Ten Years Later
Alexandre Dumas [Pere]

Twenty Years After

by Alexandre Dumas




1

The Shade of Cardinal Richelieu.



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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The Black Musketeers, my lord."

"What company?"

"Treville's company."

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

"Lieutenant d'Artagnan."

"A man on whom we can depend, I hope."

"Yes, my lord."

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

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

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

"Send hither Monsieur d'Artagnan."

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

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

"Monsieur d'Artagnan," said the valet-de-chambre.

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

D'Artagnan advanced a few steps into the apartment.

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

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

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

"You are Monsieur d'Artagnan?"

"I am that individual," replied the officer.

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

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

"I am at your command, my lord," returned D'Artagnan.

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

"Danger, my lord!" exclaimed D'Artagnan with a look of
astonishment, "what danger?"

"I am told that there is a general insurrection."

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

"Did you witness the injury sustained by Comminges?"

"Monsieur de Comminges is in the guards and not in the
musketeers ---- "

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

"Every one likes his own uniform best, my lord."

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

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

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

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

"Your horses are ready saddled in their stables, are they
not?" he said, turning to D'Artagnan.

"Yes, my lord."

"Well, let us set out."

"How many men does your eminence wish to escort you?"

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

"As many as my lord wishes."

"I will follow you. This way -- light us downstairs Bernouin.

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



2

A Nightly Patrol.



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And what is a Fronde?" inquired Mazarin.

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

"And what is the origin of this name?"

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

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



"A tempest from the Fronde

Did blow to-day:

I think 'twill blow

Sieur Mazarin away."



"Insolent wretch!" cried Guitant.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I really don't know what hotel it is; all I do know is that
I observed some suspicious looking people go in there ---- "

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

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

"You, my lord?"

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

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

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

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

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

"I have been a captain in the queen's guards for twenty
years," was the reply.

"En route, Monsieur d'Artagnan," said the cardinal; "all
goes well in this direction."

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

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

"Who is in command here?" asked the cardinal.

"Villequier," said Guitant.

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

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

"Yes, but I could give him the order -- I, Guitant -- and I
preferred to give it to you."

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

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

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

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

"And you sing chorus," replied Guitant, laughing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



* "The Three Musketeers."



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

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

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

"Yes, it's true. I have," returned Guitant.

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

"You have found that out, have you, my lord? Deuce take it
-- all the worse for me!"

"How?"

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

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

"Plague on't, my lord, have you brought me here to get my
horoscope out of me?"

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

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

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

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

Mazarin shook his head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That's my concern; I will make him speak."

"Ah, my lord, 'tis not easy to make people say what they
don't wish to let out."

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

"The Comte de Rochefort."

"The Comte de Rochefort!"

"Unfortunately he has disappeared these four or five years
and I don't know where he is."

"I know, Guitant," said Mazarin.

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

"You think," resumed Mazarin, "that Rochefort ---- "

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The cardinal folded and sealed his letter.

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

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



3

Dead Animosities.



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A bell resounded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"D'Artagnan!" cried Rochefort.

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

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

"And for what crime are you imprisoned in the Bastile."

"Do you wish me to speak the truth?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, I don't know."

"Have you any suspicion of me, Rochefort?"

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

"What reason?" asked D'Artagnan.

"For stealing."

"For stealing! you, Rochefort! you are laughing at me."

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

"I admit it."

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

"Were you crazy, Rochefort? at your age!"

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

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

"Ah, indeed! I forgot to ask you -- where are you taking
me?"

"To the cardinal."

"What does he want with me?"

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

"Impossible -- you -- a favorite of the minister!"

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

"Nevertheless, you come as one in authority."

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

"Then no misfortune has happened to you?"

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

"Then Mazarin is still Mazarin?"

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

"Married?"

"If not her husband, he is unquestionably her lover."

"You surprise me. Rebuff Buckingham and consent to Mazarin!"

"Just like the women," replied D'Artagnan, coolly.

"Like women, not like queens."

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

"And M. de Beaufort -- is he still in prison?"

"Yes. Why?"

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

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

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

"With Spain, no," answered D'Artagnan; "but Paris."

"What do you mean?" cried Rochefort.

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

"And you -- do you really think that anything could be done
with these bourgeois?"

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

"How miserable not to be free!"

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

"Make your complaints known; that's my advice."

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

"Egad! I bear the traces of our friendship -- three slits or
slashes from your sword."

"Well, if you should be restored to favor, don't forget me."

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

"There's my hand, -- I promise."

"Therefore, whenever you find any opportunity of saying
something in my behalf ---- "

"I shall say it, and you?"

"I shall do the same."

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

"Almost."

"What has become of them?"

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

"And the illustrious -- what's the name of the lad whom I
made a sergeant in Piedmont's regiment?"

"Planchet!"

"The illustrious Planchet. What has become of him?"

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

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

"Amen!" exclaimed D'Artagnan, stopping the carriage.

"What are you doing?" asked Rochefort.

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

"You are right. Adieu."

"Au revoir. Remember your promise."

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

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

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

"Speak out," answered D'Artagnan.

"I had only to cry out `Help!' for you and for your
companions to be cut to pieces, and then I should have been
free."

"Why didn't you do it?" asked the lieutenant.

"Come, come!" cried Rochefort. "Did we not swear friendship?
Ah! had any one but you been there, I don't say ---- "

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You think you were."

"I am certain of it."

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

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

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

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

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

Rochefort smiled contemptuously.

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

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

"Such was Cardinal Richelieu's opinion, my lord."

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

Rochefort bit his lips in order to prevent a smile.

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

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

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

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

"I can easily suppose, sir, that her majesty has forgotten
it amid the fetes and the courtiers of the Palais Royal, but
I who have passed those years in the Bastile ---- "

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I! never! you know you may say anything to me. I try to be
beloved, not feared."

"Well, there is on the wall of my cell, scratched with a
nail, a proverb, which says, `Like master, like servant.'"

"Pray, what does that mean?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Who is it?"

"It is Monsieur d'Artagnan."

"That Gascon!" cried Mazarin, with well acted surprise.

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

"Really?"

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

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

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

"Then he will tell it me himself."

"I doubt it, my lord."

"Why do you doubt it?"

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

"And he was alone in achieving an enterprise like that?"

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

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

"As if they had been one man -- as if their four hearts had
pulsated in one breast."

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

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

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

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

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

"Indeed!"

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

"It is magnificent!" said Mazarin, thoughtfully.

"Well, I know of ten such men."

Mazarin made no reply; he reflected.

Five or six minutes elapsed.

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

"Yes. And you say that Monsieur d'Artagnan was one of those
four men?"

"He led the enterprise."

"And who were the others?"

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

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

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

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

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

"What! impossible? And why is it impossible?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You decide, then, nothing about me, my lord?"

"On the contrary, I have come to a decision."

Bernouin came into the room.

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

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

"Adieu, Monsieur de Rochefort," he said.

Rochefort bent low.

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

"You are sagacious."

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

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

"I wish you may, my lord," replied De Rochefort.

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

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



4

Anne of Austria at the Age of Forty-six.



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

"My lord, have you any commands?" asked Bernouin.

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

Bernouin took up a candlestick and led the way.

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



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



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

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

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

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

Anne colored slightly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The cardinal smiled.

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

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

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

"Why," cried the queen; "how is that?"

"Because, as they say in the opera of `Thisbe,' `The whole
world conspires to break our bonds.'"

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

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

"Cardinal!"

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

"And what was he saying?"

"He said this, madame: `Mazarin is a stumbling-block. Send
him away and all will then be well.'"

"What do you wish me to do?"

"Oh, madame! you are the queen!"

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

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

"That is to say, whom you do not like," returned the queen.

"I! persons whom I do not like!"

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

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

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

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

"Who ordered Monsieur de Beaufort to be arrested?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What do you mean, monsieur?"

"Nothing else than I say -- search."

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

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

"Among my friends of other times?" said the queen.

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

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

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

"I!" said the queen. "I suffered, that is all."

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

"One of my bitterest enemies -- the faithful friend of
Cardinal Richelieu."

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

"Is be at liberty?" asked the queen.

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

Anne of Austria received the blow with a beating heart.

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

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

"That's all you know of him?" asked Mazarin.

The queen looked at him, surprised.

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

"Which you answer according to your fancy," replied Mazarin.

"Tell me your wishes and I will comply with them."

The queen spoke with some impatience.

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

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

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

"Continue," said the queen.

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

"The hero of Rocroy. Do you think of him?"

"Yes, madame, often and often, but pazienza, as we say in
Italy; next, after Monsieur de Conde, comes the Duke of
Orleans."

"What are you saying? The first prince of the blood, the
king's uncle!"

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

Anne blushed and buried her face in her hands.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ah! you confess it!" exclaimed Mazarin.

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

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

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

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

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

"Open, sir," she said, "and look for yourself."

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

"What are these things?" he asked.

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

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

"It is well, madame, I believe your oath."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mazarin bent low before her.

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

"Yes, to-morrow."

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

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

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

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



5

The Gascon and the Italian.



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

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

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

"Here I am," said he. "Who calls me?"

"I," said Mazarin, with his most smiling expression.

"I ask pardon of your eminence," said D'Artagnan, "but I was
so fatigued ---- "

"Don't ask my pardon, monsieur," said Mazarin, "for you
fatigued yourself in my service."

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

"Follow me, monsieur," said Mazarin.

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

"Monsieur d'Artagnan," said the cardinal, sitting down on a
fauteuil, "you have always seemed to me to be a brave and
honorable man."

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

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

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

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

"Monsieur d'Artagnan," continued the cardinal, "you
performed sundry superb exploits in the last reign."

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

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

D'Artagnan pretended astonishment.

"Well, you do not reply?" resumed Mazarin.

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

"I speak of the adventure -- Eh, you know well what I mean."

"Alas, no, my lord!" replied D'Artagnan, surprised.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The queen, my lord? I don't comprehend."

"You don't comprehend that I want you and your three friends
to be of use to me?"

"Which of my friends, my lord?"

"Your three friends -- the friends of former days."

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

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

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

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

"The queen!" said D'Artagnan, with an astonishment which
this time was not pretended.

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

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

"'Tis true. I remember well that diamond, which belonged to
the queen."

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

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

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

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

"Where can you find them, then?"

"Wherever they are, that's my business."

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

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

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

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

"Well," returned Mazarin, "we will satisfy you."

"Richelieu," thought D'Artagnan, "would have given me five
hundred pistoles in advance."

"You will then be at my service?" asked Mazarin.

"Yes, if my friends agree."

"But if they refuse can I count on you?"

"I have never accomplished anything alone," said D'Artagnan,
shaking his head.

"Go, then, and find them."

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

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

"What shall I promise?"

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

"But what are we to do?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Take this," he said with a sigh, "'tis merely for your
journey."

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

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

"Yes, my lord."

"Apropos, what are the names of your friends?"

"The Count de la Fere, formerly styled Athos; Monsieur du
Vallon, whom we used to call Porthos; the Chevalier
d'Herblay, now the Abbe d'Herblay, whom we styled Aramis
---- "

The cardinal smiled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile the cardinal was rubbing his hands in great
satisfaction.

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

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

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

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



6

D'Artagnan in his Fortieth Year.



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

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

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

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

"But he is dead; I am sure of it."

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

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

"Peste! my darling! another way of getting hanged."

"So you refuse my request?"

"To be sure I do -- furiously!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Alone?" asked D'Artagnan.

"With monsieur."

"Monsieur has returned, then?"

"Of course," naively replied the servant.

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

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

"Ah! see! here is madame returning with monsieur."

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

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

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

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

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

"Who is that man?" he asked.

The hostess replied only by gasps.

"Who is that Swiss?" asked D'Artagnan.

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

"Your husband, then, is at last dead?"

"How does that concern you?" replied the Swiss.

"It concerns me much," said D'Artagnan, "since you cannot
marry madame without my consent and since ---- "

"And since?" asked the Swiss.

"And since -- I do not give it," said the musketeer.

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

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

"I? By no means!" said D'Artagnan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He asked what was going on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

"Wholly yours,

"Aramis."



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

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

"Ah! you scoundrel!" cried D'Artagnan, taking the man for a
thief and seizing his sword.

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

"And thou -- Planchet!" cried the lieutenant.

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

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

"Sir," said Planchet, "you must know; but, perhaps you ought
not to know ---- "

"Tell us what," returned D'Artagnan, "but first put a napkin
against the window and draw the curtains."

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

"Perfectly; one of my dearest friends."

"Ah! so much the better!"

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

"Ah, sir! I must first tell you that Monsieur de Rochefort
is ---- "

Planchet hesitated.

"Egad, I know where he is," said D'Artagnan. "He's in the
Bastile."

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

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

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

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

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

"Poor fellow!" said D'Artagnan. "Well, come; set to."

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

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

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

"No, sir," replied Planchet.

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

"No -- not at all."

"And Aramis?"

"Not in the least."

"The devil! the devil! the devil!"

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

"Where is he?"

"At Notre Dame."

"What has he to do at Notre Dame?"

"He is beadle."

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

"Without a doubt he must."

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

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

"True," said D'Artagnan. "Let's see. Canst thou speak any
patois?"

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

"Where the devil didst thou learn it?"

"In Artois, where I fought for years. Listen, sir. Goeden
morgen, mynheer, eth teen begeeray le weeten the ge sond
heets omstand."

"Which means?"

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

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

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

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

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

"My brother?"

"Wish your sister good-morning, Master Peter."

"Wilkom, suster," said Planchet.

"Goeden day, broder," replied the astonished landlady.

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

"That is to say, I guess your wishes, and that is all that's
necessary," said Madeleine.

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

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



7

Touches upon the Strange Effects a Half-pistole may have
upon a Beadle and a Chorister.



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

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

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

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

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

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



*A sacerdotal officer.



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

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

"Monsieur d'Artagnan!" he cried; "Vade retro Satanas!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How!" cried D'Artagnan; "you don't know where Aramis is?"

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

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

"Didn't you hear me tell you, Monsieur d'Artagnan, that I
don't know where he is?"

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

"It is, nevertheless, the truth, monsieur -- the pure truth,
the truth of the good God."

D'Arta