acquiesced, therefore,
and chose the hundred pistoles, which the Englishman paid down on the
spot.

They then determined to depart. Peace with the landlord, in addition to
Athos’s old horse, cost six pistoles. D’Artagnan and Athos took the
nags of Planchet and Grimaud, and the two lackeys started on foot,
carrying the saddles on their heads.

However ill our two friends were mounted, they were soon far in advance
of their servants, and arrived at Crèvecœur. From a distance they
perceived Aramis, seated in a melancholy manner at his window, looking
out, like Sister Anne, at the dust in the horizon.

“_Holà_, Aramis! What the devil are you doing there?” cried the two
friends.

“Ah, is that you, D’Artagnan, and you, Athos?” said the young man. “I
was reflecting upon the rapidity with which the blessings of this world
leave us. My English horse, which has just disappeared amid a cloud of
dust, has furnished me with a living image of the fragility of the
things of the earth. Life itself may be resolved into three words:
_Erat, est, fuit_.”

“Which means—” said D’Artagnan, who began to suspect the truth.

“Which means that I have just been duped—sixty louis for a horse which
by the manner of his gait can do at least five leagues an hour.”

D’Artagnan and Athos laughed aloud.

“My dear D’Artagnan,” said Aramis, “don’t be too angry with me, I beg.
Necessity has no law; besides, I am the person punished, as that
rascally horsedealer has robbed me of fifty louis, at least. Ah, you
fellows are good managers! You ride on our lackey’s horses, and have
your own gallant steeds led along carefully by hand, at short stages.”

At the same instant a market cart, which some minutes before had
appeared upon the Amiens road, pulled up at the inn, and Planchet and
Grimaud came out of it with the saddles on their heads. The cart was
returning empty to Paris, and the two lackeys had agreed, for their
transport, to slake the wagoner’s thirst along the route.

“What is this?” said Aramis, on seeing them arrive. “Nothing but
saddles?”

“Now do you understand?” said Athos.

“My friends, that’s exactly like me! I retained my harness by instinct.
_Holà_, Bazin! Bring my new saddle and carry it along with those of
these gentlemen.”

“And what have you done with your ecclesiastics?” asked D’Artagnan.

“My dear fellow, I invited them to a dinner the next day,” replied
Aramis. “They have some capital wine here—please to observe that in
passing. I did my best to make them drunk. Then the curate forbade me
to quit my uniform, and the Jesuit entreated me to get him made a
Musketeer.”

“Without a thesis?” cried D’Artagnan, “without a thesis? I demand the
suppression of the thesis.”

“Since then,” continued Aramis, “I have lived very agreeably. I have
begun a poem in verses of one syllable. That is rather difficult, but
the merit in all things consists in the difficulty. The matter is
gallant. I will read you the first canto. It has four hundred lines,
and lasts a minute.”

“My faith, my dear Aramis,” said D’Artagnan, who detested verses almost
as much as he did Latin, “add to the merit of the difficulty that of
the brevity, and you are sure that your poem will at least have two
merits.”

“You will see,” continued Aramis, “that it breathes irreproachable
passion. And so, my friends, we return to Paris? Bravo! I am ready. We
are going to rejoin that good fellow, Porthos. So much the better. You
can’t think how I have missed him, the great simpleton. To see him so
self-satisfied reconciles me with myself. He would not sell his horse;
not for a kingdom! I think I can see him now, mounted upon his superb
animal and seated in his handsome saddle. I am sure he will look like
the Great Mogul!”

They made a halt for an hour to refresh their horses. Aramis discharged
his bill, placed Bazin in the cart with his comrades, and they set
forward to join Porthos.

They found him up, less pale than when D’Artagnan left him after his
first visit, and seated at a table on which, though he was alone, was
spread enough for four persons. This dinner consisted of meats nicely
dressed, choice wines, and superb fruit.

“Ah, _pardieu!_” said he, rising, “you come in the nick of time,
gentlemen. I was just beginning the soup, and you will dine with me.”

“Oh, oh!” said D’Artagnan, “Mousqueton has not caught these bottles
with his lasso. Besides, here is a piquant _fricandeau_ and a fillet of
beef.”

“I am recruiting myself,” said Porthos, “I am recruiting myself.
Nothing weakens a man more than these devilish strains. Did you ever
suffer from a strain, Athos?”

“Never! Though I remember, in our affair of the Rue Férou, I received a
sword wound which at the end of fifteen or eighteen days produced the
same effect.”

“But this dinner was not intended for you alone, Porthos?” said Aramis.

“No,” said Porthos, “I expected some gentlemen of the neighborhood, who
have just sent me word they could not come. You will take their places
and I shall not lose by the exchange. _Holà_, Mousqueton, seats, and
order double the bottles!”

“Do you know what we are eating here?” said Athos, at the end of ten
minutes.

“_Pardieu!_” replied D’Artagnan, “for my part, I am eating veal
garnished with shrimps and vegetables.”

“And I some lamb chops,” said Porthos.

“And I a plain chicken,” said Aramis.

“You are all mistaken, gentlemen,” answered Athos, gravely; “you are
eating horse.”

“Eating what?” said D’Artagnan.

“Horse!” said Aramis, with a grimace of disgust.

Porthos alone made no reply.

“Yes, horse. Are we not eating a horse, Porthos? And perhaps his
saddle, therewith.”

“No, gentlemen, I have kept the harness,” said Porthos.

“My faith,” said Aramis, “we are all alike. One would think we had
tipped the wink.”

“What could I do?” said Porthos. “This horse made my visitors ashamed
of theirs, and I don’t like to humiliate people.”

“Then your duchess is still at the waters?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Still,” replied Porthos. “And, my faith, the governor of the
province—one of the gentlemen I expected today—seemed to have such a
wish for him, that I gave him to him.”

“Gave him?” cried D’Artagnan.

“My God, yes, _gave_, that is the word,” said Porthos; “for the animal
was worth at least a hundred and fifty louis, and the stingy fellow
would only give me eighty.”

“Without the saddle?” said Aramis.

“Yes, without the saddle.”

“You will observe, gentlemen,” said Athos, “that Porthos has made the
best bargain of any of us.”

And then commenced a roar of laughter in which they all joined, to the
astonishment of poor Porthos; but when he was informed of the cause of
their hilarity, he shared it vociferously according to his custom.

“There is one comfort, we are all in cash,” said D’Artagnan.

“Well, for my part,” said Athos, “I found Aramis’s Spanish wine so good
that I sent on a hamper of sixty bottles of it in the wagon with the
lackeys. That has weakened my purse.”

“And I,” said Aramis, “imagined that I had given almost my last sou to
the church of Montdidier and the Jesuits of Amiens, with whom I had
made engagements which I ought to have kept. I have ordered Masses for
myself, and for you, gentlemen, which will be said, gentlemen, for
which I have not the least doubt you will be marvelously benefited.”

“And I,” said Porthos, “do you think my strain cost me nothing?—without
reckoning Mousqueton’s wound, for which I had to have the surgeon twice
a day, and who charged me double on account of that foolish Mousqueton
having allowed himself a ball in a part which people generally only
show to an apothecary; so I advised him to try never to get wounded
there any more.”

“Ay, ay!” said Athos, exchanging a smile with D’Artagnan and Aramis,
“it is very clear you acted nobly with regard to the poor lad; that is
like a good master.”

“In short,” said Porthos, “when all my expenses are paid, I shall have,
at most, thirty crowns left.”

“And I about ten pistoles,” said Aramis.

“Well, then it appears that we are the Crœsuses of the society. How
much have you left of your hundred pistoles, D’Artagnan?”

“Of my hundred pistoles? Why, in the first place I gave you fifty.”

“You think so?”

“_Pardieu!_”

“Ah, that is true. I recollect.”

“Then I paid the host six.”

“What a brute of a host! Why did you give him six pistoles?”

“You told me to give them to him.”

“It is true; I am too good-natured. In brief, how much remains?”

“Twenty-five pistoles,” said D’Artagnan.

“And I,” said Athos, taking some small change from his pocket, “I—”

“You? Nothing!”

“My faith! So little that it is not worth reckoning with the general
stock.”

“Now, then, let us calculate how much we posses in all.”

“Porthos?”

“Thirty crowns.”

“Aramis?”

“Ten pistoles.”

“And you, D’Artagnan?”

“Twenty-five.”

“That makes in all?” said Athos.

“Four hundred and seventy-five livres,” said D’Artagnan, who reckoned
like Archimedes.

“On our arrival in Paris, we shall still have four hundred, besides the
harnesses,” said Porthos.

“But our troop horses?” said Aramis.

“Well, of the four horses of our lackeys we will make two for the
masters, for which we will draw lots. With the four hundred livres we
will make the half of one for one of the unmounted, and then we will
give the turnings out of our pockets to D’Artagnan, who has a steady
hand, and will go and play in the first gaming house we come to.
There!”

“Let us dine, then,” said Porthos; “it is getting cold.”

The friends, at ease with regard to the future, did honor to the
repast, the remains of which were abandoned to Mousqueton, Bazin,
Planchet, and Grimaud.

On arriving in Paris, D’Artagnan found a letter from M. de Tréville,
which informed him that, at his request, the king had promised that he
should enter the company of the Musketeers.

As this was the height of D’Artagnan’s worldly ambition—apart, be it
well understood, from his desire of finding Mme. Bonacieux—he ran, full
of joy, to seek his comrades, whom he had left only half an hour
before, but whom he found very sad and deeply preoccupied. They were
assembled in council at the residence of Athos, which always indicated
an event of some gravity. M. de Tréville had intimated to them his
Majesty’s fixed intention to open the campaign on the first of May, and
they must immediately prepare their outfits.

The four philosophers looked at one another in a state of bewilderment.
M. de Tréville never jested in matters relating to discipline.

“And what do you reckon your outfit will cost?” said D’Artagnan.

“Oh, we can scarcely say. We have made our calculations with Spartan
economy, and we each require fifteen hundred livres.”

“Four times fifteen makes sixty—six thousand livres,” said Athos.

“It seems to me,” said D’Artagnan, “with a thousand livres each—I do
not speak as a Spartan, but as a procurator—”

This word _procurator_ roused Porthos. “Stop,” said he, “I have an
idea.”

“Well, that’s something, for I have not the shadow of one,” said Athos
coolly; “but as to D’Artagnan, gentlemen, the idea of belonging to
_ours_ has driven him out of his senses. A thousand livres! For my
part, I declare I want two thousand.”

“Four times two makes eight,” then said Aramis; “it is eight thousand
that we want to complete our outfits, toward which, it is true, we have
already the saddles.”

“Besides,” said Athos, waiting till D’Artagnan, who went to thank
Monsieur de Tréville, had shut the door, “besides, there is that
beautiful ring which beams from the finger of our friend. What the
devil! D’Artagnan is too good a comrade to leave his brothers in
embarrassment while he wears the ransom of a king on his finger.”




Chapter XXIX.
HUNTING FOR THE EQUIPMENTS


The most preoccupied of the four friends was certainly D’Artagnan,
although he, in his quality of Guardsman, would be much more easily
equipped than Messieurs the Musketeers, who were all of high rank; but
our Gascon cadet was, as may have been observed, of a provident and
almost avaricious character, and with that (explain the contradiction)
so vain as almost to rival Porthos. To this preoccupation of his
vanity, D’Artagnan at this moment joined an uneasiness much less
selfish. Notwithstanding all his inquiries respecting Mme. Bonacieux,
he could obtain no intelligence of her. M. de Tréville had spoken of
her to the queen. The queen was ignorant where the mercer’s young wife
was, but had promised to have her sought for; but this promise was very
vague and did not at all reassure D’Artagnan.

Athos did not leave his chamber; he made up his mind not to take a
single step to equip himself.

“We have still fifteen days before us,” said he to his friends, “well,
if at the end of a fortnight I have found nothing, or rather if nothing
has come to find me, as I, too good a Catholic to kill myself with a
pistol bullet, I will seek a good quarrel with four of his Eminence’s
Guards or with eight Englishmen, and I will fight until one of them has
killed me, which, considering the number, cannot fail to happen. It
will then be said of me that I died for the king; so that I shall have
performed my duty without the expense of an outfit.”

Porthos continued to walk about with his hands behind him, tossing his
head and repeating, “I shall follow up on my idea.”

Aramis, anxious and negligently dressed, said nothing.

It may be seen by these disastrous details that desolation reigned in
the community.

The lackeys on their part, like the coursers of Hippolytus, shared the
sadness of their masters. Mousqueton collected a store of crusts;
Bazin, who had always been inclined to devotion, never quit the
churches; Planchet watched the flight of flies; and Grimaud, whom the
general distress could not induce to break the silence imposed by his
master, heaved sighs enough to soften the stones.

The three friends—for, as we have said, Athos had sworn not to stir a
foot to equip himself—went out early in the morning, and returned late
at night. They wandered about the streets, looking at the pavement as
if to see whether the passengers had not left a purse behind them. They
might have been supposed to be following tracks, so observant were they
wherever they went. When they met they looked desolately at one
another, as much as to say, “Have you found anything?”

However, as Porthos had first found an idea, and had thought of it
earnestly afterward, he was the first to act. He was a man of
execution, this worthy Porthos. D’Artagnan perceived him one day
walking toward the church of St. Leu, and followed him instinctively.
He entered, after having twisted his mustache and elongated his
imperial, which always announced on his part the most triumphant
resolutions. As D’Artagnan took some precautions to conceal himself,
Porthos believed he had not been seen. D’Artagnan entered behind him.
Porthos went and leaned against the side of a pillar. D’Artagnan, still
unperceived, supported himself against the other side.

There happened to be a sermon, which made the church very full of
people. Porthos took advantage of this circumstance to ogle the women.
Thanks to the cares of Mousqueton, the exterior was far from announcing
the distress of the interior. His hat was a little napless, his feather
was a little faded, his gold lace was a little tarnished, his laces
were a trifle frayed; but in the obscurity of the church these things
were not seen, and Porthos was still the handsome Porthos.

D’Artagnan observed, on the bench nearest to the pillar against which
Porthos leaned, a sort of ripe beauty, rather yellow and rather dry,
but erect and haughty under her black hood. The eyes of Porthos were
furtively cast upon this lady, and then roved about at large over the
nave.

On her side the lady, who from time to time blushed, darted with the
rapidity of lightning a glance toward the inconstant Porthos; and then
immediately the eyes of Porthos wandered anxiously. It was plain that
this mode of proceeding piqued the lady in the black hood, for she bit
her lips till they bled, scratched the end of her nose, and could not
sit still in her seat.

Porthos, seeing this, retwisted his mustache, elongated his imperial a
second time, and began to make signals to a beautiful lady who was near
the choir, and who not only was a beautiful lady, but still further, no
doubt, a great lady—for she had behind her a Negro boy who had brought
the cushion on which she knelt, and a female servant who held the
emblazoned bag in which was placed the book from which she read the
Mass.

The lady with the black hood followed through all their wanderings the
looks of Porthos, and perceived that they rested upon the lady with the
velvet cushion, the little Negro, and the maid-servant.

During this time Porthos played close. It was almost imperceptible
motions of his eyes, fingers placed upon the lips, little assassinating
smiles, which really did assassinate the disdained beauty.

Then she cried, “Ahem!” under cover of the _mea culpa_, striking her
breast so vigorously that everybody, even the lady with the red
cushion, turned round toward her. Porthos paid no attention.
Nevertheless, he understood it all, but was deaf.

The lady with the red cushion produced a great effect—for she was very
handsome—upon the lady with the black hood, who saw in her a rival
really to be dreaded; a great effect upon Porthos, who thought her much
prettier than the lady with the black hood; a great effect upon
D’Artagnan, who recognized in her the lady of Meung, of Calais, and of
Dover, whom his persecutor, the man with the scar, had saluted by the
name of Milady.

D’Artagnan, without losing sight of the lady of the red cushion,
continued to watch the proceedings of Porthos, which amused him
greatly. He guessed that the lady of the black hood was the
procurator’s wife of the Rue aux Ours, which was the more probable from
the church of St. Leu being not far from that locality.

He guessed, likewise, by induction, that Porthos was taking his revenge
for the defeat of Chantilly, when the procurator’s wife had proved so
refractory with respect to her purse.

Amid all this, D’Artagnan remarked also that not one countenance
responded to the gallantries of Porthos. There were only chimeras and
illusions; but for real love, for true jealousy, is there any reality
except illusions and chimeras?

The sermon over, the procurator’s wife advanced toward the holy font.
Porthos went before her, and instead of a finger, dipped his whole hand
in. The procurator’s wife smiled, thinking that it was for her Porthos
had put himself to this trouble; but she was cruelly and promptly
undeceived. When she was only about three steps from him, he turned his
head round, fixing his eyes steadfastly upon the lady with the red
cushion, who had risen and was approaching, followed by her black boy
and her woman.

When the lady of the red cushion came close to Porthos, Porthos drew
his dripping hand from the font. The fair worshipper touched the great
hand of Porthos with her delicate fingers, smiled, made the sign of the
cross, and left the church.

This was too much for the procurator’s wife; she doubted not there was
an intrigue between this lady and Porthos. If she had been a great lady
she would have fainted; but as she was only a procurator’s wife, she
contented herself saying to the Musketeer with concentrated fury, “Eh,
Monsieur Porthos, you don’t offer me any holy water?”

Porthos, at the sound of that voice, started like a man awakened from a
sleep of a hundred years.

“Ma-madame!” cried he; “is that you? How is your husband, our dear
Monsieur Coquenard? Is he still as stingy as ever? Where can my eyes
have been not to have seen you during the two hours of the sermon?”

“I was within two paces of you, monsieur,” replied the procurator’s
wife; “but you did not perceive me because you had no eyes but for the
pretty lady to whom you just now gave the holy water.”

Porthos pretended to be confused. “Ah,” said he, “you have remarked—”

“I must have been blind not to have seen.”

“Yes,” said Porthos, “that is a duchess of my acquaintance whom I have
great trouble to meet on account of the jealousy of her husband, and
who sent me word that she should come today to this poor church, buried
in this vile quarter, solely for the sake of seeing me.”

“Monsieur Porthos,” said the procurator’s wife, “will you have the
kindness to offer me your arm for five minutes? I have something to say
to you.”

“Certainly, madame,” said Porthos, winking to himself, as a gambler
does who laughs at the dupe he is about to pluck.

At that moment D’Artagnan passed in pursuit of Milady; he cast a
passing glance at Porthos, and beheld this triumphant look.

“Eh, eh!” said he, reasoning to himself according to the strangely easy
morality of that gallant period, “there is one who will be equipped in
good time!”

Porthos, yielding to the pressure of the arm of the procurator’s wife,
as a bark yields to the rudder, arrived at the cloister St. Magloire—a
little-frequented passage, enclosed with a turnstile at each end. In
the daytime nobody was seen there but mendicants devouring their
crusts, and children at play.

“Ah, Monsieur Porthos,” cried the procurator’s wife, when she was
assured that no one who was a stranger to the population of the
locality could either see or hear her, “ah, Monsieur Porthos, you are a
great conqueror, as it appears!”

“I, madame?” said Porthos, drawing himself up proudly; “how so?”

“The signs just now, and the holy water! But that must be a princess,
at least—that lady with her Negro boy and her maid!”

“My God! Madame, you are deceived,” said Porthos; “she is simply a
duchess.”

“And that running footman who waited at the door, and that carriage
with a coachman in grand livery who sat waiting on his seat?”

Porthos had seen neither the footman nor the carriage, but with the eye
of a jealous woman, Mme. Coquenard had seen everything.

Porthos regretted that he had not at once made the lady of the red
cushion a princess.

“Ah, you are quite the pet of the ladies, Monsieur Porthos!” resumed
the procurator’s wife, with a sigh.

“Well,” responded Porthos, “you may imagine, with the physique with
which nature has endowed me, I am not in want of good luck.”

“Good Lord, how quickly men forget!” cried the procurator’s wife,
raising her eyes toward heaven.

“Less quickly than the women, it seems to me,” replied Porthos; “for I,
madame, I may say I was your victim, when wounded, dying, I was
abandoned by the surgeons. I, the offspring of a noble family, who
placed reliance upon your friendship—I was near dying of my wounds at
first, and of hunger afterward, in a beggarly inn at Chantilly, without
you ever deigning once to reply to the burning letters I addressed to
you.”

“But, Monsieur Porthos,” murmured the procurator’s wife, who began to
feel that, to judge by the conduct of the great ladies of the time, she
was wrong.

“I, who had sacrificed for you the Baronne de—”

“I know it well.”

“The Comtesse de—”

“Monsieur Porthos, be generous!”

“You are right, madame, and I will not finish.”

“But it was my husband who would not hear of lending.”

“Madame Coquenard,” said Porthos, “remember the first letter you wrote
me, and which I preserve engraved in my memory.”

The procurator’s wife uttered a groan.

“Besides,” said she, “the sum you required me to borrow was rather
large.”

“Madame Coquenard, I gave you the preference. I had but to write to the
Duchesse—but I won’t repeat her name, for I am incapable of
compromising a woman; but this I know, that I had but to write to her
and she would have sent me fifteen hundred.”

The procurator’s wife shed a tear.

“Monsieur Porthos,” said she, “I can assure you that you have severely
punished me; and if in the time to come you should find yourself in a
similar situation, you have but to apply to me.”

“Fie, madame, fie!” said Porthos, as if disgusted. “Let us not talk
about money, if you please; it is humiliating.”

“Then you no longer love me!” said the procurator’s wife, slowly and
sadly.

Porthos maintained a majestic silence.

“And that is the only reply you make? Alas, I understand.”

“Think of the offense you have committed toward me, madame! It remains
_here!_” said Porthos, placing his hand on his heart, and pressing it
strongly.

“I will repair it, indeed I will, my dear Porthos.”

“Besides, what did I ask of you?” resumed Porthos, with a movement of
the shoulders full of good fellowship. “A loan, nothing more! After
all, I am not an unreasonable man. I know you are not rich, Madame
Coquenard, and that your husband is obliged to bleed his poor clients
to squeeze a few paltry crowns from them. Oh! If you were a duchess, a
marchioness, or a countess, it would be quite a different thing; it
would be unpardonable.”

The procurator’s wife was piqued.

“Please to know, Monsieur Porthos,” said she, “that my strongbox, the
strongbox of a procurator’s wife though it may be, is better filled
than those of your affected minxes.”

“That doubles the offense,” said Porthos, disengaging his arm from that
of the procurator’s wife; “for if you are rich, Madame Coquenard, then
there is no excuse for your refusal.”

“When I said rich,” replied the procurator’s wife, who saw that she had
gone too far, “you must not take the word literally. I am not precisely
rich, though I am pretty well off.”

“Hold, madame,” said Porthos, “let us say no more upon the subject, I
beg of you. You have misunderstood me, all sympathy is extinct between
us.”

“Ingrate that you are!”

“Ah! I advise you to complain!” said Porthos.

“Begone, then, to your beautiful duchess; I will detain you no longer.”

“And she is not to be despised, in my opinion.”

“Now, Monsieur Porthos, once more, and this is the last! Do you love me
still?”

“Ah, madame,” said Porthos, in the most melancholy tone he could
assume, “when we are about to enter upon a campaign—a campaign, in
which my presentiments tell me I shall be killed—”

“Oh, don’t talk of such things!” cried the procurator’s wife, bursting
into tears.

“Something whispers me so,” continued Porthos, becoming more and more
melancholy.

“Rather say that you have a new love.”

“Not so; I speak frankly to you. No object affects me; and I even feel
here, at the bottom of my heart, something which speaks for you. But in
fifteen days, as you know, or as you do not know, this fatal campaign
is to open. I shall be fearfully preoccupied with my outfit. Then I
must make a journey to see my family, in the lower part of Brittany, to
obtain the sum necessary for my departure.”

Porthos observed a last struggle between love and avarice.

“And as,” continued he, “the duchess whom you saw at the church has
estates near to those of my family, we mean to make the journey
together. Journeys, you know, appear much shorter when we travel two in
company.”

“Have you no friends in Paris, then, Monsieur Porthos?” said the
procurator’s wife.

“I thought I had,” said Porthos, resuming his melancholy air; “but I
have been taught my mistake.”

“You have some!” cried the procurator’s wife, in a transport that
surprised even herself. “Come to our house tomorrow. You are the son of
my aunt, consequently my cousin; you come from Noyon, in Picardy; you
have several lawsuits and no attorney. Can you recollect all that?”

“Perfectly, madame.”

“Come at dinnertime.”

“Very well.”

“And be upon your guard before my husband, who is rather shrewd,
notwithstanding his seventy-six years.”

“Seventy-six years! _Peste!_ That’s a fine age!” replied Porthos.

“A great age, you mean, Monsieur Porthos. Yes, the poor man may be
expected to leave me a widow, any hour,” continued she, throwing a
significant glance at Porthos. “Fortunately, by our marriage contract,
the survivor takes everything.”

“All?”

“Yes, all.”

“You are a woman of precaution, I see, my dear Madame Coquenard,” said
Porthos, squeezing the hand of the procurator’s wife tenderly.

“We are then reconciled, dear Monsieur Porthos?” said she, simpering.

“For life,” replied Porthos, in the same manner.

“Till we meet again, then, dear traitor!”

“Till we meet again, my forgetful charmer!”

“Tomorrow, my angel!”

“Tomorrow, flame of my life!”




Chapter XXX.
D’ARTAGNAN AND THE ENGLISHMAN


D’Artagnan followed Milady without being perceived by her. He saw her
get into her carriage, and heard her order the coachman to drive to St.
Germain.

It was useless to try to keep pace on foot with a carriage drawn by two
powerful horses. D’Artagnan therefore returned to the Rue Férou.

In the Rue de Seine he met Planchet, who had stopped before the house
of a pastry cook, and was contemplating with ecstasy a cake of the most
appetizing appearance.

He ordered him to go and saddle two horses in M. de Tréville’s
stables—one for himself, D’Artagnan, and one for Planchet—and bring
them to Athos’s place. Once for all, Tréville had placed his stable at
D’Artagnan’s service.

Planchet proceeded toward the Rue du Colombier, and D’Artagnan toward
the Rue Férou. Athos was at home, emptying sadly a bottle of the famous
Spanish wine he had brought back with him from his journey into
Picardy. He made a sign for Grimaud to bring a glass for D’Artagnan,
and Grimaud obeyed as usual.

D’Artagnan related to Athos all that had passed at the church between
Porthos and the procurator’s wife, and how their comrade was probably
by that time in a fair way to be equipped.

“As for me,” replied Athos to this recital, “I am quite at my ease; it
will not be women that will defray the expense of my outfit.”

“Handsome, well-bred, noble lord as you are, my dear Athos, neither
princesses nor queens would be secure from your amorous solicitations.”

“How young this D’Artagnan is!” said Athos, shrugging his shoulders;
and he made a sign to Grimaud to bring another bottle.

At that moment Planchet put his head modestly in at the half-open door,
and told his master that the horses were ready.

“What horses?” asked Athos.

“Two horses that Monsieur de Tréville lends me at my pleasure, and with
which I am now going to take a ride to St. Germain.”

“Well, and what are you going to do at St. Germain?” then demanded
Athos.

Then D’Artagnan described the meeting which he had at the church, and
how he had found that lady who, with the seigneur in the black cloak
and with the scar near his temple, filled his mind constantly.

“That is to say, you are in love with this lady as you were with Madame
Bonacieux,” said Athos, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously, as if
he pitied human weakness.

“I? not at all!” said D’Artagnan. “I am only curious to unravel the
mystery to which she is attached. I do not know why, but I imagine that
this woman, wholly unknown to me as she is, and wholly unknown to her
as I am, has an influence over my life.”

“Well, perhaps you are right,” said Athos. “I do not know a woman that
is worth the trouble of being sought for when she is once lost. Madame
Bonacieux is lost; so much the worse for her if she is found.”

“No, Athos, no, you are mistaken,” said D’Artagnan; “I love my poor
Constance more than ever, and if I knew the place in which she is, were
it at the end of the world, I would go to free her from the hands of
her enemies; but I am ignorant. All my researches have been useless.
What is to be said? I must divert my attention!”

“Amuse yourself with Milady, my dear D’Artagnan; I wish you may with
all my heart, if that will amuse you.”

“Hear me, Athos,” said D’Artagnan. “Instead of shutting yourself up
here as if you were under arrest, get on horseback and come and take a
ride with me to St. Germain.”

“My dear fellow,” said Athos, “I ride horses when I have any; when I
have none, I go afoot.”

“Well,” said D’Artagnan, smiling at the misanthropy of Athos, which
from any other person would have offended him, “I ride what I can get;
I am not so proud as you. So _au revoir_, dear Athos.”

“_Au revoir_,” said the Musketeer, making a sign to Grimaud to uncork
the bottle he had just brought.

D’Artagnan and Planchet mounted, and took the road to St. Germain.

All along the road, what Athos had said respecting Mme. Bonacieux
recurred to the mind of the young man. Although D’Artagnan was not of a
very sentimental character, the mercer’s pretty wife had made a real
impression upon his heart. As he said, he was ready to go to the end of
the world to seek her; but the world, being round, has many ends, so
that he did not know which way to turn. Meantime, he was going to try
to find out Milady. Milady had spoken to the man in the black cloak;
therefore she knew him. Now, in the opinion of D’Artagnan, it was
certainly the man in the black cloak who had carried off Mme. Bonacieux
the second time, as he had carried her off the first. D’Artagnan then
only half-lied, which is lying but little, when he said that by going
in search of Milady he at the same time went in search of Constance.

Thinking of all this, and from time to time giving a touch of the spur
to his horse, D’Artagnan completed his short journey, and arrived at
St. Germain. He had just passed by the pavilion in which ten years
later Louis XIV. was born. He rode up a very quiet street, looking to
the right and the left to see if he could catch any vestige of his
beautiful Englishwoman, when from the ground floor of a pretty house,
which, according to the fashion of the time, had no window toward the
street, he saw a face peep out with which he thought he was acquainted.
This person walked along the terrace, which was ornamented with
flowers. Planchet recognized him first.

“Eh, monsieur!” said he, addressing D’Artagnan, “don’t you remember
that face which is blinking yonder?”

“No,” said D’Artagnan, “and yet I am certain it is not the first time I
have seen that visage.”

“_Parbleu_, I believe it is not,” said Planchet. “Why, it is poor
Lubin, the lackey of the Comte de Wardes—he whom you took such good
care of a month ago at Calais, on the road to the governor’s country
house!”

“So it is!” said D’Artagnan; “I know him now. Do you think he would
recollect you?”

“My faith, monsieur, he was in such trouble that I doubt if he can have
retained a very clear recollection of me.”

“Well, go and talk with the boy,” said D’Artagnan, “and make out if you
can from his conversation whether his master is dead.”

Planchet dismounted and went straight up to Lubin, who did not at all
remember him, and the two lackeys began to chat with the best
understanding possible; while D’Artagnan turned the two horses into a
lane, went round the house, and came back to watch the conference from
behind a hedge of filberts.

At the end of an instant’s observation he heard the noise of a vehicle,
and saw Milady’s carriage stop opposite to him. He could not be
mistaken; Milady was in it. D’Artagnan leaned upon the neck of his
horse, in order that he might see without being seen.

Milady put her charming blond head out at the window, and gave her
orders to her maid.

The latter—a pretty girl of about twenty or twenty-two years, active
and lively, the true _soubrette_ of a great lady—jumped from the step
upon which, according to the custom of the time, she was seated, and
took her way toward the terrace upon which D’Artagnan had perceived
Lubin.

D’Artagnan followed the _soubrette_ with his eyes, and saw her go
toward the terrace; but it happened that someone in the house called
Lubin, so that Planchet remained alone, looking in all directions for
the road where D’Artagnan had disappeared.

The maid approached Planchet, whom she took for Lubin, and holding out
a little billet to him said, “For your master.”

“For my master?” replied Planchet, astonished.

“Yes, and important. Take it quickly.”

Thereupon she ran toward the carriage, which had turned round toward
the way it came, jumped upon the step, and the carriage drove off.

Planchet turned and returned the billet. Then, accustomed to passive
obedience, he jumped down from the terrace, ran toward the lane, and at
the end of twenty paces met D’Artagnan, who, having seen all, was
coming to him.

“For you, monsieur,” said Planchet, presenting the billet to the young
man.

“For me?” said D’Artagnan; “are you sure of that?”

“_Pardieu_, monsieur, I can’t be more sure. The _soubrette_ said, ‘For
your master.’ I have no other master but you; so—a pretty little lass,
my faith, is that _soubrette!_”

D’Artagnan opened the letter, and read these words:

“A person who takes more interest in you than she is willing to confess
wishes to know on what day it will suit you to walk in the forest?
Tomorrow, at the Hôtel Field of the Cloth of Gold, a lackey in black
and red will wait for your reply.”


“Oh!” said D’Artagnan, “this is rather warm; it appears that Milady and
I are anxious about the health of the same person. Well, Planchet, how
is the good Monsieur de Wardes? He is not dead, then?”

“No, monsieur, he is as well as a man can be with four sword wounds in
his body; for you, without question, inflicted four upon the dear
gentleman, and he is still very weak, having lost almost all his blood.
As I said, monsieur, Lubin did not know me, and told me our adventure
from one end to the other.”

“Well done, Planchet! you are the king of lackeys. Now jump onto your
horse, and let us overtake the carriage.”

This did not take long. At the end of five minutes they perceived the
carriage drawn up by the roadside; a cavalier, richly dressed, was
close to the door.

The conversation between Milady and the cavalier was so animated that
D’Artagnan stopped on the other side of the carriage without anyone but
the pretty _soubrette_ perceiving his presence.

The conversation took place in English—a language which D’Artagnan
could not understand; but by the accent the young man plainly saw that
the beautiful Englishwoman was in a great rage. She terminated it by an
action which left no doubt as to the nature of this conversation; this
was a blow with her fan, applied with such force that the little
feminine weapon flew into a thousand pieces.

The cavalier laughed aloud, which appeared to exasperate Milady still
more.

D’Artagnan thought this was the moment to interfere. He approached the
other door, and taking off his hat respectfully, said, “Madame, will
you permit me to offer you my services? It appears to me that this
cavalier has made you very angry. Speak one word, madame, and I take
upon myself to punish him for his want of courtesy.”

At the first word Milady turned, looking at the young man with
astonishment; and when he had finished, she said in very good French,
“Monsieur, I should with great confidence place myself under your
protection if the person with whom I quarrel were not my brother.”

“Ah, excuse me, then,” said D’Artagnan. “You must be aware that I was
ignorant of that, madame.”

“What is that stupid fellow troubling himself about?” cried the
cavalier whom Milady had designated as her brother, stooping down to
the height of the coach window. “Why does not he go about his
business?”

“Stupid fellow yourself!” said D’Artagnan, stooping in his turn on the
neck of his horse, and answering on his side through the carriage
window. “I do not go on because it pleases me to stop here.”

The cavalier addressed some words in English to his sister.

“I speak to you in French,” said D’Artagnan; “be kind enough, then, to
reply to me in the same language. You are Madame’s brother, I learn—be
it so; but fortunately you are not mine.”

It might be thought that Milady, timid as women are in general, would
have interposed in this commencement of mutual provocations in order to
prevent the quarrel from going too far; but on the contrary, she threw
herself back in her carriage, and called out coolly to the coachman,
“Go on—home!”

The pretty _soubrette_ cast an anxious glance at D’Artagnan, whose good
looks seemed to have made an impression on her.

The carriage went on, and left the two men facing each other; no
material obstacle separated them.

The cavalier made a movement as if to follow the carriage; but
D’Artagnan, whose anger, already excited, was much increased by
recognizing in him the Englishman of Amiens who had won his horse and
had been very near winning his diamond of Athos, caught at his bridle
and stopped him.

“Well, monsieur,” said he, “you appear to be more stupid than I am, for
you forget there is a little quarrel to arrange between us two.”

“Ah,” said the Englishman, “is it you, my master? It seems you must
always be playing some game or other.”

“Yes; and that reminds me that I have a revenge to take. We will see,
my dear monsieur, if you can handle a sword as skillfully as you can a
dice box.”

“You see plainly that I have no sword,” said the Englishman. “Do you
wish to play the braggart with an unarmed man?”

“I hope you have a sword at home; but at all events, I have two, and if
you like, I will throw with you for one of them.”

“Needless,” said the Englishman; “I am well furnished with such
playthings.”

“Very well, my worthy gentleman,” replied D’Artagnan, “pick out the
longest, and come and show it to me this evening.”

“Where, if you please?”

“Behind the Luxembourg; that’s a charming spot for such amusements as
the one I propose to you.”

“That will do; I will be there.”

“Your hour?”

“Six o’clock.”

“_A propos_, you have probably one or two friends?”

“I have three, who would be honored by joining in the sport with me.”

“Three? Marvelous! That falls out oddly! Three is just my number!”

“Now, then, who are you?” asked the Englishman.

“I am Monsieur d’Artagnan, a Gascon gentleman, serving in the king’s
Musketeers. And you?”

“I am Lord de Winter, Baron Sheffield.”

“Well, then, I am your servant, Monsieur Baron,” said D’Artagnan,
“though you have names rather difficult to recollect.” And touching his
horse with the spur, he cantered back to Paris. As he was accustomed to
do in all cases of any consequence, D’Artagnan went straight to the
residence of Athos.

He found Athos reclining upon a large sofa, where he was waiting, as he
said, for his outfit to come and find him. He related to Athos all that
had passed, except the letter to M. de Wardes.

Athos was delighted to find he was going to fight an Englishman. We
might say that was his dream.

They immediately sent their lackeys for Porthos and Aramis, and on
their arrival made them acquainted with the situation.

Porthos drew his sword from the scabbard, and made passes at the wall,
springing back from time to time, and making contortions like a dancer.

Aramis, who was constantly at work at his poem, shut himself up in
Athos’s closet, and begged not to be disturbed before the moment of
drawing swords.

Athos, by signs, desired Grimaud to bring another bottle of wine.

D’Artagnan employed himself in arranging a little plan, of which we
shall hereafter see the execution, and which promised him some
agreeable adventure, as might be seen by the smiles which from time to
time passed over his countenance, whose thoughtfulness they animated.




Chapter XXXI.
ENGLISH AND FRENCH


The hour having come, they went with their four lackeys to a spot
behind the Luxembourg given up to the feeding of goats. Athos threw a
piece of money to the goatkeeper to withdraw. The lackeys were ordered
to act as sentinels.

A silent party soon drew near to the same enclosure, entered, and
joined the Musketeers. Then, according to foreign custom, the
presentations took place.

The Englishmen were all men of rank; consequently the odd names of
their adversaries were for them not only a matter of surprise, but of
annoyance.

“But after all,” said Lord de Winter, when the three friends had been
named, “we do not know who you are. We cannot fight with such names;
they are names of shepherds.”

“Therefore your lordship may suppose they are only assumed names,” said
Athos.

“Which only gives us a greater desire to know the real ones,” replied
the Englishman.

“You played very willingly with us without knowing our names,” said
Athos, “by the same token that you won our horses.”

“That is true, but we then only risked our pistoles; this time we risk
our blood. One plays with anybody; but one fights only with equals.”

“And that is but just,” said Athos, and he took aside the one of the
four Englishmen with whom he was to fight, and communicated his name in
a low voice.

Porthos and Aramis did the same.

“Does that satisfy you?” said Athos to his adversary. “Do you find me
of sufficient rank to do me the honor of crossing swords with me?”

“Yes, monsieur,” said the Englishman, bowing.

“Well! now shall I tell you something?” added Athos, coolly.

“What?” replied the Englishman.

“Why, that is that you would have acted much more wisely if you had not
required me to make myself known.”

“Why so?”

“Because I am believed to be dead, and have reasons for wishing nobody
to know I am living; so that I shall be obliged to kill you to prevent
my secret from roaming over the fields.”

The Englishman looked at Athos, believing that he jested, but Athos did
not jest the least in the world.

“Gentlemen,” said Athos, addressing at the same time his companions and
their adversaries, “are we ready?”

“Yes!” answered the Englishmen and the Frenchmen, as with one voice.

“On guard, then!” cried Athos.

Immediately eight swords glittered in the rays of the setting sun, and
the combat began with an animosity very natural between men twice
enemies.

Athos fenced with as much calmness and method as if he had been
practicing in a fencing school.

Porthos, abated, no doubt, of his too-great confidence by his adventure
of Chantilly, played with skill and prudence. Aramis, who had the third
canto of his poem to finish, behaved like a man in haste.

Athos killed his adversary first. He hit him but once, but as he had
foretold, that hit was a mortal one; the sword pierced his heart.

Second, Porthos stretched his upon the grass with a wound through his
thigh, As the Englishman, without making any further resistance, then
surrendered his sword, Porthos took him up in his arms and bore him to
his carriage.

Aramis pushed his so vigorously that after going back fifty paces, the
man ended by fairly taking to his heels, and disappeared amid the
hooting of the lackeys.

As to D’Artagnan, he fought purely and simply on the defensive; and
when he saw his adversary pretty well fatigued, with a vigorous side
thrust sent his sword flying. The baron, finding himself disarmed, took
two or three steps back, but in this movement his foot slipped and he
fell backward.

D’Artagnan was over him at a bound, and said to the Englishman,
pointing his sword to his throat, “I could kill you, my Lord, you are
completely in my hands; but I spare your life for the sake of your
sister.”

D’Artagnan was at the height of joy; he had realized the plan he had
imagined beforehand, whose picturing had produced the smiles we noted
upon his face.

The Englishman, delighted at having to do with a gentleman of such a
kind disposition, pressed D’Artagnan in his arms, and paid a thousand
compliments to the three Musketeers, and as Porthos’s adversary was
already installed in the carriage, and as Aramis’s had taken to his
heels, they had nothing to think about but the dead.

As Porthos and Aramis were undressing him, in the hope of finding his
wound not mortal, a large purse dropped from his clothes. D’Artagnan
picked it up and offered it to Lord de Winter.

“What the devil would you have me do with that?” said the Englishman.

“You can restore it to his family,” said D’Artagnan.

“His family will care much about such a trifle as that! His family will
inherit fifteen thousand louis a year from him. Keep the purse for your
lackeys.”

D’Artagnan put the purse into his pocket.

“And now, my young friend, for you will permit me, I hope, to give you
that name,” said Lord de Winter, “on this very evening, if agreeable to
you, I will present you to my sister, Milady Clarik, for I am desirous
that she should take you into her good graces; and as she is not in bad
odor at court, she may perhaps on some future day speak a word that
will not prove useless to you.”

D’Artagnan blushed with pleasure, and bowed a sign of assent.

At this time Athos came up to D’Artagnan.

“What do you mean to do with that purse?” whispered he.

“Why, I meant to pass it over to you, my dear Athos.”

“Me! why to me?”

“Why, you killed him! They are the spoils of victory.”

“I, the heir of an enemy!” said Athos; “for whom, then, do you take
me?”

“It is the custom in war,” said D’Artagnan, “why should it not be the
custom in a duel?”

“Even on the field of battle, I have never done that.”

Porthos shrugged his shoulders; Aramis by a movement of his lips
endorsed Athos.

“Then,” said D’Artagnan, “let us give the money to the lackeys, as Lord
de Winter desired us to do.”

“Yes,” said Athos; “let us give the money to the lackeys—not to our
lackeys, but to the lackeys of the Englishmen.”

Athos took the purse, and threw it into the hand of the coachman. “For
you and your comrades.”

This greatness of spirit in a man who was quite destitute struck even
Porthos; and this French generosity, repeated by Lord de Winter and his
friend, was highly applauded, except by MM. Grimaud, Bazin, Mousqueton
and Planchet.

Lord de Winter, on quitting D’Artagnan, gave him his sister’s address.
She lived in the Place Royale—then the fashionable quarter—at Number 6,
and he undertook to call and take D’Artagnan with him in order to
introduce him. D’Artagnan appointed eight o’clock at Athos’s residence.

This introduction to Milady Clarik occupied the head of our Gascon
greatly. He remembered in what a strange manner this woman had hitherto
been mixed up in his destiny. According to his conviction, she was some
creature of the cardinal, and yet he felt himself invincibly drawn
toward her by one of those sentiments for which we cannot account. His
only fear was that Milady would recognize in him the man of Meung and
of Dover. Then she knew that he was one of the friends of M. de
Tréville, and consequently, that he belonged body and soul to the king;
which would make him lose a part of his advantage, since when known to
Milady as he knew her, he played only an equal game with her. As to the
commencement of an intrigue between her and M. de Wardes, our
presumptuous hero gave but little heed to that, although the marquis
was young, handsome, rich, and high in the cardinal’s favor. It is not
for nothing we are but twenty years old, above all if we were born at
Tarbes.

D’Artagnan began by making his most splendid toilet, then returned to
Athos’s, and according to custom, related everything to him. Athos
listened to his projects, then shook his head, and recommended prudence
to him with a shade of bitterness.

“What!” said he, “you have just lost one woman, whom you call good,
charming, perfect; and here you are, running headlong after another.”

D’Artagnan felt the truth of this reproach.

“I loved Madame Bonacieux with my heart, while I only love Milady with
my head,” said he. “In getting introduced to her, my principal object
is to ascertain what part she plays at court.”

“The part she plays, _pardieu!_ It is not difficult to divine that,
after all you have told me. She is some emissary of the cardinal; a
woman who will draw you into a snare in which you will leave your
head.”

“The devil! my dear Athos, you view things on the dark side, methinks.”

“My dear fellow, I mistrust women. Can it be otherwise? I bought my
experience dearly—particularly fair women. Milady is fair, you say?”

“She has the most beautiful light hair imaginable!”

“Ah, my poor D’Artagnan!” said Athos.

“Listen to me! I want to be enlightened on a subject; then, when I
shall have learned what I desire to know, I will withdraw.”

“Be enlightened!” said Athos, phlegmatically.

Lord de Winter arrived at the appointed time; but Athos, being warned
of his coming, went into the other chamber. He therefore found
D’Artagnan alone, and as it was nearly eight o’clock he took the young
man with him.

An elegant carriage waited below, and as it was drawn by two excellent
horses, they were soon at the Place Royale.

Milady Clarik received D’Artagnan ceremoniously. Her hôtel was
remarkably sumptuous, and while the most part of the English had quit,
or were about to quit, France on account of the war, Milady had just
been laying out much money upon her residence; which proved that the
general measure which drove the English from France did not affect her.

“You see,” said Lord de Winter, presenting D’Artagnan to his sister, “a
young gentleman who has held my life in his hands, and who has not
abused his advantage, although we have been twice enemies, although it
was I who insulted him, and although I am an Englishman. Thank him,
then, madame, if you have any affection for me.”

Milady frowned slightly; a scarcely visible cloud passed over her brow,
and so peculiar a smile appeared upon her lips that the young man, who
saw and observed this triple shade, almost shuddered at it.

The brother did not perceive this; he had turned round to play with
Milady’s favorite monkey, which had pulled him by the doublet.

“You are welcome, monsieur,” said Milady, in a voice whose singular
sweetness contrasted with the symptoms of ill-humor which D’Artagnan
had just remarked; “you have today acquired eternal rights to my
gratitude.”

The Englishman then turned round and described the combat without
omitting a single detail. Milady listened with the greatest attention,
and yet it was easily to be perceived, whatever effort she made to
conceal her impressions, that this recital was not agreeable to her.
The blood rose to her head, and her little foot worked with impatience
beneath her robe.

Lord de Winter perceived nothing of this. When he had finished, he went
to a table upon which was a salver with Spanish wine and glasses. He
filled two glasses, and by a sign invited D’Artagnan to drink.

D’Artagnan knew it was considered disobliging by an Englishman to
refuse to pledge him. He therefore drew near to the table and took the
second glass. He did not, however, lose sight of Milady, and in a
mirror he perceived the change that came over her face. Now that she
believed herself to be no longer observed, a sentiment resembling
ferocity animated her countenance. She bit her handkerchief with her
beautiful teeth.

That pretty little _soubrette_ whom D’Artagnan had already observed
then came in. She spoke some words to Lord de Winter in English, who
thereupon requested D’Artagnan’s permission to retire, excusing himself
on account of the urgency of the business that had called him away, and
charging his sister to obtain his pardon.

D’Artagnan exchanged a shake of the hand with Lord de Winter, and then
returned to Milady. Her countenance, with surprising mobility, had
recovered its gracious expression; but some little red spots on her
handkerchief indicated that she had bitten her lips till the blood
came. Those lips were magnificent; they might be said to be of coral.

The conversation took a cheerful turn. Milady appeared to have entirely
recovered. She told D’Artagnan that Lord de Winter was her
brother-in-law, and not her brother. She had married a younger brother
of the family, who had left her a widow with one child. This child was
the only heir to Lord de Winter, if Lord de Winter did not marry. All
this showed D’Artagnan that there was a veil which concealed something;
but he could not yet see under this veil.

In addition to this, after a half hour’s conversation D’Artagnan was
convinced that Milady was his compatriot; she spoke French with an
elegance and a purity that left no doubt on that head.

D’Artagnan was profuse in gallant speeches and protestations of
devotion. To all the simple things which escaped our Gascon, Milady
replied with a smile of kindness. The hour came for him to retire.
D’Artagnan took leave of Milady, and left the saloon the happiest of
men.

On the staircase he met the pretty _soubrette_, who brushed gently
against him as she passed, and then, blushing to the eyes, asked his
pardon for having touched him in a voice so sweet that the pardon was
granted instantly.

D’Artagnan came again on the morrow, and was still better received than
on the evening before. Lord de Winter was not at home; and it was
Milady who this time did all the honors of the evening. She appeared to
take a great interest in him, asked him whence he came, who were his
friends, and whether he had not sometimes thought of attaching himself
to the cardinal.

D’Artagnan, who, as we have said, was exceedingly prudent for a young
man of twenty, then remembered his suspicions regarding Milady. He
launched into a eulogy of his Eminence, and said that he should not
have failed to enter into the Guards of the cardinal instead of the
king’s Guards if he had happened to know M. de Cavois instead of M. de
Tréville.

Milady changed the conversation without any appearance of affectation,
and asked D’Artagnan in the most careless manner possible if he had
ever been in England.

D’Artagnan replied that he had been sent thither by M. de Tréville to
treat for a supply of horses, and that he had brought back four as
specimens.

Milady in the course of the conversation twice or thrice bit her lips;
she had to deal with a Gascon who played close.

At the same hour as on the preceding evening, D’Artagnan retired. In
the corridor he again met the pretty Kitty; that was the name of the
_soubrette_. She looked at him with an expression of kindness which it
was impossible to mistake; but D’Artagnan was so preoccupied by the
mistress that he noticed absolutely nothing but her.

D’Artagnan came again on the morrow and the day after that, and each
day Milady gave him a more gracious reception.

Every evening, either in the antechamber, the corridor, or on the
stairs, he met the pretty _soubrette_. But, as we have said, D’Artagnan
paid no attention to this persistence of poor Kitty.




Chapter XXXII.
A PROCURATOR’S DINNER


However brilliant had been the part played by Porthos in the duel, it
had not made him forget the dinner of the procurator’s wife.

On the morrow he received the last touches of Mousqueton’s brush for an
hour, and took his way toward the Rue aux Ours with the steps of a man
who was doubly in favor with fortune.

His heart beat, but not like D’Artagnan’s with a young and impatient
love. No; a more material interest stirred his blood. He was about at
last to pass that mysterious threshold, to climb those unknown stairs
by which, one by one, the old crowns of M. Coquenard had ascended. He
was about to see in reality a certain coffer of which he had twenty
times beheld the image in his dreams—a coffer long and deep, locked,
bolted, fastened in the wall; a coffer of which he had so often heard,
and which the hands—a little wrinkled, it is true, but still not
without elegance—of the procurator’s wife were about to open to his
admiring looks.

And then he—a wanderer on the earth, a man without fortune, a man
without family, a soldier accustomed to inns, cabarets, taverns, and
restaurants, a lover of wine forced to depend upon chance treats—was
about to partake of family meals, to enjoy the pleasures of a
comfortable establishment, and to give himself up to those little
attentions which “the harder one is, the more they please,” as old
soldiers say.

To come in the capacity of a cousin, and seat himself every day at a
good table; to smooth the yellow, wrinkled brow of the old procurator;
to pluck the clerks a little by teaching them _bassette_, _passe-dix_,
and _lansquenet_, in their utmost nicety, and winning from them, by way
of fee for the lesson he would give them in an hour, their savings of a
month—all this was enormously delightful to Porthos.

The Musketeer could not forget the evil reports which then prevailed,
and which indeed have survived them, of the procurators of the
period—meanness, stinginess, fasts; but as, after all, excepting some
few acts of economy which Porthos had always found very unseasonable,
the procurator’s wife had been tolerably liberal—that is, be it
understood, for a procurator’s wife—he hoped to see a household of a
highly comfortable kind.

And yet, at the very door the Musketeer began to entertain some doubts.
The approach was not such as to prepossess people—an ill-smelling, dark
passage, a staircase half-lighted by bars through which stole a glimmer
from a neighboring yard; on the first floor a low door studded with
enormous nails, like the principal gate of the Grand Châtelet.

Porthos knocked with his hand. A tall, pale clerk, his face shaded by a
forest of virgin hair, opened the door, and bowed with the air of a man
forced at once to respect in another lofty stature, which indicated
strength, the military dress, which indicated rank, and a ruddy
countenance, which indicated familiarity with good living.

A shorter clerk came behind the first, a taller clerk behind the
second, a stripling of a dozen years rising behind the third. In all,
three clerks and a half, which, for the time, argued a very extensive
clientage.

Although the Musketeer was not expected before one o’clock, the
procurator’s wife had been on the watch ever since midday, reckoning
that the heart, or perhaps the stomach, of her lover would bring him
before his time.

Mme. Coquenard therefore entered the office from the house at the same
moment her guest entered from the stairs, and the appearance of the
worthy lady relieved him from an awkward embarrassment. The clerks
surveyed him with great curiosity, and he, not knowing well what to say
to this ascending and descending scale, remained tongue-tied.

“It is my cousin!” cried the procurator’s wife. “Come in, come in,
Monsieur Porthos!”

The name of Porthos produced its effect upon the clerks, who began to
laugh; but Porthos turned sharply round, and every countenance quickly
recovered its gravity.

They reached the office of the procurator after having passed through
the antechamber in which the clerks were, and the study in which they
ought to have been. This last apartment was a sort of dark room,
littered with papers. On quitting the study they left the kitchen on
the right, and entered the reception room.

All these rooms, which communicated with one another, did not inspire
Porthos favorably. Words might be heard at a distance through all these
open doors. Then, while passing, he had cast a rapid, investigating
glance into the kitchen; and he was obliged to confess to himself, to
the shame of the procurator’s wife and his own regret, that he did not
see that fire, that animation, that bustle, which when a good repast is
on foot prevails generally in that sanctuary of good living.

The procurator had without doubt been warned of his visit, as he
expressed no surprise at the sight of Porthos, who advanced toward him
with a sufficiently easy air, and saluted him courteously.

“We are cousins, it appears, Monsieur Porthos?” said the procurator,
rising, yet supporting his weight upon the arms of his cane chair.

The old man, wrapped in a large black doublet, in which the whole of
his slender body was concealed, was brisk and dry. His little gray eyes
shone like carbuncles, and appeared, with his grinning mouth, to be the
only part of his face in which life survived. Unfortunately the legs
began to refuse their service to this bony machine. During the last
five or six months that this weakness had been felt, the worthy
procurator had nearly become the slave of his wife.

The cousin was received with resignation, that was all. M. Coquenard,
firm upon his legs, would have declined all relationship with M.
Porthos.

“Yes, monsieur, we are cousins,” said Porthos, without being
disconcerted, as he had never reckoned upon being received
enthusiastically by the husband.

“By the female side, I believe?” said the procurator, maliciously.

Porthos did not feel the ridicule of this, and took it for a piece of
simplicity, at which he laughed in his large mustache. Mme. Coquenard,
who knew that a simple-minded procurator was a very rare variety in the
species, smiled a little, and colored a great deal.

M. Coquenard had, since the arrival of Porthos, frequently cast his
eyes with great uneasiness upon a large chest placed in front of his
oak desk. Porthos comprehended that this chest, although it did not
correspond in shape with that which he had seen in his dreams, must be
the blessed coffer, and he congratulated himself that the reality was
several feet higher than the dream.

M. Coquenard did not carry his genealogical investigations any further;
but withdrawing his anxious look from the chest and fixing it upon
Porthos, he contented himself with saying, “Monsieur our cousin will do
us the favor of dining with us once before his departure for the
campaign, will he not, Madame Coquenard?”

This time Porthos received the blow right in his stomach, and felt it.
It appeared likewise that Mme. Coquenard was not less affected by it on
her part, for she added, “My cousin will not return if he finds that we
do not treat him kindly; but otherwise he has so little time to pass in
Paris, and consequently to spare to us, that we must entreat him to
give us every instant he can call his own previous to his departure.”

“Oh, my legs, my poor legs! where are you?” murmured Coquenard, and he
tried to smile.

This succor, which came to Porthos at the moment in which he was
attacked in his gastronomic hopes, inspired much gratitude in the
Musketeer toward the procurator’s wife.

The hour of dinner soon arrived. They passed into the eating room—a
large dark room situated opposite the kitchen.

The clerks, who, as it appeared, had smelled unusual perfumes in the
house, were of military punctuality, and held their stools in hand
quite ready to sit down. Their jaws moved preliminarily with fearful
threatenings.

“Indeed!” thought Porthos, casting a glance at the three hungry
clerks—for the errand boy, as might be expected, was not admitted to
the honors of the magisterial table, “in my cousin’s place, I would not
keep such gourmands! They look like shipwrecked sailors who have not
eaten for six weeks.”

M. Coquenard entered, pushed along upon his armchair with casters by
Mme. Coquenard, whom Porthos assisted in rolling her husband up to the
table. He had scarcely entered when he began to agitate his nose and
his jaws after the example of his clerks.

“Oh, oh!” said he; “here is a soup which is rather inviting.”

“What the devil can they smell so extraordinary in this soup?” said
Porthos, at the sight of a pale liquid, abundant but entirely free from
meat, on the surface of which a few crusts swam about as rare as the
islands of an archipelago.

Mme. Coquenard smiled, and upon a sign from her everyone eagerly took
his seat.

M. Coquenard was served first, then Porthos. Afterward Mme. Coquenard
filled her own plate, and distributed the crusts without soup to the
impatient clerks. At this moment the door of the dining room unclosed
with a creak, and Porthos perceived through the half-open flap the
little clerk who, not being allowed to take part in the feast, ate his
dry bread in the passage with the double odor of the dining room and
kitchen.

After the soup the maid brought a boiled fowl—a piece of magnificence
which caused the eyes of the diners to dilate in such a manner that
they seemed ready to burst.

“One may see that you love your family, Madame Coquenard,” said the
procurator, with a smile that was almost tragic. “You are certainly
treating your cousin very handsomely!”

The poor fowl was thin, and covered with one of those thick, bristly
skins through which the teeth cannot penetrate with all their efforts.
The fowl must have been sought for a long time on the perch, to which
it had retired to die of old age.

“The devil!” thought Porthos, “this is poor work. I respect old age,
but I don’t much like it boiled or roasted.”

And he looked round to see if anybody partook of his opinion; but on
the contrary, he saw nothing but eager eyes which were devouring, in
anticipation, that sublime fowl which was the object of his contempt.

Mme. Coquenard drew the dish toward her, skillfully detached the two
great black feet, which she placed upon her husband’s plate, cut off
the neck, which with the head she put on one side for herself, raised
the wing for Porthos, and then returned the bird otherwise intact to
the servant who had brought it in, who disappeared with it before the
Musketeer had time to examine the variations which disappointment
produces upon faces, according to the characters and temperaments of
those who experience it.

In the place of the fowl a dish of haricot beans made its appearance—an
enormous dish in which some bones of mutton that at first sight one
might have believed to have some meat on them pretended to show
themselves.

But the clerks were not the dupes of this deceit, and their lugubrious
looks settled down into resigned countenances.

Mme. Coquenard distributed this dish to the young men with the
moderation of a good housewife.

The time for wine came. M. Coquenard poured from a very small stone
bottle the third of a glass for each of the young men, served himself
in about the same proportion, and passed the bottle to Porthos and Mme.
Coquenard.

The young men filled up their third of a glass with water; then, when
they had drunk half the glass, they filled it up again, and continued
to do so. This brought them, by the end of the repast, to swallowing a
drink which from the color of the ruby had passed to that of a pale
topaz.

Porthos ate his wing of the fowl timidly, and shuddered when he felt
the knee of the procurator’s wife under the table, as it came in search
of his. He also drank half a glass of this sparingly served wine, and
found it to be nothing but that horrible Montreuil—the terror of all
expert palates.

M. Coquenard saw him swallowing this wine undiluted, and sighed deeply.

“Will you eat any of these beans, Cousin Porthos?” said Mme. Coquenard,
in that tone which says, “Take my advice, don’t touch them.”

“Devil take me if I taste one of them!” murmured Porthos to himself,
and then said aloud, “Thank you, my cousin, I am no longer hungry.”

There was silence. Porthos could hardly keep his countenance.

The procurator repeated several times, “Ah, Madame Coquenard! Accept my
compliments; your dinner has been a real feast. Lord, how I have
eaten!”

M. Coquenard had eaten his soup, the black feet of the fowl, and the
only mutton bone on which there was the least appearance of meat.

Porthos fancied they were mystifying him, and began to curl his
mustache and knit his eyebrows; but the knee of Mme. Coquenard gently
advised him to be patient.

This silence and this interruption in serving, which were
unintelligible to Porthos, had, on the contrary, a terrible meaning for
the clerks. Upon a look from the procurator, accompanied by a smile
from Mme. Coquenard, they arose slowly from the table, folded their
napkins more slowly still, bowed, and retired.

“Go, young men! go and promote digestion by working,” said the
procurator, gravely.

The clerks gone, Mme. Coquenard rose and took from a buffet a piece of
cheese, some preserved quinces, and a cake which she had herself made
of almonds and honey.

M. Coquenard knit his eyebrows because there were too many good things.
Porthos bit his lips because he saw not the wherewithal to dine. He
looked to see if the dish of beans was still there; the dish of beans
had disappeared.

“A positive feast!” cried M. Coquenard, turning about in his chair, “a
real feast, _epulœ epulorum_. Lucullus dines with Lucullus.”

Porthos looked at the bottle, which was near him, and hoped that with
wine, bread, and cheese, he might make a dinner; but wine was wanting,
the bottle was empty. M. and Mme. Coquenard did not seem to observe it.

“This is fine!” said Porthos to himself; “I am prettily caught!”

He passed his tongue over a spoonful of preserves, and stuck his teeth
into the sticky pastry of Mme. Coquenard.

“Now,” said he, “the sacrifice is consummated! Ah! if I had not the
hope of peeping with Madame Coquenard into her husband’s chest!”

M. Coquenard, after the luxuries of such a repast, which he called an
excess, felt the want of a siesta. Porthos began to hope that the thing
would take place at the present sitting, and in that same locality; but
the procurator would listen to nothing, he would be taken to his room,
and was not satisfied till he was close to his chest, upon the edge of
which, for still greater precaution, he placed his feet.

The procurator’s wife took Porthos into an adjoining room, and they
began to lay the basis of a reconciliation.

“You can come and dine three times a week,” said Mme. Coquenard.

“Thanks, madame!” said Porthos, “but I don’t like to abuse your
kindness; besides, I must think of my outfit!”

“That’s true,” said the procurator’s wife, groaning, “that unfortunate
outfit!”

“Alas, yes,” said Porthos, “it is so.”

“But of what, then, does the equipment of your company consist,
Monsieur Porthos?”

“Oh, of many things!” said Porthos. “The Musketeers are, as you know,
picked soldiers, and they require many things useless to the Guardsmen
or the Swiss.”

“But yet, detail them to me.”

“Why, they may amount to—“, said Porthos, who preferred discussing the
total to taking them one by one.

The procurator’s wife waited tremblingly.

“To how much?” said she. “I hope it does not exceed—” She stopped;
speech failed her.

“Oh, no,” said Porthos, “it does not exceed two thousand five hundred
livres! I even think that with economy I could manage it with two
thousand livres.”

“Good God!” cried she, “two thousand livres! Why, that is a fortune!”

Porthos made a most significant grimace; Mme. Coquenard understood it.

“I wished to know the detail,” said she, “because, having many
relatives in business, I was almost sure of obtaining things at a
hundred per cent less than you would pay yourself.”

“Ah, ah!” said Porthos, “that is what you meant to say!”

“Yes, dear Monsieur Porthos. Thus, for instance, don’t you in the first
place want a horse?”

“Yes, a horse.”

“Well, then! I can just suit you.”

“Ah!” said Porthos, brightening, “that’s well as regards my horse; but
I must have the appointments complete, as they include objects which a
Musketeer alone can purchase, and which will not amount, besides, to
more than three hundred livres.”

“Three hundred livres? Then put down three hundred livres,” said the
procurator’s wife, with a sigh.

Porthos smiled. It may be remembered that he had the saddle which came
from Buckingham. These three hundred livres he reckoned upon putting
snugly into his pocket.

“Then,” continued he, “there is a horse for my lackey, and my valise.
As to my arms, it is useless to trouble you about them; I have them.”

“A horse for your lackey?” resumed the procurator’s wife, hesitatingly;
“but that is doing things in lordly style, my friend.”

“Ah, madame!” said Porthos, haughtily; “do you take me for a beggar?”

“No; I only thought that a pretty mule makes sometimes as good an
appearance as a horse, and it seemed to me that by getting a pretty
mule for Mousqueton—”

“Well, agreed for a pretty mule,” said Porthos; “you are right, I have
seen very great Spanish nobles whose whole suite were mounted on mules.
But then you understand, Madame Coquenard, a mule with feathers and
bells.”

“Be satisfied,” said the procurator’s wife.

“There remains the valise,” added Porthos.

“Oh, don’t let that disturb you,” cried Mme. Coquenard. “My husband has
five or six valises; you shall choose the best. There is one in
particular which he prefers in his journeys, large enough to hold all
the world.”

“Your valise is then empty?” asked Porthos, with simplicity.

“Certainly it is empty,” replied the procurator’s wife, in real
innocence.

“Ah, but the valise I want,” cried Porthos, “is a well-filled one, my
dear.”

Madame uttered fresh sighs. Molière had not written his scene in
“L’Avare” then. Mme. Coquenard was in the dilemma of Harpagan.

Finally, the rest of the equipment was successively debated in the same
manner; and the result of the sitting was that the procurator’s wife
should give eight hundred livres in money, and should furnish the horse
and the mule which should have the honor of carrying Porthos and
Mousqueton to glory.

These conditions being agreed to, Porthos took leave of Mme. Coquenard.
The latter wished to detain him by darting certain tender glances; but
Porthos urged the commands of duty, and the procurator’s wife was
obliged to give place to the king.

The Musketeer returned home hungry and in bad humor.




Chapter XXXIII.
SOUBRETTE AND MISTRESS


Meantime, as we have said, despite the cries of his conscience and the
wise counsels of Athos, D’Artagnan became hourly more in love with
Milady. Thus he never failed to pay his diurnal court to her; and the
self-satisfied Gascon was convinced that sooner or later she could not
fail to respond.

One day, when he arrived with his head in the air, and as light at
heart as a man who awaits a shower of gold, he found the _soubrette_
under the gateway of the hôtel; but this time the pretty Kitty was not
contented with touching him as he passed, she took him gently by the
hand.

“Good!” thought D’Artagnan, “She is charged with some message for me
from her mistress; she is about to appoint some rendezvous of which she
had not courage to speak.” And he looked down at the pretty girl with
the most triumphant air imaginable.

“I wish to say three words to you, Monsieur Chevalier,” stammered the
_soubrette_.

“Speak, my child, speak,” said D’Artagnan; “I listen.”

“Here? Impossible! That which I have to say is too long, and above all,
too secret.”

“Well, what is to be done?”

“If Monsieur Chevalier would follow me?” said Kitty, timidly.

“Where you please, my dear child.”

“Come, then.”

And Kitty, who had not let go the hand of D’Artagnan, led him up a
little dark, winding staircase, and after ascending about fifteen
steps, opened a door.

“Come in here, Monsieur Chevalier,” said she; “here we shall be alone,
and can talk.”

“And whose room is this, my dear child?”

“It is mine, Monsieur Chevalier; it communicates with my mistress’s by
that door. But you need not fear. She will not hear what we say; she
never goes to bed before midnight.”

D’Artagnan cast a glance around him. The little apartment was charming
for its taste and neatness; but in spite of himself, his eyes were
directed to that door which Kitty said led to Milady’s chamber.

Kitty guessed what was passing in the mind of the young man, and heaved
a deep sigh.

“You love my mistress, then, very dearly, Monsieur Chevalier?” said
she.

“Oh, more than I can say, Kitty! I am mad for her!”

Kitty breathed a second sigh.

“Alas, monsieur,” said she, “that is too bad.”

“What the devil do you see so bad in it?” said D’Artagnan.

“Because, monsieur,” replied Kitty, “my mistress loves you not at all.”

“_Hein!_” said D’Artagnan, “can she have charged you to tell me so?”

“Oh, no, monsieur; but out of the regard I have for you, I have taken
the resolution to tell you so.”

“Much obliged, my dear Kitty; but for the intention only—for the
information, you must agree, is not likely to be at all agreeable.”

“That is to say, you don’t believe what I have told you; is it not so?”

“We have always some difficulty in believing such things, my pretty
dear, were it only from self-love.”

“Then you don’t believe me?”

“I confess that unless you deign to give me some proof of what you
advance—”

“What do you think of this?”

Kitty drew a little note from her bosom.

“For me?” said D’Artagnan, seizing the letter.

“No; for another.”

“For another?”

“Yes.”

“His name; his name!” cried D’Artagnan.

“Read the address.”

“Monsieur El Comte de Wardes.”

The remembrance of the scene at St. Germain presented itself to the
mind of the presumptuous Gascon. As quick as thought, he tore open the
letter, in spite of the cry which Kitty uttered on seeing what he was
going to do, or rather, what he was doing.

“Oh, good Lord, Monsieur Chevalier,” said she, “what are you doing?”

“I?” said D’Artagnan; “nothing,” and he read,

“You have not answered my first note. Are you indisposed, or have you
forgotten the glances you favored me with at the ball of Mme. de Guise?
You have an opportunity now, Count; do not allow it to escape.”


D’Artagnan became very pale; he was wounded in his _self_-love: he
thought that it was in his _love_.

“Poor dear Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Kitty, in a voice full of
compassion, and pressing anew the young man’s hand.

“You pity me, little one?” said D’Artagnan.

“Oh, yes, and with all my heart; for I know what it is to be in love.”

“You know what it is to be in love?” said D’Artagnan, looking at her
for the first time with much attention.

“Alas, yes.”

“Well, then, instead of pitying me, you would do much better to assist
me in avenging myself on your mistress.”

“And what sort of revenge would you take?”

“I would triumph over her, and supplant my rival.”

“I will never help you in that, Monsieur Chevalier,” said Kitty,
warmly.

“And why not?” demanded D’Artagnan.

“For two reasons.”

“What ones?”

“The first is that my mistress will never love you.”

“How do you know that?”

“You have cut her to the heart.”

“I? In what can I have offended her—I who ever since I have known her
have lived at her feet like a slave? Speak, I beg you!”

“I will never confess that but to the man—who should read to the bottom
of my soul!”

D’Artagnan looked at Kitty for the second time. The young girl had
freshness and beauty which many duchesses would have purchased with
their coronets.

“Kitty,” said he, “I will read to the bottom of your soul whenever you
like; don’t let that disturb you.” And he gave her a kiss at which the
poor girl became as red as a cherry.

“Oh, no,” said Kitty, “it is not me you love! It is my mistress you
love; you told me so just now.”

“And does that hinder you from letting me know the second reason?”

“The second reason, Monsieur the Chevalier,” replied Kitty, emboldened
by the kiss in the first place, and still further by the expression of
the eyes of the young man, “is that in love, everyone for herself!”

Then only D’Artagnan remembered the languishing glances of Kitty, her
constantly meeting him in the antechamber, the corridor, or on the
stairs, those touches of the hand every time she met him, and her deep
sighs; but absorbed by his desire to please the great lady, he had
disdained the _soubrette_. He whose game is the eagle takes no heed of
the sparrow.

But this time our Gascon saw at a glance all the advantage to be
derived from the love which Kitty had just confessed so innocently, or
so boldly: the interception of letters addressed to the Comte de
Wardes, news on the spot, entrance at all hours into Kitty’s chamber,
which was contiguous to her mistress’s. The perfidious deceiver was, as
may plainly be perceived, already sacrificing, in intention, the poor
girl in order to obtain Milady, willy-nilly.

“Well,” said he to the young girl, “are you willing, my dear Kitty,
that I should give you a proof of that love which you doubt?”

“What love?” asked the young girl.

“Of that which I am ready to feel toward you.”

“And what is that proof?”

“Are you willing that I should this evening pass with you the time I
generally spend with your mistress?”

“Oh, yes,” said Kitty, clapping her hands, “very willing.”

“Well, then, come here, my dear,” said D’Artagnan, establishing himself
in an easy chair; “come, and let me tell you that you are the prettiest
_soubrette_ I ever saw!”

And he did tell her so much, and so well, that the poor girl, who asked
nothing better than to believe him, did believe him. Nevertheless, to
D’Artagnan’s great astonishment, the pretty Kitty defended herself
resolutely.

Time passes quickly when it is passed in attacks and defenses. Midnight
sounded, and almost at the same time the bell was rung in Milady’s
chamber.

“Good God,” cried Kitty, “there is my mistress calling me! Go; go
directly!”

D’Artagnan rose, took his hat, as if it had been his intention to obey,
then, opening quickly the door of a large closet instead of that
leading to the staircase, he buried himself amid the robes and dressing
gowns of Milady.

“What are you doing?” cried Kitty.

D’Artagnan, who had secured the key, shut himself up in the closet
without reply.

“Well,” cried Milady, in a sharp voice. “Are you asleep, that you don’t
answer when I ring?”

And D’Artagnan heard the door of communication opened violently.

“Here am I, Milady, here am I!” cried Kitty, springing forward to meet
her mistress.

Both went into the bedroom, and as the door of communication remained
open, D’Artagnan could hear Milady for some time scolding her maid. She
was at length appeased, and the conversation turned upon him while
Kitty was assisting her mistress.

“Well,” said Milady, “I have not seen our Gascon this evening.”

“What, Milady! has he not come?” said Kitty. “Can he be inconstant
before being happy?”

“Oh, no; he must have been prevented by Monsieur de Tréville or
Monsieur Dessessart. I understand my game, Kitty; I have this one
safe.”

“What will you do with him, madame?”

“What will I do with him? Be easy, Kitty, there is something between
that man and me that he is quite ignorant of: he nearly made me lose my
credit with his Eminence. Oh, I will be revenged!”

“I believed that Madame loved him.”

“I love him? I detest him! An idiot, who held the life of Lord de
Winter in his hands and did not kill him, by which I missed three
hundred thousand livres’ income.”

“That’s true,” said Kitty; “your son was the only heir of his uncle,
and until his majority you would have had the enjoyment of his
fortune.”

D’Artagnan shuddered to the marrow at hearing this suave creature
reproach him, with that sharp voice which she took such pains to
conceal in conversation, for not having killed a man whom he had seen
load her with kindnesses.

“For all this,” continued Milady, “I should long ago have revenged
myself on him if, and I don’t know why, the cardinal had not requested
me to conciliate him.”

“Oh, yes; but Madame has not conciliated that little woman he was so
fond of.”

“What, the mercer’s wife of the Rue des Fossoyeurs? Has he not already
forgotten she ever existed? Fine vengeance that, on my faith!”

A cold sweat broke from D’Artagnan’s brow. Why, this woman was a
monster! He resumed his listening, but unfortunately the toilet was
finished.

“That will do,” said Milady; “go into your own room, and tomorrow
endeavor again to get me an answer to the letter I gave you.”

“For Monsieur de Wardes?” said Kitty.

“To be sure; for Monsieur de Wardes.”

“Now, there is one,” said Kitty, “who appears to me quite a different
sort of a man from that poor Monsieur d’Artagnan.”

“Go to bed, mademoiselle,” said Milady; “I don’t like comments.”

D’Artagnan heard the door close; then the noise of two bolts by which
Milady fastened herself in. On her side, but as softly as possible,
Kitty turned the key of the lock, and then D’Artagnan opened the closet
door.

“Oh, good Lord!” said Kitty, in a low voice, “what is the matter with
you? How pale you are!”

“The abominable creature,” murmured D’Artagnan.

“Silence, silence, begone!” said Kitty. “There is nothing but a
wainscot between my chamber and Milady’s; every word that is uttered in
one can be heard in the other.”

“That’s exactly the reason I won’t go,” said D’Artagnan.

“What!” said Kitty, blushing.

“Or, at least, I will go—later.”

He drew Kitty to him. She had the less motive to resist, resistance
would make so much noise. Therefore Kitty surrendered.

It was a movement of vengeance upon Milady. D’Artagnan believed it
right to say that vengeance is the pleasure of the gods. With a little
more heart, he might have been contented with this new conquest; but
the principal features of his character were ambition and pride. It
must, however, be confessed in his justification that the first use he
made of his influence over Kitty was to try and find out what had
become of Mme. Bonacieux; but the poor girl swore upon the crucifix to
D’Artagnan that she was entirely ignorant on that head, her mistress
never admitting her into half her secrets—only she believed she could
say she was not dead.

As to the cause which was near making Milady lose her credit with the
cardinal, Kitty knew nothing about it; but this time D’Artagnan was
better informed than she was. As he had seen Milady on board a vessel
at the moment he was leaving England, he suspected that it was, almost
without a doubt, on account of the diamond studs.

But what was clearest in all this was that the true hatred, the
profound hatred, the inveterate hatred of Milady, was increased by his
not having killed her brother-in-law.

D’Artagnan came the next day to Milady’s, and finding her in a very
ill-humor, had no doubt that it was lack of an answer from M. de Wardes
that provoked her thus. Kitty came in, but Milady was very cross with
her. The poor girl ventured a glance at D’Artagnan which said, “See how
I suffer on your account!”

Toward the end of the evening, however, the beautiful lioness became
milder; she smilingly listened to the soft speeches of D’Artagnan, and
even gave him her hand to kiss.

D’Artagnan departed, scarcely knowing what to think, but as he was a
youth who did not easily lose his head, while continuing to pay his
court to Milady, he had framed a little plan in his mind.

He found Kitty at the gate, and, as on the preceding evening, went up
to her chamber. Kitty had been accused of negligence and severely
scolded. Milady could not at all comprehend the silence of the Comte de
Wardes, and she ordered Kitty to come at nine o’clock in the morning to
take a third letter.

D’Artagnan made Kitty promise to bring him that letter on the following
morning. The poor girl promised all her lover desired; she was mad.

Things passed as on the night before. D’Artagnan concealed himself in
his closet; Milady called, undressed, sent away Kitty, and shut the
door. As the night before, D’Artagnan did not return home till five
o’clock in the morning.

At eleven o’clock Kitty came to him. She held in her hand a fresh
billet from Milady. This time the poor girl did not even argue with
D’Artagnan; she gave it to him at once. She belonged body and soul to
her handsome soldier.

D’Artagnan opened the letter and read as follows:

This is the third time I have written to you to tell you that I love
you. Beware that I do not write to you a fourth time to tell you that I
detest you.
    If you repent of the manner in which you have acted toward me, the
    young girl who brings you this will tell you how a man of spirit
    may obtain his pardon.


D’Artagnan colored and grew pale several times in reading this billet.

“Oh, you love her still,” said Kitty, who had not taken her eyes off
the young man’s countenance for an instant.

“No, Kitty, you are mistaken. I do not love her, but I will avenge
myself for her contempt.”

“Oh, yes, I know what sort of vengeance! You told me that!”

“What matters it to you, Kitty? You know it is you alone whom I love.”

“How can I know that?”

“By the scorn I will throw upon her.”

D’Artagnan took a pen and wrote:

MADAME, Until the present moment I could not believe that it was to me
your first two letters were addressed, so unworthy did I feel myself of
such an honor; besides, I was so seriously indisposed that I could not
in any case have replied to them.
    But now I am forced to believe in the excess of your kindness,
    since not only your letter but your servant assures me that I have
    the good fortune to be beloved by you.
    She has no occasion to teach me the way in which a man of spirit
    may obtain his pardon. I will come and ask mine at eleven o’clock
    this evening.
    To delay it a single day would be in my eyes now to commit a fresh
    offense.
    From him whom you have rendered the happiest of men,


COMTE DE WARDES


This note was in the first place a forgery; it was likewise an
indelicacy. It was even, according to our present manners, something
like an infamous action; but at that period people did not manage
affairs as they do today. Besides, D’Artagnan from her own admission
knew Milady culpable of treachery in matters more important, and could
entertain no respect for her. And yet, notwithstanding this want of
respect, he felt an uncontrollable passion for this woman boiling in
his veins—passion drunk with contempt; but passion or thirst, as the
reader pleases.

D’Artagnan’s plan was very simple. By Kitty’s chamber he could gain
that of her mistress. He would take advantage of the first moment of
surprise, shame, and terror, to triumph over her. He might fail, but
something must be left to chance. In eight days the campaign would
open, and he would be compelled to leave Paris; D’Artagnan had no time
for a prolonged love siege.

“There,” said the young man, handing Kitty the letter sealed; “give
that to Milady. It is the count’s reply.”

Poor Kitty became as pale as death; she suspected what the letter
contained.

“Listen, my dear girl,” said D’Artagnan; “you cannot but perceive that
all this must end, some way or other. Milady may discover that you gave
the first billet to my lackey instead of to the count’s; that it is I
who have opened the others which ought to have been opened by de
Wardes. Milady will then turn you out of doors, and you know she is not
the woman to limit her vengeance.”

“Alas!” said Kitty, “for whom have I exposed myself to all that?”

“For me, I well know, my sweet girl,” said D’Artagnan. “But I am
grateful, I swear to you.”

“But what does this note contain?”

“Milady will tell you.”

“Ah, you do not love me!” cried Kitty, “and I am very wretched.”

To this reproach there is always one response which deludes women.
D’Artagnan replied in such a manner that Kitty remained in her great
delusion. Although she cried freely before deciding to transmit the
letter to her mistress, she did at last so decide, which was all
D’Artagnan wished. Finally he promised that he would leave her
mistress’s presence at an early hour that evening, and that when he
left the mistress he would ascend with the maid. This promise completed
poor Kitty’s consolation.




Chapter XXXIV.
IN WHICH THE EQUIPMENT OF ARAMIS AND PORTHOS IS TREATED OF


Since the four friends had been each in search of his equipments, there
had been no fixed meeting between them. They dined apart from one
another, wherever they might happen to be, or rather where they could.
Duty likewise on its part took a portion of that precious time which
was gliding away so rapidly—only they had agreed to meet once a week,
about one o’clock, at the residence of Athos, seeing that he, in
agreement with the vow he had formed, did not pass over the threshold
of his door.

This day of reunion was the same day as that on which Kitty came to
find D’Artagnan. Soon as Kitty left him, D’Artagnan directed his steps
toward the Rue Férou.

He found Athos and Aramis philosophizing. Aramis had some slight
inclination to resume the cassock. Athos, according to his system,
neither encouraged nor dissuaded him. Athos believed that everyone
should be left to his own free will. He never gave advice but when it
was asked, and even then he required to be asked twice.

“People, in general,” he said, “only ask advice not to follow it; or if
they do follow it, it is for the sake of having someone to blame for
having given it.”

Porthos arrived a minute after D’Artagnan. The four friends were
reunited.

The four countenances expressed four different feelings: that of
Porthos, tranquillity; that of D’Artagnan, hope; that of Aramis,
uneasiness; that of Athos, carelessness.

At the end of a moment’s conversation, in which Porthos hinted that a
lady of elevated rank had condescended to relieve him from his
embarrassment, Mousqueton entered. He came to request his master to
return to his lodgings, where his presence was urgent, as he piteously
said.

“Is it my equipment?”

“Yes and no,” replied Mousqueton.

“Well, but can’t you speak?”

“Come, monsieur.”

Porthos rose, saluted his friends, and followed Mousqueton. An instant
after, Bazin made his appearance at the door.

“What do you want with me, my friend?” said Aramis, with that mildness
of language which was observable in him every time that his ideas were
directed toward the Church.

“A man wishes to see Monsieur at home,” replied Bazin.

“A man! What man?”

“A mendicant.”

“Give him alms, Bazin, and bid him pray for a poor sinner.”

“This mendicant insists upon speaking to you, and pretends that you
will be very glad to see him.”

“Has he sent no particular message for me?”

“Yes. If Monsieur Aramis hesitates to come,” he said, “tell him I am
from Tours.”

“From Tours!” cried Aramis. “A thousand pardons, gentlemen; but no
doubt this man brings me the news I expected.” And rising also, he went
off at a quick pace. There remained Athos and D’Artagnan.

“I believe these fellows have managed their business. What do you
think, D’Artagnan?” said Athos.

“I know that Porthos was in a fair way,” replied D’Artagnan; “and as to
Aramis to tell you the truth, I have never been seriously uneasy on his
account. But you, my dear Athos—you, who so generously distributed the
Englishman’s pistoles, which were our legitimate property—what do you
mean to do?”

“I am satisfied with having killed that fellow, my boy, seeing that it
is blessed bread to kill an Englishman; but if I had pocketed his
pistoles, they would have weighed me down like a remorse.”

“Go to, my dear Athos; you have truly inconceivable ideas.”

“Let it pass. What do you think of Monsieur de Tréville telling me,
when he did me the honor to call upon me yesterday, that you associated
with the suspected English, whom the cardinal protects?”

“That is to say, I visit an Englishwoman—the one I named.”

“Oh, ay! the fair woman on whose account I gave you advice, which
naturally you took care not to adopt.”

“I gave you my reasons.”

“Yes; you look there for your outfit, I think you said.”

“Not at all. I have acquired certain knowledge that that woman was
concerned in the abduction of Madame Bonacieux.”

“Yes, I understand now: to find one woman, you court another. It is the
longest road, but certainly the most amusing.”

D’Artagnan was on the point of telling Athos all; but one consideration
restrained him. Athos was a gentleman, punctilious in points of honor;
and there were in the plan which our lover had devised for Milady, he
was sure, certain things that would not obtain the assent of this
Puritan. He was therefore silent; and as Athos was the least
inquisitive of any man on earth, D’Artagnan’s confidence stopped there.
We will therefore leave the two friends, who had nothing important to
say to each other, and follow Aramis.

Upon being informed that the person who wanted to speak to him came
from Tours, we have seen with what rapidity the young man followed, or
rather went before, Bazin; he ran without stopping from the Rue Férou
to the Rue de Vaugirard. On entering he found a man of short stature
and intelligent eyes, but covered with rags.

“You have asked for me?” said the Musketeer.

“I wish to speak with Monsieur Aramis. Is that your name, monsieur?”

“My very own. You have brought me something?”

“Yes, if you show me a certain embroidered handkerchief.”

“Here it is,” said Aramis, taking a small key from his breast and
opening a little ebony box inlaid with mother of pearl, “here it is.
Look.”

“That is right,” replied the mendicant; “dismiss your lackey.”

In fact, Bazin, curious to know what the mendicant could want with his
master, kept pace with him as well as he could, and arrived almost at
the same time he did; but his quickness was not of much use to him. At
the hint from the mendicant his master made him a sign to retire, and
he was obliged to obey.

Bazin gone, the mendicant cast a rapid glance around him in order to be
sure that nobody could either see or hear him, and opening his ragged
vest, badly held together by a leather strap, he began to rip the upper
part of his doublet, from which he drew a letter.

Aramis uttered a cry of joy at the sight of the seal, kissed the
superscription with an almost religious respect, and opened the
epistle, which contained what follows:

“My Friend, it is the will of fate that we should be still for some
time separated; but the delightful days of youth are not lost beyond
return. Perform your duty in camp; I will do mine elsewhere. Accept
that which the bearer brings you; make the campaign like a handsome
true gentleman, and think of me, who kisses tenderly your black eyes.
    “Adieu; or rather, _au revoir_.”


The mendicant continued to rip his garments; and drew from amid his
rags a hundred and fifty Spanish double pistoles, which he laid down on
the table; then he opened the door, bowed, and went out before the
young man, stupefied by his letter, had ventured to address a word to
him.

Aramis then reperused the letter, and perceived a postscript:

PS. You may behave politely to the bearer, who is a count and a grandee
of Spain!


“Golden dreams!” cried Aramis. “Oh, beautiful life! Yes, we are young;
yes, we shall yet have happy days! My love, my blood, my life! all,
all, all, are thine, my adored mistress!”

And he kissed the letter with passion, without even vouchsafing a look
at the gold which sparkled on the table.

Bazin scratched at the door, and as Aramis had no longer any reason to
exclude him, he bade him come in.

Bazin was stupefied at the sight of the gold, and forgot that he came
to announce D’Artagnan, who, curious to know who the mendicant could
be, came to Aramis on leaving Athos.

Now, as D’Artagnan used no ceremony with Aramis, seeing that Bazin
forgot to announce him, he announced himself.

“The devil! my dear Aramis,” said D’Artagnan, “if these are the prunes
that are sent to you from Tours, I beg you will make my compliments to
the gardener who gathers them.”

“You are mistaken, friend D’Artagnan,” said Aramis, always on his
guard; “this is from my publisher, who has just sent me the price of
that poem in one-syllable verse which I began yonder.”

“Ah, indeed,” said D’Artagnan. “Well, your publisher is very generous,
my dear Aramis, that’s all I can say.”

“How, monsieur?” cried Bazin, “a poem sell so dear as that! It is
incredible! Oh, monsieur, you can write as much as you like; you may
become equal to Monsieur de Voiture and Monsieur de Benserade. I like
that. A poet is as good as an abbé. Ah! Monsieur Aramis, become a poet,
I beg of you.”

“Bazin, my friend,” said Aramis, “I believe you meddle with my
conversation.”

Bazin perceived he was wrong; he bowed and went out.

“Ah!” said D’Artagnan with a smile, “you sell your productions at their
weight in gold. You are very fortunate, my friend; but take care or you
will lose that letter which is peeping from your doublet, and which
also comes, no doubt, from your publisher.”

Aramis blushed to the eyes, crammed in the letter, and re-buttoned his
doublet.

“My dear D’Artagnan,” said he, “if you please, we will join our
friends; as I am rich, we will today begin to dine together again,
expecting that you will be rich in your turn.”

“My faith!” said D’Artagnan, with great pleasure. “It is long since we
have had a good dinner; and I, for my part, have a somewhat hazardous
expedition for this evening, and shall not be sorry, I confess, to
fortify myself with a few glasses of good old Burgundy.”

“Agreed, as to the old Burgundy; I have no objection to that,” said
Aramis, from whom the letter and the gold had removed, as by magic, his
ideas of conversion.

And having put three or four double pistoles into his pocket to answer
the needs of the moment, he placed the others in the ebony box, inlaid
with mother of pearl, in which was the famous handkerchief which served
him as a talisman.

The two friends repaired to Athos’s, and he, faithful to his vow of not
going out, took upon him to order dinner to be brought to them. As he
was perfectly acquainted with the details of gastronomy, D’Artagnan and
Aramis made no objection to abandoning this important care to him.

They went to find Porthos, and at the corner of the Rue Bac met
Mousqueton, who, with a most pitiable air, was driving before him a
mule and a horse.

D’Artagnan uttered a cry of surprise, which was not quite free from
joy.

“Ah, my yellow horse,” cried he. “Aramis, look at that horse!”

“Oh, the frightful brute!” said Aramis.

“Ah, my dear,” replied D’Artagnan, “upon that very horse I came to
Paris.”

“What, does Monsieur know this horse?” said Mousqueton.

“It is of an original color,” said Aramis; “I never saw one with such a
hide in my life.”

“I can well believe it,” replied D’Artagnan, “and that was why I got
three crowns for him. It must have been for his hide, for, _certes_,
the carcass is not worth eighteen livres. But how did this horse come
into your hands, Mousqueton?”

“Pray,” said the lackey, “say nothing about it, monsieur; it is a
frightful trick of the husband of our duchess!”

“How is that, Mousqueton?”

“Why, we are looked upon with a rather favorable eye by a lady of
quality, the Duchesse de—but, your pardon; my master has commanded me
to be discreet. She had forced us to accept a little souvenir, a
magnificent Spanish _genet_ and an Andalusian mule, which were
beautiful to look upon. The husband heard of the affair; on their way
he confiscated the two magnificent beasts which were being sent to us,
and substituted these horrible animals.”

“Which you are taking back to him?” said D’Artagnan.

“Exactly!” replied Mousqueton. “You may well believe that we will not
accept such steeds as these in exchange for those which had been
promised to us.”

“No, _pardieu;_ though I should like to have seen Porthos on my yellow
horse. That would give me an idea of how I looked when I arrived in
Paris. But don’t let us hinder you, Mousqueton; go and perform your
master’s orders. Is he at home?”

“Yes, monsieur,” said Mousqueton, “but in a very ill humor. Get up!”

He continued his way toward the Quai des Grands Augustins, while the
two friends went to ring at the bell of the unfortunate Porthos. He,
having seen them crossing the yard, took care not to answer, and they
rang in vain.

Meanwhile Mousqueton continued on his way, and crossing the Pont Neuf,
still driving the two sorry animals before him, he reached the Rue aux
Ours. Arrived there, he fastened, according to the orders of his
master, both horse and mule to the knocker of the procurator’s door;
then, without taking any thought for their future, he returned to
Porthos, and told him that his commission was completed.

In a short time the two unfortunate beasts, who had not eaten anything
since the morning, made such a noise in raising and letting fall the
knocker that the procurator ordered his errand boy to go and inquire in
the neighborhood to whom this horse and mule belonged.

Mme. Coquenard recognized her present, and could not at first
comprehend this restitution; but the visit of Porthos soon enlightened
her. The anger which fired the eyes of the Musketeer, in spite of his
efforts to suppress it, terrified his sensitive inamorata. In fact,
Mousqueton had not concealed from his master that he had met D’Artagnan
and Aramis, and that D’Artagnan in the yellow horse had recognized the
Béarnese pony upon which he had come to Paris, and which he had sold
for three crowns.

Porthos went away after having appointed a meeting with the
procurator’s wife in the cloister of St. Magloire. The procurator,
seeing he was going, invited him to dinner—an invitation which the
Musketeer refused with a majestic air.

Mme. Coquenard repaired trembling to the cloister of St. Magloire, for
she guessed the reproaches that awaited her there; but she was
fascinated by the lofty airs of Porthos.

All that which a man wounded in his self-love could let fall in the
shape of imprecations and reproaches upon the head of a woman Porthos
let fall upon the bowed head of the procurator’s wife.

“Alas,” said she, “I did all for the best! One of our clients is a
horsedealer; he owes money to the office, and is backward in his pay. I
took the mule and the horse for what he owed us; he assured me that
they were two noble steeds.”

“Well, madame,” said Porthos, “if he owed you more than five crowns,
your horsedealer is a thief.”

“There is no harm in trying to buy things cheap, Monsieur Porthos,”
said the procurator’s wife, seeking to excuse herself.

“No, madame; but they who so assiduously try to buy things cheap ought
to permit others to seek more generous friends.” And Porthos, turning
on his heel, made a step to retire.

“Monsieur Porthos! Monsieur Porthos!” cried the procurator’s wife. “I
have been wrong; I see it. I ought not to have driven a bargain when it
was to equip a cavalier like you.”

Porthos, without reply, retreated a second step. The procurator’s wife
fancied she saw him in a brilliant cloud, all surrounded by duchesses
and marchionesses, who cast bags of money at his feet.

“Stop, in the name of heaven, Monsieur Porthos!” cried she. “Stop, and
let us talk.”

“Talking with you brings me misfortune,” said Porthos.

“But, tell me, what do you ask?”

“Nothing; for that amounts to the same thing as if I asked you for
something.”

The procurator’s wife hung upon the arm of Porthos, and in the violence
of her grief she cried out, “Monsieur Porthos, I am ignorant of all
such matters! How should I know what a horse is? How should I know what
horse furniture is?”

“You should have left it to me, then, madame, who know what they are;
but you wished to be frugal, and consequently to lend at usury.”

“It was wrong, Monsieur Porthos; but I will repair that wrong, upon my
word of honor.”

“How so?” asked the Musketeer.

“Listen. This evening M. Coquenard is going to the house of the Duc de
Chaulnes, who has sent for him. It is for a consultation, which will
last three hours at least. Come! We shall be alone, and can make up our
accounts.”

“In good time. Now you talk, my dear.”

“You pardon me?”

“We shall see,” said Porthos, majestically; and the two separated
saying, “Till this evening.”

“The devil!” thought Porthos, as he walked away, “it appears I am
getting nearer to Monsieur Coquenard’s strongbox at last.”




Chapter XXXV.
A GASCON A MATCH FOR CUPID


The evening so impatiently waited for by Porthos and by D’Artagnan at
last arrived.

As was his custom, D’Artagnan presented himself at Milady’s at about
nine o’clock. He found her in a charming humor. Never had he been so
well received. Our Gascon knew, by the first glance of his eye, that
his billet had been delivered, and that this billet had had its effect.

Kitty entered to bring some sherbet. Her mistress put on a charming
face, and smiled on her graciously; but alas! the poor girl was so sad
that she did not even notice Milady’s condescension.

D’Artagnan looked at the two women, one after the other, and was forced
to acknowledge that in his opinion Dame Nature had made a mistake in
their formation. To the great lady she had given a heart vile and
venal; to the _soubrette_ she had given the heart of a duchess.

At ten o’clock Milady began to appear restless. D’Artagnan knew what
she wanted. She looked at the clock, rose, reseated herself, smiled at
D’Artagnan with an air which said, “You are very amiable, no doubt, but
you would be _charming_ if you would only depart.”

D’Artagnan rose and took his hat; Milady gave him her hand to kiss. The
young man felt her press his hand, and comprehended that this was a
sentiment, not of coquetry, but of gratitude because of his departure.

“She loves him devilishly,” he murmured. Then he went out.

This time Kitty was nowhere waiting for him; neither in the
antechamber, nor in the corridor, nor beneath the great door. It was
necessary that D’Artagnan should find alone the staircase and the
little chamber. She heard him enter, but she did not raise her head.
The young man went to her and took her hands; then she sobbed aloud.

As D’Artagnan had presumed, on receiving his letter, Milady in a
delirium of joy had told her servant everything; and by way of
recompense for the manner in which she had this time executed the
commission, she had given Kitty a purse.

Returning to her own room, Kitty had thrown the purse into a corner,
where it lay open, disgorging three or four gold pieces on the carpet.
The poor girl, under the caresses of D’Artagnan, lifted her head.
D’Artagnan himself was frightened by the change in her countenance. She
joined her hands with a suppliant air, but without venturing to speak a
word. As little sensitive as was the heart of D’Artagnan, he was
touched by this mute sorrow; but he held too tenaciously to his
projects, above all to this one, to change the program which he had
laid out in advance. He did not therefore allow her any hope that he
would flinch; only he represented his action as one of simple
vengeance.

For the rest this vengeance was very easy; for Milady, doubtless to
conceal her blushes from her lover, had ordered Kitty to extinguish all
the lights in the apartment, and even in the little chamber itself.
Before daybreak M. de Wardes must take his departure, still in
obscurity.

Presently they heard Milady retire to her room. D’Artagnan slipped into
the wardrobe. Hardly was he concealed when the little bell sounded.
Kitty went to her mistress, and did not leave the door open; but the
partition was so thin that one could hear nearly all that passed
between the two women.

Milady seemed overcome with joy, and made Kitty repeat the smallest
details of the pretended interview of the _soubrette_ with De Wardes
when he received the letter; how he had responded; what was the
expression of his face; if he seemed very amorous. And to all these
questions poor Kitty, forced to put on a pleasant face, responded in a
stifled voice whose dolorous accent her mistress did not however
remark, solely because happiness is egotistical.

Finally, as the hour for her interview with the count approached,
Milady had everything about her darkened, and ordered Kitty to return
to her own chamber, and introduce De Wardes whenever he presented
himself.

Kitty’s detention was not long. Hardly had D’Artagnan seen, through a
crevice in his closet, that the whole apartment was in obscurity, than
he slipped out of his concealment, at the very moment when Kitty
reclosed the door of communication.

“What is that noise?” demanded Milady.

“It is I,” said D’Artagnan in a subdued voice, “I, the Comte de
Wardes.”

“Oh, my God, my God!” murmured Kitty, “he has not even waited for the
hour he himself named!”

“Well,” said Milady, in a trembling voice, “why do you not enter?
Count, Count,” added she, “you know that I wait for you.”

At this appeal D’Artagnan drew Kitty quietly away, and slipped into the
chamber.

If rage or sorrow ever torture the heart, it is when a lover receives
under a name which is not his own protestations of love addressed to
his happy rival. D’Artagnan was in a dolorous situation which he had
not foreseen. Jealousy gnawed his heart; and he suffered almost as much
as poor Kitty, who at that very moment was crying in the next chamber.

“Yes, Count,” said Milady, in her softest voice, and pressing his hand
in her own, “I am happy in the love which your looks and your words
have expressed to me every time we have met. I also—I love you. Oh,
tomorrow, tomorrow, I must have some pledge from you which will prove
that you think of me; and that you may not forget me, take this!” and
she slipped a ring from her finger onto D’Artagnan’s. D’Artagnan
remembered having seen this ring on the finger of Milady; it was a
magnificent sapphire, encircled with brilliants.

The first movement of D’Artagnan was to return it, but Milady added,
“No, no! Keep that ring for love of me. Besides, in accepting it,” she
added, in a voice full of emotion, “you render me a much greater
service than you imagine.”

“This woman is full of mysteries,” murmured D’Artagnan to himself. At
that instant he felt himself ready to reveal all. He even opened his
mouth to tell Milady who he was, and with what a revengeful purpose he
had come; but she added, “Poor angel, whom that monster of a Gascon
barely failed to kill.”

The monster was himself.

“Oh,” continued Milady, “do your wounds still make you suffer?”

“Yes, much,” said D’Artagnan, who did not well know how to answer.

“Be tranquil,” murmured Milady; “I will avenge you—and cruelly!”

“_Peste!_” said D’Artagnan to himself, “the moment for confidences has
not yet come.”

It took some time for D’Artagnan to resume this little dialogue; but
then all the ideas of vengeance which he had brought with him had
completely vanished. This woman exercised over him an unaccountable
power; he hated and adored her at the same time. He would not have
believed that two sentiments so opposite could dwell in the same heart,
and by their union constitute a passion so strange, and as it were,
diabolical.

Presently it sounded one o’clock. It was necessary to separate.
D’Artagnan at the moment of quitting Milady felt only the liveliest
regret at the parting; and as they addressed each other in a
reciprocally passionate adieu, another interview was arranged for the
following week.

Poor Kitty hoped to speak a few words to D’Artagnan when he passed
through her chamber; but Milady herself reconducted him through the
darkness, and only quit him at the staircase.

The next morning D’Artagnan ran to find Athos. He was engaged in an
adventure so singular that he wished for counsel. He therefore told him
all.

“Your Milady,” said he, “appears to be an infamous creature, but not
the less you have done wrong to deceive her. In one fashion or another
you have a terrible enemy on your hands.”

While thus speaking Athos regarded with attention the sapphire set with
diamonds which had taken, on D’Artagnan’s finger, the place of the
queen’s ring, carefully kept in a casket.

“You notice my ring?” said the Gascon, proud to display so rich a gift
in the eyes of his friends.

“Yes,” said Athos, “it reminds me of a family jewel.”

“It is beautiful, is it not?” said D’Artagnan.

“Yes,” said Athos, “magnificent. I did not think two sapphires of such
a fine water existed. Have you traded it for your diamond?”

“No. It is a gift from my beautiful Englishwoman, or rather
Frenchwoman—for I am convinced she was born in France, though I have
not questioned her.”

“That ring comes from Milady?” cried Athos, with a voice in which it
was easy to detect strong emotion.

“Her very self; she gave it me last night. Here it is,” replied
D’Artagnan, taking it from his finger.

Athos examined it and became very pale. He tried it on his left hand;
it fit his finger as if made for it.

A shade of anger and vengeance passed across the usually calm brow of
this gentleman.

“It is impossible it can be she,” said he. “How could this ring come
into the hands of Milady Clarik? And yet it is difficult to suppose
such a resemblance should exist between two jewels.”

“Do you know this ring?” said D’Artagnan.

“I thought I did,” replied Athos; “but no doubt I was mistaken.” And he
returned D’Artagnan the ring without, however, ceasing to look at it.

“Pray, D’Artagnan,” said Athos, after a minute, “either take off that
ring or turn the mounting inside; it recalls such cruel recollections
that I shall have no head to converse with you. Don’t ask me for
counsel; don’t tell me you are perplexed what to do. But stop! let me
look at that sapphire again; the one I mentioned to you had one of its
faces scratched by accident.”

D’Artagnan took off the ring, giving it again to Athos.

Athos started. “Look,” said he, “is it not strange?” and he pointed out
to D’Artagnan the scratch he had remembered.

“But from whom did this ring come to you, Athos?”

“From my mother, who inherited it from her mother. As I told you, it is
an old family jewel.”

“And you—sold it?” asked D’Artagnan, hesitatingly.

“No,” replied Athos, with a singular smile. “I gave it away in a night
of love, as it has been given to you.”

D’Artagnan became pensive in his turn; it appeared as if there were
abysses in Milady’s soul whose depths were dark and unknown. He took
back the ring, but put it in his pocket and not on his finger.

“D’Artagnan,” said Athos, taking his hand, “you know I love you; if I
had a son I could not love him better. Take my advice, renounce this
woman. I do not know her, but a sort of intuition tells me she is a
lost creature, and that there is something fatal about her.”

“You are right,” said D’Artagnan; “I will have done with her. I own
that this woman terrifies me.”

“Shall you have the courage?” said Athos.

“I shall,” replied D’Artagnan, “and instantly.”

“In truth, my young friend, you will act rightly,” said the gentleman,
pressing the Gascon’s hand with an affection almost paternal; “and God
grant that this woman, who has scarcely entered into your life, may not
leave a terrible trace in it!” And Athos bowed to D’Artagnan like a man
who wishes it understood that he would not be sorry to be left alone
with his thoughts.

On reaching home D’Artagnan found Kitty waiting for him. A month of
fever could not have changed her more than this one night of
sleeplessness and sorrow.

She was sent by her mistress to the false De Wardes. Her mistress was
mad with love, intoxicated with joy. She wished to know when her lover
would meet her a second night; and poor Kitty, pale and trembling,
awaited D’Artagnan’s reply. The counsels of his friend, joined to the
cries of his own heart, made him determine, now his pride was saved and
his vengeance satisfied, not to see Milady again. As a reply, he wrote
the following letter:

Do not depend upon me, madame, for the next meeting. Since my
convalescence I have so many affairs of this kind on my hands that I am
forced to regulate them a little. When your turn comes, I shall have
the honor to inform you of it. I kiss your hands.


COMTE DE WARDES


Not a word about the sapphire. Was the Gascon determined to keep it as
a weapon against Milady, or else, let us be frank, did he not reserve
the sapphire as a last resource for his outfit? It would be wrong to
judge the actions of one period from the point of view of another. That
which would now be considered as disgraceful to a gentleman was at that
time quite a simple and natural affair, and the younger sons of the
best families were frequently supported by their mistresses. D’Artagnan
gave the open letter to Kitty, who at first was unable to comprehend
it, but who became almost wild with joy on reading it a second time.
She could scarcely believe in her happiness; and D’Artagnan was forced
to renew with the living voice the assurances which he had written. And
whatever might be—considering the violent character of Milady—the
danger which the poor girl incurred in giving this billet to her
mistress, she ran back to the Place Royale as fast as her legs could
carry her.

The heart of the best woman is pitiless toward the sorrows of a rival.

Milady opened the letter with eagerness equal to Kitty’s in bringing
it; but at the first words she read she became livid. She crushed the
paper in her hand, and turning with flashing eyes upon Kitty, she
cried, “What is this letter?”

“The answer to Madame’s,” replied Kitty, all in a tremble.

“Impossible!” cried Milady. “It is impossible a gentleman could have
written such a letter to a woman.” Then all at once, starting, she
cried, “My God! can he have—” and she stopped. She ground her teeth;
she was of the color of ashes. She tried to go toward the window for
air, but she could only stretch forth her arms; her legs failed her,
and she sank into an armchair. Kitty, fearing she was ill, hastened
toward her and was beginning to open her dress; but Milady started up,
pushing her away. “What do you want with me?” said she, “and why do you
place your hand on me?”

“I thought that Madame was ill, and I wished to bring her help,”
responded the maid, frightened at the terrible expression which had
come over her mistress’s face.

“I faint? I? I? Do you take me for half a woman? When I am insulted I
do not faint; I avenge myself!”

And she made a sign for Kitty to leave the room.




Chapter XXXVI.
DREAM OF VENGEANCE


That evening Milady gave orders that when M. d’Artagnan came as usual,
he should be immediately admitted; but he did not come.

The next day Kitty went to see the young man again, and related to him
all that had passed on the preceding evening. D’Artagnan smiled; this
jealous anger of Milady was his revenge.

That evening Milady was still more impatient than on the preceding
evening. She renewed the order relative to the Gascon; but as before
she expected him in vain.

The next morning, when Kitty presented herself at D’Artagnan’s, she was
no longer joyous and alert as on the two preceding days; but on the
contrary sad as death.

D’Artagnan asked the poor girl what was the matter with her; but she,
as her only reply, drew a letter from her pocket and gave it to him.

This letter was in Milady’s handwriting; only this time it was
addressed to M. d’Artagnan, and not to M. de Wardes.

He opened it and read as follows:

DEAR M. D’ARTAGNAN, It is wrong thus to neglect your friends,
particularly at the moment you are about to leave them for so long a
time. My brother-in-law and myself expected you yesterday and the day
before, but in vain. Will it be the same this evening?


Your very grateful,
MILADY CLARIK


“That’s all very simple,” said D’Artagnan; “I expected this letter. My
credit rises by the fall of that of the Comte de Wardes.”

“And will you go?” asked Kitty.

“Listen to me, my dear girl,” said the Gascon, who sought for an excuse
in his own eyes for breaking the promise he had made Athos; “you must
understand it would be impolitic not to accept such a positive
invitation. Milady, not seeing me come again, would not be able to
understand what could cause the interruption of my visits, and might
suspect something; who could say how far the vengeance of such a woman
would go?”

“Oh, my God!” said Kitty, “you know how to represent things in such a
way that you are always in the right. You are going now to pay your
court to her again, and if this time you succeed in pleasing her in
your own name and with your own face, it will be much worse than
before.”

Instinct made poor Kitty guess a part of what was to happen. D’Artagnan
reassured her as well as he could, and promised to remain insensible to
the seductions of Milady.

He desired Kitty to tell her mistress that he could not be more
grateful for her kindnesses than he was, and that he would be obedient
to her orders. He did not dare to write for fear of not being able—to
such experienced eyes as those of Milady—to disguise his writing
sufficiently.

As nine o’clock sounded, D’Artagnan was at the Place Royale. It was
evident that the servants who waited in the antechamber were warned,
for as soon as D’Artagnan appeared, before even he had asked if Milady
were visible, one of them ran to announce him.

“Show him in,” said Milady, in a quick tone, but so piercing that
D’Artagnan heard her in the antechamber.

He was introduced.

“I am at home to nobody,” said Milady; “observe, to _nobody_.”

The servant went out.

D’Artagnan cast an inquiring glance at Milady. She was pale, and looked
fatigued, either from tears or want of sleep. The number of lights had
been intentionally diminished, but the young woman could not conceal
the traces of the fever which had devoured her for two days.

D’Artagnan approached her with his usual gallantry. She then made an
extraordinary effort to receive him, but never did a more distressed
countenance give the lie to a more amiable smile.

To the questions which D’Artagnan put concerning her health, she
replied, “Bad, very bad.”

“Then,” replied he, “my visit is ill-timed; you, no doubt, stand in
need of repose, and I will withdraw.”

“No, no!” said Milady. “On the contrary, stay, Monsieur d’Artagnan;
your agreeable company will divert me.”

“Oh, oh!” thought D’Artagnan. “She has never been so kind before. On
guard!”

Milady assumed the most agreeable air possible, and conversed with more
than her usual brilliancy. At the same time the fever, which for an
instant abandoned her, returned to give luster to her eyes, color to
her cheeks, and vermillion to her lips. D’Artagnan was again in the
presence of the Circe who had before surrounded him with her
enchantments. His love, which he believed to be extinct but which was
only asleep, awoke again in his heart. Milady smiled, and D’Artagnan
felt that he could damn himself for that smile. There was a moment at
which he felt something like remorse.

By degrees, Milady became more communicative. She asked D’Artagnan if
he had a mistress.

“Alas!” said D’Artagnan, with the most sentimental air he could assume,
“can you be cruel enough to put such a question to me—to me, who, from
the moment I saw you, have only breathed and sighed through you and for
you?”

Milady smiled with a strange smile.

“Then you love me?” said she.

“Have I any need to tell you so? Have you not perceived it?”

“It may be; but you know the more hearts are worth the capture, the
more difficult they are to be won.”

“Oh, difficulties do not affright me,” said D’Artagnan. “I shrink
before nothing but impossibilities.”

“Nothing is impossible,” replied Milady, “to true love.”

“Nothing, madame?”

“Nothing,” replied Milady.

“The devil!” thought D’Artagnan. “The note is changed. Is she going to
fall in love with me, by chance, this fair inconstant; and will she be
disposed to give me myself another sapphire like that which she gave me
for De Wardes?”

D’Artagnan rapidly drew his seat nearer to Milady’s.

“Well, now,” she said, “let us see what you would do to prove this love
of which you speak.”

“All that could be required of me. Order; I am ready.”

“For everything?”

“For everything,” cried D’Artagnan, who knew beforehand that he had not
much to risk in engaging himself thus.

“Well, now let us talk a little seriously,” said Milady, in her turn
drawing her armchair nearer to D’Artagnan’s chair.

“I am all attention, madame,” said he.

Milady remained thoughtful and undecided for a moment; then, as if
appearing to have formed a resolution, she said, “I have an enemy.”

“You, madame!” said D’Artagnan, affecting surprise; “is that possible,
my God?—good and beautiful as you are!”

“A mortal enemy.”

“Indeed!”

“An enemy who has insulted me so cruelly that between him and me it is
war to the death. May I reckon on you as an auxiliary?”

D’Artagnan at once perceived the ground which the vindictive creature
wished to reach.

“You may, madame,” said he, with emphasis. “My arm and my life belong
to you, like my love.”

“Then,” said Milady, “since you are as generous as you are loving—”

She stopped.

“Well?” demanded D’Artagnan.

“Well,” replied Milady, after a moment of silence, “from the present
time, cease to talk of impossibilities.”

“Do not overwhelm me with happiness,” cried D’Artagnan, throwing
himself on his knees, and covering with kisses the hands abandoned to
him.

“Avenge me of that infamous De Wardes,” said Milady, between her teeth,
“and I shall soon know how to get rid of you—you double idiot, you
animated sword blade!”

“Fall voluntarily into my arms, hypocritical and dangerous woman,” said
D’Artagnan, likewise to himself, “after having abused me with such
effrontery, and afterward I will laugh at you with him whom you wish me
to kill.”

D’Artagnan lifted up his head.

“I am ready,” said he.

“You have understood me, then, dear Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Milady.

“I could interpret one of your looks.”

“Then you would employ for me your arm which has already acquired so
much renown?”

“Instantly!”

“But on my part,” said Milady, “how should I repay such a service? I
know these lovers. They are men who do nothing for nothing.”

“You know the only reply that I desire,” said D’Artagnan, “the only one
worthy of you and of me!”

And he drew nearer to her.

She scarcely resisted.

“Interested man!” cried she, smiling.

“Ah,” cried D’Artagnan, really carried away by the passion this woman
had the power to kindle in his heart, “ah, that is because my happiness
appears so impossible to me; and I have such fear that it should fly
away from me like a dream that I pant to make a reality of it.”

“Well, merit this pretended happiness, then!”

“I am at your orders,” said D’Artagnan.

“Quite certain?” said Milady, with a last doubt.

“Only name to me the base man that has brought tears into your
beautiful eyes!”

“Who told you that I had been weeping?” said she.

“It appeared to me—”

“Such women as I never weep,” said Milady.

“So much the better! Come, tell me his name!”

“Remember that his name is all my secret.”

“Yet I must know his name.”

“Yes, you must; see what confidence I have in you!”

“You overwhelm me with joy. What is his name?”

“You know him.”

“Indeed.”

“Yes.”

“It is surely not one of my friends?” replied D’Artagnan, affecting
hesitation in order to make her believe him ignorant.

“If it were one of your friends you would hesitate, then?” cried
Milady; and a threatening glance darted from her eyes.

“Not if it were my own brother!” cried D’Artagnan, as if carried away
by his enthusiasm.

Our Gascon promised this without risk, for he knew all that was meant.

“I love your devotedness,” said Milady.

“Alas, do you love nothing else in me?” asked D’Artagnan.

“I love you also, _you!_” said she, taking his hand.

The warm pressure made D’Artagnan tremble, as if by the touch that
fever which consumed Milady attacked himself.

“You love me, you!” cried he. “Oh, if that were so, I should lose my
reason!”

And he folded her in his arms. She made no effort to remove her lips
from his kisses; only she did not respond to them. Her lips were cold;
it appeared to D’Artagnan that he had embraced a statue.

He was not the less intoxicated with joy, electrified by love. He
almost believed in the tenderness of Milady; he almost believed in the
crime of De Wardes. If De Wardes had at that moment been under his
hand, he would have killed him.

Milady seized the occasion.

“His name is—” said she, in her turn.

“De Wardes; I know it,” cried D’Artagnan.

“And how do you know it?” asked Milady, seizing both his hands, and
endeavoring to read with her eyes to the bottom of his heart.

D’Artagnan felt he had allowed himself to be carried away, and that he
had committed an error.

“Tell me, tell me, tell me, I say,” repeated Milady, “how do you know
it?”

“How do I know it?” said D’Artagnan.

“Yes.”

“I know it because yesterday Monsieur de Wardes, in a saloon where I
was, showed a ring which he said he had received from you.”

“Wretch!” cried Milady.

The epithet, as may be easily understood, resounded to the very bottom
of D’Artagnan’s heart.

“Well?” continued she.

“Well, I will avenge you of this wretch,” replied D’Artagnan, giving
himself the airs of Don Japhet of Armenia.

“Thanks, my brave friend!” cried Milady; “and when shall I be avenged?”

“Tomorrow—immediately—when you please!”

Milady was about to cry out, “Immediately,” but she reflected that such
precipitation would not be very gracious toward D’Artagnan.

Besides, she had a thousand precautions to take, a thousand counsels to
give to her defender, in order that he might avoid explanations with
the count before witnesses. All this was answered by an expression of
D’Artagnan’s. “Tomorrow,” said he, “you will be avenged, or I shall be
dead.”

“No,” said she, “you will avenge me; but you will not be dead. He is a
coward.”

“With women, perhaps; but not with men. I know something of him.”

“But it seems you had not much reason to complain of your fortune in
your contest with him.”

“Fortune is a courtesan; favorable yesterday, she may turn her back
tomorrow.”

“Which means that you now hesitate?”

“No, I do not hesitate; God forbid! But would it be just to allow me to
go to a possible death without having given me at least something more
than hope?”

Milady answered by a glance which said, “Is that all?—speak, then.” And
then accompanying the glance with explanatory words, “That is but too
just,” said she, tenderly.

“Oh, you are an angel!” exclaimed the young man.

“Then all is agreed?” said she.

“Except that which I ask of you, dear love.”

“But when I assure you that you may rely on my tenderness?”

“I cannot wait till tomorrow.”

“Silence! I hear my brother. It will be useless for him to find you
here.”

She rang the bell and Kitty appeared.

“Go out this way,” said she, opening a small private door, “and come
back at eleven o’clock; we will then terminate this conversation. Kitty
will conduct you to my chamber.”

The poor girl almost fainted at hearing these words.

“Well, mademoiselle, what are you thinking about, standing there like a
statue? Do as I bid you: show the chevalier out; and this evening at
eleven o’clock—you have heard what I said.”

“It appears that these appointments are all made for eleven o’clock,”
thought D’Artagnan; “that’s a settled custom.”

Milady held out her hand to him, which he kissed tenderly.

“But,” said he, as he retired as quickly as possible from the
reproaches of Kitty, “I must not play the fool. This woman is certainly
a great liar. I must take care.”




Chapter XXXVII.
MILADY’S SECRET


D’Artagnan left the hôtel instead of going up at once to Kitty’s
chamber, as she endeavored to persuade him to do—and that for two
reasons: the first, because by this means he should escape reproaches,
recriminations, and prayers; the second, because he was not sorry to
have an opportunity of reading his own thoughts and endeavoring, if
possible, to fathom those of this woman.

What was most clear in the matter was that D’Artagnan loved Milady like
a madman, and that she did not love him at all. In an instant
D’Artagnan perceived that the best way in which he could act would be
to go home and write Milady a long letter, in which he would confess to
her that he and De Wardes were, up to the present moment absolutely the
same, and that consequently he could not undertake, without committing
suicide, to kill the Comte de Wardes. But he also was spurred on by a
ferocious desire of vengeance. He wished to subdue this woman in his
own name; and as this vengeance appeared to him to have a certain
sweetness in it, he could not make up his mind to renounce it.

He walked six or seven times round the Place Royale, turning at every
ten steps to look at the light in Milady’s apartment, which was to be
seen through the blinds. It was evident that this time the young woman
was not in such haste to retire to her apartment as she had been the
first.

At length the light disappeared. With this light was extinguished the
last irresolution in the heart of D’Artagnan. He recalled to his mind
the details of the first night, and with a beating heart and a brain on
fire he re-entered the hôtel and flew toward Kitty’s chamber.

The poor girl, pale as death and trembling in all her limbs, wished to
delay her lover; but Milady, with her ear on the watch, had heard the
noise D’Artagnan had made, and opening the door, said, “Come in.”

All this was of such incredible immodesty, of such monstrous
effrontery, that D’Artagnan could scarcely believe what he saw or what
he heard. He imagined himself to be drawn into one of those fantastic
intrigues one meets in dreams. He, however, darted not the less quickly
toward Milady, yielding to that magnetic attraction which the loadstone
exercises over iron.

As the door closed after them Kitty rushed toward it. Jealousy, fury,
offended pride, all the passions in short that dispute the heart of an
outraged woman in love, urged her to make a revelation; but she
reflected that she would be totally lost if she confessed having
assisted in such a machination, and above all, that D’Artagnan would
also be lost to her forever. This last thought of love counseled her to
make this last sacrifice.

D’Artagnan, on his part, had gained the summit of all his wishes. It
was no longer a rival who was beloved; it was himself who was
apparently beloved. A secret voice whispered to him, at the bottom of
his heart, that he was but an instrument of vengeance, that he was only
caressed till he had given death; but pride, but self-love, but madness
silenced this voice and stifled its murmurs. And then our Gascon, with
that large quantity of conceit which we know he possessed, compared
himself with De Wardes, and asked himself why, after all, he should not
be beloved for himself?

He was absorbed entirely by the sensations of the moment. Milady was no
longer for him that woman of fatal intentions who had for a moment
terrified him; she was an ardent, passionate mistress, abandoning
herself to love which she also seemed to feel. Two hours thus glided
away. When the transports of the two lovers were calmer, Milady, who
had not the same motives for forgetfulness that D’Artagnan had, was the
first to return to reality, and asked the young man if the means which
were on the morrow to bring on the encounter between him and De Wardes
were already arranged in his mind.

But D’Artagnan, whose ideas had taken quite another course, forgot
himself like a fool, and answered gallantly that it was too late to
think about duels and sword thrusts.

This coldness toward the only interests that occupied her mind
terrified Milady, whose questions became more pressing.

Then D’Artagnan, who had never seriously thought of this impossible
duel, endeavored to turn the conversation; but he could not succeed.
Milady kept him within the limits she had traced beforehand with her
irresistible spirit and her iron will.

D’Artagnan fancied himself very cunning when advising Milady to
renounce, by pardoning De Wardes, the furious projects she had formed.

But at the first word the young woman started, and exclaimed in a
sharp, bantering tone, which sounded strangely in the darkness, “Are
you afraid, dear Monsieur d’Artagnan?”

“You cannot think so, dear love!” replied D’Artagnan; “but now, suppose
this poor Comte de Wardes were less guilty than you think him?”

“At all events,” said Milady, seriously, “he has deceived me, and from
the moment he deceived me, he merited death.”

“He shall die, then, since you condemn him!” said D’Artagnan, in so
firm a tone that it appeared to Milady an undoubted proof of devotion.
This reassured her.

We cannot say how long the night seemed to Milady, but D’Artagnan
believed it to be hardly two hours before the daylight peeped through
the window blinds, and invaded the chamber with its paleness. Seeing
D’Artagnan about to leave her, Milady recalled his promise to avenge
her on the Comte de Wardes.

“I am quite ready,” said D’Artagnan; “but in the first place I should
like to be certain of one thing.”

“And what is that?” asked Milady.

“That is, whether you really love me?”

“I have given you proof of that, it seems to me.”

“And I am yours, body and soul!”

“Thanks, my brave lover; but as you are satisfied of my love, you must,
in your turn, satisfy me of yours. Is it not so?”

“Certainly; but if you love me as much as you say,” replied D’Artagnan,
“do you not entertain a little fear on my account?”

“What have I to fear?”

“Why, that I may be dangerously wounded—killed even.”

“Impossible!” cried Milady, “you are such a valiant man, and such an
expert swordsman.”

“You would not, then, prefer a method,” resumed D’Artagnan, “which
would equally avenge you while rendering the combat useless?”

Milady looked at her lover in silence. The pale light of the first rays
of day gave to her clear eyes a strangely frightful expression.

“Really,” said she, “I believe you now begin to hesitate.”

“No, I do not hesitate; but I really pity this poor Comte de Wardes,
since you have ceased to love him. I think that a man must be so
severely punished by the loss of your love that he stands in need of no
other chastisement.”

“Who told you that I loved him?” asked Milady, sharply.

“At least, I am now at liberty to believe, without too much fatuity,
that you love another,” said the young man, in a caressing tone, “and I
repeat that I am really interested for the count.”

“You?” asked Milady.

“Yes, I.”

“And why _you?_”

“Because I alone know—”

“What?”

“That he is far from being, or rather having been, so guilty toward you
as he appears.”

“Indeed!” said Milady, in an anxious tone; “explain yourself, for I
really cannot tell what you mean.”

And she looked at D’Artagnan, who embraced her tenderly, with eyes
which seemed to burn themselves away.

“Yes; I am a man of honor,” said D’Artagnan, determined to come to an
end, “and since your love is mine, and I am satisfied I possess it—for
I do possess it, do I not?”

“Entirely; go on.”

“Well, I feel as if transformed—a confession weighs on my mind.”

“A confession!”

“If I had the least doubt of your love I would not make it, but you
love me, my beautiful mistress, do you not?”

“Without doubt.”

“Then if through excess of love I have rendered myself culpable toward
you, you will pardon me?”

“Perhaps.”

D’Artagnan tried with his sweetest smile to touch his lips to Milady’s,
but she evaded him.

“This confession,” said she, growing paler, “what is this confession?”

“You gave De Wardes a meeting on Thursday last in this very room, did
you not?”

“No, no! It is not true,” said Milady, in a tone of voice so firm, and
with a countenance so unchanged, that if D’Artagnan had not been in
such perfect possession of the fact, he would have doubted.

“Do not lie, my angel,” said D’Artagnan, smiling; “that would be
useless.”

“What do you mean? Speak! you kill me.”

“Be satisfied; you are not guilty toward me, and I have already
pardoned you.”

“What next? what next?”

“De Wardes cannot boast of anything.”

“How is that? You told me yourself that that ring—”

“That ring I have! The Comte de Wardes of Thursday and the D’Artagnan
of today are the same person.”

The imprudent young man expected a surprise, mixed with shame—a slight
storm which would resolve itself into tears; but he was strangely
deceived, and his error was not of long duration.

Pale and trembling, Milady repulsed D’Artagnan’s attempted embrace by a
violent blow on the chest, as she sprang out of bed.

It was almost broad daylight.

D’Artagnan detained her by her night dress of fine India linen, to
implore her pardon; but she, with a strong movement, tried to escape.
Then the cambric was torn from her beautiful shoulders; and on one of
those lovely shoulders, round and white, D’Artagnan recognized, with
inexpressible astonishment, the _fleur-de-lis_—that indelible mark
which the hand of the infamous executioner had imprinted.

“Great God!” cried D’Artagnan, loosing his hold of her dress, and
remaining mute, motionless, and frozen.

But Milady felt herself denounced even by his terror. He had doubtless
seen all. The young man now knew her secret, her terrible secret—the
secret she concealed even from her maid with such care, the secret of
which all the world was ignorant, except himself.

She turned upon him, no longer like a furious woman, but like a wounded
panther.

“Ah, wretch!” cried she, “you have basely betrayed me, and still more,
you have my secret! You shall die.”

And she flew to a little inlaid casket which stood upon the dressing
table, opened it with a feverish and trembling hand, drew from it a
small poniard, with a golden haft and a sharp thin blade, and then
threw herself with a bound upon D’Artagnan.

Although the young man was brave, as we know, he was terrified at that
wild countenance, those terribly dilated pupils, those pale cheeks, and
those bleeding lips. He recoiled to the other side of the room as he
would have done from a serpent which was crawling toward him, and his
sword coming in contact with his nervous hand, he drew it almost
unconsciously from the scabbard. But without taking any heed of the
sword, Milady endeavored to get near enough to him to stab him, and did
not stop till she felt the sharp point at her throat.

She then tried to seize the sword with her hands; but D’Artagnan kept
it free from her grasp, and presenting the point, sometimes at her
eyes, sometimes at her breast, compelled her to glide behind the
bedstead, while he aimed at making his retreat by the door which led to
Kitty’s apartment.

Milady during this time continued to strike at him with horrible fury,
screaming in a formidable way.

As all this, however, bore some resemblance to a duel, D’Artagnan began
to recover himself little by little.

“Well, beautiful lady, very well,” said he; “but, _pardieu_, if you
don’t calm yourself, I will design a second _fleur-de-lis_ upon one of
those pretty cheeks!”

“Scoundrel, infamous scoundrel!” howled Milady.

But D’Artagnan, still keeping on the defensive, drew near to Kitty’s
door. At the noise they made, she in overturning the furniture in her
efforts to get at him, he in screening himself behind the furniture to
keep out of her reach, Kitty opened the door. D’Artagnan, who had
unceasingly maneuvered to gain this point, was not at more than three
paces from it. With one spring he flew from the chamber of Milady into
that of the maid, and quick as lightning, he slammed to the door, and
placed all his weight against it, while Kitty pushed the bolts.

Then Milady attempted to tear down the doorcase, with a strength
apparently above that of a woman; but finding she could not accomplish
this, she in her fury stabbed at the door with her poniard, the point
of which repeatedly glittered through the wood. Every blow was
accompanied with terrible imprecations.

“Quick, Kitty, quick!” said D’Artagnan, in a low voice, as soon as the
bolts were fast, “let me get out of the hôtel; for if we leave her time
to turn round, she will have me killed by the servants.”

“But you can’t go out so,” said Kitty; “you are naked.”

“That’s true,” said D’Artagnan, then first thinking of the costume he
found himself in, “that’s true. But dress me as well as you are able,
only make haste; think, my dear girl, it’s life and death!”

Kitty was but too well aware of that. In a turn of the hand she muffled
him up in a flowered robe, a large hood, and a cloak. She gave him some
slippers, in which he placed his naked feet, and then conducted him
down the stairs. It was time. Milady had already rung her bell, and
roused the whole hôtel. The porter was drawing the cord at the moment
Milady cried from her window, “Don’t open!”

The young man fled while she was still threatening him with an impotent
gesture. The moment she lost sight of him, Milady tumbled fainting into
her chamber.




Chapter XXXVIII.
HOW, WITHOUT INCOMMDING HIMSELF, ATHOS PROCURES HIS EQUIPMENT


D’Artagnan was so completely bewildered that without taking any heed of
what might become of Kitty he ran at full speed across half Paris, and
did not stop till he came to Athos’s door. The confusion of his mind,
the terror which spurred him on, the cries of some of the patrol who
started in pursuit of him, and the hooting of the people who,
notwithstanding the early hour, were going to their work, only made him
precipitate his course.

He crossed the court, ran up the two flights to Athos’s apartment, and
knocked at the door enough to break it down.

Grimaud came, rubbing his half-open eyes, to answer this noisy summons,
and D’Artagnan sprang with such violence into the room as nearly to
overturn the astonished lackey.

In spite of his habitual silence, the poor lad this time found his
speech.

“Holloa, there!” cried he; “what do you want, you strumpet? What’s your
business here, you hussy?”

D’Artagnan threw off his hood, and disengaged his hands from the folds
of the cloak. At sight of the mustaches and the naked sword, the poor
devil perceived he had to deal with a man. He then concluded it must be
an assassin.

“Help! murder! help!” cried he.

“Hold your tongue, you stupid fellow!” said the young man; “I am
D’Artagnan; don’t you know me? Where is your master?”

“You, Monsieur d’Artagnan!” cried Grimaud, “impossible.”

“Grimaud,” said Athos, coming out of his apartment in a dressing gown,
“Grimaud, I thought I heard you permitting yourself to speak?”

“Ah, monsieur, it is—”

“Silence!”

Grimaud contented himself with pointing D’Artagnan out to his master
with his finger.

Athos recognized his comrade, and phlegmatic as he was, he burst into a
laugh which was quite excused by the strange masquerade before his
eyes—petticoats falling over his shoes, sleeves tucked up, and
mustaches stiff with agitation.

“Don’t laugh, my friend!” cried D’Artagnan; “for heaven’s sake, don’t
laugh, for upon my soul, it’s no laughing matter!”

And he pronounced these words with such a solemn air and with such a
real appearance of terror, that Athos eagerly seized his hand, crying,
“Are you wounded, my friend? How pale you are!”

“No, but I have just met with a terrible adventure! Are you alone,
Athos?”

“_Parbleu!_ whom do you expect to find with me at this hour?”

“Well, well!” and D’Artagnan rushed into Athos’s chamber.

“Come, speak!” said the latter, closing the door and bolting it, that
they might not be disturbed. “Is the king dead? Have you killed the
cardinal? You are quite upset! Come, come, tell me; I am dying with
curiosity and uneasiness!”

“Athos,” said D’Artagnan, getting rid of his female garments, and
appearing in his shirt, “prepare yourself to hear an incredible, an
unheard-of story.”

“Well, but put on this dressing gown first,” said the Musketeer to his
friend.

D’Artagnan donned the robe as quickly as he could, mistaking one sleeve
for the other, so greatly was he still agitated.

“Well?” said Athos.

“Well,” replied D’Artagnan, bending his mouth to Athos’s ear, and
lowering his voice, “Milady is marked with a _fleur-de-lis_ upon her
shoulder!”

“Ah!” cried the Musketeer, as if he had received a ball in his heart.

“Let us see,” said D’Artagnan. “Are you _sure_ that the _other_ is
dead?”

“_The other?_” said Athos, in so stifled a voice that D’Artagnan
scarcely heard him.

“Yes, she of whom you told me one day at Amiens.”

Athos uttered a groan, and let his head sink on his hands.

“This is a woman of twenty-six or twenty-eight years.”

“Fair,” said Athos, “is she not?”

“Very.”

“Blue and clear eyes, of a strange brilliancy, with black eyelids and
eyebrows?”

“Yes.”

“Tall, well-made? She has lost a tooth, next to the eyetooth on the
left?”

“Yes.”

“The _fleur-de-lis_ is small, rosy in color, and looks as if efforts
had been made to efface it by the application of poultices?”

“Yes.”

“But you say she is English?”

“She is called Milady, but she may be French. Lord de Winter is only
her brother-in-law.”

“I will see her, D’Artagnan!”

“Beware, Athos, beware. You tried to kill her; she is a woman to return
you the like, and not to fail.”

“She will not dare to say anything; that would be to denounce herself.”

“She is capable of anything or everything. Did you ever see her
furious?”

“No,” said Athos.

“A tigress, a panther! Ah, my dear Athos, I am greatly afraid I have
drawn a terrible vengeance on both of us!”

D’Artagnan then related all—the mad passion of Milady and her menaces
of death.

“You are right; and upon my soul, I would give my life for a hair,”
said Athos. “Fortunately, the day after tomorrow we leave Paris. We are
going according to all probability to La Rochelle, and once gone—”

“She will follow you to the end of the world, Athos, if she recognizes
you. Let her, then, exhaust her vengeance on me alone!”

“My dear friend, of what consequence is it if she kills me?” said
Athos. “Do you, perchance, think I set any great store by life?”

“There is something horribly mysterious under all this, Athos; this
woman is one of the cardinal’s spies, I am sure of that.”

“In that case, take care! If the cardinal does not hold you in high
admiration for the affair of London, he entertains a great hatred for
you; but as, considering everything, he cannot accuse you openly, and
as hatred must be satisfied, particularly when it’s a cardinal’s
hatred, take care of yourself. If you go out, do not go out alone; when
you eat, use every precaution. Mistrust everything, in short, even your
own shadow.”

“Fortunately,” said D’Artagnan, “all this will be only necessary till
after tomorrow evening, for when once with the army, we shall have, I
hope, only men to dread.”

“In the meantime,” said Athos, “I renounce my plan of seclusion, and
wherever you go, I will go with you. You must return to the Rue des
Fossoyeurs; I will accompany you.”

“But however near it may be,” replied D’Artagnan, “I cannot go thither
in this guise.”

“That’s true,” said Athos, and he rang the bell.

Grimaud entered.

Athos made him a sign to go to D’Artagnan’s residence, and bring back
some clothes. Grimaud replied by another sign that he understood
perfectly, and set off.

“All this will not advance your outfit,” said Athos; “for if I am not
mistaken, you have left the best of your apparel with Milady, and she
will certainly not have the politeness to return it to you.
Fortunately, you have the sapphire.”

“The jewel is yours, my dear Athos! Did you not tell me it was a family
jewel?”

“Yes, my grandfather gave two thousand crowns for it, as he once told
me. It formed part of the nuptial present he made his wife, and it is
magnificent. My mother gave it to me, and I, fool as I was, instead of
keeping the ring as a holy relic, gave it to this wretch.”

“Then, my friend, take back this ring, to which I see you attach much
value.”

“I take back the ring, after it has passed through the hands of that
infamous creature? Never; that ring is defiled, D’Artagnan.”

“Sell it, then.”

“Sell a jewel which came from my mother! I vow I should consider it a
profanation.”

“Pledge it, then; you can borrow at least a thousand crowns on it. With
that sum you can extricate yourself from your present difficulties; and
when you are full of money again, you can redeem it, and take it back
cleansed from its ancient stains, as it will have passed through the
hands of usurers.”

Athos smiled.

“You are a capital companion, D’Artagnan,” said he; “your never-failing
cheerfulness raises poor souls in affliction. Well, let us pledge the
ring, but upon one condition.”

“What?”

“That there shall be five hundred crowns for you, and five hundred
crowns for me.”

“Don’t dream it, Athos. I don’t need the quarter of such a sum—I who am
still only in the Guards—and by selling my saddles, I shall procure it.
What do I want? A horse for Planchet, that’s all. Besides, you forget
that I have a ring likewise.”

“To which you attach more value, it seems, than I do to mine; at least,
I have thought so.”

“Yes, for in any extreme circumstance it might not only extricate us
from some great embarrassment, but even a great danger. It is not only
a valuable diamond, but it is an enchanted talisman.”

“I don’t at all understand you, but I believe all you say to be true.
Let us return to my ring, or rather to yours. You shall take half the
sum that will be advanced upon it, or I will throw it into the Seine;
and I doubt, as was the case with Polycrates, whether any fish will be
sufficiently complaisant to bring it back to us.”

“Well, I will take it, then,” said D’Artagnan.

At this moment Grimaud returned, accompanied by Planchet; the latter,
anxious about his master and curious to know what had happened to him,
had taken advantage of the opportunity and brought the garments
himself.

D’Artagnan dressed himself, and Athos did the same. When the two were
ready to go out, the latter made Grimaud the sign of a man taking aim,
and the lackey immediately took down his musketoon, and prepared to
follow his master.

They arrived without accident at the Rue des Fossoyeurs. Bonacieux was
standing at the door, and looked at D’Artagnan hatefully.

“Make haste, dear lodger,” said he; “there is a very pretty girl
waiting for you upstairs; and you know women don’t like to be kept
waiting.”

“That’s Kitty!” said D’Artagnan to himself, and darted into the
passage.

Sure enough! Upon the landing leading to the chamber, and crouching
against the door, he found the poor girl, all in a tremble. As soon as
she perceived him, she cried, “You have promised your protection; you
have promised to save me from her anger. Remember, it is you who have
ruined me!”

“Yes, yes, to be sure, Kitty,” said D’Artagnan; “be at ease, my girl.
But what happened after my departure?”

“How can I tell!” said Kitty. “The lackeys were brought by the cries
she made. She was mad with passion. There exist no imprecations she did
not pour out against you. Then I thought she would remember it was
through my chamber you had penetrated hers, and that then she would
suppose I was your accomplice; so I took what little money I had and
the best of my things, and I got away.

“Poor dear girl! But what can I do with you? I am going away the day
after tomorrow.”

“Do what you please, Monsieur Chevalier. Help me out of Paris; help me
out of France!”

“I cannot take you, however, to the siege of La Rochelle,” said
D’Artagnan.

“No; but you can place me in one of the provinces with some lady of
your acquaintance—in your own country, for instance.”

“My dear little love! In my country the ladies do without chambermaids.
But stop! I can manage your business for you. Planchet, go and find
Aramis. Request him to come here directly. We have something very
important to say to him.”

“I understand,” said Athos; “but why not Porthos? I should have thought
that his duchess—”

“Oh, Porthos’s duchess is dressed by her husband’s clerks,” said
D’Artagnan, laughing. “Besides, Kitty would not like to live in the Rue
aux Ours. Isn’t it so, Kitty?”

“I do not care where I live,” said Kitty, “provided I am well
concealed, and nobody knows where I am.”

“Meanwhile, Kitty, when we are about to separate, and you are no longer
jealous of me—”

“Monsieur Chevalier, far off or near,” said Kitty, “I shall always love
you.”

“Where the devil will constancy niche itself next?” murmured Athos.

“And I, also,” said D’Artagnan, “I also. I shall always love you; be
sure of that. But now answer me. I attach great importance to the
question I am about to put to you. Did you never hear talk of a young
woman who was carried off one night?”

“There, now! Oh, Monsieur Chevalier, do you love that woman still?”

“No, no; it is one of my friends who loves her—Monsieur Athos, this
gentleman here.”

“I?” cried Athos, with an accent like that of a man who perceives he is
about to tread upon an adder.

“You, to be sure!” said D’Artagnan, pressing Athos’s hand. “You know
the interest we both take in this poor little Madame Bonacieux.
Besides, Kitty will tell nothing; will you, Kitty? You understand, my
dear girl,” continued D’Artagnan, “she is the wife of that frightful
baboon you saw at the door as you came in.”

“Oh, my God! You remind me of my fright! If he should have known me
again!”

“How? know you again? Did you ever see that man before?”

“He came twice to Milady’s.”

“That’s it. About what time?”

“Why, about fifteen or eighteen days ago.”

“Exactly so.”

“And yesterday evening he came again.”

“Yesterday evening?”

“Yes, just before you came.”

“My dear Athos, we are enveloped in a network of spies. And do you
believe he knew you again, Kitty?”

“I pulled down my hood as soon as I saw him, but perhaps it was too
late.”

“Go down, Athos—he mistrusts you less than me—and see if he be still at
his door.”

Athos went down and returned immediately.

“He has gone,” said he, “and the house door is shut.”

“He has gone to make his report, and to say that all the pigeons are at
this moment in the dovecot.”

“Well, then, let us all fly,” said Athos, “and leave nobody here but
Planchet to bring us news.”

“A minute. Aramis, whom we have sent for!”

“That’s true,” said Athos; “we must wait for Aramis.”

At that moment Aramis entered.

The matter was all explained to him, and the friends gave him to
understand that among all his high connections he must find a place for
Kitty.

Aramis reflected for a minute, and then said, coloring, “Will it be
really rendering you a service, D’Artagnan?”

“I shall be grateful to you all my life.”

“Very well. Madame de Bois-Tracy asked me, for one of her friends who
resides in the provinces, I believe, for a trustworthy maid. If you
can, my dear D’Artagnan, answer for Mademoiselle—”

“Oh, monsieur, be assured that I shall be entirely devoted to the
person who will give me the means of quitting Paris.”

“Then,” said Aramis, “this falls out very well.”

He placed himself at the table and wrote a little note which he sealed
with a ring, and gave the billet to Kitty.

“And now, my dear girl,” said D’Artagnan, “you know that it is not good
for any of us to be here. Therefore let us separate. We shall meet
again in better days.”

“And whenever we find each other, in whatever place it may be,” said
Kitty, “you will find me loving you as I love you today.”

“Dicers’ oaths!” said Athos, while D’Artagnan went to conduct Kitty
downstairs.

An instant afterward the three young men separated, agreeing to meet
again at four o’clock with Athos, and leaving Planchet to guard the
house.

Aramis returned home, and Athos and D’Artagnan busied themselves about
pledging the sapphire.

As the Gascon had foreseen, they easily obtained three hundred pistoles
on the ring. Still further, the Jew told them that if they would sell
it to him, as it would make a magnificent pendant for earrings, he
would give five hundred pistoles for it.

Athos and D’Artagnan, with the activity of two soldiers and the
knowledge of two connoisseurs, hardly required three hours to purchase
the entire equipment of the Musketeer. Besides, Athos was very easy,
and a noble to his fingers’ ends. When a thing suited him he paid the
price demanded, without thinking to ask for any abatement. D’Artagnan
would have remonstrated at this; but Athos put his hand upon his
shoulder, with a smile, and D’Artagnan understood that it was all very
well for such a little Gascon gentleman as himself to drive a bargain,
but not for a man who had the bearing of a prince. The Musketeer met
with a superb Andalusian horse, black as jet, nostrils of fire, legs
clean and elegant, rising six years. He examined him, and found him
sound and without blemish. They asked a thousand livres for him.

He might perhaps have been bought for less; but while D’Artagnan was
discussing the price with the dealer, Athos was counting out the money
on the table.

Grimaud had a stout, short Picard cob, which cost three hundred livres.

But when the saddle and arms for Grimaud were purchased, Athos had not
a sou left of his hundred and fifty pistoles. D’Artagnan offered his
friend a part of his share which he should return when convenient.

But Athos only replied to this proposal by shrugging his shoulders.

“How much did the Jew say he would give for the sapphire if he
purchased it?” said Athos.

“Five hundred pistoles.”

“That is to say, two hundred more—a hundred pistoles for you and a
hundred pistoles for me. Well, now, that would be a real fortune to us,
my friend; let us go back to the Jew’s again.”

“What! will you—”

“This ring would certainly only recall very bitter remembrances; then
we shall never be masters of three hundred pistoles to redeem it, so
that we really should lose two hundred pistoles by the bargain. Go and
tell him the ring is his, D’Artagnan, and bring back the two hundred
pistoles with you.”

“Reflect, Athos!”

“Ready money is needful for the present time, and we must learn how to
make sacrifices. Go, D’Artagnan, go; Grimaud will accompany you with
his musketoon.”

A half hour afterward, D’Artagnan returned with the two thousand
livres, and without having met with any accident.

It was thus Athos found at home resources which he did not expect.




Chapter XXXIX.
A VISION


At four o’clock the four friends were all assembled with Athos. Their
anxiety about their outfits had all disappeared, and each countenance
only preserved the expression of its own secret disquiet—for behind all
present happiness is concealed a fear for the future.

Suddenly Planchet entered, bringing two letters for D’Artagnan.

The one was a little billet, genteelly folded, with a pretty seal in
green wax on which was impressed a dove bearing a green branch.

The other was a large square epistle, resplendent with the terrible
arms of his Eminence the cardinal duke.

At the sight of the little letter the heart of D’Artagnan bounded, for
he believed he recognized the handwriting, and although he had seen
that writing but once, the memory of it remained at the bottom of his
heart.

He therefore seized the little epistle, and opened it eagerly.

“Be,” said the letter, “on Thursday next, at from six to seven o’clock
in the evening, on the road to Chaillot, and look carefully into the
carriages that pass; but if you have any consideration for your own
life or that of those who love you, do not speak a single word, do not
make a movement which may lead anyone to believe you have recognized
her who exposes herself to everything for the sake of seeing you but
for an instant.”

No signature.

“That’s a snare,” said Athos; “don’t go, D’Artagnan.”

“And yet,” replied D’Artagnan, “I think I recognize the writing.”

“It may be counterfeit,” said Athos. “Between six and seven o’clock the
road of Chaillot is quite deserted; you might as well go and ride in
the forest of Bondy.”

“But suppose we all go,” said D’Artagnan; “what the devil! They won’t
devour us all four, four lackeys, horses, arms, and all!”

“And besides, it will be a chance for displaying our new equipments,”
said Porthos.

“But if it is a woman who writes,” said Aramis, “and that woman desires
not to be seen, remember, you compromise her, D’Artagnan; which is not
the part of a gentleman.”

“We will remain in the background,” said Porthos, “and he will advance
alone.”

“Yes; but a pistol shot is easily fired from a carriage which goes at a
gallop.”

“Bah!” said D’Artagnan, “they will miss me; if they fire we will ride
after the carriage, and exterminate those who may be in it. They must
be enemies.”

“He is right,” said Porthos; “battle. Besides, we must try our own
arms.”

“Bah, let us enjoy that pleasure,” said Aramis, with his mild and
careless manner.

“As you please,” said Athos.

“Gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, “it is half past four, and we have
scarcely time to be on the road of Chaillot by six.”

“Besides, if we go out too late, nobody will see us,” said Porthos,
“and that will be a pity. Let us get ready, gentlemen.”

“But this second letter,” said Athos, “you forget that; it appears to
me, however, that the seal denotes that it deserves to be opened. For
my part, I declare, D’Artagnan, I think it of much more consequence
than the little piece of waste paper you have so cunningly slipped into
your bosom.”

D’Artagnan blushed.

“Well,” said he, “let us see, gentlemen, what are his Eminence’s
commands,” and D’Artagnan unsealed the letter and read,

“M. d’Artagnan, of the king’s Guards, company Dessessart, is expected
at the Palais-Cardinal this evening, at eight o’clock.


“LA HOUDINIERE, _Captain of the Guards_”


“The devil!” said Athos; “here’s a rendezvous much more serious than
the other.”

“I will go to the second after attending the first,” said D’Artagnan.
“One is for seven o’clock, and the other for eight; there will be time
for both.”

“Hum! I would not go at all,” said Aramis. “A gallant knight cannot
decline a rendezvous with a lady; but a prudent gentleman may excuse
himself from not waiting on his Eminence, particularly when he has
reason to believe he is not invited to make his compliments.”

“I am of Aramis’s opinion,” said Porthos.

“Gentlemen,” replied D’Artagnan, “I have already received by Monsieur
de Cavois a similar invitation from his Eminence. I neglected it, and
on the morrow a serious misfortune happened to me—Constance
disappeared. Whatever may ensue, I will go.”

“If you are determined,” said Athos, “do so.”

“But the Bastille?” said Aramis.

“Bah! you will get me out if they put me there,” said D’Artagnan.

“To be sure we will,” replied Aramis and Porthos, with admirable
promptness and decision, as if that were the simplest thing in the
world, “to be sure we will get you out; but meantime, as we are to set
off the day after tomorrow, you would do much better not to risk this
Bastille.”

“Let us do better than that,” said Athos; “do not let us leave him
during the whole evening. Let each of us wait at a gate of the palace
with three Musketeers behind him; if we see a close carriage, at all
suspicious in appearance, come out, let us fall upon it. It is a long
time since we have had a skirmish with the Guards of Monsieur the
Cardinal; Monsieur de Tréville must think us dead.”

“To a certainty, Athos,” said Aramis, “you were meant to be a general
of the army! What do you think of the plan, gentlemen?”

“Admirable!” replied the young men in chorus.

“Well,” said Porthos, “I will run to the hôtel, and engage our comrades
to hold themselves in readiness by eight o’clock; the rendezvous, the
Place du Palais-Cardinal. Meantime, you see that the lackeys saddle the
horses.”

“I have no horse,” said D’Artagnan; “but that is of no consequence, I
can take one of Monsieur de Tréville’s.”

“That is not worth while,” said Aramis, “you can have one of mine.”

“One of yours! how many have you, then?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Three,” replied Aramis, smiling.

“_Certes_,” cried Athos, “you are the best-mounted poet of France or
Navarre.”

“Well, my dear Aramis, you don’t want three horses? I cannot comprehend
what induced you to buy three!”

“Therefore I only purchased two,” said Aramis.

“The third, then, fell from the clouds, I suppose?”

“No, the third was brought to me this very morning by a groom out of
livery, who would not tell me in whose service he was, and who said he
had received orders from his master.”

“Or his mistress,” interrupted D’Artagnan.

“That makes no difference,” said Aramis, coloring; “and who affirmed,
as I said, that he had received orders from his master or mistress to
place the horse in my stable, without informing me whence it came.”

“It is only to poets that such things happen,” said Athos, gravely.

“Well, in that case, we can manage famously,” said D’Artagnan; “which
of the two horses will you ride—that which you bought or the one that
was given to you?”

“That which was given to me, assuredly. You cannot for a moment
imagine, D’Artagnan, that I would commit such an offense toward—”

“The unknown giver,” interrupted D’Artagnan.

“Or the mysterious benefactress,” said Athos.

“The one you bought will then become useless to you?”

“Nearly so.”

“And you selected it yourself?”

“With the greatest care. The safety of the horseman, you know, depends
almost always upon the goodness of his horse.”

“Well, transfer it to me at the price it cost you?”

“I was going to make you the offer, my dear D’Artagnan, giving you all
the time necessary for repaying me such a trifle.”

“How much did it cost you?”

“Eight hundred livres.”

“Here are forty double pistoles, my dear friend,” said D’Artagnan,
taking the sum from his pocket; “I know that is the coin in which you
were paid for your poems.”

“You are rich, then?” said Aramis.

“Rich? Richest, my dear fellow!”

And D’Artagnan chinked the remainder of his pistoles in his pocket.

“Send your saddle, then, to the hôtel of the Musketeers, and your horse
can be brought back with ours.”

“Very well; but it is already five o’clock, so make haste.”

A quarter of an hour afterward Porthos appeared at the end of the Rue
Férou on a very handsome _genet_. Mousqueton followed him upon an
Auvergne horse, small but very handsome. Porthos was resplendent with
joy and pride.

At the same time, Aramis made his appearance at the other end of the
street upon a superb English charger. Bazin followed him upon a roan,
holding by the halter a vigorous Mecklenburg horse; this was
D’Artagnan’s mount.

The two Musketeers met at the gate. Athos and D’Artagnan watched their
approach from the window.

“The devil!” cried Aramis, “you have a magnificent horse there,
Porthos.”

“Yes,” replied Porthos, “it is the one that ought to have been sent to
me at first. A bad joke of the husband’s substituted the other; but the
husband has been punished since, and I have obtained full
satisfaction.”

Planchet and Grimaud appeared in their turn, leading their masters’
steeds. D’Artagnan and Athos put themselves into saddle with their
companions, and all four set forward; Athos upon a horse he owed to a
woman, Aramis on a horse he owed to his mistress, Porthos on a horse he
owed to his procurator’s wife, and D’Artagnan on a horse he owed to his
good fortune—the best mistress possible.

The lackeys followed.

As Porthos had foreseen, the cavalcade produced a good effect; and if
Mme. Coquenard had met Porthos and seen what a superb appearance he
made upon his handsome Spanish _genet_, she would not have regretted
the bleeding she had inflicted upon the strongbox of her husband.

Near the Louvre the four friends met with M. de Tréville, who was
returning from St. Germain; he stopped them to offer his compliments
upon their appointments, which in an instant drew round them a hundred
gapers.

D’Artagnan profited by the circumstance to speak to M. de Tréville of
the letter with the great red seal and the cardinal’s arms. It is well
understood that he did not breathe a word about the other.

M. de Tréville approved of the resolution he had adopted, and assured
him that if on the morrow he did not appear, he himself would undertake
to find him, let him be where he might.

At this moment the clock of La Samaritaine struck six; the four friends
pleaded an engagement, and took leave of M. de Tréville.

A short gallop brought them to the road of Chaillot; the day began to
decline, carriages were passing and repassing. D’Artagnan, keeping at
some distance from his friends, darted a scrutinizing glance into every
carriage that appeared, but saw no face with which he was acquainted.

At length, after waiting a quarter of an hour and just as twilight was
beginning to thicken, a carriage appeared, coming at a quick pace on
the road of Sèvres. A presentiment instantly told D’Artagnan that this
carriage contained the person who had appointed the rendezvous; the
young man was himself astonished to find his heart beat so violently.
Almost instantly a female head was put out at the window, with two
fingers placed upon her mouth, either to enjoin silence or to send him
a kiss. D’Artagnan uttered a slight cry of joy; this woman, or rather
this apparition—for the carriage passed with the rapidity of a
vision—was Mme. Bonacieux.

By an involuntary movement and in spite of the injunction given,
D’Artagnan put his horse into a gallop, and in a few strides overtook
the carriage; but the window was hermetically closed, the vision had
disappeared.

D’Artagnan then remembered the injunction: “If you value your own life
or that of those who love you, remain motionless, and as if you had
seen nothing.”

He stopped, therefore, trembling not for himself but for the poor woman
who had evidently exposed herself to great danger by appointing this
rendezvous.

The carriage pursued its way, still going at a great pace, till it
dashed into Paris, and disappeared.

D’Artagnan remained fixed to the spot, astounded and not knowing what
to think. If it was Mme. Bonacieux and if she was returning to Paris,
why this fugitive rendezvous, why this simple exchange of a glance, why
this lost kiss? If, on the other side, it was not she—which was still
quite possible—for the little light that remained rendered a mistake
easy—might it not be the commencement of some plot against him through
the allurement of this woman, for whom his love was known?

His three companions joined him. All had plainly seen a woman’s head
appear at the window, but none of them, except Athos, knew Mme.
Bonacieux. The opinion of Athos was that it was indeed she; but less
preoccupied by that pretty face than D’Artagnan, he had fancied he saw
a second head, a man’s head, inside the carriage.

“If that be the case,” said D’Artagnan, “they are doubtless
transporting her from one prison to another. But what can they intend
to do with the poor creature, and how shall I ever meet her again?”

“Friend,” said Athos, gravely, “remember that it is the dead alone with
whom we are not likely to meet again on this earth. You know something
of that, as well as I do, I think. Now, if your mistress is not dead,
if it is she we have just seen, you will meet with her again some day
or other. And perhaps, my God!” added he, with that misanthropic tone
which was peculiar to him, “perhaps sooner than you wish.”

Half past seven had sounded. The carriage had been twenty minutes
behind the time appointed. D’Artagnan’s friends reminded him that he
had a visit to pay, but at the same time bade him observe that there
was yet time to retract.

But D’Artagnan was at the same time impetuous and curious. He had made
up his mind that he would go to the Palais-Cardinal, and that he would
learn what his Eminence had to say to him. Nothing could turn him from
his purpose.

They reached the Rue St. Honoré, and in the Place du Palais-Cardinal
they found the twelve invited Musketeers, walking about in expectation
of their comrades. There only they explained to them the matter in
hand.

D’Artagnan was well known among the honorable corps of the king’s
Musketeers, in which it was known he would one day take his place; he
was considered beforehand as a comrade. It resulted from these
antecedents that everyone entered heartily into the purpose for which
they met; besides, it would not be unlikely that they would have an
opportunity of playing either the cardinal or his people an ill turn,
and for such expeditions these worthy gentlemen were always ready.

Athos divided them into three groups, assumed the command of one, gave
the second to Aramis, and the third to Porthos; and then each group
went and took their watch near an entrance.

D’Artagnan, on his part, entered boldly at the principal gate.

Although he felt himself ably supported, the young man was not without
a little uneasiness as he ascended the great staircase, step by step.
His conduct toward Milady bore a strong resemblance to treachery, and
he was very suspicious of the political relations which existed between
that woman and the cardinal. Still further, De Wardes, whom he had
treated so ill, was one of the tools of his Eminence; and D’Artagnan
knew that while his Eminence was terrible to his enemies, he was
strongly attached to his friends.

“If De Wardes has related all our affair to the cardinal, which is not
to be doubted, and if he has recognized me, as is probable, I may
consider myself almost as a condemned man,” said D’Artagnan, shaking
his head. “But why has he waited till now? That’s all plain enough.
Milady has laid her complaints against me with that hypocritical grief
which renders her so interesting, and this last offense has made the
cup overflow.”

“Fortunately,” added he, “my good friends are down yonder, and they
will not allow me to be carried away without a struggle. Nevertheless,
Monsieur de Tréville’s company of Musketeers alone cannot maintain a
war against the cardinal, who disposes of the forces of all France, and
before whom the queen is without power and the king without will.
D’Artagnan, my friend, you are brave, you are prudent, you have
excellent qualities; but the women will ruin you!”

He came to this melancholy conclusion as he entered the antechamber. He
placed his letter in the hands of the usher on duty, who led him into
the waiting room and passed on into the interior of the palace.

In this waiting room were five or six of the cardinal’s Guards, who
recognized D’Artagnan, and knowing that it was he who had wounded
Jussac, they looked upon him with a smile of singular meaning.

This smile appeared to D’Artagnan to be of bad augury. Only, as our
Gascon was not easily intimidated—or rather, thanks to a great pride
natural to the men of his country, he did not allow one easily to see
what was passing in his mind when that which was passing at all
resembled fear—he placed himself haughtily in front of Messieurs the
Guards, and waited with his hand on his hip, in an attitude by no means
deficient in majesty.

The usher returned and made a sign to D’Artagnan to follow him. It
appeared to the young man that the Guards, on seeing him depart,
chuckled among themselves.

He traversed a corridor, crossed a grand saloon, entered a library, and
found himself in the presence of a man seated at a desk and writing.

The usher introduced him, and retired without speaking a word.
D’Artagnan remained standing and examined this man.

D’Artagnan at first believed that he had to do with some judge
examining his papers; but he perceived that the man at the desk wrote,
or rather corrected, lines of unequal length, scanning the words on his
fingers. He saw then that he was with a poet. At the end of an instant
the poet closed his manuscript, upon the cover of which was written
“Mirame, a Tragedy in Five Acts,” and raised his head.

D’Artagnan recognized the cardinal.




Chapter XL.
A TERRIBLE VISION


The cardinal leaned his elbow on his manuscript, his cheek upon his
hand, and looked intently at the young man for a moment. No one had a
more searching eye than the Cardinal de Richelieu, and D’Artagnan felt
this glance run through his veins like a fever.

He however kept a good countenance, holding his hat in his hand and
awaiting the good pleasure of his Eminence, without too much assurance,
but also without too much humility.

“Monsieur,” said the cardinal, “are you a D’Artagnan from Béarn?”

“Yes, monseigneur,” replied the young man.

“There are several branches of the D’Artagnans at Tarbes and in its
environs,” said the cardinal; “to which do you belong?”

“I am the son of him who served in the Religious Wars under the great
King Henry, the father of his gracious Majesty.”

“That is well. It is you who set out seven or eight months ago from
your country to seek your fortune in the capital?”

“Yes, monseigneur.”

“You came through Meung, where something befell you. I don’t very well
know what, but still something.”

“Monseigneur,” said D’Artagnan, “this was what happened to me—”

“Never mind, never mind!” resumed the cardinal, with a smile which
indicated that he knew the story as well as he who wished to relate it.
“You were recommended to Monsieur de Tréville, were you not?”

“Yes, monseigneur; but in that unfortunate affair at Meung—”

“The letter was lost,” replied his Eminence; “yes, I know that. But
Monsieur de Tréville is a skilled physiognomist, who knows men at first
sight; and he placed you in the company of his brother-in-law, Monsieur
Dessessart, leaving you to hope that one day or other you should enter
the Musketeers.”

“Monseigneur is correctly informed,” said D’Artagnan.

“Since that time many things have happened to you. You were walking one
day behind the Chartreux, when it would have been better if you had
been elsewhere. Then you took with your friends a journey to the waters
of Forges; they stopped on the road, but you continued yours. That is
all very simple: you had business in England.”

“Monseigneur,” said D’Artagnan, quite confused, “I went—”

“Hunting at Windsor, or elsewhere—that concerns nobody. I know, because
it is my office to know everything. On your return you were received by
an august personage, and I perceive with pleasure that you preserve the
souvenir she gave you.”

D’Artagnan placed his hand upon the queen’s diamond, which he wore, and
quickly turned the stone inward; but it was too late.

“The day after that, you received a visit from Cavois,” resumed the
cardinal. “He went to desire you to come to the palace. You have not
returned that visit, and you were wrong.”

“Monseigneur, I feared I had incurred disgrace with your Eminence.”

“How could that be, monsieur? Could you incur my displeasure by having
followed the orders of your superiors with more intelligence and
courage than another would have done? It is the people who do not obey
that I punish, and not those who, like you, obey—but too well. As a
proof, remember the date of the day on which I had you bidden to come
to me, and seek in your memory for what happened to you that very
night.”

That was the very evening when the abduction of Mme. Bonacieux took
place. D’Artagnan trembled; and he likewise recollected that during the
past half hour the poor woman had passed close to him, without doubt
carried away by the same power that had caused her disappearance.

“In short,” continued the cardinal, “as I have heard nothing of you for
some time past, I wished to know what you were doing. Besides, you owe
me some thanks. You must yourself have remarked how much you have been
considered in all the circumstances.”

D’Artagnan bowed with respect.

“That,” continued the cardinal, “arose not only from a feeling of
natural equity, but likewise from a plan I have marked out with respect
to you.”

D’Artagnan became more and more astonished.

“I wished to explain this plan to you on the day you received my first
invitation; but you did not come. Fortunately, nothing is lost by this
delay, and you are now about to hear it. Sit down there, before me,
D’Artagnan; you are gentleman enough not to listen standing.” And the
cardinal pointed with his finger to a chair for the young man, who was
so astonished at what was passing that he awaited a second sign from
his interlocutor before he obeyed.

“You are brave, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” continued his Eminence; “you are
prudent, which is still better. I like men of head and heart. Don’t be
afraid,” said he, smiling. “By men of heart I mean men of courage. But
young as you are, and scarcely entering into the world, you have
powerful enemies; if you do not take great heed, they will destroy
you.”

“Alas, monseigneur!” replied the young man, “very easily, no doubt, for
they are strong and well supported, while I am alone.”

“Yes, that’s true; but alone as you are, you have done much already,
and will do still more, I don’t doubt. Yet you have need, I believe, to
be guided in the adventurous career you have undertaken; for, if I
mistake not, you came to Paris with the ambitious idea of making your
fortune.”

“I am at the age of extravagant hopes, monseigneur,” said D’Artagnan.

“There are no extravagant hopes but for fools, monsieur, and you are a
man of understanding. Now, what would you say to an ensign’s commission
in my Guards, and a company after the campaign?”

“Ah, monseigneur.”

“You accept it, do you not?”

“Monseigneur,” replied D’Artagnan, with an embarrassed air.

“How? You refuse?” cried the cardinal, with astonishment.

“I am in his Majesty’s Guards, monseigneur, and I have no reason to be
dissatisfied.”

“But it appears to me that my Guards—mine—are also his Majesty’s
Guards; and whoever serves in a French corps serves the king.”

“Monseigneur, your Eminence has ill understood my words.”

“You want a pretext, do you not? I comprehend. Well, you have this
excuse: advancement, the opening campaign, the opportunity which I
offer you—so much for the world. As regards yourself, the need of
protection; for it is fit you should know, Monsieur d’Artagnan, that I
have received heavy and serious complaints against you. You do not
consecrate your days and nights wholly to the king’s service.”

D’Artagnan colored.

“In fact,” said the cardinal, placing his hand upon a bundle of papers,
“I have here a whole pile which concerns you. I know you to be a man of
resolution; and your services, well directed, instead of leading you to
ill, might be very advantageous to you. Come; reflect, and decide.”

“Your goodness confounds me, monseigneur,” replied D’Artagnan, “and I
am conscious of a greatness of soul in your Eminence that makes me mean
as an earthworm; but since Monseigneur permits me to speak freely—”

D’Artagnan paused.

“Yes; speak.”

“Then, I will presume to say that all my friends are in the king’s
Musketeers and Guards, and that by an inconceivable fatality my enemies
are in the service of your Eminence; I should, therefore, be ill
received here and ill regarded there if I accepted what Monseigneur
offers me.”

“Do you happen to entertain the haughty idea that I have not yet made
you an offer equal to your value?” asked the cardinal, with a smile of
disdain.

“Monseigneur, your Eminence is a hundred times too kind to me; and on
the contrary, I think I have not proved myself worthy of your goodness.
The siege of La Rochelle is about to be resumed, monseigneur. I shall
serve under the eye of your Eminence, and if I have the good fortune to
conduct myself at the siege in such a manner as merits your attention,
then I shall at least leave behind me some brilliant action to justify
the protection with which you honor me. Everything is best in its time,
monseigneur. Hereafter, perhaps, I shall have the right of _giving_
myself; at present I shall appear to sell myself.”

“That is to say, you refuse to serve me, monsieur,” said the cardinal,
with a tone of vexation, through which, however, might be seen a sort
of esteem; “remain free, then, and guard your hatreds and your
sympathies.”

“Monseigneur—”

“Well, well,” said the cardinal, “I don’t wish you any ill; but you
must be aware that it is quite trouble enough to defend and recompense
our friends. We owe nothing to our enemies; and let me give you a piece
of advice; take care of yourself, Monsieur d’Artagnan, for from the
moment I withdraw my hand from behind you, I would not give an _obolus_
for your life.”

“I will try to do so, monseigneur,” replied the Gascon, with a noble
confidence.

“Remember at a later period and at a certain moment, if any mischance
should happen to you,” said Richelieu, significantly, “that it was I
who came to seek you, and that I did all in my power to prevent this
misfortune befalling you.”

“I shall entertain, whatever may happen,” said D’Artagnan, placing his
hand upon his breast and bowing, “an eternal gratitude toward your
Eminence for that which you now do for me.”

“Well, let it be, then, as you have said, Monsieur d’Artagnan; we shall
see each other again after the campaign. I will have my eye upon you,
for I shall be there,” replied the cardinal, pointing with his finger
to a magnificent suit of armor he was to wear, “and on our return,
well—we will settle our account!”

“Ah, monseigneur,” cried D’Artagnan, “spare me the weight of your
displeasure. Remain neutral monseigneur, if you find that I act as
becomes a gallant man.”

“Young man,” said Richelieu, “if I shall be able to say to you at
another time what I have said to you today, I promise you to do so.”

This last expression of Richelieu’s conveyed a terrible doubt; it
alarmed D’Artagnan more than a menace would have done, for it was a
warning. The cardinal, then, was seeking to preserve him from some
misfortune which threatened him. He opened his mouth to reply, but with
a haughty gesture the cardinal dismissed him.

D’Artagnan went out, but at the door his heart almost failed him, and
he felt inclined to return. Then the noble and severe countenance of
Athos crossed his mind; if he made the compact with the cardinal which
he required, Athos would no more give him his hand—Athos would renounce
him.

It was this fear that restrained him, so powerful is the influence of a
truly great character on all that surrounds it.

D’Artagnan descended by the staircase at which he had entered, and
found Athos and the four Musketeers waiting his appearance, and
beginning to grow uneasy. With a word, D’Artagnan reassured them; and
Planchet ran to inform the other sentinels that it was useless to keep
guard longer, as his master had come out safe from the Palais-Cardinal.

Returned home with Athos, Aramis and Porthos inquired eagerly the cause
of the strange interview; but D’Artagnan confined himself to telling
them that M. de Richelieu had sent for him to propose to him to enter
into his guards with the rank of ensign, and that he had refused.

“And you were right,” cried Aramis and Porthos, with one voice.

Athos fell into a profound reverie and answered nothing. But when they
were alone he said, “You have done that which you ought to have done,
D’Artagnan; but perhaps you have been wrong.”

D’Artagnan sighed deeply, for this voice responded to a secret voice of
his soul, which told him that great misfortunes awaited him.

The whole of the next day was spent in preparations for departure.
D’Artagnan went to take leave of M. de Tréville. At that time it was
believed that the separation of the Musketeers and the Guards would be
but momentary, the king holding his Parliament that very day and
proposing to set out the day after. M. de Tréville contented himself
with asking D’Artagnan if he could do anything for him, but D’Artagnan
answered that he was supplied with all he wanted.

That night brought together all those comrades of the Guards of M.
Dessessart and the company of Musketeers of M. de Tréville who had been
accustomed to associate together. They were parting to meet again when
it pleased God, and if it pleased God. That night, then, was somewhat
riotous, as may be imagined. In such cases extreme preoccupation is
only to be combated by extreme carelessness.

At the first sound of the morning trumpet the friends separated; the
Musketeers hastening to the hôtel of M. de Tréville, the Guards to that
of M. Dessessart. Each of the captains then led his company to the
Louvre, where the king held his review.

The king was dull and appeared ill, which detracted a little from his
usual lofty bearing. In fact, the evening before, a fever had seized
him in the midst of the Parliament, while he was holding his Bed of
Justice. He had, not the less, decided upon setting out that same
evening; and in spite of the remonstrances that had been offered to
him, he persisted in having the review, hoping by setting it at
defiance to conquer the disease which began to lay hold upon him.

The review over, the Guards set forward alone on their march, the
Musketeers waiting for the king, which allowed Porthos time to go and
take a turn in his superb equipment in the Rue aux Ours.

The procurator’s wife saw him pass in his new uniform and on his fine
horse. She loved Porthos too dearly to allow him to part thus; she made
him a sign to dismount and come to her. Porthos was magnificent; his
spurs jingled, his cuirass glittered, his sword knocked proudly against
his ample limbs. This time the clerks evinced no inclination to laugh,
such a real ear clipper did Porthos appear.

The Musketeer was introduced to M. Coquenard, whose little gray eyes
sparkled with anger at seeing his cousin all blazing new. Nevertheless,
one thing afforded him inward consolation; it was expected by everybody
that the campaign would be a severe one. He whispered a hope to himself
that this beloved relative might be killed in the field.

Porthos paid his compliments to M. Coquenard and bade him farewell. M.
Coquenard wished him all sorts of prosperities. As to Mme. Coquenard,
she could not restrain her tears; but no evil impressions were taken
from her grief as she was known to be very much attached to her
relatives, about whom she was constantly having serious disputes with
her husband.

But the real adieux were made in Mme. Coquenard’s chamber; they were
heartrending.

As long as the procurator’s wife could follow him with her eyes, she
waved her handkerchief to him, leaning so far out of the window as to
lead people to believe she wished to precipitate herself. Porthos
received all these attentions like a man accustomed to such
demonstrations, only on turning the corner of the street he lifted his
hat gracefully, and waved it to her as a sign of adieu.

On his part Aramis wrote a long letter. To whom? Nobody knew. Kitty,
who was to set out that evening for Tours, was waiting in the next
chamber.

Athos sipped the last bottle of his Spanish wine.

In the meantime D’Artagnan was defiling with his company. Arriving at
the Faubourg St. Antoine, he turned round to look gaily at the
Bastille; but as it was the Bastille alone he looked at, he did not
observe Milady, who, mounted upon a light chestnut horse, designated
him with her finger to two ill-looking men who came close up to the
ranks to take notice of him. To a look of interrogation which they
made, Milady replied by a sign that it was he. Then, certain that there
could be no mistake in the execution of her orders, she started her
horse and disappeared.

The two men followed the company, and on leaving the Faubourg St.
Antoine, mounted two horses properly equipped, which a servant without
livery had waiting for them.




Chapter XLI.
THE SIEGE OF LA ROCHELLE


The Siege of La Rochelle was one of the great political events of the
reign of Louis XIII., and one of the great military enterprises of the
cardinal. It is, then, interesting and even necessary that we should
say a few words about it, particularly as many details of this siege
are connected in too important a manner with the story we have
undertaken to relate to allow us to pass it over in silence.

The political plans of the cardinal when he undertook this siege were
extensive. Let us unfold them first, and then pass on to the private
plans which perhaps had not less influence upon his Eminence than the
others.

Of the important cities given up by Henry IV. to the Huguenots as places
of safety, there only remained La Rochelle. It became necessary,
therefore, to destroy this last bulwark of Calvinism—a dangerous leaven
with which the ferments of civil revolt and foreign war were constantly
mingling.

Spaniards, Englishmen, and Italian malcontents, adventurers of all
nations, and soldiers of fortune of every sect, flocked at the first
summons under the standard of the Protestants, and organized themselves
like a vast association, whose branches diverged freely over all parts
of Europe.

La Rochelle, which had derived a new importance from the ruin of the
other Calvinist cities, was, then, the focus of dissensions and
ambition. Moreover, its port was the last in the kingdom of France open
to the English, and by closing it against England, our eternal enemy,
the cardinal completed the work of Joan of Arc and the Duc de Guise.

Thus Bassompierre, who was at once Protestant and Catholic—Protestant
by conviction and Catholic as commander of the order of the Holy Ghost;
Bassompierre, who was a German by birth and a Frenchman at heart—in
short, Bassompierre, who had a distinguished command at the siege of La
Rochelle, said, in charging at the head of several other Protestant
nobles like himself, “You will see, gentlemen, that we shall be fools
enough to take La Rochelle.”

And Bassompierre was right. The cannonade of the Isle of Ré presaged to
him the dragonnades of the Cévennes; the taking of La Rochelle was the
preface to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

We have hinted that by the side of these views of the leveling and
simplifying minister, which belong to history, the chronicler is forced
to recognize the lesser motives of the amorous man and jealous rival.

Richelieu, as everyone knows, had loved the queen. Was this love a
simple political affair, or was it naturally one of those profound
passions which Anne of Austria inspired in those who approached her?
That we are not able to say; but at all events, we have seen, by the
anterior developments of this story, that Buckingham had the advantage
over him, and in two or three circumstances, particularly that of the
diamond studs, had, thanks to the devotedness of the three Musketeers
and the courage and conduct of D’Artagnan, cruelly mystified him.

It was, then, Richelieu’s object, not only to get rid of an enemy of
France, but to avenge himself on a rival; but this vengeance must be
grand and striking and worthy in every way of a man who held in his
hand, as his weapon for combat, the forces of a kingdom.

Richelieu knew that in combating England he combated Buckingham; that
in triumphing over England he triumphed over Buckingham—in short, that
in humiliating England in the eyes of Europe he humiliated Buckingham
in the eyes of the queen.

On his side Buckingham, in pretending to maintain the honor of England,
was moved by interests exactly like those of the cardinal. Buckingham
also was pursuing a private vengeance. Buckingham could not under any
pretense be admitted into France as an ambassador; he wished to enter
it as a conqueror.

It resulted from this that the real stake in this game, which two most
powerful kingdoms played for the good pleasure of two amorous men, was
simply a kind look from Anne of Austria.

The first advantage had been gained by Buckingham. Arriving
unexpectedly in sight of the Isle of Ré with ninety vessels and nearly
twenty thousand men, he had surprised the Comte de Toiras, who
commanded for the king in the Isle, and he had, after a bloody
conflict, effected his landing.

Allow us to observe in passing that in this fight perished the Baron de
Chantal; that the Baron de Chantal left a little orphan girl eighteen
months old, and that this little girl was afterward Mme. de Sévigné.

The Comte de Toiras retired into the citadel St. Martin with his
garrison, and threw a hundred men into a little fort called the fort of
La Prée.

This event had hastened the resolutions of the cardinal; and till the
king and he could take the command of the siege of La Rochelle, which
was determined, he had sent Monsieur to direct the first operations,
and had ordered all the troops he could dispose of to march toward the
theater of war. It was of this detachment, sent as a vanguard, that our
friend D’Artagnan formed a part.

The king, as we have said, was to follow as soon as his Bed of Justice
had been held; but on rising from his Bed of Justice on the
twenty-eighth of June, he felt himself attacked by fever. He was,
notwithstanding, anxious to set out; but his illness becoming more
serious, he was forced to stop at Villeroy.

Now, whenever the king halted, the Musketeers halted. It followed that
D’Artagnan, who was as yet purely and simply in the Guards, found
himself, for the time at least, separated from his good friends—Athos,
Porthos, and Aramis. This separation, which was no more than an
unpleasant circumstance, would have certainly become a cause of serious
uneasiness if he had been able to guess by what unknown dangers he was
surrounded.

He, however, arrived without accident in the camp established before La
Rochelle, on the tenth of the month of September of the year 1627.

Everything was in the same state. The Duke of Buckingham and his
English, masters of the Isle of Ré, continued to besiege, but without
success, the citadel St. Martin and the fort of La Prée; and
hostilities with La Rochelle had commenced, two or three days before,
about a fort which the Duc d’Angoulême had caused to be constructed
near the city.

The Guards, under the command of M. Dessessart, took up their quarters
at the Minimes; but, as we know, D’Artagnan, possessed with ambition to
enter the Musketeers, had formed but few friendships among his
comrades, and he felt himself isolated and given up to his own
reflections.

His reflections were not very cheerful. From the time of his arrival in
Paris, he had been mixed up with public affairs; but his own private
affairs had made no great progress, either in love or fortune. As to
love, the only woman he could have loved was Mme. Bonacieux; and Mme.
Bonacieux had disappeared, without his being able to discover what had
become of her. As to fortune, he had made—he, humble as he was—an enemy
of the cardinal; that is to say, of a man before whom trembled the
greatest men of the kingdom, beginning with the king.

That man had the power to crush him, and yet he had not done so. For a
mind so perspicuous as that of D’Artagnan, this indulgence was a light
by which he caught a glimpse of a better future.

Then he had made himself another enemy, less to be feared, he thought;
but nevertheless, he instinctively felt, not to be despised. This enemy
was Milady.

In exchange for all this, he had acquired the protection and good will
of the queen; but the favor of the queen was at the present time an
additional cause of persecution, and her protection, as it was known,
protected badly—as witness Chalais and Mme. Bonacieux.

What he had clearly gained in all this was the diamond, worth five or
six thousand livres, which he wore on his finger; and even this
diamond—supposing that D’Artagnan, in his projects of ambition, wished
to keep it, to make it someday a pledge for the gratitude of the
queen—had not in the meanwhile, since he could not part with it, more
value than the gravel he trod under his feet.

We say the gravel he trod under his feet, for D’Artagnan made these
reflections while walking solitarily along a pretty little road which
led from the camp to the village of Angoutin. Now, these reflections
had led him further than he intended, and the day was beginning to
decline when, by the last ray of the setting sun, he thought he saw the
barrel of a musket glitter from behind a hedge.

D’Artagnan had a quick eye and a prompt understanding. He comprehended
that the musket had not come there of itself, and that he who bore it
had not concealed himself behind a hedge with any friendly intentions.
He determined, therefore, to direct his course as clear from it as he
could when, on the opposite side of the road, from behind a rock, he
perceived the extremity of another musket.

This was evidently an ambuscade.

The young man cast a glance at the first musket and saw, with a certain
degree of inquietude, that it was leveled in his direction; but as soon
as he perceived that the orifice of the barrel was motionless, he threw
himself upon the ground. At the same instant the gun was fired, and he
heard the whistling of a ball pass over his head.

No time was to be lost. D’Artagnan sprang up with a bound, and at the
same instant the ball from the other musket tore up the gravel on the
very spot on the road where he had thrown himself with his face to the
ground.

D’Artagnan was not one of those foolhardy men who seek a ridiculous
death in order that it may be said of them that they did not retreat a
single step. Besides, courage was out of the question here; D’Artagnan
had fallen into an ambush.

“If there is a third shot,” said he to himself, “I am a lost man.”

He immediately, therefore, took to his heels and ran toward the camp,
with the swiftness of the young men of his country, so renowned for
their agility; but whatever might be his speed, the first who fired,
having had time to reload, fired a second shot, and this time so well
aimed that it struck his hat, and carried it ten paces from him.

As he, however, had no other hat, he picked up this as he ran, and
arrived at his quarters very pale and quite out of breath. He sat down
without saying a word to anybody, and began to reflect.

This event might have three causes:

The first and the most natural was that it might be an ambuscade of the
Rochellais, who might not be sorry to kill one of his Majesty’s Guards,
because it would be an enemy the less, and this enemy might have a
well-furnished purse in his pocket.

D’Artagnan took his hat, examined the hole made by the ball, and shook
his head. The ball was not a musket ball—it was an arquebus ball. The
accuracy of the aim had first given him the idea that a special weapon
had been employed. This could not, then, be a military ambuscade, as
the ball was not of the regular caliber.

This might be a kind remembrance of Monsieur the Cardinal. It may be
observed that at the very moment when, thanks to the ray of the sun, he
perceived the gun barrel, he was thinking with astonishment on the
forbearance of his Eminence with respect to him.

But D’Artagnan again shook his head. For people toward whom he had but
to put forth his hand, his Eminence had rarely recourse to such means.

It might be a vengeance of Milady; that was most probable.

He tried in vain to remember the faces or dress of the assassins; he
had escaped so rapidly that he had not had leisure to notice anything.

“Ah, my poor friends!” murmured D’Artagnan; “where are you? And that
you should fail me!”

D’Artagnan passed a very bad night. Three or four times he started up,
imagining that a man was approaching his bed for the purpose of
stabbing him. Nevertheless, day dawned without darkness having brought
any accident.

But D’Artagnan well suspected that that which was deferred was not
relinquished.

D’Artagnan remained all day in his quarters, assigning as a reason to
himself that the weather was bad.

At nine o’clock the next morning, the drums beat to arms. The Duc
d’Orléans visited the posts. The guards were under arms, and D’Artagnan
took his place in the midst of his comrades.

Monsieur passed along the front of the line; then all the superior
officers approached him to pay their compliments, M. Dessessart,
captain of the Guards, as well as the others.

At the expiration of a minute or two, it appeared to D’Artagnan that M.
Dessessart made him a sign to approach. He waited for a fresh gesture
on the part of his superior, for fear he might be mistaken; but this
gesture being repeated, he left the ranks, and advanced to receive
orders.

“Monsieur is about to ask for some men of good will for a dangerous
mission, but one which will do honor to those who shall accomplish it;
and I made you a sign in order that you might hold yourself in
readiness.”

“Thanks, my captain!” replied D’Artagnan, who wished for nothing better
than an opportunity to distinguish himself under the eye of the
lieutenant general.

In fact the Rochellais had made a _sortie_ during the night, and had
retaken a bastion of which the royal army had gained possession two
days before. The matter was to ascertain, by reconnoitering, how the
enemy guarded this bastion.

At the end of a few minutes Monsieur raised his voice, and said, “I
want for this mission three or four volunteers, led by a man who can be
depended upon.”

“As to the man to be depended upon, I have him under my hand,
monsieur,” said M. Dessessart, pointing to D’Artagnan; “and as to the
four or five volunteers, Monsieur has but to make his intentions known,
and the men will not be wanting.”

“Four men of good will who will risk being killed with me!” said
D’Artagnan, raising his sword.

Two of his comrades of the Guards immediately sprang forward, and two
other soldiers having joined them, the number was deemed sufficient.
D’Artagnan declined all others, being unwilling to take the first
chance from those who had the priority.

It was not known whether, after the taking of the bastion, the
Rochellais had evacuated it or left a garrison in it; the object then
was to examine the place near enough to verify the reports.

D’Artagnan set out with his four companions, and followed the trench;
the two Guards marched abreast with him, and the two soldiers followed
behind.

They arrived thus, screened by the lining of the trench, till they came
within a hundred paces of the bastion. There, on turning round,
D’Artagnan perceived that the two soldiers had disappeared.

He thought that, beginning to be afraid, they had stayed behind, and he
continued to advance.

At the turning of the counterscarp they found themselves within about
sixty paces of the bastion. They saw no one, and the bastion seemed
abandoned.

The three composing our forlorn hope were deliberating whether they
should proceed any further, when all at once a circle of smoke
enveloped the giant of stone, and a dozen balls came whistling around
D’Artagnan and his companions.

They knew all they wished to know; the bastion was guarded. A longer
stay in this dangerous spot would have been useless imprudence.
D’Artagnan and his two companions turned their backs, and commenced a
retreat which resembled a flight.

On arriving at the angle of the trench which was to serve them as a
rampart, one of the Guardsmen fell. A ball had passed through his
breast. The other, who was safe and sound, continued his way toward the
camp.

D’Artagnan was not willing to abandon his companion thus, and stooped
to raise him and assist him in regaining the lines; but at this moment
two shots were fired. One ball struck the head of the already-wounded
guard, and the other flattened itself against a rock, after having
passed within two inches of D’Artagnan.

The young man turned quickly round, for this attack could not have come
from the bastion, which was hidden by the angle of the trench. The idea
of the two soldiers who had abandoned him occurred to his mind, and
with them he remembered the assassins of two evenings before. He
resolved this time to know with whom he had to deal, and fell upon the
body of his comrade as if he were dead.

He quickly saw two heads appear above an abandoned work within thirty
paces of him; they were the heads of the two soldiers. D’Artagnan had
not been deceived; these two men had only followed for the purpose of
assassinating him, hoping that the young man’s death would be placed to
the account of the enemy.

As he might be only wounded and might denounce their crime, they came
up to him with the purpose of making sure. Fortunately, deceived by
D’Artagnan’s trick, they neglected to reload their guns.

When they were within ten paces of him, D’Artagnan, who in falling had
taken care not to let go his sword, sprang up close to them.

The assassins comprehended that if they fled toward the camp without
having killed their man, they should be accused by him; therefore their
first idea was to join the enemy. One of them took his gun by the
barrel, and used it as he would a club. He aimed a terrible blow at
D’Artagnan, who avoided it by springing to one side; but by this
movement he left a passage free to the bandit, who darted off toward
the bastion. As the Rochellais who guarded the bastion were ignorant of
the intentions of the man they saw coming toward them, they fired upon
him, and he fell, struck by a ball which broke his shoulder.

Meantime D’Artagnan had thrown himself upon the other soldier,
attacking him with his sword. The conflict was not long; the wretch had
nothing to defend himself with but his discharged arquebus. The sword
of the Guardsman slipped along the barrel of the now-useless weapon,
and passed through the thigh of the assassin, who fell.

D’Artagnan immediately placed the point of his sword at his throat.

“Oh, do not kill me!” cried the bandit. “Pardon, pardon, my officer,
and I will tell you all.”

“Is your secret of enough importance to me to spare your life for it?”
asked the young man, withholding his arm.

“Yes; if you think existence worth anything to a man of twenty, as you
are, and who may hope for everything, being handsome and brave, as you
are.”

“Wretch,” cried D’Artagnan, “speak quickly! Who employed you to
assassinate me?”

“A woman whom I don’t know, but who is called Milady.”

“But if you don’t know this woman, how do you know her name?”

“My comrade knows her, and called her so. It was with him she agreed,
and not with me; he even has in his pocket a letter from that person,
who attaches great importance to you, as I have heard him say.”

“But how did you become concerned in this villainous affair?”

“He proposed to me to undertake it with him, and I agreed.”

“And how much did she give you for this fine enterprise?”

“A hundred louis.”

“Well, come!” said the young man, laughing, “she thinks I am worth
something. A hundred louis? Well, that was a temptation for two
wretches like you. I understand why you accepted it, and I grant you my
pardon; but upon one condition.”

“What is that?” said the soldier, uneasy at perceiving that all was not
over.

“That you will go and fetch me the letter your comrade has in his
pocket.”

“But,” cried the bandit, “that is only another way of killing me. How
can I go and fetch that letter under the fire of the bastion?”

“You must nevertheless make up your mind to go and get it, or I swear
you shall die by my hand.”

“Pardon, monsieur; pity! In the name of that young lady you love, and
whom you perhaps believe dead but who is not!” cried the bandit,
throwing himself upon his knees and leaning upon his hand—for he began
to lose his strength with his blood.

“And how do you know there is a young woman whom I love, and that I
believed that woman dead?” asked D’Artagnan.

“By that letter which my comrade has in his pocket.”

“You see, then,” said D’Artagnan, “that I must have that letter. So no
more delay, no more hesitation; or else whatever may be my repugnance
to soiling my sword a second time with the blood of a wretch like you,
I swear by my faith as an honest man—” and at these words D’Artagnan
made so fierce a gesture that the wounded man sprang up.

“Stop, stop!” cried he, regaining strength by force of terror. “I will
go—I will go!”

D’Artagnan took the soldier’s arquebus, made him go on before him, and
urged him toward his companion by pricking him behind with his sword.

It was a frightful thing to see this wretch, leaving a long track of
blood on the ground he passed over, pale with approaching death, trying
to drag himself along without being seen to the body of his accomplice,
which lay twenty paces from him.

Terror was so strongly painted on his face, covered with a cold sweat,
that D’Artagnan took pity on him, and casting upon him a look of
contempt, “Stop,” said he, “I will show you the difference between a
man of courage and such a coward as you. Stay where you are; I will go
myself.”

And with a light step, an eye on the watch, observing the movements of
the enemy and taking advantage of the accidents of the ground,
D’Artagnan succeeded in reaching the second soldier.

There were two means of gaining his object—to search him on the spot,
or to carry him away, making a buckler of his body, and search him in
the trench.

D’Artagnan preferred the second means, and lifted the assassin onto his
shoulders at the moment the enemy fired.

A slight shock, the dull noise of three balls which penetrated the
flesh, a last cry, a convulsion of agony, proved to D’Artagnan that the
would-be assassin had saved his life.

D’Artagnan regained the trench, and threw the corpse beside the wounded
man, who was as pale as death.

Then he began to search. A leather pocketbook, a purse, in which was
evidently a part of the sum which the bandit had received, with a dice
box and dice, completed the possessions of the dead man.

He left the box and dice where they fell, threw the purse to the
wounded man, and eagerly opened the pocketbook.

Among some unimportant papers he found the following letter, that which
he had sought at the risk of his life:

“Since you have lost sight of that woman and she is now in safety in
the convent, which you should never have allowed her to reach, try, at
least, not to miss the man. If you do, you know that my hand stretches
far, and that you shall pay very dearly for the hundred louis you have
from me.”


No signature. Nevertheless it was plain the letter came from Milady. He
consequently kept it as a piece of evidence, and being in safety behind
the angle of the trench, he began to interrogate the wounded man. He
confessed that he had undertaken with his comrade—the same who was
killed—to carry off a young woman who was to leave Paris by the
Barrière de La Villette; but having stopped to drink at a cabaret, they
had missed the carriage by ten minutes.

“But what were you to do with that woman?” asked D’Artagnan, with
anguish.

“We were to have conveyed her to a hôtel in the Place Royale,” said the
wounded man.

“Yes, yes!” murmured D’Artagnan; “that’s the place—Milady’s own
residence!”

Then the young man tremblingly comprehended what a terrible thirst for
vengeance urged this woman on to destroy him, as well as all who loved
him, and how well she must be acquainted with the affairs of the court,
since she had discovered all. There could be no doubt she owed this
information to the cardinal.

But amid all this he perceived, with a feeling of real joy, that the
queen must have discovered the prison in which poor Mme. Bonacieux was
explaining her devotion, and that she had freed her from that prison;
and the letter he had received from the young woman, and her passage
along the road of Chaillot like an apparition, were now explained.

Then also, as Athos had predicted, it became possible to find Mme.
Bonacieux, and a convent was not impregnable.

This idea completely restored clemency to his heart. He turned toward
the wounded man, who had watched with intense anxiety all the various
expressions of his countenance, and holding out his arm to him, said,
“Come, I will not abandon you thus. Lean upon me, and let us return to
the camp.”

“Yes,” said the man, who could scarcely believe in such magnanimity,
“but is it not to have me hanged?”

“You have my word,” said he; “for the second time I give you your
life.”

The wounded man sank upon his knees, to again kiss the feet of his
preserver; but D’Artagnan, who had no longer a motive for staying so
near the enemy, abridged the testimonials of his gratitude.

The Guardsman who had returned at the first discharge announced the
death of his four companions. They were therefore much astonished and
delighted in the regiment when they saw the young man come back safe
and sound.

D’Artagnan explained the sword wound of his companion by a _sortie_
which he improvised. He described the death of the other soldier, and
the perils they had encountered. This recital was for him the occasion
of veritable triumph. The whole army talked of this expedition for a
day, and Monsieur paid him his compliments upon it. Besides this, as
every great action bears its recompense with it, the brave exploit of
D’Artagnan resulted in the restoration of the tranquility he had lost.
In fact, D’Artagnan believed that he might be tranquil, as one of his
two enemies was killed and the other devoted to his interests.

This tranquillity proved one thing—that D’Artagnan did not yet know
Milady.




Chapter XLII.
THE ANJOU WINE


After the most disheartening news of the king’s health, a report of his
convalescence began to prevail in the camp; and as he was very anxious
to be in person at the siege, it was said that as soon as he could
mount a horse he would set forward.

Meantime, Monsieur, who knew that from one day to the other he might
expect to be removed from his command by the Duc d’Angoulême, by
Bassompierre, or by Schomberg, who were all eager for his post, did but
little, lost his days in wavering, and did not dare to attempt any
great enterprise to drive the English from the Isle of Ré, where they
still besieged the citadel St. Martin and the fort of La Prée, as on
their side the French were besieging La Rochelle.

D’Artagnan, as we have said, had become more tranquil, as always
happens after a past danger, particularly when the danger seems to have
vanished. He only felt one uneasiness, and that was at not hearing any
tidings from his friends.

But one morning at the commencement of the month of November everything
was explained to him by this letter, dated from Villeroy:

M. D’ARTAGNAN, MM. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, after having had an
entertainment at my house and enjoying themselves very much, created
such a disturbance that the provost of the castle, a rigid man, has
ordered them to be confined for some days; but I accomplish the order
they have given me by forwarding to you a dozen bottles of my Anjou
wine, with which they are much pleased. They are desirous that you
should drink to their health in their favorite wine. I have done this,
and am, monsieur, with great respect,


Your very humble and obedient servant,
GODEAU, _Purveyor of the Musketeers_


“That’s all well!” cried D’Artagnan. “They think of me in their
pleasures, as I thought of them in my troubles. Well, I will certainly
drink to their health with all my heart, but I will not drink alone.”

And D’Artagnan went among those Guardsmen with whom he had formed
greater intimacy than with the others, to invite them to enjoy with him
this present of delicious Anjou wine which had been sent him from
Villeroy.

One of the two Guardsmen was engaged that evening, and another the
next, so the meeting was fixed for the day after that.

D’Artagnan, on his return, sent the twelve bottles of wine to the
refreshment room of the Guards, with strict orders that great care
should be taken of it; and then, on the day appointed, as the dinner
was fixed for midday D’Artagnan sent Planchet at nine in the morning to
assist in preparing everything for the entertainment.

Planchet, very proud of being raised to the dignity of landlord,
thought he would make all ready, like an intelligent man; and with this
view called in the assistance of the lackey of one of his master’s
guests, named Fourreau, and the false soldier who had tried to kill
D’Artagnan and who, belonging to no corps, had entered into the service
of D’Artagnan, or rather of Planchet, after D’Artagnan had saved his
life.

The hour of the banquet being come, the two guards arrived, took their
places, and the dishes were arranged on the table. Planchet waited,
towel on arm; Fourreau uncorked the bottles; and Brisemont, which was
the name of the convalescent, poured the wine, which was a little
shaken by its journey, carefully into decanters. Of this wine, the
first bottle being a little thick at the bottom, Brisemont poured the
lees into a glass, and D’Artagnan desired him to drink it, for the poor
devil had not yet recovered his strength.

The guests having eaten the soup, were about to lift the first glass of
wine to their lips, when all at once the cannon sounded from Fort Louis
and Fort Neuf. The Guardsmen, imagining this to be caused by some
unexpected attack, either of the besieged or the English, sprang to
their swords. D’Artagnan, not less forward than they, did likewise, and
all ran out, in order to repair to their posts.

But scarcely were they out of the room before they were made aware of
the cause of this noise. Cries of “Live the king! Live the cardinal!”
resounded on every side, and the drums were beaten in all directions.

In short, the king, impatient, as has been said, had come by forced
marches, and had that moment arrived with all his household and a
reinforcement of ten thousand troops. His Musketeers proceeded and
followed him. D’Artagnan, placed in line with his company, saluted with
an expressive gesture his three friends, whose eyes soon discovered
him, and M. de Tréville, who detected him at once.

The ceremony of reception over, the four friends were soon in one
another’s arms.

“_Pardieu!_” cried D’Artagnan, “you could not have arrived in better
time; the dinner cannot have had time to get cold! Can it, gentlemen?”
added the young man, turning to the two Guards, whom he introduced to
his friends.

“Ah, ah!” said Porthos, “it appears we are feasting!”

“I hope,” said Aramis, “there are no women at your dinner.”

“Is there any drinkable wine in your tavern?” asked Athos.

“Well, _pardieu!_ there is yours, my dear friend,” replied D’Artagnan.

“Our wine!” said Athos, astonished.

“Yes, that you sent me.”

“We sent you wine?”

“You know very well—the wine from the hills of Anjou.”

“Yes, I know what brand you are talking about.”

“The wine you prefer.”

“Well, in the absence of champagne and chambertin, you must content
yourselves with that.”

“And so, connoisseurs in wine as we are, we have sent you some Anjou
wine?” said Porthos.

“Not exactly, it is the wine that was sent by your order.”

“On our account?” said the three Musketeers.

“Did you send this wine, Aramis?” said Athos.

“No; and you, Porthos?”

“No; and you, Athos?”

“No!”

“If it was not you, it was your purveyor,” said D’Artagnan.

“Our purveyor!”

“Yes, your purveyor, Godeau—the purveyor of the Musketeers.”

“My faith! never mind where it comes from,” said Porthos, “let us taste
it, and if it is good, let us drink it.”

“No,” said Athos; “don’t let us drink wine which comes from an unknown
source.”

“You are right, Athos,” said D’Artagnan. “Did none of you charge your
purveyor, Godeau, to send me some wine?”

“No! And yet you say he has sent you some as from us?”

“Here is his letter,” said D’Artagnan, and he presented the note to his
comrades.

“This is not his writing!” said Athos. “I am acquainted with it; before
we left Villeroy I settled the accounts of the regiment.”

“A false letter altogether,” said Porthos, “we have not been
disciplined.”

“D’Artagnan,” said Aramis, in a reproachful tone, “how could you
believe that we had made a disturbance?”

D’Artagnan grew pale, and a convulsive trembling shook all his limbs.

“Thou alarmest me!” said Athos, who never used _thee_ and _thou_ but
upon very particular occasions, “what has happened?”

“Look you, my friends!” cried D’Artagnan, “a horrible suspicion crosses
my mind! Can this be another vengeance of that woman?”

It was now Athos who turned pale.

D’Artagnan rushed toward the refreshment room, the three Musketeers and
the two Guards following him.

The first object that met the eyes of D’Artagnan on entering the room
was Brisemont, stretched upon the ground and rolling in horrible
convulsions.

Planchet and Fourreau, as pale as death, were trying to give him
succor; but it was plain that all assistance was useless—all the
features of the dying man were distorted with agony.

“Ah!” cried he, on perceiving D’Artagnan, “ah! this is frightful! You
pretend to pardon me, and you poison me!”

“I!” cried D’Artagnan. “I, wretch? What do you say?”

“I say that it was you who gave me the wine; I say that it was you who
desired me to drink it. I say you wished to avenge yourself on me, and
I say that it is horrible!”

“Do not think so, Brisemont,” said D’Artagnan; “do not think so. I
swear to you, I protest—”

“Oh, but God is above! God will punish you! My God, grant that he may
one day suffer what I suffer!”

“Upon the Gospel,” said D’Artagnan, throwing himself down by the dying
man, “I swear to you that the wine was poisoned and that I was going to
drink of it as you did.”

“I do not believe you,” cried the soldier, and he expired amid horrible
tortures.

“Frightful! frightful!” murmured Athos, while Porthos broke the bottles
and Aramis gave orders, a little too late, that a confessor should be
sent for.

“Oh, my friends,” said D’Artagnan, “you come once more to save my life,
not only mine but that of these gentlemen. Gentlemen,” continued he,
addressing the Guardsmen, “I request you will be silent with regard to
this adventure. Great personages may have had a hand in what you have
seen, and if talked about, the evil would only recoil upon us.”

“Ah, monsieur!” stammered Planchet, more dead than alive, “ah,
monsieur, what an escape I have had!”

“How, sirrah! you were going to drink my wine?”

“To the health of the king, monsieur; I was going to drink a small
glass of it if Fourreau had not told me I was called.”

“Alas!” said Fourreau, whose teeth chattered with terror, “I wanted to
get him out of the way that I might drink myself.”

“Gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, addressing the Guardsmen, “you may easily
comprehend that such a feast can only be very dull after what has taken
place; so accept my excuses, and put off the party till another day, I
beg of you.”

The two Guardsmen courteously accepted D’Artagnan’s excuses, and
perceiving that the four friends desired to be alone, retired.

When the young Guardsman and the three Musketeers were without
witnesses, they looked at one another with an air which plainly
expressed that each of them perceived the gravity of their situation.

“In the first place,” said Athos, “let us leave this chamber; the dead
are not agreeable company, particularly when they have died a violent
death.”

“Planchet,” said D’Artagnan, “I commit the corpse of this poor devil to
your care. Let him be interred in holy ground. He committed a crime, it
is true; but he repented of it.”

And the four friends quit the room, leaving to Planchet and Fourreau
the duty of paying mortuary honors to Brisemont.

The host gave them another chamber, and served them with fresh eggs and
some water, which Athos went himself to draw at the fountain. In a few
words, Porthos and Aramis were posted as to the situation.

“Well,” said D’Artagnan to Athos, “you see, my dear friend, that this
is war to the death.”

Athos shook his head.

“Yes, yes,” replied he, “I perceive that plainly; but do you really
believe it is she?”

“I am sure of it.”

“Nevertheless, I confess I still doubt.”

“But the _fleur-de-lis_ on her shoulder?”

“She is some Englishwoman who has committed a crime in France, and has
been branded in consequence.”

“Athos, she is your wife, I tell you,” repeated D’Artagnan; “only
reflect how much the two descriptions resemble each other.”

“Yes; but I should think the other must be dead, I hanged her so
effectually.”

It was D’Artagnan who now shook his head in his turn.

“But in either case, what is to be done?” said the young man.

“The fact is, one cannot remain thus, with a sword hanging eternally
over his head,” said Athos. “We must extricate ourselves from this
position.”

“But how?”

“Listen! You must try to see her, and have an explanation with her. Say
to her: ‘Peace or war! My word as a gentleman never to say anything of
you, never to do anything against you; on your side, a solemn oath to
remain neutral with respect to me. If not, I will apply to the
chancellor, I will apply to the king, I will apply to the hangman, I
will move the courts against you, I will denounce you as branded, I
will bring you to trial; and if you are acquitted, well, by the faith
of a gentleman, I will kill you at the corner of some wall, as I would
a mad dog.’”

“I like the means well enough,” said D’Artagnan, “but where and how to
meet with her?”

“Time, dear friend, time brings round opportunity; opportunity is the
martingale of man. The more we have ventured the more we gain, when we
know how to wait.”

“Yes; but to wait surrounded by assassins and poisoners.”

“Bah!” said Athos. “God has preserved us hitherto, God will preserve us
still.”

“Yes, we. Besides, we are men; and everything considered, it is our lot
to risk our lives; but _she_,” asked he, in an undertone.

“What she?” asked Athos.

“Constance.”

“Madame Bonacieux! Ah, that’s true!” said Athos. “My poor friend, I had
forgotten you were in love.”

“Well, but,” said Aramis, “have you not learned by the letter you found
on the wretched corpse that she is in a convent? One may be very
comfortable in a convent; and as soon as the siege of La Rochelle is
terminated, I promise you on my part—”

“Good,” cried Athos, “good! Yes, my dear Aramis, we all know that your
views have a religious tendency.”

“I am only temporarily a Musketeer,” said Aramis, humbly.

“It is some time since we heard from his mistress,” said Athos, in a
low voice. “But take no notice; we know all about that.”

“Well,” said Porthos, “it appears to me that the means are very
simple.”

“What?” asked D’Artagnan.

“You say she is in a convent?” replied Porthos.

“Yes.”

“Very well. As soon as the siege is over, we’ll carry her off from that
convent.”

“But we must first learn what convent she is in.”

“That’s true,” said Porthos.

“But I think I have it,” said Athos. “Don’t you say, dear D’Artagnan,
that it is the queen who has made choice of the convent for her?”

“I believe so, at least.”

“In that case Porthos will assist us.”

“And how so, if you please?”

“Why, by your marchioness, your duchess, your princess. She must have a
long arm.”

“Hush!” said Porthos, placing a finger on his lips. “I believe her to
be a cardinalist; she must know nothing of the matter.”

“Then,” said Aramis, “I take upon myself to obtain intelligence of
her.”

“You, Aramis?” cried the three friends. “You! And how?”

“By the queen’s almoner, to whom I am very intimately allied,” said
Aramis, coloring.

And on this assurance, the four friends, who had finished their modest
repast, separated, with the promise of meeting again that evening.
D’Artagnan returned to less important affairs, and the three Musketeers
repaired to the king’s quarters, where they had to prepare their
lodging.




Chapter XLIII.
THE SIGN OF THE RED DOVECOT


Meanwhile the king, who, with more reason than the cardinal, showed his
hatred for Buckingham, although scarcely arrived was in such a haste to
meet the enemy that he commanded every disposition to be made to drive
the English from the Isle of Ré, and afterward to press the siege of La
Rochelle; but notwithstanding his earnest wish, he was delayed by the
dissensions which broke out between MM. Bassompierre and Schomberg,
against the Duc d’Angoulême.

MM. Bassompierre and Schomberg were marshals of France, and claimed
their right of commanding the army under the orders of the king; but
the cardinal, who feared that Bassompierre, a Huguenot at heart, might
press but feebly the English and Rochellais, his brothers in religion,
supported the Duc d’Angoulême, whom the king, at his instigation, had
named lieutenant general. The result was that to prevent MM.
Bassompierre and Schomberg from deserting the army, a separate command
had to be given to each. Bassompierre took up his quarters on the north
of the city, between Leu and Dompierre; the Duc d’Angoulême on the
east, from Dompierre to Perigny; and M. de Schomberg on the south, from
Perigny to Angoutin.

The quarters of Monsieur were at Dompierre; the quarters of the king
were sometimes at Estrée, sometimes at Jarrie; the cardinal’s quarters
were upon the downs, at the bridge of La Pierre, in a simple house
without any entrenchment. So that Monsieur watched Bassompierre; the
king, the Duc d’Angoulême; and the cardinal, M. de Schomberg.

As soon as this organization was established, they set about driving
the English from the Isle.

The juncture was favorable. The English, who require, above everything,
good living in order to be good soldiers, only eating salt meat and bad
biscuit, had many invalids in their camp. Still further, the sea, very
rough at this period of the year all along the sea coast, destroyed
every day some little vessel; and the shore, from the point of
l’Aiguillon to the trenches, was at every tide literally covered with
the wrecks of pinnacles, _roberges_, and feluccas. The result was that
even if the king’s troops remained quietly in their camp, it was
evident that some day or other, Buckingham, who only continued in the
Isle from obstinacy, would be obliged to raise the siege.

But as M. de Toiras gave information that everything was preparing in
the enemy’s camp for a fresh assault, the king judged that it would be
best to put an end to the affair, and gave the necessary orders for a
decisive action.

As it is not our intention to give a journal of the siege, but on the
contrary only to describe such of the events of it as are connected
with the story we are relating, we will content ourselves with saying
in two words that the expedition succeeded, to the great astonishment
of the king and the great glory of the cardinal. The English, repulsed
foot by foot, beaten in all encounters, and defeated in the passage of
the Isle of Loie, were obliged to re-embark, leaving on the field of
battle two thousand men, among whom were five colonels, three
lieutenant colonels, two hundred and fifty captains, twenty gentlemen
of rank, four pieces of cannon, and sixty flags, which were taken to
Paris by Claude de St. Simon, and suspended with great pomp in the
arches of Notre Dame.

Te Deums were chanted in camp, and afterward throughout France.

The cardinal was left free to carry on the siege, without having, at
least at the present, anything to fear on the part of the English.

But it must be acknowledged, this response was but momentary. An envoy
of the Duke of Buckingham, named Montague, was taken, and proof was
obtained of a league between the German Empire, Spain, England, and
Lorraine. This league was directed against France.

Still further, in Buckingham’s lodging, which he had been forced to
abandon more precipitately than he expected, papers were found which
confirmed this alliance and which, as the cardinal asserts in his
memoirs, strongly compromised Mme. de Chevreuse and consequently the
queen.

It was upon the cardinal that all the responsibility fell, for one is
not a despotic minister without responsibility. All, therefore, of the
vast resources of his genius were at work night and day, engaged in
listening to the least report heard in any of the great kingdoms of
Europe.

The cardinal was acquainted with the activity, and more particularly
the hatred, of Buckingham. If the league which threatened France
triumphed, all his influence would be lost. Spanish policy and Austrian
policy would have their representatives in the cabinet of the Louvre,
where they had as yet but partisans; and he, Richelieu—the French
minister, the national minister—would be ruined. The king, even while
obeying him like a child, hated him as a child hates his master, and
would abandon him to the personal vengeance of Monsieur and the queen.
He would then be lost, and France, perhaps, with him. All this must be
prepared against.

Courtiers, becoming every instant more numerous, succeeded one another,
day and night, in the little house of the bridge of La Pierre, in which
the cardinal had established his residence.

There were monks who wore the frock with such an ill grace that it was
easy to perceive they belonged to the church militant; women a little
inconvenienced by their costume as pages and whose large trousers could
not entirely conceal their rounded forms; and peasants with blackened
hands but with fine limbs, savoring of the man of quality a league off.

There were also less agreeable visits—for two or three times reports
were spread that the cardinal had nearly been assassinated.

It is true that the enemies of the cardinal said that it was he himself
who set these bungling assassins to work, in order to have, if wanted,
the right of using reprisals; but we must not believe everything
ministers say, nor everything their enemies say.

These attempts did not prevent the cardinal, to whom his most
inveterate detractors have never denied personal bravery, from making
nocturnal excursions, sometimes to communicate to the Duc d’Angoulême
important orders, sometimes to confer with the king, and sometimes to
have an interview with a messenger whom he did not wish to see at home.

On their part the Musketeers, who had not much to do with the siege,
were not under very strict orders and led a joyous life. This was the
more easy for our three companions in particular; for being friends of
M. de Tréville, they obtained from him special permission to be absent
after the closing of the camp.

Now, one evening when D’Artagnan, who was in the trenches, was not able
to accompany them, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, mounted on their battle
steeds, enveloped in their war cloaks, with their hands upon their
pistol butts, were returning from a drinking place called the Red
Dovecot, which Athos had discovered two days before upon the route to
Jarrie, following the road which led to the camp and quite on their
guard, as we have stated, for fear of an ambuscade, when, about a
quarter of a league from the village of Boisnau, they fancied they
heard the sound of horses approaching them. They immediately all three
halted, closed in, and waited, occupying the middle of the road. In an
instant, and as the moon broke from behind a cloud, they saw at a
turning of the road two horsemen who, on perceiving them, stopped in
their turn, appearing to deliberate whether they should continue their
route or go back. The hesitation created some suspicion in the three
friends, and Athos, advancing a few paces in front of the others, cried
in a firm voice, “Who goes there?”

“Who goes there, yourselves?” replied one of the horsemen.

“That is not an answer,” replied Athos. “Who goes there? Answer, or we
charge.”

“Beware of what you are about, gentlemen!” said a clear voice which
seemed accustomed to command.

“It is some superior officer making his night rounds,” said Athos.
“What do you wish, gentlemen?”

“Who are you?” said the same voice, in the same commanding tone.
“Answer in your turn, or you may repent of your disobedience.”

“King’s Musketeers,” said Athos, more and more convinced that he who
interrogated them had the right to do so.

“What company?”

“Company of Tréville.”

“Advance, and give an account of what you are doing here at this hour.”

The three companions advanced rather humbly—for all were now convinced
that they had to do with someone more powerful than themselves—leaving
Athos the post of speaker.

One of the two riders, he who had spoken second, was ten paces in front
of his companion. Athos made a sign to Porthos and Aramis also to
remain in the rear, and advanced alone.

“Your pardon, my officer,” said Athos; “but we were ignorant with whom
we had to do, and you may see that we were keeping good guard.”

“Your name?” said the officer, who covered a part of his face with his
cloak.

“But yourself, monsieur,” said Athos, who began to be annoyed by this
inquisition, “give me, I beg you, the proof that you have the right to
question me.”

“Your name?” repeated the cavalier a second time, letting his cloak
fall, and leaving his face uncovered.

“Monsieur the Cardinal!” cried the stupefied Musketeer.

“Your name?” cried his Eminence, for the third time.

“Athos,” said the Musketeer.

The cardinal made a sign to his attendant, who drew near. “These three
Musketeers shall follow us,” said he, in an undertone. “I am not
willing it should be known I have left the camp; and if they follow us
we shall be certain they will tell nobody.”

“We are gentlemen, monseigneur,” said Athos; “require our parole, and
give yourself no uneasiness. Thank God, we can keep a secret.”

The cardinal fixed his piercing eyes on this courageous speaker.

“You have a quick ear, Monsieur Athos,” said the cardinal; “but now
listen to this. It is not from mistrust that I request you to follow
me, but for my security. Your companions are no doubt Messieurs Porthos
and Aramis.”

“Yes, your Eminence,” said Athos, while the two Musketeers who had
remained behind advanced hat in hand.

“I know you, gentlemen,” said the cardinal, “I know you. I know you are
not quite my friends, and I am sorry you are not so; but I know you are
brave and loyal gentlemen, and that confidence may be placed in you.
Monsieur Athos, do me, then, the honor to accompany me; you and your
two friends, and then I shall have an escort to excite envy in his
Majesty, if we should meet him.”

The three Musketeers bowed to the necks of their horses.

“Well, upon my honor,” said Athos, “your Eminence is right in taking us
with you; we have seen several ill-looking faces on the road, and we
have even had a quarrel at the Red Dovecot with four of those faces.”

“A quarrel, and what for, gentlemen?” said the cardinal; “you know I
don’t like quarrelers.”

“And that is the reason why I have the honor to inform your Eminence of
what has happened; for you might learn it from others, and upon a false
account believe us to be in fault.”

“What have been the results of your quarrel?” said the cardinal,
knitting his brow.

“My friend, Aramis, here, has received a slight sword wound in the arm,
but not enough to prevent him, as your Eminence may see, from mounting
to the assault tomorrow, if your Eminence orders an escalade.”

“But you are not the men to allow sword wounds to be inflicted upon you
thus,” said the cardinal. “Come, be frank, gentlemen, you have settled
accounts with somebody! Confess; you know I have the right of giving
absolution.”

“I, monseigneur?” said Athos. “I did not even draw my sword, but I took
him who offended me round the body, and threw him out of the window. It
appears that in falling,” continued Athos, with some hesitation, “he
broke his thigh.”

“Ah, ah!” said the cardinal; “and you, Monsieur Porthos?”

“I, monseigneur, knowing that dueling is prohibited—I seized a bench,
and gave one of those brigands such a blow that I believe his shoulder
is broken.”

“Very well,” said the cardinal; “and you, Monsieur Aramis?”

“Monseigneur, being of a very mild disposition, and being, likewise, of
which Monseigneur perhaps is not aware, about to enter into orders, I
endeavored to appease my comrades, when one of these wretches gave me a
wound with a sword, treacherously, across my left arm. Then I admit my
patience failed me; I drew my sword in my turn, and as he came back to
the charge, I fancied I felt that in throwing himself upon me, he let
it pass through his body. I only know for a certainty that he fell; and
it seemed to me that he was borne away with his two companions.”

“The devil, gentlemen!” said the cardinal, “three men placed _hors de
combat_ in a cabaret squabble! You don’t do your work by halves. And
pray what was this quarrel about?”

“These fellows were drunk,” said Athos, “and knowing there was a lady
who had arrived at the cabaret this evening, they wanted to force her
door.”

“Force her door!” said the cardinal, “and for what purpose?”

“To do her violence, without doubt,” said Athos. “I have had the honor
of informing your Eminence that these men were drunk.”

“And was this lady young and handsome?” asked the cardinal, with a
certain degree of anxiety.

“We did not see her, monseigneur,” said Athos.

“You did not see her? Ah, very well,” replied the cardinal, quickly.
“You did well to defend the honor of a woman; and as I am going to the
Red Dovecot myself, I shall know if you have told me the truth.”

“Monseigneur,” said Athos, haughtily, “we are gentlemen, and to save
our heads we would not be guilty of a falsehood.”

“Therefore I do not doubt what you say, Monsieur Athos, I do not doubt
it for a single instant; but,” added he, “to change the conversation,
was this lady alone?”

“The lady had a cavalier shut up with her,” said Athos, “but as
notwithstanding the noise, this cavalier did not show himself, it is to
be presumed that he is a coward.”

“‘Judge not rashly’, says the Gospel,” replied the cardinal.

Athos bowed.

“And now, gentlemen, that’s well,” continued the cardinal. “I know what
I wish to know; follow me.”

The three Musketeers passed behind his Eminence, who again enveloped
his face in his cloak, and put his horse in motion, keeping from eight
to ten paces in advance of his four companions.

They soon arrived at the silent, solitary inn. No doubt the host knew
what illustrious visitor was expected, and had consequently sent
intruders out of the way.

Ten paces from the door the cardinal made a sign to his esquire and the
three Musketeers to halt. A saddled horse was fastened to the window
shutter. The cardinal knocked three times, and in a peculiar manner.

A man, enveloped in a cloak, came out immediately, and exchanged some
rapid words with the cardinal; after which he mounted his horse, and
set off in the direction of Surgères, which was likewise the way to
Paris.

“Advance, gentlemen,” said the cardinal.

“You have told me the truth, my gentlemen,” said he, addressing the
Musketeers, “and it will not be my fault if our encounter this evening
be not advantageous to you. In the meantime, follow me.”

The cardinal alighted; the three Musketeers did likewise. The cardinal
threw the bridle of his horse to his esquire; the three Musketeers
fastened the horses to the shutters.

The host stood at the door. For him, the cardinal was only an officer
coming to visit a lady.

“Have you any chamber on the ground floor where these gentlemen can
wait near a good fire?” said the cardinal.

The host opened the door of a large room, in which an old stove had
just been replaced by a large and excellent chimney.

“I have this,” said he.

“That will do,” replied the cardinal. “Enter, gentlemen, and be kind
enough to wait for me; I shall not be more than half an hour.”

And while the three Musketeers entered the ground floor room, the
cardinal, without asking further information, ascended the staircase
like a man who has no need of having his road pointed out to him.




Chapter XLIV.
THE UTILITY OF STOVEPIPES


It was evident that without suspecting it, and actuated solely by their
chivalrous and adventurous character, our three friends had just
rendered a service to someone the cardinal honored with his special
protection.

Now, who was that someone? That was the question the three Musketeers
put to one another. Then, seeing that none of their replies could throw
any light on the subject, Porthos called the host and asked for dice.

Porthos and Aramis placed themselves at the table and began to play.
Athos walked about in a contemplative mood.

While thinking and walking, Athos passed and repassed before the pipe
of the stove, broken in halves, the other extremity passing into the
chamber above; and every time he passed and repassed he heard a murmur
of words, which at length fixed his attention. Athos went close to it,
and distinguished some words that appeared to merit so great an
interest that he made a sign to his friends to be silent, remaining
himself bent with his ear directed to the opening of the lower orifice.

“Listen, Milady,” said the cardinal, “the affair is important. Sit
down, and let us talk it over.”

“Milady!” murmured Athos.

“I listen to your Eminence with greatest attention,” replied a female
voice which made the Musketeer start.

“A small vessel with an English crew, whose captain is on my side,
awaits you at the mouth of Charente, at Fort La Pointe*. He will set
sail tomorrow morning.”

* Fort La Pointe, or Fort Vasou, was not built until 1672, nearly 50
years later.


“I must go thither tonight?”

“Instantly! That is to say, when you have received my instructions. Two
men, whom you will find at the door on going out, will serve you as
escort. You will allow me to leave first; then, after half an hour, you
can go away in your turn.”

“Yes, monseigneur. Now let us return to the mission with which you wish
to charge me; and as I desire to continue to merit the confidence of
your Eminence, deign to unfold it to me in terms clear and precise,
that I may not commit an error.”

There was an instant of profound silence between the two interlocutors.
It was evident that the cardinal was weighing beforehand the terms in
which he was about to speak, and that Milady was collecting all her
intellectual faculties to comprehend the things he was about to say,
and to engrave them in her memory when they should be spoken.

Athos took advantage of this moment to tell his two companions to
fasten the door inside, and to make them a sign to come and listen with
him.

The two Musketeers, who loved their ease, brought a chair for each of
themselves and one for Athos. All three then sat down with their heads
together and their ears on the alert.

“You will go to London,” continued the cardinal. “Arrived in London,
you will seek Buckingham.”

“I must beg your Eminence to observe,” said Milady, “that since the
affair of the diamond studs, about which the duke always suspected me,
his Grace distrusts me.”

“Well, this time,” said the cardinal, “it is not necessary to steal his
confidence, but to present yourself frankly and loyally as a
negotiator.”

“Frankly and loyally,” repeated Milady, with an unspeakable expression
of duplicity.

“Yes, frankly and loyally,” replied the cardinal, in the same tone.
“All this negotiation must be carried on openly.”

“I will follow your Eminence’s instructions to the letter. I only wait
till you give them.”

“You will go to Buckingham in my behalf, and you will tell him I am
acquainted with all the preparations he has made; but that they give me
no uneasiness, since at the first step he takes I will ruin the queen.”

“Will he believe that your Eminence is in a position to accomplish the
threat thus made?”

“Yes; for I have the proofs.”

“I must be able to present these proofs for his appreciation.”

“Without doubt. And you will tell him I will publish the report of
Bois-Robert and the Marquis de Beautru, upon the interview which the
duke had at the residence of Madame the Constable with the queen on the
evening Madame the Constable gave a masquerade. You will tell him, in
order that he may not doubt, that he came there in the costume of the
Great Mogul, which the Chevalier de Guise was to have worn, and that he
purchased this exchange for the sum of three thousand pistoles.”

“Well, monseigneur?”

“All the details of his coming into and going out of the palace—on the
night when he introduced himself in the character of an Italian fortune
teller—you will tell him, that he may not doubt the correctness of my
information; that he had under his cloak a large white robe dotted with
black tears, death’s heads, and crossbones—for in case of a surprise,
he was to pass for the phantom of the White Lady who, as all the world
knows, appears at the Louvre every time any great event is impending.”

“Is that all, monseigneur?”

“Tell him also that I am acquainted with all the details of the
adventure at Amiens; that I will have a little romance made of it,
wittily turned, with a plan of the garden and portraits of the
principal actors in that nocturnal romance.”

“I will tell him that.”

“Tell him further that I hold Montague in my power; that Montague is in
the Bastille; that no letters were found upon him, it is true, but that
torture may make him tell much of what he knows, and even what he does
not know.”

“Exactly.”

“Then add that his Grace has, in the precipitation with which he quit
the Isle of Ré, forgotten and left behind him in his lodging a certain
letter from Madame de Chevreuse which singularly compromises the queen,
inasmuch as it proves not only that her Majesty can love the enemies of
the king but that she can conspire with the enemies of France. You
recollect perfectly all I have told you, do you not?”

“Your Eminence will judge: the ball of Madame the Constable; the night
at the Louvre; the evening at Amiens; the arrest of Montague; the
letter of Madame de Chevreuse.”

“That’s it,” said the cardinal, “that’s it. You have an excellent
memory, Milady.”

“But,” resumed she to whom the cardinal addressed this flattering
compliment, “if, in spite of all these reasons, the duke does not give
way and continues to menace France?”

“The duke is in love to madness, or rather to folly,” replied
Richelieu, with great bitterness. “Like the ancient paladins, he has
only undertaken this war to obtain a look from his lady love. If he
becomes certain that this war will cost the honor, and perhaps the
liberty, of the lady of his thoughts, as he says, I will answer for it
he will look twice.”

“And yet,” said Milady, with a persistence that proved she wished to
see clearly to the end of the mission with which she was about to be
charged, “if he persists?”

“If he persists?” said the cardinal. “That is not probable.”

“It is possible,” said Milady.

“If he persists—” His Eminence made a pause, and resumed: “If he
persists—well, then I shall hope for one of those events which change
the destinies of states.”

“If your Eminence would quote to me some one of these events in
history,” said Milady, “perhaps I should partake of your confidence as
to the future.”

“Well, here, for example,” said Richelieu: “when, in 1610, for a cause
similar to that which moves the duke, King Henry IV., of glorious
memory, was about, at the same time, to invade Flanders and Italy, in
order to attack Austria on both sides. Well, did there not happen an
event which saved Austria? Why should not the king of France have the
same chance as the emperor?”

“Your Eminence means, I presume, the knife stab in the Rue de la
Feronnerie?”

“Precisely,” said the cardinal.

“Does not your Eminence fear that the punishment inflicted upon
Ravaillac may deter anyone who might entertain the idea of imitating
him?”

“There will be, in all times and in all countries, particularly if
religious divisions exist in those countries, fanatics who ask nothing
better than to become martyrs. Ay, and observe—it just occurs to me
that the Puritans are furious against Buckingham, and their preachers
designate him as the Antichrist.”

“Well?” said Milady.

“Well,” continued the cardinal, in an indifferent tone, “the only thing
to be sought for at this moment is some woman, handsome, young, and
clever, who has cause of quarrel with the duke. The duke has had many
affairs of gallantry; and if he has fostered his amours by promises of
eternal constancy, he must likewise have sown the seeds of hatred by
his eternal infidelities.”

“No doubt,” said Milady, coolly, “such a woman may be found.”

“Well, such a woman, who would place the knife of Jacques Clément or of
Ravaillac in the hands of a fanatic, would save France.”

“Yes; but she would then be the accomplice of an assassination.”

“Were the accomplices of Ravaillac or of Jacques Clément ever known?”

“No; for perhaps they were too high-placed for anyone to dare look for
them where they were. The Palace of Justice would not be burned down
for everybody, monseigneur.”

“You think, then, that the fire at the Palace of Justice was not caused
by chance?” asked Richelieu, in the tone with which he would have put a
question of no importance.

“I, monseigneur?” replied Milady. “I think nothing; I quote a fact,
that is all. Only I say that if I were named Madame de Montpensier, or
the Queen Marie de Médicis, I should use less precautions than I take,
being simply called Milady Clarik.”

“That is just,” said Richelieu. “What do you require, then?”

“I require an order which would ratify beforehand all that I should
think proper to do for the greatest good of France.”

“But in the first place, this woman I have described must be found who
is desirous of avenging herself upon the duke.”

“She is found,” said Milady.

“Then the miserable fanatic must be found who will serve as an
instrument of God’s justice.”

“He will be found.”

“Well,” said the cardinal, “then it will be time to claim the order
which you just now required.”

“Your Eminence is right,” replied Milady; “and I have been wrong in
seeing in the mission with which you honor me anything but that which
it really is—that is, to announce to his Grace, on the part of your
Eminence, that you are acquainted with the different disguises by means
of which he succeeded in approaching the queen during the fête given by
Madame the Constable; that you have proofs of the interview granted at
the Louvre by the queen to a certain Italian astrologer who was no
other than the Duke of Buckingham; that you have ordered a little
romance of a satirical nature to be written upon the adventures of
Amiens, with a plan of the gardens in which those adventures took
place, and portraits of the actors who figured in them; that Montague
is in the Bastille, and that the torture may make him say things he
remembers, and even things he has forgotten; that you possess a certain
letter from Madame de Chevreuse, found in his Grace’s lodging, which
singularly compromises not only her who wrote it, but her in whose name
it was written. Then, if he persists, notwithstanding all this—as that
is, as I have said, the limit of my mission—I shall have nothing to do
but to pray God to work a miracle for the salvation of France. That is
it, is it not, monseigneur, and I shall have nothing else to do?”

“That is it,” replied the cardinal, dryly.

“And now,” said Milady, without appearing to remark the change of the
duke’s tone toward her—“now that I have received the instructions of
your Eminence as concerns your enemies, Monseigneur will permit me to
say a few words to him of mine?”

“Have you enemies, then?” asked Richelieu.

“Yes, monseigneur, enemies against whom you owe me all your support,
for I made them by serving your Eminence.”

“Who are they?” replied the duke.

“In the first place, there is a little _intrigante_ named Bonacieux.”

“She is in the prison of Nantes.”

“That is to say, she was there,” replied Milady; “but the queen has
obtained an order from the king by means of which she has been conveyed
to a convent.”

“To a convent?” said the duke.

“Yes, to a convent.”

“And to which?”

“I don’t know; the secret has been well kept.”

“But _I_ will know!”

“And your Eminence will tell me in what convent that woman is?”

“I can see nothing inconvenient in that,” said the cardinal.

“Well, now I have an enemy much more to be dreaded by me than this
little Madame Bonacieux.”

“Who is that?”

“Her lover.”

“What is his name?”

“Oh, your Eminence knows him well,” cried Milady, carried away by her
anger. “He is the evil genius of both of us. It is he who in an
encounter with your Eminence’s Guards decided the victory in favor of
the king’s Musketeers; it is he who gave three desperate wounds to De
Wardes, your emissary, and who caused the affair of the diamond studs
to fail; it is he who, knowing it was I who had Madame Bonacieux
carried off, has sworn my death.”

“Ah, ah!” said the cardinal, “I know of whom you speak.”

“I mean that miserable D’Artagnan.”

“He is a bold fellow,” said the cardinal.

“And it is exactly because he is a bold fellow that he is the more to
be feared.”

“I must have,” said the duke, “a proof of his connection with
Buckingham.”

“A proof?” cried Milady; “I will have ten.”

“Well, then, it becomes the simplest thing in the world; get me that
proof, and I will send him to the Bastille.”

“So far good, monseigneur; but afterwards?”

“When once in the Bastille, there is no afterward!” said the cardinal,
in a low voice. “Ah, _pardieu!_” continued he, “if it were as easy for
me to get rid of my enemy as it is easy to get rid of yours, and if it
were against such people you require impunity—”

“Monseigneur,” replied Milady, “a fair exchange. Life for life, man for
man; give me one, I will give you the other.”

“I don’t know what you mean, nor do I even desire to know what you
mean,” replied the cardinal; “but I wish to please you, and see nothing
out of the way in giving you what you demand with respect to so
infamous a creature—the more so as you tell me this D’Artagnan is a
libertine, a duelist, and a traitor.”

“An infamous scoundrel, monseigneur, a scoundrel!”

“Give me paper, a quill, and some ink, then,” said the cardinal.

“Here they are, monseigneur.”

There was a moment of silence, which proved that the cardinal was
employed in seeking the terms in which he should write the note, or
else in writing it. Athos, who had not lost a word of the conversation,
took his two companions by the hand, and led them to the other end of
the room.

“Well,” said Porthos, “what do you want, and why do you not let us
listen to the end of the conversation?”

“Hush!” said Athos, speaking in a low voice. “We have heard all it was
necessary we should hear; besides, I don’t prevent you from listening,
but I must be gone.”

“You must be gone!” said Porthos; “and if the cardinal asks for you,
what answer can we make?”

“You will not wait till he asks; you will speak first, and tell him
that I am gone on the lookout, because certain expressions of our host
have given me reason to think the road is not safe. I will say two
words about it to the cardinal’s esquire likewise. The rest concerns
myself; don’t be uneasy about that.”

“Be prudent, Athos,” said Aramis.

“Be easy on that head,” replied Athos; “you know I am cool enough.”

Porthos and Aramis resumed their places by the stovepipe.

As to Athos, he went out without any mystery, took his horse, which was
tied with those of his friends to the fastenings of the shutters, in
four words convinced the attendant of the necessity of a vanguard for
their return, carefully examined the priming of his pistols, drew his
sword, and took, like a forlorn hope, the road to the camp.




Chapter XLV.
A CONJUGAL SCENE


As Athos had foreseen, it was not long before the cardinal came down.
He opened the door of the room in which the Musketeers were, and found
Porthos playing an earnest game of dice with Aramis. He cast a rapid
glance around the room, and perceived that one of his men was missing.

“What has become of Monseigneur Athos?” asked he.

“Monseigneur,” replied Porthos, “he has gone as a scout, on account of
some words of our host, which made him believe the road was not safe.”

“And you, what have you done, Monsieur Porthos?”

“I have won five pistoles of Aramis.”

“Well; now will you return with me?”

“We are at your Eminence’s orders.”

“To horse, then, gentlemen; for it is getting late.”

The attendant was at the door, holding the cardinal’s horse by the
bridle. At a short distance a group of two men and three horses
appeared in the shade. These were the two men who were to conduct
Milady to Fort La Pointe, and superintend her embarkation.

The attendant confirmed to the cardinal what the two Musketeers had
already said with respect to Athos. The cardinal made an approving
gesture, and retraced his route with the same precautions he had used
in coming.

Let us leave him to follow the road to the camp protected by his
esquire and the two Musketeers, and return to Athos.

For a hundred paces he maintained the speed at which he started; but
when out of sight he turned his horse to the right, made a circuit, and
came back within twenty paces of a high hedge to watch the passage of
the little troop. Having recognized the laced hats of his companions
and the golden fringe of the cardinal’s cloak, he waited till the
horsemen had turned the angle of the road, and having lost sight of
them, he returned at a gallop to the inn, which was opened to him
without hesitation.

The host recognized him.

“My officer,” said Athos, “has forgotten to give a piece of very
important information to the lady, and has sent me back to repair his
forgetfulness.”

“Go up,” said the host; “she is still in her chamber.”

Athos availed himself of the permission, ascended the stairs with his
lightest step, gained the landing, and through the open door perceived
Milady putting on her hat.

He entered the chamber and closed the door behind him. At the noise he
made in pushing the bolt, Milady turned round.

Athos was standing before the door, enveloped in his cloak, with his
hat pulled down over his eyes. On seeing this figure, mute and
immovable as a statue, Milady was frightened.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” cried she.

“Humph,” murmured Athos, “it is certainly she!”

And letting fall his cloak and raising his hat, he advanced toward
Milady.

“Do you know me, madame?” said he.

Milady made one step forward, and then drew back as if she had seen a
serpent.

“So far, well,” said Athos, “I perceive you know me.”

“The Comte de la Fère!” murmured Milady, becoming exceedingly pale, and
drawing back till the wall prevented her from going any farther.

“Yes, Milady,” replied Athos; “the Comte de la Fère in person, who
comes expressly from the other world to have the pleasure of paying you
a visit. Sit down, madame, and let us talk, as the cardinal said.”

Milady, under the influence of inexpressible terror, sat down without
uttering a word.

“You certainly are a demon sent upon the earth!” said Athos. “Your
power is great, I know; but you also know that with the help of God men
have often conquered the most terrible demons. You have once before
thrown yourself in my path. I thought I had crushed you, madame; but
either I was deceived or hell has resuscitated you!”

Milady at these words, which recalled frightful remembrances, hung down
her head with a suppressed groan.

“Yes, hell has resuscitated you,” continued Athos. “Hell has made you
rich, hell has given you another name, hell has almost made you another
face; but it has neither effaced the stains from your soul nor the
brand from your body.”

Milady arose as if moved by a powerful spring, and her eyes flashed
lightning. Athos remained sitting.

“You believed me to be dead, did you not, as I believed you to be? And
the name of Athos as well concealed the Comte de la Fère, as the name
Milady Clarik concealed Anne de Breuil. Was it not so you were called
when your honored brother married us? Our position is truly a strange
one,” continued Athos, laughing. “We have only lived up to the present
time because we believed each other dead, and because a remembrance is
less oppressive than a living creature, though a remembrance is
sometimes devouring.”

“But,” said Milady, in a hollow, faint voice, “what brings you back to
me, and what do you want with me?”

“I wish to tell you that though remaining invisible to your eyes, I
have not lost sight of you.”

“You know what I have done?”

“I can relate to you, day by day, your actions from your entrance to
the service of the cardinal to this evening.”

A smile of incredulity passed over the pale lips of Milady.

“Listen! It was you who cut off the two diamond studs from the shoulder
of the Duke of Buckingham; it was you who had Madame Bonacieux carried
off; it was you who, in love with De Wardes and thinking to pass the
night with him, opened the door to Monsieur d’Artagnan; it was you who,
believing that De Wardes had deceived you, wished to have him killed by
his rival; it was you who, when this rival had discovered your infamous
secret, wished to have him killed in his turn by two assassins, whom
you sent in pursuit of him; it was you who, finding the balls had
missed their mark, sent poisoned wine with a forged letter, to make
your victim believe that the wine came from his friends. In short, it
was you who have but now in this chamber, seated in this chair I now
fill, made an engagement with Cardinal Richelieu to cause the Duke of
Buckingham to be assassinated, in exchange for the promise he has made
you to allow you to assassinate D’Artagnan.”

Milady was livid.

“You must be Satan!” cried she.

“Perhaps,” said Athos; “But at all events listen well to this.
Assassinate the Duke of Buckingham, or cause him to be assassinated—I
care very little about that! I don’t know him. Besides, he is an
Englishman. But do not touch with the tip of your finger a single hair
of D’Artagnan, who is a faithful friend whom I love and defend, or I
swear to you by the head of my father the crime which you shall have
endeavored to commit, or shall have committed, shall be the last.”

“Monsieur d’Artagnan has cruelly insulted me,” said Milady, in a hollow
tone; “Monsieur d’Artagnan shall die!”

“Indeed! Is it possible to insult you, madame?” said Athos, laughing;
“he has insulted you, and he shall die!”

“He shall die!” replied Milady; “she first, and he afterward.”

Athos was seized with a kind of vertigo. The sight of this creature,
who had nothing of the woman about her, recalled awful remembrances. He
thought how one day, in a less dangerous situation than the one in
which he was now placed, he had already endeavored to sacrifice her to
his honor. His desire for blood returned, burning his brain and
pervading his frame like a raging fever; he arose in his turn, reached
his hand to his belt, drew forth a pistol, and cocked it.

Milady, pale as a corpse, endeavored to cry out; but her swollen tongue
could utter no more than a hoarse sound which had nothing human in it
and resembled the rattle of a wild beast. Motionless against the dark
tapestry, with her hair in disorder, she appeared like a horrid image
of terror.

Athos slowly raised his pistol, stretched out his arm so that the
weapon almost touched Milady’s forehead, and then, in a voice the more
terrible from having the supreme calmness of a fixed resolution,
“Madame,” said he, “you will this instant deliver to me the paper the
cardinal signed; or upon my soul, I will blow your brains out.”

With another man, Milady might have preserved some doubt; but she knew
Athos. Nevertheless, she remained motionless.

“You have one second to decide,” said he.

Milady saw by the contraction of his countenance that the trigger was
about to be pulled; she reached her hand quickly to her bosom, drew out
a paper, and held it toward Athos.

“Take it,” said she, “and be accursed!”

Athos took the paper, returned the pistol to his belt, approached the
lamp to be assured that it was the paper, unfolded it, and read:

“Dec. 3, 1627


“It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of
this has done what he has done.


“RICHELIEU”


“And now,” said Athos, resuming his cloak and putting on his hat, “now
that I have drawn your teeth, viper, bite if you can.”

And he left the chamber without once looking behind him.

At the door he found the two men and the spare horse which they held.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “Monseigneur’s order is, you know, to conduct
that woman, without losing time, to Fort La Pointe, and never to leave
her till she is on board.”

As these words agreed wholly with the order they had received, they
bowed their heads in sign of assent.

With regard to Athos, he leaped lightly into the saddle and set out at
full gallop; only instead of following the road, he went across the
fields, urging his horse to the utmost and stopping occasionally to
listen.

In one of those halts he heard the steps of several horses on the road.
He had no doubt it was the cardinal and his escort. He immediately made
a new point in advance, rubbed his horse down with some heath and
leaves of trees, and placed himself across the road, about two hundred
paces from the camp.

“Who goes there?” cried he, as soon as he perceived the horsemen.

“That is our brave Musketeer, I think,” said the cardinal.

“Yes, monseigneur,” said Porthos, “it is he.”

“Monsieur Athos,” said Richelieu, “receive my thanks for the good guard
you have kept. Gentlemen, we are arrived; take the gate on the left.
The watchword is, ‘King and Ré.’”

Saying these words, the cardinal saluted the three friends with an
inclination of his head, and took the right hand, followed by his
attendant—for that night he himself slept in the camp.

“Well!” said Porthos and Aramis together, as soon as the cardinal was
out of hearing, “well, he signed the paper she required!”

“I know it,” said Athos, coolly, “since here it is.”

And the three friends did not exchange another word till they reached
their quarters, except to give the watchword to the sentinels. Only
they sent Mousqueton to tell Planchet that his master was requested,
the instant that he left the trenches, to come to the quarters of the
Musketeers.

Milady, as Athos had foreseen, on finding the two men that awaited her,
made no difficulty in following them. She had had for an instant an
inclination to be reconducted to the cardinal, and relate everything to
him; but a revelation on her part would bring about a revelation on the
part of Athos. She might say that Athos had hanged her; but then Athos
would tell that she was branded. She thought it was best to preserve
silence, to discreetly set off to accomplish her difficult mission with
her usual skill; and then, all things being accomplished to the
satisfaction of the cardinal, to come to him and claim her vengeance.

In consequence, after having traveled all night, at seven o’clock she
was at the fort of the Point; at eight o’clock she had embarked; and at
nine, the vessel, which with letters of marque from the cardinal was
supposed to be sailing for Bayonne, raised anchor, and steered its
course toward England.




Chapter XLVI.
THE BASTION SAINT-GERVAIS


On arriving at the lodgings of his three friends, D’Artagnan found them
assembled in the same chamber. Athos was meditating; Porthos was
twisting his mustache; Aramis was saying his prayers in a charming
little Book of Hours, bound in blue velvet.

“_Pardieu_, gentlemen,” said he. “I hope what you have to tell me is
worth the trouble, or else, I warn you, I will not pardon you for
making me come here instead of getting a little rest after a night
spent in taking and dismantling a bastion. Ah, why were you not there,
gentlemen? It was warm work.”

“We were in a place where it was not very cold,” replied Porthos,
giving his mustache a twist which was peculiar to him.

“Hush!” said Athos.

“Oh, oh!” said D’Artagnan, comprehending the slight frown of the
Musketeer. “It appears there is something fresh aboard.”

“Aramis,” said Athos, “you went to breakfast the day before yesterday
at the inn of the Parpaillot, I believe?”

“Yes.”

“How did you fare?”

“For my part, I ate but little. The day before yesterday was a fish
day, and they had nothing but meat.”

“What,” said Athos, “no fish at a seaport?”

“They say,” said Aramis, resuming his pious reading, “that the dyke
which the cardinal is making drives them all out into the open sea.”

“But that is not quite what I mean to ask you, Aramis,” replied Athos.
“I want to know if you were left alone, and nobody interrupted you.”

“Why, I think there were not many intruders. Yes, Athos, I know what
you mean: we shall do very well at the Parpaillot.”

“Let us go to the Parpaillot, then, for here the walls are like sheets
of paper.”

D’Artagnan, who was accustomed to his friend’s manner of acting, and
who perceived immediately, by a word, a gesture, or a sign from him,
that the circumstances were serious, took Athos’s arm, and went out
without saying anything. Porthos followed, chatting with Aramis.

On their way they met Grimaud. Athos made him a sign to come with them.
Grimaud, according to custom, obeyed in silence; the poor lad had
nearly come to the pass of forgetting how to speak.

They arrived at the drinking room of the Parpaillot. It was seven
o’clock in the morning, and daylight began to appear. The three friends
ordered breakfast, and went into a room in which the host said they
would not be disturbed.

Unfortunately, the hour was badly chosen for a private conference. The
morning drum had just been beaten; everyone shook off the drowsiness of
night, and to dispel the humid morning air, came to take a drop at the
inn. Dragoons, Swiss, Guardsmen, Musketeers, light-horsemen, succeeded
one another with a rapidity which might answer the purpose of the host
very well, but agreed badly with the views of the four friends. Thus
they applied very curtly to the salutations, healths, and jokes of
their companions.

“I see how it will be,” said Athos: “we shall get into some pretty
quarrel or other, and we have no need of one just now. D’Artagnan, tell
us what sort of a night you have had, and we will describe ours
afterward.”

“Ah, yes,” said a light-horseman, with a glass of brandy in his hand,
which he sipped slowly. “I hear you gentlemen of the Guards have been
in the trenches tonight, and that you did not get much the best of the
Rochellais.”

D’Artagnan looked at Athos to know if he ought to reply to this
intruder who thus mixed unasked in their conversation.

“Well,” said Athos, “don’t you hear Monsieur de Busigny, who does you
the honor to ask you a question? Relate what has passed during the
night, since these gentlemen desire to know it.”

“Have you not taken a bastion?” said a Swiss, who was drinking rum out
of a beer glass.

“Yes, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, bowing, “we have had that honor. We
even have, as you may have heard, introduced a barrel of powder under
one of the angles, which in blowing up made a very pretty breach.
Without reckoning that as the bastion was not built yesterday all the
rest of the building was badly shaken.”

“And what bastion is it?” asked a dragoon, with his saber run through a
goose which he was taking to be cooked.

“The bastion St. Gervais,” replied D’Artagnan, “from behind which the
Rochellais annoyed our workmen.”

“Was that affair hot?”

“Yes, moderately so. We lost five men, and the Rochellais eight or
ten.”

“_Balzempleu!_” said the Swiss, who, notwithstanding the admirable
collection of oaths possessed by the German language, had acquired a
habit of swearing in French.

“But it is probable,” said the light-horseman, “that they will send
pioneers this morning to repair the bastion.”

“Yes, that’s probable,” said D’Artagnan.

“Gentlemen,” said Athos, “a wager!”

“Ah, _wooi_, a vager!” cried the Swiss.

“What is it?” said the light-horseman.

“Stop a bit,” said the dragoon, placing his saber like a spit upon the
two large iron dogs which held the firebrands in the chimney, “stop a
bit, I am in it. You cursed host! a dripping pan immediately, that I
may not lose a drop of the fat of this estimable bird.”

“You was right,” said the Swiss; “goose grease is kood with basdry.”

“There!” said the dragoon. “Now for the wager! We listen, Monsieur
Athos.”

“Yes, the wager!” said the light-horseman.

“Well, Monsieur de Busigny, I will bet you,” said Athos, “that my three
companions, Messieurs Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan, and myself, will
go and breakfast in the bastion St. Gervais, and we will remain there
an hour, by the watch, whatever the enemy may do to dislodge us.”

Porthos and Aramis looked at each other; they began to comprehend.

“But,” said D’Artagnan, in the ear of Athos, “you are going to get us
all killed without mercy.”

“We are much more likely to be killed,” said Athos, “if we do not go.”

“My faith, gentlemen,” said Porthos, turning round upon his chair and
twisting his mustache, “that’s a fair bet, I hope.”

“I take it,” said M. de Busigny; “so let us fix the stake.”

“You are four gentlemen,” said Athos, “and we are four; an unlimited
dinner for eight. Will that do?”

“Capitally,” replied M. de Busigny.

“Perfectly,” said the dragoon.

“That shoots me,” said the Swiss.

The fourth auditor, who during all this conversation had played a mute
part, made a sign of the head in proof that he acquiesced in the
proposition.

“The breakfast for these gentlemen is ready,” said the host.

“Well, bring it,” said Athos.

The host obeyed. Athos called Grimaud, pointed to a large basket which
lay in a corner, and made a sign to him to wrap the viands up in the
napkins.

Grimaud understood that it was to be a breakfast on the grass, took the
basket, packed up the viands, added the bottles, and then took the
basket on his arm.

“But where are you going to eat my breakfast?” asked the host.

“What matter, if you are paid for it?” said Athos, and he threw two
pistoles majestically on the table.

“Shall I give you the change, my officer?” said the host.

“No, only add two bottles of champagne, and the difference will be for
the napkins.”

The host had not quite so good a bargain as he at first hoped for, but
he made amends by slipping in two bottles of Anjou wine instead of two
bottles of champagne.

“Monsieur de Busigny,” said Athos, “will you be so kind as to set your
watch with mine, or permit me to regulate mine by yours?”

“Which you please, monsieur!” said the light-horseman, drawing from his
fob a very handsome watch, studded with diamonds; “half past seven.”

“Thirty-five minutes after seven,” said Athos, “by which you perceive I
am five minutes faster than you.”

And bowing to all the astonished persons present, the young men took
the road to the bastion St. Gervais, followed by Grimaud, who carried
the basket, ignorant of where he was going but in the passive obedience
which Athos had taught him not even thinking of asking.

As long as they were within the circle of the camp, the four friends
did not exchange one word; besides, they were followed by the curious,
who, hearing of the wager, were anxious to know how they would come out
of it. But when once they passed the line of circumvallation and found
themselves in the open plain, D’Artagnan, who was completely ignorant
of what was going forward, thought it was time to demand an
explanation.

“And now, my dear Athos,” said he, “do me the kindness to tell me where
we are going?”

“Why, you see plainly enough we are going to the bastion.”

“But what are we going to do there?”

“You know well that we go to breakfast there.”

“But why did we not breakfast at the Parpaillot?”

“Because we have very important matters to communicate to one another,
and it was impossible to talk five minutes in that inn without being
annoyed by all those importunate fellows, who keep coming in, saluting
you, and addressing you. Here at least,” said Athos, pointing to the
bastion, “they will not come and disturb us.”

“It appears to me,” said D’Artagnan, with that prudence which allied
itself in him so naturally with excessive bravery, “that we could have
found some retired place on the downs or the seashore.”

“Where we should have been seen all four conferring together, so that
at the end of a quarter of an hour the cardinal would have been
informed by his spies that we were holding a council.”

“Yes,” said Aramis, “Athos is right: _Animadvertuntur in desertis_.”

“A desert would not have been amiss,” said Porthos; “but it behooved us
to find it.”

“There is no desert where a bird cannot pass over one’s head, where a
fish cannot leap out of the water, where a rabbit cannot come out of
its burrow, and I believe that bird, fish, and rabbit each becomes a
spy of the cardinal. Better, then, pursue our enterprise; from which,
besides, we cannot retreat without shame. We have made a wager—a wager
which could not have been foreseen, and of which I defy anyone to
divine the true cause. We are going, in order to win it, to remain an
hour in the bastion. Either we shall be attacked, or not. If we are
not, we shall have all the time to talk, and nobody will hear us—for I
guarantee the walls of the bastion have no ears; if we are, we will
talk of our affairs just the same. Moreover, in defending ourselves, we
shall cover ourselves with glory. You see that everything is to our
advantage.”

“Yes,” said D’Artagnan; “but we shall indubitably attract a ball.”

“Well, my dear,” replied Athos, “you know well that the balls most to
be dreaded are not from the enemy.”

“But for such an expedition we surely ought to have brought our
muskets.”

“You are stupid, friend Porthos. Why should we load ourselves with a
useless burden?”

“I don’t find a good musket, twelve cartridges, and a powder flask very
useless in the face of an enemy.”

“Well,” replied Athos, “have you not heard what D’Artagnan said?”

“What did he say?” demanded Porthos.

“D’Artagnan said that in the attack of last night eight or ten
Frenchmen were killed, and as many Rochellais.”

“What then?”

“The bodies were not plundered, were they? It appears the conquerors
had something else to do.”

“Well?”

“Well, we shall find their muskets, their cartridges, and their flasks;
and instead of four musketoons and twelve balls, we shall have fifteen
guns and a hundred charges to fire.”

“Oh, Athos!” said Aramis, “truly you are a great man.”

Porthos nodded in sign of agreement. D’Artagnan alone did not seem
convinced.

Grimaud no doubt shared the misgivings of the young man, for seeing
that they continued to advance toward the bastion—something he had till
then doubted—he pulled his master by the skirt of his coat.

“Where are we going?” asked he, by a gesture.

Athos pointed to the bastion.

“But,” said Grimaud, in the same silent dialect, “we shall leave our
skins there.”

Athos raised his eyes and his finger toward heaven.

Grimaud put his basket on the ground and sat down with a shake of the
head.

Athos took a pistol from his belt, looked to see if it was properly
primed, cocked it, and placed the muzzle close to Grimaud’s ear.

Grimaud was on his legs again as if by a spring. Athos then made him a
sign to take up his basket and to walk on first. Grimaud obeyed. All
that Grimaud gained by this momentary pantomime was to pass from the
rear guard to the vanguard.

Arrived at the bastion, the four friends turned round.

More than three hundred soldiers of all kinds were assembled at the
gate of the camp; and in a separate group might be distinguished M. de
Busigny, the dragoon, the Swiss, and the fourth bettor.

Athos took off his hat, placed it on the end of his sword, and waved it
in the air.

All the spectators returned him his salute, accompanying this courtesy
with a loud hurrah which was audible to the four; after which all four
disappeared in the bastion, whither Grimaud had preceded them.




Chapter XLVII.
THE COUNCIL OF THE MUSKETEERS


As Athos had foreseen, the bastion was only occupied by a dozen
corpses, French and Rochellais.

“Gentlemen,” said Athos, who had assumed the command of the expedition,
“while Grimaud spreads the table, let us begin by collecting the guns
and cartridges together. We can talk while performing that necessary
task. These gentlemen,” added he, pointing to the bodies, “cannot hear
us.”

“But we could throw them into the ditch,” said Porthos, “after having
assured ourselves they have nothing in their pockets.”

“Yes,” said Athos, “that’s Grimaud’s business.”

“Well, then,” cried D’Artagnan, “pray let Grimaud search them and throw
them over the walls.”

“Heaven forfend!” said Athos; “they may serve us.”

“These bodies serve us?” said Porthos. “You are mad, dear friend.”

“Judge not rashly, say the gospel and the cardinal,” replied Athos.
“How many guns, gentlemen?”

“Twelve,” replied Aramis.

“How many shots?”

“A hundred.”

“That’s quite as many as we shall want. Let us load the guns.”

The four Musketeers went to work; and as they were loading the last
musket Grimaud announced that the breakfast was ready.

Athos replied, always by gestures, that that was well, and indicated to
Grimaud, by pointing to a turret that resembled a pepper caster, that
he was to stand as sentinel. Only, to alleviate the tediousness of the
duty, Athos allowed him to take a loaf, two cutlets, and a bottle of
wine.

“And now to table,” said Athos.

The four friends seated themselves on the ground with their legs
crossed like Turks, or even tailors.

“And now,” said D’Artagnan, “as there is no longer any fear of being
overheard, I hope you are going to let me into your secret.”

“I hope at the same time to procure you amusement and glory,
gentlemen,” said Athos. “I have induced you to take a charming
promenade; here is a delicious breakfast; and yonder are five hundred
persons, as you may see through the loopholes, taking us for heroes or
madmen—two classes of imbeciles greatly resembling each other.”

“But the secret!” said D’Artagnan.

“The secret is,” said Athos, “that I saw Milady last night.”

D’Artagnan was lifting a glass to his lips; but at the name of Milady,
his hand trembled so, that he was obliged to put the glass on the
ground again for fear of spilling the contents.”

“You saw your wi—”

“Hush!” interrupted Athos. “You forget, my dear, you forget that these
gentlemen are not initiated into my family affairs like yourself. I
have seen Milady.”

“Where?” demanded D’Artagnan.

“Within two leagues of this place, at the inn of the Red Dovecot.”

“In that case I am lost,” said D’Artagnan.

“Not so bad yet,” replied Athos; “for by this time she must have quit
the shores of France.”

D’Artagnan breathed again.

“But after all,” asked Porthos, “who is Milady?”

“A charming woman!” said Athos, sipping a glass of sparkling wine.
“Villainous host!” cried he, “he has given us Anjou wine instead of
champagne, and fancies we know no better! Yes,” continued he, “a
charming woman, who entertained kind views toward our friend
D’Artagnan, who, on his part, has given her some offense for which she
tried to revenge herself a month ago by having him killed by two musket
shots, a week ago by trying to poison him, and yesterday by demanding
his head of the cardinal.”

“What! by demanding my head of the cardinal?” cried D’Artagnan, pale
with terror.

“Yes, that is true as the Gospel,” said Porthos; “I heard her with my
own ears.”

“I also,” said Aramis.

“Then,” said D’Artagnan, letting his arm fall with discouragement, “it
is useless to struggle longer. I may as well blow my brains out, and
all will be over.”

“That’s the last folly to be committed,” said Athos, “seeing it is the
only one for which there is no remedy.”

“But I can never escape,” said D’Artagnan, “with such enemies. First,
my stranger of Meung; then De Wardes, to whom I have given three sword
wounds; next Milady, whose secret I have discovered; finally, the
cardinal, whose vengeance I have balked.”

“Well,” said Athos, “that only makes four; and we are four—one for one.
_Pardieu!_ if we may believe the signs Grimaud is making, we are about
to have to do with a very different number of people. What is it,
Grimaud? Considering the gravity of the occasion, I permit you to
speak, my friend; but be laconic, I beg. What do you see?”

“A troop.”

“Of how many persons?”

“Twenty men.”

“What sort of men?”

“Sixteen pioneers, four soldiers.”

“How far distant?”

“Five hundred paces.”

“Good! We have just time to finish this fowl and to drink one glass of
wine to your health, D’Artagnan.”

“To your health!” repeated Porthos and Aramis.

“Well, then, to my health! although I am very much afraid that your
good wishes will not be of great service to me.”

“Bah!” said Athos, “God is great, as say the followers of Mohammed, and
the future is in his hands.”

Then, swallowing the contents of his glass, which he put down close to
him, Athos arose carelessly, took the musket next to him, and drew near
to one of the loopholes.

Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan followed his example. As to Grimaud, he
received orders to place himself behind the four friends in order to
reload their weapons.

“_Pardieu!_” said Athos, “it was hardly worth while to distribute
ourselves for twenty fellows armed with pickaxes, mattocks, and
shovels. Grimaud had only to make them a sign to go away, and I am
convinced they would have left us in peace.”

“I doubt that,” replied D’Artagnan, “for they are advancing very
resolutely. Besides, in addition to the pioneers, there are four
soldiers and a brigadier, armed with muskets.”

“That’s because they don’t see us,” said Athos.

“My faith,” said Aramis, “I must confess I feel a great repugnance to
fire on these poor devils of civilians.”

“He is a bad priest,” said Porthos, “who has pity for heretics.”

“In truth,” said Athos, “Aramis is right. I will warn them.”

“What the devil are you going to do?” cried D’Artagnan, “you will be
shot.”

But Athos heeded not his advice. Mounting on the breach, with his
musket in one hand and his hat in the other, he said, bowing
courteously and addressing the soldiers and the pioneers, who,
astonished at this apparition, stopped fifty paces from the bastion:
“Gentlemen, a few friends and myself are about to breakfast in this
bastion. Now, you know nothing is more disagreeable than being
disturbed when one is at breakfast. We request you, then, if you really
have business here, to wait till we have finished our repast, or to
come again a short time hence; unless, which would be far better, you
form the salutary resolution to quit the side of the rebels, and come
and drink with us to the health of the King of France.”

“Take care, Athos!” cried D’Artagnan; “don’t you see they are aiming?”

“Yes, yes,” said Athos; “but they are only civilians—very bad marksmen,
who will be sure not to hit me.”

In fact, at the same instant four shots were fired, and the balls were
flattened against the wall around Athos, but not one touched him.

Four shots replied to them almost instantaneously, but much better
aimed than those of the aggressors; three soldiers fell dead, and one
of the pioneers was wounded.

“Grimaud,” said Athos, still on the breach, “another musket!”

Grimaud immediately obeyed. On their part, the three friends had
reloaded their arms; a second discharge followed the first. The
brigadier and two pioneers fell dead; the rest of the troop took to
flight.

“Now, gentlemen, a _sortie!_” cried Athos.

And the four friends rushed out of the fort, gained the field of
battle, picked up the four muskets of the privates and the half-pike of
the brigadier, and convinced that the fugitives would not stop till
they reached the city, turned again toward the bastion, bearing with
them the trophies of their victory.

“Reload the muskets, Grimaud,” said Athos, “and we, gentlemen, will go
on with our breakfast, and resume our conversation. Where were we?”

“I recollect you were saying,” said D’Artagnan, “that after having
demanded my head of the cardinal, Milady had quit the shores of France.
Whither goes she?” added he, strongly interested in the route Milady
followed.

“She goes into England,” said Athos.

“With what view?”

“With the view of assassinating, or causing to be assassinated, the
Duke of Buckingham.”

D’Artagnan uttered an exclamation of surprise and indignation.

“But this is infamous!” cried he.

“As to that,” said Athos, “I beg you to believe that I care very little
about it. Now you have done, Grimaud, take our brigadier’s half-pike,
tie a napkin to it, and plant it on top of our bastion, that these
rebels of Rochellais may see that they have to deal with brave and
loyal soldiers of the king.”

Grimaud obeyed without replying. An instant afterward, the white flag
was floating over the heads of the four friends. A thunder of applause
saluted its appearance; half the camp was at the barrier.

“How?” replied D’Artagnan, “you care little if she kills Buckingham or
causes him to be killed? But the duke is our friend.”

“The duke is English; the duke fights against us. Let her do what she
likes with the duke; I care no more about him than an empty bottle.”
And Athos threw fifteen paces from him an empty bottle from which he
had poured the last drop into his glass.

“A moment,” said D’Artagnan. “I will not abandon Buckingham thus. He
gave us some very fine horses.”

“And moreover, very handsome saddles,” said Porthos, who at the moment
wore on his cloak the lace of his own.

“Besides,” said Aramis, “God desires the conversion and not the death
of a sinner.”

“Amen!” said Athos, “and we will return to that subject later, if such
be your pleasure; but what for the moment engaged my attention most
earnestly, and I am sure you will understand me, D’Artagnan, was the
getting from this woman a kind of _carte blanche_ which she had
extorted from the cardinal, and by means of which she could with
impunity get rid of you and perhaps of us.”

“But this creature must be a demon!” said Porthos, holding out his
plate to Aramis, who was cutting up a fowl.

“And this _carte blanche_,” said D’Artagnan, “this _carte blanche_,
does it remain in her hands?”

“No, it passed into mine; I will not say without trouble, for if I did
I should tell a lie.”

“My dear Athos, I shall no longer count the number of times I am
indebted to you for my life.”

“Then it was to go to her that you left us?” said Aramis.

“Exactly.”

“And you have that letter of the cardinal?” said D’Artagnan.

“Here it is,” said Athos; and he took the invaluable paper from the
pocket of his uniform. D’Artagnan unfolded it with one hand, whose
trembling he did not even attempt to conceal, to read:

“Dec. 3, 1627


“It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of
this has done what he has done.


“RICHELIEU”


“In fact,” said Aramis, “it is an absolution according to rule.”

“That paper must be torn to pieces,” said D’Artagnan, who fancied he
read in it his sentence of death.

“On the contrary,” said Athos, “it must be preserved carefully. I would
not give up this paper if covered with as many gold pieces.”

“And what will she do now?” asked the young man.

“Why,” replied Athos, carelessly, “she is probably going to write to
the cardinal that a damned Musketeer, named Athos, has taken her
safe-conduct from her by force; she will advise him in the same letter
to get rid of his two friends, Aramis and Porthos, at the same time.
The cardinal will remember that these are the same men who have often
crossed his path; and then some fine morning he will arrest D’Artagnan,
and for fear he should feel lonely, he will send us to keep him company
in the Bastille.”

“Go to! It appears to me you make dull jokes, my dear,” said Porthos.

“I do not jest,” said Athos.

“Do you know,” said Porthos, “that to twist that damned Milady’s neck
would be a smaller sin than to twist those of these poor devils of
Huguenots, who have committed no other crime than singing in French the
psalms we sing in Latin?”

“What says the abbé?” asked Athos, quietly.

“I say I am entirely of Porthos’s opinion,” replied Aramis.

“And I, too,” said D’Artagnan.

“Fortunately, she is far off,” said Porthos, “for I confess she would
worry me if she were here.”

“She worries me in England as well as in France,” said Athos.

“She worries me everywhere,” said D’Artagnan.

“But when you held her in your power, why did you not drown her,
strangle her, hang her?” said Porthos. “It is only the dead who do not
return.”

“You think so, Porthos?” replied the Musketeer, with a sad smile which
D’Artagnan alone understood.

“I have an idea,” said D’Artagnan.

“What is it?” said the Musketeers.

“To arms!” cried Grimaud.

The young men sprang up, and seized their muskets.

This time a small troop advanced, consisting of from twenty to
twenty-five men; but they were not pioneers, they were soldiers of the
garrison.

“Shall we return to the camp?” said Porthos. “I don’t think the sides
are equal.”

“Impossible, for three reasons,” replied Athos. “The first, that we
have not finished breakfast; the second, that we still have some very
important things to say; and the third, that it yet wants ten minutes
before the lapse of the hour.”

“Well, then,” said Aramis, “we must form a plan of battle.”

“That’s very simple,” replied Athos. “As soon as the enemy are within
musket shot, we must fire upon them. If they continue to advance, we
must fire again. We must fire as long as we have loaded guns. If those
who remain of the troop persist in coming to the assault, we will allow
the besiegers to get as far as the ditch, and then we will push down
upon their heads that strip of wall which keeps its perpendicular by a
miracle.”

“Bravo!” cried Porthos. “Decidedly, Athos, you were born to be a
general, and the cardinal, who fancies himself a great soldier, is
nothing beside you.”

“Gentlemen,” said Athos, “no divided attention, I beg; let each one
pick out his man.”

“I cover mine,” said D’Artagnan.

“And I mine,” said Porthos.

“And I _idem_,” said Aramis.

“Fire, then,” said Athos.

The four muskets made but one report, but four men fell.

The drum immediately beat, and the little troop advanced at charging
pace.

Then the shots were repeated without regularity, but always aimed with
the same accuracy. Nevertheless, as if they had been aware of the
numerical weakness of the friends, the Rochellais continued to advance
in quick time.

With every three shots at least two men fell; but the march of those
who remained was not slackened.

Arrived at the foot of the bastion, there were still more than a dozen
of the enemy. A last discharge welcomed them, but did not stop them;
they jumped into the ditch, and prepared to scale the breach.

“Now, my friends,” said Athos, “finish them at a blow. To the wall; to
the wall!”

And the four friends, seconded by Grimaud, pushed with the barrels of
their muskets an enormous sheet of the wall, which bent as if pushed by
the wind, and detaching itself from its base, fell with a horrible
crash into the ditch. Then a fearful crash was heard; a cloud of dust
mounted toward the sky—and all was over!

“Can we have destroyed them all, from the first to the last?” said
Athos.

“My faith, it appears so!” said D’Artagnan.

“No,” cried Porthos; “there go three or four, limping away.”

In fact, three or four of these unfortunate men, covered with dirt and
blood, fled along the hollow way, and at length regained the city.
These were all who were left of the little troop.

Athos looked at his watch.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “we have been here an hour, and our wager is won;
but we will be fair players. Besides, D’Artagnan has not told us his
idea yet.”

And the Musketeer, with his usual coolness, reseated himself before the
remains of the breakfast.

“My idea?” said D’Artagnan.

“Yes; you said you had an idea,” said Athos.

“Oh, I remember,” said D’Artagnan. “Well, I will go to England a second
time; I will go and find Buckingham.”

“You shall not do that, D’Artagnan,” said Athos, coolly.

“And why not? Have I not been there once?”

“Yes; but at that period we were not at war. At that period Buckingham
was an ally, and not an enemy. What you would now do amounts to
treason.”

D’Artagnan perceived the force of this reasoning, and was silent.

“But,” said Porthos, “I think I have an idea, in my turn.”

“Silence for Monsieur Porthos’s idea!” said Aramis.

“I will ask leave of absence of Monsieur de Tréville, on some pretext
or other which you must invent; I am not very clever at pretexts.
Milady does not know me; I will get access to her without her
suspecting me, and when I catch my beauty, I will strangle her.”

“Well,” replied Athos, “I am not far from approving the idea of
Monsieur Porthos.”

“For shame!” said Aramis. “Kill a woman? No, listen to me; I have the
true idea.”

“Let us see your idea, Aramis,” said Athos, who felt much deference for
the young Musketeer.

“We must inform the queen.”

“Ah, my faith, yes!” said Porthos and D’Artagnan, at the same time; “we
are coming nearer to it now.”

“Inform the queen!” said Athos; “and how? Have we relations with the
court? Could we send anyone to Paris without its being known in the
camp? From here to Paris it is a hundred and forty leagues; before our
letter was at Angers we should be in a dungeon.”

“As to remitting a letter with safety to her Majesty,” said Aramis,
coloring, “I will take that upon myself. I know a clever person at
Tours—”

Aramis stopped on seeing Athos smile.

“Well, do you not adopt this means, Athos?” said D’Artagnan.

“I do not reject it altogether,” said Athos; “but I wish to remind
Aramis that he cannot quit the camp, and that nobody but one of
ourselves is trustworthy; that two hours after the messenger has set
out, all the Capuchins, all the police, all the black caps of the
cardinal, will know your letter by heart, and you and your clever
person will be arrested.”

“Without reckoning,” objected Porthos, “that the queen would save
Monsieur de Buckingham, but would take no heed of us.”

“Gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, “what Porthos says is full of sense.”

“Ah, ah! but what’s going on in the city yonder?” said Athos.

“They are beating the general alarm.”

The four friends listened, and the sound of the drum plainly reached
them.

“You see, they are going to send a whole regiment against us,” said
Athos.

“You don’t think of holding out against a whole regiment, do you?” said
Porthos.

“Why not?” said the Musketeer. “I feel myself quite in a humor for it;
and I would hold out before an army if we had taken the precaution to
bring a dozen more bottles of wine.”

“Upon my word, the drum draws near,” said D’Artagnan.

“Let it come,” said Athos. “It is a quarter of an hour’s journey from
here to the city, consequently a quarter of an hour’s journey from the
city to hither. That is more than time enough for us to devise a plan.
If we go from this place we shall never find another so suitable. Ah,
stop! I have it, gentlemen; the right idea has just occurred to me.”

“Tell us.”

“Allow me to give Grimaud some indispensable orders.”

Athos made a sign for his lackey to approach.

“Grimaud,” said Athos, pointing to the bodies which lay under the wall
of the bastion, “take those gentlemen, set them up against the wall,
put their hats upon their heads, and their guns in their hands.”

“Oh, the great man!” cried D’Artagnan. “I comprehend now.”

“You comprehend?” said Porthos.

“And do you comprehend, Grimaud?” said Aramis.

Grimaud made a sign in the affirmative.

“That’s all that is necessary,” said Athos; “now for my idea.”

“I should like, however, to comprehend,” said Porthos.

“That is useless.”

“Yes, yes! Athos’s idea!” cried Aramis and D’Artagnan, at the same
time.

“This Milady, this woman, this creature, this demon, has a
brother-in-law, as I think you told me, D’Artagnan?”

“Yes, I know him very well; and I also believe that he has not a very
warm affection for his sister-in-law.”

“There is no harm in that. If he detested her, it would be all the
better,” replied Athos.

“In that case we are as well off as we wish.”

“And yet,” said Porthos, “I would like to know what Grimaud is about.”

“Silence, Porthos!” said Aramis.

“What is her brother-in-law’s name?”

“Lord de Winter.”

“Where is he now?”

“He returned to London at the first sound of war.”

“Well, there’s just the man we want,” said Athos. “It is he whom we
must warn. We will have him informed that his sister-in-law is on the
point of having someone assassinated, and beg him not to lose sight of
her. There is in London, I hope, some establishment like that of the
Magdalens, or of the Repentant Daughters. He must place his sister in
one of these, and we shall be in peace.”

“Yes,” said D’Artagnan, “till she comes out.”

“Ah, my faith!” said Athos, “you require too much, D’Artagnan. I have
given you all I have, and I beg leave to tell you that this is the
bottom of my sack.”

“But I think it would be still better,” said Aramis, “to inform the
queen and Lord de Winter at the same time.”

“Yes; but who is to carry the letter to Tours, and who to London?”

“I answer for Bazin,” said Aramis.

“And I for Planchet,” said D’Artagnan.

“Ay,” said Porthos, “if we cannot leave the camp, our lackeys may.”

“To be sure they may; and this very day we will write the letters,”
said Aramis. “Give the lackeys money, and they will start.”

“We will give them money?” replied Athos. “Have you any money?”

The four friends looked at one another, and a cloud came over the brows
which but lately had been so cheerful.

“Look out!” cried D’Artagnan, “I see black points and red points moving
yonder. Why did you talk of a regiment, Athos? It is a veritable army!”

“My faith, yes,” said Athos; “there they are. See the sneaks come,
without drum or trumpet. Ah, ah! have you finished, Grimaud?”

Grimaud made a sign in the affirmative, and pointed to a dozen bodies
which he had set up in the most picturesque attitudes. Some carried
arms, others seemed to be taking aim, and the remainder appeared merely
to be sword in hand.

“Bravo!” said Athos; “that does honor to your imagination.”

“All very well,” said Porthos, “but I should like to understand.”

“Let us decamp first, and you will understand afterward.”

“A moment, gentlemen, a moment; give Grimaud time to clear away the
breakfast.”

“Ah, ah!” said Aramis, “the black points and the red points are visibly
enlarging. I am of D’Artagnan’s opinion; we have no time to lose in
regaining our camp.”

“My faith,” said Athos, “I have nothing to say against a retreat. We
bet upon one hour, and we have stayed an hour and a half. Nothing can
be said; let us be off, gentlemen, let us be off!”

Grimaud was already ahead, with the basket and the dessert. The four
friends followed, ten paces behind him.

“What the devil shall we do now, gentlemen?” cried Athos.

“Have you forgotten anything?” said Aramis.

“The white flag, _morbleu!_ We must not leave a flag in the hands of
the enemy, even if that flag be but a napkin.”

And Athos ran back to the bastion, mounted the platform, and bore off
the flag; but as the Rochellais had arrived within musket range, they
opened a terrible fire upon this man, who appeared to expose himself
for pleasure’s sake.

But Athos might be said to bear a charmed life. The balls passed and
whistled all around him; not one struck him.

Athos waved his flag, turning his back on the guards of the city, and
saluting those of the camp. On both sides loud cries arose—on the one
side cries of anger, on the other cries of enthusiasm.

A second discharge followed the first, and three balls, by passing
through it, made the napkin really a flag. Cries were heard from the
camp, “Come down! come down!”

Athos came down; his friends, who anxiously awaited him, saw him
returned with joy.

“Come along, Athos, come along!” cried D’Artagnan; “now we have found
everything except money, it would be stupid to be killed.”

But Athos continued to march majestically, whatever remarks his
companions made; and they, finding their remarks useless, regulated
their pace by his.

Grimaud and his basket were far in advance, out of the range of the
balls.

At the end of an instant they heard a furious fusillade.

“What’s that?” asked Porthos, “what are they firing at now? I hear no
balls whistle, and I see nobody!”

“They are firing at the corpses,” replied Athos.

“But the dead cannot return their fire.”

“Certainly not! They will then fancy it is an ambuscade, they will
deliberate; and by the time they have found out the pleasantry, we
shall be out of the range of their balls. That renders it useless to
get a pleurisy by too much haste.”

“Oh, I comprehend now,” said the astonished Porthos.

“That’s lucky,” said Athos, shrugging his shoulders.

On their part, the French, on seeing the four friends return at such a
step, uttered cries of enthusiasm.

At length a fresh discharge was heard, and this time the balls came
rattling among the stones around the four friends, and whistling
sharply in their ears. The Rochellais had at last taken possession of
the bastion.

“These Rochellais are bungling fellows,” said Athos; “how many have we
killed of them—a dozen?”

“Or fifteen.”

“How many did we crush under the wall?”

“Eight or ten.”

“And in exchange for all that not even a scratch! Ah, but what is the
matter with your hand, D’Artagnan? It bleeds, seemingly.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” said D’Artagnan.

“A spent ball?”

“Not even that.”

“What is it, then?”

We have said that Athos loved D’Artagnan like a child, and this somber
and inflexible personage felt the anxiety of a parent for the young
man.

“Only grazed a little,” replied D’Artagnan; “my fingers were caught
between two stones—that of the wall and that of my ring—and the skin
was broken.”

“That comes of wearing diamonds, my master,” said Athos, disdainfully.

“Ah, to be sure,” cried Porthos, “there is a diamond. Why the devil,
then, do we plague ourselves about money, when there is a diamond?”

“Stop a bit!” said Aramis.

“Well thought of, Porthos; this time you have an idea.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Porthos, drawing himself up at Athos’s compliment;
“as there is a diamond, let us sell it.”

“But,” said D’Artagnan, “it is the queen’s diamond.”

“The stronger reason why it should be sold,” replied Athos. “The queen
saving Monsieur de Buckingham, her lover; nothing more just. The queen
saving us, her friends; nothing more moral. Let us sell the diamond.
What says Monsieur the Abbé? I don’t ask Porthos; his opinion has been
given.”

“Why, I think,” said Aramis, blushing as usual, “that his ring not
coming from a mistress, and consequently not being a love token,
D’Artagnan may sell it.”

“My dear Aramis, you speak like theology personified. Your advice,
then, is—”

“To sell the diamond,” replied Aramis.

“Well, then,” said D’Artagnan, gaily, “let us sell the diamond, and say
no more about it.”

The fusillade continued; but the four friends were out of reach, and
the Rochellais only fired to appease their consciences.

“My faith, it was time that idea came into Porthos’s head. Here we are
at the camp; therefore, gentlemen, not a word more of this affair. We
are observed; they are coming to meet us. We shall be carried in
triumph.”

In fact, as we have said, the whole camp was in motion. More than two
thousand persons had assisted, as at a spectacle, in this fortunate but
wild undertaking of the four friends—an undertaking of which they were
far from suspecting the real motive. Nothing was heard but cries of
“Live the Musketeers! Live the Guards!” M. de Busigny was the first to
come and shake Athos by the hand, and acknowledge that the wager was
lost. The dragoon and the Swiss followed him, and all their comrades
followed the dragoon and the Swiss. There was nothing but
felicitations, pressures of the hand, and embraces; there was no end to
the inextinguishable laughter at the Rochellais. The tumult at length
became so great that the cardinal fancied there must be some riot, and
sent La Houdinière, his captain of the Guards, to inquire what was
going on.

The affair was described to the messenger with all the effervescence of
enthusiasm.

“Well?” asked the cardinal, on seeing La Houdinière return.

“Well, monseigneur,” replied the latter, “three Musketeers and a
Guardsman laid a wager with Monsieur de Busigny that they would go and
breakfast in the bastion St. Gervais; and while breakfasting they held
it for two hours against the enemy, and have killed I don’t know how
many Rochellais.”

“Did you inquire the names of those three Musketeers?”

“Yes, monseigneur.”

“What are their names?”

“Messieurs Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.”

“Still my three brave fellows!” murmured the cardinal. “And the
Guardsman?”

“D’Artagnan.”

“Still my young scapegrace. Positively, these four men must be on my
side.”

The same evening the cardinal spoke to M. de Tréville of the exploit of
the morning, which was the talk of the whole camp. M. de Tréville, who
had received the account of the adventure from the mouths of the heroes
of it, related it in all its details to his Eminence, not forgetting
the episode of the napkin.

“That’s well, Monsieur de Tréville,” said the cardinal; “pray let that
napkin be sent to me. I will have three _fleur-de-lis_ embroidered on
it in gold, and will give it to your company as a standard.”

“Monseigneur,” said M. de Tréville, “that will be unjust to the
Guardsmen. Monsieur d’Artagnan is not with me; he serves under Monsieur
Dessessart.”

“Well, then, take him,” said the cardinal; “when four men are so much
attached to one another, it is only fair that they should serve in the
same company.”

That same evening M. de Tréville announced this good news to the three
Musketeers and D’Artagnan, inviting all four to breakfast with him next
morning.

D’Artagnan was beside himself with joy. We know that the dream of his
life had been to become a Musketeer. The three friends were likewise
greatly delighted.

“My faith,” said D’Artagnan to Athos, “you had a triumphant idea! As
you said, we have acquired glory, and were enabled to carry on a
conversation of the highest importance.”

“Which we can resume now without anybody suspecting us, for, with the
help of God, we shall henceforth pass for cardinalists.”

That evening D’Artagnan went to present his respects to M. Dessessart,
and inform him of his promotion.

M. Dessessart, who esteemed D’Artagnan, made him offers of help, as
this change would entail expenses for equipment.

D’Artagnan refused; but thinking the opportunity a good one, he begged
him to have the diamond he put into his hand valued, as he wished to
turn it into money.

The next day, M. Dessessart’s valet came to D’Artagnan’s lodging, and
gave him a bag containing seven thousand livres.

This was the price of the queen’s diamond.




Chapter XLVIII.
A FAMILY AFFAIR


Athos had invented the phrase, family affair. A family affair was not
subject to the investigation of the cardinal; a family affair concerned
nobody. People might employ themselves in a family affair before all
the world. Therefore Athos had invented the phrase, _family affair_.

Aramis had discovered the idea, _the lackeys_.

Porthos had discovered the means, _the diamond_.

D’Artagnan alone had discovered nothing—he, ordinarily the most
inventive of the four; but it must be also said that the very name of
Milady paralyzed him.

Ah! no, we were mistaken; he had discovered a purchaser for his
diamond.

The breakfast at M. de Tréville’s was as gay and cheerful as possible.
D’Artagnan already wore his uniform—for being nearly of the same size
as Aramis, and as Aramis was so liberally paid by the publisher who
purchased his poem as to allow him to buy everything double, he sold
his friend a complete outfit.

D’Artagnan would have been at the height of his wishes if he had not
constantly seen Milady like a dark cloud hovering in the horizon.

After breakfast, it was agreed that they should meet again in the
evening at Athos’s lodging, and there finish their plans.

D’Artagnan passed the day in exhibiting his Musketeer’s uniform in
every street of the camp.

In the evening, at the appointed hour, the four friends met. There only
remained three things to decide—what they should write to Milady’s
brother; what they should write to the clever person at Tours; and
which should be the lackeys to carry the letters.

Everyone offered his own. Athos talked of the discretion of Grimaud,
who never spoke a word but when his master unlocked his mouth. Porthos
boasted of the strength of Mousqueton, who was big enough to thrash
four men of ordinary size. Aramis, confiding in the address of Bazin,
made a pompous eulogium on his candidate. Finally, D’Artagnan had
entire faith in the bravery of Planchet, and reminded them of the
manner in which he had conducted himself in the ticklish affair of
Boulogne.

These four virtues disputed the prize for a length of time, and gave
birth to magnificent speeches which we do not repeat here for fear they
should be deemed too long.

“Unfortunately,” said Athos, “he whom we send must possess in himself
alone the four qualities united.”

“But where is such a lackey to be found?”

“Not to be found!” cried Athos. “I know it well, so take Grimaud.”

“Take Mousqueton.”

“Take Bazin.”

“Take Planchet. Planchet is brave and shrewd; they are two qualities
out of the four.”

“Gentlemen,” said Aramis, “the principal question is not to know which
of our four lackeys is the most discreet, the most strong, the most
clever, or the most brave; the principal thing is to know which loves
money the best.”

“What Aramis says is very sensible,” replied Athos; “we must speculate
upon the faults of people, and not upon their virtues. Monsieur Abbé,
you are a great moralist.”

“Doubtless,” said Aramis, “for we not only require to be well served in
order to succeed, but moreover, not to fail; for in case of failure,
heads are in question, not for our lackeys—”

“Speak lower, Aramis,” said Athos.

“That’s wise—not for the lackeys,” resumed Aramis, “but for the
master—for the _masters_, we may say. Are our lackeys sufficiently
devoted to us to risk their lives for us? No.”

“My faith,” said D’Artagnan. “I would almost answer for Planchet.”

“Well, my dear friend, add to his natural devotedness a good sum of
money, and then, instead of answering for him once, answer for him
twice.”

“Why, good God! you will be deceived just the same,” said Athos, who
was an optimist when things were concerned, and a pessimist when men
were in question. “They will promise everything for the sake of the
money, and on the road fear will prevent them from acting. Once taken,
they will be pressed; when pressed, they will confess everything. What
the devil! we are not children. To reach England”—Athos lowered his
voice—“all France, covered with spies and creatures of the cardinal,
must be crossed. A passport for embarkation must be obtained; and the
party must be acquainted with English in order to ask the way to
London. Really, I think the thing very difficult.”

“Not at all,” cried D’Artagnan, who was anxious the matter should be
accomplished; “on the contrary, I think it very easy. It would be, no
doubt, _parbleu_, if we write to Lord de Winter about affairs of vast
importance, of the horrors of the cardinal—”

“Speak lower!” said Athos.

“—of intrigues and secrets of state,” continued D’Artagnan, complying
with the recommendation. “There can be no doubt we would all be broken
on the wheel; but for God’s sake, do not forget, as you yourself said,
Athos, that we only write to him concerning a family affair; that we
only write to him to entreat that as soon as Milady arrives in London
he will put it out of her power to injure us. I will write to him,
then, nearly in these terms.”

“Let us see,” said Athos, assuming in advance a critical look.

“_Monsieur and dear friend_—”

“Ah, yes! _Dear friend_ to an Englishman,” interrupted Athos; “well
commenced! Bravo, D’Artagnan! Only with that word you would be
quartered instead of being broken on the wheel.”

“Well, perhaps. I will say, then, _Monsieur_, quite short.”

“You may even say, _My Lord_,” replied Athos, who stickled for
propriety.

“_My Lord, do you remember the little goat pasture of the Luxembourg?_”

“Good, _the Luxembourg!_ One might believe this is an allusion to the
queen-mother! That’s ingenious,” said Athos.

“Well, then, we will put simply, _My Lord, do you remember a certain
little enclosure where your life was spared?_”

“My dear D’Artagnan, you will never make anything but a very bad
secretary. _Where your life was spared!_ For shame! that’s unworthy. A
man of spirit is not to be reminded of such services. A benefit
reproached is an offense committed.”

“The devil!” said D’Artagnan, “you are insupportable. If the letter
must be written under your censure, my faith, I renounce the task.”

“And you will do right. Handle the musket and the sword, my dear
fellow. You will come off splendidly at those two exercises; but pass
the pen over to Monsieur Abbé. That’s his province.”

“Ay, ay!” said Porthos; “pass the pen to Aramis, who writes theses in
Latin.”

“Well, so be it,” said D’Artagnan. “Draw up this note for us, Aramis;
but by our Holy Father the Pope, cut it short, for I shall prune you in
my turn, I warn you.”

“I ask no better,” said Aramis, with that ingenious air of confidence
which every poet has in himself; “but let me be properly acquainted
with the subject. I have heard here and there that this sister-in-law
was a hussy. I have obtained proof of it by listening to her
conversation with the cardinal.”

“Lower! _sacré bleu!_” said Athos.

“But,” continued Aramis, “the details escape me.”

“And me also,” said Porthos.

D’Artagnan and Athos looked at each other for some time in silence. At
length Athos, after serious reflection and becoming more pale than
usual, made a sign of assent to D’Artagnan, who by it understood he was
at liberty to speak.

“Well, this is what you have to say,” said D’Artagnan: “_My Lord, your
sister-in-law is an infamous woman, who wished to have you killed that
she might inherit your wealth; but she could not marry your brother,
being already married in France, and having been_—” D’Artagnan stopped,
as if seeking for the word, and looked at Athos.

“Repudiated by her husband,” said Athos.

“Because she had been branded,” continued D’Artagnan.

“Bah!” cried Porthos. “Impossible! What do you say—that she wanted to
have her brother-in-law killed?”

“Yes.”

“She was married?” asked Aramis.

“Yes.”

“And her husband found out that she had a _fleur-de-lis_ on her
shoulder?” cried Porthos.

“Yes.”

These three _yeses_ had been pronounced by Athos, each with a sadder
intonation.

“And who has seen this _fleur-de-lis?_” inquired Aramis.

“D’Artagnan and I. Or rather, to observe the chronological order, I and
D’Artagnan,” replied Athos.

“And does the husband of this frightful creature still live?” said
Aramis.

“He still lives.”

“Are you quite sure of it?”

“I am he.”

There was a moment of cold silence, during which everyone was affected
according to his nature.

“This time,” said Athos, first breaking the silence, “D’Artagnan has
given us an excellent program, and the letter must be written at once.”

“The devil! You are right, Athos,” said Aramis; “and it is a rather
difficult matter. The chancellor himself would be puzzled how to write
such a letter, and yet the chancellor draws up an official report very
readily. Never mind! Be silent, I will write.”

Aramis accordingly took the quill, reflected for a few moments, wrote
eight or ten lines in a charming little female hand, and then with a
voice soft and slow, as if each word had been scrupulously weighed, he
read the following:

“My Lord, The person who writes these few lines had the honor of
crossing swords with you in the little enclosure of the Rue d’Enfer. As
you have several times since declared yourself the friend of that
person, he thinks it his duty to respond to that friendship by sending
you important information. Twice you have nearly been the victim of a
near relative, whom you believe to be your heir because you are
ignorant that before she contracted a marriage in England she was
already married in France. But the third time, which is the present,
you may succumb. Your relative left La Rochelle for England during the
night. Watch her arrival, for she has great and terrible projects. If
you require to know positively what she is capable of, read her past
history on her left shoulder.”


“Well, now that will do wonderfully well,” said Athos. “My dear Aramis,
you have the pen of a secretary of state. Lord de Winter will now be
upon his guard if the letter should reach him; and even if it should
fall into the hands of the cardinal, we shall not be compromised. But
as the lackey who goes may make us believe he has been to London and
may stop at Châtellerault, let us give him only half the sum promised
him, with the letter, with an agreement that he shall have the other
half in exchange for the reply. Have you the diamond?” continued Athos.

“I have what is still better. I have the price;” and D’Artagnan threw
the bag upon the table. At the sound of the gold Aramis raised his eyes
and Porthos started. As to Athos, he remained unmoved.

“How much in that little bag?”

“Seven thousand livres, in louis of twelve francs.”

“Seven thousand livres!” cried Porthos. “That poor little diamond was
worth seven thousand livres?”

“It appears so,” said Athos, “since here they are. I don’t suppose that
our friend D’Artagnan has added any of his own to the amount.”

“But, gentlemen, in all this,” said D’Artagnan, “we do not think of the
queen. Let us take some heed of the welfare of her dear Buckingham.
That is the least we owe her.”

“That’s true,” said Athos; “but that concerns Aramis.”

“Well,” replied the latter, blushing, “what must I say?”

“Oh, that’s simple enough!” replied Athos. “Write a second letter for
that clever personage who lives at Tours.”

Aramis resumed his pen, reflected a little, and wrote the following
lines, which he immediately submitted to the approbation of his
friends.

“_My dear cousin_.”

“Ah, ah!” said Athos. “This clever person is your relative, then?”

“Cousin-german.”

“Go on, to your cousin, then!”

Aramis continued:

“MY DEAR COUSIN, His Eminence, the cardinal, whom God preserve for the
happiness of France and the confusion of the enemies of the kingdom, is
on the point of putting an end to the hectic rebellion of La Rochelle.
It is probable that the succor of the English fleet will never even
arrive in sight of the place. I will even venture to say that I am
certain M. de Buckingham will be prevented from setting out by some
great event. His Eminence is the most illustrious politician of times
past, of times present, and probably of times to come. He would
extinguish the sun if the sun incommoded him. Give these happy tidings
to your sister, my dear cousin. I have dreamed that the unlucky
Englishman was dead. I cannot recollect whether it was by steel or by
poison; only of this I am sure, I have dreamed he was dead, and you
know my dreams never deceive me. Be assured, then, of seeing me soon
return.”


“Capital!” cried Athos; “you are the king of poets, my dear Aramis. You
speak like the Apocalypse, and you are as true as the Gospel. There is
nothing now to do but to put the address to this letter.”

“That is easily done,” said Aramis.

He folded the letter fancifully, and took up his pen and wrote:

“_To Mlle. Michon, seamstress, Tours_.”


The three friends looked at one another and laughed; they were caught.

“Now,” said Aramis, “you will please to understand, gentlemen, that
Bazin alone can carry this letter to Tours. My cousin knows nobody but
Bazin, and places confidence in nobody but him; any other person would
fail. Besides, Bazin is ambitious and learned; Bazin has read history,
gentlemen, he knows that Sixtus the Fifth became Pope after having kept
pigs. Well, as he means to enter the Church at the same time as myself,
he does not despair of becoming Pope in his turn, or at least a
cardinal. You can understand that a man who has such views will never
allow himself to be taken, or if taken, will undergo martyrdom rather
than speak.”

“Very well,” said D’Artagnan, “I consent to Bazin with all my heart,
but grant me Planchet. Milady had him one day turned out of doors, with
sundry blows of a good stick to accelerate his motions. Now, Planchet
has an excellent memory; and I will be bound that sooner than
relinquish any possible means of vengeance, he will allow himself to be
beaten to death. If your arrangements at Tours are your arrangements,
Aramis, those of London are mine. I request, then, that Planchet may be
chosen, more particularly as he has already been to London with me, and
knows how to speak correctly: _London, sir, if you please, and my
master, Lord D’Artagnan_. With that you may be satisfied he can make
his way, both going and returning.”

“In that case,” said Athos, “Planchet must receive seven hundred livres
for going, and seven hundred livres for coming back; and Bazin, three
hundred livres for going, and three hundred livres for returning—that
will reduce the sum to five thousand livres. We will each take a
thousand livres to be employed as seems good, and we will leave a fund
of a thousand livres under the guardianship of Monsieur Abbé here, for
extraordinary occasions or common wants. Will that do?”

“My dear Athos,” said Aramis, “you speak like Nestor, who was, as
everyone knows, the wisest among the Greeks.”

“Well, then,” said Athos, “it is agreed. Planchet and Bazin shall go.
Everything considered, I am not sorry to retain Grimaud; he is
accustomed to my ways, and I am particular. Yesterday’s affair must
have shaken him a little; his voyage would upset him quite.”

Planchet was sent for, and instructions were given him. The matter had
been named to him by D’Artagnan, who in the first place pointed out the
money to him, then the glory, and then the danger.

“I will carry the letter in the lining of my coat,” said Planchet; “and
if I am taken I will swallow it.”

“Well, but then you will not be able to fulfill your commission,” said
D’Artagnan.

“You will give me a copy this evening, which I shall know by heart
tomorrow.”

D’Artagnan looked at his friends, as if to say, “Well, what did I tell
you?”

“Now,” continued he, addressing Planchet, “you have eight days to get
an interview with Lord de Winter; you have eight days to return—in all
sixteen days. If, on the sixteenth day after your departure, at eight
o’clock in the evening you are not here, no money—even if it be but
five minutes past eight.”

“Then, monsieur,” said Planchet, “you must buy me a watch.”

“Take this,” said Athos, with his usual careless generosity, giving him
his own, “and be a good lad. Remember, if you talk, if you babble, if
you get drunk, you risk your master’s head, who has so much confidence
in your fidelity, and who answers for you. But remember, also, that if
by your fault any evil happens to D’Artagnan, I will find you, wherever
you may be, for the purpose of ripping up your belly.”

“Oh, monsieur!” said Planchet, humiliated by the suspicion, and
moreover, terrified at the calm air of the Musketeer.

“And I,” said Porthos, rolling his large eyes, “remember, I will skin
you alive.”

“Ah, monsieur!”

“And I,” said Aramis, with his soft, melodius voice, “remember that I
will roast you at a slow fire, like a savage.”

“Ah, monsieur!”

Planchet began to weep. We will not venture to say whether it was from
terror created by the threats or from tenderness at seeing four friends
so closely united.

D’Artagnan took his hand. “See, Planchet,” said he, “these gentlemen
only say this out of affection for me, but at bottom they all like
you.”

“Ah, monsieur,” said Planchet, “I will succeed or I will consent to be
cut in quarters; and if they do cut me in quarters, be assured that not
a morsel of me will speak.”

It was decided that Planchet should set out the next day, at eight
o’clock in the morning, in order, as he had said, that he might during
the night learn the letter by heart. He gained just twelve hours by
this engagement; he was to be back on the sixteenth day, by eight
o’clock in the evening.

In the morning, as he was mounting his horse, D’Artagnan, who felt at
the bottom of his heart a partiality for the duke, took Planchet aside.

“Listen,” said he to him. “When you have given the letter to Lord de
Winter and he has read it, you will further say to him: _Watch over his
Grace Lord Buckingham, for they wish to assassinate him_. But this,
Planchet, is so serious and important that I have not informed my
friends that I would entrust this secret to you; and for a captain’s
commission I would not write it.”

“Be satisfied, monsieur,” said Planchet, “you shall see if confidence
can be placed in me.”

Mounted on an excellent horse, which he was to leave at the end of
twenty leagues in order to take the post, Planchet set off at a gallop,
his spirits a little depressed by the triple promise made him by the
Musketeers, but otherwise as light-hearted as possible.

Bazin set out the next day for Tours, and was allowed eight days for
performing his commission.

The four friends, during the period of these two absences, had, as may
well be supposed, the eye on the watch, the nose to the wind, and the
ear on the hark. Their days were passed in endeavoring to catch all
that was said, in observing the proceeding of the cardinal, and in
looking out for all the couriers who arrived. More than once an
involuntary trembling seized them when called upon for some unexpected
service. They had, besides, to look constantly to their own proper
safety; Milady was a phantom which, when it had once appeared to
people, did not allow them to sleep very quietly.

On the morning of the eighth day, Bazin, fresh as ever, and smiling,
according to custom, entered the cabaret of the Parpaillot as the four
friends were sitting down to breakfast, saying, as had been agreed
upon: “Monsieur Aramis, the answer from your cousin.”

The four friends exchanged a joyful glance; half of the work was done.
It is true, however, that it was the shorter and easier part.

Aramis, blushing in spite of himself, took the letter, which was in a
large, coarse hand and not particular for its orthography.

“Good God!” cried he, laughing, “I quite despair of my poor Michon; she
will never write like Monsieur de Voiture.”

“What does you mean by boor Michon?” said the Swiss, who was chatting
with the four friends when the letter came.

“Oh, _pardieu_, less than nothing,” said Aramis; “a charming little
seamstress, whom I love dearly and from whose hand I requested a few
lines as a sort of keepsake.”

“The duvil!” said the Swiss, “if she is as great a lady as her writing
is large, you are a lucky fellow, gomrade!”

Aramis read the letter, and passed it to Athos.

“See what she writes to me, Athos,” said he.

Athos cast a glance over the epistle, and to disperse all the
suspicions that might have been created, read aloud:

“MY COUSIN, My sister and I are skillful in interpreting dreams, and
even entertain great fear of them; but of yours it may be said, I hope,
every dream is an illusion. Adieu! Take care of yourself, and act so
that we may from time to time hear you spoken of.


“MARIE MICHON”


“And what dream does she mean?” asked the dragoon, who had approached
during the reading.

“Yez; what’s the dream?” said the Swiss.

“Well, _pardieu!_” said Aramis, “it was only this: I had a dream, and I
related it to her.”

“Yez, yez,” said the Swiss; “it’s simple enough to dell a dream, but I
neffer dream.”

“You are very fortunate,” said Athos, rising; “I wish I could say as
much!”

“Neffer,” replied the Swiss, enchanted that a man like Athos could envy
him anything. “Neffer, neffer!”

D’Artagnan, seeing Athos rise, did likewise, took his arm, and went
out.

Porthos and Aramis remained behind to encounter the jokes of the
dragoon and the Swiss.

As to Bazin, he went and lay down on a truss of straw; and as he had
more imagination than the Swiss, he dreamed that Aramis, having become
pope, adorned his head with a cardinal’s hat.

But, as we have said, Bazin had not, by his fortunate return, removed
more than a part of the uneasiness which weighed upon the four friends.
The days of expectation are long, and D’Artagnan, in particular, would
have wagered that the days were forty-four hours. He forgot the
necessary slowness of navigation; he exaggerated to himself the power
of Milady. He credited this woman, who appeared to him the equal of a
demon, with agents as supernatural as herself; at the least noise, he
imagined himself about to be arrested, and that Planchet was being
brought back to be confronted with himself and his friends. Still
further, his confidence in the worthy Picard, at one time so great,
diminished day by day. This anxiety became so great that it even
extended to Aramis and Porthos. Athos alone remained unmoved, as if no
danger hovered over him, and as if he breathed his customary
atmosphere.

On the sixteenth day, in particular, these signs were so strong in
D’Artagnan and his two friends that they could not remain quiet in one
place, and wandered about like ghosts on the road by which Planchet was
expected.

“Really,” said Athos to them, “you are not men but children, to let a
woman terrify you so! And what does it amount to, after all? To be
imprisoned. Well, but we should be taken out of prison; Madame
Bonacieux was released. To be decapitated? Why, every day in the
trenches we go cheerfully to expose ourselves to worse than that—for a
bullet may break a leg, and I am convinced a surgeon would give us more
pain in cutting off a thigh than an executioner in cutting off a head.
Wait quietly, then; in two hours, in four, in six hours at latest,
Planchet will be here. He promised to be here, and I have very great
faith in Planchet, who appears to me to be a very good lad.”

“But if he does not come?” said D’Artagnan.

“Well, if he does not come, it will be because he has been delayed,
that’s all. He may have fallen from his horse, he may have cut a caper
from the deck; he may have traveled so fast against the wind as to have
brought on a violent catarrh. Eh, gentlemen, let us reckon upon
accidents! Life is a chaplet of little miseries which the philosopher
counts with a smile. Be philosophers, as I am, gentlemen; sit down at
the table and let us drink. Nothing makes the future look so bright as
surveying it through a glass of chambertin.”

“That’s all very well,” replied D’Artagnan; “but I am tired of fearing
when I open a fresh bottle that the wine may come from the cellar of
Milady.”

“You are very fastidious,” said Athos; “such a beautiful woman!”

“A woman of mark!” said Porthos, with his loud laugh.

Athos started, passed his hand over his brow to remove the drops of
perspiration that burst forth, and rose in his turn with a nervous
movement he could not repress.

The day, however, passed away; and the evening came on slowly, but
finally it came. The bars were filled with drinkers. Athos, who had
pocketed his share of the diamond, seldom quit the Parpaillot. He had
found in M. de Busigny, who, by the by, had given them a magnificent
dinner, a partner worthy of his company. They were playing together, as
usual, when seven o’clock sounded; the patrol was heard passing to
double the posts. At half past seven the retreat was sounded.

“We are lost,” said D’Artagnan, in the ear of Athos.

“You mean to say we _have lost_,” said Athos, quietly, drawing four
pistoles from his pocket and throwing them upon the table. “Come,
gentlemen,” said he, “they are beating the tattoo. Let us to bed!”

And Athos went out of the Parpaillot, followed by D’Artagnan. Aramis
came behind, giving his arm to Porthos. Aramis mumbled verses to
himself, and Porthos from time to time pulled a hair or two from his
mustache, in sign of despair.

But all at once a shadow appeared in the darkness the outline of which
was familiar to D’Artagnan, and a well-known voice said, “Monsieur, I
have brought your cloak; it is chilly this evening.”

“Planchet!” cried D’Artagnan, beside himself with joy.

“Planchet!” repeated Aramis and Porthos.

“Well, yes, Planchet, to be sure,” said Athos, “what is there so
astonishing in that? He promised to be back by eight o’clock, and eight
is striking. Bravo, Planchet, you are a lad of your word, and if ever
you leave your master, I will promise you a place in my service.”

“Oh, no, never,” said Planchet, “I will never leave Monsieur
d’Artagnan.”

At the same time D’Artagnan felt that Planchet slipped a note into his
hand.

D’Artagnan felt a strong inclination to embrace Planchet as he had
embraced him on his departure; but he feared lest this mark of
affection, bestowed upon his lackey in the open street, might appear
extraordinary to passers-by, and he restrained himself.

“I have the note,” said he to Athos and to his friends.

“That’s well,” said Athos, “let us go home and read it.”

The note burned the hand of D’Artagnan. He wished to hasten their
steps; but Athos took his arm and passed it under his own, and the
young man was forced to regulate his pace by that of his friend.

At length they reached the tent, lit a lamp, and while Planchet stood
at the entrance that the four friends might not be surprised,
D’Artagnan, with a trembling hand, broke the seal and opened the so
anxiously expected letter.

It contained half a line, in a hand perfectly British, and with a
conciseness as perfectly Spartan:

_Thank you; be easy_.


D’Artagnan translated this for the others.

Athos took the letter from the hands of D’Artagnan, approached the
lamp, set fire to the paper, and did not let go till it was reduced to
a cinder.

Then, calling Planchet, he said, “Now, my lad, you may claim your seven
hundred livres, but you did not run much risk with such a note as
that.”

“I am not to blame for having tried every means to compress it,” said
Planchet.

“Well!” cried D’Artagnan, “tell us all about it.”

“_Dame_, that’s a long job, monsieur.”

“You are right, Planchet,” said Athos; “besides, the tattoo has been
sounded, and we should be observed if we kept a light burning much
longer than the others.”

“So be it,” said D’Artagnan. “Go to bed, Planchet, and sleep soundly.”

“My faith, monsieur! that will be the first time I have done so for
sixteen days.”

“And me, too!” said D’Artagnan.

“And me, too!” said Porthos.

“And me, too!” said Aramis.

“Well, if you will have the truth, and me, too!” said Athos.




Chapter XLIX.
FATALITY


Meantime Milady, drunk with passion, roaring on the deck like a lioness
that has been embarked, had been tempted to throw herself into the sea
that she might regain the coast, for she could not get rid of the
thought that she had been insulted by D’Artagnan, threatened by Athos,
and that she had quit France without being revenged on them. This idea
soon became so insupportable to her that at the risk of whatever
terrible consequences might result to herself from it, she implored the
captain to put her on shore; but the captain, eager to escape from his
false position—placed between French and English cruisers, like the bat
between the mice and the birds—was in great haste to regain England,
and positively refused to obey what he took for a woman’s caprice,
promising his passenger, who had been particularly recommended to him
by the cardinal, to land her, if the sea and the French permitted him,
at one of the ports of Brittany, either at Lorient or Brest. But the
wind was contrary, the sea bad; they tacked and kept offshore. Nine
days after leaving the Charente, pale with fatigue and vexation, Milady
saw only the blue coasts of Finisterre appear.

She calculated that to cross this corner of France and return to the
cardinal it would take her at least three days. Add another day for
landing, and that would make four. Add these four to the nine others,
that would be thirteen days lost—thirteen days, during which so many
important events might pass in London. She reflected likewise that the
cardinal would be furious at her return, and consequently would be more
disposed to listen to the complaints brought against her than to the
accusations she brought against others.

She allowed the vessel to pass Lorient and Brest without repeating her
request to the captain, who, on his part, took care not to remind her
of it. Milady therefore continued her voyage, and on the very day that
Planchet embarked at Portsmouth for France, the messenger of his
Eminence entered the port in triumph.

All the city was agitated by an extraordinary movement. Four large
vessels, recently built, had just been launched. At the end of the
jetty, his clothes richly laced with gold, glittering, as was customary
with him, with diamonds and precious stones, his hat ornamented with a
white feather which drooped upon his shoulder, Buckingham was seen
surrounded by a staff almost as brilliant as himself.

It was one of those rare and beautiful days in winter when England
remembers that there is a sun. The star of day, pale but nevertheless
still splendid, was setting in the horizon, glorifying at once the
heavens and the sea with bands of fire, and casting upon the towers and
the old houses of the city a last ray of gold which made the windows
sparkle like the reflection of a conflagration. Breathing that sea
breeze, so much more invigorating and balsamic as the land is
approached, contemplating all the power of those preparations she was
commissioned to destroy, all the power of that army which she was to
combat alone—she, a woman with a few bags of gold—Milady compared
herself mentally to Judith, the terrible Jewess, when she penetrated
the camp of the Assyrians and beheld the enormous mass of chariots,
horses, men, and arms, which a gesture of her hand was to dissipate
like a cloud of smoke.

They entered the roadstead; but as they drew near in order to cast
anchor, a little cutter, looking like a coastguard formidably armed,
approached the merchant vessel and dropped into the sea a boat which
directed its course to the ladder. This boat contained an officer, a
mate, and eight rowers. The officer alone went on board, where he was
received with all the deference inspired by the uniform.

The officer conversed a few instants with the captain, gave him several
papers, of which he was the bearer, to read, and upon the order of the
merchant captain the whole crew of the vessel, both passengers and
sailors, were called upon deck.

When this species of summons was made the officer inquired aloud the
point of the brig’s departure, its route, its landings; and to all
these questions the captain replied without difficulty and without
hesitation. Then the officer began to pass in review all the people,
one after the other, and stopping when he came to Milady, surveyed her
very closely, but without addressing a single word to her.

He then returned to the captain, said a few words to him, and as if
from that moment the vessel was under his command, he ordered a
maneuver which the crew executed immediately. Then the vessel resumed
its course, still escorted by the little cutter, which sailed side by
side with it, menacing it with the mouths of its six cannon. The boat
followed in the wake of the ship, a speck near the enormous mass.

During the examination of Milady by the officer, as may well be
imagined, Milady on her part was not less scrutinizing in her glances.
But however great was the power of this woman with eyes of flame in
reading the hearts of those whose secrets she wished to divine, she met
this time with a countenance of such impassivity that no discovery
followed her investigation. The officer who had stopped in front of her
and studied her with so much care might have been twenty-five or
twenty-six years of age. He was of pale complexion, with clear blue
eyes, rather deeply set; his mouth, fine and well cut, remained
motionless in its correct lines; his chin, strongly marked, denoted
that strength of will which in the ordinary Britannic type denotes
mostly nothing but obstinacy; a brow a little receding, as is proper
for poets, enthusiasts, and soldiers, was scarcely shaded by short thin
hair which, like the beard which covered the lower part of his face,
was of a beautiful deep chestnut color.

When they entered the port, it was already night. The fog increased the
darkness, and formed round the sternlights and lanterns of the jetty a
circle like that which surrounds the moon when the weather threatens to
become rainy. The air they breathed was heavy, damp, and cold.

Milady, that woman so courageous and firm, shivered in spite of
herself.

The officer desired to have Milady’s packages pointed out to him, and
ordered them to be placed in the boat. When this operation was
complete, he invited her to descend by offering her his hand.

Milady looked at this man, and hesitated. “Who are you, sir,” asked
she, “who has the kindness to trouble yourself so particularly on my
account?”

“You may perceive, madame, by my uniform, that I am an officer in the
English navy,” replied the young man.

“But is it the custom for the officers in the English navy to place
themselves at the service of their female compatriots when they land in
a port of Great Britain, and carry their gallantry so far as to conduct
them ashore?”

“Yes, madame, it is the custom, not from gallantry but prudence, that
in time of war foreigners should be conducted to particular hôtels, in
order that they may remain under the eye of the government until full
information can be obtained about them.”

These words were pronounced with the most exact politeness and the most
perfect calmness. Nevertheless, they had not the power of convincing
Milady.

“But I am not a foreigner, sir,” said she, with an accent as pure as
ever was heard between Portsmouth and Manchester; “my name is Lady
Clarik, and this measure—”

“This measure is general, madame; and you will seek in vain to evade
it.”

“I will follow you, then, sir.”

Accepting the hand of the officer, she began the descent of the ladder,
at the foot of which the boat waited. The officer followed her. A large
cloak was spread at the stern; the officer requested her to sit down
upon this cloak, and placed himself beside her.

“Row!” said he to the sailors.

The eight oars fell at once into the sea, making but a single sound,
giving but a single stroke, and the boat seemed to fly over the surface
of the water.

In five minutes they gained the land.

The officer leaped to the pier, and offered his hand to Milady. A
carriage was in waiting.

“Is this carriage for us?” asked Milady.

“Yes, madame,” replied the officer.

“The hôtel, then, is far away?”

“At the other end of the town.”

“Very well,” said Milady; and she resolutely entered the carriage.

The officer saw that the baggage was fastened carefully behind the
carriage; and this operation ended, he took his place beside Milady,
and shut the door.

Immediately, without any order being given or his place of destination
indicated, the coachman set off at a rapid pace, and plunged into the
streets of the city.

So strange a reception naturally gave Milady ample matter for
reflection; so seeing that the young officer did not seem at all
disposed for conversation, she reclined in her corner of the carriage,
and one after the other passed in review all the surmises which
presented themselves to her mind.

At the end of a quarter of an hour, however, surprised at the length of
the journey, she leaned forward toward the door to see whither she was
being conducted. Houses were no longer to be seen; trees appeared in
the darkness like great black phantoms chasing one another. Milady
shuddered.

“But we are no longer in the city, sir,” said she.

The young officer preserved silence.

“I beg you to understand, sir, I will go no farther unless you tell me
whither you are taking me.”

This threat brought no reply.

“Oh, this is too much,” cried Milady. “Help! help!”

No voice replied to hers; the carriage continued to roll on with
rapidity; the officer seemed a statue.

Milady looked at the officer with one of those terrible expressions
peculiar to her countenance, and which so rarely failed of their
effect; anger made her eyes flash in the darkness.

The young man remained immovable.

Milady tried to open the door in order to throw herself out.

“Take care, madame,” said the young man, coolly, “you will kill
yourself in jumping.”

Milady reseated herself, foaming. The officer leaned forward, looked at
her in his turn, and appeared surprised to see that face, just before
so beautiful, distorted with passion and almost hideous. The artful
creature at once comprehended that she was injuring herself by allowing
him thus to read her soul; she collected her features, and in a
complaining voice said: “In the name of heaven, sir, tell me if it is
to you, if it is to your government, if it is to an enemy I am to
attribute the violence that is done me?”

“No violence will be offered to you, madame, and what happens to you is
the result of a very simple measure which we are obliged to adopt with
all who land in England.”

“Then you don’t know me, sir?”

“It is the first time I have had the honor of seeing you.”

“And on your honor, you have no cause of hatred against me?”

“None, I swear to you.”

There was so much serenity, coolness, mildness even, in the voice of
the young man, that Milady felt reassured.

At length after a journey of nearly an hour, the carriage stopped
before an iron gate, which closed an avenue leading to a castle severe
in form, massive, and isolated. Then, as the wheels rolled over a fine
gravel, Milady could hear a vast roaring, which she at once recognized
as the noise of the sea dashing against some steep cliff.

The carriage passed under two arched gateways, and at length stopped in
a court large, dark, and square. Almost immediately the door of the
carriage was opened, the young man sprang lightly out and presented his
hand to Milady, who leaned upon it, and in her turn alighted with
tolerable calmness.

“Still, then, I am a prisoner,” said Milady, looking around her, and
bringing back her eyes with a most gracious smile to the young officer;
“but I feel assured it will not be for long,” added she. “My own
conscience and your politeness, sir, are the guarantees of that.”

However flattering this compliment, the officer made no reply; but
drawing from his belt a little silver whistle, such as boatswains use
in ships of war, he whistled three times, with three different
modulations. Immediately several men appeared, who unharnessed the
smoking horses, and put the carriage into a coach house.

Then the officer, with the same calm politeness, invited his prisoner
to enter the house. She, with a still-smiling countenance, took his
arm, and passed with him under a low arched door, which by a vaulted
passage, lighted only at the farther end, led to a stone staircase
around an angle of stone. They then came to a massive door, which after
the introduction into the lock of a key which the young man carried
with him, turned heavily upon its hinges, and disclosed the chamber
destined for Milady.

With a single glance the prisoner took in the apartment in its minutest
details. It was a chamber whose furniture was at once appropriate for a
prisoner or a free man; and yet bars at the windows and outside bolts
at the door decided the question in favor of the prison.

In an instant all the strength of mind of this creature, though drawn
from the most vigorous sources, abandoned her; she sank into a large
easy chair, with her arms crossed, her head lowered, and expecting
every instant to see a judge enter to interrogate her.

But no one entered except two or three marines, who brought her trunks
and packages, deposited them in a corner, and retired without speaking.

The officer superintended all these details with the same calmness
Milady had constantly seen in him, never pronouncing a word himself,
and making himself obeyed by a gesture of his hand or a sound of his
whistle.

It might have been said that between this man and his inferiors spoken
language did not exist, or had become useless.

At length Milady could hold out no longer; she broke the silence. “In
the name of heaven, sir,” cried she, “what means all that is passing?
Put an end to my doubts; I have courage enough for any danger I can
foresee, for every misfortune which I understand. Where am I, and why
am I here? If I am free, why these bars and these doors? If I am a
prisoner, what crime have I committed?”

“You are here in the apartment destined for you, madame. I received
orders to go and take charge of you on the sea, and to conduct you to
this castle. This order I believe I have accomplished with all the
exactness of a soldier, but also with the courtesy of a gentleman.
There terminates, at least to the present moment, the duty I had to
fulfill toward you; the rest concerns another person.”

“And who is that other person?” asked Milady, warmly. “Can you not tell
me his name?”

At the moment a great jingling of spurs was heard on the stairs. Some
voices passed and faded away, and the sound of a single footstep
approached the door.

“That person is here, madame,” said the officer, leaving the entrance
open, and drawing himself up in an attitude of respect.

At the same time the door opened; a man appeared on the threshold. He
was without a hat, carried a sword, and flourished a handkerchief in
his hand.

Milady thought she recognized this shadow in the gloom; she supported
herself with one hand upon the arm of the chair, and advanced her head
as if to meet a certainty.

The stranger advanced slowly, and as he advanced, after entering into
the circle of light projected by the lamp, Milady involuntarily drew
back.

Then when she had no longer any doubt, she cried, in a state of stupor,
“What, my brother, is it you?”

“Yes, fair lady!” replied Lord de Winter, making a bow, half courteous,
half ironical; “it is I, myself.”

“But this castle, then?”

“Is mine.”

“This chamber?”

“Is yours.”

“I am, then, your prisoner?”

“Nearly so.”

“But this is a frightful abuse of power!”

“No high-sounding words! Let us sit down and chat quietly, as brother
and sister ought to do.”

Then, turning toward the door, and seeing that the young officer was
waiting for his last orders, he said. “All is well, I thank you; now
leave us alone, Mr. Felton.”




Chapter L.
CHAT BETWEEN BROTHER AND SISTER


During the time which Lord de Winter took to shut the door, close a
shutter, and draw a chair near to his sister-in-law’s _fauteuil_,
Milady, anxiously thoughtful, plunged her glance into the depths of
possibility, and discovered all the plan, of which she could not even
obtain a glance as long as she was ignorant into whose hands she had
fallen. She knew her brother-in-law to be a worthy gentleman, a bold
hunter, an intrepid player, enterprising with women, but by no means
remarkable for his skill in intrigues. How had he discovered her
arrival, and caused her to be seized? Why did he detain her?

Athos had dropped some words which proved that the conversation she had
with the cardinal had fallen into outside ears; but she could not
suppose that he had dug a countermine so promptly and so boldly. She
rather feared that her preceding operations in England might have been
discovered. Buckingham might have guessed that it was she who had cut
off the two studs, and avenge himself for that little treachery; but
Buckingham was incapable of going to any excess against a woman,
particularly if that woman was supposed to have acted from a feeling of
jealousy.

This supposition appeared to her most reasonable. It seemed to her that
they wanted to revenge the past, and not to anticipate the future. At
all events, she congratulated herself upon having fallen into the hands
of her brother-in-law, with whom she reckoned she could deal very
easily, rather than into the hands of an acknowledged and intelligent
enemy.

“Yes, let us chat, brother,” said she, with a kind of cheerfulness,
decided as she was to draw from the conversation, in spite of all the
dissimulation Lord de Winter could bring, the revelations of which she
stood in need to regulate her future conduct.

“You have, then, decided to come to England again,” said Lord de
Winter, “in spite of the resolutions you so often expressed in Paris
never to set your feet on British ground?”

Milady replied to this question by another question. “To begin with,
tell me,” said she, “how have you watched me so closely as to be aware
beforehand not only of my arrival, but even of the day, the hour, and
the port at which I should arrive?”

Lord de Winter adopted the same tactics as Milady, thinking that as his
sister-in-law employed them they must be the best.

“But tell me, my dear sister,” replied he, “what makes you come to
England?”

“I come to see you,” replied Milady, without knowing how much she
aggravated by this reply the suspicions to which D’Artagnan’s letter
had given birth in the mind of her brother-in-law, and only desiring to
gain the good will of her auditor by a falsehood.

“Ah, to see me?” said de Winter, cunningly.

“To be sure, to see you. What is there astonishing in that?”

“And you had no other object in coming to England but to see me?”

“No.”

“So it was for me alone you have taken the trouble to cross the
Channel?”

“For you alone.”

“The deuce! What tenderness, my sister!”

“But am I not your nearest relative?” demanded Milady, with a tone of
the most touching ingenuousness.

“And my only heir, are you not?” said Lord de Winter in his turn,
fixing his eyes on those of Milady.

Whatever command she had over herself, Milady could not help starting;
and as in pronouncing the last words Lord de Winter placed his hand
upon the arm of his sister, this start did not escape him.

In fact, the blow was direct and severe. The first idea that occurred
to Milady’s mind was that she had been betrayed by Kitty, and that she
had recounted to the baron the selfish aversion toward himself of which
she had imprudently allowed some marks to escape before her servant.
She also recollected the furious and imprudent attack she had made upon
D’Artagnan when he spared the life of her brother.

“I do not understand, my Lord,” said she, in order to gain time and
make her adversary speak out. “What do you mean to say? Is there any
secret meaning concealed beneath your words?”

“Oh, my God, no!” said Lord de Winter, with apparent good nature. “You
wish to see me, and you come to England. I learn this desire, or rather
I suspect that you feel it; and in order to spare you all the
annoyances of a nocturnal arrival in a port and all the fatigues of
landing, I send one of my officers to meet you, I place a carriage at
his orders, and he brings you hither to this castle, of which I am
governor, whither I come every day, and where, in order to satisfy our
mutual desire of seeing each other, I have prepared you a chamber. What
is there more astonishing in all that I have said to you than in what
you have told me?”

“No; what I think astonishing is that you should expect my coming.”

“And yet that is the most simple thing in the world, my dear sister.
Have you not observed that the captain of your little vessel, on
entering the roadstead, sent forward, in order to obtain permission to
enter the port, a little boat bearing his logbook and the register of
his voyagers? I am commandant of the port. They brought me that book. I
recognized your name in it. My heart told me what your mouth has just
confirmed—that is to say, with what view you have exposed yourself to
the dangers of a sea so perilous, or at least so troublesome at this
moment—and I sent my cutter to meet you. You know the rest.”

Milady knew that Lord de Winter lied, and she was the more alarmed.

“My brother,” continued she, “was not that my Lord Buckingham whom I
saw on the jetty this evening as we arrived?”

“Himself. Ah, I can understand how the sight of him struck you,”
replied Lord de Winter. “You came from a country where he must be very
much talked of, and I know that his armaments against France greatly
engage the attention of your friend the cardinal.”

“My friend the cardinal!” cried Milady, seeing that on this point as on
the other Lord de Winter seemed well instructed.

“Is he not your friend?” replied the baron, negligently. “Ah, pardon! I
thought so; but we will return to my Lord Duke presently. Let us not
depart from the sentimental turn our conversation had taken. You came,
you say, to see me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I reply that you shall be served to the height of your wishes,
and that we shall see each other every day.”

“Am I, then, to remain here eternally?” demanded Milady, with a certain
terror.

“Do you find yourself badly lodged, sister? Demand anything you want,
and I will hasten to have you furnished with it.”

“But I have neither my women nor my servants.”

“You shall have all, madame. Tell me on what footing your household was
established by your first husband, and although I am only your
brother-in-law, I will arrange one similar.”

“My first husband!” cried Milady, looking at Lord de Winter with eyes
almost starting from their sockets.

“Yes, your French husband. I don’t speak of my brother. If you have
forgotten, as he is still living, I can write to him and he will send
me information on the subject.”

A cold sweat burst from the brow of Milady.

“You jest!” said she, in a hollow voice.

“Do I look so?” asked the baron, rising and going a step backward.

“Or rather you insult me,” continued she, pressing with her stiffened
hands the two arms of her easy chair, and raising herself upon her
wrists.

“I insult you!” said Lord de Winter, with contempt. “In truth, madame,
do you think that can be possible?”

“Indeed, sir,” said Milady, “you must be either drunk or mad. Leave the
room, and send me a woman.”

“Women are very indiscreet, my sister. Cannot I serve you as a waiting
maid? By that means all our secrets will remain in the family.”

“Insolent!” cried Milady; and as if acted upon by a spring, she bounded
toward the baron, who awaited her attack with his arms crossed, but
nevertheless with one hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Come!” said he. “I know you are accustomed to assassinate people; but
I warn you I shall defend myself, even against you.”

“You are right,” said Milady. “You have all the appearance of being
cowardly enough to lift your hand against a woman.”

“Perhaps so; and I have an excuse, for mine would not be the first hand
of a man that has been placed upon you, I imagine.”

And the baron pointed, with a slow and accusing gesture, to the left
shoulder of Milady, which he almost touched with his finger.

Milady uttered a deep, inward shriek, and retreated to a corner of the
room like a panther which crouches for a spring.

“Oh, growl as much as you please,” cried Lord de Winter, “but don’t try
to bite, for I warn you that it would be to your disadvantage. There
are here no procurators who regulate successions beforehand. There is
no knight-errant to come and seek a quarrel with me on account of the
fair lady I detain a prisoner; but I have judges quite ready who will
quickly dispose of a woman so shameless as to glide, a bigamist, into
the bed of Lord de Winter, my brother. And these judges, I warn you,
will soon send you to an executioner who will make both your shoulders
alike.”

The eyes of Milady darted such flashes that although he was a man and
armed before an unarmed woman, he felt the chill of fear glide through
his whole frame. However, he continued all the same, but with
increasing warmth: “Yes, I can very well understand that after having
inherited the fortune of my brother it would be very agreeable to you
to be my heir likewise; but know beforehand, if you kill me or cause me
to be killed, my precautions are taken. Not a penny of what I possess
will pass into your hands. Were you not already rich enough—you who
possess nearly a million? And could you not stop your fatal career, if
you did not do evil for the infinite and supreme joy of doing it? Oh,
be assured, if the memory of my brother were not sacred to me, you
should rot in a state dungeon or satisfy the curiosity of sailors at
Tyburn. I will be silent, but you must endure your captivity quietly.
In fifteen or twenty days I shall set out for La Rochelle with the
army; but on the eve of my departure a vessel which I shall see depart
will take you hence and convey you to our colonies in the south. And be
assured that you shall be accompanied by one who will blow your brains
out at the first attempt you make to return to England or the
Continent.”

Milady listened with an attention that dilated her inflamed eyes.

“Yes, at present,” continued Lord de Winter, “you will remain in this
castle. The walls are thick, the doors strong, and the bars solid;
besides, your window opens immediately over the sea. The men of my
crew, who are devoted to me for life and death, mount guard around this
apartment, and watch all the passages that lead to the courtyard. Even
if you gained the yard, there would still be three iron gates for you
to pass. The order is positive. A step, a gesture, a word, on your
part, denoting an effort to escape, and you are to be fired upon. If
they kill you, English justice will be under an obligation to me for
having saved it trouble. Ah! I see your features regain their calmness,
your countenance recovers its assurance. You are saying to yourself:
‘Fifteen days, twenty days? Bah! I have an inventive mind; before that
is expired some idea will occur to me. I have an infernal spirit. I
shall meet with a victim. Before fifteen days are gone by I shall be
away from here.’ Ah, try it!”

Milady, finding her thoughts betrayed, dug her nails into her flesh to
subdue every emotion that might give to her face any expression except
agony.

Lord de Winter continued: “The officer who commands here in my absence
you have already seen, and therefore know him. He knows how, as you
must have observed, to obey an order—for you did not, I am sure, come
from Portsmouth hither without endeavoring to make him speak. What do
you say of him? Could a statue of marble have been more impassive and
more mute? You have already tried the power of your seductions upon
many men, and unfortunately you have always succeeded; but I give you
leave to try them upon this one. _Pardieu!_ if you succeed with him, I
pronounce you the demon himself.”

He went toward the door and opened it hastily.

“Call Mr. Felton,” said he. “Wait a minute longer, and I will introduce
him to you.”

There followed between these two personages a strange silence, during
which the sound of a slow and regular step was heard approaching.
Shortly a human form appeared in the shade of the corridor, and the
young lieutenant, with whom we are already acquainted, stopped at the
threshold to receive the orders of the baron.

“Come in, my dear John,” said Lord de Winter, “come in, and shut the
door.”

The young officer entered.

“Now,” said the baron, “look at this woman. She is young; she is
beautiful; she possesses all earthly seductions. Well, she is a
monster, who, at twenty-five years of age, has been guilty of as many
crimes as you could read of in a year in the archives of our tribunals.
Her voice prejudices her hearers in her favor; her beauty serves as a
bait to her victims; her body even pays what she promises—I must do her
that justice. She will try to seduce you, perhaps she will try to kill
you. I have extricated you from misery, Felton; I have caused you to be
named lieutenant; I once saved your life, you know on what occasion. I
am for you not only a protector, but a friend; not only a benefactor,
but a father. This woman has come back again into England for the
purpose of conspiring against my life. I hold this serpent in my hands.
Well, I call you, and say to you: Friend Felton, John, my child, guard
me, and more particularly guard yourself, against this woman. Swear, by
your hopes of salvation, to keep her safely for the chastisement she
has merited. John Felton, I trust your word! John Felton, I put faith
in your loyalty!”

“My Lord,” said the young officer, summoning to his mild countenance
all the hatred he could find in his heart, “my Lord, I swear all shall
be done as you desire.”

Milady received this look like a resigned victim; it was impossible to
imagine a more submissive or a more mild expression than that which
prevailed on her beautiful countenance. Lord de Winter himself could
scarcely recognize the tigress who, a minute before, prepared
apparently for a fight.

“She is not to leave this chamber, understand, John,” continued the
baron. “She is to correspond with nobody; she is to speak to no one but
you—if you will do her the honor to address a word to her.”

“That is sufficient, my Lord! I have sworn.”

“And now, madame, try to make your peace with God, for you are judged
by men!”

Milady let her head sink, as if crushed by this sentence. Lord de
Winter went out, making a sign to Felton, who followed him, shutting
the door after him.

One instant after, the heavy step of a marine who served as sentinel
was heard in the corridor—his ax in his girdle and his musket on his
shoulder.

Milady remained for some minutes in the same position, for she thought
they might perhaps be examining her through the keyhole; she then
slowly raised her head, which had resumed its formidable expression of
menace and defiance, ran to the door to listen, looked out of her
window, and returning to bury herself again in her large armchair, she
reflected.




Chapter LI.
OFFICER


Meanwhile, the cardinal looked anxiously for news from England; but no
news arrived that was not annoying and threatening.

Although La Rochelle was invested, however certain success might
appear—thanks to the precautions taken, and above all to the dyke,
which prevented the entrance of any vessel into the besieged city—the
blockade might last a long time yet. This was a great affront to the
king’s army, and a great inconvenience to the cardinal, who had no
longer, it is true, to embroil Louis XIII. with Anne of Austria—for that
affair was over—but he had to adjust matters for M. de Bassompierre,
who was embroiled with the Duc d’Angoulême.

As to Monsieur, who had begun the siege, he left to the cardinal the
task of finishing it.

The city, notwithstanding the incredible perseverance of its mayor, had
attempted a sort of mutiny for a surrender; the mayor had hanged the
mutineers. This execution quieted the ill-disposed, who resolved to
allow themselves to die of hunger—this death always appearing to them
more slow and less sure than strangulation.

On their side, from time to time, the besiegers took the messengers
which the Rochellais sent to Buckingham, or the spies which Buckingham
sent to the Rochellais. In one case or the other, the trial was soon
over. The cardinal pronounced the single word, “Hanged!” The king was
invited to come and see the hanging. He came languidly, placing himself
in a good situation to see all the details. This amused him sometimes a
little, and made him endure the siege with patience; but it did not
prevent his getting very tired, or from talking at every moment of
returning to Paris—so that if the messengers and the spies had failed,
his Eminence, notwithstanding all his inventiveness, would have found
himself much embarrassed.

Nevertheless, time passed on, and the Rochellais did not surrender. The
last spy that was taken was the bearer of a letter. This letter told
Buckingham that the city was at an extremity; but instead of adding,
“If your succor does not arrive within fifteen days, we will
surrender,” it added, quite simply, “If your succor comes not within
fifteen days, we shall all be dead with hunger when it comes.”

The Rochellais, then, had no hope but in Buckingham. Buckingham was
their Messiah. It was evident that if they one day learned positively
that they must not count on Buckingham, their courage would fail with
their hope.

The cardinal looked, then, with great impatience for the news from
England which would announce to him that Buckingham would not come.

The question of carrying the city by assault, though often debated in
the council of the king, had been always rejected. In the first place,
La Rochelle appeared impregnable. Then the cardinal, whatever he said,
very well knew that the horror of bloodshed in this encounter, in which
Frenchman would combat against Frenchman, was a retrograde movement of
sixty years impressed upon his policy; and the cardinal was at that
period what we now call a man of progress. In fact, the sack of La
Rochelle, and the assassination of three of four thousand Huguenots who
allowed themselves to be killed, would resemble too closely, in 1628,
the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572; and then, above all this, this
extreme measure, which was not at all repugnant to the king, good
Catholic as he was, always fell before this argument of the besieging
generals—La Rochelle is impregnable except to famine.

The cardinal could not drive from his mind the fear he entertained of
his terrible emissary—for he comprehended the strange qualities of this
woman, sometimes a serpent, sometimes a lion. Had she betrayed him? Was
she dead? He knew her well enough in all cases to know that, whether
acting for or against him, as a friend or an enemy, she would not
remain motionless without great impediments; but whence did these
impediments arise? That was what he could not know.

And yet he reckoned, and with reason, on Milady. He had divined in the
past of this woman terrible things which his red mantle alone could
cover; and he felt, from one cause or another, that this woman was his
own, as she could look to no other but himself for a support superior
to the danger which threatened her.

He resolved, then, to carry on the war alone, and to look for no
success foreign to himself, but as we look for a fortunate chance. He
continued to press the raising of the famous dyke which was to starve
La Rochelle. Meanwhile, he cast his eyes over that unfortunate city,
which contained so much deep misery and so many heroic virtues, and
recalling the saying of Louis XI., his political predecessor, as he
himself was the predecessor of Robespierre, he repeated this maxim of
Tristan’s gossip: “Divide in order to reign.”

Henry IV., when besieging Paris, had loaves and provisions thrown over
the walls. The cardinal had little notes thrown over in which he
represented to the Rochellais how unjust, selfish, and barbarous was
the conduct of their leaders. These leaders had corn in abundance, and
would not let them partake of it; they adopted as a maxim—for they,
too, had maxims—that it was of very little consequence that women,
children, and old men should die, so long as the men who were to defend
the walls remained strong and healthy. Up to that time, whether from
devotedness or from want of power to act against it, this maxim,
without being generally adopted, nevertheless passed from theory into
practice; but the notes did it injury. The notes reminded the men that
the children, women, and old men whom they allowed to die were their
sons, their wives, and their fathers, and that it would be more just
for everyone to be reduced to the common misery, in order that equal
conditions should give birth to unanimous resolutions.

These notes had all the effect that he who wrote them could expect, in
that they induced a great number of the inhabitants to open private
negotiations with the royal army.

But at the moment when the cardinal saw his means already bearing
fruit, and applauded himself for having put it in action, an inhabitant
of La Rochelle who had contrived to pass the royal lines—God knows how,
such was the watchfulness of Bassompierre, Schomberg, and the Duc
d’Angoulême, themselves watched over by the cardinal—an inhabitant of
La Rochelle, we say, entered the city, coming from Portsmouth, and
saying that he had seen a magnificent fleet ready to sail within eight
days. Still further, Buckingham announced to the mayor that at length
the great league was about to declare itself against France, and that
the kingdom would be at once invaded by the English, Imperial, and
Spanish armies. This letter was read publicly in all parts of the city.
Copies were put up at the corners of the streets; and even they who had
begun to open negotiations interrupted them, being resolved to await
the succor so pompously announced.

This unexpected circumstance brought back Richelieu’s former anxiety,
and forced him in spite of himself once more to turn his eyes to the
other side of the sea.

During this time, exempt from the anxiety of its only and true chief,
the royal army led a joyous life, neither provisions nor money being
wanting in the camp. All the corps rivaled one another in audacity and
gaiety. To take spies and hang them, to make hazardous expeditions upon
the dyke or the sea, to imagine wild plans, and to execute them
coolly—such were the pastimes which made the army find these days short
which were not only so long to the Rochellais, a prey to famine and
anxiety, but even to the cardinal, who blockaded them so closely.

Sometimes when the cardinal, always on horseback, like the lowest
_gendarme_ of the army, cast a pensive glance over those works, so
slowly keeping pace with his wishes, which the engineers, brought from
all the corners of France, were executing under his orders, if he met a
Musketeer of the company of Tréville, he drew near and looked at him in
a peculiar manner, and not recognizing in him one of our four
companions, he turned his penetrating look and profound thoughts in
another direction.

One day when oppressed with a mortal weariness of mind, without hope in
the negotiations with the city, without news from England, the cardinal
went out, without any other aim than to be out of doors, and
accompanied only by Cahusac and La Houdinière, strolled along the
beach. Mingling the immensity of his dreams with the immensity of the
ocean, he came, his horse going at a foot’s pace, to a hill from the
top of which he perceived behind a hedge, reclining on the sand and
catching in its passage one of those rays of the sun so rare at this
period of the year, seven men surrounded by empty bottles. Four of
these men were our Musketeers, preparing to listen to a letter one of
them had just received. This letter was so important that it made them
forsake their cards and their dice on the drumhead.

The other three were occupied in opening an enormous flagon of
Collicure wine; these were the lackeys of these gentlemen.

The cardinal was, as we have said, in very low spirits; and nothing
when he was in that state of mind increased his depression so much as
gaiety in others. Besides, he had another strange fancy, which was
always to believe that the causes of his sadness created the gaiety of
others. Making a sign to La Houdinière and Cahusac to stop, he alighted
from his horse, and went toward these suspected merry companions,
hoping, by means of the sand which deadened the sound of his steps and
of the hedge which concealed his approach, to catch some words of this
conversation which appeared so interesting. At ten paces from the hedge
he recognized the talkative Gascon; and as he had already perceived
that these men were Musketeers, he did not doubt that the three others
were those called the Inseparables; that is to say, Athos, Porthos, and
Aramis.

It may be supposed that his desire to hear the conversation was
augmented by this discovery. His eyes took a strange expression, and
with the step of a tiger-cat he advanced toward the hedge; but he had
not been able to catch more than a few vague syllables without any
positive sense, when a sonorous and short cry made him start, and
attracted the attention of the Musketeers.

“Officer!” cried Grimaud.

“You are speaking, you scoundrel!” said Athos, rising upon his elbow,
and transfixing Grimaud with his flaming look.

Grimaud therefore added nothing to his speech, but contented himself
with pointing his index finger in the direction of the hedge,
announcing by this gesture the cardinal and his escort.

With a single bound the Musketeers were on their feet, and saluted with
respect.

The cardinal seemed furious.

“It appears that Messieurs the Musketeers keep guard,” said he. “Are
the English expected by land, or do the Musketeers consider themselves
superior officers?”

“Monseigneur,” replied Athos, for amid the general fright he alone had
preserved the noble calmness and coolness that never forsook him,
“Monseigneur, the Musketeers, when they are not on duty, or when their
duty is over, drink and play at dice, and they are certainly superior
officers to their lackeys.”

“Lackeys?” grumbled the cardinal. “Lackeys who have the order to warn
their masters when anyone passes are not lackeys, they are sentinels.”

“Your Eminence may perceive that if we had not taken this precaution,
we should have been exposed to allowing you to pass without presenting
you our respects or offering you our thanks for the favor you have done
us in uniting us. D’Artagnan,” continued Athos, “you, who but lately
were so anxious for such an opportunity for expressing your gratitude
to Monseigneur, here it is; avail yourself of it.”

These words were pronounced with that imperturbable phlegm which
distinguished Athos in the hour of danger, and with that excessive
politeness which made of him at certain moments a king more majestic
than kings by birth.

D’Artagnan came forward and stammered out a few words of gratitude
which soon expired under the gloomy looks of the cardinal.

“It does not signify, gentlemen,” continued the cardinal, without
appearing to be in the least swerved from his first intention by the
diversion which Athos had started, “it does not signify, gentlemen. I
do not like to have simple soldiers, because they have the advantage of
serving in a privileged corps, thus to play the great lords; discipline
is the same for them as for everybody else.”

Athos allowed the cardinal to finish his sentence completely, and bowed
in sign of assent. Then he resumed in his turn: “Discipline,
Monseigneur, has, I hope, in no way been forgotten by us. We are not on
duty, and we believed that not being on duty we were at liberty to
dispose of our time as we pleased. If we are so fortunate as to have
some particular duty to perform for your Eminence, we are ready to obey
you. Your Eminence may perceive,” continued Athos, knitting his brow,
for this sort of investigation began to annoy him, “that we have not
come out without our arms.”

And he showed the cardinal, with his finger, the four muskets piled
near the drum, on which were the cards and dice.

“Your Eminence may believe,” added D’Artagnan, “that we would have come
to meet you, if we could have supposed it was Monseigneur coming toward
us with so few attendants.”

The cardinal bit his mustache, and even his lips a little.

“Do you know what you look like, all together, as you are armed and
guarded by your lackeys?” said the cardinal. “You look like four
conspirators.”

“Oh, as to that, Monseigneur, it is true,” said Athos; “we do conspire,
as your Eminence might have seen the other morning. Only we conspire
against the Rochellais.”

“Ah, you gentlemen of policy!” replied the cardinal, knitting his brow
in his turn, “the secret of many unknown things might perhaps be found
in your brains, if we could read them as you read that letter which you
concealed as soon as you saw me coming.”

The color mounted to the face of Athos, and he made a step toward his
Eminence.

“One might think you really suspected us, monseigneur, and we were
undergoing a real interrogatory. If it be so, we trust your Eminence
will deign to explain yourself, and we should then at least be
acquainted with our real position.”

“And if it were an interrogatory!” replied the cardinal. “Others
besides you have undergone such, Monsieur Athos, and have replied
thereto.”

“Thus I have told your Eminence that you had but to question us, and we
are ready to reply.”

“What was that letter you were about to read, Monsieur Aramis, and
which you so promptly concealed?”

“A woman’s letter, monseigneur.”

“Ah, yes, I see,” said the cardinal; “we must be discreet with this
sort of letters; but nevertheless, we may show them to a confessor, and
you know I have taken orders.”

“Monseigneur,” said Athos, with a calmness the more terrible because he
risked his head in making this reply, “the letter is a woman’s letter,
but it is neither signed Marion de Lorme, nor Madame d’Aiguillon.”

The cardinal became as pale as death; lightning darted from his eyes.
He turned round as if to give an order to Cahusac and Houdinière. Athos
saw the movement; he made a step toward the muskets, upon which the
other three friends had fixed their eyes, like men ill-disposed to
allow themselves to be taken. The cardinalists were three; the
Musketeers, lackeys included, were seven. He judged that the match
would be so much the less equal, if Athos and his companions were
really plotting; and by one of those rapid turns which he always had at
command, all his anger faded away into a smile.

“Well, well!” said he, “you are brave young men, proud in daylight,
faithful in darkness. We can find no fault with you for watching over
yourselves, when you watch so carefully over others. Gentlemen, I have
not forgotten the night in which you served me as an escort to the Red
Dovecot. If there were any danger to be apprehended on the road I am
going, I would request you to accompany me; but as there is none,
remain where you are, finish your bottles, your game, and your letter.
Adieu, gentlemen!”

And remounting his horse, which Cahusac led to him, he saluted them
with his hand, and rode away.

The four young men, standing and motionless, followed him with their
eyes without speaking a single word until he had disappeared. Then they
looked at one another.

The countenances of all gave evidence of terror, for notwithstanding
the friendly adieu of his Eminence, they plainly perceived that the
cardinal went away with rage in his heart.

Athos alone smiled, with a self-possessed, disdainful smile.

When the cardinal was out of hearing and sight, “That Grimaud kept bad
watch!” cried Porthos, who had a great inclination to vent his
ill-humor on somebody.

Grimaud was about to reply to excuse himself. Athos lifted his finger,
and Grimaud was silent.

“Would you have given up the letter, Aramis?” said D’Artagnan.

“I,” said Aramis, in his most flutelike tone, “I had made up my mind.
If he had insisted upon the letter being given up to him, I would have
presented the letter to him with one hand, and with the other I would
have run my sword through his body.”

“I expected as much,” said Athos; “and that was why I threw myself
between you and him. Indeed, this man is very much to blame for talking
thus to other men; one would say he had never had to do with any but
women and children.”

“My dear Athos, I admire you, but nevertheless we were in the wrong,
after all.”

“How, in the wrong?” said Athos. “Whose, then, is the air we breathe?
Whose is the ocean upon which we look? Whose is the sand upon which we
were reclining? Whose is that letter of your mistress? Do these belong
to the cardinal? Upon my honor, this man fancies the world belongs to
him. There you stood, stammering, stupefied, annihilated. One might
have supposed the Bastille appeared before you, and that the gigantic
Medusa had converted you into stone. Is being in love conspiring? You
are in love with a woman whom the cardinal has caused to be shut up,
and you wish to get her out of the hands of the cardinal. That’s a
match you are playing with his Eminence; this letter is your game. Why
should you expose your game to your adversary? That is never done. Let
him find it out if he can! We can find out his!”

“Well, that’s all very sensible, Athos,” said D’Artagnan.

“In that case, let there be no more question of what’s past, and let
Aramis resume the letter from his cousin where the cardinal interrupted
him.”

Aramis drew the letter from his pocket; the three friends surrounded
him, and the three lackeys grouped themselves again near the wine jar.

“You had only read a line or two,” said D’Artagnan; “read the letter
again from the commencement.”

“Willingly,” said Aramis.

“MY DEAR COUSIN, I think I shall make up my mind to set out for
Béthune, where my sister has placed our little servant in the convent
of the Carmelites; this poor child is quite resigned, as she knows she
cannot live elsewhere without the salvation of her soul being in
danger. Nevertheless, if the affairs of our family are arranged, as we
hope they will be, I believe she will run the risk of being damned, and
will return to those she regrets, particularly as she knows they are
always thinking of her. Meanwhile, she is not very wretched; what she
most desires is a letter from her intended. I know that such viands
pass with difficulty through convent gratings; but after all, as I have
given you proofs, my dear cousin, I am not unskilled in such affairs,
and I will take charge of the commission. My sister thanks you for your
good and eternal remembrance. She has experienced much anxiety; but she
is now at length a little reassured, having sent her secretary away in
order that nothing may happen unexpectedly.
    “Adieu, my dear cousin. Tell us news of yourself as often as you
    can; that is to say, as often as you can with safety. I embrace
    you.


“MARIE MICHON”


“Oh, what do I not owe you, Aramis?” said D’Artagnan. “Dear Constance!
I have at length, then, intelligence of you. She lives; she is in
safety in a convent; she is at Béthune! Where is Béthune, Athos?”

“Why, upon the frontiers of Artois and of Flanders. The siege once
over, we shall be able to make a tour in that direction.”

“And that will not be long, it is to be hoped,” said Porthos; “for they
have this morning hanged a spy who confessed that the Rochellais were
reduced to the leather of their shoes. Supposing that after having
eaten the leather they eat the soles, I cannot see much that is left
unless they eat one another.”

“Poor fools!” said Athos, emptying a glass of excellent Bordeaux wine
which, without having at that period the reputation it now enjoys,
merited it no less, “poor fools! As if the Catholic religion was not
the most advantageous and the most agreeable of all religions! All the
same,” resumed he, after having clicked his tongue against his palate,
“they are brave fellows! But what the devil are you about, Aramis?”
continued Athos. “Why, you are squeezing that letter into your pocket!”

“Yes,” said D’Artagnan, “Athos is right, it must be burned. And yet if
we burn it, who knows whether Monsieur Cardinal has not a secret to
interrogate ashes?”

“He must have one,” said Athos.

“What will you do with the letter, then?” asked Porthos.

“Come here, Grimaud,” said Athos. Grimaud rose and obeyed. “As a
punishment for having spoken without permission, my friend, you will
please to eat this piece of paper; then to recompense you for the
service you will have rendered us, you shall afterward drink this glass
of wine. First, here is the letter. Eat heartily.”

Grimaud smiled; and with his eyes fixed upon the glass which Athos held
in his hand, he ground the paper well between his teeth and then
swallowed it.

“Bravo, Monsieur Grimaud!” said Athos; “and now take this. That’s well.
We dispense with your saying grace.”

Grimaud silently swallowed the glass of Bordeaux wine; but his eyes,
raised toward heaven during this delicious occupation, spoke a language
which, though mute, was not the less expressive.

“And now,” said Athos, “unless Monsieur Cardinal should form the
ingenious idea of ripping up Grimaud, I think we may be pretty much at
our ease respecting the letter.”

Meantime, his Eminence continued his melancholy ride, murmuring between
his mustaches, “These four men must positively be mine.”




Chapter LII.
CAPTIVITY: THE FIRST DAY


Let us return to Milady, whom a glance thrown upon the coast of France
has made us lose sight of for an instant.

We shall find her still in the despairing attitude in which we left
her, plunged in an abyss of dismal reflection—a dark hell at the gate
of which she has almost left hope behind, because for the first time
she doubts, for the first time she fears.

On two occasions her fortune has failed her, on two occasions she has
found herself discovered and betrayed; and on these two occasions it
was to one fatal genius, sent doubtlessly by the Lord to combat her,
that she has succumbed. D’Artagnan has conquered her—her, that
invincible power of evil.

He has deceived her in her love, humbled her in her pride, thwarted her
in her ambition; and now he ruins her fortune, deprives her of liberty,
and even threatens her life. Still more, he has lifted the corner of
her mask—that shield with which she covered herself and which rendered
her so strong.

D’Artagnan has turned aside from Buckingham, whom she hates as she
hates everyone she has loved, the tempest with which Richelieu
threatened him in the person of the queen. D’Artagnan had passed
himself upon her as De Wardes, for whom she had conceived one of those
tigerlike fancies common to women of her character. D’Artagnan knows
that terrible secret which she has sworn no one shall know without
dying. In short, at the moment in which she has just obtained from
Richelieu a _carte blanche_ by the means of which she is about to take
vengeance on her enemy, this precious paper is torn from her hands, and
it is D’Artagnan who holds her prisoner and is about to send her to
some filthy Botany Bay, some infamous Tyburn of the Indian Ocean.

All this she owes to D’Artagnan, without doubt. From whom can come so
many disgraces heaped upon her head, if not from him? He alone could
have transmitted to Lord de Winter all these frightful secrets which he
has discovered, one after another, by a train of fatalities. He knows
her brother-in-law. He must have written to him.

What hatred she distills! Motionless, with her burning and fixed
glances, in her solitary apartment, how well the outbursts of passion
which at times escape from the depths of her chest with her
respiration, accompany the sound of the surf which rises, growls,
roars, and breaks itself like an eternal and powerless despair against
the rocks on which is built this dark and lofty castle! How many
magnificent projects of vengeance she conceives by the light of the
flashes which her tempestuous passion casts over her mind against Mme.
Bonacieux, against Buckingham, but above all against
D’Artagnan—projects lost in the distance of the future.

Yes; but in order to avenge herself she must be free. And to be free, a
prisoner has to pierce a wall, detach bars, cut through a floor—all
undertakings which a patient and strong man may accomplish, but before
which the feverish irritations of a woman must give way. Besides, to do
all this, time is necessary—months, years; and she has ten or twelve
days, as Lord de Winter, her fraternal and terrible jailer, has told
her.

And yet, if she were a man she would attempt all this, and perhaps
might succeed; why, then, did heaven make the mistake of placing that
manlike soul in that frail and delicate body?

The first moments of her captivity were terrible; a few convulsions of
rage which she could not suppress paid her debt of feminine weakness to
nature. But by degrees she overcame the outbursts of her mad passion;
and nervous tremblings which agitated her frame disappeared, and she
remained folded within herself like a fatigued serpent in repose.

“Go to, go to! I must have been mad to allow myself to be carried away
so,” says she, gazing into the glass, which reflects back to her eyes
the burning glance by which she appears to interrogate herself. “No
violence; violence is the proof of weakness. In the first place, I have
never succeeded by that means. Perhaps if I employed my strength
against women I might perchance find them weaker than myself, and
consequently conquer them; but it is with men that I struggle, and I am
but a woman to them. Let me fight like a woman, then; my strength is in
my weakness.”

Then, as if to render an account to herself of the changes she could
place upon her countenance, so mobile and so expressive, she made it
take all expressions from that of passionate anger, which convulsed her
features, to that of the most sweet, most affectionate, and most
seducing smile. Then her hair assumed successively, under her skillful
hands, all the undulations she thought might assist the charms of her
face. At length she murmured, satisfied with herself, “Come, nothing is
lost; I am still beautiful.”

It was then nearly eight o’clock in the evening. Milady perceived a
bed; she calculated that the repose of a few hours would not only
refresh her head and her ideas, but still further, her complexion. A
better idea, however, came into her mind before going to bed. She had
heard something said about supper. She had already been an hour in this
apartment; they could not long delay bringing her a repast. The
prisoner did not wish to lose time; and she resolved to make that very
evening some attempts to ascertain the nature of the ground she had to
work upon, by studying the characters of the men to whose guardianship
she was committed.

A light appeared under the door; this light announced the reappearance
of her jailers. Milady, who had arisen, threw herself quickly into the
armchair, her head thrown back, her beautiful hair unbound and
disheveled, her bosom half bare beneath her crumpled lace, one hand on
her heart, and the other hanging down.

The bolts were drawn; the door groaned upon its hinges. Steps sounded
in the chamber, and drew near.

“Place that table there,” said a voice which the prisoner recognized as
that of Felton.

The order was executed.

“You will bring lights, and relieve the sentinel,” continued Felton.

And this double order which the young lieutenant gave to the same
individuals proved to Milady that her servants were the same men as her
guards; that is to say, soldiers.

Felton’s orders were, for the rest, executed with a silent rapidity
that gave a good idea of the way in which he maintained discipline.

At length Felton, who had not yet looked at Milady, turned toward her.

“Ah, ah!” said he, “she is asleep; that’s well. When she wakes she can
sup.” And he made some steps toward the door.

“But, my lieutenant,” said a soldier, less stoical than his chief, and
who had approached Milady, “this woman is not asleep.”

“What, not asleep!” said Felton; “what is she doing, then?”

“She has fainted. Her face is very pale, and I have listened in vain; I
do not hear her breathe.”

“You are right,” said Felton, after having looked at Milady from the
spot on which he stood without moving a step toward her. “Go and tell
Lord de Winter that his prisoner has fainted—for this event not having
been foreseen, I don’t know what to do.”

The soldier went out to obey the orders of his officer. Felton sat down
upon an armchair which happened to be near the door, and waited without
speaking a word, without making a gesture. Milady possessed that great
art, so much studied by women, of looking through her long eyelashes
without appearing to open the lids. She perceived Felton, who sat with
his back toward her. She continued to look at him for nearly ten
minutes, and in these ten minutes the immovable guardian never turned
round once.

She then thought that Lord de Winter would come, and by his presence
give fresh strength to her jailer. Her first trial was lost; she acted
like a woman who reckons up her resources. As a result she raised her
head, opened her eyes, and sighed deeply.

At this sigh Felton turned round.

“Ah, you are awake, madame,” he said; “then I have nothing more to do
here. If you want anything you can ring.”

“Oh, my God, my God! how I have suffered!” said Milady, in that
harmonious voice which, like that of the ancient enchantresses, charmed
all whom she wished to destroy.

And she assumed, upon sitting up in the armchair, a still more graceful
and abandoned position than when she reclined.

Felton arose.

“You will be served, thus, madame, three times a day,” said he. “In the
morning at nine o’clock, in the day at one o’clock, and in the evening
at eight. If that does not suit you, you can point out what other hours
you prefer, and in this respect your wishes will be complied with.”

“But am I to remain always alone in this vast and dismal chamber?”
asked Milady.

“A woman of the neighbourhood has been sent for, who will be tomorrow
at the castle, and will return as often as you desire her presence.”

“I thank you, sir,” replied the prisoner, humbly.

Felton made a slight bow, and directed his steps toward the door. At
the moment he was about to go out, Lord de Winter appeared in the
corridor, followed by the soldier who had been sent to inform him of
the swoon of Milady. He held a vial of salts in his hand.

“Well, what is it—what is going on here?” said he, in a jeering voice,
on seeing the prisoner sitting up and Felton about to go out. “Is this
corpse come to life already? Felton, my lad, did you not perceive that
you were taken for a novice, and that the first act was being performed
of a comedy of which we shall doubtless have the pleasure of following
out all the developments?”

“I thought so, my lord,” said Felton; “but as the prisoner is a woman,
after all, I wish to pay her the attention that every man of gentle
birth owes to a woman, if not on her account, at least on my own.”

Milady shuddered through her whole system. These words of Felton’s
passed like ice through her veins.

“So,” replied de Winter, laughing, “that beautiful hair so skillfully
disheveled, that white skin, and that languishing look, have not yet
seduced you, you heart of stone?”

“No, my Lord,” replied the impassive young man; “your Lordship may be
assured that it requires more than the tricks and coquetry of a woman
to corrupt me.”

“In that case, my brave lieutenant, let us leave Milady to find out
something else, and go to supper; but be easy! She has a fruitful
imagination, and the second act of the comedy will not delay its steps
after the first.”

And at these words Lord de Winter passed his arm through that of
Felton, and led him out, laughing.

“Oh, I will be a match for you!” murmured Milady, between her teeth;
“be assured of that, you poor spoiled monk, you poor converted soldier,
who has cut his uniform out of a monk’s frock!”

“By the way,” resumed de Winter, stopping at the threshold of the door,
“you must not, Milady, let this check take away your appetite. Taste
that fowl and those fish. On my honor, they are not poisoned. I have a
very good cook, and he is not to be my heir; I have full and perfect
confidence in him. Do as I do. Adieu, dear sister, till your next
swoon!”

This was all that Milady could endure. Her hands clutched her armchair;
she ground her teeth inwardly; her eyes followed the motion of the door
as it closed behind Lord de Winter and Felton, and the moment she was
alone a fresh fit of despair seized her. She cast her eyes upon the
table, saw the glittering of a knife, rushed toward it and clutched it;
but her disappointment was cruel. The blade was round, and of flexible
silver.

A burst of laughter resounded from the other side of the ill-closed
door, and the door reopened.

“Ha, ha!” cried Lord de Winter; “ha, ha! Don’t you see, my brave
Felton; don’t you see what I told you? That knife was for you, my lad;
she would have killed you. Observe, this is one of her peculiarities,
to get rid thus, after one fashion or another, of all the people who
bother her. If I had listened to you, the knife would have been pointed
and of steel. Then no more of Felton; she would have cut your throat,
and after that everybody else’s. See, John, see how well she knows how
to handle a knife.”

In fact, Milady still held the harmless weapon in her clenched hand;
but these last words, this supreme insult, relaxed her hands, her
strength, and even her will. The knife fell to the ground.

“You were right, my Lord,” said Felton, with a tone of profound disgust
which sounded to the very bottom of the heart of Milady, “you were
right, my Lord, and I was wrong.”

And both again left the room.

But this time Milady lent a more attentive ear than the first, and she
heard their steps die away in the distance of the corridor.

“I am lost,” murmured she; “I am lost! I am in the power of men upon
whom I can have no more influence than upon statues of bronze or
granite; they know me by heart, and are steeled against all my weapons.
It is, however, impossible that this should end as they have decreed!”

In fact, as this last reflection indicated—this instinctive return to
hope—sentiments of weakness or fear did not dwell long in her ardent
spirit. Milady sat down to table, ate from several dishes, drank a
little Spanish wine, and felt all her resolution return.

Before she went to bed she had pondered, analyzed, turned on all sides,
examined on all points, the words, the steps, the gestures, the signs,
and even the silence of her interlocutors; and of this profound,
skillful, and anxious study the result was that Felton, everything
considered, appeared the more vulnerable of her two persecutors.

One expression above all recurred to the mind of the prisoner: “If I
had listened to you,” Lord de Winter had said to Felton.

Felton, then, had spoken in her favor, since Lord de Winter had not
been willing to listen to him.

“Weak or strong,” repeated Milady, “that man has, then, a spark of pity
in his soul; of that spark I will make a flame that shall devour him.
As to the other, he knows me, he fears me, and knows what he has to
expect of me if ever I escape from his hands. It is useless, then, to
attempt anything with him. But Felton—that’s another thing. He is a
young, ingenuous, pure man who seems virtuous; him there are means of
destroying.”

And Milady went to bed and fell asleep with a smile upon her lips.
Anyone who had seen her sleeping might have said she was a young girl
dreaming of the crown of flowers she was to wear on her brow at the
next festival.




Chapter LIII.
CAPTIVITY: THE SECOND DAY


Milady dreamed that she at length had D’Artagnan in her power, that she
was present at his execution; and it was the sight of his odious blood,
flowing beneath the ax of the headsman, which spread that charming
smile upon her lips.

She slept as a prisoner sleeps, rocked by his first hope.

In the morning, when they entered her chamber she was still in bed.
Felton remained in the corridor. He brought with him the woman of whom
he had spoken the evening before, and who had just arrived; this woman
entered, and approaching Milady’s bed, offered her services.

Milady was habitually pale; her complexion might therefore deceive a
person who saw her for the first time.

“I am in a fever,” said she; “I have not slept a single instant during
all this long night. I suffer horribly. Are you likely to be more
humane to me than others were yesterday? All I ask is permission to
remain abed.”

“Would you like to have a physician called?” said the woman.

Felton listened to this dialogue without speaking a word.

Milady reflected that the more people she had around her the more she
would have to work upon, and Lord de Winter would redouble his watch.
Besides, the physician might declare the ailment feigned; and Milady,
after having lost the first trick, was not willing to lose the second.

“Go and fetch a physician?” said she. “What could be the good of that?
These gentlemen declared yesterday that my illness was a comedy; it
would be just the same today, no doubt—for since yesterday evening they
have had plenty of time to send for a doctor.”

“Then,” said Felton, who became impatient, “say yourself, madame, what
treatment you wish followed.”

“Eh, how can I tell? My God! I know that I suffer, that’s all. Give me
anything you like, it is of little consequence.”

“Go and fetch Lord de Winter,” said Felton, tired of these eternal
complaints.

“Oh, no, no!” cried Milady; “no, sir, do not call him, I conjure you. I
am well, I want nothing; do not call him.”

She gave so much vehemence, such magnetic eloquence to this
exclamation, that Felton in spite of himself advanced some steps into
the room.

“He has come!” thought Milady.

“Meanwhile, madame, if you really suffer,” said Felton, “a physician
shall be sent for; and if you deceive us—well, it will be the worse for
you. But at least we shall not have to reproach ourselves with
anything.”

Milady made no reply, but turning her beautiful head round upon her
pillow, she burst into tears, and uttered heartbreaking sobs.

Felton surveyed her for an instant with his usual impassiveness; then,
seeing that the crisis threatened to be prolonged, he went out. The
woman followed him, and Lord de Winter did not appear.

“I fancy I begin to see my way,” murmured Milady, with a savage joy,
burying herself under the clothes to conceal from anybody who might be
watching her this burst of inward satisfaction.

Two hours passed away.

“Now it is time that the malady should be over,” said she; “let me
rise, and obtain some success this very day. I have but ten days, and
this evening two of them will be gone.”

In the morning, when they entered Milady’s chamber they had brought her
breakfast. Now, she thought, they could not long delay coming to clear
the table, and that Felton would then reappear.

Milady was not deceived. Felton reappeared, and without observing
whether Milady had or had not touched her repast, made a sign that the
table should be carried out of the room, it having been brought in
ready spread.

Felton remained behind; he held a book in his hand.

Milady, reclining in an armchair near the chimney, beautiful, pale, and
resigned, looked like a holy virgin awaiting martyrdom.

Felton approached her, and said, “Lord de Winter, who is a Catholic,
like yourself, madame, thinking that the deprivation of the rites and
ceremonies of your church might be painful to you, has consented that
you should read every day the ordinary of your Mass; and here is a book
which contains the ritual.”

At the manner in which Felton laid the book upon the little table near
which Milady was sitting, at the tone in which he pronounced the two
words, _your Mass_, at the disdainful smile with which he accompanied
them, Milady raised her head, and looked more attentively at the
officer.

By that plain arrangement of the hair, by that costume of extreme
simplicity, by the brow polished like marble and as hard and
impenetrable, she recognized one of those gloomy Puritans she had so
often met, not only in the court of King James, but in that of the King
of France, where, in spite of the remembrance of the St. Bartholomew,
they sometimes came to seek refuge.

She then had one of those sudden inspirations which only people of
genius receive in great crises, in supreme moments which are to decide
their fortunes or their lives.

Those two words, _your Mass_, and a simple glance cast upon Felton,
revealed to her all the importance of the reply she was about to make;
but with that rapidity of intelligence which was peculiar to her, this
reply, ready arranged, presented itself to her lips:

“I?” said she, with an accent of disdain in unison with that which she
had remarked in the voice of the young officer, “I, sir? _My Mass?_
Lord de Winter, the corrupted Catholic, knows very well that I am not
of his religion, and this is a snare he wishes to lay for me!”

“And of what religion are you, then, madame?” asked Felton, with an
astonishment which in spite of the empire he held over himself he could
not entirely conceal.

“I will tell it,” cried Milady, with a feigned exultation, “on the day
when I shall have suffered sufficiently for my faith.”

The look of Felton revealed to Milady the full extent of the space she
had opened for herself by this single word.

The young officer, however, remained mute and motionless; his look
alone had spoken.

“I am in the hands of my enemies,” continued she, with that tone of
enthusiasm which she knew was familiar to the Puritans. “Well, let my
God save me, or let me perish for my God! That is the reply I beg you
to make to Lord de Winter. And as to this book,” added she, pointing to
the manual with her finger but without touching it, as if she must be
contaminated by it, “you may carry it back and make use of it yourself,
for doubtless you are doubly the accomplice of Lord de Winter—the
accomplice in his persecutions, the accomplice in his heresies.”

Felton made no reply, took the book with the same appearance of
repugnance which he had before manifested, and retired pensively.

Lord de Winter came toward five o’clock in the evening. Milady had had
time, during the whole day, to trace her plan of conduct. She received
him like a woman who had already recovered all her advantages.

“It appears,” said the baron, seating himself in the armchair opposite
that occupied by Milady, and stretching out his legs carelessly upon
the hearth, “it appears we have made a little apostasy!”

“What do you mean, sir!”

“I mean to say that since we last met you have changed your religion.
You have not by chance married a Protestant for a third husband, have
you?”

“Explain yourself, my Lord,” replied the prisoner, with majesty; “for
though I hear your words, I declare I do not understand them.”

“Then you have no religion at all; I like that best,” replied Lord de
Winter, laughing.

“Certainly that is most in accord with your own principles,” replied
Milady, frigidly.

“Oh, I confess it is all the same to me.”

“Oh, you need not avow this religious indifference, my Lord; your
debaucheries and crimes would vouch for it.”

“What, you talk of debaucheries, Madame Messalina, Lady Macbeth! Either
I misunderstand you or you are very shameless!”

“You only speak thus because you are overheard,” coolly replied Milady;
“and you wish to interest your jailers and your hangmen against me.”

“My jailers and my hangmen! Heyday, madame! you are taking a poetical
tone, and the comedy of yesterday turns to a tragedy this evening. As
to the rest, in eight days you will be where you ought to be, and my
task will be completed.”

“Infamous task! impious task!” cried Milady, with the exultation of a
victim who provokes his judge.

“My word,” said de Winter, rising, “I think the hussy is going mad!
Come, come, calm yourself, Madame Puritan, or I’ll remove you to a
dungeon. It’s my Spanish wine that has got into your head, is it not?
But never mind; that sort of intoxication is not dangerous, and will
have no bad effects.”

And Lord de Winter retired swearing, which at that period was a very
knightly habit.

Felton was indeed behind the door, and had not lost one word of this
scene. Milady had guessed aright.

“Yes, go, go!” said she to her brother; “the effects _are_ drawing
near, on the contrary; but you, weak fool, will not see them until it
is too late to shun them.”

Silence was re-established. Two hours passed away. Milady’s supper was
brought in, and she was found deeply engaged in saying her prayers
aloud—prayers which she had learned of an old servant of her second
husband, a most austere Puritan. She appeared to be in ecstasy, and did
not pay the least attention to what was going on around her. Felton
made a sign that she should not be disturbed; and when all was
arranged, he went out quietly with the soldiers.

Milady knew she might be watched, so she continued her prayers to the
end; and it appeared to her that the soldier who was on duty at her
door did not march with the same step, and seemed to listen. For the
moment she wished nothing better. She arose, came to the table, ate but
little, and drank only water.

An hour after, her table was cleared; but Milady remarked that this
time Felton did not accompany the soldiers. He feared, then, to see her
too often.

She turned toward the wall to smile—for there was in this smile such an
expression of triumph that this smile alone would have betrayed her.

She allowed, therefore, half an hour to pass away; and as at that
moment all was silence in the old castle, as nothing was heard but the
eternal murmur of the waves—that immense breaking of the ocean—with her
pure, harmonious, and powerful voice, she began the first couplet of
the psalm then in great favor with the Puritans:

“Thou leavest thy servants, Lord,
    To see if they be strong;
But soon thou dost afford
    Thy hand to lead them on.”


These verses were not excellent—very far from it; but as it is well
known, the Puritans did not pique themselves upon their poetry.

While singing, Milady listened. The soldier on guard at her door
stopped, as if he had been changed into stone. Milady was then able to
judge of the effect she had produced.

Then she continued her singing with inexpressible fervor and feeling.
It appeared to her that the sounds spread to a distance beneath the
vaulted roofs, and carried with them a magic charm to soften the hearts
of her jailers. It however likewise appeared that the soldier on duty—a
zealous Catholic, no doubt—shook off the charm, for through the door he
called: “Hold your tongue, madame! Your song is as dismal as a ‘De
profundis’; and if besides the pleasure of being in garrison here, we
must hear such things as these, no mortal can hold out.”

“Silence!” then exclaimed another stern voice which Milady recognized
as that of Felton. “What are you meddling with, stupid? Did anybody
order you to prevent that woman from singing? No. You were told to
guard her—to fire at her if she attempted to fly. Guard her! If she
flies, kill her; but don’t exceed your orders.”

An expression of unspeakable joy lightened the countenance of Milady;
but this expression was fleeting as the reflection of lightning.
Without appearing to have heard the dialogue, of which she had not lost
a word, she began again, giving to her voice all the charm, all the
power, all the seduction the demon had bestowed upon it:

“For all my tears, my cares,
    My exile, and my chains,
I have my youth, my prayers,
    And God, who counts my pains.”


Her voice, of immense power and sublime expression, gave to the rude,
unpolished poetry of these psalms a magic and an effect which the most
exalted Puritans rarely found in the songs of their brethren, and which
they were forced to ornament with all the resources of their
imagination. Felton believed he heard the singing of the angel who
consoled the three Hebrews in the furnace.

Milady continued:

“One day our doors will ope,
    With God come our desire;
And if betrays that hope,
    To death we can aspire.”


This verse, into which the terrible enchantress threw her whole soul,
completed the trouble which had seized the heart of the young officer.
He opened the door quickly; and Milady saw him appear, pale as usual,
but with his eye inflamed and almost wild.

“Why do you sing thus, and with such a voice?” said he.

“Your pardon, sir,” said Milady, with mildness. “I forgot that my songs
are out of place in this castle. I have perhaps offended you in your
creed; but it was without wishing to do so, I swear. Pardon me, then, a
fault which is perhaps great, but which certainly was involuntary.”

Milady was so beautiful at this moment, the religious ecstasy in which
she appeared to be plunged gave such an expression to her countenance,
that Felton was so dazzled that he fancied he beheld the angel whom he
had only just before heard.

“Yes, yes,” said he; “you disturb, you agitate the people who live in
the castle.”

The poor, senseless young man was not aware of the incoherence of his
words, while Milady was reading with her lynx’s eyes the very depths of
his heart.

“I will be silent, then,” said Milady, casting down her eyes with all
the sweetness she could give to her voice, with all the resignation she
could impress upon her manner.

“No, no, madame,” said Felton, “only do not sing so loud, particularly
at night.”

And at these words Felton, feeling that he could not long maintain his
severity toward his prisoner, rushed out of the room.

“You have done right, Lieutenant,” said the soldier. “Such songs
disturb the mind; and yet we become accustomed to them, her voice is so
beautiful.”




Chapter LIV.
CAPTIVITY: THE THIRD DAY


Felton had fallen; but there was still another step to be taken. He
must be retained, or rather he must be left quite alone; and Milady but
obscurely perceived the means which could lead to this result.

Still more must be done. He must be made to speak, in order that he
might be spoken to—for Milady very well knew that her greatest
seduction was in her voice, which so skillfully ran over the whole
gamut of tones from human speech to language celestial.

Yet in spite of all this seduction Milady might fail—for Felton was
forewarned, and that against the least chance. From that moment she
watched all his actions, all his words, from the simplest glance of his
eyes to his gestures—even to a breath that could be interpreted as a
sigh. In short, she studied everything, as a skillful comedian does to
whom a new part has been assigned in a line to which he is not
accustomed.

Face to face with Lord de Winter her plan of conduct was more easy. She
had laid that down the preceding evening. To remain silent and
dignified in his presence; from time to time to irritate him by
affected disdain, by a contemptuous word; to provoke him to threats and
violence which would produce a contrast with her own resignation—such
was her plan. Felton would see all; perhaps he would say nothing, but
he would see.

In the morning, Felton came as usual; but Milady allowed him to preside
over all the preparations for breakfast without addressing a word to
him. At the moment when he was about to retire, she was cheered with a
ray of hope, for she thought he was about to speak; but his lips moved
without any sound leaving his mouth, and making a powerful effort to
control himself, he sent back to his heart the words that were about to
escape from his lips, and went out. Toward midday, Lord de Winter
entered.

It was a tolerably fine winter’s day, and a ray of that pale English
sun which lights but does not warm came through the bars of her prison.

Milady was looking out at the window, and pretended not to hear the
door as it opened.

“Ah, ah!” said Lord de Winter, “after having played comedy, after
having played tragedy, we are now playing melancholy?”

The prisoner made no reply.

“Yes, yes,” continued Lord de Winter, “I understand. You would like
very well to be at liberty on that beach! You would like very well to
be in a good ship dancing upon the waves of that emerald-green sea; you
would like very well, either on land or on the ocean, to lay for me one
of those nice little ambuscades you are so skillful in planning.
Patience, patience! In four days’ time the shore will be beneath your
feet, the sea will be open to you—more open than will perhaps be
agreeable to you, for in four days England will be relieved of you.”

Milady folded her hands, and raising her fine eyes toward heaven,
“Lord, Lord,” said she, with an angelic meekness of gesture and tone,
“pardon this man, as I myself pardon him.”

“Yes, pray, accursed woman!” cried the baron; “your prayer is so much
the more generous from your being, I swear to you, in the power of a
man who will never pardon you!” and he went out.

At the moment he went out a piercing glance darted through the opening
of the nearly closed door, and she perceived Felton, who drew quickly
to one side to prevent being seen by her.

Then she threw herself upon her knees, and began to pray.

“My God, my God!” said she, “thou knowest in what holy cause I suffer;
give me, then, strength to suffer.”

The door opened gently; the beautiful supplicant pretended not to hear
the noise, and in a voice broken by tears, she continued:

“God of vengeance! God of goodness! wilt thou allow the frightful
projects of this man to be accomplished?”

Then only she pretended to hear the sound of Felton’s steps, and rising
quick as thought, she blushed, as if ashamed of being surprised on her
knees.

“I do not like to disturb those who pray, madame,” said Felton,
seriously; “do not disturb yourself on my account, I beseech you.”

“How do you know I was praying, sir?” said Milady, in a voice broken by
sobs. “You were deceived, sir; I was not praying.”

“Do you think, then, madame,” replied Felton, in the same serious
voice, but with a milder tone, “do you think I assume the right of
preventing a creature from prostrating herself before her Creator? God
forbid! Besides, repentance becomes the guilty; whatever crimes they
may have committed, for me the guilty are sacred at the feet of God!”

“Guilty? I?” said Milady, with a smile which might have disarmed the
angel of the last judgment. “Guilty? Oh, my God, thou knowest whether I
am guilty! Say I am condemned, sir, if you please; but you know that
God, who loves martyrs, sometimes permits the innocent to be
condemned.”

“Were you condemned, were you innocent, were you a martyr,” replied
Felton, “the greater would be the necessity for prayer; and I myself
would aid you with my prayers.”

“Oh, you are a just man!” cried Milady, throwing herself at his feet.
“I can hold out no longer, for I fear I shall be wanting in strength at
the moment when I shall be forced to undergo the struggle, and confess
my faith. Listen, then, to the supplication of a despairing woman. You
are abused, sir; but that is not the question. I only ask you one
favor; and if you grant it me, I will bless you in this world and in
the next.”

“Speak to the master, madame,” said Felton; “happily I am neither
charged with the power of pardoning nor punishing. It is upon one
higher placed than I am that God has laid this responsibility.”

“To you—no, to you alone! Listen to me, rather than add to my
destruction, rather than add to my ignominy!”

“If you have merited this shame, madame, if you have incurred this
ignominy, you must submit to it as an offering to God.”

“What do you say? Oh, you do not understand me! When I speak of
ignominy, you think I speak of some chastisement, of imprisonment or
death. Would to heaven! Of what consequence to me is imprisonment or
death?”

“It is I who no longer understand you, madame,” said Felton.

“Or, rather, who pretend not to understand me, sir!” replied the
prisoner, with a smile of incredulity.

“No, madame, on the honor of a soldier, on the faith of a Christian.”

“What, you are ignorant of Lord de Winter’s designs upon me?”

“I am.”

“Impossible; you are his confidant!”

“I never lie, madame.”

“Oh, he conceals them too little for you not to divine them.”

“I seek to divine nothing, madame; I wait till I am confided in, and
apart from that which Lord de Winter has said to me before you, he has
confided nothing to me.”

“Why, then,” cried Milady, with an incredible tone of truthfulness,
“you are not his accomplice; you do not know that he destines me to a
disgrace which all the punishments of the world cannot equal in
horror?”

“You are deceived, madame,” said Felton, blushing; “Lord de Winter is
not capable of such a crime.”

“Good,” said Milady to herself; “without thinking what it is, he calls
it a crime!” Then aloud, “The friend of that wretch is capable of
everything.”

“Whom do you call _that wretch?_” asked Felton.

“Are there, then, in England two men to whom such an epithet can be
applied?”

“You mean George Villiers?” asked Felton, whose looks became excited.

“Whom Pagans and unbelieving Gentiles call Duke of Buckingham,” replied
Milady. “I could not have thought that there was an Englishman in all
England who would have required so long an explanation to make him
understand of whom I was speaking.”

“The hand of the Lord is stretched over him,” said Felton; “he will not
escape the chastisement he deserves.”

Felton only expressed, with regard to the duke, the feeling of
execration which all the English had declared toward him whom the
Catholics themselves called the extortioner, the pillager, the
debauchee, and whom the Puritans styled simply Satan.

“Oh, my God, my God!” cried Milady; “when I supplicate thee to pour
upon this man the chastisement which is his due, thou knowest it is not
my own vengeance I pursue, but the deliverance of a whole nation that I
implore!”

“Do you know him, then?” asked Felton.

“At length he interrogates me!” said Milady to herself, at the height
of joy at having obtained so quickly such a great result. “Oh, know
him? Yes, yes! to my misfortune, to my eternal misfortune!” and Milady
twisted her arms as if in a paroxysm of grief.

Felton no doubt felt within himself that his strength was abandoning
him, and he made several steps toward the door; but the prisoner, whose
eye never left him, sprang in pursuit of him and stopped him.

“Sir,” cried she, “be kind, be clement, listen to my prayer! That
knife, which the fatal prudence of the baron deprived me of, because he
knows the use I would make of it! Oh, hear me to the end! that knife,
give it to me for a minute only, for mercy’s, for pity’s sake! I will
embrace your knees! You shall shut the door that you may be certain I
contemplate no injury to you! My God! to you—the only just, good, and
compassionate being I have met with! To you—my preserver, perhaps! One
minute that knife, one minute, a single minute, and I will restore it
to you through the grating of the door. Only one minute, Mr. Felton,
and you will have saved my honor!”

“To kill yourself?” cried Felton, with terror, forgetting to withdraw
his hands from the hands of the prisoner, “to kill yourself?”

“I have told, sir,” murmured Milady, lowering her voice, and allowing
herself to sink overpowered to the ground; “I have told my secret! He
knows all! My God, I am lost!”

Felton remained standing, motionless and undecided.

“He still doubts,” thought Milady; “I have not been earnest enough.”

Someone was heard in the corridor; Milady recognized the step of Lord
de Winter.

Felton recognized it also, and made a step toward the door.

Milady sprang toward him. “Oh, not a word,” said she in a concentrated
voice, “not a word of all that I have said to you to this man, or I am
lost, and it would be you—you—”

Then as the steps drew near, she became silent for fear of being heard,
applying, with a gesture of infinite terror, her beautiful hand to
Felton’s mouth.

Felton gently repulsed Milady, and she sank into a chair.

Lord de Winter passed before the door without stopping, and they heard
the noise of his footsteps soon die away.

Felton, as pale as death, remained some instants with his ear bent and
listening; then, when the sound was quite extinct, he breathed like a
man awaking from a dream, and rushed out of the apartment.

“Ah!” said Milady, listening in her turn to the noise of Felton’s
steps, which withdrew in a direction opposite to those of Lord de
Winter; “at length you are mine!”

Then her brow darkened. “If he tells the baron,” said she, “I am
lost—for the baron, who knows very well that I shall not kill myself,
will place me before him with a knife in my hand, and he will discover
that all this despair is but acted.”

She placed herself before the glass, and regarded herself attentively;
never had she appeared more beautiful.

“Oh, yes,” said she, smiling, “but we won’t tell him!”

In the evening Lord de Winter accompanied the supper.

“Sir,” said Milady, “is your presence an indispensable accessory of my
captivity? Could you not spare me the increase of torture which your
visits cause me?”

“How, dear sister!” said Lord de Winter. “Did not you sentimentally
inform me with that pretty mouth of yours, so cruel to me today, that
you came to England solely for the pleasure of seeing me at your ease,
an enjoyment of which you told me you so sensibly felt the deprivation
that you had risked everything for it—seasickness, tempest, captivity?
Well, here I am; be satisfied. Besides, this time, my visit has a
motive.”

Milady trembled; she thought Felton had told all. Perhaps never in her
life had this woman, who had experienced so many opposite and powerful
emotions, felt her heart beat so violently.

She was seated. Lord de Winter took a chair, drew it toward her, and
sat down close beside her. Then taking a paper out of his pocket, he
unfolded it slowly.

“Here,” said he, “I want to show you the kind of passport which I have
drawn up, and which will serve you henceforward as the rule of order in
the life I consent to leave you.”

Then turning his eyes from Milady to the paper, he read: “‘Order to
conduct—’ The name is blank,” interrupted Lord de Winter. “If you have
any preference you can point it out to me; and if it be not within a
thousand leagues of London, attention will be paid to your wishes. I
will begin again, then:

“‘Order to conduct to—the person named Charlotte Backson, branded by
the justice of the kingdom of France, but liberated after chastisement.
She is to dwell in this place without ever going more than three
leagues from it. In case of any attempt to escape, the penalty of death
is to be applied. She will receive five shillings per day for lodging
and food’”.


“That order does not concern me,” replied Milady, coldly, “since it
bears another name than mine.”

“A name? Have you a name, then?”

“I bear that of your brother.”

“Ay, but you are mistaken. My brother is only your second husband; and
your first is still living. Tell me his name, and I will put it in the
place of the name of Charlotte Backson. No? You will not? You are
silent? Well, then you must be registered as Charlotte Backson.”

Milady remained silent; only this time it was no longer from
affectation, but from terror. She believed the order ready for
execution. She thought that Lord de Winter had hastened her departure;
she thought she was condemned to set off that very evening. Everything
in her mind was lost for an instant; when all at once she perceived
that no signature was attached to the order. The joy she felt at this
discovery was so great she could not conceal it.

“Yes, yes,” said Lord de Winter, who perceived what was passing in her
mind; “yes, you look for the signature, and you say to yourself: ‘All
is not lost, for that order is not signed. It is only shown to me to
terrify me, that’s all.’ You are mistaken. Tomorrow this order will be
sent to the Duke of Buckingham. The day after tomorrow it will return
signed by his hand and marked with his seal; and four-and-twenty hours
afterward I will answer for its being carried into execution. Adieu,
madame. That is all I had to say to you.”

“And I reply to you, sir, that this abuse of power, this exile under a
fictitious name, are infamous!”

“Would you like better to be hanged in your true name, Milady? You know
that the English laws are inexorable on the abuse of marriage. Speak
freely. Although my name, or rather that of my brother, would be mixed
up with the affair, I will risk the scandal of a public trial to make
myself certain of getting rid of you.”

Milady made no reply, but became as pale as a corpse.

“Oh, I see you prefer peregrination. That’s well madame; and there is
an old proverb that says, ‘Traveling trains youth.’ My faith! you are
not wrong after all, and life is sweet. That’s the reason why I take
such care you shall not deprive me of mine. There only remains, then,
the question of the five shillings to be settled. You think me rather
parsimonious, don’t you? That’s because I don’t care to leave you the
means of corrupting your jailers. Besides, you will always have your
charms left to seduce them with. Employ them, if your check with regard
to Felton has not disgusted you with attempts of that kind.”

“Felton has not told him,” said Milady to herself. “Nothing is lost,
then.”

“And now, madame, till I see you again! Tomorrow I will come and
announce to you the departure of my messenger.”

Lord de Winter rose, saluted her ironically, and went out.

Milady breathed again. She had still four days before her. Four days
would quite suffice to complete the seduction of Felton.

A terrible idea, however, rushed into her mind. She thought that Lord
de Winter would perhaps send Felton himself to get the order signed by
the Duke of Buckingham. In that case Felton would escape her—for in
order to secure success, the magic of a continuous seduction was
necessary. Nevertheless, as we have said, one circumstance reassured
her. Felton had not spoken.

As she would not appear to be agitated by the threats of Lord de
Winter, she placed herself at the table and ate.

Then, as she had done the evening before, she fell on her knees and
repeated her prayers aloud. As on the evening before, the soldier
stopped his march to listen to her.

Soon after she heard lighter steps than those of the sentinel, which
came from the end of the corridor and stopped before her door.

“It is he,” said she. And she began the same religious chant which had
so strongly excited Felton the evening before.

But although her voice—sweet, full, and sonorous—vibrated as
harmoniously and as affectingly as ever, the door remained shut. It
appeared however to Milady that in one of the furtive glances she
darted from time to time at the grating of the door she thought she saw
the ardent eyes of the young man through the narrow opening. But
whether this was reality or vision, he had this time sufficient
self-command not to enter.

However, a few instants after she had finished her religious song,
Milady thought she heard a profound sigh. Then the same steps she had
heard approach slowly withdrew, as if with regret.




Chapter LV.
CAPTIVITY: THE FOURTH DAY


The next day, when Felton entered Milady’s apartment he found her
standing, mounted upon a chair, holding in her hands a cord made by
means of torn cambric handkerchiefs, twisted into a kind of rope one
with another, and tied at the ends. At the noise Felton made in
entering, Milady leaped lightly to the ground, and tried to conceal
behind her the improvised cord she held in her hand.

The young man was more pale than usual, and his eyes, reddened by want
of sleep, denoted that he had passed a feverish night. Nevertheless,
his brow was armed with a severity more austere than ever.

He advanced slowly toward Milady, who had seated herself, and taking an
end of the murderous rope which by neglect, or perhaps by design, she
allowed to be seen, “What is this, madame?” he asked coldly.

“That? Nothing,” said Milady, smiling with that painful expression
which she knew so well how to give to her smile. “Ennui is the mortal
enemy of prisoners; I had ennui, and I amused myself with twisting that
rope.”

Felton turned his eyes toward the part of the wall of the apartment
before which he had found Milady standing in the armchair in which she
was now seated, and over her head he perceived a gilt-headed screw,
fixed in the wall for the purpose of hanging up clothes or weapons.

He started, and the prisoner saw that start—for though her eyes were
cast down, nothing escaped her.

“What were you doing on that armchair?” asked he.

“Of what consequence?” replied Milady.

“But,” replied Felton, “I wish to know.”

“Do not question me,” said the prisoner; “you know that we who are true
Christians are forbidden to lie.”

“Well, then,” said Felton, “I will tell you what you were doing, or
rather what you meant to do; you were going to complete the fatal
project you cherish in your mind. Remember, madame, if our God forbids
falsehood, he much more severely condemns suicide.”

“When God sees one of his creatures persecuted unjustly, placed between
suicide and dishonor, believe me, sir,” replied Milady, in a tone of
deep conviction, “God pardons suicide, for then suicide becomes
martyrdom.”

“You say either too much or too little; speak, madame. In the name of
heaven, explain yourself.”

“That I may relate my misfortunes for you to treat them as fables; that
I may tell you my projects for you to go and betray them to my
persecutor? No, sir. Besides, of what importance to you is the life or
death of a condemned wretch? You are only responsible for my body, is
it not so? And provided you produce a carcass that may be recognized as
mine, they will require no more of you; nay, perhaps you will even have
a double reward.”

“I, madame, I?” cried Felton. “You suppose that I would ever accept the
price of your life? Oh, you cannot believe what you say!”

“Let me act as I please, Felton, let me act as I please,” said Milady,
elated. “Every soldier must be ambitious, must he not? You are a
lieutenant? Well, you will follow me to the grave with the rank of
captain.”

“What have I, then, done to you,” said Felton, much agitated, “that you
should load me with such a responsibility before God and before men? In
a few days you will be away from this place; your life, madame, will
then no longer be under my care, and,” added he, with a sigh, “then you
can do what you will with it.”

“So,” cried Milady, as if she could not resist giving utterance to a
holy indignation, “you, a pious man, you who are called a just man, you
ask but one thing—and that is that you may not be inculpated, annoyed,
by my death!”

“It is my duty to watch over your life, madame, and I will watch.”

“But do you understand the mission you are fulfilling? Cruel enough, if
I am guilty; but what name can you give it, what name will the Lord
give it, if I am innocent?”

“I am a soldier, madame, and fulfill the orders I have received.”

“Do you believe, then, that at the day of the Last Judgment God will
separate blind executioners from iniquitous judges? You are not willing
that I should kill my body, and you make yourself the agent of him who
would kill my soul.”

“But I repeat it again to you,” replied Felton, in great emotion, “no
danger threatens you; I will answer for Lord de Winter as for myself.”

“Dunce,” cried Milady, “dunce! who dares to answer for another man,
when the wisest, when those most after God’s own heart, hesitate to
answer for themselves, and who ranges himself on the side of the
strongest and the most fortunate, to crush the weakest and the most
unfortunate.”

“Impossible, madame, impossible,” murmured Felton, who felt to the
bottom of his heart the justness of this argument. “A prisoner, you
will not recover your liberty through me; living, you will not lose
your life through me.”

“Yes,” cried Milady, “but I shall lose that which is much dearer to me
than life, I shall lose my honor, Felton; and it is you, you whom I
make responsible, before God and before men, for my shame and my
infamy.”

This time Felton, immovable as he was, or appeared to be, could not
resist the secret influence which had already taken possession of him.
To see this woman, so beautiful, fair as the brightest vision, to see
her by turns overcome with grief and threatening; to resist at once the
ascendancy of grief and beauty—it was too much for a visionary; it was
too much for a brain weakened by the ardent dreams of an ecstatic
faith; it was too much for a heart furrowed by the love of heaven that
burns, by the hatred of men that devours.

Milady saw the trouble. She felt by intuition the flame of the opposing
passions which burned with the blood in the veins of the young fanatic.
As a skillful general, seeing the enemy ready to surrender, marches
toward him with a cry of victory, she rose, beautiful as an antique
priestess, inspired like a Christian virgin, her arms extended, her
throat uncovered, her hair disheveled, holding with one hand her robe
modestly drawn over her breast, her look illumined by that fire which
had already created such disorder in the veins of the young Puritan,
and went toward him, crying out with a vehement air, and in her
melodious voice, to which on this occasion she communicated a terrible
energy:

“Let this victim to Baal be sent,
    To the lions the martyr be thrown!
Thy God shall teach thee to repent!
    From th’ abyss he’ll give ear to my moan.”


Felton stood before this strange apparition like one petrified.

“Who art thou? Who art thou?” cried he, clasping his hands. “Art thou a
messenger from God; art thou a minister from hell; art thou an angel or
a demon; callest thou thyself Eloa or Astarte?”

“Do you not know me, Felton? I am neither an angel nor a demon; I am a
daughter of earth, I am a sister of thy faith, that is all.”

“Yes, yes!” said Felton, “I doubted, but now I believe.”

“You believe, and still you are an accomplice of that child of Belial
who is called Lord de Winter! You believe, and yet you leave me in the
hands of mine enemies, of the enemy of England, of the enemy of God!
You believe, and yet you deliver me up to him who fills and defiles the
world with his heresies and debaucheries—to that infamous Sardanapalus
whom the blind call the Duke of Buckingham, and whom believers name
Antichrist!”

“I deliver you up to Buckingham? I? what mean you by that?”

“They have eyes,” cried Milady, “but they see not; ears have they, but
they hear not.”

“Yes, yes!” said Felton, passing his hands over his brow, covered with
sweat, as if to remove his last doubt. “Yes, I recognize the voice
which speaks to me in my dreams; yes, I recognize the features of the
angel who appears to me every night, crying to my soul, which cannot
sleep: ‘Strike, save England, save thyself—for thou wilt die without
having appeased God!’ Speak, speak!” cried Felton, “I can understand
you now.”

A flash of terrible joy, but rapid as thought, gleamed from the eyes of
Milady.

However fugitive this homicide flash, Felton saw it, and started as if
its light had revealed the abysses of this woman’s heart. He recalled,
all at once, the warnings of Lord de Winter, the seductions of Milady,
her first attempts after her arrival. He drew back a step, and hung
down his head, without, however, ceasing to look at her, as if,
fascinated by this strange creature, he could not detach his eyes from
her eyes.

Milady was not a woman to misunderstand the meaning of this hesitation.
Under her apparent emotions her icy coolness never abandoned her.
Before Felton replied, and before she should be forced to resume this
conversation, so difficult to be sustained in the same exalted tone,
she let her hands fall; and as if the weakness of the woman overpowered
the enthusiasm of the inspired fanatic, she said: “But no, it is not
for me to be the Judith to deliver Bethulia from this Holofernes. The
sword of the eternal is too heavy for my arm. Allow me, then, to avoid
dishonor by death; let me take refuge in martyrdom. I do not ask you
for liberty, as a guilty one would, nor for vengeance, as would a
pagan. Let me die; that is all. I supplicate you, I implore you on my
knees—let me die, and my last sigh shall be a blessing for my
preserver.”

Hearing that voice, so sweet and suppliant, seeing that look, so timid
and downcast, Felton reproached himself. By degrees the enchantress had
clothed herself with that magic adornment which she assumed and threw
aside at will; that is to say, beauty, meekness, and tears—and above
all, the irresistible attraction of mystical voluptuousness, the most
devouring of all voluptuousness.

“Alas!” said Felton, “I can do but one thing, which is to pity you if
you prove to me you are a victim! But Lord de Winter makes cruel
accusations against you. You are a Christian; you are my sister in
religion. I feel myself drawn toward you—I, who have never loved anyone
but my benefactor—I who have met with nothing but traitors and impious
men. But you, madame, so beautiful in reality, you, so pure in
appearance, must have committed great iniquities for Lord de Winter to
pursue you thus.”

“They have eyes,” repeated Milady, with an accent of indescribable
grief, “but they see not; ears have they, but they hear not.”

“But,” cried the young officer, “speak, then, speak!”

“Confide my shame to you,” cried Milady, with the blush of modesty upon
her countenance, “for often the crime of one becomes the shame of
another—confide my shame to you, a man, and I a woman? Oh,” continued
she, placing her hand modestly over her beautiful eyes, “never!
never!—I could not!”

“To me, to a brother?” said Felton.

Milady looked at him for some time with an expression which the young
man took for doubt, but which, however, was nothing but observation, or
rather the wish to fascinate.

Felton, in his turn a suppliant, clasped his hands.

“Well, then,” said Milady, “I confide in my brother; I will dare to—”

At this moment the steps of Lord de Winter were heard; but this time
the terrible brother-in-law of Milady did not content himself, as on
the preceding day, with passing before the door and going away again.
He paused, exchanged two words with the sentinel; then the door opened,
and he appeared.

During the exchange of these two words Felton drew back quickly, and
when Lord de Winter entered, he was several paces from the prisoner.

The baron entered slowly, sending a scrutinizing glance from Milady to
the young officer.

“You have been here a very long time, John,” said he. “Has this woman
been relating her crimes to you? In that case I can comprehend the
length of the conversation.”

Felton started; and Milady felt she was lost if she did not come to the
assistance of the disconcerted Puritan.

“Ah, you fear your prisoner should escape!” said she. “Well, ask your
worthy jailer what favor I this instant solicited of him.”

“You demanded a favor?” said the baron, suspiciously.

“Yes, my Lord,” replied the young man, confused.

“And what favor, pray?” asked Lord de Winter.

“A knife, which she would return to me through the grating of the door
a minute after she had received it,” replied Felton.

“There is someone, then, concealed here whose throat this amiable lady
is desirous of cutting,” said de Winter, in an ironical, contemptuous
tone.

“There is myself,” replied Milady.

“I have given you the choice between America and Tyburn,” replied Lord
de Winter. “Choose Tyburn, madame. Believe me, the cord is more certain
than the knife.”

Felton grew pale, and made a step forward, remembering that at the
moment he entered Milady had a rope in her hand.

“You are right,” said she, “I have often thought of it.” Then she added
in a low voice, “And I will think of it again.”

Felton felt a shudder run to the marrow of his bones; probably Lord de
Winter perceived this emotion.

“Mistrust yourself, John,” said he. “I have placed reliance upon you,
my friend. Beware! I have warned you! But be of good courage, my lad;
in three days we shall be delivered from this creature, and where I
shall send her she can harm nobody.”

“You hear him!” cried Milady, with vehemence, so that the baron might
believe she was addressing heaven, and that Felton might understand she
was addressing him.

Felton lowered his head and reflected.

The baron took the young officer by the arm, and turned his head over
his shoulder, so as not to lose sight of Milady till he was gone out.

“Well,” said the prisoner, when the door was shut, “I am not so far
advanced as I believed. De Winter has changed his usual stupidity into
a strange prudence. It is the desire of vengeance, and how desire molds
a man! As to Felton, he hesitates. Ah, he is not a man like that cursed
D’Artagnan. A Puritan only adores virgins, and he adores them by
clasping his hands. A Musketeer loves women, and he loves them by
clasping his arms round them.”

Milady waited, then, with much impatience, for she feared the day would
pass away without her seeing Felton again. At last, in an hour after
the scene we have just described, she heard someone speaking in a low
voice at the door. Presently the door opened, and she perceived Felton.

The young man advanced rapidly into the chamber, leaving the door open
behind him, and making a sign to Milady to be silent; his face was much
agitated.

“What do you want with me?” said she.

“Listen,” replied Felton, in a low voice. “I have just sent away the
sentinel that I might remain here without anybody knowing it, in order
to speak to you without being overheard. The baron has just related a
frightful story to me.”

Milady assumed her smile of a resigned victim, and shook her head.

“Either you are a demon,” continued Felton, “or the baron—my
benefactor, my father—is a monster. I have known you four days; I have
loved him four years. I therefore may hesitate between you. Be not
alarmed at what I say; I want to be convinced. Tonight, after twelve, I
will come and see you, and you shall convince me.”

“No, Felton, no, my brother,” said she; “the sacrifice is too great,
and I feel what it must cost you. No, I am lost; do not be lost with
me. My death will be much more eloquent than my life, and the silence
of the corpse will convince you much better than the words of the
prisoner.”

“Be silent, madame,” cried Felton, “and do not speak to me thus; I came
to entreat you to promise me upon your honor, to swear to me by what
you hold most sacred, that you will make no attempt upon your life.”

“I will not promise,” said Milady, “for no one has more respect for a
promise or an oath than I have; and if I make a promise I must keep
it.”

“Well,” said Felton, “only promise till you have seen me again. If,
when you have seen me again, you still persist—well, then you shall be
free, and I myself will give you the weapon you desire.”

“Well,” said Milady, “for you I will wait.”

“Swear.”

“I swear it, by our God. Are you satisfied?”

“Well,” said Felton, “till tonight.”

And he darted out of the room, shut the door, and waited in the
corridor, the soldier’s half-pike in his hand, and as if he had mounted
guard in his place.

The soldier returned, and Felton gave him back his weapon.

Then, through the grating to which she had drawn near, Milady saw the
young man make a sign with delirious fervor, and depart in an apparent
transport of joy.

As for her, she returned to her place with a smile of savage contempt
upon her lips, and repeated, blaspheming, that terrible name of God, by
whom she had just sworn without ever having learned to know Him.

“My God,” said she, “what a senseless fanatic! My God, it is I—I—and
this fellow who will help me to avenge myself.”




Chapter LVI.
CAPTIVITY: THE FIFTH DAY


Milady had however achieved a half-triumph, and success doubled her
forces.

It was not difficult to conquer, as she had hitherto done, men prompt
to let themselves be seduced, and whom the gallant education of a court
led quickly into her net. Milady was handsome enough not to find much
resistance on the part of the flesh, and she was sufficiently skillful
to prevail over all the obstacles of the mind.

But this time she had to contend with an unpolished nature,
concentrated and insensible by force of austerity. Religion and its
observances had made Felton a man inaccessible to ordinary seductions.
There fermented in that sublimated brain plans so vast, projects so
tumultuous, that there remained no room for any capricious or material
love—that sentiment which is fed by leisure and grows with corruption.
Milady had, then, made a breach by her false virtue in the opinion of a
man horribly prejudiced against her, and by her beauty in the heart of
a man hitherto chaste and pure. In short, she had taken the measure of
motives hitherto unknown to herself, through this experiment, made upon
the most rebellious subject that nature and religion could submit to
her study.

Many a time, nevertheless, during the evening she despaired of fate and
of herself. She did not invoke God, we very well know, but she had
faith in the genius of evil—that immense sovereignty which reigns in
all the details of human life, and by which, as in the Arabian fable, a
single pomegranate seed is sufficient to reconstruct a ruined world.

Milady, being well prepared for the reception of Felton, was able to
erect her batteries for the next day. She knew she had only two days
left; that when once the order was signed by Buckingham—and Buckingham
would sign it the more readily from its bearing a false name, and he
could not, therefore, recognize the woman in question—once this order
was signed, we say, the baron would make her embark immediately, and
she knew very well that women condemned to exile employ arms much less
powerful in their seductions than the pretendedly virtuous woman whose
beauty is lighted by the sun of the world, whose style the voice of
fashion lauds, and whom a halo of aristocracy gilds with enchanting
splendors. To be a woman condemned to a painful and disgraceful
punishment is no impediment to beauty, but it is an obstacle to the
recovery of power. Like all persons of real genius, Milady knew what
suited her nature and her means. Poverty was repugnant to her;
degradation took away two-thirds of her greatness. Milady was only a
queen while among queens. The pleasure of satisfied pride was necessary
to her domination. To command inferior beings was rather a humiliation
than a pleasure for her.

She should certainly return from her exile—she did not doubt that a
single instant; but how long might this exile last? For an active,
ambitious nature, like that of Milady, days not spent in climbing are
inauspicious days. What word, then, can be found to describe the days
which they occupy in descending? To lose a year, two years, three
years, is to talk of an eternity; to return after the death or disgrace
of the cardinal, perhaps; to return when D’Artagnan and his friends,
happy and triumphant, should have received from the queen the reward
they had well acquired by the services they had rendered her—these were
devouring ideas that a woman like Milady could not endure. For the
rest, the storm which raged within her doubled her strength, and she
would have burst the walls of her prison if her body had been able to
take for a single instant the proportions of her mind.

Then that which spurred her on additionally in the midst of all this
was the remembrance of the cardinal. What must the mistrustful,
restless, suspicious cardinal think of her silence—the cardinal, not
merely her only support, her only prop, her only protector at present,
but still further, the principal instrument of her future fortune and
vengeance? She knew him; she knew that at her return from a fruitless
journey it would be in vain to tell him of her imprisonment, in vain to
enlarge upon the sufferings she had undergone. The cardinal would
reply, with the sarcastic calmness of the skeptic, strong at once by
power and genius, “You should not have allowed yourself to be taken.”

Then Milady collected all her energies, murmuring in the depths of her
soul the name of Felton—the only beam of light that penetrated to her
in the hell into which she had fallen; and like a serpent which folds
and unfolds its rings to ascertain its strength, she enveloped Felton
beforehand in the thousand meshes of her inventive imagination.

Time, however, passed away; the hours, one after another, seemed to
awaken the clock as they passed, and every blow of the brass hammer
resounded upon the heart of the prisoner. At nine o’clock, Lord de
Winter made his customary visit, examined the window and the bars,
sounded the floor and the walls, looked to the chimney and the doors,
without, during this long and minute examination, he or Milady
pronouncing a single word.

Doubtless both of them understood that the situation had become too
serious to lose time in useless words and aimless wrath.

“Well,” said the baron, on leaving her “you will not escape tonight!”

At ten o’clock Felton came and placed the sentinel. Milady recognized
his step. She was as well acquainted with it now as a mistress is with
that of the lover of her heart; and yet Milady at the same time
detested and despised this weak fanatic.

That was not the appointed hour. Felton did not enter.

Two hours after, as midnight sounded, the sentinel was relieved. This
time it _was_ the hour, and from this moment Milady waited with
impatience. The new sentinel commenced his walk in the corridor. At the
expiration of ten minutes Felton came.

Milady was all attention.

“Listen,” said the young man to the sentinel. “On no pretense leave the
door, for you know that last night my Lord punished a soldier for
having quit his post for an instant, although I, during his absence,
watched in his place.”

“Yes, I know it,” said the soldier.

“I recommend you therefore to keep the strictest watch. For my part I
am going to pay a second visit to this woman, who I fear entertains
sinister intentions upon her own life, and I have received orders to
watch her.”

“Good!” murmured Milady; “the austere Puritan lies.”

As to the soldier, he only smiled.

“Zounds, Lieutenant!” said he; “you are not unlucky in being charged
with such commissions, particularly if my Lord has authorized you to
look into her bed.”

Felton blushed. Under any other circumstances he would have reprimanded
the soldier for indulging in such pleasantry, but his conscience
murmured too loud for his mouth to dare speak.

“If I call, come,” said he. “If anyone comes, call me.”

“I will, Lieutenant,” said the soldier.

Felton entered Milady’s apartment. Milady arose.

“You are here!” said she.

“I promised to come,” said Felton, “and I have come.”

“You promised me something else.”

“What, my God!” said the young man, who in spite of his self-command
felt his knees tremble and the sweat start from his brow.

“You promised to bring a knife, and to leave it with me after our
interview.”

“Say no more of that, madame,” said Felton. “There is no situation,
however terrible it may be, which can authorize a creature of God to
inflict death upon himself. I have reflected, and I cannot, must not be
guilty of such a sin.”

“Ah, you have reflected!” said the prisoner, sitting down in her
armchair, with a smile of disdain; “and I also have reflected.”

“Upon what?”

“That I can have nothing to say to a man who does not keep his word.”

“Oh, my God!” murmured Felton.

“You may retire,” said Milady. “I will not talk.”

“Here is the knife,” said Felton, drawing from his pocket the weapon
which he had brought, according to his promise, but which he hesitated
to give to his prisoner.

“Let me see it,” said Milady.

“For what purpose?”

“Upon my honor, I will instantly return it to you. You shall place it
on that table, and you may remain between it and me.”

Felton offered the weapon to Milady, who examined the temper of it
attentively, and who tried the point on the tip of her finger.

“Well,” said she, returning the knife to the young officer, “this is
fine and good steel. You are a faithful friend, Felton.”

Felton took back the weapon, and laid it upon the table, as he had
agreed with the prisoner.

Milady followed him with her eyes, and made a gesture of satisfaction.

“Now,” said she, “listen to me.”

The request was needless. The young officer stood upright before her,
awaiting her words as if to devour them.

“Felton,” said Milady, with a solemnity full of melancholy, “imagine
that your sister, the daughter of your father, speaks to you. While yet
young, unfortunately handsome, I was dragged into a snare. I resisted.
Ambushes and violences multiplied around me, but I resisted. The
religion I serve, the God I adore, were blasphemed because I called
upon that religion and that God, but still I resisted. Then outrages
were heaped upon me, and as my soul was not subdued they wished to
defile my body forever. Finally—”

Milady stopped, and a bitter smile passed over her lips.

“Finally,” said Felton, “finally, what did they do?”

“At length, one evening my enemy resolved to paralyze the resistance he
could not conquer. One evening he mixed a powerful narcotic with my
water. Scarcely had I finished my repast, when I felt myself sink by
degrees into a strange torpor. Although I was without mistrust, a vague
fear seized me, and I tried to struggle against sleepiness. I arose. I
wished to run to the window and call for help, but my legs refused
their office. It appeared as if the ceiling sank upon my head and
crushed me with its weight. I stretched out my arms. I tried to speak.
I could only utter inarticulate sounds, and irresistible faintness came
over me. I supported myself by a chair, feeling that I was about to
fall, but this support was soon insufficient on account of my weak
arms. I fell upon one knee, then upon both. I tried to pray, but my
tongue was frozen. God doubtless neither heard nor saw me, and I sank
upon the floor a prey to a slumber which resembled death.

“Of all that passed in that sleep, or the time which glided away while
it lasted, I have no remembrance. The only thing I recollect is that I
awoke in bed in a round chamber, the furniture of which was sumptuous,
and into which light only penetrated by an opening in the ceiling. No
door gave entrance to the room. It might be called a magnificent
prison.

“It was a long time before I was able to make out what place I was in,
or to take account of the details I describe. My mind appeared to
strive in vain to shake off the heavy darkness of the sleep from which
I could not rouse myself. I had vague perceptions of space traversed,
of the rolling of a carriage, of a horrible dream in which my strength
had become exhausted; but all this was so dark and so indistinct in my
mind that these events seemed to belong to another life than mine, and
yet mixed with mine in fantastic duality.

“At times the state into which I had fallen appeared so strange that I
believed myself dreaming. I arose trembling. My clothes were near me on
a chair; I neither remembered having undressed myself nor going to bed.
Then by degrees the reality broke upon me, full of chaste terrors. I
was no longer in the house where I had dwelt. As well as I could judge
by the light of the sun, the day was already two-thirds gone. It was
the evening before when I had fallen asleep; my sleep, then, must have
lasted twenty-four hours! What had taken place during this long sleep?

“I dressed myself as quickly as possible; my slow and stiff motions all
attested that the effects of the narcotic were not yet entirely
dissipated. The chamber was evidently furnished for the reception of a
woman; and the most finished coquette could not have formed a wish, but
on casting her eyes about the apartment, she would have found that wish
accomplished.

“Certainly I was not the first captive that had been shut up in this
splendid prison; but you may easily comprehend, Felton, that the more
superb the prison, the greater was my terror.

“Yes, it was a prison, for I tried in vain to get out of it. I sounded
all the walls, in the hopes of discovering a door, but everywhere the
walls returned a full and flat sound.

“I made the tour of the room at least twenty times, in search of an
outlet of some kind; but there was none. I sank exhausted with fatigue
and terror into an armchair.

“Meantime, night came on rapidly, and with night my terrors increased.
I did not know but I had better remain where I was seated. It appeared
that I was surrounded with unknown dangers into which I was about to
fall at every instant. Although I had eaten nothing since the evening
before, my fears prevented my feeling hunger.

“No noise from without by which I could measure the time reached me; I
only supposed it must be seven or eight o’clock in the evening, for it
was in the month of October and it was quite dark.

“All at once the noise of a door, turning on its hinges, made me start.
A globe of fire appeared above the glazed opening of the ceiling,
casting a strong light into my chamber; and I perceived with terror
that a man was standing within a few paces of me.

“A table, with two covers, bearing a supper ready prepared, stood, as
if by magic, in the middle of the apartment.

“That man was he who had pursued me during a whole year, who had vowed
my dishonor, and who, by the first words that issued from his mouth,
gave me to understand he had accomplished it the preceding night.”

“Scoundrel!” murmured Felton.

“Oh, yes, scoundrel!” cried Milady, seeing the interest which the young
officer, whose soul seemed to hang on her lips, took in this strange
recital. “Oh, yes, scoundrel! He believed, having triumphed over me in
my sleep, that all was completed. He came, hoping that I would accept
my shame, as my shame was consummated; he came to offer his fortune in
exchange for my love.

“All that the heart of a woman could contain of haughty contempt and
disdainful words, I poured out upon this man. Doubtless he was
accustomed to such reproaches, for he listened to me calm and smiling,
with his arms crossed over his breast. Then, when he thought I had said
all, he advanced toward me; I sprang toward the table, I seized a
knife, I placed it to my breast.

“Take one step more,” said I, “and in addition to my dishonor, you
shall have my death to reproach yourself with.”

“There was, no doubt, in my look, my voice, my whole person, that
sincerity of gesture, of attitude, of accent, which carries conviction
to the most perverse minds, for he paused.

“‘Your death?’ said he; ‘oh, no, you are too charming a mistress to
allow me to consent to lose you thus, after I have had the happiness to
possess you only a single time. Adieu, my charmer; I will wait to pay
you my next visit till you are in a better humor.’

“At these words he blew a whistle; the globe of fire which lighted the
room reascended and disappeared. I found myself again in complete
darkness. The same noise of a door opening and shutting was repeated
the instant afterward; the flaming globe descended afresh, and I was
completely alone.

“This moment was frightful; if I had any doubts as to my misfortune,
these doubts had vanished in an overwhelming reality. I was in the
power of a man whom I not only detested, but despised—of a man capable
of anything, and who had already given me a fatal proof of what he was
able to do.”

“But who, then, was this man?” asked Felton.

“I passed the night on a chair, starting at the least noise, for toward
midnight the lamp went out, and I was again in darkness. But the night
passed away without any fresh attempt on the part of my persecutor. Day
came; the table had disappeared, only I had still the knife in my hand.

“This knife was my only hope.

“I was worn out with fatigue. Sleeplessness inflamed my eyes; I had not
dared to sleep a single instant. The light of day reassured me; I went
and threw myself on the bed, without parting with the emancipating
knife, which I concealed under my pillow.

“When I awoke, a fresh meal was served.

“This time, in spite of my terrors, in spite of my agony, I began to
feel a devouring hunger. It was forty-eight hours since I had taken any
nourishment. I ate some bread and some fruit; then, remembering the
narcotic mixed with the water I had drunk, I would not touch that which
was placed on the table, but filled my glass at a marble fountain fixed
in the wall over my dressing table.

“And yet, notwithstanding these precautions, I remained for some time
in a terrible agitation of mind. But my fears were this time
ill-founded; I passed the day without experiencing anything of the kind
I dreaded.

“I took the precaution to half empty the _carafe_, in order that my
suspicions might not be noticed.

“The evening came on, and with it darkness; but however profound was
this darkness, my eyes began to accustom themselves to it. I saw, amid
the shadows, the table sink through the floor; a quarter of an hour
later it reappeared, bearing my supper. In an instant, thanks to the
lamp, my chamber was once more lighted.

“I was determined to eat only such things as could not possibly have
anything soporific introduced into them. Two eggs and some fruit
composed my repast; then I drew another glass of water from my
protecting fountain, and drank it.

“At the first swallow, it appeared to me not to have the same taste as
in the morning. Suspicion instantly seized me. I paused, but I had
already drunk half a glass.

“I threw the rest away with horror, and waited, with the dew of fear
upon my brow.

“No doubt some invisible witness had seen me draw the water from that
fountain, and had taken advantage of my confidence in it, the better to
assure my ruin, so coolly resolved upon, so cruelly pursued.

“Half an hour had not passed when the same symptoms began to appear;
but as I had only drunk half a glass of the water, I contended longer,
and instead of falling entirely asleep, I sank into a state of
drowsiness which left me a perception of what was passing around me,
while depriving me of the strength either to defend myself or to fly.

“I dragged myself toward the bed, to seek the only defense I had
left—my saving knife; but I could not reach the bolster. I sank on my
knees, my hands clasped round one of the bedposts; then I felt that I
was lost.”

Felton became frightfully pale, and a convulsive tremor crept through
his whole body.

“And what was most frightful,” continued Milady, her voice altered, as
if she still experienced the same agony as at that awful minute, “was
that at this time I retained a consciousness of the danger that
threatened me; was that my soul, if I may say so, waked in my sleeping
body; was that I saw, that I heard. It is true that all was like a
dream, but it was not the less frightful.

“I saw the lamp ascend, and leave me in darkness; then I heard the
well-known creaking of the door although I had heard that door open but
twice.

“I felt instinctively that someone approached me; it is said that the
doomed wretch in the deserts of America thus feels the approach of the
serpent.

“I wished to make an effort; I attempted to cry out. By an incredible
effort of will I even raised myself up, but only to sink down again
immediately, and to fall into the arms of my persecutor.”

“Tell me who this man was!” cried the young officer.

Milady saw at a single glance all the painful feelings she inspired in
Felton by dwelling on every detail of her recital; but she would not
spare him a single pang. The more profoundly she wounded his heart, the
more certainly he would avenge her. She continued, then, as if she had
not heard his exclamation, or as if she thought the moment was not yet
come to reply to it.

“Only this time it was no longer an inert body, without feeling, that
the villain had to deal with. I have told you that without being able
to regain the complete exercise of my faculties, I retained the sense
of my danger. I struggled, then, with all my strength, and doubtless
opposed, weak as I was, a long resistance, for I heard him cry out,
‘These miserable Puritans! I knew very well that they tired out their
executioners, but I did not believe them so strong against their
lovers!’

“Alas! this desperate resistance could not last long. I felt my
strength fail, and this time it was not my sleep that enabled the
coward to prevail, but my swoon.”

Felton listened without uttering any word or sound, except an inward
expression of agony. The sweat streamed down his marble forehead, and
his hand, under his coat, tore his breast.

“My first impulse, on coming to myself, was to feel under my pillow for
the knife I had not been able to reach; if it had not been useful for
defense, it might at least serve for expiation.

“But on taking this knife, Felton, a terrible idea occurred to me. I
have sworn to tell you all, and I will tell you all. I have promised
you the truth; I will tell it, were it to destroy me.”

“The idea came into your mind to avenge yourself on this man, did it
not?” cried Felton.

“Yes,” said Milady. “The idea was not that of a Christian, I knew; but
without doubt, that eternal enemy of our souls, that lion roaring
constantly around us, breathed it into my mind. In short, what shall I
say to you, Felton?” continued Milady, in the tone of a woman accusing
herself of a crime. “This idea occurred to me, and did not leave me; it
is of this homicidal thought that I now bear the punishment.”

“Continue, continue!” said Felton; “I am eager to see you attain your
vengeance!”

“Oh, I resolved that it should take place as soon as possible. I had no
doubt he would return the following night. During the day I had nothing
to fear.

“When the hour of breakfast came, therefore, I did not hesitate to eat
and drink. I had determined to make believe sup, but to eat nothing. I
was forced, then, to combat the fast of the evening with the
nourishment of the morning.

“Only I concealed a glass of water, which remained after my breakfast,
thirst having been the chief of my sufferings when I remained
forty-eight hours without eating or drinking.

“The day passed away without having any other influence on me than to
strengthen the resolution I had formed; only I took care that my face
should not betray the thoughts of my heart, for I had no doubt I was
watched. Several times, even, I felt a smile on my lips. Felton, I dare
not tell you at what idea I smiled; you would hold me in horror—”

“Go on! go on!” said Felton; “you see plainly that I listen, and that I
am anxious to know the end.”

“Evening came; the ordinary events took place. During the darkness, as
before, my supper was brought. Then the lamp was lighted, and I sat
down to table. I only ate some fruit. I pretended to pour out water
from the jug, but I only drank that which I had saved in my glass. The
substitution was made so carefully that my spies, if I had any, could
have no suspicion of it.

“After supper I exhibited the same marks of languor as on the preceding
evening; but this time, as I yielded to fatigue, or as if I had become
familiarized with danger, I dragged myself toward my bed, let my robe
fall, and lay down.

“I found my knife where I had placed it, under my pillow, and while
feigning to sleep, my hand grasped the handle of it convulsively.

“Two hours passed away without anything fresh happening. Oh, my God!
who could have said so the evening before? I began to fear that he
would not come.

“At length I saw the lamp rise softly, and disappear in the depths of
the ceiling; my chamber was filled with darkness and obscurity, but I
made a strong effort to penetrate this darkness and obscurity.

“Nearly ten minutes passed; I heard no other noise but the beating of
my own heart. I implored heaven that he might come.

“At length I heard the well-known noise of the door, which opened and
shut; I heard, notwithstanding the thickness of the carpet, a step
which made the floor creak; I saw, notwithstanding the darkness, a
shadow which approached my bed.”

“Haste! haste!” said Felton; “do you not see that each of your words
burns me like molten lead?”

“Then,” continued Milady, “then I collected all my strength; I recalled
to my mind that the moment of vengeance, or rather, of justice, had
struck. I looked upon myself as another Judith; I gathered myself up,
my knife in my hand, and when I saw him near me, stretching out his
arms to find his victim, then, with the last cry of agony and despair,
I struck him in the middle of his breast.

“The miserable villain! He had foreseen all. His breast was covered
with a coat-of-mail; the knife was bent against it.

“‘Ah, ah!’ cried he, seizing my arm, and wresting from me the weapon
that had so badly served me, ‘you want to take my life, do you, my
pretty Puritan? But that’s more than dislike, that’s ingratitude! Come,
come, calm yourself, my sweet girl! I thought you had softened. I am
not one of those tyrants who detain women by force. You don’t love me.
With my usual fatuity I doubted it; now I am convinced. Tomorrow you
shall be free.’

“I had but one wish; that was that he should kill me.

“‘Beware!’ said I, ‘for my liberty is your dishonor.’

“‘Explain yourself, my pretty sibyl!’

“‘Yes; for as soon as I leave this place I will tell everything. I will
proclaim the violence you have used toward me. I will describe my
captivity. I will denounce this place of infamy. You are placed on
high, my Lord, but tremble! Above you there is the king; above the king
there is God!’

“However perfect master he was over himself, my persecutor allowed a
movement of anger to escape him. I could not see the expression of his
countenance, but I felt the arm tremble upon which my hand was placed.

“‘Then you shall not leave this place,’ said he.

“‘Very well,’ cried I, ‘then the place of my punishment will be that of
my tomb. I will die here, and you will see if a phantom that accuses is
not more terrible than a living being that threatens!’

“‘You shall have no weapon left in your power.’

“‘There is a weapon which despair has placed within the reach of every
creature who has the courage to use it. I will allow myself to die with
hunger.’

“‘Come,’ said the wretch, ‘is not peace much better than such a war as
that? I will restore you to liberty this moment; I will proclaim you a
piece of immaculate virtue; I will name you the Lucretia of England.’

“‘And I will say that you are the Sextus. I will denounce you before
men, as I have denounced you before God; and if it be necessary that,
like Lucretia, I should sign my accusation with my blood, I will sign
it.’

“‘Ah!’ said my enemy, in a jeering tone, ‘that’s quite another thing.
My faith! everything considered, you are very well off here. You shall
want for nothing, and if you let yourself die of hunger that will be
your own fault.’

“At these words he retired. I heard the door open and shut, and I
remained overwhelmed, less, I confess it, by my grief than by the
mortification of not having avenged myself.

“He kept his word. All the day, all the next night passed away without
my seeing him again. But I also kept my word with him, and I neither
ate nor drank. I was, as I told him, resolved to die of hunger.

“I passed the day and the night in prayer, for I hoped that God would
pardon me my suicide.

“The second night the door opened; I was lying on the floor, for my
strength began to abandon me.

“At the noise I raised myself up on one hand.

“‘Well,’ said a voice which vibrated in too terrible a manner in my ear
not to be recognized, ‘well! Are we softened a little? Will we not pay
for our liberty with a single promise of silence? Come, I am a good
sort of a prince,’ added he, ‘and although I like not Puritans I do
them justice; and it is the same with Puritanesses, when they are
pretty. Come, take a little oath for me on the cross; I won’t ask
anything more of you.’

“‘On the cross,’ cried I, rising, for at that abhorred voice I had
recovered all my strength, ‘on the cross I swear that no promise, no
menace, no force, no torture, shall close my mouth! On the cross I
swear to denounce you everywhere as a murderer, as a thief of honor, as
a base coward! On the cross I swear, if I ever leave this place, to
call down vengeance upon you from the whole human race!’

“‘Beware!’ said the voice, in a threatening accent that I had never yet
heard. ‘I have an extraordinary means which I will not employ but in
the last extremity to close your mouth, or at least to prevent anyone
from believing a word you may utter.’

“I mustered all my strength to reply to him with a burst of laughter.

“He saw that it was a merciless war between us—a war to the death.

“‘Listen!’ said he. ‘I give you the rest of tonight and all day
tomorrow. Reflect: promise to be silent, and riches, consideration,
even honor, shall surround you; threaten to speak, and I will condemn
you to infamy.’

“‘You?’ cried I. ‘You?’

“‘To interminable, ineffaceable infamy!’

“‘You?’ repeated I. Oh, I declare to you, Felton, I thought him mad!

“‘Yes, yes, I!’ replied he.

“‘Oh, leave me!’ said I. ‘Begone, if you do not desire to see me dash
my head against that wall before your eyes!’

“‘Very well, it is your own doing. Till tomorrow evening, then!’

“‘Till tomorrow evening, then!’ replied I, allowing myself to fall, and
biting the carpet with rage.”

Felton leaned for support upon a piece of furniture; and Milady saw,
with the joy of a demon, that his strength would fail him perhaps
before the end of her recital.




Chapter LVII.
MEANS FOR CLASSICAL TRAGEDY


After a moment of silence employed by Milady in observing the young man
who listened to her, Milady continued her recital.

“It was nearly three days since I had eaten or drunk anything. I
suffered frightful torments. At times there passed before me clouds
which pressed my brow, which veiled my eyes; this was delirium.

“When the evening came I was so weak that every time I fainted I
thanked God, for I thought I was about to die.

“In the midst of one of these swoons I heard the door open. Terror
recalled me to myself.

“He entered the apartment followed by a man in a mask. He was masked
likewise; but I knew his step, I knew his voice, I knew him by that
imposing bearing which hell has bestowed upon his person for the curse
of humanity.

“‘Well,’ said he to me, ‘have you made your mind up to take the oath I
requested of you?’

“‘You have said Puritans have but one word. Mine you have heard, and
that is to pursue you—on earth to the tribunal of men, in heaven to the
tribunal of God.’

“‘You persist, then?’

“‘I swear it before the God who hears me. I will take the whole world
as a witness of your crime, and that until I have found an avenger.’

“‘You are a prostitute,’ said he, in a voice of thunder, ‘and you shall
undergo the punishment of prostitutes! Branded in the eyes of the world
you invoke, try to prove to that world that you are neither guilty nor
mad!’

“Then, addressing the man who accompanied him, ‘Executioner,’ said he,
‘do your duty.’”

“Oh, his name, his name!” cried Felton. “His name, tell it me!”

“Then in spite of my cries, in spite of my resistance—for I began to
comprehend that there was a question of something worse than death—the
executioner seized me, threw me on the floor, fastened me with his
bonds, and suffocated by sobs, almost without sense, invoking God, who
did not listen to me, I uttered all at once a frightful cry of pain and
shame. A burning fire, a red-hot iron, the iron of the executioner, was
imprinted on my shoulder.”

Felton uttered a groan.

“Here,” said Milady, rising with the majesty of a queen, “here, Felton,
behold the new martyrdom invented for a pure young girl, the victim of
the brutality of a villain. Learn to know the heart of men, and
henceforth make yourself less easily the instrument of their unjust
vengeance.”

Milady, with a rapid gesture, opened her robe, tore the cambric that
covered her bosom, and red with feigned anger and simulated shame,
showed the young man the ineffaceable impression which dishonored that
beautiful shoulder.

“But,” cried Felton, “that is a _fleur-de-lis_ which I see there.”

“And therein consisted the infamy,” replied Milady. “The brand of
England!—it would be necessary to prove what tribunal had imposed it on
me, and I could have made a public appeal to all the tribunals of the
kingdom; but the brand of France!—oh, by that, by _that_ I was branded
indeed!”

This was too much for Felton.

Pale, motionless, overwhelmed by this frightful revelation, dazzled by
the superhuman beauty of this woman who unveiled herself before him
with an immodesty which appeared to him sublime, he ended by falling on
his knees before her as the early Christians did before those pure and
holy martyrs whom the persecution of the emperors gave up in the circus
to the sanguinary sensuality of the populace. The brand disappeared;
the beauty alone remained.

“Pardon! Pardon!” cried Felton, “oh, pardon!”

Milady read in his eyes _love! love!_

“Pardon for what?” asked she.

“Pardon me for having joined with your persecutors.”

Milady held out her hand to him.

“So beautiful! so young!” cried Felton, covering that hand with his
kisses.

Milady let one of those looks fall upon him which make a slave of a
king.

Felton was a Puritan; he abandoned the hand of this woman to kiss her
feet.

He no longer loved her; he adored her.

When this crisis was past, when Milady appeared to have resumed her
self-possession, which she had never lost; when Felton had seen her
recover with the veil of chastity those treasures of love which were
only concealed from him to make him desire them the more ardently, he
said, “Ah, now! I have only one thing to ask of you; that is, the name
of your true executioner. For to me there is but one; the other was an
instrument, that was all.”

“What, brother!” cried Milady, “must I name him again? Have you not yet
divined who he is?”

“What?” cried Felton, “he—again he—always he? What—the truly guilty?”

“The truly guilty,” said Milady, “is the ravager of England, the
persecutor of true believers, the base ravisher of the honor of so many
women—he who, to satisfy a caprice of his corrupt heart, is about to
make England shed so much blood, who protects the Protestants today and
will betray them tomorrow—”

“Buckingham! It is, then, Buckingham!” cried Felton, in a high state of
excitement.

Milady concealed her face in her hands, as if she could not endure the
shame which this name recalled to her.

“Buckingham, the executioner of this angelic creature!” cried Felton.
“And thou hast not hurled thy thunder at him, my God! And thou hast
left him noble, honored, powerful, for the ruin of us all!”

“God abandons him who abandons himself,” said Milady.

“But he will draw upon his head the punishment reserved for the
damned!” said Felton, with increasing exultation. “He wills that human
vengeance should precede celestial justice.”

“Men fear him and spare him.”

“I,” said Felton, “I do not fear him, nor will I spare him.”

The soul of Milady was bathed in an infernal joy.

“But how can Lord de Winter, my protector, my father,” asked Felton,
“possibly be mixed up with all this?”

“Listen, Felton,” resumed Milady, “for by the side of base and
contemptible men there are often found great and generous natures. I
had an affianced husband, a man whom I loved, and who loved me—a heart
like yours, Felton, a man like you. I went to him and told him all; he
knew me, that man did, and did not doubt an instant. He was a nobleman,
a man equal to Buckingham in every respect. He said nothing; he only
girded on his sword, wrapped himself in his cloak, and went straight to
Buckingham Palace.

“Yes, yes,” said Felton; “I understand how he would act. But with such
men it is not the sword that should be employed; it is the poniard.”

“Buckingham had left England the day before, sent as ambassador to
Spain, to demand the hand of the Infanta for King Charles I., who was
then only Prince of Wales. My affianced husband returned.

“‘Hear me,’ said he; ‘this man has gone, and for the moment has
consequently escaped my vengeance; but let us be united, as we were to
have been, and then leave it to Lord de Winter to maintain his own
honor and that of his wife.’”

“Lord de Winter!” cried Felton.

“Yes,” said Milady, “Lord de Winter; and now you can understand it all,
can you not? Buckingham remained nearly a year absent. A week before
his return Lord de Winter died, leaving me his sole heir. Whence came
the blow? God who knows all, knows without doubt; but as for me, I
accuse nobody.”

“Oh, what an abyss; what an abyss!” cried Felton.

“Lord de Winter died without revealing anything to his brother. The
terrible secret was to be concealed till it burst, like a clap of
thunder, over the head of the guilty. Your protector had seen with pain
this marriage of his elder brother with a portionless girl. I was
sensible that I could look for no support from a man disappointed in
his hopes of an inheritance. I went to France, with a determination to
remain there for the rest of my life. But all my fortune is in England.
Communication being closed by the war, I was in want of everything. I
was then obliged to come back again. Six days ago, I landed at
Portsmouth.”

“Well?” said Felton.

“Well; Buckingham heard by some means, no doubt, of my return. He spoke
of me to Lord de Winter, already prejudiced against me, and told him
that his sister-in-law was a prostitute, a branded woman. The noble and
pure voice of my husband was no longer here to defend me. Lord de
Winter believed all that was told him with so much the more ease that
it was his interest to believe it. He caused me to be arrested, had me
conducted hither, and placed me under your guard. You know the rest.
The day after tomorrow he banishes me, he transports me; the day after
tomorrow he exiles me among the infamous. Oh, the train is well laid;
the plot is clever. My honor will not survive it! You see, then,
Felton, I can do nothing but die. Felton, give me that knife!”

And at these words, as if all her strength was exhausted, Milady sank,
weak and languishing, into the arms of the young officer, who,
intoxicated with love, anger, and voluptuous sensations hitherto
unknown, received her with transport, pressed her against his heart,
all trembling at the breath from that charming mouth, bewildered by the
contact with that palpitating bosom.

“No, no,” said he. “No, you shall live honored and pure; you shall live
to triumph over your enemies.”

Milady put him from her slowly with her hand, while drawing him nearer
with her look; but Felton, in his turn, embraced her more closely,
imploring her like a divinity.

“Oh, death, death!” said she, lowering her voice and her eyelids, “oh,
death, rather than shame! Felton, my brother, my friend, I conjure
you!”

“No,” cried Felton, “no; you shall live and you shall be avenged.”

“Felton, I bring misfortune to all who surround me! Felton, abandon me!
Felton, let me die!”

“Well, then, we will live and die together!” cried he, pressing his
lips to those of the prisoner.

Several strokes resounded on the door; this time Milady really pushed
him away from her.

“Hark,” said she, “we have been overheard! Someone is coming! All is
over! We are lost!”

“No,” said Felton; it is only the sentinel warning me that they are
about to change the guard.”

“Then run to the door, and open it yourself.”

Felton obeyed; this woman was now his whole thought, his whole soul.

He found himself face to face with a sergeant commanding a
watch-patrol.

“Well, what is the matter?” asked the young lieutenant.

“You told me to open the door if I heard anyone cry out,” said the
soldier; “but you forgot to leave me the key. I heard you cry out,
without understanding what you said. I tried to open the door, but it
was locked inside; then I called the sergeant.”

“And here I am,” said the sergeant.

Felton, quite bewildered, almost mad, stood speechless.

Milady plainly perceived that it was now her turn to take part in the
scene. She ran to the table, and seizing the knife which Felton had
laid down, exclaimed, “And by what right will you prevent me from
dying?”

“Great God!” exclaimed Felton, on seeing the knife glitter in her hand.

At that moment a burst of ironical laughter resounded through the
corridor. The baron, attracted by the noise, in his chamber gown, his
sword under his arm, stood in the doorway.

“Ah,” said he, “here we are, at the last act of the tragedy. You see,
Felton, the drama has gone through all the phases I named; but be easy,
no blood will flow.”

Milady perceived that all was lost unless she gave Felton an immediate
and terrible proof of her courage.

“You are mistaken, my Lord, blood will flow; and may that blood fall
back on those who cause it to flow!”

Felton uttered a cry, and rushed toward her. He was too late; Milady
had stabbed herself.

But the knife had fortunately, we ought to say skillfully, come in
contact with the steel busk, which at that period, like a cuirass,
defended the chests of women. It had glided down it, tearing the robe,
and had penetrated slantingly between the flesh and the ribs. Milady’s
robe was not the less stained with blood in a second.

Milady fell down, and seemed to be in a swoon.

Felton snatched away the knife.

“See, my Lord,” said he, in a deep, gloomy tone, “here is a woman who
was under my guard, and who has killed herself!”

“Be at ease, Felton,” said Lord de Winter. “She is not dead; demons do
not die so easily. Be tranquil, and go wait for me in my chamber.”

“But, my Lord—”

“Go, sir, I command you!”

At this injunction from his superior, Felton obeyed; but in going out,
he put the knife into his bosom.

As to Lord de Winter, he contented himself with calling the woman who
waited on Milady, and when she was come, he recommended the prisoner,
who was still fainting, to her care, and left them alone.

Meanwhile, all things considered and notwithstanding his suspicions, as
the wound might be serious, he immediately sent off a mounted man to
find a physician.




Chapter LVIII.
ESCAPE


As Lord de Winter had thought, Milady’s wound was not dangerous. So
soon as she was left alone with the woman whom the baron had summoned
to her assistance she opened her eyes.

It was, however, necessary to affect weakness and pain—not a very
difficult task for so finished an actress as Milady. Thus the poor
woman was completely the dupe of the prisoner, whom, notwithstanding
her hints, she persisted in watching all night.

But the presence of this woman did not prevent Milady from thinking.

There was no longer a doubt that Felton was convinced; Felton was hers.
If an angel appeared to that young man as an accuser of Milady, he
would take him, in the mental disposition in which he now found
himself, for a messenger sent by the devil.

Milady smiled at this thought, for Felton was now her only hope—her
only means of safety.

But Lord de Winter might suspect him; Felton himself might now be
watched!

Toward four o’clock in the morning the doctor arrived; but since the
time Milady stabbed herself, however short, the wound had closed. The
doctor could therefore measure neither the direction nor the depth of
it; he only satisfied himself by Milady’s pulse that the case was not
serious.

In the morning Milady, under the pretext that she had not slept well in
the night and wanted rest, sent away the woman who attended her.

She had one hope, which was that Felton would appear at the breakfast
hour; but Felton did not come.

Were her fears realized? Was Felton, suspected by the baron, about to
fail her at the decisive moment? She had only one day left. Lord de
Winter had announced her embarkation for the twenty-third, and it was
now the morning of the twenty-second.

Nevertheless she still waited patiently till the hour for dinner.

Although she had eaten nothing in the morning, the dinner was brought
in at its usual time. Milady then perceived, with terror, that the
uniform of the soldiers who guarded her was changed.

Then she ventured to ask what had become of Felton.

She was told that he had left the castle an hour before on horseback.
She inquired if the baron was still at the castle. The soldier replied
that he was, and that he had given orders to be informed if the
prisoner wished to speak to him.

Milady replied that she was too weak at present, and that her only
desire was to be left alone.

The soldier went out, leaving the dinner served.

Felton was sent away. The marines were removed. Felton was then
mistrusted.

This was the last blow to the prisoner.

Left alone, she arose. The bed, which she had kept from prudence and
that they might believe her seriously wounded, burned her like a bed of
fire. She cast a glance at the door; the baron had had a plank nailed
over the grating. He no doubt feared that by this opening she might
still by some diabolical means corrupt her guards.

Milady smiled with joy. She was free now to give way to her transports
without being observed. She traversed her chamber with the excitement
of a furious maniac or of a tigress shut up in an iron cage. _Certes_,
if the knife had been left in her power, she would now have thought,
not of killing herself, but of killing the baron.

At six o’clock Lord de Winter came in. He was armed at all points. This
man, in whom Milady till that time had only seen a very simple
gentleman, had become an admirable jailer. He appeared to foresee all,
to divine all, to anticipate all.

A single look at Milady apprised him of all that was passing in her
mind.

“Ay!” said he, “I see; but you shall not kill me today. You have no
longer a weapon; and besides, I am on my guard. You had begun to
pervert my poor Felton. He was yielding to your infernal influence; but
I will save him. He will never see you again; all is over. Get your
clothes together. Tomorrow you will go. I had fixed the embarkation for
the twenty-fourth; but I have reflected that the more promptly the
affair takes place the more sure it will be. Tomorrow, by twelve
o’clock, I shall have the order for your exile, signed, _Buckingham_.
If you speak a single word to anyone before going aboard ship, my
sergeant will blow your brains out. He has orders to do so. If when on
the ship you speak a single word to anyone before the captain permits
you, the captain will have you thrown into the sea. That is agreed
upon.

“_Au revoir_, then; that is all I have to say today. Tomorrow I will
see you again, to take my leave.” With these words the baron went out.
Milady had listened to all this menacing tirade with a smile of disdain
on her lips, but rage in her heart.

Supper was served. Milady felt that she stood in need of all her
strength. She did not know what might take place during this night
which approached so menacingly—for large masses of cloud rolled over
the face of the sky, and distant lightning announced a storm.

The storm broke about ten o’clock. Milady felt a consolation in seeing
nature partake of the disorder of her heart. The thunder growled in the
air like the passion and anger in her thoughts. It appeared to her that
the blast as it swept along disheveled her brow, as it bowed the
branches of the trees and bore away their leaves. She howled as the
hurricane howled; and her voice was lost in the great voice of nature,
which also seemed to groan with despair.

All at once she heard a tap at her window, and by the help of a flash
of lightning she saw the face of a man appear behind the bars.

She ran to the window and opened it.

“Felton!” cried she. “I am saved.”

“Yes,” said Felton; “but silence, silence! I must have time to file
through these bars. Only take care that I am not seen through the
wicket.”

“Oh, it is a proof that the Lord is on our side, Felton,” replied
Milady. “They have closed up the grating with a board.”

“That is well; God has made them senseless,” said Felton.

“But what must I do?” asked Milady.

“Nothing, nothing, only shut the window. Go to bed, or at least lie
down in your clothes. As soon as I have done I will knock on one of the
panes of glass. But will you be able to follow me?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Your wound?”

“Gives me pain, but will not prevent my walking.”

“Be ready, then, at the first signal.”

Milady shut the window, extinguished the lamp, and went, as Felton had
desired her, to lie down on the bed. Amid the moaning of the storm she
heard the grinding of the file upon the bars, and by the light of every
flash she perceived the shadow of Felton through the panes.

She passed an hour without breathing, panting, with a cold sweat upon
her brow, and her heart oppressed by frightful agony at every movement
she heard in the corridor.

There are hours which last a year.

At the expiration of an hour, Felton tapped again.

Milady sprang out of bed and opened the window. Two bars removed formed
an opening for a man to pass through.

“Are you ready?” asked Felton.

“Yes. Must I take anything with me?”

“Money, if you have any.”

“Yes; fortunately they have left me all I had.”

“So much the better, for I have expended all mine in chartering a
vessel.”

“Here!” said Milady, placing a bag full of louis in Felton’s hands.

Felton took the bag and threw it to the foot of the wall.

“Now,” said he, “will you come?”

“I am ready.”

Milady mounted upon a chair and passed the upper part of her body
through the window. She saw the young officer suspended over the abyss
by a ladder of ropes. For the first time an emotion of terror reminded
her that she was a woman.

The dark space frightened her.

“I expected this,” said Felton.

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing!” said Milady. “I will descend with my eyes
shut.”

“Have you confidence in me?” said Felton.

“You ask that?”

“Put your two hands together. Cross them; that’s right!”

Felton tied her two wrists together with his handkerchief, and then
with a cord over the handkerchief.

“What are you doing?” asked Milady, with surprise.

“Pass your arms around my neck, and fear nothing.”

“But I shall make you lose your balance, and we shall both be dashed to
pieces.”

“Don’t be afraid. I am a sailor.”

Not a second was to be lost. Milady passed her two arms round Felton’s
neck, and let herself slip out of the window. Felton began to descend
the ladder slowly, step by step. Despite the weight of two bodies, the
blast of the hurricane shook them in the air.

All at once Felton stopped.

“What is the matter?” asked Milady.

“Silence,” said Felton, “I hear footsteps.”

“We are discovered!”

There was a silence of several seconds.

“No,” said Felton, “it is nothing.”

“But what, then, is the noise?”

“That of the patrol going their rounds.”

“Where is their road?”

“Just under us.”

“They will discover us!”

“No, if it does not lighten.”

“But they will run against the bottom of the ladder.”

“Fortunately it is too short by six feet.”

“Here they are! My God!”

“Silence!”

Both remained suspended, motionless and breathless, within twenty paces
of the ground, while the patrol passed beneath them laughing and
talking. This was a terrible moment for the fugitives.

The patrol passed. The noise of their retreating footsteps and the
murmur of their voices soon died away.

“Now,” said Felton, “we are safe.”

Milady breathed a deep sigh and fainted.

Felton continued to descend. Near the bottom of the ladder, when he
found no more support for his feet, he clung with his hands; at length,
arrived at the last step, he let himself hang by the strength of his
wrists, and touched the ground. He stooped down, picked up the bag of
money, and placed it between his teeth. Then he took Milady in his
arms, and set off briskly in the direction opposite to that which the
patrol had taken. He soon left the pathway of the patrol, descended
across the rocks, and when arrived on the edge of the sea, whistled.

A similar signal replied to him; and five minutes after, a boat
appeared, rowed by four men.

The boat approached as near as it could to the shore; but there was not
depth enough of water for it to touch land. Felton walked into the sea
up to his middle, being unwilling to trust his precious burden to
anybody.

Fortunately the storm began to subside, but still the sea was
disturbed. The little boat bounded over the waves like a nut-shell.

“To the sloop,” said Felton, “and row quickly.”

The four men bent to their oars, but the sea was too high to let them
get much hold of it.

However, they left the castle behind; that was the principal thing. The
night was extremely dark. It was almost impossible to see the shore
from the boat; they would therefore be less likely to see the boat from
the shore.

A black point floated on the sea. That was the sloop. While the boat
was advancing with all the speed its four rowers could give it, Felton
untied the cord and then the handkerchief which bound Milady’s hands
together. When her hands were loosed he took some sea water and
sprinkled it over her face.

Milady breathed a sigh, and opened her eyes.

“Where am I?” said she.

“Saved!” replied the young officer.

“Oh, saved, saved!” cried she. “Yes, there is the sky; here is the sea!
The air I breathe is the air of liberty! Ah, thanks, Felton, thanks!”

The young man pressed her to his heart.

“But what is the matter with my hands!” asked Milady; “it seems as if
my wrists had been crushed in a vice.”

Milady held out her arms; her wrists were bruised.

“Alas!” said Felton, looking at those beautiful hands, and shaking his
head sorrowfully.

“Oh, it’s nothing, nothing!” cried Milady. “I remember now.”

Milady looked around her, as if in search of something.

“It is there,” said Felton, touching the bag of money with his foot.

They drew near to the sloop. A sailor on watch hailed the boat; the
boat replied.

“What vessel is that?” asked Milady.

“The one I have hired for you.”

“Where will it take me?”

“Where you please, after you have put me on shore at Portsmouth.”

“What are you going to do at Portsmouth?” asked Milady.

“Accomplish the orders of Lord de Winter,” said Felton, with a gloomy
smile.

“What orders?” asked Milady.

“You do not understand?” asked Felton.

“No; explain yourself, I beg.”

“As he mistrusted me, he determined to guard you himself, and sent me
in his place to get Buckingham to sign the order for your
transportation.”

“But if he mistrusted you, how could he confide such an order to you?”

“How could I know what I was the bearer of?”

“That’s true! And you are going to Portsmouth?”

“I have no time to lose. Tomorrow is the twenty-third, and Buckingham
sets sail tomorrow with his fleet.”

“He sets sail tomorrow! Where for?”

“For La Rochelle.”

“He need not sail!” cried Milady, forgetting her usual presence of
mind.

“Be satisfied,” replied Felton; “he will not sail.”

Milady started with joy. She could read to the depths of the heart of
this young man; the death of Buckingham was written there at full
length.

“Felton,” cried she, “you are as great as Judas Maccabeus! If you die,
I will die with you; that is all I can say to you.”

“Silence!” cried Felton; “we are here.”

In fact, they touched the sloop.

Felton mounted the ladder first, and gave his hand to Milady, while the
sailors supported her, for the sea was still much agitated.

An instant after they were on the deck.

“Captain,” said Felton, “this is the person of whom I spoke to you, and
whom you must convey safe and sound to France.”

“For a thousand pistoles,” said the captain.

“I have paid you five hundred of them.”

“That’s correct,” said the captain.

“And here are the other five hundred,” replied Milady, placing her hand
upon the bag of gold.

“No,” said the captain, “I make but one bargain; and I have agreed with
this young man that the other five hundred shall not be due to me till
we arrive at Boulogne.”

“And shall we arrive there?”

“Safe and sound, as true as my name’s Jack Butler.”

“Well,” said Milady, “if you keep your word, instead of five hundred, I
will give you a thousand pistoles.”

“Hurrah for you, then, my beautiful lady,” cried the captain; “and may
God often send me such passengers as your Ladyship!”

“Meanwhile,” said Felton, “convey me to the little bay of—; you know it
was agreed you should put in there.”

The captain replied by ordering the necessary maneuvers, and toward
seven o’clock in the morning the little vessel cast anchor in the bay
that had been named.

During this passage, Felton related everything to Milady—how, instead
of going to London, he had chartered the little vessel; how he had
returned; how he had scaled the wall by fastening cramps in the
interstices of the stones, as he ascended, to give him foothold; and
how, when he had reached the bars, he fastened his ladder. Milady knew
the rest.

On her side, Milady tried to encourage Felton in his project; but at
the first words which issued from her mouth, she plainly saw that the
young fanatic stood more in need of being moderated than urged.

It was agreed that Milady should wait for Felton till ten o’clock; if
he did not return by ten o’clock she was to sail.

In that case, and supposing he was at liberty, he was to rejoin her in
France, at the convent of the Carmelites at Béthune.




Chapter LIX.
WHAT TOOK PLACE AT PORTSMOUTH
AUGUST 23, 1628


Felton took leave of Milady as a brother about to go for a mere walk
takes leave of his sister, kissing her hand.

His whole body appeared in its ordinary state of calmness, only an
unusual fire beamed from his eyes, like the effects of a fever; his
brow was more pale than it generally was; his teeth were clenched, and
his speech had a short dry accent which indicated that something dark
was at work within him.

As long as he remained in the boat which conveyed him to land, he kept
his face toward Milady, who, standing on the deck, followed him with
her eyes. Both were free from the fear of pursuit; nobody ever came
into Milady’s apartment before nine o’clock, and it would require three
hours to go from the castle to London.

Felton jumped onshore, climbed the little ascent which led to the top
of the cliff, saluted Milady a last time, and took his course toward
the city.

At the end of a hundred paces, the ground began to decline, and he
could only see the mast of the sloop.

He immediately ran in the direction of Portsmouth, which he saw at
nearly half a league before him, standing out in the haze of the
morning, with its houses and towers.

Beyond Portsmouth the sea was covered with vessels whose masts, like a
forest of poplars despoiled by the winter, bent with each breath of the
wind.

Felton, in his rapid walk, reviewed in his mind all the accusations
against the favorite of James I. and Charles I., furnished by two years
of premature meditation and a long sojourn among the Puritans.

When he compared the public crimes of this minister—startling crimes,
European crimes, if so we may say—with the private and unknown crimes
with which Milady had charged him, Felton found that the more culpable
of the two men which formed the character of Buckingham was the one of
whom the public knew not the life. This was because his love, so
strange, so new, and so ardent, made him view the infamous and
imaginary accusations of Milady de Winter as, through a magnifying
glass, one views as frightful monsters atoms in reality imperceptible
by the side of an ant.

The rapidity of his walk heated his blood still more; the idea that he
left behind him, exposed to a frightful vengeance, the woman he loved,
or rather whom he adored as a saint, the emotion he had experienced,
present fatigue—all together exalted his mind above human feeling.

He entered Portsmouth about eight o’clock in the morning. The whole
population was on foot; drums were beating in the streets and in the
port; the troops about to embark were marching toward the sea.

Felton arrived at the palace of the Admiralty, covered with dust, and
streaming with perspiration. His countenance, usually so pale, was
purple with heat and passion. The sentinel wanted to repulse him; but
Felton called to the officer of the post, and drawing from his pocket
the letter of which he was the bearer, he said, “A pressing message
from Lord de Winter.”

At the name of Lord de Winter, who was known to be one of his Grace’s
most intimate friends, the officer of the post gave orders to let
Felton pass, who, besides, wore the uniform of a naval officer.

Felton darted into the palace.

At the moment he entered the vestibule, another man was entering
likewise, dusty, out of breath, leaving at the gate a post horse,
which, on reaching the palace, tumbled on his foreknees.

Felton and he addressed Patrick, the duke’s confidential lackey, at the
same moment. Felton named Lord de Winter; the unknown would not name
anybody, and pretended that it was to the duke alone he would make
himself known. Each was anxious to gain admission before the other.

Patrick, who knew Lord de Winter was in affairs of the service, and in
relations of friendship with the duke, gave the preference to the one
who came in his name. The other was forced to wait, and it was easily
to be seen how he cursed the delay.

The valet led Felton through a large hall in which waited the deputies
from La Rochelle, headed by the Prince de Soubise, and introduced him
into a closet where Buckingham, just out of the bath, was finishing his
toilet, upon which, as at all times, he bestowed extraordinary
attention.

“Lieutenant Felton, from Lord de Winter,” said Patrick.

“From Lord de Winter!” repeated Buckingham; “let him come in.”

Felton entered. At that moment Buckingham was throwing upon a couch a
rich toilet robe, worked with gold, in order to put on a blue velvet
doublet embroidered with pearls.

“Why didn’t the baron come himself?” demanded Buckingham. “I expected
him this morning.”

“He desired me to tell your Grace,” replied Felton, “that he very much
regretted not having that honor, but that he was prevented by the guard
he is obliged to keep at the castle.”

“Yes, I know that,” said Buckingham; “he has a prisoner.”

“It is of that prisoner that I wish to speak to your Grace,” replied
Felton.

“Well, then, speak!”

“That which I have to say of her can only be heard by yourself, my
Lord!”

“Leave us, Patrick,” said Buckingham; “but remain within sound of the
bell. I shall call you presently.”

Patrick went out.

“We are alone, sir,” said Buckingham; “speak!”

“My Lord,” said Felton, “the Baron de Winter wrote to you the other day
to request you to sign an order of embarkation relative to a young
woman named Charlotte Backson.”

“Yes, sir; and I answered him, to bring or send me that order and I
would sign it.”

“Here it is, my Lord.”

“Give it to me,” said the duke.

And taking it from Felton, he cast a rapid glance over the paper, and
perceiving that it was the one that had been mentioned to him, he
placed it on the table, took a pen, and prepared to sign it.

“Pardon, my Lord,” said Felton, stopping the duke; “but does your Grace
know that the name of Charlotte Backson is not the true name of this
young woman?”

“Yes, sir, I know it,” replied the duke, dipping the quill in the ink.

“Then your Grace knows her real name?” asked Felton, in a sharp tone.

“I know it”; and the duke put the quill to the paper. Felton grew pale.

“And knowing that real name, my Lord,” replied Felton, “will you sign
it all the same?”

“Doubtless,” said Buckingham, “and rather twice than once.”

“I cannot believe,” continued Felton, in a voice that became more sharp
and rough, “that your Grace knows that it is to Milady de Winter this
relates.”

“I know it perfectly, although I am astonished that you know it.”

“And will your Grace sign that order without remorse?”

Buckingham looked at the young man haughtily.

“Do you know, sir, that you are asking me very strange questions, and
that I am very foolish to answer them?”

“Reply to them, my Lord,” said Felton; “the circumstances are more
serious than you perhaps believe.”

Buckingham reflected that the young man, coming from Lord de Winter,
undoubtedly spoke in his name, and softened.

“Without remorse,” said he. “The baron knows, as well as myself, that
Milady de Winter is a very guilty woman, and it is treating her very
favorably to commute her punishment to transportation.” The duke put
his pen to the paper.

“You will not sign that order, my Lord!” said Felton, making a step
toward the duke.

“I will not sign this order! And why not?”

“Because you will look into yourself, and you will do justice to the
lady.”

“I should do her justice by sending her to Tyburn,” said Buckingham.
“This lady is infamous.”

“My Lord, Milady de Winter is an angel; you know that she is, and I
demand her liberty of you.”

“Bah! Are you mad, to talk to me thus?” said Buckingham.

“My Lord, excuse me! I speak as I can; I restrain myself. But, my Lord,
think of what you’re about to do, and beware of going too far!”

“What do you say? God pardon me!” cried Buckingham, “I really think he
threatens me!”

“No, my Lord, I still plead. And I say to you: one drop of water
suffices to make the full vase overflow; one slight fault may draw down
punishment upon the head spared, despite many crimes.”

“Mr. Felton,” said Buckingham, “you will withdraw, and place yourself
at once under arrest.”

“You will hear me to the end, my Lord. You have seduced this young
girl; you have outraged, defiled her. Repair your crimes toward her;
let her go free, and I will exact nothing else from you.”

“You will exact!” said Buckingham, looking at Felton with astonishment,
and dwelling upon each syllable of the three words as he pronounced
them.

“My Lord,” continued Felton, becoming more excited as he spoke, “my
Lord, beware! All England is tired of your iniquities; my Lord, you
have abused the royal power, which you have almost usurped; my Lord,
you are held in horror by God and men. God will punish you hereafter,
but I will punish you here!”

“Ah, this is too much!” cried Buckingham, making a step toward the
door.

Felton barred his passage.

“I ask it humbly of you, my Lord,” said he; “sign the order for the
liberation of Milady de Winter. Remember that she is a woman whom you
have dishonored.”

“Withdraw, sir,” said Buckingham, “or I will call my attendant, and
have you placed in irons.”

“You shall not call,” said Felton, throwing himself between the duke
and the bell placed on a stand encrusted with silver. “Beware, my Lord,
you are in the hands of God!”

“In the hands of the devil, you mean!” cried Buckingham, raising his
voice so as to attract the notice of his people, without absolutely
shouting.

“Sign, my Lord; sign the liberation of Milady de Winter,” said Felton,
holding out a paper to the duke.

“By force? You are joking! Holloa, Patrick!”

“Sign, my Lord!”

“Never.”

“Never?”

“Help!” shouted the duke; and at the same time he sprang toward his
sword.

But Felton did not give him time to draw it. He held the knife with
which Milady had stabbed herself, open in his bosom; at one bound he
was upon the duke.

At that moment Patrick entered the room, crying, “A letter from France,
my Lord.”

“From France!” cried Buckingham, forgetting everything in thinking from
whom that letter came.

Felton took advantage of this moment, and plunged the knife into his
side up to the handle.

“Ah, traitor,” cried Buckingham, “you have killed me!”

“Murder!” screamed Patrick.

Felton cast his eyes round for means of escape, and seeing the door
free, he rushed into the next chamber, in which, as we have said, the
deputies from La Rochelle were waiting, crossed it as quickly as
possible, and rushed toward the staircase; but upon the first step he
met Lord de Winter, who, seeing him pale, confused, livid, and stained
with blood both on his hands and face, seized him by the throat,
crying, “I knew it! I guessed it! But too late by a minute,
unfortunate, unfortunate that I am!”

Felton made no resistance. Lord de Winter placed him in the hands of
the guards, who led him, while awaiting further orders, to a little
terrace commanding the sea; and then the baron hastened to the duke’s
chamber.

At the cry uttered by the duke and the scream of Patrick, the man whom
Felton had met in the antechamber rushed into the chamber.

He found the duke reclining upon a sofa, with his hand pressed upon the
wound.

“Laporte,” said the duke, in a dying voice, “Laporte, do you come from
her?”

“Yes, monseigneur,” replied the faithful cloak bearer of Anne of
Austria, “but too late, perhaps.”

“Silence, Laporte, you may be overheard. Patrick, let no one enter. Oh,
I cannot tell what she says to me! My God, I am dying!”

And the duke swooned.

Meanwhile, Lord de Winter, the deputies, the leaders of the expedition,
the officers of Buckingham’s household, had all made their way into the
chamber. Cries of despair resounded on all sides. The news, which
filled the palace with tears and groans, soon became known, and spread
itself throughout the city.

The report of a cannon announced that something new and unexpected had
taken place.

Lord de Winter tore his hair.

“Too late by a minute!” cried he, “too late by a minute! Oh, my God, my
God! what a misfortune!”

He had been informed at seven o’clock in the morning that a rope ladder
floated from one of the windows of the castle; he had hastened to
Milady’s chamber, had found it empty, the window open, and the bars
filed, had remembered the verbal caution D’Artagnan had transmitted to
him by his messenger, had trembled for the duke, and running to the
stable without taking time to have a horse saddled, had jumped upon the
first he found, had galloped off like the wind, had alighted below in
the courtyard, had ascended the stairs precipitately, and on the top
step, as we have said, had encountered Felton.

The duke, however, was not dead. He recovered a little, reopened his
eyes, and hope revived in all hearts.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “leave me alone with Patrick and Laporte—ah, is
that you, De Winter? You sent me a strange madman this morning! See the
state in which he has put me.”

“Oh, my Lord!” cried the baron, “I shall never console myself.”

“And you would be quite wrong, my dear De Winter,” said Buckingham,
holding out his hand to him. “I do not know the man who deserves being
regretted during the whole life of another man; but leave us, I pray
you.”

The baron went out sobbing.

There only remained in the closet of the wounded duke Laporte and
Patrick. A physician was sought for, but none was yet found.

“You will live, my Lord, you will live!” repeated the faithful servant
of Anne of Austria, on his knees before the duke’s sofa.

“What has she written to me?” said Buckingham, feebly, streaming with
blood, and suppressing his agony to speak of her he loved, “what has
she written to me? Read me her letter.”

“Oh, my Lord!” said Laporte.

“Obey, Laporte, do you not see I have no time to lose?”

Laporte broke the seal, and placed the paper before the eyes of the
duke; but Buckingham in vain tried to make out the writing.

“Read!” said he, “read! I cannot see. Read, then! For soon, perhaps, I
shall not hear, and I shall die without knowing what she has written to
me.”

Laporte made no further objection, and read:

“MY LORD, By that which, since I have known you, have suffered by you
and for you, I conjure you, if you have any care for my repose, to
countermand those great armaments which you are preparing against
France, to put an end to a war of which it is publicly said religion is
the ostensible cause, and of which, it is generally whispered, your
love for me is the concealed cause. This war may not only bring great
catastrophes upon England and France, but misfortune upon you, my Lord,
for which I should never console myself.
    “Be careful of your life, which is menaced, and which will be dear
    to me from the moment I am not obliged to see an enemy in you.


“Your affectionate
“ANNE”


Buckingham collected all his remaining strength to listen to the
reading of the letter; then, when it was ended, as if he had met with a
bitter disappointment, he asked, “Have you nothing else to say to me by
the living voice, Laporte?”

“The queen charged me to tell you to watch over yourself, for she had
advice that your assassination would be attempted.”

“And is that all—is that all?” replied Buckingham, impatiently.

“She likewise charged me to tell you that she still loved you.”

“Ah,” said Buckingham, “God be praised! My death, then, will not be to
her as the death of a stranger!”

Laporte burst into tears.

“Patrick,” said the duke, “bring me the casket in which the diamond
studs were kept.”

Patrick brought the object desired, which Laporte recognized as having
belonged to the queen.

“Now the scent bag of white satin, on which her cipher is embroidered
in pearls.”

Patrick again obeyed.

“Here, Laporte,” said Buckingham, “these are the only tokens I ever
received from her—this silver casket and these two letters. You will
restore them to her Majesty; and as a last memorial”—he looked round
for some valuable object—“you will add—”

He still sought; but his eyes, darkened by death, encountered only the
knife which had fallen from the hand of Felton, still smoking with the
blood spread over its blade.

“And you will add to them this knife,” said the duke, pressing the hand
of Laporte. He had just strength enough to place the scent bag at the
bottom of the silver casket, and to let the knife fall into it, making
a sign to Laporte that he was no longer able to speak; then, in a last
convulsion, which this time he had not the power to combat, he slipped
from the sofa to the floor.

Patrick uttered a loud cry.

Buckingham tried to smile a last time; but death checked his thought,
which remained engraved on his brow like a last kiss of love.

At this moment the duke’s surgeon arrived, quite terrified; he was
already on board the admiral’s ship, where they had been obliged to
seek him.

He approached the duke, took his hand, held it for an instant in his
own, and letting it fall, “All is useless,” said he, “he is dead.”

“Dead, dead!” cried Patrick.

At this cry all the crowd re-entered the apartment, and throughout the
palace and town there was nothing but consternation and tumult.

As soon as Lord de Winter saw Buckingham was dead, he ran to Felton,
whom the soldiers still guarded on the terrace of the palace.

“Wretch!” said he to the young man, who since the death of Buckingham
had regained that coolness and self-possession which never after
abandoned him, “wretch! what have you done?”

“I have avenged myself!” said he.

“Avenged yourself,” said the baron. “Rather say that you have served as
an instrument to that accursed woman; but I swear to you that this
crime shall be her last.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” replied Felton, quietly, “and I am
ignorant of whom you are speaking, my Lord. I killed the Duke of
Buckingham because he twice refused you yourself to appoint me captain;
I have punished him for his injustice, that is all.”

De Winter, stupefied, looked on while the soldiers bound Felton, and
could not tell what to think of such insensibility.

One thing alone, however, threw a shade over the pallid brow of Felton.
At every noise he heard, the simple Puritan fancied he recognized the
step and voice of Milady coming to throw herself into his arms, to
accuse herself, and die with him.

All at once he started. His eyes became fixed upon a point of the sea,
commanded by the terrace where he was. With the eagle glance of a
sailor he had recognized there, where another would have seen only a
gull hovering over the waves, the sail of a sloop which was directed
toward the coast of France.

He grew deadly pale, placed his hand upon his heart, which was
breaking, and at once perceived all the treachery.

“One last favor, my Lord!” said he to the baron.

“What?” asked his Lordship.

“What o’clock is it?”

The baron drew out his watch. “It wants ten minutes to nine,” said he.

Milady had hastened her departure by an hour and a half. As soon as she
heard the cannon which announced the fatal event, she had ordered the
anchor to be weighed. The vessel was making way under a blue sky, at
great distance from the coast.

“God has so willed it!” said he, with the resignation of a fanatic; but
without, however, being able to take his eyes from that ship, on board
of which he doubtless fancied he could distinguish the white outline of
her to whom he had sacrificed his life.

De Winter followed his look, observed his feelings, and guessed all.

“Be punished _alone_, for the first, miserable man!” said Lord de
Winter to Felton, who was being dragged away with his eyes turned
toward the sea; “but I swear to you by the memory of my brother whom I
have loved so much that your accomplice is not saved.”

Felton lowered his head without pronouncing a syllable.

As to Lord de Winter, he descended the stairs rapidly, and went
straight to the port.




Chapter LX.
IN FRANCE


The first fear of the King of England, Charles I., on learning of the
death of the duke, was that such terrible news might discourage the
Rochellais; he tried, says Richelieu in his _Memoirs_, to conceal it
from them as long as possible, closing all the ports of his kingdom,
and carefully keeping watch that no vessel should sail until the army
which Buckingham was getting together had gone, taking upon himself, in
default of Buckingham, to superintend the departure.

He carried the strictness of this order so far as to detain in England
the ambassadors of Denmark, who had taken their leave, and the regular
ambassador of Holland, who was to take back to the port of Flushing the
Indian merchantmen of which Charles I. had made restitution to the
United Provinces.

But as he did not think of giving this order till five hours after the
event—that is to say, till two o’clock in the afternoon—two vessels had
already left the port, the one bearing, as we know, Milady, who,
already anticipating the event, was further confirmed in that belief by
seeing the black flag flying at the masthead of the admiral’s ship.

As to the second vessel, we will tell hereafter whom it carried, and
how it set sail.

During this time nothing new occurred in the camp at La Rochelle; only
the king, who was bored, as always, but perhaps a little more so in
camp than elsewhere, resolved to go incognito and spend the festival of
St. Louis at St. Germain, and asked the cardinal to order him an escort
of only twenty Musketeers. The cardinal, who sometimes became weary of
the king, granted this leave of absence with great pleasure to his
royal lieutenant, who promised to return about the fifteenth of
September.

M. de Tréville, being informed of this by his Eminence, packed his
portmanteau; and as without knowing the cause he knew the great desire
and even imperative need which his friends had of returning to Paris,
it goes without saying that he fixed upon them to form part of the
escort.

The four young men heard the news a quarter of an hour after M. de
Tréville, for they were the first to whom he communicated it. It was
then that D’Artagnan appreciated the favor the cardinal had conferred
upon him in making him at last enter the Musketeers—for without that
circumstance he would have been forced to remain in the camp while his
companions left it.

It goes without saying that this impatience to return toward Paris had
for a cause the danger which Mme. Bonacieux would run of meeting at the
convent of Béthune with Milady, her mortal enemy. Aramis therefore had
written immediately to Marie Michon, the seamstress at Tours who had
such fine acquaintances, to obtain from the queen authority for Mme.
Bonacieux to leave the convent, and to retire either into Lorraine or
Belgium. They had not long to wait for an answer. Eight or ten days
afterward Aramis received the following letter:

“MY DEAR COUSIN, Here is the authorization from my sister to withdraw
our little servant from the convent of Béthune, the air of which you
think is bad for her. My sister sends you this authorization with great
pleasure, for she is very partial to the little girl, to whom she
intends to be more serviceable hereafter.


“I salute you,
“MARIE MICHON”


To this letter was added an order, conceived in these terms:

“At the Louvre, August 10, 1628


“The superior of the convent of Béthune will place in the hands of the
person who shall present this note to her the novice who entered the
convent upon my recommendation and under my patronage.


“ANNE”


It may be easily imagined how the relationship between Aramis and a
seamstress who called the queen her sister amused the young men; but
Aramis, after having blushed two or three times up to the whites of his
eyes at the gross pleasantry of Porthos, begged his friends not to
revert to the subject again, declaring that if a single word more was
said to him about it, he would never again implore his cousins to
interfere in such affairs.

There was no further question, therefore, about Marie Michon among the
four Musketeers, who besides had what they wanted: that was, the order
to withdraw Mme. Bonacieux from the convent of the Carmelites of
Béthune. It was true that this order would not be of great use to them
while they were in camp at La Rochelle; that is to say, at the other
end of France. Therefore D’Artagnan was going to ask leave of absence
of M. de Tréville, confiding to him candidly the importance of his
departure, when the news was transmitted to him as well as to his three
friends that the king was about to set out for Paris with an escort of
twenty Musketeers, and that they formed part of the escort.

Their joy was great. The lackeys were sent on before with the baggage,
and they set out on the morning of the sixteenth.

The cardinal accompanied his Majesty from Surgères to Mauzes; and there
the king and his minister took leave of each other with great
demonstrations of friendship.

The king, however, who sought distraction, while traveling as fast as
possible—for he was anxious to be in Paris by the twenty-third—stopped
from time to time to fly the magpie, a pastime for which the taste had
been formerly inspired in him by de Luynes, and for which he had always
preserved a great predilection. Out of the twenty Musketeers sixteen,
when this took place, rejoiced greatly at this relaxation; but the
other four cursed it heartily. D’Artagnan, in particular, had a
perpetual buzzing in his ears, which Porthos explained thus: “A very
great lady has told me that this means that somebody is talking of you
somewhere.”

At length the escort passed through Paris on the twenty-third, in the
night. The king thanked M. de Tréville, and permitted him to distribute
furloughs for four days, on condition that the favored parties should
not appear in any public place, under penalty of the Bastille.

The first four furloughs granted, as may be imagined, were to our four
friends. Still further, Athos obtained of M. de Tréville six days
instead of four, and introduced into these six days two more nights—for
they set out on the twenty-fourth at five o’clock in the evening, and
as a further kindness M. de Tréville post-dated the leave to the
morning of the twenty-fifth.

“Good Lord!” said D’Artagnan, who, as we have often said, never
stumbled at anything. “It appears to me that we are making a great
trouble of a very simple thing. In two days, and by using up two or
three horses (that’s nothing; I have plenty of money), I am at Béthune.
I present my letter from the queen to the superior, and I bring back
the dear treasure I go to seek—not into Lorraine, not into Belgium, but
to Paris, where she will be much better concealed, particularly while
the cardinal is at La Rochelle. Well, once returned from the country,
half by the protection of her cousin, half through what we have
personally done for her, we shall obtain from the queen what we desire.
Remain, then, where you are, and do not exhaust yourselves with useless
fatigue. Myself and Planchet are all that such a simple expedition
requires.”

To this Athos replied quietly: “We also have money left—for I have not
yet drunk all my share of the diamond, and Porthos and Aramis have not
eaten all theirs. We can therefore use up four horses as well as one.
But consider, D’Artagnan,” added he, in a tone so solemn that it made
the young man shudder, “consider that Béthune is a city where the
cardinal has given rendezvous to a woman who, wherever she goes, brings
misery with her. If you had only to deal with four men, D’Artagnan, I
would allow you to go alone. You have to do with that woman! We four
will go; and I hope to God that with our four lackeys we may be in
sufficient number.”

“You terrify me, Athos!” cried D’Artagnan. “My God! what do you fear?”

“Everything!” replied Athos.

D’Artagnan examined the countenances of his companions, which, like
that of Athos, wore an impression of deep anxiety; and they continued
their route as fast as their horses could carry them, but without
adding another word.

On the evening of the twenty-fifth, as they were entering Arras, and as
D’Artagnan was dismounting at the inn of the Golden Harrow to drink a
glass of wine, a horseman came out of the post yard, where he had just
had a relay, started off at a gallop, and with a fresh horse took the
road to Paris. At the moment he passed through the gateway into the
street, the wind blew open the cloak in which he was wrapped, although
it was in the month of August, and lifted his hat, which the traveler
seized with his hand the moment it had left his head, pulling it
eagerly over his eyes.

D’Artagnan, who had his eyes fixed upon this man, became very pale, and
let his glass fall.

“What is the matter, monsieur?” said Planchet. “Oh, come, gentlemen, my
master is ill!”

The three friends hastened toward D’Artagnan, who, instead of being
ill, ran toward his horse. They stopped him at the door.

“Well, where the devil are you going now?” cried Athos.

“It is he!” cried D’Artagnan, pale with anger, and with the sweat on
his brow, “it is he! let me overtake him!”

“He? What he?” asked Athos.

“He, that man!”

“What man?”

“That cursed man, my evil genius, whom I have always met with when
threatened by some misfortune, he who accompanied that horrible woman
when I met her for the first time, he whom I was seeking when I
offended our Athos, he whom I saw on the very morning Madame Bonacieux
was abducted. I have seen him; that is he! I recognized him when the
wind blew upon his cloak.”

“The devil!” said Athos, musingly.

“To saddle, gentlemen! to saddle! Let us pursue him, and we shall
overtake him!”

“My dear friend,” said Aramis, “remember that he goes in an opposite
direction from that in which we are going, that he has a fresh horse,
and ours are fatigued, so that we shall disable our own horses without
even a chance of overtaking him. Let the man go, D’Artagnan; let us
save the woman.”

“Monsieur, monsieur!” cried a hostler, running out and looking after
the stranger, “monsieur, here is a paper which dropped out of your hat!
Eh, monsieur, eh!”

“Friend,” said D’Artagnan, “a half-pistole for that paper!”

“My faith, monsieur, with great pleasure! Here it is!”

The hostler, enchanted with the good day’s work he had done, returned
to the yard. D’Artagnan unfolded the paper.

“Well?” eagerly demanded all his three friends.

“Nothing but one word!” said D’Artagnan.

“Yes,” said Aramis, “but that one word is the name of some town or
village.”

“_Armentières_,” read Porthos; “Armentières? I don’t know such a
place.”

“And that name of a town or village is written in her hand!” cried
Athos.

“Come on, come on!” said D’Artagnan; “let us keep that paper carefully,
perhaps I have not thrown away my half-pistole. To horse, my friends,
to horse!”

And the four friends flew at a gallop along the road to Béthune.




Chapter LXI.
THE CARMELITE CONVENT AT BÉTHUNE


Great criminals bear about them a kind of predestination which makes
them surmount all obstacles, which makes them escape all dangers, up to
the moment which a wearied Providence has marked as the rock of their
impious fortunes.

It was thus with Milady. She escaped the cruisers of both nations, and
arrived at Boulogne without accident.

When landing at Portsmouth, Milady was an Englishwoman whom the
persecutions of the French drove from La Rochelle; when landing at
Boulogne, after a two days’ passage, she passed for a Frenchwoman whom
the English persecuted at Portsmouth out of their hatred for France.

Milady had, likewise, the best of passports—her beauty, her noble
appearance, and the liberality with which she distributed her pistoles.
Freed from the usual formalities by the affable smile and gallant
manners of an old governor of the port, who kissed her hand, she only
remained long enough at Boulogne to put into the post a letter,
conceived in the following terms:

“_To his Eminence Monseigneur the Cardinal Richelieu, in his camp
before La Rochelle_.


“MONSEIGNEUR, Let your Eminence be reassured. His Grace the Duke of
Buckingham _will not set out_ for France.


“MILADY DE ——


“BOULOGNE, evening of the twenty-fifth.
“P.S.—According to the desire of your Eminence, I report to the convent
of the Carmelites at Béthune, where I will await your orders.”


Accordingly, that same evening Milady commenced her journey. Night
overtook her; she stopped, and slept at an inn. At five o’clock the
next morning she again proceeded, and in three hours after entered
Béthune. She inquired for the convent of the Carmelites, and went
thither immediately.

The superior met her; Milady showed her the cardinal’s order. The
abbess assigned her a chamber, and had breakfast served.

All the past was effaced from the eyes of this woman; and her looks,
fixed on the future, beheld nothing but the high fortunes reserved for
her by the cardinal, whom she had so successfully served without his
name being in any way mixed up with the sanguinary affair. The ever-new
passions which consumed her gave to her life the appearance of those
clouds which float in the heavens, reflecting sometimes azure,
sometimes fire, sometimes the opaque blackness of the tempest, and
which leave no traces upon the earth behind them but devastation and
death.

After breakfast, the abbess came to pay her a visit. There is very
little amusement in the cloister, and the good superior was eager to
make the acquaintance of her new boarder.

Milady wished to please the abbess. This was a very easy matter for a
woman so really superior as she was. She tried to be agreeable, and she
was charming, winning the good superior by her varied conversation and
by the graces of her whole personality.

The abbess, who was the daughter of a noble house, took particular
delight in stories of the court, which so seldom travel to the
extremities of the kingdom, and which, above all, have so much
difficulty in penetrating the walls of convents, at whose threshold the
noise of the world dies away.

Milady, on the contrary, was quite conversant with all aristocratic
intrigues, amid which she had constantly lived for five or six years.
She made it her business, therefore, to amuse the good abbess with the
worldly practices of the court of France, mixed with the eccentric
pursuits of the king; she made for her the scandalous chronicle of the
lords and ladies of the court, whom the abbess knew perfectly by name,
touched lightly on the amours of the queen and the Duke of Buckingham,
talking a great deal to induce her auditor to talk a little.

But the abbess contented herself with listening and smiling without
replying a word. Milady, however, saw that this sort of narrative
amused her very much, and kept at it; only she now let her conversation
drift toward the cardinal.

But she was greatly embarrassed. She did not know whether the abbess
was a royalist or a cardinalist; she therefore confined herself to a
prudent middle course. But the abbess, on her part, maintained a
reserve still more prudent, contenting herself with making a profound
inclination of the head every time the fair traveler pronounced the
name of his Eminence.

Milady began to think she should soon grow weary of a convent life; she
resolved, then, to risk something in order that she might know how to
act afterward. Desirous of seeing how far the discretion of the good
abbess would go, she began to tell a story, obscure at first, but very
circumstantial afterward, about the cardinal, relating the amours of
the minister with Mme. d’Aiguillon, Marion de Lorme, and several other
gay women.

The abbess listened more attentively, grew animated by degrees, and
smiled.

“Good,” thought Milady; “she takes a pleasure in my conversation. If
she is a cardinalist, she has no fanaticism, at least.”

She then went on to describe the persecutions exercised by the cardinal
upon his enemies. The abbess only crossed herself, without approving or
disapproving.

This confirmed Milady in her opinion that the abbess was rather
royalist than cardinalist. Milady therefore continued, coloring her
narrations more and more.

“I am very ignorant of these matters,” said the abbess, at length; “but
however distant from the court we may be, however remote from the
interests of the world we may be placed, we have very sad examples of
what you have related. And one of our boarders has suffered much from
the vengeance and persecution of the cardinal!”

“One of your boarders?” said Milady; “oh, my God! Poor woman! I pity
her, then.”

“And you have reason, for she is much to be pitied. Imprisonment,
menaces, ill treatment—she has suffered everything. But after all,”
resumed the abbess, “Monsieur Cardinal has perhaps plausible motives
for acting thus; and though she has the look of an angel, we must not
always judge people by the appearance.”

“Good!” said Milady to herself; “who knows! I am about, perhaps, to
discover something here; I am in the vein.”

She tried to give her countenance an appearance of perfect candor.

“Alas,” said Milady, “I know it is so. It is said that we must not
trust to the face; but in what, then, shall we place confidence, if not
in the most beautiful work of the Lord? As for me, I shall be deceived
all my life perhaps, but I shall always have faith in a person whose
countenance inspires me with sympathy.”

“You would, then, be tempted to believe,” said the abbess, “that this
young person is innocent?”

“The cardinal pursues not only crimes,” said she: “there are certain
virtues which he pursues more severely than certain offenses.”

“Permit me, madame, to express my surprise,” said the abbess.

“At what?” said Milady, with the utmost ingenuousness.

“At the language you use.”

“What do you find so astonishing in that language?” said Milady,
smiling.

“You are the friend of the cardinal, for he sends you hither, and yet—”

“And yet I speak ill of him,” replied Milady, finishing the thought of
the superior.

“At least you don’t speak well of him.”

“That is because I am not his friend,” said she, sighing, “but his
victim!”

“But this letter in which he recommends you to me?”

“Is an order for me to confine myself to a sort of prison, from which
he will release me by one of his satellites.”

“But why have you not fled?”

“Whither should I go? Do you believe there is a spot on the earth which
the cardinal cannot reach if he takes the trouble to stretch forth his
hand? If I were a man, that would barely be possible; but what can a
woman do? This young boarder of yours, has she tried to fly?”

“No, that is true; but she—that is another thing; I believe she is
detained in France by some love affair.”

“Ah,” said Milady, with a sigh, “if she loves she is not altogether
wretched.”

“Then,” said the abbess, looking at Milady with increasing interest, “I
behold another poor victim?”

“Alas, yes,” said Milady.

The abbess looked at her for an instant with uneasiness, as if a fresh
thought suggested itself to her mind.

“You are not an enemy of our holy faith?” said she, hesitatingly.

“Who—I?” cried Milady; “I a Protestant? Oh, no! I call to witness the
God who hears us, that on the contrary I am a fervent Catholic!”

“Then, madame,” said the abbess, smiling, “be reassured; the house in
which you are shall not be a very hard prison, and we will do all in
our power to make you cherish your captivity. You will find here,
moreover, the young woman of whom I spoke, who is persecuted, no doubt,
in consequence of some court intrigue. She is amiable and
well-behaved.”

“What is her name?”

“She was sent to me by someone of high rank, under the name of Kitty. I
have not tried to discover her other name.”

“Kitty!” cried Milady. “What? Are you sure?”

“That she is called so? Yes, madame. Do you know her?”

Milady smiled to herself at the idea which had occurred to her that
this might be her old chambermaid. There was connected with the
remembrance of this girl a remembrance of anger; and a desire of
vengeance disordered the features of Milady, which, however,
immediately recovered the calm and benevolent expression which this
woman of a hundred faces had for a moment allowed them to lose.

“And when can I see this young lady, for whom I already feel so great a
sympathy?” asked Milady.

“Why, this evening,” said the abbess; “today even. But you have been
traveling these four days, as you told me yourself. This morning you
rose at five o’clock; you must stand in need of repose. Go to bed and
sleep; at dinnertime we will rouse you.”

Although Milady would very willingly have gone without sleep, sustained
as she was by all the excitements which a new adventure awakened in her
heart, ever thirsting for intrigues, she nevertheless accepted the
offer of the superior. During the last fifteen days she had experienced
so many and such various emotions that if her frame of iron was still
capable of supporting fatigue, her mind required repose.

She therefore took leave of the abbess, and went to bed, softly rocked
by the ideas of vengeance which the name of Kitty had naturally brought
to her thoughts. She remembered that almost unlimited promise which the
cardinal had given her if she succeeded in her enterprise. She had
succeeded; D’Artagnan was then in her power!

One thing alone frightened her; that was the remembrance of her
husband, the Comte de la Fère, whom she had believed dead, or at least
expatriated, and whom she found again in Athos—the best friend of
D’Artagnan.

But alas, if he was the friend of D’Artagnan, he must have lent him his
assistance in all the proceedings by whose aid the queen had defeated
the project of his Eminence; if he was the friend of D’Artagnan, he was
the enemy of the cardinal; and she doubtless would succeed in involving
him in the vengeance by which she hoped to destroy the young Musketeer.

All these hopes were so many sweet thoughts for Milady; so, rocked by
them, she soon fell asleep.

She was awakened by a soft voice which sounded at the foot of her bed.
She opened her eyes, and saw the abbess, accompanied by a young woman
with light hair and delicate complexion, who fixed upon her a look full
of benevolent curiosity.

The face of the young woman was entirely unknown to her. Each examined
the other with great attention, while exchanging the customary
compliments; both were very handsome, but of quite different styles of
beauty. Milady, however, smiled in observing that she excelled the
young woman by far in her high air and aristocratic bearing. It is true
that the habit of a novice, which the young woman wore, was not very
advantageous in a contest of this kind.

The abbess introduced them to each other. When this formality was
ended, as her duties called her to chapel, she left the two young women
alone.

The novice, seeing Milady in bed, was about to follow the example of
the superior; but Milady stopped her.

“How, madame,” said she, “I have scarcely seen you, and you already
wish to deprive me of your company, upon which I had counted a little,
I must confess, for the time I have to pass here?”

“No, madame,” replied the novice, “only I thought I had chosen my time
ill; you were asleep, you are fatigued.”

“Well,” said Milady, “what can those who sleep wish for—a happy
awakening? This awakening you have given me; allow me, then, to enjoy
it at my ease,” and taking her hand, she drew her toward the armchair
by the bedside.

The novice sat down.

“How unfortunate I am!” said she; “I have been here six months without
the shadow of recreation. You arrive, and your presence was likely to
afford me delightful company; yet I expect, in all probability, to quit
the convent at any moment.”

“How, you are going soon?” asked Milady.

“At least I hope so,” said the novice, with an expression of joy which
she made no effort to disguise.

“I think I learned you had suffered persecutions from the cardinal,”
continued Milady; “that would have been another motive for sympathy
between us.”

“What I have heard, then, from our good mother is true; you have
likewise been a victim of that wicked priest.”

“Hush!” said Milady; “let us not, even here, speak thus of him. All my
misfortunes arise from my having said nearly what you have said before
a woman whom I thought my friend, and who betrayed me. Are you also the
victim of a treachery?”

“No,” said the novice, “but of my devotion—of a devotion to a woman I
loved, for whom I would have laid down my life, for whom I would give
it still.”

“And who has abandoned you—is that it?”

“I have been sufficiently unjust to believe so; but during the last two
or three days I have obtained proof to the contrary, for which I thank
God—for it would have cost me very dear to think she had forgotten me.
But you, madame, you appear to be free,” continued the novice; “and if
you were inclined to fly it only rests with yourself to do so.”

“Whither would you have me go, without friends, without money, in a
part of France with which I am unacquainted, and where I have never
been before?”

“Oh,” cried the novice, “as to friends, you would have them wherever
you want, you appear so good and are so beautiful!”

“That does not prevent,” replied Milady, softening her smile so as to
give it an angelic expression, “my being alone or being persecuted.”

“Hear me,” said the novice; “we must trust in heaven. There always
comes a moment when the good you have done pleads your cause before
God; and see, perhaps it is a happiness for you, humble and powerless
as I am, that you have met with me, for if I leave this place, well—I
have powerful friends, who, after having exerted themselves on my
account, may also exert themselves for you.”

“Oh, when I said I was alone,” said Milady, hoping to make the novice
talk by talking of herself, “it is not for want of friends in high
places; but these friends themselves tremble before the cardinal. The
queen herself does not dare to oppose the terrible minister. I have
proof that her Majesty, notwithstanding her excellent heart, has more
than once been obliged to abandon to the anger of his Eminence persons
who had served her.”

“Trust me, madame; the queen may appear to have abandoned those
persons, but we must not put faith in appearances. The more they are
persecuted, the more she thinks of them; and often, when they least
expect it, they have proof of a kind remembrance.”

“Alas!” said Milady, “I believe so; the queen is so good!”

“Oh, you know her, then, that lovely and noble queen, that you speak of
her thus!” cried the novice, with enthusiasm.

“That is to say,” replied Milady, driven into her entrenchment, “that I
have not the honor of knowing her personally; but I know a great number
of her most intimate friends. I am acquainted with Monsieur de Putange;
I met Monsieur Dujart in England; I know Monsieur de Tréville.”

“Monsieur de Tréville!” exclaimed the novice, “do you know Monsieur de
Tréville?”

“Yes, perfectly well—intimately even.”

“The captain of the king’s Musketeers?”

“The captain of the king’s Musketeers.”

“Why, then, only see!” cried the novice; “we shall soon be well
acquainted, almost friends. If you know Monsieur de Tréville, you must
have visited him?”

“Often!” said Milady, who, having entered this track, and perceiving
that falsehood succeeded, was determined to follow it to the end.

“With him, then, you must have seen some of his Musketeers?”

“All those he is in the habit of receiving!” replied Milady, for whom
this conversation began to have a real interest.

“Name a few of those whom you know, and you will see if they are my
friends.”

“Well!” said Milady, embarrassed, “I know Monsieur de Louvigny,
Monsieur de Courtivron, Monsieur de Ferussac.”

The novice let her speak, then seeing that she paused, she said, “Don’t
you know a gentleman named Athos?”

Milady became as pale as the sheets in which she was lying, and
mistress as she was of herself, could not help uttering a cry, seizing
the hand of the novice, and devouring her with looks.

“What is the matter? Good God!” asked the poor woman, “have I said
anything that has wounded you?”

“No; but the name struck me, because I also have known that gentleman,
and it appeared strange to me to meet with a person who appears to know
him well.”

“Oh, yes, very well; not only him, but some of his friends, Messieurs
Porthos and Aramis!”

“Indeed! you know them likewise? I know them,” cried Milady, who began
to feel a chill penetrate her heart.

“Well, if you know them, you know that they are good and free
companions. Why do you not apply to them, if you stand in need of
help?”

“That is to say,” stammered Milady, “I am not really very intimate with
any of them. I know them from having heard one of their friends,
Monsieur d’Artagnan, say a great deal about them.”

“You know Monsieur d’Artagnan!” cried the novice, in her turn seizing
the hands of Milady and devouring her with her eyes.

Then remarking the strange expression of Milady’s countenance, she
said, “Pardon me, madame; you know him by what title?”

“Why,” replied Milady, embarrassed, “why, by the title of friend.”

“You deceive me, madame,” said the novice; “you have been his
mistress!”

“It is you who have been his mistress, madame!” cried Milady, in her
turn.

“I?” said the novice.

“Yes, you! I know you now. You are Madame Bonacieux!”

The young woman drew back, filled with surprise and terror.

“Oh, do not deny it! Answer!” continued Milady.

“Well, yes, madame,” said the novice, “Are we rivals?”

The countenance of Milady was illumined by so savage a joy that under
any other circumstances Mme. Bonacieux would have fled in terror; but
she was absorbed by jealousy.

“Speak, madame!” resumed Mme. Bonacieux, with an energy of which she
might not have been believed capable. “Have you been, or are you, his
mistress?”

“Oh, no!” cried Milady, with an accent that admitted no doubt of her
truth. “Never, never!”

“I believe you,” said Mme. Bonacieux; “but why, then, did you cry out
so?”

“Do you not understand?” said Milady, who had already overcome her
agitation and recovered all her presence of mind.

“How can I understand? I know nothing.”

“Can you not understand that Monsieur d’Artagnan, being my friend,
might take me into his confidence?”

“Truly?”

“Do you not perceive that I know all—your abduction from the little
house at St. Germain, his despair, that of his friends, and their
useless inquiries up to this moment? How could I help being astonished
when, without having the least expectation of such a thing, I meet you
face to face—you, of whom we have so often spoken together, you whom he
loves with all his soul, you whom he had taught me to love before I had
seen you! Ah, dear Constance, I have found you, then; I see you at
last!”

And Milady stretched out her arms to Mme. Bonacieux, who, convinced by
what she had just said, saw nothing in this woman whom an instant
before she had believed her rival but a sincere and devoted friend.

“Oh, pardon me, pardon me!” cried she, sinking upon the shoulders of
Milady. “Pardon me, I love him so much!”

These two women held each other for an instant in a close embrace.
Certainly, if Milady’s strength had been equal to her hatred, Mme.
Bonacieux would never have left that embrace alive. But not being able
to stifle her, she smiled upon her.

“Oh, you beautiful, good little creature!” said Milady. “How delighted
I am to have found you! Let me look at you!” and while saying these
words, she absolutely devoured her by her looks. “Oh, yes it is you
indeed! From what he has told me, I know you now. I recognize you
perfectly.”

The poor young woman could not possibly suspect what frightful cruelty
was behind the rampart of that pure brow, behind those brilliant eyes
in which she read nothing but interest and compassion.

“Then you know what I have suffered,” said Mme. Bonacieux, “since he
has told you what he has suffered; but to suffer for him is happiness.”

Milady replied mechanically, “Yes, that is happiness.” She was thinking
of something else.

“And then,” continued Mme. Bonacieux, “my punishment is drawing to a
close. Tomorrow, this evening, perhaps, I shall see him again; and then
the past will no longer exist.”

“This evening?” asked Milady, roused from her reverie by these words.
“What do you mean? Do you expect news from him?”

“I expect himself.”

“Himself? D’Artagnan here?”

“Himself!”

“But that’s impossible! He is at the siege of La Rochelle with the
cardinal. He will not return till after the taking of the city.”

“Ah, you fancy so! But is there anything impossible for my D’Artagnan,
the noble and loyal gentleman?”

“Oh, I cannot believe you!”

“Well, read, then!” said the unhappy young woman, in the excess of her
pride and joy, presenting a letter to Milady.

“The writing of Madame de Chevreuse!” said Milady to herself. “Ah, I
always thought there was some secret understanding in that quarter!”
And she greedily read the following few lines:

MY DEAR CHILD, Hold yourself ready. _Our friend_ will see you soon, and
he will only see you to release you from that imprisonment in which
your safety required you should be concealed. Prepare, then, for your
departure, and never despair of us.
    Our charming Gascon has just proved himself as brave and faithful
    as ever. Tell him that certain parties are grateful for the warning
    he has given.


“Yes, yes,” said Milady; “the letter is precise. Do you know what that
warning was?”

“No, I only suspect he has warned the queen against some fresh
machinations of the cardinal.”

“Yes, that’s it, no doubt!” said Milady, returning the letter to Mme.
Bonacieux, and letting her head sink pensively upon her bosom.

At that moment they heard the gallop of a horse.

“Oh!” cried Mme. Bonacieux, darting to the window, “can it be he?”

Milady remained still in bed, petrified by surprise; so many unexpected
things happened to her all at once that for the first time she was at a
loss.

“He, he!” murmured she; “can it be he?” And she remained in bed with
her eyes fixed.

“Alas, no!” said Mme. Bonacieux; “it is a man I don’t know, although he
seems to be coming here. Yes, he checks his pace; he stops at the gate;
he rings.”

Milady sprang out of bed.

“You are sure it is not he?” said she.

“Yes, yes, very sure!”

“Perhaps you did not see well.”

“Oh, if I were to see the plume of his hat, the end of his cloak, I
should know _him!_”

Milady was dressing herself all the time.

“Yes, he has entered.”

“It is for you or me!”

“My God, how agitated you seem!”

“Yes, I admit it. I have not your confidence; I fear the cardinal.”

“Hush!” said Mme. Bonacieux; “somebody is coming.”

Immediately the door opened, and the superior entered.

“Did you come from Boulogne?” demanded she of Milady.

“Yes,” replied she, trying to recover her self-possession. “Who wants
me?”

“A man who will not tell his name, but who comes from the cardinal.”

“And who wishes to speak with me?”

“Who wishes to speak to a lady recently come from Boulogne.”

“Then let him come in, if you please.”

“Oh, my God, my God!” cried Mme. Bonacieux. “Can it be bad news?”

“I fear it.”

“I will leave you with this stranger; but as soon as he is gone, if you
will permit me, I will return.”

“_Permit_ you? I _beseech_ you.”

The superior and Mme. Bonacieux retired.

Milady remained alone, with her eyes fixed upon the door. An instant
later, the jingling of spurs was heard upon the stairs, steps drew
near, the door opened, and a man appeared.

Milady uttered a cry of joy; this man was the Comte de Rochefort—the
demoniacal tool of his Eminence.




Chapter LXII.
TWO VARIETIES OF DEMONS


Ah,” cried Milady and Rochefort together, “it is you!”

“Yes, it is I.”

“And you come?” asked Milady.

“From La Rochelle; and you?”

“From England.”

“Buckingham?”

“Dead or desperately wounded, as I left without having been able to
hear anything of him. A fanatic has just assassinated him.”

“Ah,” said Rochefort, with a smile; “this is a fortunate chance—one
that will delight his Eminence! Have you informed him of it?”

“I wrote to him from Boulogne. But what brings you here?”

“His Eminence was uneasy, and sent me to find you.”

“I only arrived yesterday.”

“And what have you been doing since yesterday?”

“I have not lost my time.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that.”

“Do you know whom I have encountered here?”

“No.”

“Guess.”

“How can I?”

“That young woman whom the queen took out of prison.”

“The mistress of that fellow D’Artagnan?”

“Yes; Madame Bonacieux, with whose retreat the cardinal was
unacquainted.”

“Well, well,” said Rochefort, “here is a chance which may pair off with
the other! Monsieur Cardinal is indeed a privileged man!”

“Imagine my astonishment,” continued Milady, “when I found myself face
to face with this woman!”

“Does she know you?”

“No.”

“Then she looks upon you as a stranger?”

Milady smiled. “I am her best friend.”

“Upon my honor,” said Rochefort, “it takes you, my dear countess, to
perform such miracles!”

“And it is well I can, Chevalier,” said Milady, “for do you know what
is going on here?”

“No.”

“They will come for her tomorrow or the day after, with an order from
the queen.”

“Indeed! And who?”

“D’Artagnan and his friends.”

“Indeed, they will go so far that we shall be obliged to send them to
the Bastille.”

“Why is it not done already?”

“What would you? The cardinal has a weakness for these men which I
cannot comprehend.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, tell him this, Rochefort. Tell him that our conversation
at the inn of the Red Dovecot was overheard by these four men; tell him
that after his departure one of them came up to me and took from me by
violence the safe-conduct which he had given me; tell him they warned
Lord de Winter of my journey to England; that this time they nearly
foiled my mission as they foiled the affair of the studs; tell him that
among these four men two only are to be feared—D’Artagnan and Athos;
tell him that the third, Aramis, is the lover of Madame de Chevreuse—he
may be left alone, we know his secret, and it may be useful; as to the
fourth, Porthos, he is a fool, a simpleton, a blustering booby, not
worth troubling himself about.”

“But these four men must be now at the siege of La Rochelle?”

“I thought so, too; but a letter which Madame Bonacieux has received
from Madame the Constable, and which she has had the imprudence to show
me, leads me to believe that these four men, on the contrary, are on
the road hither to take her away.”

“The devil! What’s to be done?”

“What did the cardinal say about me?”

“I was to take your dispatches, written or verbal, and return by post;
and when he shall know what you have done, he will advise what you have
to do.”

“I must, then, remain here?”

“Here, or in the neighborhood.”

“You cannot take me with you?”

“No, the order is imperative. Near the camp you might be recognized;
and your presence, you must be aware, would compromise the cardinal.”

“Then I must wait here, or in the neighborhood?”

“Only tell me beforehand where you will wait for intelligence from the
cardinal; let me know always where to find you.”

“Observe, it is probable that I may not be able to remain here.”

“Why?”

“You forget that my enemies may arrive at any minute.”

“That’s true; but is this little woman, then, to escape his Eminence?”

“Bah!” said Milady, with a smile that belonged only to herself; “you
forget that I am her best friend.”

“Ah, that’s true! I may then tell the cardinal, with respect to this
little woman—”

“That he may be at ease.”

“Is that all?”

“He will know what that means.”

“He will guess, at least. Now, then, what had I better do?”

“Return instantly. It appears to me that the news you bear is worth the
trouble of a little diligence.”

“My chaise broke down coming into Lilliers.”

“Capital!”

“What, _capital?_”

“Yes, I want your chaise.”

“And how shall I travel, then?”

“On horseback.”

“You talk very comfortably,—a hundred and eighty leagues!”

“What’s that?”

“One can do it! Afterward?”

“Afterward? Why, in passing through Lilliers you will send me your
chaise, with an order to your servant to place himself at my disposal.”

“Well.”

“You have, no doubt, some order from the cardinal about you?”

“I have my _full power_.”

“Show it to the abbess, and tell her that someone will come and fetch
me, either today or tomorrow, and that I am to follow the person who
presents himself in your name.”

“Very well.”

“Don’t forget to treat me harshly in speaking of me to the abbess.”

“To what purpose?”

“I am a victim of the cardinal. It is necessary to inspire confidence
in that poor little Madame Bonacieux.”

“That’s true. Now, will you make me a report of all that has happened?”

“Why, I have related the events to you. You have a good memory; repeat
what I have told you. A paper may be lost.”

“You are right; only let me know where to find you that I may not run
needlessly about the neighborhood.”

“That’s correct; wait!”

“Do you want a map?”

“Oh, I know this country marvelously!”

“You? When were you here?”

“I was brought up here.”

“Truly?”

“It is worth something, you see, to have been brought up somewhere.”

“You will wait for me, then?”

“Let me reflect a little! Ay, that will do—at Armentières.”

“Where is that Armentières?”

“A little town on the Lys; I shall only have to cross the river, and I
shall be in a foreign country.”

“Capital! but it is understood you will only cross the river in case of
danger.”

“That is well understood.”

“And in that case, how shall I know where you are?”

“You do not want your lackey?”

“Is he a sure man?”

“To the proof.”

“Give him to me. Nobody knows him. I will leave him at the place I
quit, and he will conduct you to me.”

“And you say you will wait for me at Armentières?”

“At Armentières.”

“Write that name on a bit of paper, lest I should forget it. There is
nothing compromising in the name of a town. Is it not so?”

“Eh, who knows? Never mind,” said Milady, writing the name on half a
sheet of paper; “I will compromise myself.”

“Well,” said Rochefort, taking the paper from Milady, folding it, and
placing it in the lining of his hat, “you may be easy. I will do as
children do, for fear of losing the paper—repeat the name along the
route. Now, is that all?”

“I believe so.”

“Let us see: Buckingham dead or grievously wounded; your conversation
with the cardinal overheard by the four Musketeers; Lord de Winter
warned of your arrival at Portsmouth; D’Artagnan and Athos to the
Bastille; Aramis the lover of Madame de Chevreuse; Porthos an ass;
Madame Bonacieux found again; to send you the chaise as soon as
possible; to place my lackey at your disposal; to make you out a victim
of the cardinal in order that the abbess may entertain no suspicion;
Armentières, on the banks of the Lys. Is that all, then?”

“In truth, my dear Chevalier, you are a miracle of memory. _A propos_,
add one thing—”

“What?”

“I saw some very pretty woods which almost touch the convent garden.
Say that I am permitted to walk in those woods. Who knows? Perhaps I
shall stand in need of a back door for retreat.”

“You think of everything.”

“And you forget one thing.”

“What?”

“To ask me if I want money.”

“That’s true. How much do you want?”

“All you have in gold.”

“I have five hundred pistoles, or thereabouts.”

“I have as much. With a thousand pistoles one may face everything.
Empty your pockets.”

“There.”

“Right. And you go—”

“In an hour—time to eat a morsel, during which I shall send for a post
horse.”

“Capital! Adieu, Chevalier.”

“Adieu, Countess.”

“Commend me to the cardinal.”

“Commend me to Satan.”

Milady and Rochefort exchanged a smile and separated. An hour afterward
Rochefort set out at a grand gallop; five hours after that he passed
through Arras.

Our readers already know how he was recognized by D’Artagnan, and how
that recognition by inspiring fear in the four Musketeers had given
fresh activity to their journey.




Chapter LXIII.
THE DROP OF WATER


Rochefort had scarcely departed when Mme. Bonacieux re-entered. She
found Milady with a smiling countenance.

“Well,” said the young woman, “what you dreaded has happened. This
evening, or tomorrow, the cardinal will send someone to take you away.”

“Who told you that, my dear?” asked Milady.

“I heard it from the mouth of the messenger himself.”

“Come and sit down close to me,” said Milady.

“Here I am.”

“Wait till I assure myself that nobody hears us.”

“Why all these precautions?”

“You shall know.”

Milady arose, went to the door, opened it, looked in the corridor, and
then returned and seated herself close to Mme. Bonacieux.

“Then,” said she, “he has well played his part.”

“Who has?”

“He who just now presented himself to the abbess as a messenger from
the cardinal.”

“It was, then, a part he was playing?”

“Yes, my child.”

“That man, then, was not—”

“That man,” said Milady, lowering her voice, “is my brother.”

“Your brother!” cried Mme. Bonacieux.

“No one must know this secret, my dear, but yourself. If you reveal it
to anyone in the world, I shall be lost, and perhaps yourself
likewise.”

“Oh, my God!”

“Listen. This is what has happened: My brother, who was coming to my
assistance to take me away by force if it were necessary, met with the
emissary of the cardinal, who was coming in search of me. He followed
him. At a solitary and retired part of the road he drew his sword, and
required the messenger to deliver up to him the papers of which he was
the bearer. The messenger resisted; my brother killed him.”

“Oh!” said Mme. Bonacieux, shuddering.

“Remember, that was the only means. Then my brother determined to
substitute cunning for force. He took the papers, and presented himself
here as the emissary of the cardinal, and in an hour or two a carriage
will come to take me away by the orders of his Eminence.”

“I understand. It is your brother who sends this carriage.”

“Exactly; but that is not all. That letter you have received, and which
you believe to be from Madame de Chevreuse—”

“Well?”

“It is a forgery.”

“How can that be?”

“Yes, a forgery; it is a snare to prevent your making any resistance
when they come to fetch you.”

“But it is D’Artagnan that will come.”

“Do not deceive yourself. D’Artagnan and his friends are detained at
the siege of La Rochelle.”

“How do you know that?”

“My brother met some emissaries of the cardinal in the uniform of
Musketeers. You would have been summoned to the gate; you would have
believed yourself about to meet friends; you would have been abducted,
and conducted back to Paris.”

“Oh, my God! My senses fail me amid such a chaos of iniquities. I feel,
if this continues,” said Mme. Bonacieux, raising her hands to her
forehead, “I shall go mad!”

“Stop—”

“What?”

“I hear a horse’s steps; it is my brother setting off again. I should
like to offer him a last salute. Come!”

Milady opened the window, and made a sign to Mme. Bonacieux to join
her. The young woman complied.

Rochefort passed at a gallop.

“Adieu, brother!” cried Milady.

The chevalier raised his head, saw the two young women, and without
stopping, waved his hand in a friendly way to Milady.

“The good George!” said she, closing the window with an expression of
countenance full of affection and melancholy. And she resumed her seat,
as if plunged in reflections entirely personal.

“Dear lady,” said Mme. Bonacieux, “pardon me for interrupting you; but
what do you advise me to do? Good heaven! You have more experience than
I have. Speak; I will listen.”

“In the first place,” said Milady, “it is possible I may be deceived,
and that D’Artagnan and his friends may really come to your
assistance.”

“Oh, that would be too much!” cried Mme. Bonacieux, “so much happiness
is not in store for me!”

“Then you comprehend it would be only a question of time, a sort of
race, which should arrive first. If your friends are the more speedy,
you are to be saved; if the satellites of the cardinal, you are lost.”

“Oh, yes, yes; lost beyond redemption! What, then, to do? What to do?”

“There would be a very simple means, very natural—”

“Tell me what!”

“To wait, concealed in the neighborhood, and assure yourself who are
the men who come to ask for you.”

“But where can I wait?”

“Oh, there is no difficulty in that. I shall stop and conceal myself a
few leagues hence until my brother can rejoin me. Well, I take you with
me; we conceal ourselves, and wait together.”

“But I shall not be allowed to go; I am almost a prisoner.”

“As they believe that I go in consequence of an order from the
cardinal, no one will believe you anxious to follow me.”

“Well?”

“Well! The carriage is at the door; you bid me adieu; you mount the
step to embrace me a last time; my brother’s servant, who comes to
fetch me, is told how to proceed; he makes a sign to the postillion,
and we set off at a gallop.”

“But D’Artagnan! D’Artagnan! if he comes?”

“Shall we not know it?”

“How?”

“Nothing easier. We will send my brother’s servant back to Béthune,
whom, as I told you, we can trust. He shall assume a disguise, and
place himself in front of the convent. If the emissaries of the
cardinal arrive, he will take no notice; if it is Monsieur d’Artagnan
and his friends, he will bring them to us.”

“He knows them, then?”

“Doubtless. Has he not seen Monsieur d’Artagnan at my house?”

“Oh, yes, yes; you are right. Thus all may go well—all may be for the
best; but we do not go far from this place?”

“Seven or eight leagues at the most. We will keep on the frontiers, for
instance; and at the first alarm we can leave France.”

“And what can we do there?”

“Wait.”

“But if they come?”

“My brother’s carriage will be here first.”

“If I should happen to be any distance from you when the carriage comes
for you—at dinner or supper, for instance?”

“Do one thing.”

“What is that?”

“Tell your good superior that in order that we may be as much together
as possible, you ask her permission to share my repast.”

“Will she permit it?”

“What inconvenience can it be?”

“Oh, delightful! In this way we shall not be separated for an instant.”

“Well, go down to her, then, to make your request. I feel my head a
little confused; I will take a turn in the garden.”

“Go; and where shall I find you?”

“Here, in an hour.”

“Here, in an hour. Oh, you are so kind, and I am so grateful!”

“How can I avoid interesting myself for one who is so beautiful and so
amiable? Are you not the beloved of one of my best friends?”

“Dear D’Artagnan! Oh, how he will thank you!”

“I hope so. Now, then, all is agreed; let us go down.”

“You are going into the garden?”

“Yes.”

“Go along this corridor, down a little staircase, and you are in it.”

“Excellent; thank you!”

And the two women parted, exchanging charming smiles.

Milady had told the truth—her head was confused, for her ill-arranged
plans clashed one another like chaos. She required to be alone that she
might put her thoughts a little into order. She saw vaguely the future;
but she stood in need of a little silence and quiet to give all her
ideas, as yet confused, a distinct form and a regular plan.

What was most pressing was to get Mme. Bonacieux away, and convey her
to a place of safety, and there, if matters required, make her a
hostage. Milady began to have doubts of the issue of this terrible
duel, in which her enemies showed as much perseverance as she did
animosity.

Besides, she felt as we feel when a storm is coming on—that this issue
was near, and could not fail to be terrible.

The principal thing for her, then, was, as we have said, to keep Mme.
Bonacieux in her power. Mme. Bonacieux was the very life of D’Artagnan.
This was more than his life, the life of the woman he loved; this was,
in case of ill fortune, a means of temporizing and obtaining good
conditions.

Now, this point was settled; Mme. Bonacieux, without any suspicion,
accompanied her. Once concealed with her at Armentières, it would be
easy to make her believe that D’Artagnan had not come to Béthune. In
fifteen days at most, Rochefort would be back; besides, during that
fifteen days she would have time to think how she could best avenge
herself on the four friends. She would not be weary, thank God! for she
should enjoy the sweetest pastime such events could accord a woman of
her character—perfecting a beautiful vengeance.

Revolving all this in her mind, she cast her eyes around her, and
arranged the topography of the garden in her head. Milady was like a
good general who contemplates at the same time victory and defeat, and
who is quite prepared, according to the chances of the battle, to march
forward or to beat a retreat.

At the end of an hour she heard a soft voice calling her; it was Mme.
Bonacieux’s. The good abbess had naturally consented to her request;
and as a commencement, they were to sup together.

On reaching the courtyard, they heard the noise of a carriage which
stopped at the gate.

Milady listened.

“Do you hear anything?” said she.

“Yes, the rolling of a carriage.”

“It is the one my brother sends for us.”

“Oh, my God!”

“Come, come! courage!”

The bell of the convent gate was sounded; Milady was not mistaken.

“Go to your chamber,” said she to Mme. Bonacieux; “you have perhaps
some jewels you would like to take.”

“I have his letters,” said she.

“Well, go and fetch them, and come to my apartment. We will snatch some
supper; we shall perhaps travel part of the night, and must keep our
strength up.”

“Great God!” said Mme. Bonacieux, placing her hand upon her bosom, “my
heart beats so I cannot walk.”

“Courage, courage! remember that in a quarter of an hour you will be
safe; and think that what you are about to do is for _his_ sake.”

“Yes, yes, everything for him. You have restored my courage by a single
word; go, I will rejoin you.”

Milady ran up to her apartment quickly; she there found Rochefort’s
lackey, and gave him his instructions.

He was to wait at the gate; if by chance the Musketeers should appear,
the carriage was to set off as fast as possible, pass around the
convent, and go and wait for Milady at a little village which was
situated at the other side of the wood. In this case Milady would cross
the garden and gain the village on foot. As we have already said,
Milady was admirably acquainted with this part of France.

If the Musketeers did not appear, things were to go on as had been
agreed; Mme. Bonacieux was to get into the carriage as if to bid her
adieu, and she was to take away Mme. Bonacieux.

Mme. Bonacieux came in; and to remove all suspicion, if she had any,
Milady repeated to the lackey, before her, the latter part of her
instructions.

Milady asked some questions about the carriage. It was a chaise drawn
by three horses, driven by a postillion; Rochefort’s lackey would
precede it, as courier.

Milady was wrong in fearing that Mme. Bonacieux would have any
suspicion. The poor young woman was too pure to suppose that any female
could be guilty of such perfidy; besides, the name of the Comtesse de
Winter, which she had heard the abbess pronounce, was wholly unknown to
her, and she was even ignorant that a woman had had so great and so
fatal a share in the misfortune of her life.

“You see,” said she, when the lackey had gone out, “everything is
ready. The abbess suspects nothing, and believes that I am taken by
order of the cardinal. This man goes to give his last orders; take the
least thing, drink a finger of wine, and let us be gone.”

“Yes,” said Mme. Bonacieux, mechanically, “yes, let us be gone.”

Milady made her a sign to sit down opposite, poured her a small glass
of Spanish wine, and helped her to the wing of a chicken.

“See,” said she, “if everything does not second us! Here is night
coming on; by daybreak we shall have reached our retreat, and nobody
can guess where we are. Come, courage! take something.”

Mme. Bonacieux ate a few mouthfuls mechanically, and just touched the
glass with her lips.

“Come, come!” said Milady, lifting hers to her mouth, “do as I do.”

But at the moment the glass touched her lips, her hand remained
suspended; she heard something on the road which sounded like the
rattling of a distant gallop. Then it grew nearer, and it seemed to
her, almost at the same time, that she heard the neighing of horses.

This noise acted upon her joy like the storm which awakens the sleeper
in the midst of a happy dream; she grew pale and ran to the window,
while Mme. Bonacieux, rising all in a tremble, supported herself upon
her chair to avoid falling. Nothing was yet to be seen, only they heard
the galloping draw nearer.

“Oh, my God!” said Mme. Bonacieux, “what is that noise?”

“That of either our friends or our enemies,” said Milady, with her
terrible coolness. “Stay where you are, I will tell you.”

Mme. Bonacieux remained standing, mute, motionless, and pale as a
statue.

The noise became louder; the horses could not be more than a hundred
and fifty paces distant. If they were not yet to be seen, it was
because the road made an elbow. The noise became so distinct that the
horses might be counted by the rattle of their hoofs.

Milady gazed with all the power of her attention; it was just light
enough for her to see who was coming.

All at once, at the turning of the road she saw the glitter of laced
hats and the waving of feathers; she counted two, then five, then eight
horsemen. One of them preceded the rest by double the length of his
horse.

Milady uttered a stifled groan. In the first horseman she recognized
D’Artagnan.

“Oh, my God, my God,” cried Mme. Bonacieux, “what is it?”

“It is the uniform of the cardinal’s Guards. Not an instant to be lost!
Fly, fly!”

“Yes, yes, let us fly!” repeated Mme. Bonacieux, but without being able
to make a step, glued as she was to the spot by terror.

They heard the horsemen pass under the windows.

“Come, then, come, then!” cried Milady, trying to drag the young woman
along by the arm. “Thanks to the garden, we yet can flee; I have the
key, but make haste! in five minutes it will be too late!”

Mme. Bonacieux tried to walk, made two steps, and sank upon her knees.
Milady tried to raise and carry her, but could not do it.

At this moment they heard the rolling of the carriage, which at the
approach of the Musketeers set off at a gallop. Then three or four
shots were fired.

“For the last time, will you come?” cried Milady.

“Oh, my God, my God! you see my strength fails me; you see plainly I
cannot walk. Flee alone!”

“Flee alone, and leave you here? No, no, never!” cried Milady.

All at once she paused, a livid flash darted from her eyes; she ran to
the table, emptied into Mme. Bonacieux’s glass the contents of a ring
which she opened with singular quickness. It was a grain of a reddish
color, which dissolved immediately.

Then, taking the glass with a firm hand, she said, “Drink. This wine
will give you strength, drink!” And she put the glass to the lips of
the young woman, who drank mechanically.

“This is not the way that I wished to avenge myself,” said Milady,
replacing the glass upon the table, with an infernal smile, “but, my
faith! we do what we can!” And she rushed out of the room.

Mme. Bonacieux saw her go without being able to follow her; she was
like people who dream they are pursued, and who in vain try to walk.

A few moments passed; a great noise was heard at the gate. Every
instant Mme. Bonacieux expected to see Milady, but she did not return.
Several times, with terror, no doubt, the cold sweat burst from her
burning brow.

At length she heard the grating of the hinges of the opening gates; the
noise of boots and spurs resounded on the stairs. There was a great
murmur of voices which continued to draw near, amid which she seemed to
hear her own name pronounced.

All at once she uttered a loud cry of joy, and darted toward the door;
she had recognized the voice of D’Artagnan.

“D’Artagnan! D’Artagnan!” cried she, “is it you? This way! this way!”

“Constance? Constance?” replied the young man, “where are you? where
are you? My God!”

At the same moment the door of the cell yielded to a shock, rather than
opened; several men rushed into the chamber. Mme. Bonacieux had sunk
into an armchair, without the power of moving.

D’Artagnan threw down a yet-smoking pistol which he held in his hand,
and fell on his knees before his mistress. Athos replaced his in his
belt; Porthos and Aramis, who held their drawn swords in their hands,
returned them to their scabbards.

“Oh, D’Artagnan, my beloved D’Artagnan! You have come, then, at last!
You have not deceived me! It is indeed thee!”

“Yes, yes, Constance. Reunited!”

“Oh, it was in vain she told me you would not come! I hoped in silence.
I was not willing to fly. Oh, I have done well! How happy I am!”

At this word _she_, Athos, who had seated himself quietly, started up.

“_She!_ What she?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Why, my companion. She who out of friendship for me wished to take me
from my persecutors. She who, mistaking you for the cardinal’s Guards,
has just fled away.”

“Your companion!” cried D’Artagnan, becoming more pale than the white
veil of his mistress. “Of what companion are you speaking, dear
Constance?”

“Of her whose carriage was at the gate; of a woman who calls herself
your friend; of a woman to whom you have told everything.”

“Her name, her name!” cried D’Artagnan. “My God, can you not remember
her name?”

“Yes, it was pronounced in my hearing once. Stop—but—it is very
strange—oh, my God, my head swims! I cannot see!”

“Help, help, my friends! her hands are icy cold,” cried D’Artagnan.
“She is ill! Great God, she is losing her senses!”

While Porthos was calling for help with all the power of his strong
voice, Aramis ran to the table to get a glass of water; but he stopped
at seeing the horrible alteration that had taken place in the
countenance of Athos, who, standing before the table, his hair rising
from his head, his eyes fixed in stupor, was looking at one of the
glasses, and appeared a prey to the most horrible doubt.

“Oh!” said Athos, “oh, no, it is impossible! God would not permit such
a crime!”

“Water, water!” cried D’Artagnan. “Water!”

“Oh, poor woman, poor woman!” murmured Athos, in a broken voice.

Mme. Bonacieux opened her eyes under the kisses of D’Artagnan.

“She revives!” cried the young man. “Oh, my God, my God, I thank thee!”

“Madame!” said Athos, “madame, in the name of heaven, whose empty glass
is this?”

“Mine, monsieur,” said the young woman, in a dying voice.

“But who poured the wine for you that was in this glass?”

“She.”

“But who is _she?_”

“Oh, I remember!” said Mme. Bonacieux, “the Comtesse de Winter.”

The four friends uttered one and the same cry, but that of Athos
dominated all the rest.

At that moment the countenance of Mme. Bonacieux became livid; a
fearful agony pervaded her frame, and she sank panting into the arms of
Porthos and Aramis.

D’Artagnan seized the hands of Athos with an anguish difficult to be
described.

“And what do you believe?” His voice was stifled by sobs.

“I believe everything,” said Athos, biting his lips till the blood
sprang to avoid sighing.

“D’Artagnan, D’Artagnan!” cried Mme. Bonacieux, “where art thou? Do not
leave me! You see I am dying!”

D’Artagnan released the hands of Athos which he still held clasped in
both his own, and hastened to her. Her beautiful face was distorted
with agony; her glassy eyes had no longer their sight; a convulsive
shuddering shook her whole body; the sweat rolled from her brow.

“In the name of heaven, run, call! Aramis! Porthos! Call for help!”

“Useless!” said Athos, “useless! For the poison which _she_ pours there
is no antidote.”

“Yes, yes! Help, help!” murmured Mme. Bonacieux; “help!”

Then, collecting all her strength, she took the head of the young man
between her hands, looked at him for an instant as if her whole soul
passed into that look, and with a sobbing cry pressed her lips to his.

“Constance, Constance!” cried D’Artagnan.

A sigh escaped from the mouth of Mme. Bonacieux, and dwelt for an
instant on the lips of D’Artagnan. That sigh was the soul, so chaste
and so loving, which reascended to heaven.

D’Artagnan pressed nothing but a corpse in his arms. The young man
uttered a cry, and fell by the side of his mistress as pale and as icy
as herself.

Porthos wept; Aramis pointed toward heaven; Athos made the sign of the
cross.

At that moment a man appeared in the doorway, almost as pale as those
in the chamber. He looked around him and saw Mme. Bonacieux dead, and
D’Artagnan in a swoon. He appeared just at that moment of stupor which
follows great catastrophes.

“I was not deceived,” said he; “here is Monsieur d’Artagnan; and you
are his friends, Messieurs Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.”

The persons whose names were thus pronounced looked at the stranger
with astonishment. It seemed to all three that they knew him.

“Gentlemen,” resumed the newcomer, “you are, as I am, in search of a
woman who,” added he, with a terrible smile, “must have passed this
way, for I see a corpse.”

The three friends remained mute—for although the voice as well as the
countenance reminded them of someone they had seen, they could not
remember under what circumstances.

“Gentlemen,” continued the stranger, “since you do not recognize a man
who probably owes his life to you twice, I must name myself. I am Lord
de Winter, brother-in-law of that _woman_.”

The three friends uttered a cry of surprise.

Athos rose, and offering him his hand, “Be welcome, my Lord,” said he,
“you are one of us.”

“I set out five hours after her from Portsmouth,” said Lord de Winter.
“I arrived three hours after her at Boulogne. I missed her by twenty
minutes at St. Omer. Finally, at Lilliers I lost all trace of her. I
was going about at random, inquiring of everybody, when I saw you
gallop past. I recognized Monsieur d’Artagnan. I called to you, but you
did not answer me; I wished to follow you, but my horse was too much
fatigued to go at the same pace with yours. And yet it appears, in
spite of all your diligence, you have arrived too late.”

“You see!” said Athos, pointing to Mme. Bonacieux dead, and to
D’Artagnan, whom Porthos and Aramis were trying to recall to life.

“Are they both dead?” asked Lord de Winter, sternly.

“No,” replied Athos, “fortunately Monsieur d’Artagnan has only
fainted.”

“Ah, indeed, so much the better!” said Lord de Winter.

At that moment D’Artagnan opened his eyes. He tore himself from the
arms of Porthos and Aramis, and threw himself like a madman on the
corpse of his mistress.

Athos rose, walked toward his friend with a slow and solemn step,
embraced him tenderly, and as he burst into violent sobs, he said to
him with his noble and persuasive voice, “Friend, be a man! Women weep
for the dead; men avenge them!”

“Oh, yes!” cried D’Artagnan, “yes! If it be to avenge her, I am ready
to follow you.”

Athos profited by this moment of strength which the hope of vengeance
restored to his unfortunate friend to make a sign to Porthos and Aramis
to go and fetch the superior.

The two friends met her in the corridor, greatly troubled and much
upset by such strange events; she called some of the nuns, who against
all monastic custom found themselves in the presence of five men.

“Madame,” said Athos, passing his arm under that of D’Artagnan, “we
abandon to your pious care the body of that unfortunate woman. She was
an angel on earth before being an angel in heaven. Treat her as one of
your sisters. We will return someday to pray over her grave.”

D’Artagnan concealed his face in the bosom of Athos, and sobbed aloud.

“Weep,” said Athos, “weep, heart full of love, youth, and life! Alas,
would I could weep like you!”

And he drew away his friend, as affectionate as a father, as consoling
as a priest, noble as a man who has suffered much.

All five, followed by their lackeys leading their horses, took their
way to the town of Béthune, whose outskirts they perceived, and stopped
before the first inn they came to.

“But,” said D’Artagnan, “shall we not pursue that woman?”

“Later,” said Athos. “I have measures to take.”

“She will escape us,” replied the young man; “she will escape us, and
it will be your fault, Athos.”

“I will be accountable for her,” said Athos.

D’Artagnan had so much confidence in the word of his friend that he
lowered his head, and entered the inn without reply.

Porthos and Aramis regarded each other, not understanding this
assurance of Athos.

Lord de Winter believed he spoke in this manner to soothe the grief of
D’Artagnan.

“Now, gentlemen,” said Athos, when he had ascertained there were five
chambers free in the hôtel, “let everyone retire to his own apartment.
D’Artagnan needs to be alone, to weep and to sleep. I take charge of
everything; be easy.”

“It appears, however,” said Lord de Winter, “if there are any measures
to take against the countess, it concerns me; she is my sister-in-law.”

“And me,” said Athos, “—she is my wife!”

D’Artagnan smiled—for he understood that Athos was sure of his
vengeance when he revealed such a secret. Porthos and Aramis looked at
each other, and grew pale. Lord de Winter thought Athos was mad.

“Now, retire to your chambers,” said Athos, “and leave me to act. You
must perceive that in my quality of a husband this concerns me. Only,
D’Artagnan, if you have not lost it, give me the paper which fell from
that man’s hat, upon which is written the name of the village of—”

“Ah,” said D’Artagnan, “I comprehend! that name written in her hand.”

“You see, then,” said Athos, “there is a god in heaven still!”




Chapter LXIV.
THE MAN IN THE RED CLOAK


The despair of Athos had given place to a concentrated grief which only
rendered more lucid the brilliant mental faculties of that
extraordinary man.

Possessed by one single thought—that of the promise he had made, and of
the responsibility he had taken—he retired last to his chamber, begged
the host to procure him a map of the province, bent over it, examined
every line traced upon it, perceived that there were four different
roads from Béthune to Armentières, and summoned the lackeys.

Planchet, Grimaud, Bazin, and Mousqueton presented themselves, and
received clear, positive, and serious orders from Athos.

They must set out the next morning at daybreak, and go to
Armentières—each by a different route. Planchet, the most intelligent
of the four, was to follow that by which the carriage had gone upon
which the four friends had fired, and which was accompanied, as may be
remembered, by Rochefort’s servant.

Athos set the lackeys to work first because, since these men had been
in the service of himself and his friends he had discovered in each of
them different and essential qualities. Then, lackeys who ask questions
inspire less mistrust than masters, and meet with more sympathy among
those to whom they address themselves. Besides, Milady knew the
masters, and did not know the lackeys; on the contrary, the lackeys
knew Milady perfectly.

All four were to meet the next day at eleven o’clock. If they had
discovered Milady’s retreat, three were to remain on guard; the fourth
was to return to Béthune in order to inform Athos and serve as a guide
to the four friends. These arrangements made, the lackeys retired.

Athos then arose from his chair, girded on his sword, enveloped himself
in his cloak, and left the hôtel. It was nearly ten o’clock. At ten
o’clock in the evening, it is well known, the streets in provincial
towns are very little frequented. Athos nevertheless was visibly
anxious to find someone of whom he could ask a question. At length he
met a belated passenger, went up to him, and spoke a few words to him.
The man he addressed recoiled with terror, and only answered the few
words of the Musketeer by pointing. Athos offered the man half a
pistole to accompany him, but the man refused.

Athos then plunged into the street the man had indicated with his
finger; but arriving at four crossroads, he stopped again, visibly
embarrassed. Nevertheless, as the crossroads offered him a better
chance than any other place of meeting somebody, he stood still. In a
few minutes a night watch passed. Athos repeated to him the same
question he had asked the first person he met. The night watch evinced
the same terror, refused, in his turn, to accompany Athos, and only
pointed with his hand to the road he was to take.

Athos walked in the direction indicated, and reached the suburb
situated at the opposite extremity of the city from that by which he
and his friends had entered it. There he again appeared uneasy and
embarrassed, and stopped for the third time.

Fortunately, a mendicant passed, who, coming up to Athos to ask
charity, Athos offered him half a crown to accompany him where he was
going. The mendicant hesitated at first, but at the sight of the piece
of silver which shone in the darkness he consented, and walked on
before Athos.

Arrived at the angle of a street, he pointed to a small house,
isolated, solitary, and dismal. Athos went toward the house, while the
mendicant, who had received his reward, left as fast as his legs could
carry him.

Athos went round the house before he could distinguish the door, amid
the red color in which the house was painted. No light appeared through
the chinks of the shutters; no noise gave reason to believe that it was
inhabited. It was dark and silent as the tomb.

Three times Athos knocked without receiving an answer. At the third
knock, however, steps were heard inside. The door at length was opened,
and a man appeared, of high stature, pale complexion, and black hair
and beard.

Athos and he exchanged some words in a low voice, then the tall man
made a sign to the Musketeer that he might come in. Athos immediately
profited by the permission, and the door was closed behind him.

The man whom Athos had come so far to seek, and whom he had found with
so much trouble, introduced him into his laboratory, where he was
engaged in fastening together with iron wire the dry bones of a
skeleton. All the frame was adjusted except the head, which lay on the
table.

All the rest of the furniture indicated that the dweller in this house
occupied himself with the study of natural science. There were large
bottles filled with serpents, ticketed according to their species;
dried lizards shone like emeralds set in great squares of black wood,
and bunches of wild odoriferous herbs, doubtless possessed of virtues
unknown to common men, were fastened to the ceiling and hung down in
the corners of the apartment. There was no family, no servant; the tall
man alone inhabited this house.

Athos cast a cold and indifferent glance upon the objects we have
described, and at the invitation of him whom he came to seek sat down
near him.

Then he explained to him the cause of his visit, and the service he
required of him. But scarcely had he expressed his request when the
unknown, who remained standing before the Musketeer, drew back with
signs of terror, and refused. Then Athos took from his pocket a small
paper, on which two lines were written, accompanied by a signature and
a seal, and presented them to him who had made too prematurely these
signs of repugnance. The tall man had scarcely read these lines, seen
the signature, and recognized the seal, when he bowed to denote that he
had no longer any objection to make, and that he was ready to obey.

Athos required no more. He arose, bowed, went out, returned by the same
way he came, re-entered the hôtel, and went to his apartment.

At daybreak D’Artagnan entered the chamber, and demanded what was to be
done.

“To wait,” replied Athos.

Some minutes after, the superior of the convent sent to inform the
Musketeers that the burial would take place at midday. As to the
poisoner, they had heard no tidings of her whatever, only that she must
have made her escape through the garden, on the sand of which her
footsteps could be traced, and the door of which had been found shut.
As to the key, it had disappeared.

At the hour appointed, Lord de Winter and the four friends repaired to
the convent; the bells tolled, the chapel was open, the grating of the
choir was closed. In the middle of the choir the body of the victim,
clothed in her novitiate dress, was exposed. On each side of the choir
and behind the gratings opening into the convent was assembled the
whole community of the Carmelites, who listened to the divine service,
and mingled their chant with the chant of the priests, without seeing
the profane, or being seen by them.

At the door of the chapel D’Artagnan felt his courage fall anew, and
returned to look for Athos; but Athos had disappeared.

Faithful to his mission of vengeance, Athos had requested to be
conducted to the garden; and there upon the sand following the light
steps of this woman, who left sharp tracks wherever she went, he
advanced toward the gate which led into the wood, and causing it to be
opened, he went out into the forest.

Then all his suspicions were confirmed; the road by which the carriage
had disappeared encircled the forest. Athos followed the road for some
time, his eyes fixed upon the ground; slight stains of blood, which
came from the wound inflicted upon the man who accompanied the carriage
as a courier, or from one of the horses, dotted the road. At the end of
three-quarters of a league, within fifty paces of Festubert, a larger
bloodstain appeared; the ground was trampled by horses. Between the
forest and this accursed spot, a little behind the trampled ground, was
the same track of small feet as in the garden; the carriage had stopped
here. At this spot Milady had come out of the wood, and entered the
carriage.

Satisfied with this discovery which confirmed all his suspicions, Athos
returned to the hôtel, and found Planchet impatiently waiting for him.

Everything was as Athos had foreseen.

Planchet had followed the road; like Athos, he had discovered the
stains of blood; like Athos, he had noted the spot where the horses had
halted. But he had gone farther than Athos—for at the village of
Festubert, while drinking at an inn, he had learned without needing to
ask a question that the evening before, at half-past eight, a wounded
man who accompanied a lady traveling in a post-chaise had been obliged
to stop, unable to go further. The accident was set down to the account
of robbers, who had stopped the chaise in the wood. The man remained in
the village; the woman had had a relay of horses, and continued her
journey.

Planchet went in search of the postillion who had driven her, and found
him. He had taken the lady as far as Fromelles; and from Fromelles she
had set out for Armentières. Planchet took the crossroad, and by seven
o’clock in the morning he was at Armentières.

There was but one tavern, the Post. Planchet went and presented himself
as a lackey out of a place, who was in search of a situation. He had
not chatted ten minutes with the people of the tavern before he learned
that a woman had come there alone about eleven o’clock the night
before, had engaged a chamber, had sent for the master of the hôtel,
and told him she desired to remain some time in the neighborhood.

Planchet had no need to learn more. He hastened to the rendezvous,
found the lackeys at their posts, placed them as sentinels at all the
outlets of the hôtel, and came to find Athos, who had just received
this information when his friends returned.

All their countenances were melancholy and gloomy, even the mild
countenance of Aramis.

“What is to be done?” asked D’Artagnan.

“To wait!” replied Athos.

Each retired to his own apartment.

At eight o’clock in the evening Athos ordered the horses to be saddled,
and Lord de Winter and his friends notified that they must prepare for
the expedition.

In an instant all five were ready. Each examined his arms, and put them
in order. Athos came down last, and found D’Artagnan already on
horseback, and growing impatient.

“Patience!” cried Athos; “one of our party is still wanting.”

The four horsemen looked round them with astonishment, for they sought
vainly in their minds to know who this other person could be.

At this moment Planchet brought out Athos’s horse; the Musketeer leaped
lightly into the saddle.

“Wait for me,” cried he, “I will soon be back,” and he set off at a
gallop.

In a quarter of an hour he returned, accompanied by a tall man, masked,
and wrapped in a large red cloak.

Lord de Winter and the three Musketeers looked at one another
inquiringly. Neither could give the others any information, for all
were ignorant who this man could be; nevertheless, they felt convinced
that all was as it should be, as it was done by the order of Athos.

At nine o’clock, guided by Planchet, the little cavalcade set out,
taking the route the carriage had taken.

It was a melancholy sight—that of these six men, traveling in silence,
each plunged in his own thoughts, sad as despair, gloomy as
chastisement.




Chapter LXV.
TRIAL


It was a stormy and dark night; vast clouds covered the heavens,
concealing the stars; the moon would not rise till midnight.

Occasionally, by the light of a flash of lightning which gleamed along
the horizon, the road stretched itself before them, white and solitary;
the flash extinct, all remained in darkness.

Every minute Athos was forced to restrain D’Artagnan, constantly in
advance of the little troop, and to beg him to keep in the line, which
in an instant he again departed from. He had but one thought—to go
forward; and he went.

They passed in silence through the little village of Festubert, where
the wounded servant was, and then skirted the wood of Richebourg. At
Herlier, Planchet, who led the column, turned to the left.

Several times Lord de Winter, Porthos, or Aramis tried to talk with the
man in the red cloak; but to every interrogation which they put to him
he bowed, without response. The travelers then comprehended that there
must be some reason why the unknown preserved such a silence, and
ceased to address themselves to him.

The storm increased, the flashes succeeded one another more rapidly,
the thunder began to growl, and the wind, the precursor of a hurricane,
whistled in the plumes and the hair of the horsemen.

The cavalcade trotted on more sharply.

A little before they came to Fromelles the storm burst. They spread
their cloaks. There remained three leagues to travel, and they did it
amid torrents of rain.

D’Artagnan took off his hat, and could not be persuaded to make use of
his cloak. He found pleasure in feeling the water trickle over his
burning brow and over his body, agitated by feverish shudders.

The moment the little troop passed Goskal and were approaching the
Post, a man sheltered beneath a tree detached himself from the trunk
with which he had been confounded in the darkness, and advanced into
the middle of the road, putting his finger on his lips.

Athos recognized Grimaud.

“What’s the manner?” cried Athos. “Has she left Armentières?”

Grimaud made a sign in the affirmative. D’Artagnan ground his teeth.

“Silence, D’Artagnan!” said Athos. “I have charged myself with this
affair. It is for me, then, to interrogate Grimaud.”

“Where is she?” asked Athos.

Grimaud extended his hands in the direction of the Lys. “Far from
here?” asked Athos.

Grimaud showed his master his forefinger bent.

“Alone?” asked Athos.

Grimaud made the sign yes.

“Gentlemen,” said Athos, “she is alone within half a league of us, in
the direction of the river.”

“That’s well,” said D’Artagnan. “Lead us, Grimaud.”

Grimaud took his course across the country, and acted as guide to the
cavalcade.

At the end of five hundred paces, more or less, they came to a rivulet,
which they forded.

By the aid of the lightning they perceived the village of Erquinheim.

“Is she there, Grimaud?” asked Athos.

Grimaud shook his head negatively.

“Silence, then!” cried Athos.

And the troop continued their route.

Another flash illuminated all around them. Grimaud extended his arm,
and by the bluish splendor of the fiery serpent they distinguished a
little isolated house on the banks of the river, within a hundred paces
of a ferry.

One window was lighted.

“Here we are!” said Athos.

At this moment a man who had been crouching in a ditch jumped up and
came towards them. It was Mousqueton. He pointed his finger to the
lighted window.

“She is there,” said he.

“And Bazin?” asked Athos.

“While I watched the window, he guarded the door.”

“Good!” said Athos. “You are good and faithful servants.”

Athos sprang from his horse, gave the bridle to Grimaud, and advanced
toward the window, after having made a sign to the rest of the troop to
go toward the door.

The little house was surrounded by a low, quickset hedge, two or three
feet high. Athos sprang over the hedge and went up to the window, which
was without shutters, but had the half-curtains closely drawn.

He mounted the skirting stone that his eyes might look over the
curtain.

By the light of a lamp he saw a woman, wrapped in a dark mantle, seated
upon a stool near a dying fire. Her elbows were placed upon a mean
table, and she leaned her head upon her two hands, which were white as
ivory.

He could not distinguish her countenance, but a sinister smile passed
over the lips of Athos. He was not deceived; it was she whom he sought.

At this moment a horse neighed. Milady raised her head, saw close to
the panes the pale face of Athos, and screamed.

Athos, perceiving that she knew him, pushed the window with his knee
and hand. The window yielded. The squares were broken to shivers; and
Athos, like the spectre of vengeance, leaped into the room.

Milady rushed to the door and opened it. More pale and menacing than
Athos, D’Artagnan stood on the threshold.

Milady recoiled, uttering a cry. D’Artagnan, believing she might have
means of flight and fearing she should escape, drew a pistol from his
belt; but Athos raised his hand.

“Put back that weapon, D’Artagnan!” said he; “this woman must be tried,
not assassinated. Wait an instant, my friend, and you shall be
satisfied. Come in, gentlemen.”

D’Artagnan obeyed; for Athos had the solemn voice and the powerful
gesture of a judge sent by the Lord himself. Behind D’Artagnan entered
Porthos, Aramis, Lord de Winter, and the man in the red cloak.

The four lackeys guarded the door and the window.

Milady had sunk into a chair, with her hands extended, as if to conjure
this terrible apparition. Perceiving her brother-in-law, she uttered a
terrible cry.

“What do you want?” screamed Milady.

“We want,” said Athos, “Charlotte Backson, who first was called
Comtesse de la Fère, and afterwards Milady de Winter, Baroness of
Sheffield.”

“That is I! that is I!” murmured Milady, in extreme terror; “what do
you want?”

“We wish to judge you according to your crime,” said Athos; “you shall
be free to defend yourself. Justify yourself if you can. M. d’Artagnan,
it is for you to accuse her first.”

D’Artagnan advanced.

“Before God and before men,” said he, “I accuse this woman of having
poisoned Constance Bonacieux, who died yesterday evening.”

He turned towards Porthos and Aramis.

“We bear witness to this,” said the two Musketeers, with one voice.

D’Artagnan continued: “Before God and before men, I accuse this woman
of having attempted to poison me, in wine which she sent me from
Villeroy, with a forged letter, as if that wine came from my friends.
God preserved me, but a man named Brisemont died in my place.”

“We bear witness to this,” said Porthos and Aramis, in the same manner
as before.

“Before God and before men, I accuse this woman of having urged me to
the murder of the Baron de Wardes; but as no one else can attest the
truth of this accusation, I attest it myself. I have done.” And
D’Artagnan passed to the other side of the room with Porthos and
Aramis.

“Your turn, my Lord,” said Athos.

The baron came forward.

“Before God and before men,” said he, “I accuse this woman of having
caused the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham.”

“The Duke of Buckingham assassinated!” cried all present, with one
voice.

“Yes,” said the baron, “assassinated. On receiving the warning letter
you wrote to me, I had this woman arrested, and gave her in charge to a
loyal servant. She corrupted this man; she placed the poniard in his
hand; she made him kill the duke. And at this moment, perhaps, Felton
is paying with his head for the crime of this fury!”

A shudder crept through the judges at the revelation of these unknown
crimes.

“That is not all,” resumed Lord de Winter. “My brother, who made you
his heir, died in three hours of a strange disorder which left livid
traces all over the body. My sister, how did your husband die?”

“Horror!” cried Porthos and Aramis.

“Assassin of Buckingham, assassin of Felton, assassin of my brother, I
demand justice upon you, and I swear that if it be not granted to me, I
will execute it myself.”

And Lord de Winter ranged himself by the side of D’Artagnan, leaving
the place free for another accuser.

Milady let her head sink between her two hands, and tried to recall her
ideas, whirling in a mortal vertigo.

“My turn,” said Athos, himself trembling as the lion trembles at the
sight of the serpent—“my turn. I married that woman when she was a
young girl; I married her in opposition to the wishes of all my family;
I gave her my wealth, I gave her my name; and one day I discovered that
this woman was branded—this woman was marked with a _fleur-de-lis_ on
her left shoulder.”

“Oh,” said Milady, raising herself, “I defy you to find any tribunal
which pronounced that infamous sentence against me. I defy you to find
him who executed it.”

“Silence!” said a hollow voice. “It is for me to reply to that!” And
the man in the red cloak came forward in his turn.

“What man is that? What man is that?” cried Milady, suffocated by
terror, her hair loosening itself, and rising above her livid
countenance as if alive.

All eyes were turned towards this man—for to all except Athos he was
unknown.

Even Athos looked at him with as much stupefaction as the others, for
he knew not how he could in any way find himself mixed up with the
horrible drama then unfolded.

After approaching Milady with a slow and solemn step, so that the table
alone separated them, the unknown took off his mask.

Milady for some time examined with increasing terror that pale face,
framed with black hair and whiskers, the only expression of which was
icy impassibility. Then she suddenly cried, “Oh, no, no!” rising and
retreating to the very wall. “No, no! it is an infernal apparition! It
is not he! Help, help!” screamed she, turning towards the wall, as if
she would tear an opening with her hands.

“Who are you, then?” cried all the witnesses of this scene.

“Ask that woman,” said the man in the red cloak, “for you may plainly
see she knows me!”

“The executioner of Lille, the executioner of Lille!” cried Milady, a
prey to insensate terror, and clinging with her hands to the wall to
avoid falling.

Everyone drew back, and the man in the red cloak remained standing
alone in the middle of the room.

“Oh, grace, grace, pardon!” cried the wretch, falling on her knees.

The unknown waited for silence, and then resumed, “I told you well that
she would know me. Yes, I am the executioner of Lille, and this is my
history.”

All eyes were fixed upon this man, whose words were listened to with
anxious attention.

“That woman was once a young girl, as beautiful as she is today. She
was a nun in the convent of the Benedictines of Templemar. A young
priest, with a simple and trustful heart, performed the duties of the
church of that convent. She undertook his seduction, and succeeded; she
would have seduced a saint.

“Their vows were sacred and irrevocable. Their connection could not
last long without ruining both. She prevailed upon him to leave the
country; but to leave the country, to fly together, to reach another
part of France, where they might live at ease because unknown, money
was necessary. Neither had any. The priest stole the sacred vases, and
sold them; but as they were preparing to escape together, they were
both arrested.

“Eight days later she had seduced the son of the jailer, and escaped.
The young priest was condemned to ten years of imprisonment, and to be
branded. I was executioner of the city of Lille, as this woman has
said. I was obliged to brand the guilty one; and he, gentlemen, was my
brother!

“I then swore that this woman who had ruined him, who was more than his
accomplice, since she had urged him to the crime, should at least share
his punishment. I suspected where she was concealed. I followed her, I
caught her, I bound her; and I imprinted the same disgraceful mark upon
her that I had imprinted upon my poor brother.

“The day after my return to Lille, my brother in his turn succeeded in
making his escape; I was accused of complicity, and was condemned to
remain in his place till he should be again a prisoner. My poor brother
was ignorant of this sentence. He rejoined this woman; they fled
together into Berry, and there he obtained a little curacy. This woman
passed for his sister.

“The Lord of the estate on which the chapel of the curacy was situated
saw this pretend sister, and became enamoured of her—amorous to such a
degree that he proposed to marry her. Then she quitted him she had
ruined for him she was destined to ruin, and became the Comtesse de la
Fère—”

All eyes were turned towards Athos, whose real name that was, and who
made a sign with his head that all was true which the executioner had
said.

“Then,” resumed he, “mad, desperate, determined to get rid of an
existence from which she had stolen everything, honor and happiness, my
poor brother returned to Lille, and learning the sentence which had
condemned me in his place, surrendered himself, and hanged himself that
same night from the iron bar of the loophole of his prison.

“To do justice to them who had condemned me, they kept their word. As
soon as the identity of my brother was proved, I was set at liberty.

“That is the crime of which I accuse her; that is the cause for which
she was branded.”

“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Athos, “what is the penalty you demand
against this woman?”

“The punishment of death,” replied D’Artagnan.

“My Lord de Winter,” continued Athos, “what is the penalty you demand
against this woman?”

“The punishment of death,” replied Lord de Winter.

“Messieurs Porthos and Aramis,” repeated Athos, “you who are her
judges, what is the sentence you pronounce upon this woman?”

“The punishment of death,” replied the Musketeers, in a hollow voice.

Milady uttered a frightful shriek, and dragged herself along several
paces upon her knees toward her judges.

Athos stretched out his hand toward her.

“Charlotte Backson, Comtesse de la Fère, Milady de Winter,” said he,
“your crimes have wearied men on earth and God in heaven. If you know a
prayer, say it—for you are condemned, and you shall die.”

At these words, which left no hope, Milady raised herself in all her
pride, and wished to speak; but her strength failed her. She felt that
a powerful and implacable hand seized her by the hair, and dragged her
away as irrevocably as fatality drags humanity. She did not, therefore,
even attempt the least resistance, and went out of the cottage.

Lord de Winter, D’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, went out close
behind her. The lackeys followed their masters, and the chamber was
left solitary, with its broken window, its open door, and its smoky
lamp burning sadly on the table.




Chapter LXVI.
EXECUTION


It was near midnight; the moon, lessened by its decline, and reddened
by the last traces of the storm, arose behind the little town of
Armentières, which showed against its pale light the dark outline of
its houses, and the skeleton of its high belfry. In front of them the
Lys rolled its waters like a river of molten tin; while on the other
side was a black mass of trees, profiled on a stormy sky, invaded by
large coppery clouds which created a sort of twilight amid the night.
On the left was an old abandoned mill, with its motionless wings, from
the ruins of which an owl threw out its shrill, periodical, and
monotonous cry. On the right and on the left of the road, which the
dismal procession pursued, appeared a few low, stunted trees, which
looked like deformed dwarfs crouching down to watch men traveling at
this sinister hour.

From time to time a broad sheet of lightning opened the horizon in its
whole width, darted like a serpent over the black mass of trees, and
like a terrible scimitar divided the heavens and the waters into two
parts. Not a breath of wind now disturbed the heavy atmosphere. A
deathlike silence oppressed all nature. The soil was humid and
glittering with the rain which had recently fallen, and the refreshed
herbs sent forth their perfume with additional energy.

Two lackeys dragged Milady, whom each held by one arm. The executioner
walked behind them, and Lord de Winter, D’Artagnan, Porthos, and Aramis
walked behind the executioner. Planchet and Bazin came last.

The two lackeys conducted Milady to the bank of the river. Her mouth
was mute; but her eyes spoke with their inexpressible eloquence,
supplicating by turns each of those on whom she looked.

Being a few paces in advance she whispered to the lackeys, “A thousand
pistoles to each of you, if you will assist my escape; but if you
deliver me up to your masters, I have near at hand avengers who will
make you pay dearly for my death.”

Grimaud hesitated. Mousqueton trembled in all his members.

Athos, who heard Milady’s voice, came sharply up. Lord de Winter did
the same.

“Change these lackeys,” said he; “she has spoken to them. They are no
longer sure.”

Planchet and Bazin were called, and took the places of Grimaud and
Mousqueton.

On the bank of the river the executioner approached Milady, and bound
her hands and feet.

Then she broke the silence to cry out, “You are cowards, miserable
assassins—ten men combined to murder one woman. Beware! If I am not
saved I shall be avenged.”

“You are not a woman,” said Athos, coldly and sternly. “You do not
belong to the human species; you are a demon escaped from hell, whither
we send you back again.”

“Ah, you virtuous men!” said Milady; “please to remember that he who
shall touch a hair of my head is himself an assassin.”

“The executioner may kill, without being on that account an assassin,”
said the man in the red cloak, rapping upon his immense sword. “This is
the last judge; that is all. _Nachrichter_, as say our neighbors, the
Germans.”

And as he bound her while saying these words, Milady uttered two or
three savage cries, which produced a strange and melancholy effect in
flying away into the night, and losing themselves in the depths of the
woods.

“If I am guilty, if I have committed the crimes you accuse me of,”
shrieked Milady, “take me before a tribunal. You are not judges! You
cannot condemn me!”

“I offered you Tyburn,” said Lord de Winter. “Why did you not accept
it?”

“Because I am not willing to die!” cried Milady, struggling. “Because I
am too young to die!”

“The woman you poisoned at Béthune was still younger than you, madame,
and yet she is dead,” said D’Artagnan.

“I will enter a cloister; I will become a nun,” said Milady.

“You were in a cloister,” said the executioner, “and you left it to
ruin my brother.”

Milady uttered a cry of terror and sank upon her knees. The executioner
took her up in his arms and was carrying her toward the boat.

“Oh, my God!” cried she, “my God! are you going to drown me?”

These cries had something so heartrending in them that M. d’Artagnan,
who had been at first the most eager in pursuit of Milady, sat down on
the stump of a tree and hung his head, covering his ears with the palms
of his hands; and yet, notwithstanding, he could still hear her cry and
threaten.

D’Artagnan was the youngest of all these men. His heart failed him.

“Oh, I cannot behold this frightful spectacle!” said he. “I cannot
consent that this woman should die thus!”

Milady heard these few words and caught at a shadow of hope.

“D’Artagnan, D’Artagnan!” cried she; “remember that I loved you!”

The young man rose and took a step toward her.

But Athos rose likewise, drew his sword, and placed himself in the way.

“If you take one step farther, D’Artagnan,” said he, “we shall cross
swords together.”

D’Artagnan sank on his knees and prayed.

“Come,” continued Athos, “executioner, do your duty.”

“Willingly, monseigneur,” said the executioner; “for as I am a good
Catholic, I firmly believe I am acting justly in performing my
functions on this woman.”

“That’s well.”

Athos made a step toward Milady.

“I pardon you,” said he, “the ill you have done me. I pardon you for my
blasted future, my lost honor, my defiled love, and my salvation
forever compromised by the despair into which you have cast me. Die in
peace!”

Lord de Winter advanced in his turn.

“I pardon you,” said he, “for the poisoning of my brother, and the
assassination of his Grace, Lord Buckingham. I pardon you for the death
of poor Felton; I pardon you for the attempts upon my own person. Die
in peace!”

“And I,” said M. d’Artagnan. “Pardon me, madame, for having by a trick
unworthy of a gentleman provoked your anger; and I, in exchange, pardon
you the murder of my poor love and your cruel vengeance against me. I
pardon you, and I weep for you. Die in peace!”

“I am lost!” murmured Milady in English. “I must die!”

Then she arose of herself, and cast around her one of those piercing
looks which seemed to dart from an eye of flame.

She saw nothing; she listened, and she heard nothing.

“Where am I to die?” said she.

“On the other bank,” replied the executioner.

Then he placed her in the boat, and as he was going to set foot in it
himself, Athos handed him a sum of silver.

“Here,” said he, “is the price of the execution, that it may be plain
we act as judges.”

“That is correct,” said the executioner; “and now in her turn, let this
woman see that I am not fulfilling my trade, but my debt.”

And he threw the money into the river.

The boat moved off toward the left-hand shore of the Lys, bearing the
guilty woman and the executioner; all the others remained on the
right-hand bank, where they fell on their knees.

The boat glided along the ferry rope under the shadow of a pale cloud
which hung over the water at that moment.

The troop of friends saw it gain the opposite bank; the figures were
defined like black shadows on the red-tinted horizon.

Milady, during the passage had contrived to untie the cord which
fastened her feet. On coming near the bank, she jumped lightly on shore
and took to flight. But the soil was moist; on reaching the top of the
bank, she slipped and fell upon her knees.

She was struck, no doubt, with a superstitious idea; she conceived that
heaven denied its aid, and she remained in the attitude in which she
had fallen, her head drooping and her hands clasped.

Then they saw from the other bank the executioner raise both his arms
slowly; a moonbeam fell upon the blade of the large sword. The two arms
fell with a sudden force; they heard the hissing of the scimitar and
the cry of the victim, then a truncated mass sank beneath the blow.

The executioner then took off his red cloak, spread it upon the ground,
laid the body in it, threw in the head, tied all up by the four
corners, lifted it on his back, and entered the boat again.

In the middle of the stream he stopped the boat, and suspending his
burden over the water cried in a loud voice, “Let the justice of God be
done!” and he let the corpse drop into the depths of the waters, which
closed over it.

Three days afterward the four Musketeers were in Paris; they had not
exceeded their leave of absence, and that same evening they went to pay
their customary visit to M. de Tréville.

“Well, gentlemen,” said the brave captain, “I hope you have been well
amused during your excursion.”

“Prodigiously,” replied Athos in the name of himself and his comrades.




Chapter LXVII.
CONCLUSION


On the sixth of the following month the king, in compliance with the
promise he had made the cardinal to return to La Rochelle, left his
capital still in amazement at the news which began to spread itself of
Buckingham’s assassination.

Although warned that the man she had loved so much was in great danger,
the queen, when his death was announced to her, would not believe the
fact, and even imprudently exclaimed, “it is false; he has just written
to me!”

But the next day she was obliged to believe this fatal intelligence;
Laporte, detained in England, as everyone else had been, by the orders
of Charles I., arrived, and was the bearer of the duke’s dying gift to
the queen.

The joy of the king was lively. He did not even give himself the
trouble to dissemble, and displayed it with affectation before the
queen. Louis XIII., like every weak mind, was wanting in generosity.

But the king soon again became dull and indisposed; his brow was not
one of those that long remain clear. He felt that in returning to camp
he should re-enter slavery; nevertheless, he did return.

The cardinal was for him the fascinating serpent, and himself the bird
which flies from branch to branch without power to escape.

The return to La Rochelle, therefore, was profoundly dull. Our four
friends, in particular, astonished their comrades; they traveled
together, side by side, with sad eyes and heads lowered. Athos alone
from time to time raised his expansive brow; a flash kindled in his
eyes, and a bitter smile passed over his lips, then, like his comrades,
he sank again into reverie.

As soon as the escort arrived in a city, when they had conducted the
king to his quarters the four friends either retired to their own or to
some secluded cabaret, where they neither drank nor played; they only
conversed in a low voice, looking around attentively to see that no one
overheard them.

One day, when the king had halted to fly the magpie, and the four
friends, according to their custom, instead of following the sport had
stopped at a cabaret on the high road, a man coming from la Rochelle on
horseback pulled up at the door to drink a glass of wine, and darted a
searching glance into the room where the four Musketeers were sitting.

“Holloa, Monsieur d’Artagnan!” said he, “is not that you whom I see
yonder?”

D’Artagnan raised his head and uttered a cry of joy. It was the man he
called his phantom; it was his stranger of Meung, of the Rue des
Fossoyeurs and of Arras.

D’Artagnan drew his sword, and sprang toward the door.

But this time, instead of avoiding him the stranger jumped from his
horse, and advanced to meet D’Artagnan.

“Ah, monsieur!” said the young man, “I meet you, then, at last! This
time you shall not escape me!”

“Neither is it my intention, monsieur, for this time I was seeking you;
in the name of the king, I arrest you.”

“How! what do you say?” cried D’Artagnan.

“I say that you must surrender your sword to me, monsieur, and that
without resistance. This concerns your head, I warn you.”

“Who are you, then?” demanded D’Artagnan, lowering the point of his
sword, but without yet surrendering it.

“I am the Chevalier de Rochefort,” answered the other, “the equerry of
Monsieur le Cardinal Richelieu, and I have orders to conduct you to his
Eminence.”

“We are returning to his Eminence, monsieur the Chevalier,” said Athos,
advancing; “and you will please to accept the word of Monsieur
d’Artagnan that he will go straight to La Rochelle.”

“I must place him in the hands of guards who will take him into camp.”

“We will be his guards, monsieur, upon our word as gentlemen; but
likewise, upon our word as gentlemen,” added Athos, knitting his brow,
“Monsieur d’Artagnan shall not leave us.”

The Chevalier de Rochefort cast a glance backward, and saw that Porthos
and Aramis had placed themselves between him and the gate; he
understood that he was completely at the mercy of these four men.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “if Monsieur d’Artagnan will surrender his sword
to me and join his word to yours, I shall be satisfied with your
promise to convey Monsieur d’Artagnan to the quarters of Monseigneur
the Cardinal.”

“You have my word, monsieur, and here is my sword.”

“This suits me the better,” said Rochefort, “as I wish to continue my
journey.”

“If it is for the purpose of rejoining Milady,” said Athos, coolly, “it
is useless; you will not find her.”

“What has become of her, then?” asked Rochefort, eagerly.

“Return to camp and you shall know.”

Rochefort remained for a moment in thought; then, as they were only a
day’s journey from Surgères, whither the cardinal was to come to meet
the king, he resolved to follow the advice of Athos and go with them.
Besides, this return offered him the advantage of watching his
prisoner.

They resumed their route.

On the morrow, at three o’clock in the afternoon, they arrived at
Surgères. The cardinal there awaited Louis XIII. The minister and the
king exchanged numerous caresses, felicitating each other upon the
fortunate chance which had freed France from the inveterate enemy who
set all Europe against her. After which, the cardinal, who had been
informed that D’Artagnan was arrested and who was anxious to see him,
took leave of the king, inviting him to come the next day to view the
work already done upon the dyke.

On returning in the evening to his quarters at the bridge of La Pierre,
the cardinal found, standing before the house he occupied, D’Artagnan,
without his sword, and the three Musketeers armed.

This time, as he was well attended, he looked at them sternly, and made
a sign with his eye and hand for D’Artagnan to follow him.

D’Artagnan obeyed.

“We shall wait for you, D’Artagnan,” said Athos, loud enough for the
cardinal to hear him.

His Eminence bent his brow, stopped for an instant, and then kept on
his way without uttering a single word.

D’Artagnan entered after the cardinal, and behind D’Artagnan the door
was guarded.

His Eminence entered the chamber which served him as a study, and made
a sign to Rochefort to bring in the young Musketeer.

Rochefort obeyed and retired.

D’Artagnan remained alone in front of the cardinal; this was his second
interview with Richelieu, and he afterward confessed that he felt well
assured it would be his last.

Richelieu remained standing, leaning against the mantelpiece; a table
was between him and D’Artagnan.

“Monsieur,” said the cardinal, “you have been arrested by my orders.”

“So they tell me, monseigneur.”

“Do you know why?”

“No, monseigneur, for the only thing for which I could be arrested is
still unknown to your Eminence.”

Richelieu looked steadfastly at the young man.

“Holloa!” said he, “what does that mean?”

“If Monseigneur will have the goodness to tell me, in the first place,
what crimes are imputed to me, I will then tell him the deeds I have
really done.”

“Crimes are imputed to you which had brought down far loftier heads
than yours, monsieur,” said the cardinal.

“What, monseigneur?” said D’Artagnan, with a calmness which astonished
the cardinal himself.

“You are charged with having corresponded with the enemies of the
kingdom; you are charged with having surprised state secrets; you are
charged with having tried to thwart the plans of your general.”

“And who charges me with this, monseigneur?” said D’Artagnan, who had
no doubt the accusation came from Milady, “a woman branded by the
justice of the country; a woman who has espoused one man in France and
another in England; a woman who poisoned her second husband and who
attempted both to poison and assassinate me!”

“What do you say, monsieur?” cried the cardinal, astonished; “and of
what woman are you speaking thus?”

“Of Milady de Winter,” replied D’Artagnan, “yes, of Milady de Winter,
of whose crimes your Eminence is doubtless ignorant, since you have
honored her with your confidence.”

“Monsieur,” said the cardinal, “if Milady de Winter has committed the
crimes you lay to her charge, she shall be punished.”

“She has been punished, monseigneur.”

“And who has punished her?”

“We.”

“She is in prison?”

“She is dead.”

“Dead!” repeated the cardinal, who could not believe what he heard,
“dead! Did you not say she was dead?”

“Three times she attempted to kill me, and I pardoned her; but she
murdered the woman I loved. Then my friends and I took her, tried her,
and condemned her.”

D’Artagnan then related the poisoning of Mme. Bonacieux in the convent
of the Carmelites at Béthune, the trial in the isolated house, and the
execution on the banks of the Lys.

A shudder crept through the body of the cardinal, who did not shudder
readily.

But all at once, as if undergoing the influence of an unspoken thought,
the countenance of the cardinal, till then gloomy, cleared up by
degrees, and recovered perfect serenity.

“So,” said the cardinal, in a tone that contrasted strongly with the
severity of his words, “you have constituted yourselves judges, without
remembering that they who punish without license to punish are
assassins?”

“Monseigneur, I swear to you that I never for an instant had the
intention of defending my head against you. I willingly submit to any
punishment your Eminence may please to inflict upon me. I do not hold
life dear enough to be afraid of death.”

“Yes, I know you are a man of a stout heart, monsieur,” said the
cardinal, with a voice almost affectionate; “I can therefore tell you
beforehand you shall be tried, and even condemned.”

“Another might reply to your Eminence that he had his pardon in his
pocket. I content myself with saying: Command, monseigneur; I am
ready.”

“Your pardon?” said Richelieu, surprised.

“Yes, monseigneur,” said D’Artagnan.

“And signed by whom—by the king?” And the cardinal pronounced these
words with a singular expression of contempt.

“No, by your Eminence.”

“By me? You are insane, monsieur.”

“Monseigneur will doubtless recognize his own handwriting.”

And D’Artagnan presented to the cardinal the precious piece of paper
which Athos had forced from Milady, and which he had given to
D’Artagnan to serve him as a safeguard.

His Eminence took the paper, and read in a slow voice, dwelling upon
every syllable:

“Dec. 3, 1627


“It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of
this has done what he has done.


“RICHELIEU”


The cardinal, after having read these two lines, sank into a profound
reverie; but he did not return the paper to D’Artagnan.

“He is meditating by what sort of punishment he shall cause me to die,”
said the Gascon to himself. “Well, my faith! he shall see how a
gentleman can die.”

The young Musketeer was in excellent disposition to die heroically.

Richelieu still continued thinking, rolling and unrolling the paper in
his hands.

At length he raised his head, fixed his eagle look upon that loyal,
open, and intelligent countenance, read upon that face, furrowed with
tears, all the sufferings its possessor had endured in the course of a
month, and reflected for the third or fourth time how much there was in
that youth of twenty-one years before him, and what resources his
activity, his courage, and his shrewdness might offer to a good master.
On the other side, the crimes, the power, and the infernal genius of
Milady had more than once terrified him. He felt something like a
secret joy at being forever relieved of this dangerous accomplice.

Richelieu slowly tore the paper which D’Artagnan had generously
relinquished.

“I am lost!” said D’Artagnan to himself. And he bowed profoundly before
the cardinal, like a man who says, “Lord, Thy will be done!”

The cardinal approached the table, and without sitting down, wrote a
few lines upon a parchment of which two-thirds were already filled, and
affixed his seal.

“That is my condemnation,” thought D’Artagnan; “he will spare me the
_ennui_ of the Bastille, or the tediousness of a trial. That’s very
kind of him.”

“Here, monsieur,” said the cardinal to the young man. “I have taken
from you one _carte blanche_ to give you another. The name is wanting
in this commission; you can write it yourself.”

D’Artagnan took the paper hesitatingly and cast his eyes over it; it
was a lieutenant’s commission in the Musketeers.

D’Artagnan fell at the feet of the cardinal.

“Monseigneur,” said he, “my life is yours; henceforth dispose of it.
But this favor which you bestow upon me I do not merit. I have three
friends who are more meritorious and more worthy—”

“You are a brave youth, D’Artagnan,” interrupted the cardinal, tapping
him familiarly on the shoulder, charmed at having vanquished this
rebellious nature. “Do with this commission what you will; only
remember, though the name be blank, it is to you I give it.”

“I shall never forget it,” replied D’Artagnan. “Your Eminence may be
certain of that.”

The cardinal turned and said in a loud voice, “Rochefort!” The
chevalier, who no doubt was near the door, entered immediately.

“Rochefort,” said the cardinal, “you see Monsieur d’Artagnan. I receive
him among the number of my friends. Greet each other, then; and be wise
if you wish to preserve your heads.”

Rochefort and D’Artagnan coolly greeted each other with their lips; but
the cardinal was there, observing them with his vigilant eye.

They left the chamber at the same time.

“We shall meet again, shall we not, monsieur?”

“When you please,” said D’Artagnan.

“An opportunity will come,” replied Rochefort.

“Hey?” said the cardinal, opening the door.

The two men smiled at each other, shook hands, and saluted his
Eminence.

“We were beginning to grow impatient,” said Athos.

“Here I am, my friends,” replied D’Artagnan; “not only free, but in
favor.”

“Tell us about it.”

“This evening; but for the moment, let us separate.”

Accordingly, that same evening D’Artagnan repaired to the quarters of
Athos, whom he found in a fair way to empty a bottle of Spanish wine—an
occupation which he religiously accomplished every night.

D’Artagnan related what had taken place between the cardinal and
himself, and drawing the commission from his pocket, said, “Here, my
dear Athos, this naturally belongs to you.”

Athos smiled with one of his sweet and expressive smiles.

“Friend,” said he, “for Athos this is too much; for the Comte de la
Fère it is too little. Keep the commission; it is yours. Alas! you have
purchased it dearly enough.”

D’Artagnan left Athos’s chamber and went to that of Porthos. He found
him clothed in a magnificent dress covered with splendid embroidery,
admiring himself before a glass.

“Ah, ah! is that you, dear friend?” exclaimed Porthos. “How do you
think these garments fit me?”

“Wonderfully,” said D’Artagnan; “but I come to offer you a dress which
will become you still better.”

“What?” asked Porthos.

“That of a lieutenant of Musketeers.”

D’Artagnan related to Porthos the substance of his interview with the
cardinal, and said, taking the commission from his pocket, “Here, my
friend, write your name upon it and become my chief.”

Porthos cast his eyes over the commission and returned it to
D’Artagnan, to the great astonishment of the young man.

“Yes,” said he, “yes, that would flatter me very much; but I should not
have time enough to enjoy the distinction. During our expedition to
Béthune the husband of my duchess died; so, my dear, the coffer of the
defunct holding out its arms to me, I shall marry the widow. Look here!
I was trying on my wedding suit. Keep the lieutenancy, my dear, keep
it.”

The young man then entered the apartment of Aramis. He found him
kneeling before a _priedieu_, with his head leaning on an open prayer
book.

He described to him his interview with the cardinal, and said, for the
third time drawing his commission from his pocket, “You, our friend,
our intelligence, our invisible protector, accept this commission. You
have merited it more than any of us by your wisdom and your counsels,
always followed by such happy results.”

“Alas, dear friend!” said Aramis, “our late adventures have disgusted
me with military life. This time my determination is irrevocably taken.
After the siege I shall enter the house of the Lazarists. Keep the
commission, D’Artagnan; the profession of arms suits you. You will be a
brave and adventurous captain.”

D’Artagnan, his eye moist with gratitude though beaming with joy, went
back to Athos, whom he found still at table contemplating the charms of
his last glass of Malaga by the light of his lamp.

“Well,” said he, “they likewise have refused me.”

“That, dear friend, is because nobody is more worthy than yourself.”

He took a quill, wrote the name of D’Artagnan in the commission, and
returned it to him.

“I shall then have no more friends,” said the young man. “Alas! nothing
but bitter recollections.”

And he let his head sink upon his hands, while two large tears rolled
down his cheeks.

“You are young,” replied Athos; “and your bitter recollections have
time to change themselves into sweet remembrances.”




EPILOGUE


La Rochelle, deprived of the assistance of the English fleet and of the
diversion promised by Buckingham, surrendered after a siege of a year.
On the twenty-eighth of October, 1628, the capitulation was signed.

The king made his entrance into Paris on the twenty-third of December
of the same year. He was received in triumph, as if he came from
conquering an enemy and not Frenchmen. He entered by the Faubourg St.
Jacques, under verdant arches.

D’Artagnan took possession of his command. Porthos left the service,
and in the course of the following year married Mme. Coquenard; the
coffer so much coveted contained eight hundred thousand livres.

Mousqueton had a magnificent livery, and enjoyed the satisfaction of
which he had been ambitious all his life—that of standing behind a
gilded carriage.

Aramis, after a journey into Lorraine, disappeared all at once, and
ceased to write to his friends; they learned at a later period through
Mme. de Chevreuse, who told it to two or three of her intimates, that,
yielding to his vocation, he had retired into a convent—only into
which, nobody knew.

Bazin became a lay brother.

Athos remained a Musketeer under the command of D’Artagnan till the
year 1633, at which period, after a journey he made to Touraine, he
also quit the service, under the pretext of having inherited a small
property in Roussillon.

Grimaud followed Athos.

D’Artagnan fought three times with Rochefort, and wounded him three
times.

“I shall probably kill you the fourth,” said he to him, holding out his
hand to assist him to rise.

“It is much better both for you and for me to stop where we are,”
answered the wounded man. “_Corbleu!_ I am more your friend than you
think—for after our very first encounter, I could by saying a word to
the cardinal have had your throat cut!”

They this time embraced heartily, and without retaining any malice.

Planchet obtained from Rochefort the rank of sergeant in the Piedmont
regiment.

M. Bonacieux lived on very quietly, wholly ignorant of what had become
of his wife, and caring very little about it. One day he had the
imprudence to recall himself to the memory of the cardinal. The
cardinal had him informed that he would provide for him so that he
should never want for anything in future. In fact, M. Bonacieux, having
left his house at seven o’clock in the evening to go to the Louvre,
never appeared again in the Rue des Fossoyeurs; the opinion of those
who seemed to be best informed was that he was fed and lodged in some
royal castle, at the expense of his generous Eminence.