The Alexandre Dumas Historical Novel book club starts on June 22!
Hello! I'm the creator of @monte-cristo-daily and on the 22nd of June, after we're done with The Count of Monte-Cristo, I'll start a new book club in which we'll learn history of France in a wrong way, but with lots of fun!
The project will take 3+ years and will be a one time thing, unlike @monte-cristo-daily that will hopefully return the next year.
We'll read the three Valois novels that describe the collapse of the dynasty in the late 16th century. Then, to see the 17th century in its splendour, we'll move on to the Musketeers trilogy. And finally, we'll finish with the long story of the French revolution, we'll look at the 18th century and follow the French monarchy to its end.
Three centuries one chapter a day. With notes and illustrations. Everything will be published in this blog.
The project will be run in English, if you have any suggestions on which translations to pick, reach out to me, @theniftycat
The list of novels is below:
The Queen Margot (the Valois trilogy) - June-August 2025
The Dame de Monsoreau (the Valois trilogy) - September-November 2025
The Forty Five (the Valois trilogy) - December 2025 - February 2026
The Three Musketeers (the Musketeers trilogy) - March-April 2026
Twenty Years Later (the Musketeers trilogy) - May-July 2026
Ten Years Later (the Musketeers trilogy) - August 2026 - April 2027
Joseph Balsamo (Memoirs of a Physician) - May-October 2027
The Queen's Necklace (Memoirs of a Physician) - November 2027 - January 2028
Ange Pitou (Memoirs of a Physician) - February-April 2028
The Countess de Charny (Memoirs of a Physician) - May-October 2028
The Chevalier de Maison-Rouge - November-December 2028
Jump on and jump off whenever you like! All the dates are approximate.
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D’Artagnan had calculated that in not going at once to the Palais Royal he would give Comminges time to arrive before him, and consequently to make the cardinal acquainted with the eminent services which he, D’Artagnan, and his friend had rendered to the queen’s party in the morning.
They were indeed admirably received by Mazarin, who paid them numerous compliments, and announced that they were more than half on their way to obtain what they desired, namely, D’Artagnan his captaincy, Porthos his barony.
D’Artagnan would have preferred money in hand to all that fine talk, for he knew well that to Mazarin it was easy to promise and hard to perform. But, though he held the cardinal’s promises as of little worth, he affected to be completely satisfied, for he was unwilling to discourage Porthos.
Whilst the two friends were with the cardinal, the queen sent for him. Mazarin, thinking that it would be the means of increasing the zeal of his two defenders if he procured them personal thanks from the queen, motioned them to follow him. D’Artagnan and Porthos pointed to their dusty and torn dresses, but the cardinal shook his head.
“Those costumes,” he said, “are of more worth than most of those which you will see on the backs of the queen’s courtiers; they are costumes of battle.”
D’Artagnan and Porthos obeyed. The court of Anne of Austria was full of gayety and animation; for, after having gained a victory over the Spaniard, it had just gained another over the people. Broussel had been conducted out of Paris without further resistance, and was at this time in the prison of Saint Germain; while Blancmesnil, who was arrested at the same time, but whose arrest had been made without difficulty or noise, was safe in the Castle of Vincennes.
Comminges was near the queen, who was questioning him upon the details of his expedition, and every one was listening to his account, when D’Artagnan and Porthos were perceived at the door, behind the cardinal.
“Ah, madame,” said Comminges, hastening to D’Artagnan, “here is one who can tell you better than myself, for he was my protector. Without him I should probably at this moment be a dead fish in the nets at Saint Cloud, for it was a question of nothing less than throwing me into the river. Speak, D’Artagnan, speak.”
D’Artagnan had been a hundred times in the same room with the queen since he had become lieutenant of the musketeers, but her majesty had never once spoken to him.
“Well, sir,” at last said Anne of Austria, “you are silent, after rendering such a service?”
“Madame,” replied D’Artagnan, “I have nought to say, save that my life is ever at your majesty’s service, and that I shall only be happy the day I lose it for you.”
“I know that, sir; I have known that,” said the queen, “a long time; therefore I am delighted to be able thus publicly to mark my gratitude and my esteem.”
“Permit me, madame,” said D’Artagnan, “to reserve a portion for my friend; like myself” (he laid an emphasis on these words) “an ancient musketeer of the company of Tréville; he has done wonders.”
“His name?” asked the queen.
“In the regiment,” said D’Artagnan, “he is called Porthos” (the queen started), “but his true name is the Chevalier du Vallon.”
“De Bracieux de Pierrefonds,” added Porthos.
“These names are too numerous for me to remember them all, and I will content myself with the first,” said the queen, graciously. Porthos bowed. At this moment the coadjutor was announced; a cry of surprise ran through the royal assemblage. Although the coadjutor had preached that same morning it was well known that he leaned much to the side of the Fronde; and Mazarin, in requesting the archbishop of Paris to make his nephew preach, had evidently had the intention of administering to Monsieur de Retz one of those Italian kicks he so much enjoyed giving.
The fact was, in leaving Notre Dame the coadjutor had learned the event of the day. Although almost engaged to the leaders of the Fronde he had not gone so far but that retreat was possible should the court offer him the advantages for which he was ambitious and to which the coadjutorship was but a stepping-stone. Monsieur de Retz[1] wished to become archbishop in his uncle’s place, and cardinal, like Mazarin; and the popular party could with difficulty accord him favors so entirely royal. He therefore hastened to the palace to congratulate the queen on the battle of Lens, determined beforehand to act with or against the court, as his congratulations were well or ill received.
The coadjutor possessed, perhaps, as much wit as all those put together who were assembled at the court to laugh at him. His speech, therefore, was so well turned, that in spite of the great wish felt by the courtiers to laugh, they could find no point on which to vent their ridicule. He concluded by saying that he placed his feeble influence at her majesty’s command.
During the whole time he was speaking, the queen appeared to be well pleased with the coadjutor’s harangue; but terminating as it did with such a phrase, the only one which could be caught at by the jokers, Anne turned around and directed a glance toward her favorites, which announced that she delivered up the coadjutor to their tender mercies. Immediately the wits of the court plunged into satire. Nogent-Beautin, the fool of the court, exclaimed that “the queen was very happy to have the succor of religion at such a moment.” This caused a universal burst of laughter. The Count de Villeroy[2] said that “he did not know how any fear could be entertained for a moment, when the court had, to defend itself against the parliament and the citizens of Paris, his holiness the coadjutor, who by a signal could raise an army of curates, church porters and vergers.”
The Maréchal de la Meilleraie[3] added that in case the coadjutor should appear on the field of battle it would be a pity that he should not be distinguished in the mêlée by wearing a red hat, as Henry IV. had been distinguished by his white plume at the battle of Ivry.
During this storm, Gondy, who had it in his power to make it most unpleasant for the jesters, remained calm and stern. The queen at last asked him if he had anything to add to the fine discourse he had just made to her.
“Yes, madame,” replied the coadjutor; “I have to beg you to reflect twice ere you cause a civil war in the kingdom.”
The queen turned her back and the laughing recommenced.
The coadjutor bowed and left the palace, casting upon the cardinal such a glance as is best understood by mortal foes. That glance was so sharp that it penetrated the heart of Mazarin, who, reading in it a declaration of war, seized D’Artagnan by the arm and said:
“If occasion requires, monsieur, you will remember that man who has just gone out, will you not?”
“Yes, my lord,” he replied. Then, turning toward Porthos, “The devil!” said he, “this has a bad look. I dislike these quarrels among men of the church.”
Gondy withdrew, distributing benedictions on his way, and finding a malicious satisfaction in causing the adherents of his foes to prostrate themselves at his feet.
“Oh!” he murmured, as he left the threshold of the palace: “ungrateful court! faithless court! cowardly court! I will teach you how to laugh to-morrow—but in another manner.”
But whilst they were indulging in extravagant joy at the Palais Royal, to increase the hilarity of the queen, Mazarin, a man of sense, and whose fear, moreover, gave him foresight, lost no time in making idle and dangerous jokes; he went out after the coadjutor, settled his account, locked up his gold, and had confidential workmen to contrive hiding places in his walls.
On his return home the coadjutor was informed that a young man had come in after his departure and was waiting for him; he started with delight when, on demanding the name of this young man, he learned that it was Louvières. He hastened to his cabinet. Broussel’s son was there, still furious, and still bearing bloody marks of his struggle with the king’s officers. The only precaution he had taken in coming to the archbishopric was to leave his arquebuse in the hands of a friend.
The coadjutor went to him and held out his hand. The young man gazed at him as if he would have read the secret of his heart.
“My dear Monsieur Louvières,” said the coadjutor, “believe me, I am truly concerned for the misfortune which has happened to you.”
“Is that true, and do you speak seriously?” asked Louvières.
“From the depth of my heart,” said Gondy.
“In that case, my lord, the time for words has passed and the hour for action is at hand; my lord, in three days, if you wish it, my father will be out of prison and in six months you may be cardinal.”
The coadjutor started.
“Oh! let us speak frankly,” continued Louvières, “and act in a straightforward manner. Thirty thousand crowns in alms is not given, as you have done for the last six months, out of pure Christian charity; that would be too grand. You are ambitious—it is natural; you are a man of genius and you know your worth. As for me, I hate the court and have but one desire at this moment—vengeance. Give us the clergy and the people, of whom you can dispose, and I will bring you the citizens and the parliament; with these four elements Paris is ours in a week; and believe me, monsieur coadjutor, the court will give from fear what it will not give from good-will.”
It was now the coadjutor’s turn to fix his piercing eyes on Louvières.
“But, Monsieur Louvières, are you aware that it is simply civil war you are proposing to me?”
“You have been preparing long enough, my lord, for it to be welcome to you now.”
“Never mind,” said the coadjutor; “you must be well aware that this requires reflection.”
“And how many hours of reflection do you ask?”
“Twelve hours, sir; is it too long?”
“It is now noon; at midnight I will be at your house.”
“If I should not be in, wait for me.”
“Good! at midnight, my lord.”
“At midnight, my dear Monsieur Louvières.”
When once more alone Gondy sent to summon all the curates with whom he had any connection to his house. Two hours later, thirty officiating ministers from the most populous, and consequently the most disturbed parishes of Paris had assembled there. Gondy related to them the insults he had received at the Palais Royal and retailed the jests of Beautin, the Count de Villeroy and Maréchal de la Meilleraie. The curates asked him what was to be done.
“Simply this,” said the coadjutor. “You are the directors of all consciences. Well, undermine in them the miserable prejudice of respect and fear of kings; teach your flocks that the queen is a tyrant; and repeat often and loudly, so that all may know it, that the misfortunes of France are caused by Mazarin, her lover and her destroyer; begin this work to-day, this instant even, and in three days I shall expect the result. For the rest, if any one of you have further or better counsel to expound, I will listen to him with the greatest pleasure.”
Three curates remained—those of St. Merri, St. Sulpice and St. Eustache. The others withdrew.
“You think, then, that you can help me more efficaciously than your brothers?” said Gondy.
“We hope so,” answered the curates.
“Let us hear. Monsieur de St. Merri, you begin.”
“My lord, I have in my parish a man who might be of the greatest use to you.”
“Who and what is this man?”
“A shopkeeper in the Rue des Lombards, who has great influence upon the commerce of his quarter.”
“What is his name?”
“He is named Planchet, who himself also caused a rising about six weeks ago; but as he was searched for after this émeute he disappeared.”
“And can you find him?”
“I hope so. I think he has not been arrested, and as I am his wife’s confessor, if she knows where he is I shall know it too.”
“Very well, sir, find this man, and when you have found him bring him to me.”
“We will be with you at six o’clock, my lord.”
“Go, my dear curate, and may God assist you!”
“And you, sir?” continued Gondy, turning to the curate of St. Sulpice.
“I, my lord,” said the latter, “I know a man who has rendered great services to a very popular prince and who would make an excellent leader of revolt. Him I can place at your disposal; it is Count de Rochefort.”
“I know him also, but unfortunately he is not in Paris.”
“My lord, he has been for three days at the Rue Cassette.”
“And wherefore has he not been to see me?”
“He was told—my lord will pardon me——”
“Certainly, speak.”
“That your lordship was about to treat with the court.”
Gondy bit his lips.
“They are mistaken; bring him here at eight o’clock, sir, and may Heaven bless you as I bless you!”
“And now ’tis your turn,” said the coadjutor, turning to the last that remained; “have you anything as good to offer me as the two gentlemen who have left us?”
“Better, my lord.”
“Diable! think what a solemn engagement you are making; one has offered a wealthy shopkeeper, the other a count; you are going, then, to offer a prince, are you?”
“I offer you a beggar, my lord.”
“Ah! ah!” said Gondy, reflecting, “you are right, sir; some one who could raise the legion of paupers who choke up the crossings of Paris; some one who would know how to cry aloud to them, that all France might hear it, that it is Mazarin who has reduced them to poverty.”
“Exactly your man.”
“Bravo! and the man?”
“A plain and simple beggar, as I have said, my lord, who asks for alms, as he gives holy water; a practice he has carried on for six years on the steps of St. Eustache.”
“And you say that he has a great influence over his compeers?”
“Are you aware, my lord, that mendacity is an organized body, a kind of association of those who have nothing against those who have everything; an association in which every one takes his share; one that elects a leader?”
“Yes, I have heard it said,” replied the coadjutor.
“Well, the man whom I offer you is a general syndic.”
“And what do you know of him?”
“Nothing, my lord, except that he is tormented with remorse.”
“What makes you think so?”
“On the twenty-eighth of every month he makes me say a mass for the repose of the soul of one who died a violent death; yesterday I said this mass again.”
“And his name?”
“Maillard; but I do not think it is his right one.”
“And think you that we should find him at this hour at his post?”
“Certainly.”
“Let us go and see your beggar, sir, and if he is such as you describe him, you are right—it will be you who have discovered the true treasure.”
Gondy dressed himself as an officer, put on a felt cap with a red feather, hung on a long sword, buckled spurs to his boots, wrapped himself in an ample cloak and followed the curate.
The coadjutor and his companion passed through all the streets lying between the archbishopric and the St. Eustache Church, watching carefully to ascertain the popular feeling. The people were in an excited mood, but, like a swarm of frightened bees, seemed not to know at what point to concentrate; and it was very evident that if leaders of the people were not provided all this agitation would pass off in idle buzzing.
On arriving at the Rue des Prouvaires, the curate pointed toward the square before the church.
“Stop!” he said, “there he is at his post.”
Gondy looked at the spot indicated and perceived a beggar seated in a chair and leaning against one of the moldings; a little basin was near him and he held a holy water brush in his hand.
“Is it by permission that he remains there?” asked Gondy.
“No, my lord; these places are bought. I believe this man paid his predecessor a hundred pistoles for his.”
“The rascal is rich, then?”
“Some of those men sometimes die worth twenty thousand and twenty-five and thirty thousand francs and sometimes more.”
“Hum!” said Gondy, laughing; “I was not aware my alms were so well invested.”
In the meantime they were advancing toward the square, and the moment the coadjutor and the curate put their feet on the first church step the mendicant arose and proffered his brush.
He was a man between sixty-six and sixty-eight years of age, little, rather stout, with gray hair and light eyes. His countenance denoted the struggle between two opposite principles—a wicked nature, subdued by determination, perhaps by repentance.
He started on seeing the cavalier with the curate. The latter and the coadjutor touched the brush with the tips of their fingers and made the sign of the cross; the coadjutor threw a piece of money into the hat, which was on the ground.
“Maillard,” began the curate, “this gentleman and I have come to talk with you a little.”
“With me!” said the mendicant; “it is a great honor for a poor distributor of holy water.”
There was an ironical tone in his voice which he could not quite disguise and which astonished the coadjutor.
“Yes,” continued the curate, apparently accustomed to this tone, “yes, we wish to know your opinion of the events of to-day and what you have heard said by people going in and out of the church.”
The mendicant shook his head.
“These are melancholy doings, your reverence, which always fall again upon the poor. As to what is said, everybody is discontented, everybody complains, but ‘everybody’ means ‘nobody.’”
“Explain yourself, my good friend,” said the coadjutor.
“I mean that all these cries, all these complaints, these curses, produce nothing but storms and flashes and that is all; but the lightning will not strike until there is a hand to guide it.”
“My friend,” said Gondy, “you seem to be a clever and a thoughtful man; are you disposed to take a part in a little civil war, should we have one, and put at the command of the leader, should we find one, your personal influence and the influence you have acquired over your comrades?”
“Yes, sir, provided this war were approved of by the church and would advance the end I wish to attain—I mean, the remission of my sins.”
“The war will not only be approved of, but directed by the church. As for the remission of your sins, we have the archbishop of Paris, who has the very greatest power at the court of Rome, and even the coadjutor, who possesses some plenary indulgences; we will recommend you to him.”
“Consider, Maillard,” said the curate, “that I have recommended you to this gentleman, who is a powerful lord, and that I have made myself responsible for you.”
“I know, monsieur le curé,” said the beggar, “that you have always been very kind to me, and therefore I, in my turn, will be serviceable to you.”
“And do you think your power as great with the fraternity as monsieur le curé told me it was just now?”
“I think they have some esteem for me,” said the mendicant with pride, “and that not only will they obey me, but wherever I go they will follow me.”
“And could you count on fifty resolute men, good, unemployed, but active souls, brawlers, capable of bringing down the walls of the Palais Royal by crying, ‘Down with Mazarin,’ as fell those at Jericho?”
“I think,” said the beggar, “I can undertake things more difficult and more important than that.”
“Ah, ah,” said Gondy, “you will undertake, then, some night, to throw up some ten barricades?”
“I will undertake to throw up fifty, and when the day comes, to defend them.”
“I’faith!” exclaimed Gondy, “you speak with a certainty that gives me pleasure; and since monsieur le curé can answer for you——”
“I answer for him,” said the curate.
“Here is a bag containing five hundred pistoles in gold; make all your arrangements, and tell me where I shall be able to find you this evening at ten o’clock.”
“It must be on some elevated place, whence a given signal may be seen in every part of Paris.”
“Shall I give you a line for the vicar of St. Jacques de la Boucherie? he will let you into the rooms in his tower,” said the curate.
“Capital,” answered the mendicant.
“Then,” said the coadjutor, “this evening, at ten o’clock, and if I am pleased with you another bag of five hundred pistoles will be at your disposal.”
The eyes of the mendicant dashed with cupidity, but he quickly suppressed his emotion.
“This evening, sir,” he replied, “all will be ready.”
_________
NOTES
Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz (20 September 1613 – 24 August 1679) was a French churchman, writer of memoirs, and agitator in the Fronde.
Nicolas de Neufville, 1st Duke of Villeroy (14 October 1598 – 28 November 1685) was a French nobleman and marshal.
Charles de La Porte, 1st Duke of La Meilleraye (1602 in Paris – 8 February 1664 in Paris) was a French nobleman and a Marshal of France.
The bustle which had been observed by Henrietta Maria and for which she had vainly sought to discover a reason, was occasioned by the battle of Lens, announced by the prince’s messenger, the Duc de Châtillon,[2] who had taken such a noble part in the engagement; he was, besides, charged to hang five and twenty flags, taken from the Lorraine party, as well as from the Spaniards, upon the arches of Notre Dame.
Such news was decisive; it destroyed, in favor of the court, the struggle commenced with parliament. The motive given for all the taxes summarily imposed and to which the parliament had made opposition, was the necessity of sustaining the honor of France and the uncertain hope of beating the enemy. Now, since the affair of Nordlingen,[3] they had experienced nothing but reverses; the parliament had a plea for calling Mazarin to account for imaginary victories, always promised, ever deferred; but this time there really had been fighting, a triumph and a complete one. And this all knew so well that it was a double victory for the court, a victory at home and abroad; so that even when the young king learned the news he exclaimed, “Ah, gentlemen of the parliament, we shall see what you will say now!” Upon which the queen had pressed the royal child to her heart, whose haughty and unruly sentiments were in such harmony with her own. A council was called on the same evening, but nothing transpired of what had been decided on. It was only known that on the following Sunday a Te Deum would be sung at Notre Dame in honor of the victory of Lens.
The following Sunday, then, the Parisians arose with joy; at that period a Te Deum was a grand affair; this kind of ceremony had not then been abused and it produced a great effect. The shops were deserted, houses closed; every one wished to see the young king with his mother, and the famous Cardinal Mazarin whom they hated so much that no one wished to be deprived of his presence. Moreover, great liberty prevailed throughout the immense crowd; every opinion was openly expressed and chorused, so to speak, of coming insurrection, as the thousand bells of all the Paris churches rang out the Te Deum. The police belonging to the city being formed by the city itself, nothing threatening presented itself to disturb this concert of universal hatred or freeze the frequent scoffs of slanderous lips.
Nevertheless, at eight o’clock in the morning the regiment of the queen’s guards, commanded by Guitant, under whom was his nephew Comminges, marched publicly, preceded by drums and trumpets, filing off from the Palais Royal as far as Notre Dame, a manœuvre which the Parisians witnessed tranquilly, delighted as they were with military music and brilliant uniforms.
Friquet had put on his Sunday clothes, under the pretext of having a swollen face which he had managed to simulate by introducing a handful of cherry kernels into one side of his mouth, and had procured a whole holiday from Bazin. On leaving Bazin, Friquet started off to the Palais Royal, where he arrived at the moment of the turning out of the regiment of guards; and as he had only gone there for the enjoyment of seeing it and hearing the music, he took his place at their head, beating the drum on two pieces of slate and passing from that exercise to that of the trumpet, which he counterfeited quite naturally with his mouth in a manner which had more than once called forth the praises of amateurs of imitative harmony.
This amusement lasted from the Barrière des Sergens to the place of Notre Dame, and Friquet found in it very real enjoyment; but when at last the regiment separated, penetrated the heart of the city and placed itself at the extremity of the Rue Saint Christophe, near the Rue Cocatrix, in which Broussel lived, then Friquet remembered that he had not had breakfast; and after thinking in which direction he had better turn his steps in order to accomplish this important act of the day, he reflected deeply and decided that Councillor Broussel should bear the cost of this repast.
In consequence he took to his heels, arrived breathlessly at the councillor’s door, and knocked violently.
His mother, the councillor’s old servant, opened it.
“What doest thou here, good-for-nothing?” she said, “and why art thou not at Notre Dame?”
“I have been there, mother,” said Friquet, “but I saw things happen of which Master Broussel ought to be warned, and so with Monsieur Bazin’s permission—you know, mother, Monsieur Bazin, the verger—I came to speak to Monsieur Broussel.”
“And what hast thou to say, boy, to Monsieur Broussel?”
“I wish to tell him,” replied Friquet, screaming with all his might, “that there is a whole regiment of guards coming this way. And as I hear everywhere that at the court they are ill-disposed to him, I wish to warn him, that he may be on his guard.”
Broussel heard the scream of the young oddity, and, enchanted with this excess of zeal, came down to the first floor, for he was, in truth, working in his room on the second.
“Well,” said he, “friend, what matters the regiment of guards to us, and art thou not mad to make such a disturbance? Knowest thou not that it is the custom of these soldiers to act thus and that it is usual for the regiment to form themselves into two solid walls when the king goes by?”
Friquet counterfeited surprise, and twisting his new cap around in his fingers, said:
“It is not astonishing for you to know it, Monsieur Broussel, who knows everything; but as for me, by holy truth, I did not know it and I thought I would give you good advice; you must not be angry with me for that, Monsieur Broussel.”
“On the contrary, my boy, on the contrary, I am pleased with your zeal. Dame Nanette, look for those apricots which Madame de Longueville sent to us yesterday from Noisy and give half a dozen of them to your son, with a crust of new bread.”
“Oh, thank you, sir, thank you, Monsieur Broussel,” said Friquet; “I am so fond of apricots!”
Broussel then proceeded to his wife’s room and asked for breakfast; it was nine o’clock. The councillor placed himself at the window; the street was completely deserted, but in the distance was heard, like the noise of the tide rushing in, the deep hum of the populous waves increasing now around Notre Dame.
This noise redoubled when D’Artagnan, with a company of musketeers, placed himself at the gates of Notre Dame to secure the service of the church. He had instructed Porthos to profit by this opportunity to see the ceremony; and Porthos, in full dress, mounted his finest horse, taking the part of supernumerary musketeer, as D’Artagnan had so often done formerly. The sergeant of this company, a veteran of the Spanish wars, had recognized Porthos, his old companion, and very soon all those who served under him were placed in possession of startling facts concerning the honor of the ancient musketeers of Tréville. Porthos had not only been well received by the company, but he was moreover looked on with great admiration.
At ten o’clock the guns of the Louvre announced the departure of the king, and then a movement, similar to that of trees in a stormy wind that bend and writhe with agitated tops, ran though the multitude, which was compressed behind the immovable muskets of the guard. At last the king appeared with the queen in a gilded chariot. Ten other carriages followed, containing the ladies of honor, the officers of the royal household, and the court.
“God save the king!” was the cry in every direction; the young monarch gravely put his head out of the window, looked sufficiently grateful and even bowed; at which the cries of the multitude were renewed.
Just as the court was settling down in the cathedral, a carriage, bearing the arms of Comminges, quitted the line of the court carriages and proceeded slowly to the end of the Rue Saint Christophe, now entirely deserted. When it arrived there, four guards and a police officer, who accompanied it, mounted into the heavy machine and closed the shutters; then through an opening cautiously made, the policeman began to watch the length of the Rue Cocatrix, as if he was waiting for some one.
All the world was occupied with the ceremony, so that neither the chariot nor the precautions taken by those who were within it had been observed. Friquet, whose eye, ever on the alert, could alone have discovered them, had gone to devour his apricots upon the entablature of a house in the square of Notre Dame. Thence he saw the king, the queen and Monsieur Mazarin, and heard the mass as well as if he had been on duty.
Toward the end of the service, the queen, seeing Comminges standing near her, waiting for a confirmation of the order she had given him before quitting the Louvre, said in a whisper:
“Go, Comminges, and may God aid you!”
Comminges immediately left the church and entered the Rue Saint Christophe. Friquet, seeing this fine officer thus walk away, followed by two guards, amused himself by pursuing them and did this so much the more gladly as the ceremony ended at that instant and the king remounted his carriage.
Hardly had the police officer observed Comminges at the end of the Rue Cocatrix when he said one word to the coachman, who at once put his vehicle into motion and drove up before Broussel’s door. Comminges knocked at the door at the same moment, and Friquet was waiting behind Comminges until the door should be opened.
“What dost thou there, rascal?” asked Comminges.
“I want to go into Master Broussel’s house, captain,” replied Friquet, in that wheedling way the “gamins” of Paris know so well how to assume when necessary.
“And on what floor does he live?” asked Comminges.
“In the whole house,” said Friquet; “the house belongs to him; he occupies the second floor when he works and descends to the first to take his meals; he must be at dinner now; it is noon.”
“Good,” said Comminges.
At this moment the door was opened, and having questioned the servant the officer learned that Master Broussel was at home and at dinner.
Broussel was seated at the table with his family, having his wife opposite to him, his two daughters by his side, and his son, Louvières, whom we have already seen when the accident happened to the councillor—an accident from which he had quite recovered—at the bottom of the table. The worthy man, restored to perfect health, was tasting the fine fruit which Madame de Longueville had sent to him.
At sight of the officer Broussel was somewhat moved, but seeing him bow politely he rose and bowed also. Still, in spite of this reciprocal politeness, the countenances of the women betrayed a certain amount of uneasiness; Louvières became very pale and waited impatiently for the officer to explain himself.
“Sir,” said Comminges, “I am the bearer of an order from the king.”
“Very well, sir,” replied Broussel, “what is this order?” And he held out his hand.
“I am commissioned to seize your person, sir,” said Comminges, in the same tone and with the same politeness; “and if you will believe me you had better spare yourself the trouble of reading that long letter and follow me.”
A thunderbolt falling in the midst of these good people, so peacefully assembled there, would not have produced a more appalling effect. It was a horrible thing at that period to be imprisoned by the enmity of the king. Louvières sprang forward to snatch his sword, which stood against a chair in a corner of the room; but a glance from the worthy Broussel, who in the midst of it all did not lose his presence of mind, checked this foolhardy action of despair. Madame Broussel, separated by the width of the table from her husband, burst into tears, and the young girls clung to their father’s arms.
“Come, sir,” said Comminges, “make haste; you must obey the king.”
“Sir,” said Broussel, “I am in bad health and cannot give myself up a prisoner in this state; I must have time.”
“It is impossible,” said Comminges; “the order is strict and must be put into execution this instant.”
“Impossible!” said Louvières; “sir, beware of driving us to despair.”
“Impossible!” cried a shrill voice from the end of the room.
Comminges turned and saw Dame Nanette, her eyes flashing with anger and a broom in her hand.
“My good Nanette, be quiet, I beseech you,” said Broussel.
“Me! keep quiet while my master is being arrested! he, the support, the liberator, the father of the people! Ah! well, yes; you have to know me yet. Are you going?” added she to Comminges.
The latter smiled.
“Come, sir,” said he, addressing Broussel, “silence that woman and follow me.”
“Silence me! me! me!” said Nanette. “Ah! yet one wants some one besides you for that, my fine king’s cockatoo! You shall see.” And Dame Nanette sprang to the window, threw it open, and in such a piercing voice that it might have been heard in the square of Notre Dame:
“Help!” she screamed, “my master is being arrested; the Councillor Broussel is being arrested! Help!”
“Sir,” said Comminges, “declare yourself at once; will you obey or do you intend to rebel against the king?”
“I obey, I obey, sir!” cried Broussel, trying to disengage himself from the grasp of his two daughters and by a look restrain his son, who seemed determined to dispute authority.
“In that case,” commanded Comminges, “silence that old woman.”
“Ah! old woman!” screamed Nanette.
And she began to shriek more loudly, clinging to the bars of the window:
“Help! help! for Master Broussel, who is arrested because he has defended the people! Help!”
Comminges seized the servant around the waist and would have dragged her from her post; but at that instant a treble voice, proceeding from a kind of entresol, was heard screeching:
“Murder! fire! assassins! Master Broussel is being killed! Master Broussel is being strangled.”
It was Friquet’s voice; and Dame Nanette, feeling herself supported, recommenced with all her strength to sound her shrilly squawk.
Many curious faces had already appeared at the windows and the people attracted to the end of the street began to run, first men, then groups, and then a crowd of people; hearing cries and seeing a chariot they could not understand it; but Friquet sprang from the entresol on to the top of the carriage.
“They want to arrest Master Broussel!” he cried; “the guards are in the carriage and the officer is upstairs!”
The crowd began to murmur and approached the house. The two guards who had remained in the lane mounted to the aid of Comminges; those who were in the chariot opened the doors and presented arms.
“Don’t you see them?” cried Friquet, “don’t you see? there they are!”
The coachman turning around, gave Friquet a slash with his whip which made him scream with pain.
And regaining his entresol he overwhelmed the coachman with every projectile he could lay hands on.
The tumult now began to increase; the street was not able to contain the spectators who assembled from every direction; the crowd invaded the space which the dreaded pikes of the guards had till then kept clear between them and the carriage. The soldiers, pushed back by these living walls, were in danger of being crushed against the spokes of the wheels and the panels of the carriages. The cries which the police officer repeated twenty times: “In the king’s name,” were powerless against this formidable multitude—seemed, on the contrary, to exasperate it still more; when, at the shout, “In the name of the king,” an officer ran up, and seeing the uniforms ill-treated, he sprang into the scuffle sword in hand, and brought unexpected help to the guards. This gentleman was a young man, scarcely sixteen years of age, now white with anger. He leaped from his charger, placed his back against the shaft of the carriage, making a rampart of his horse, drew his pistols from their holsters and fastened them to his belt, and began to fight with the back sword, like a man accustomed to the handling of his weapon.
During ten minutes he alone kept the crowd at bay; at last Comminges appeared, pushing Broussel before him.
“Let us break the carriage!” cried the people.
“In the king’s name!” cried Comminges.
“The first who advances is a dead man!” cried Raoul, for it was in fact he, who, feeling himself pressed and almost crushed by a gigantic citizen, pricked him with the point of his sword and sent him howling back.
Comminges, so to speak, threw Broussel into the carriage and sprang in after him. At this moment a shot was fired and a ball passed through the hat of Comminges and broke the arm of one of the guards. Comminges looked up and saw amidst the smoke the threatening face of Louvières appearing at the window of the second floor.
“Very well, sir,” said Comminges, “you shall hear of this anon.”
“And you of me, sir,” said Louvières; “and we shall see then who can speak the loudest.”
Friquet and Nanette continued to shout; the cries, the noise of the shot and the intoxicating smell of powder produced their usual maddening effects.
“Down with the officer! down with him!” was the cry.
“One step nearer,” said Comminges, putting down the sashes, that the interior of the carriage might be well seen, and placing his sword on his prisoner’s breast, “one step nearer, and I kill the prisoner; my orders were to carry him off alive or dead. I will take him dead, that’s all.”
A terrible cry was heard, and the wife and daughters of Broussel held up their hands in supplication to the people; the latter knew that this officer, who was so pale, but who appeared so determined, would keep his word; they continued to threaten, but they began to disperse.
“Drive to the palace,” said Comminges to the coachman, who was by then more dead than alive.
The man whipped his animals, which cleared a way through the crowd; but on arriving on the Quai they were obliged to stop; the carriage was upset, the horses carried off, stifled, mangled by the crowd. Raoul, on foot, for he had not time to mount his horse again, tired, like the guards, of distributing blows with the flat of his sword, had recourse to its point. But this last and dreaded resource served only to exasperate the multitude. From time to time a shot from a musket or the blade of a rapier flashed among the crowd; projectiles continued to hail down from the windows and some shots were heard, the echo of which, though they were probably fired in the air, made all hearts vibrate. Voices, unheard except on days of revolution, were distinguished; faces were seen that only appeared on days of bloodshed. Cries of “Death! death to the guards! to the Seine with the officer!” were heard above all the noise, deafening as it was. Raoul, his hat in ribbons, his face bleeding, felt not only his strength but also his reason going; a red mist covered his sight, and through this mist he saw a hundred threatening arms stretched over him, ready to seize upon him when he fell. The guards were unable to help any one—each one was occupied with his self-preservation. All was over; carriages, horses, guards, and perhaps even the prisoner were about to be torn to shreds, when all at once a voice well known to Raoul was heard, and suddenly a great sword glittered in the air; at the same time the crowd opened, upset, trodden down, and an officer of the musketeers, striking and cutting right and left, rushed up to Raoul and took him in his arms just as he was about to fall.
“God’s blood!” cried the officer, “have they killed him? Woe to them if it be so!”
And he turned around, so stern with anger, strength and threat, that the most excited rebels hustled back on one another, in order to escape, and some of them even rolled into the Seine.
“Monsieur d’Artagnan!” murmured Raoul.
“Yes, ’sdeath! in person, and fortunately it seems for you, my young friend. Come on, here, you others,” he continued, rising in his stirrups, raising his sword, and addressing those musketeers who had not been able to follow his rapid onslaught. “Come, sweep away all that for me! Shoulder muskets! Present arms! Aim——”
At this command the mountain of populace thinned so suddenly that D’Artagnan could not repress a burst of Homeric laughter.
“Thank you, D’Artagnan,” said Comminges, showing half of his body through the window of the broken vehicle, “thanks, my young friend; your name—that I may mention it to the queen.”
Raoul was about to reply when D’Artagnan bent down to his ear.
“Hold your tongue,” said he, “and let me answer. Do not lose time, Comminges,” he continued; “get out of the carriage if you can and make another draw up; be quick, or in five minutes the mob will be on us again with swords and muskets and you will be killed. Hold! there’s a carriage coming over yonder.”
Then bending again to Raoul, he whispered: “Above all things do not divulge your name.”
“That’s right. I will go,” said Comminges; “and if they come back, fire!”
“Not at all—not at all,” replied D’Artagnan; “let no one move. On the contrary, one shot at this moment would be paid for dearly to-morrow.”
Comminges took his four guards and as many musketeers and ran to the carriage, from which he made the people inside dismount, and brought them to the vehicle which had upset. But when it was necessary to convey the prisoner from one carriage to the other, the people, catching sight of him whom they called their liberator, uttered every imaginable cry and knotted themselves once more around the vehicle.
“Start, start!” said D’Artagnan. “There are ten men to accompany you. I will keep twenty to hold in check the mob; go, and lose not a moment. Ten men for Monsieur de Comminges.”
As the carriage started off the cries were redoubled and more than ten thousand people thronged the Quai and overflowed the Pont Neuf and adjacent streets. A few shots were fired and one musketeer was wounded.
“Forward!” cried D’Artagnan, driven to extremities, biting his moustache; and then he charged with his twenty men and dispersed them in fear. One man alone remained in his place, gun in hand.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “it is thou who wouldst have him assassinated? Wait an instant.” And he pointed his gun at D’Artagnan, who was riding toward him at full speed. D’Artagnan bent down to his horse’s neck, the young man fired, and the ball severed the feathers from the hat. The horse started, brushed against the imprudent man, who thought by his strength alone to stay the tempest, and he fell against the wall. D’Artagnan pulled up his horse, and whilst his musketeers continued to charge, he returned and bent with drawn sword over the man he had knocked down.
“Oh, sir!” exclaimed Raoul, recognizing the young man as having seen him in the Rue Cocatrix, “spare him! it is his son!”
D’Artagnan’s arm dropped to his side. “Ah, you are his son!” he said; “that is a different thing.”
“Sir, I surrender,” said Louvières, presenting his unloaded musket to the officer.
“Eh, no! do not surrender, egad! On the contrary, be off, and quickly. If I take you, you will be hung!”
The young man did not wait to be told twice, but passing under the horse’s head disappeared at the corner of the Rue Guénégaud.
“I’faith!” said D’Artagnan to Raoul, “you were just in time to stay my hand. He was a dead man; and on my honor, if I had discovered that it was his son, I should have regretted having killed him.”
“Ah! sir!” said Raoul, “allow me, after thanking you for that poor fellow’s life, to thank you on my own account. I too, sir, was almost dead when you arrived.”
“Wait, wait, young man; do not fatigue yourself with speaking. We can talk of it afterward.”
Then seeing that the musketeers had cleared the Quai from the Pont Neuf to the Quai Saint Michael, he raised his sword for them to double their speed. The musketeers trotted up, and at the same time the ten men whom D’Artagnan had given to Comminges appeared.
“Eh, sir!” replied the sergeant, “their vehicle has broken down a second time; it really must be doomed.”
“They are bad managers,” said D’Artagnan, shrugging his shoulders. “When a carriage is chosen, it ought to be strong. The carriage in which a Broussel is to be arrested ought to be able to bear ten thousand men.”
“What are your commands, lieutenant?”
“Take the detachment and conduct him to his place.”
“But you will be left alone?”
“Certainly. So you suppose I have need of an escort? Go.”
The musketeers set off and D’Artagnan was left alone with Raoul.
“Now,” he said, “are you in pain?”
“Yes; my head is not only swimming but burning.”
“What’s the matter with this head?” said D’Artagnan, raising the battered hat. “Ah! ah! a bruise.”
“Yes, I think I received a flower-pot upon my head.”
“Brutes!” said D’Artagnan. “But were you not on horseback? you have spurs.”
“Yes, but I got down to defend Monsieur de Comminges and my horse was taken away. Here it is, I see.”
At this very moment Friquet passed, mounted on Raoul’s horse, waving his parti-colored cap and crying, “Broussel! Broussel!”
“Halloo! stop, rascal!” cried D’Artagnan. “Bring hither that horse.”
Friquet heard perfectly, but he pretended not to do so and tried to continue his road. D’Artagnan felt inclined for an instant to pursue Master Friquet, but not wishing to leave Raoul alone he contented himself with taking a pistol from the holster and cocking it.
Friquet had a quick eye and a fine ear. He saw D’Artagnan’s movement, heard the sound of the click, and stopped at once.
“Ah! it is you, your honor,” he said, advancing toward D’Artagnan; “and I am truly pleased to meet you.”
D’Artagnan looked attentively at Friquet and recognized the little chorister of the Rue de la Calandre.
“Ah! ’tis thou, rascal!” said he, “come here: so thou hast changed thy trade; thou art no longer a choir boy nor a tavern boy; thou hast become a horse stealer?”
“Ah, your honor, how can you say so?” exclaimed Friquet. “I was seeking the gentleman to whom this horse belongs—an officer, brave and handsome as a youthful Cæsar;” then, pretending to see Raoul for the first time:
“Ah! but if I mistake not,” continued he, “here he is; you won’t forget the boy, sir.”
Raoul put his hand in his pocket.
“What are you about?” asked D’Artagnan.
“To give ten francs to this honest fellow,” replied Raoul, taking a pistole from his pocket.
“Ten kicks on his back!” said D’Artagnan; “be off, you little villain, and forget not that I have your address.”
Friquet, who did not expect to be let off so cheaply, bounded off like a gazelle up the Quai a la Rue Dauphine, and disappeared. Raoul mounted his horse, and both leisurely took their way to the Rue Tiquetonne.
D’Artagnan watched over the youth as if he had been his own son.
They arrived without accident at the Hotel de la Chevrette.
The handsome Madeleine announced to D’Artagnan that Planchet had returned, bringing Mousqueton with him, who had heroically borne the extraction of the ball and was as well as his state would permit.
D’Artagnan desired Planchet to be summoned, but he had disappeared.
“Then bring some wine,” said D’Artagnan. “You are much pleased with yourself,” said he to Raoul when they were alone, “are you not?”
“Well, yes,” replied Raoul. “It seems to me I did my duty. I defended the king.”
“And who told you to defend the king?”
“The Comte de la Fère himself.”
“Yes, the king; but to-day you have not fought for the king, you have fought for Mazarin; which is not quite the same thing.”
“But you yourself?”
“Oh, for me; that is another matter. I obey my captain’s orders. As for you, your captain is the prince, understand that rightly; you have no other. But has one ever seen such a wild fellow,” continued he, “making himself a Mazarinist and helping to arrest Broussel! Breathe not a word of that, or the Comte de la Fère will be furious.”
“You think the count will be angry with me?”
“Think it? I’m certain of it; were it not for that, I should thank you, for you have worked for us. However, I scold you instead of him, and in his place; the storm will blow over more easily, believe me. And moreover, my dear child,” continued D’Artagnan, “I am making use of the privilege conceded to me by your guardian.”
“I do not understand you, sir,” said Raoul.
D’Artagnan rose, and taking a letter from his writing-desk, presented it to Raoul. The face of the latter became serious when he had cast his eyes upon the paper.
“Oh, mon Dieu!” he said, raising his fine eyes to D’Artagnan, moist with tears, “the count has left Paris without seeing me?”
“He left four days ago,” said D’Artagnan.
“But this letter seems to intimate that he is about to incur danger, perhaps death.”
“He—he—incur danger of death! No, be not anxious; he is traveling on business and will return ere long. I hope you have no repugnance to accept me as your guardian in the interim.”
“Oh, no, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Raoul, “you are such a brave gentleman and the Comte de la Fère has so much affection for you!”
“Eh! Egad! love me too; I will not torment you much, but only on condition that you become a Frondist, my young friend, and a hearty Frondist, too.”
“But can I continue to visit Madame de Chevreuse?”
“I should say you could! and the coadjutor and Madame de Longueville; and if the worthy Broussel were there, whom you so stupidly helped arrest, I should tell you to excuse yourself to him at once and kiss him on both cheeks.”
“Well, sir, I will obey you, although I do not understand you.”
“It is unnecessary for you to understand. Hold,” continued D’Artagnan, turning toward the door, which had just opened, “here is Monsieur du Vallon, who comes with his coat torn.”
“Yes, but in exchange,” said Porthos, covered with perspiration and soiled by dust, “in exchange, I have torn many skins. Those wretches wanted to take away my sword! Deuce take ’em, what a popular commotion!” continued the giant, in his quiet manner; “but I knocked down more than twenty with the hilt of Balizarde. A draught of wine, D’Artagnan.”
“Oh, I’ll answer for you,” said the Gascon, filling Porthos’s glass to the brim; “but when you have drunk, give me your opinion.”
“Upon what?” asked Porthos.
“Look here,” resumed D’Artagnan; “here is Monsieur de Bragelonne, who determined at all risks to aid the arrest of Broussel and whom I had great difficulty to prevent defending Monsieur de Comminges.”
“The devil!” said Porthos; “and his guardian, what would he have said to that?”
“Do you hear?” interrupted D’Artagnan; “become a Frondist, my friend, belong to the Fronde, and remember that I fill the count’s place in everything;” and he jingled his money.
“Will you come?” said he to Porthos.
“Where?” asked Porthos, filling a second glass of wine.
“To present our respects to the cardinal.”
Porthos swallowed the second glass with the same grace with which he had imbibed the first, took his beaver and followed D’Artagnan. As for Raoul, he remained bewildered with what he had seen, having been forbidden by D’Artagnan to leave the room until the tumult was over.
_________
NOTES
The Battle of Lens (20 August 1648) was the last major battle of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). A French force commanded by Louis, Grand Condé defeated a Spanish army under Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. The battle cemented the reputation of Condé as one of the greatest generals of his age.
Gaspard IV de Coligny (1620-1649)
The Battle of Nördlingen (1645) took place on 3 August 1645 in the later stages of the Thirty Years' War, southeast of Nördlingen near the village of Alerheim. A combined Franco-Hessian army led by d'Enghien and Turenne defeated a Bavarian force led by Franz von Mercy. Both sides suffered heavy casualties, with Mercy himself among the dead, but the result had very little strategic impact on the war.
Chapter XLIII.
In which it is proved that first Impulses are oftentimes the best.
The three gentlemen took the road to Picardy, a road so well known to them and which recalled to Athos and Aramis some of the most picturesque adventures of their youth.
“If Mousqueton were with us,” observed Athos, on reaching the spot where they had had a dispute with the paviers, “how he would tremble at passing this! Do you remember, Aramis, that it was here he received that famous bullet wound?”
“By my faith, ’twould be excusable in him to tremble,” replied Aramis, “for even I feel a shudder at the recollection; hold, just above that tree is the little spot where I thought I was killed.”
It was soon time for Grimaud to recall the past. Arriving before the inn at which his master and himself had made such an enormous repast, he approached Athos and said, showing him the airhole of the cellar:
“Sausages!”
Athos began to laugh, for this juvenile escapade of his appeared to be as amusing as if some one had related it of another person.
At last, after traveling two days and a night, they arrived at Boulogne toward the evening, favored by magnificent weather. Boulogne was a strong position, then almost a deserted town, built entirely on the heights; what is now called the lower town did not then exist.
“Gentlemen,” said De Winter, on reaching the gate of the town, “let us do here as at Paris—let us separate to avoid suspicion. I know an inn, little frequented, but of which the host is entirely devoted to me. I will go there, where I expect to find letters, and you go to the first tavern in the town, to L’Epée du Grand Henri for instance, refresh yourselves, and in two hours be upon the jetty; our boat is waiting for us there.”
The matter being thus decided, the two friends found, about two hundred paces further, the tavern indicated. Their horses were fed, but not unsaddled; the grooms supped, for it was already late, and their two masters, impatient to return, appointed a place of meeting with them on the jetty and desired them on no account to exchange a word with any one. It is needless to say that this caution concerned Blaisois alone—long enough since it had been a useless one to Grimaud.
Athos and Aramis walked down toward the port. From their dress, covered with dust, and from a certain easy manner by means of which a man accustomed to travel is always recognizable, the two friends excited the attention of a few promenaders. There was more especially one upon whom their arrival had produced a decided impression. This man, whom they had noticed from the first for the same reason they had themselves been remarked by others, was walking in a listless way up and down the jetty. From the moment he perceived them he did not cease to look at them and seemed to burn with the wish to speak to them.
On reaching the jetty Athos and Aramis stopped to look at a little boat made fast to a pile and ready rigged as if waiting to start.
“That is doubtless our boat,” said Athos.
“Yes,” replied Aramis, “and the sloop out there making ready to sail must be that which is to take us to our destination; now,” continued he, “if only De Winter does not keep us waiting. It is not at all amusing here; there is not a single woman passing.”
“Hush!” said Athos, “we are overheard.”
In truth, the walker, who, during the observations of the two friends, had passed and repassed behind them several times, stopped at the name of De Winter; but as his face betrayed no emotion at mention of this name, it might have been by chance he stood so still.
“Gentlemen,” said the man, who was young and pale, bowing with ease and courtesy, “pardon my curiosity, but I see you come from Paris, or at least that you are strangers at Boulogne.”
“We come from Paris, yes,” replied Athos, with the same courtesy; “what is there we can do for you?”
“Sir,” said the young man, “will you be so good as to tell me if it be true that Cardinal Mazarin is no longer minister?”
“That is a strange question,” said Aramis.
“He is and he is not,” replied Athos; “that is to say, he is dismissed by one-half of France, but by intrigues and promises he makes the other half sustain him; you will perceive that this may last a long time.”
“However, sir,” said the stranger, “he has neither fled nor is in prison?”
“No, sir, not at this moment at least.”
“Sirs, accept my thanks for your politeness,” said the young man, retreating.
“What do you think of that interrogator?” asked Aramis.
“I think he is either a dull provincial person or a spy in search of information.”
“And you replied to him with that notion?”
“Nothing warranted me to answer him otherwise; he was polite to me and I was so to him.”
“But if he be a spy——”
“What do you think a spy would be about here? We are not living in the time of Cardinal Richelieu, who would have closed the ports on bare suspicion.”
“It matters not; you were wrong to reply to him as you did,” continued Aramis, following with his eyes the young man, now vanishing behind the cliffs.
“And you,” said Athos, “you forget that you committed a very different kind of imprudence in pronouncing Lord de Winter’s name. Did you not see that at that name the young man stopped?”
“More reason, then, when he spoke to you, for sending him about his business.”
“A quarrel?” asked Athos.
“And since when have you become afraid of a quarrel?”
“I am always afraid of a quarrel when I am expected at any place and when such a quarrel might possibly prevent my reaching it. Besides, let me own something to you. I am anxious to see that young man nearer.”
“And wherefore?”
“Aramis, you will certainly laugh at me, you will say that I am always repeating the same thing, you will call me the most timorous of visionaries; but to whom do you see a resemblance in that young man?”
“In beauty or on the contrary?” asked Aramis, laughing.
“In ugliness, in so far as a man can resemble a woman.”
“Ah! Egad!” cried Aramis, “you set me thinking. No, in truth you are no visionary, my dear friend, and now I think of it—you—yes, i’faith, you’re right—those delicate, yet firm-set lips, those eyes which seem always at the command of the intellect and never of the heart! Yes, it is one of Milady’s bastards!”
“You laugh Aramis.”
“From habit, that is all. I swear to you, I like no better than yourself to meet that viper in my path.”
“Ah! here is De Winter coming,” said Athos.
“Good! one thing now is only awanting and that is, that our grooms should not keep us waiting.”
“No,” said Athos. “I see them about twenty paces behind my lord. I recognize Grimaud by his long legs and his determined slouch. Tony carries our muskets.”
“Then we set sail to-night?” asked Aramis, glancing toward the west, where the sun had left a single golden cloud, which, dipping into the ocean, appeared by degrees to be extinguished.
“Probably,” said Athos.
“Diable!” resumed Aramis, “I have little fancy for the sea by day, still less at night; the sounds of wind and wave, the frightful movements of the vessel; I confess I prefer the convent of Noisy.”
Athos smiled sadly, for it was evident that he was thinking of other things as he listened to his friend and moved toward De Winter.
“What ails our friend?” said Aramis, “he resembles one of Dante’s damned, whose neck Apollyon has dislocated and who are ever looking at their heels. What the devil makes him glower thus behind him?”
When De Winter perceived them, in his turn he advanced toward them with surprising rapidity.
“What is the matter, my lord?” said Athos, “and what puts you out of breath thus?”
“Nothing,” replied De Winter; “nothing; and yet in passing the heights it seemed to me——” and he again turned round.
Athos glanced at Aramis.
“But let us go,” continued De Winter; “let us be off; the boat must be waiting for us and there is our sloop at anchor—do you see it there? I wish I were on board already,” and he looked back again.
“He has seen him,” said Athos, in a low tone, to Aramis.
They had reached the ladder which led to the boat. De Winter made the grooms who carried the arms and the porters with the luggage descend first and was about to follow them.
At this moment Athos perceived a man walking on the seashore parallel to the jetty, and hastening his steps, as if to reach the other side of the port, scarcely twenty steps from the place of embarking. He fancied in the darkness that he recognized the young man who had questioned him. Athos now descended the ladder in his turn, without losing sight of the young man. The latter, to make a short cut, had appeared on a sluice.
“He certainly bodes us no good,” said Athos; “but let us embark; once out at sea, let him come.”
And Athos sprang into the boat, which was immediately pushed off and which soon sped seawards under the efforts of four stalwart rowers.
But the young man had begun to follow, or rather to advance before the boat. She was obliged to pass between the point of the jetty, surmounted by a beacon just lighted, and a rock which jutted out. They saw him in the distance climbing the rock in order to look down upon the boat as it passed.
“Ay, but,” said Aramis, “that young fellow is decidedly a spy.”
“Which is the young man?” asked De Winter, turning around.
“He who followed us and spoke to us awaits us there; behold!”
De Winter turned and followed the direction of Aramis’s finger. The beacon bathed with light the little strait through which they were about to pass and the rock where the young man stood with bare head and crossed arms.
“It is he!” exclaimed De Winter, seizing the arm of Athos; “it is he! I thought I recognized him and I was not mistaken.”
“Whom do you mean?” asked Aramis.
“Milady’s son,” replied Athos.
“The monk!” exclaimed Grimaud.
The young man heard these words and bent so forward over the rock that one might have supposed he was about to precipitate himself from it.
“Yes, it is I, my uncle—I, the son of Milady—I, the monk—I, the secretary and friend of Cromwell—I know you now, both you and your companions.”
In that boat sat three men, unquestionably brave, whose courage no man would have dared dispute; nevertheless, at that voice, that accent and those gestures, they felt a chill access of terror cramp their veins. As for Grimaud, his hair stood on end and drops of sweat ran down his brow.
“Ah!” exclaimed Aramis, “that is the nephew, the monk, and the son of Milady, as he says himself.”
“Alas, yes,” murmured De Winter.
“Then wait,” said Aramis; and with the terrible coolness which on important occasions he showed, he took one of the muskets from Tony, shouldered and aimed it at the young man, who stood, like the accusing angel, upon the rock.
“Fire!” cried Grimaud, unconsciously.
Athos threw himself on the muzzle of the gun and arrested the shot which was about to be fired.
“The devil take you,” said Aramis. “I had him so well at the point of my gun I should have sent a ball into his breast.”
“It is enough to have killed the mother,” said Athos, hoarsely.
“The mother was a wretch, who struck at us all and at those dear to us.”
“Yes, but the son has done us no harm.”
Grimaud, who had risen to watch the effect of the shot, fell back hopeless, wringing his hands.
The young man burst into a laugh.
“Ah, it is certainly you!” he cried. “I know you even better now.”
His mocking laugh and threatening words passed over their heads, carried by the breeze, until lost in the depths of the horizon. Aramis shuddered.
“Be calm,” exclaimed Athos, “for Heaven’s sake! have we ceased to be men?”
“No,” said Aramis, “but that fellow is a fiend; and ask the uncle whether I was wrong to rid him of his dear nephew.”
De Winter only replied by a groan.
“It was all up with him,” continued Aramis; “ah I much fear that with all your wisdom such mercy yet will prove supernal folly.”
Athos took Lord de Winter’s hand and tried to turn the conversation.
“When shall we land in England?” he asked; but De Winter seemed not to hear his words and made no reply.
“Hold, Athos,” said Aramis, “perhaps there is yet time. See if he is still in the same place.”
Athos turned around with an effort; the sight of the young man was evidently painful to him, and there he still was, in fact, on the rock, the beacon shedding around him, as it were, a doubtful aureole.
“Decidedly, Aramis,” said Athos, “I think I was wrong not to let you fire.”
“Hold your tongue,” replied Aramis; “you would make me weep, if such a thing were possible.”
At this moment they were hailed by a voice from the sloop and a few seconds later men, servants and baggage were aboard. The captain was only waiting for his passengers; hardly had they put foot on deck ere her head was turned towards Hastings, where they were to disembark. At this instant the three friends turned, in spite of themselves, a last look on the rock, upon the menacing figure which pursued them and now stood out with a distinctness still. Then a voice reached them once more, sending this threat: “To our next meeting, sirs, in England.”
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Athos had not failed to send early to Aramis and had given his letter to Blaisois, the only serving-man whom he had left. Blaisois found Bazin donning his beadle’s gown, his services being required that day at Notre Dame.
Athos had desired Blaisois to try to speak to Aramis himself. Blaisois, a tall, simple youth, who understood nothing but what he was expressly told, asked, therefore for the Abbé d’Herblay, and in spite of Bazin’s assurances that his master was not at home, he persisted in such a manner as to put Bazin into a passion. Blaisois seeing Bazin in clerical guise, was a little discomposed at his denials and wanted to pass at all risks, believing too, that the man with whom he had to do was endowed with the virtues of his cloth, namely, patience and Christian charity.
But Bazin, still the servant of a musketeer, when once the blood mounted to his fat cheeks, seized a broomstick and began belaboring Blaisois, saying:
“You have insulted the church, my friend, you have insulted the church!”
At this moment Aramis, aroused by this unusual disturbance, cautiously opened the door of his room; and Blaisois, looking reproachfully at the Cerberus, drew the letter from his pocket and presented it to Aramis.
“From the Comte de la Fère,” said Aramis. “All right.” And he retired into his room without even asking the cause of so much noise.
Blaisois returned disconsolate to the Hotel of the Grand Roi Charlemagne and when Athos inquired if his commission was executed, he related his adventure.
“You foolish fellow!” said Athos, laughing. “And you did not tell him that you came from me?”
“No, sir.”
At ten o’clock Athos, with his habitual exactitude, was waiting on the Pont du Louvre and was almost immediately joined by Lord de Winter.
They waited ten minutes and then his lordship began to fear Aramis was not coming to join them.
“Patience,” said Athos, whose eyes were fixed in the direction of the Rue du Bac, “patience; I see an abbé cuffing a man, then bowing to a woman; it must be Aramis.”
It was indeed Aramis. Having run against a young shopkeeper who was gaping at the crows and who had splashed him, Aramis with one blow of his fist had distanced him ten paces.
At this moment one of his penitents passed, and as she was young and pretty Aramis took off his cap to her with his most gracious smile.
A most affectionate greeting, as one can well believe took place between him and Lord de Winter.
“Where are we going?” inquired Aramis; “are we going to fight, perchance? I carry no sword this morning and cannot return home to procure one.”
“No,” said Lord de Winter, “we are going to pay a visit to Her Majesty the Queen of England.”
“Oh, very well,” replied Aramis; then bending his face down to Athos’s ear, “what is the object of this visit?” continued he.
“Nay, I know not; some evidence required from us, perhaps.”
“May it not be about that cursed affair?” asked Aramis, “in which case I do not greatly care to go, for it will be to pocket a lecture; and since it is my function to give them to others I am rather averse to receiving them myself.”
“If it were so,” answered Athos, “we should not be taken there by Lord de Winter, for he would come in for his share; he was one of us.”
“You’re right; yes, let us go.”
On arriving at the Louvre Lord de Winter entered first; indeed, there was but one porter there to receive them at the gate.
It was impossible in daylight for the impoverished state of the habitation grudging charity had conceded to an unfortunate queen to pass unnoticed by Athos, Aramis, and even the Englishman. Large rooms, completely stripped of furniture, bare walls upon which, here and there, shone the old gold moldings which had resisted time and neglect, windows with broken panes (impossible to close), no carpets, neither guards nor servants: this is what first met the eyes of Athos, to which he, touching his companion’s elbow, directed his attention by his glances.
“Mazarin is better lodged,” said Aramis.
“Mazarin is almost king,” answered Athos; “Madame Henrietta is almost no longer queen.”
“If you would condescend to be clever, Athos,” observed Aramis, “I really do think you would be wittier than poor Monsieur de Voiture.”
Athos smiled.
The queen appeared to be impatiently expecting them, for at the first slight noise she heard in the hall leading to her room she came herself to the door to receive these courtiers in the corridors of Misfortune.
“Enter. You are welcome, gentlemen,” she said.
The gentlemen entered and remained standing, but at a motion from the queen they seated themselves. Athos was calm and grave, but Aramis was furious; the sight of such royal misery exasperated him and his eyes examined every new trace of poverty that presented itself.
“You are examining the luxury I enjoy,” said the queen, glancing sadly around her.
“Madame,” replied Aramis, “I must ask your pardon, but I know not how to hide my indignation at seeing how a daughter of Henry IV. is treated at the court of France.”
“Monsieur Aramis is not an officer?” asked the queen of Lord de Winter.
“That gentleman is the Abbé d’Herblay,” replied he.
Aramis blushed. “Madame,” he said, “I am an abbé, it is true, but I am so against my will. I never had a vocation for the bands; my cassock is fastened by one button only, and I am always ready to become a musketeer once more. This morning, being ignorant that I should have the honor of seeing your majesty, I encumbered myself with this dress, but you will find me none the less a man devoted to your majesty’s service, in whatever way you may see fit to use me.”
“The Abbé d’Herblay,” resumed De Winter, “is one of those gallant musketeers formerly belonging to His Majesty King Louis XIII., of whom I have spoken to you, madame.” Then turning to Athos, he continued, “And this gentleman is that noble Comte de la Fère, whose high reputation is so well known to your majesty.”
“Gentlemen,” said the queen, “a few years ago I had around me ushers, treasures, armies; and by the lifting of a finger all these were busied in my service. To-day, look around you, and it may astonish you, that in order to accomplish a plan which is dearer to me than life I have only Lord de Winter, the friend of twenty years, and you, gentlemen, whom I see for the first time and whom I know but as my countrymen.”
“It is enough,” said Athos, bowing low, “if the lives of three men can purchase yours, madame.”
“I thank you, gentlemen. But hear me,” continued she. “I am not only the most miserable of queens, but the most unhappy of mothers, the most wretched of wives. My children, two of them, at least, the Duke of York and the Princess Elizabeth, are far away from me, exposed to the blows of the ambitious and our foes; my husband, the king, is leading in England so wretched an existence that it is no exaggeration to aver that he seeks death as a thing to be desired. Hold! gentlemen, here is the letter conveyed to me by Lord de Winter. Read it.”
Obeying the queen, Athos read aloud the letter which we have already seen, in which King Charles demanded to know whether the hospitality of France would be accorded him.
“Well?” asked Athos, when he had closed the letter.
“Well,” said the queen, “it has been refused.”
The two friends exchanged a smile of contempt.
“And now,” said Athos, “what is to be done? I have the honor to inquire from your majesty what you desire Monsieur d’Herblay and myself to do in your service. We are ready.”
“Ah, sir, you have a noble heart!” exclaimed the queen, with a burst of gratitude; whilst Lord de Winter turned to her with a glance which said, “Did I not answer for them?”
“But you, sir?” said the queen to Aramis.
“I, madame,” replied he, “follow Monsieur de la Fère wherever he leads, even were it on to death, without demanding wherefore; but when it concerns your majesty’s service, then,” added he, looking at the queen with all the grace of former days, “I precede the count.”
“Well, then, gentlemen,” said the queen, “since it is thus, and since you are willing to devote yourselves to the service of a poor princess whom the whole world has abandoned, this is what is required to be done for me. The king is alone with a few gentlemen, whom he fears to lose every day; surrounded by the Scotch, whom he distrusts, although he be himself a Scotchman. Since Lord de Winter left him I am distracted, sirs. I ask much, too much, perhaps, for I have no title to request it. Go to England, join the king, be his friends, protectors, march to battle at his side, and be near him in his house, where conspiracies, more dangerous than the perils of war, are hatching every day. And in exchange for the sacrifice that you make, gentlemen, I promise—not to reward you, I believe that word would offend you—but to love you as a sister, to prefer you, next to my husband and my children, to every one. I swear it before Heaven.”
And the queen raised her eyes solemnly upward.
“Madame,” said Athos, “when must we set out?”
“You consent then?” exclaimed the queen, joyfully.
“Yes, madame; only it seems to me that your majesty goes too far in engaging to load us with a friendship so far above our merit. We render service to God, madame, in serving a prince so unfortunate, a queen so virtuous. Madame, we are yours, body and soul.”
“Oh, sirs,” said the queen, moved even to tears, “this is the first time for five years I have felt the least approach to joy or hope. God, who can read my heart, all the gratitude I feel, will reward you! Save my husband! Save the king, and although you care not for the price that is placed upon a good action in this world, leave me the hope that we shall meet again, when I may be able to thank you myself. In the meantime, I remain here. Have you anything to ask of me? From this moment I become your friend, and since you are engaged in my affairs I ought to occupy myself in yours.”
“Madame,” replied Athos, “I have only to ask your majesty’s prayers.”
“And I,” said Aramis, “I am alone in the world and have only your majesty to serve.”
The queen held out her hand, which they kissed, and she said in a low tone to De Winter:
“If you need money, my lord, separate the jewels I have given you; detach the diamonds and sell them to some Jew. You will receive for them fifty or sixty thousand francs; spend them if necessary, but let these gentlemen be treated as they deserve, that is to say, like kings.”
The queen had two letters ready, one written by herself, the other by her daughter, the Princess Henrietta. Both were addressed to King Charles. She gave the first to Athos and the other to Aramis, so that should they be separated by chance they might make themselves known to the king; after which they withdrew.
At the foot of the staircase De Winter stopped.
“Not to arouse suspicions, gentlemen,” said he, “go your way and I will go mine, and this evening at nine o’clock we will assemble again at the Gate Saint Denis. We will travel on horseback as far as our horses can go and afterward we can take the post. Once more, let me thank you, my good friends, both in my own name and the queen’s.”
The three gentlemen then shook hands, Lord de Winter taking the Rue Saint Honoré, and Athos and Aramis remaining together.
“Well,” said Aramis, when they were alone, “what do you think of this business, my dear count?”
“Bad,” replied Athos, “very bad.”
“But you received it with enthusiasm.”
“As I shall ever receive the defense of a great principle, my dear D’Herblay. Monarchs are only strong by the assistance of the aristocracy, but aristocracy cannot survive without the countenance of monarchs. Let us, then, support monarchy, in order to support ourselves.
“We shall be murdered there,” said Aramis. “I hate the English—they are coarse, like every nation that swills beer.”
“Would it be better to remain here,” said Athos, “and take a turn in the Bastile or the dungeon of Vincennes for having favored the escape of Monsieur de Beaufort? I’faith, Aramis, believe me, there is little left to regret. We avoid imprisonment and we play the part of heroes; the choice is easy.”
“It is true; but in everything, friend, one must always return to the same question—a stupid one, I admit, but very necessary—have you any money?”
“Something like a hundred pistoles, that my farmer sent to me the day before I left Bragelonne; but out of that sum I ought to leave fifty for Raoul—a young man must live respectably. I have then about fifty pistoles. And you?”
“As for me, I am quite sure that after turning out all my pockets and emptying my drawers I shall not find ten louis at home. Fortunately Lord de Winter is rich.”
“Lord de Winter is ruined for the moment; Oliver Cromwell has annexed his income resources.”
“Now is the time when Baron Porthos would be useful.”
“Now it is that I regret D’Artagnan.”
“Let us entice them away.”
“This secret, Aramis, does not belong to us; take my advice, then, and let no one into our confidence. And moreover, in taking such a step we should appear to be doubtful of ourselves. Let us regret their absence to ourselves for our own sakes, but not speak of it.”
“You are right; but what are you going to do until this evening? I have two things to postpone.”
“And what are they?”
“First, a thrust with the coadjutor, whom I met last night at Madame de Rambouillet’s and whom I found particular in his remarks respecting me.”
“Oh, fie—a quarrel between priests, a duel between allies!”
“What can I do, friend? he is a bully and so am I; his cassock is a burden to him and I imagine I have had enough of mine; in fact, there is so much resemblance between us that I sometimes believe he is Aramis and I am the coadjutor. This kind of life fatigues and oppresses me; besides, he is a turbulent fellow, who will ruin our party. I am convinced that if I gave him a box on the ear, such as I gave this morning to the little citizen who splashed me, it would change the appearance of things.”
“And I, my dear Aramis,” quietly replied Athos, “I think it would only change Monsieur de Retz’s appearance. Take my advice, leave things just as they are; besides, you are neither of you now your own masters; he belongs to the Fronde and you to the queen of England. So, if the second matter which you regret being unable to attend to is not more important than the first——”
“Oh! that is of the first importance.”
“Attend to it, then, at once.”
“Unfortunately, it is a thing that I can’t perform at any time I choose. It was arranged for the evening and no other time will serve.”
“I understand,” said Athos smiling, “midnight.”
“About that time.”
“But, my dear fellow, those are things that bear postponement and you must put it off, especially with so good an excuse to give on your return——”
“Yes, if I return.”
“If you do not return, how does it concern you? Be reasonable. Come, you are no longer twenty years old.”
“To my great regret, mordieu! Ah, if I were but twenty years old!”
“Yes,” said Athos, “doubtless you would commit great follies! But now we must part. I have one or two visits to make and a letter yet to write. Call for me at eight o’clock or shall I wait supper for you at seven?”
“That will do very well,” said Aramis. “I have twenty visits to make and as many letters to write.”
They then separated. Athos went to pay a visit to Madame de Vendôme, left his name at Madame de Chevreuse’s and wrote the following letter to D’Artagnan:
“Dear Friend,—I am about to set off with Aramis on important business. I wished to make my adieux to you, but time does not permit. Remember that I write to you now to repeat how much affection for you I still cherish.
“Raoul is gone to Blois and is ignorant of my departure; watch over him in my absence as much as you possibly can; and if by chance you receive no news of me three months hence, tell him to open a packet which he will find addressed to him in my bronze casket at Blois, of which I send you now the key.
“Embrace Porthos from Aramis and myself. Adieu, perhaps farewell.”
At the hour agreed upon Aramis arrived; he was dressed as an officer and had the old sword at his side which he had drawn so often and which he was more than ever ready to draw.
“By-the-bye,” he said, “I think that we are decidedly wrong to depart thus, without leaving a line for Porthos and D’Artagnan.”
“The thing is done, dear friend,” said Athos; “I foresaw that and have embraced them both from you and myself.”
“You are a wonderful man, my dear count,” said Aramis; “you think of everything.”
“Well, have you made up your mind to this journey?”
“Quite; and now that I reflect about it, I am glad to leave Paris at this moment.”
“And so am I,” replied Athos; “my only regret is not having seen D’Artagnan; but the rascal is so cunning, he might have guessed our project.”
When supper was over Blaisois entered. “Sir,” said he, “here is Monsieur d’Artagnan’s answer.”
“But I did not tell you there would be an answer, stupid!” said Athos.
“And I set off without waiting for one, but he called me back and gave me this;” and he presented a little leather bag, plump and giving out a golden jingle.
Athos opened it and began by drawing forth a little note, written in these terms:
“My dear Count,—When one travels, and especially for three months, one never has a superfluity of money. Now, recalling former times of mutual distress, I send you half my purse; it is money to obtain which I made Mazarin sweat. Don’t make a bad use of it, I entreat you.
“As to what you say about not seeing you again, I believe not a word of it; with such a heart as yours—and such a sword—one passes through the valley of the shadow of death a dozen times, unscathed and unalarmed. Au revoir, not farewell.
“It is unnecessary to say that from the day I saw Raoul I loved him; nevertheless, believe that I heartily pray that I may not become to him a father, however much I might be proud of such a son.
“Your
“D’Artagnan.
“P.S.—Be it well understood that the fifty louis which I send are equally for Aramis as for you—for you as Aramis.”
Athos smiled, and his fine eye was dimmed by a tear. D’Artagnan, who had loved him so tenderly, loved him still, although a Mazarinist.
“There are the fifty louis, i’faith,” said Aramis, emptying the purse on the table, all bearing the effigy of Louis XIII. “Well, what shall you do with this money, count? Shall you keep it or send it back?”
“I shall keep it, Aramis, and even though I had no need of it I still should keep it. What is offered from a generous heart should be accepted generously. Take twenty-five of them, Aramis, and give me the remaining twenty-five.”
“All right; I am glad to see you are of my opinion. There now, shall we start?”
“When you like; but have you no groom?”
“No; that idiot Bazin had the folly to make himself verger, as you know, and therefore cannot leave Notre Dame.”
“Very well, take Blaisois, with whom I know not what to do, since I already have Grimaud.”
“Willingly,” said Aramis.
At this moment Grimaud appeared at the door. “Ready,” said he, with his usual curtness.
“Let us go, then,” said Athos.
The two friends mounted, as did their servants. At the corner of the Quai they encountered Bazin, who was running breathlessly.
“Oh, sir!” exclaimed he, “thank Heaven I have arrived in time. Monsieur Porthos has just been to your house and has left this for you, saying that the letter was important and must be given to you before you left.”
“Good,” said Aramis, taking a purse which Bazin presented to him. “What is this?”
“Wait, your reverence, there is a letter.”
“You know I have already told you that if you ever call me anything but chevalier I will break every bone in your body. Give me the letter.”
“How can you read?” asked Athos, “it is as dark as a cold oven.”
“Wait,” said Bazin, striking a flint, and setting afire a twisted wax-light, with which he started the church candles. Thus illumined, Aramis read the following epistle:
“My dear D’Herblay,—I learned from D’Artagnan who has embraced me on the part of the Comte de la Fère and yourself, that you are setting out on a journey which may perhaps last two or three months; as I know that you do not like to ask money of your friends I offer you some of my own accord. Here are two hundred pistoles, which you can dispose of as you wish and return to me when opportunity occurs. Do not fear that you put me to inconvenience; if I want money I can send for some to any of my châteaux; at Bracieux alone, I have twenty thousand francs in gold. So, if I do not send you more it is because I fear you would not accept a larger sum.
“I address you, because you know, that although I esteem him from my heart I am a little awed by the Comte de la Fère; but it is understood that what I offer you I offer him at the same time.
“I am, as I trust you do not doubt, your devoted
“Du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds.”
“Well,” said Aramis, “what do you say to that?”
“I say, my dear D’Herblay, that it is almost sacrilege to distrust Providence when one has such friends, and therefore we will divide the pistoles from Porthos, as we divided the louis sent by D’Artagnan.”
The division being made by the light of Bazin’s taper, the two friends continued their road and a quarter of an hour later they had joined De Winter at the Porte Saint Denis.
Whilst this terrible scene was passing at Lord de Winter’s, Athos, seated near his window, his elbow on the table and his head supported on his hand, was listening intently to Raoul’s account of the adventures he met with on his journey and the details of the battle.
Listening to the relation of those emotions so fresh and pure, the fine, noble face of Athos betrayed indescribable pleasure; he inhaled the tones of that young voice, as harmonious music. He forgot all that was dark in the past and that was cloudy in the future. It almost seemed as if the return of this much loved boy had changed his fears to hopes. Athos was happy—happy as he had never been before.
“And you assisted and took part in this great battle, Bragelonne!” cried the former musketeer.
“Yes, sir.”
“And it was a fierce one?”
“His highness the prince charged eleven times in person.”
“He is a great commander, Bragelonne.”
“He is a hero, sir. I did not lose sight of him for an instant. Oh! how fine it is to be called Condé and to be so worthy of such a name!”
“He was calm and radiant, was he not?”
“As calm as at parade, radiant as at a fête. When we went up to the enemy it was slowly; we were forbidden to draw first and we were marching toward the Spaniards, who were on a height with lowered muskets. When we arrived about thirty paces from them the prince turned around to the soldiers: ‘Comrades,’ he said, ‘you are about to suffer a furious discharge; but after that you will make short work with those fellows.’ There was such dead silence that friends and enemies could have heard these words; then raising his sword, ‘Sound trumpets!’ he cried.”
“Well, very good; you will do as much when the opportunity occurs, will you, Raoul?”
“I know not, sir, but I thought it really very fine and grand!”
“Were you afraid, Raoul?” asked the count.
“Yes, sir,” replied the young man naïvely; “I felt a great chill at my heart, and at the word ‘fire,’ which resounded in Spanish from the enemy’s ranks, I closed my eyes and thought of you.”
“In honest truth, Raoul?” said Athos, pressing his hand.
“Yes, sir; at that instant there was such a rataplan of musketry that one might have imagined the infernal regions had opened. Those who were not killed felt the heat of the flames. I opened my eyes, astonished to find myself alive and even unhurt; a third of the squadron were lying on the ground, wounded, dead or dying. At that moment I encountered the eye of the prince. I had but one thought and that was that he was observing me. I spurred on and found myself in the enemy’s ranks.”
“And the prince was pleased with you?”
“He told me so, at least, sir, when he desired me to return to Paris with Monsieur de Châtillon, who was charged to carry the news to the queen and to bring the colors we had taken. ‘Go,’ said he; ‘the enemy will not rally for fifteen days and until that time I have no need of your service. Go and see those whom you love and who love you, and tell my sister De Longueville that I thank her for the present that she made me of you.’ And I came, sir,” added Raoul, gazing at the count with a smile of real affection, “for I thought you would be glad to see me again.”
Athos drew the young man toward him and pressed his lips to his brow, as he would have done to a young daughter.
“And now, Raoul,” said he, “you are launched; you have dukes for friends, a marshal of France for godfather, a prince of the blood as commander, and on the day of your return you have been received by two queens; it is not so bad for a novice.”
“Oh sir,” said Raoul, suddenly, “you recall something, which, in my haste to relate my exploits, I had forgotten; it is that there was with Her Majesty the Queen of England, a gentleman who, when I pronounced your name, uttered a cry of surprise and joy; he said he was a friend of yours, asked your address, and is coming to see you.”
“What is his name?”
“I did not venture to ask, sir; he spoke elegantly, although I thought from his accent he was an Englishman.”
“Ah!” said Athos, leaning down his head as if to remember who it could be. Then, when he raised it again, he was struck by the presence of a man who was standing at the open door and was gazing at him with a compassionate air.
“Lord de Winter!” exclaimed the count.
“Athos, my friend!”
And the two gentlemen were for an instant locked in each other’s arms; then Athos, looking into his friend’s face and taking him by both hands, said:
“What ails you, my lord? you appear as unhappy as I am the reverse.”
“Yes, truly, dear friend; and I may even say the sight of you increases my dismay.”
And De Winter glancing around him, Raoul quickly understood that the two friends wished to be alone and he therefore left the room unaffectedly.
“Come, now that we are alone,” said Athos, “let us talk of yourself.”
“Whilst we are alone let us speak of ourselves,” replied De Winter. “He is here.”
“Who?”
“Milady’s son.”
Athos, again struck by this name, which seemed to pursue him like an echo, hesitated for a moment, then slightly knitting his brows, he calmly said:
“I know it, Grimaud met him between Bethune and Arras and then came here to warn me of his presence.”
“Does Grimaud know him, then?”
“No; but he was present at the deathbed of a man who knew him.”
“The headsman of Bethune?” exclaimed De Winter.
“You know about that?” cried Athos, astonished.
“He has just left me,” replied De Winter, “after telling me all. Ah! my friend! what a horrible scene! Why did we not destroy the child with the mother?”
“What need you fear?” said Athos, recovering from the instinctive fear he had at first experienced, by the aid of reason; “are we not men accustomed to defend ourselves? Is this young man an assassin by profession—a murderer in cold blood? He has killed the executioner of Bethune in an access of passion, but now his fury is assuaged.”
De Winter smiled sorrowfully and shook his head.
“Do you not know the race?” said he.
“Pooh!” said Athos, trying to smile in his turn. “It must have lost its ferocity in the second generation. Besides, my friend, Providence has warned us, that we may be on our guard. All we can now do is to wait. Let us wait; and, as I said before, let us speak of yourself. What brings you to Paris?”
“Affairs of importance which you shall know later. But what is this that I hear from Her Majesty the Queen of England? Monsieur d’Artagnan sides with Mazarin! Pardon my frankness, dear friend. I neither hate nor blame the cardinal, and your opinions will be held ever sacred by me. But do you happen to belong to him?”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” replied Athos, “is in the service; he is a soldier and obeys all constitutional authority. Monsieur d’Artagnan is not rich and has need of his position as lieutenant to enable him to live. Millionaires like yourself, my lord, are rare in France.”
“Alas!” said De Winter, “I am at this moment as poor as he is, if not poorer. But to return to our subject.”
“Well, then, you wish to know if I am of Mazarin’s party? No. Pardon my frankness, too, my lord.”
“I am obliged to you, count, for this pleasing intelligence! You make me young and happy again by it. Ah! so you are not a Mazarinist? Delightful! Indeed, you could not belong to him. But pardon me, are you free? I mean to ask if you are married?”
“Ah! as to that, no,” replied Athos, laughing.
“Because that young man, so handsome, so elegant, so polished——”
“Is a child I have adopted and who does not even know who was his father.”
“Very well; you are always the same, Athos, great and generous. Are you still friends with Monsieur Porthos and Monsieur Aramis?”
“Add Monsieur d’Artagnan, my lord. We still remain four friends devoted to each other; but when it becomes a question of serving the cardinal or of fighting him, of being Mazarinists or Frondists, then we are only two.”
“Is Monsieur Aramis with D’Artagnan?” asked Lord de Winter.
“No,” said Athos; “Monsieur Aramis does me the honor to share my opinions.”
“Could you put me in communication with your witty and agreeable friend? Is he much changed?”
“He has become an abbé, that is all.”
“You alarm me; his profession must have made him renounce any great undertakings.”
“On the contrary,” said Athos, smiling, “he has never been so much a musketeer as since he became an abbé, and you will find him a veritable soldier.”
“Could you engage to bring him to me to-morrow morning at ten o’clock, on the Pont du Louvre?”
“Oh, oh!” exclaimed Athos, smiling, “you have a duel in prospect.”
“Yes, count, and a splendid duel, too; a duel in which I hope you will take your part.”
“Where are we to go, my lord?”
“To Her Majesty the Queen of England, who has desired me to present you to her.”
“This is an enigma,” said Athos, “but it matters not; since you know the solution of it I ask no further. Will your lordship do me the honor to sup with me?”
“Thanks, count, no,” replied De Winter. “I own to you that that young man’s visit has subdued my appetite and probably will rob me of my sleep. What undertaking can have brought him to Paris? It was not to meet me that he came, for he was ignorant of my journey. This young man terrifies me, my lord; there lies in him a sanguinary predisposition.”
“What occupies him in England?”
“He is one of Cromwell’s most enthusiastic disciples.”
“But what attached him to the cause? His father and mother were Catholics, I believe?”
“His hatred of the king, who deprived him of his estates and forbade him to bear the name of De Winter.”
“And what name does he now bear?”
“Mordaunt.”
“A Puritan, yet disguised as a monk he travels alone in France.”
“Do you say as a monk?”
“It was thus, and by mere accident—may God pardon me if I blaspheme—that he heard the confession of the executioner of Bethune.”
“Then I understand it all! he has been sent by Cromwell to Mazarin, and the queen guessed rightly; we have been forestalled. Everything is clear to me now. Adieu, count, till to-morrow.”
“But the night is dark,” said Athos, perceiving that Lord de Winter seemed more uneasy than he wished to appear; “and you have no servant.”
“I have Tony, a safe if simple youth.”
“Halloo, there, Grimaud, Olivain, and Blaisois! call the viscount and take the musket with you.”
Blaisois was the tall youth, half groom, half peasant, whom we saw at the Château de Bragelonne, whom Athos had christened by the name of his province.
“Viscount,” said Athos to Raoul, as he entered, “you will conduct my lord as far as his hotel and permit no one to approach him.”
“Oh! count,” said De Winter, “for whom do you take me?”
“For a stranger who does not know Paris,” said Athos, “and to whom the viscount will show the way.”
De Winter shook him by the hand.
“Grimaud,” said Athos, “put yourself at the head of the troop and beware of the monk.”
Grimaud shuddered, and nodding, awaited the departure, regarding the butt of his musket with silent eloquence. Then obeying the orders given him by Athos, he headed the small procession, bearing the torch in one hand and the musket in the other, until it reached De Winter’s inn, when pounding on the portal with his fist, he bowed to my lord and faced about without a word.
The same order was followed in returning, nor did Grimaud’s searching glance discover anything of a suspicious appearance, save a dark shadow, as it were, in ambuscade, at the corner of the Rue Guénégaud and of the Quai. He fancied, also, that in going he had already observed the street watcher who had attracted his attention. He pushed on toward him, but before he could reach it the shadow had disappeared into an alley, into which Grimaud deemed it scarcely prudent to pursue it.
The next day, on awaking, the count perceived Raoul by his bedside. The young man was already dressed and was reading a new book by M. Chapelain.
“Already up, Raoul?” exclaimed the count.
“Yes, sir,” replied Raoul, with slight hesitation; “I did not sleep well.”
“You, Raoul, not sleep well! then you must have something on your mind!” said Athos.
“Sir, you will perhaps think that I am in a great hurry to leave you when I have only just arrived, but——”
“Have you only two days of leave, Raoul?”
“On the contrary, sir, I have ten; nor is it to the camp I wish to go.”
“Where, then?” said Athos, smiling, “if it be not a secret. You are now almost a man, since you have made your first passage of arms, and have acquired the right to go where you will without consulting me.”
“Never, sir,” said Raoul, “as long as I possess the happiness of having you for a protector, shall I deem I have the right of freeing myself from a guardianship so valuable to me. I have, however, a wish to go and pass a day at Blois. You look at me and you are going to laugh at me.”
“No, on the contrary, I am not inclined to laugh,” said Athos, suppressing a sigh. “You wish to see Blois again; it is but natural.”
“Then you permit me to go, you are not angry in your heart?” exclaimed Raoul, joyously.
“Certainly; and why should I regret what gives you pleasure?”
“Oh! how kind you are,” exclaimed the young man, pressing his guardian’s hand; “and I can set out immediately?”
“When you like, Raoul.”
“Sir,” said Raoul, as he turned to leave the room, “I have thought of one thing, and that is about the Duchess of Chevreuse, who was so kind to me and to whom I owe my introduction to the prince.”
“And you ought to thank her, Raoul. Well, try the Hotel de Luynes, Raoul, and ask if the duchess can receive you. I am glad to see you pay attention to the usages of the world. You must take Grimaud and Olivain.”
“Both, sir?” asked Raoul, astonished.
“Both.”
Raoul went out, and when Athos heard his young, joyous voice calling to Grimaud and Olivain, he sighed.
“It is very soon to leave me,” he thought, “but he follows the common custom. Nature has made us thus; she makes the young look ever forward, not behind. He certainly likes the child, but will he love me less as his affection grows for her?”
And Athos confessed to himself that, he was unprepared for so prompt a departure; but Raoul was so happy that this reflection effaced everything else from the consideration of his guardian.
Everything was ready at ten o’clock for the departure, and as Athos was watching Raoul mount, a groom rode up from the Duchess de Chevreuse. He was charged to tell the Comte de la Fère, that she had learned of the return of her youthful protégé, and also the manner he had conducted himself on the field, and she added that she should be very glad to offer him her congratulations.
“Tell her grace,” replied Athos, “that the viscount has just mounted his horse to proceed to the Hotel de Luynes.”
Then, with renewed instructions to Grimaud, Athos signified to Raoul that he could set out, and ended by reflecting that it was perhaps better that Raoul should be away from Paris at that moment.
The horse and servant belonging to De Winter were waiting for him at the door; he proceeded toward his abode very thoughtfully, looking behind him from time to him to contemplate the dark and silent frontage of the Louvre. It was then that he saw a horseman, as it were, detach himself from the wall and follow him at a little distance. In leaving the Palais Royal he remembered to have observed a similar shadow.
“Tony,” he said, motioning to his groom to approach.
“Here I am, my lord.”
“Did you remark that man who is following us?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Who is he?”
“I do not know, only he has followed your grace from the Palais Royal, stopped at the Louvre to wait for you, and now leaves the Louvre with you.”
“Some spy of the cardinal,” said De Winter to him, aside. “Let us pretend not to notice that he is watching us.”
And spurring on he plunged into the labyrinth of streets which led to his hotel, situated near the Marais, for having for so long a time lived near the Place Royale, Lord de Winter naturally returned to lodge near his ancient dwelling.
The unknown spurred his horse to a gallop.
De Winter dismounted at his hotel and went up into his apartment, intending to watch the spy; but as he was about to place his gloves and hat on a table, he saw reflected in a glass opposite to him a figure which stood on the threshold of the room. He turned around and Mordaunt stood before him.
There was a moment of frozen silence between these two.
“Sir,” said De Winter, “I thought I had already made you aware that I am weary of this persecution; withdraw, then, or I shall call and have you turned out as you were in London. I am not your uncle, I know you not.”
“My uncle,” replied Mordaunt, with his harsh and bantering tone, “you are mistaken; you will not have me turned out this time as you did in London—you dare not. As for denying that I am your nephew, you will think twice about it, now that I have learned some things of which I was ignorant a year ago.”
“And how does it concern me what you have learned?” said De Winter.
“Oh, it concerns you very closely, my uncle, I am sure, and you will soon be of my opinion,” added he, with a smile which sent a shudder through the veins of him he thus addressed. “When I presented myself before you for the first time in London, it was to ask you what had become of my fortune; the second time it was to demand who had sullied my name; and this time I come before you to ask a question far more terrible than any other, to say to you as God said to the first murderer: ‘Cain, what hast thou done to thy brother Abel?’ My lord, what have you done with your sister—your sister, who was my mother?”
De Winter shrank back from the fire of those scorching eyes.
“Your mother?” he said.
“Yes, my lord, my mother,” replied the young man, advancing into the room until he was face to face with Lord de Winter, and crossing his arms. “I have asked the headsman of Bethune,” he said, his voice hoarse and his face livid with passion and grief. “And the headsman of Bethune gave me a reply.”
De Winter fell back in a chair as though struck by a thunderbolt and in vain attempted a reply.
“Yes,” continued the young man; “all is now explained; with this key I open the abyss. My mother inherited an estate from her husband, you have assassinated her; my name would have secured me the paternal estate, you have deprived me of it; you have despoiled me of my fortune. I am no longer astonished that you knew me not. I am not surprised that you refused to recognize me. When a man is a robber it is hard to call him nephew whom he has impoverished; when one is a murderer, to recognize the man whom one has made an orphan.”
These words produced a contrary effect to that which Mordaunt had anticipated. De Winter remembered the monster that Milady had been; he rose, dignified and calm, restraining by the severity of his look the wild glance of the young man.
“You desire to fathom this horrible secret?” said De Winter; “well, then, so be it. Know, then, what manner of woman it was for whom to-day you call me to account. That woman had, in all probability, poisoned my brother, and in order to inherit from me she was about to assassinate me in my turn. I have proof of it. What say you to that?”
“I say that she was my mother.”
“She caused the unfortunate Duke of Buckingham to be stabbed by a man who was, ere that, honest, good and pure. What say you to that crime, of which I have the proof?”
“She was my mother.”
“On our return to France she had a young woman who was attached to one of her opponents poisoned in the convent of the Augustines at Bethune. Will this crime persuade you of the justice of her punishment—for of all this I have the proofs?”
“She was my mother!” cried the young man, who uttered these three successive exclamations with constantly increasing force.
“At last, charged with murders, with debauchery, hated by every one and yet threatening still, like a panther thirsting for blood, she fell under the blows of men whom she had rendered desperate, though they had never done her the least injury; she met with judges whom her hideous crimes had evoked; and that executioner you saw—that executioner who you say told you everything—that executioner, if he told you everything, told you that he leaped with joy in avenging on her his brother’s shame and suicide. Depraved as a girl, adulterous as a wife, an unnatural sister, homicide, poisoner, execrated by all who knew her, by every nation that had been visited by her, she died accursed by Heaven and earth.”
A sob which Mordaunt could not repress burst from his throat and his livid face became suffused with blood; he clenched his fists, sweat covered his face, his hair, like Hamlet’s, stood on end, and racked with fury he cried out:
“Silence, sir! she was my mother! Her crimes, I know them not; her disorders, I know them not; her vices, I know them not. But this I know, that I had a mother, that five men leagued against one woman, murdered her clandestinely by night—silently—like cowards. I know that you were one of them, my uncle, and that you cried louder than the others: ‘She must die.’ Therefore I warn you, and listen well to my words, that they may be engraved upon your memory, never to be forgotten: this murder, which has robbed me of everything—this murder, which has deprived me of my name—this murder, which has impoverished me—this murder, which has made me corrupt, wicked, implacable—I shall summon you to account for it first and then those who were your accomplices, when I discover them!”
With hatred in his eyes, foaming at his mouth, and his fist extended, Mordaunt had advanced one more step, a threatening, terrible step, toward De Winter. The latter put his hand to his sword, and said, with the smile of a man who for thirty years has jested with death:
“Would you assassinate me, sir? Then I shall recognize you as my nephew, for you would be a worthy son of such a mother.”
“No,” replied Mordaunt, forcing his features and the muscles of his body to resume their usual places and be calm; “no, I shall not kill you; at least not at this moment, for without you I could not discover the others. But when I have found them, then tremble, sir. I stabbed to the heart the headsman of Bethune, without mercy or pity, and he was the least guilty of you all.”
With these words the young man went out and descended the stairs with sufficient calmness to pass unobserved; then upon the lowest landing place he passed Tony, leaning over the balustrade, waiting only for a call from his master to mount to his room.
But De Winter did not call; crushed, enfeebled, he remained standing and with listening ear; then only when he had heard the step of the horse going away he fell back on a chair, saying:
Chapter XXXIX.
How, sometimes, the Unhappy mistake Chance for Providence.
“Well, madame,” said De Winter, when the queen had dismissed her attendants.
“Well, my lord, what I foresaw has come to pass.”
“What? does the cardinal refuse to receive the king? France refuse hospitality to an unfortunate prince? Ay, but it is for the first time, madame!”
“I did not say France, my lord; I said the cardinal, and the cardinal is not even a Frenchman.”
“But did you see the queen?”
“It is useless,” replied Henrietta, “the queen will not say yes when the cardinal says no. Are you not aware that this Italian directs everything, both indoors and out? And moreover, I should not be surprised had we been forestalled by Cromwell. He was embarrassed whilst speaking to me and yet quite firm in his determination to refuse. Then did you not observe the agitation in the Palais Royal, the passing to and fro of busy people? Can they have received any news, my lord?”
“Not from England, madame. I made such haste that I am certain of not having been forestalled. I set out three days ago, passing miraculously through the Puritan army, and I took post horses with my servant Tony; the horses upon which we were mounted were bought in Paris. Besides, the king, I am certain, awaits your majesty’s reply before risking anything.”
“You will tell him, my lord,” resumed the queen, despairingly, “that I can do nothing; that I have suffered as much as himself—more than he has—obliged as I am to eat the bread of exile and to ask hospitality from false friends who smile at my tears; and as regards his royal person, he must sacrifice it generously and die like a king. I shall go and die by his side.”
“Madame, madame,” exclaimed De Winter, “your majesty abandons yourself to despair; and yet, perhaps, there still remains some hope.”
“No friends left, my lord; no other friends left in the wide world but yourself! Oh, God!” exclaimed the poor queen, raising her eyes to Heaven, “have You indeed taken back all the generous hearts that once existed in the world?”
“I hope not, madame,” replied De Winter, thoughtfully; “I once spoke to you of four men.”
“What can be done with four?”
“Four devoted, resolute men can do much, assure yourself, madame; and those of whom I speak performed great things at one time.”
“And where are these four men?”
“Ah, that is what I do not know. It is twenty years since I saw them, and yet whenever I have seen the king in danger I have thought of them.”
“And these men were your friends?”
“One of them held my life in his hands and gave it to me. I know not whether he is still my friend, but since that time I have remained his.”
“And these men are in France, my lord?”
“I believe so.”
“Tell me their names; perhaps I may have heard them mentioned and might be able to aid you in finding them.”
“One of them was called the Chevalier d’Artagnan.”
“Ah, my lord, if I mistake not, the Chevalier d’Artagnan is lieutenant of royal guards; but take care, for I fear that this man is entirely devoted to the cardinal.”
“That would be a misfortune,” said De Winter, “and I shall begin to think that we are really doomed.”
“But the others,” said the queen, who clung to this last hope as a shipwrecked man clings to the hull of his vessel. “The others, my lord!”
“The second—I heard his name by chance; for before fighting us, these four gentlemen told us their names; the second was called the Comte de la Fère. As for the two others, I had so much the habit of calling them by nicknames that I have forgotten their real ones.”
“Oh, mon Dieu, it is a matter of the greatest urgency to find them out,” said the queen, “since you think these worthy gentlemen might be so useful to the king.”
“Oh, yes,” said De Winter, “for they are the same men. Listen, madame, and recall your remembrances. Have you never heard that Queen Anne of Austria was once saved from the greatest danger ever incurred by a queen?”
“Yes, at the time of her relations with Monsieur de Buckingham; it had to do in some way with certain studs and diamonds.”
“Well, it was that affair, madame; these men are the ones who saved her; and I smile with pity when I reflect that if the names of those gentlemen are unknown to you it is because the queen has forgotten them, who ought to have made them the first noblemen of the realm.”
“Well, then, my lord, they must be found; but what can four men, or rather three men do—for I tell you, you must not count on Monsieur d’Artagnan.”
“It will be one valiant sword the less, but there will remain still three, without reckoning my own; now four devoted men around the king to protect him from his enemies, to be at his side in battle, to aid him with counsel, to escort him in flight, are sufficient, not to make the king a conqueror, but to save him if conquered; and whatever Mazarin may say, once on the shores of France your royal husband may find as many retreats and asylums as the seabird finds in a storm.”
“Seek, then, my lord, seek these gentlemen; and if they will consent to go with you to England, I will give to each a duchy the day that we reascend the throne, besides as much gold as would pave Whitehall. Seek them, my lord, and find them, I conjure you.”
“I will search for them, madame,” said De Winter “and doubtless I shall find them; but time fails me. Has your majesty forgotten that the king expects your reply and awaits it in agony?”
“Then indeed we are lost!” cried the queen, in the fullness of a broken heart.
At this moment the door opened and the young Henrietta appeared; then the queen, with that wonderful strength which is the privilege of parents, repressed her tears and motioned to De Winter to change the subject.
But that act of self-control, effective as it was, did not escape the eyes of the young princess. She stopped on the threshold, breathed a sigh, and addressing the queen:
“Why, then, do you always weep, mother, when I am away from you?” she said.
The queen smiled, but instead of answering:
“See, De Winter,” she said, “I have at least gained one thing in being only half a queen; and that is that my children call me ‘mother’ instead of ‘madame.’”
Then turning toward her daughter:
“What do you want, Henrietta?” she demanded.
“My mother,” replied the young princess, “a cavalier has just entered the Louvre and wishes to present his respects to your majesty; he arrives from the army and has, he says, a letter to remit to you, on the part of the Maréchal de Grammont, I think.”
“Ah!” said the queen to De Winter, “he is one of my faithful adherents; but do you not observe, my dear lord, that we are so poorly served that it is left to my daughter to fill the office of doorkeeper?”
“Madame, have pity on me,” exclaimed De Winter; “you wring my heart!”
“And who is this cavalier, Henrietta?” asked the queen.
“I saw him from the window, madame; he is a young man that appears scarce sixteen years of age, and is called the Viscount de Bragelonne.”
The queen, smiling, made a sign with her head; the young princess opened the door and Raoul appeared on the threshold.
Advancing a few steps toward the queen, he knelt down.
“Madame,” said he, “I bear to your majesty a letter from my friend the Count de Guiche, who told me he had the honor of being your servant; this letter contains important news and the expression of his respect.”
At the name of the Count de Guiche a blush spread over the cheeks of the young princess and the queen glanced at her with some degree of severity.
“You told me that the letter was from the Maréchal de Grammont, Henrietta!” said the queen.
“I thought so, madame,” stammered the young girl.
“It is my fault, madame,” said Raoul. “I did announce myself, in truth, as coming on the part of the Maréchal de Grammont; but being wounded in the right arm he was unable to write and therefore the Count de Guiche acted as his secretary.”
“There has been fighting, then?” asked the queen, motioning to Raoul to rise.
“Yes, madame,” said the young man.
At this announcement of a battle having taken place, the princess opened her mouth as though to ask a question of interest; but her lips closed again without articulating a word, while the color gradually faded from her cheeks.
The queen saw this, and doubtless her maternal heart translated the emotion, for addressing Raoul again:
“And no evil has happened to the young Count de Guiche?” she asked; “for not only is he our servant, as you say, sir, but more—he is one of our friends.”
“No, madame,” replied Raoul; “on the contrary, he gained great glory and had the honor of being embraced by his highness, the prince, on the field of battle.”
The young princess clapped her hands; and then, ashamed of having been betrayed into such a demonstration of joy, she half turned away and bent over a vase of roses, as if to inhale their odor.
“Let us see,” said the queen, “what the count says.” And she opened the letter and read:
“Madame,—Being unable to have the honor of writing to you myself, by reason of a wound I have received in my right hand, I have commanded my son, the Count de Guiche, who, with his father, is equally your humble servant, to write to tell you that we have just gained the battle of Lens, and that this victory cannot fail to give great power to Cardinal Mazarin and to the queen over the affairs of Europe. If her majesty will have faith in my counsels she ought to profit by this event to address at this moment, in favor of her august husband, the court of France. The Vicomte de Bragelonne, who will have the honor of remitting this letter to your majesty, is the friend of my son, who owes to him his life; he is a gentleman in whom your majesty may confide entirely, in case your majesty may have some verbal or written order to remit to me.
“I have the honor to be, with respect, etc.,
“Maréchal de Grammont.”
At the moment mention occurred of his having rendered a service to the count, Raoul could not help turning his glance toward the young princess, and then he saw in her eyes an expression of infinite gratitude to the young man; he no longer doubted that the daughter of King Charles I. loved his friend.
“The battle of Lens gained!” said the queen; “they are lucky here indeed; they can gain battles! Yes, the Maréchal de Grammont is right; this will change the aspect of French affairs, but I much fear it will do nothing for English, even if it does not harm them. This is recent news, sir,” continued she, “and I thank you for having made such haste to bring it to me; without this letter I should not have heard till to-morrow, perhaps after to-morrow—the last of all Paris.”
“Madame,” said Raoul, “the Louvre is but the second palace this news has reached; it is as yet unknown to all, and I had sworn to the Count de Guiche to remit this letter to your majesty before even I should embrace my guardian.”
“Your guardian! is he, too, a Bragelonne?” asked Lord de Winter. “I once knew a Bragelonne—is he still alive?”
“No, sir, he is dead; and I believe it is from him my guardian, whose near relation he was, inherited the estate from which I take my name.”
“And your guardian, sir,” asked the queen, who could not help feeling some interest in the handsome young man before her, “what is his name?”
“The Comte de la Fère, madame,” replied the young man, bowing.
De Winter made a gesture of surprise and the queen turned to him with a start of joy.
“The Comte de la Fère!” she cried. “Have you not mentioned that name to me?”
As for De Winter he could scarcely believe that he had heard aright. “The Comte de la Fère!” he cried in his turn. “Oh, sir, reply, I entreat you—is not the Comte de la Fère a noble whom I remember, handsome and brave, a musketeer under Louis XIII., who must be now about forty-seven or forty-eight years of age?”
“Yes, sir, you are right in every particular!”
“And who served under an assumed name?”
“Under the name of Athos. Latterly I heard his friend, Monsieur d’Artagnan, give him that name.”
“That is it, madame, that is the same. God be praised! And he is in Paris?” continued he, addressing Raoul; then turning to the queen: “We may still hope. Providence has declared for us, since I have found this brave man again in so miraculous a manner. And, sir, where does he reside, pray?”
“The Comte de la Fère lodges in the Rue Guénégaud, Hotel du Grand Roi Charlemagne.”
“Thanks, sir. Inform this dear friend that he may remain within, that I shall go and see him immediately.”
“Sir, I obey with pleasure, if her majesty will permit me to depart.”
“Go, Monsieur de Bragelonne,” said the queen, “and rest assured of our affection.”
Raoul bent respectfully before the two princesses, and bowing to De Winter, departed.
The queen and De Winter continued to converse for some time in low voices, in order that the young princess should not overhear them; but the precaution was needless: she was in deep converse with her own thoughts.
Then, when De Winter rose to take leave:
“Listen, my lord,” said the queen; “I have preserved this diamond cross which came from my mother, and this order of St. Michael which came from my husband. They are worth about fifty thousand pounds. I had sworn to die of hunger rather than part with these precious pledges; but now that this ornament may be useful to him or his defenders, everything must be sacrificed. Take them, and if you need money for your expedition, sell them fearlessly, my lord. But should you find the means of retaining them, remember, my lord, that I shall esteem you as having rendered the greatest service that a gentleman can render to a queen; and in the day of my prosperity he who brings me this order and this cross shall be blessed by me and my children.”
“Madame,” replied De Winter, “your majesty will be served by a man devoted to you. I hasten to deposit these two objects in a safe place, nor should I accept them if the resources of our ancient fortune were left to us, but our estates are confiscated, our ready money is exhausted, and we are reduced to turn to service everything we possess. In an hour hence I shall be with the Comte de la Fère, and to-morrow your majesty shall have a definite reply.”
The queen tendered her hand to Lord de Winter, who, kissing it respectfully, went out and traversed alone and unconducted those large, dark and deserted apartments, brushing away tears which, blasé as he was by fifty years spent as a courtier, he could not withhold at the spectacle of royal distress so dignified, yet so intense.
The cardinal rose, and advanced in haste to receive the queen of England. He showed the more respect to this queen, deprived of every mark of pomp and stripped of followers, as he felt some self-reproach for his own want of heart and his avarice. But supplicants for favor know how to accommodate the expression of their features, and the daughter of Henry IV. smiled as she advanced to meet a man she hated and despised.
“Ah!” said Mazarin to himself, “what a sweet face; does she come to borrow money of me?”
And he threw an uneasy glance at his strong box; he even turned inside the bevel of the magnificent diamond ring, the brilliancy of which drew every eye upon his hand, which indeed was white and handsome.
“Your eminence,” said the august visitor, “it was my first intention to speak of the matters that have brought me here to the queen, my sister, but I have reflected that political affairs are more especially the concern of men.”
“Madame,” said Mazarin, “your majesty overwhelms me with flattering distinction.”
“He is very gracious,” thought the queen; “can he have guessed my errand?”
“Give,” continued the cardinal, “your commands to the most respectful of your servants.”
“Alas, sir,” replied the queen, “I have lost the habit of commanding and have adopted instead that of making petitions. I am here to petition you, too happy should my prayer be favorably heard.”
“I am listening, madame, with the greatest interest,” said Mazarin.
“Your eminence, it concerns the war which the king, my husband, is now sustaining against his rebellious subjects. You are perhaps ignorant that they are fighting in England,” added she, with a melancholy smile, “and that in a short time they will fight in a much more decided fashion than they have done hitherto.”
“I am completely ignorant of it, madame,” said the cardinal, accompanying his words with a slight shrug of the shoulders; “alas, our own wars quite absorb the time and the mind of a poor, incapable, infirm old minister like me.”
“Well, then, your eminence,” said the queen, “I must inform you that Charles I., my husband, is on the eve of a decisive engagement. In case of a check” (Mazarin made a slight movement), “one must foresee everything; in the case of a check, he desires to retire into France and to live here as a private individual. What do you say to this project?”
The cardinal had listened without permitting a single fibre of his face to betray what he felt, and his smile remained as it ever was—false and flattering; and when the queen finished speaking, he said:
“Do you think, madame, that France, agitated and disturbed as it is, would be a safe retreat for a dethroned king? How will the crown, which is scarce firmly set on the head of Louis XIV., support a double weight?”
“The weight was not so heavy when I was in peril,” interrupted the queen, with a sad smile, “and I ask no more for my husband than has been done for me; you see that we are very humble monarchs, sir.”
“Oh, you, madame,” the cardinal hastened to say, in order to cut short the explanation he foresaw was coming, “with regard to you, that is another thing. A daughter of Henry IV., of that great, that sublime sovereign——”
“All which does not prevent you refusing hospitality to his son-in-law, sir! Nevertheless, you ought to remember that that great, that sublime monarch, when proscribed at one time, as my husband may be, demanded aid from England and England accorded it to him; and it is but just to say that Queen Elizabeth was not his niece.”
“Peccato!” said Mazarin, writhing beneath this simple eloquence, “your majesty does not understand me; you judge my intentions wrongly, and that is partly because, doubtless, I explain myself in French.”
“Speak Italian, sir. Ere the cardinal, your predecessor, sent our mother, Marie de Médicis, to die in exile, she taught us that language. If anything yet remains of that great, that sublime king, Henry, of whom you have just spoken, he would be much surprised at so little pity for his family being united to such a profound admiration of himself.”
The perspiration stood in large drops on Mazarin’s brow.
“That admiration is, on the contrary, so great, so real, madame,” returned Mazarin, without noticing the change of language offered to him by the queen, “that if the king, Charles I.—whom Heaven protect from evil!—came into France, I would offer him my house—my own house; but, alas! it would be but an unsafe retreat. Some day the people will burn that house, as they burned that of the Maréchal d’Ancre. Poor Concino Concini! And yet he but desired the good of the people.”
“Yes, my lord, like yourself!” said the queen, ironically.
Mazarin pretended not to understand the double meaning of his own sentence, but continued to compassionate the fate of Concino Concini.
“Well then, your eminence,” said the queen, becoming impatient, “what is your answer?”
“Madame,” cried Mazarin, more and more moved, “will your majesty permit me to give you counsel?”
“Speak, sir,” replied the queen; “the counsels of so prudent a man as yourself ought certainly to be available.”
“Madame, believe me, the king ought to defend himself to the last.”
“He has done so, sir, and this last battle, which he encounters with resources much inferior to those of the enemy, proves that he will not yield without a struggle; but in case he is beaten?”
“Well, madame, in that case, my advice—I know that I am very bold to offer advice to your majesty—my advice is that the king should not leave his kingdom. Absent kings are very soon forgotten; if he passes over into France his cause is lost.”
“But,” persisted the queen, “if such be your advice and you have his interest at heart, send him help of men and money, for I can do nothing for him; I have sold even to my last diamond to aid him. If I had had a single ornament left, I should have bought wood this winter to make a fire for my daughter and myself.”
“Oh, madame,” said Mazarin, “your majesty knows not what you ask. On the day when foreign succor follows in the train of a king to replace him on his throne, it is an avowal that he no longer possesses the help and love of his own subjects.”
“To the point, sir,” said the queen, “to the point, and answer me, yes or no; if the king persists in remaining in England will you send him succor? If he comes to France will you accord him hospitality? What do you intend to do? Speak.”
“Madame,” said the cardinal, affecting an effusive frankness of speech, “I shall convince your majesty, I trust, of my devotion to you and my desire to terminate an affair which you have so much at heart. After which your majesty will, I think, no longer doubt my zeal in your behalf.”
The queen bit her lips and moved impatiently on her chair.
“Well, what do you propose to do?” she, said at length; “come, speak.”
“I will go this instant and consult the queen, and we will refer the affair at once to parliament.”
“With which you are at war—is it not so? You will charge Broussel to report it. Enough, sir, enough. I understand you or rather, I am wrong. Go to the parliament, for it was from this parliament, the enemy of monarchs, that the daughter of the great, the sublime Henry IV., whom you so much admire, received the only relief this winter which prevented her from dying of hunger and cold!”
And with these words Henrietta rose in majestic indignation, whilst the cardinal, raising his hands clasped toward her, exclaimed, “Ah, madame, madame, how little you know me, mon Dieu!”
But Queen Henrietta, without even turning toward him who made these hypocritical pretensions, crossed the cabinet, opened the door for herself and passing through the midst of the cardinal’s numerous guards, courtiers eager to pay homage, the luxurious show of a competing royalty, she went and took the hand of De Winter, who stood apart in isolation. Poor queen, already fallen! Though all bowed before her, as etiquette required, she had now but a single arm on which she could lean.
“It signifies little,” said Mazarin, when he was alone. “It gave me pain and it was an ungracious part to play, but I have said nothing either to the one or to the other. Bernouin!”
Bernouin entered.
“See if the young man with the black doublet and the short hair, who was with me just now, is still in the palace.”
Bernouin went out and soon returned with Comminges, who was on guard.
“Your eminence,” said Comminges, “as I was re-conducting the young man for whom you have asked, he approached the glass door of the gallery, and gazed intently upon some object, doubtless the picture by Raphael, which is opposite the door. He reflected for a second and then descended the stairs. I believe I saw him mount a gray horse and leave the palace court. But is not your eminence going to the queen?”
“For what purpose?”
“Monsieur de Guitant, my uncle, has just told me that her majesty had received news of the army.”
“It is well; I will go.”
Comminges had seen rightly, and Mordaunt had really acted as he had related. In crossing the gallery parallel to the large glass gallery, he perceived De Winter, who was waiting until the queen had finished her negotiation.
At this sight the young man stopped short, not in admiration of Raphael’s picture, but as if fascinated at the sight of some terrible object. His eyes dilated and a shudder ran through his body. One would have said that he longed to break through the wall of glass which separated him from his enemy; for if Comminges had seen with what an expression of hatred the eyes of this young man were fixed upon De Winter, he would not have doubted for an instant that the Englishman was his eternal foe.
But he stopped, doubtless to reflect; for instead of allowing his first impulse, which had been to go straight to Lord de Winter, to carry him away, he leisurely descended the staircase, left the palace with his head down, mounted his horse, which he reined in at the corner of the Rue Richelieu, and with his eyes fixed on the gate, waited until the queen’s carriage had left the court.
He had not long to wait, for the queen scarcely remained a quarter of an hour with Mazarin, but this quarter of an hour of expectation appeared a century to him. At last the heavy machine, which was called a chariot in those days, came out, rumbling against the gates, and De Winter, still on horseback, bent again to the door to converse with her majesty.
The horses started on a trot and took the road to the Louvre, which they entered. Before leaving the convent of the Carmelites, Henrietta had desired her daughter to attend her at the palace, which she had inhabited for a long time and which she had only left because their poverty seemed to them more difficult to bear in gilded chambers.
Mordaunt followed the carriage, and when he had watched it drive beneath the sombre arches he went and stationed himself under a wall over which the shadow was extended, and remained motionless, amidst the moldings of Jean Goujon, like a bas-relievo, representing an equestrian statue.
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At the very moment when the queen quitted the convent to go to the Palais Royal, a young man dismounted at the gate of this royal abode and announced to the guards that he had something of importance to communicate to Cardinal Mazarin. Although the cardinal was often tormented by fear, he was more often in need of counsel and information, and he was therefore sufficiently accessible. The true difficulty of being admitted was not to be found at the first door, and even the second was passed easily enough; but at the third watched, besides the guard and the doorkeepers, the faithful Bernouin, a Cerberus whom no speech could soften, no wand, even of gold, could charm.
It was therefore at the third door that those who solicited or were bidden to an audience underwent their formal interrogatory.
The young man having left his horse tied to the gate in the court, mounted the great staircase and addressed the guard in the first chamber.
“Cardinal Mazarin?” said he.
“Pass on,” replied the guard.
The cavalier entered the second hall, which was guarded by the musketeers and doorkeepers.
“Have you a letter of audience?” asked a porter, advancing to the new arrival.
“I have one, but not one from Cardinal Mazarin.”
“Enter, and ask for Monsieur Bernouin,” said the porter, opening the door of the third room. Whether he only held his usual post or whether it was by accident, Monsieur Bernouin was found standing behind the door and must have heard all that had passed.
“You seek me, sir,” said he. “From whom may the letter be you bear to his eminence?”
“From General Oliver Cromwell,” said the new comer. “Be so good as to mention this name to his eminence and to bring me word whether he will receive me—yes or no.”
Saying which, he resumed the proud and sombre bearing peculiar at that time to Puritans. Bernouin cast an inquisitorial glance at the person of the young man and entered the cabinet of the cardinal, to whom he transmitted the messenger’s words.
“A man bringing a letter from Oliver Cromwell?” said Mazarin. “And what kind of a man?”
“A genuine Englishman, your eminence. Hair sandy-red—more red than sandy; gray-blue eyes—more gray than blue; and for the rest, stiff and proud.”
“Let him give in his letter.”
“His eminence asks for the letter,” said Bernouin, passing back into the ante-chamber.
“His eminence cannot see the letter without the bearer of it,” replied the young man; “but to convince you that I am really the bearer of a letter, see, here it is; and kindly add,” continued he, “that I am not a simple messenger, but an envoy extraordinary.”
Bernouin re-entered the cabinet, returning in a few seconds. “Enter, sir,” said he.
The young man appeared on the threshold of the minister’s closet, in one hand holding his hat, in the other the letter. Mazarin rose. “Have you, sir,” asked he, “a letter accrediting you to me?”
“There it is, my lord,” said the young man.
Mazarin took the letter and read it thus:
“Mr. Mordaunt, one of my secretaries, will remit this letter of introduction to His Eminence, the Cardinal Mazarin, in Paris. He is also the bearer of a second confidential epistle for his eminence.
“Oliver Cromwell.”
“Very well, Monsieur Mordaunt,” said Mazarin, “give me this second letter and sit down.”
The young man drew from his pocket a second letter, presented it to the cardinal, and took his seat. The cardinal, however, did not unseal the letter at once, but continued to turn it again and again in his hand; then, in accordance with his usual custom and judging from experience that few people could hide anything from him when he began to question them, fixing his eyes upon them at the same time, he thus addressed the messenger:
“You are very young, Monsieur Mordaunt, for this difficult task of ambassador, in which the oldest diplomatists often fail.”
“My lord, I am twenty-three years of age; but your eminence is mistaken in saying that I am young. I am older than your eminence, although I possess not your wisdom. Years of suffering, in my opinion, count double, and I have suffered for twenty years.”
“Ah, yes, I understand,” said Mazarin; “want of fortune, perhaps. You are poor, are you not?” Then he added to himself: “These English Revolutionists are all beggars and ill-bred.”
“My lord, I ought to have a fortune of six millions, but it has been taken from me.”
“You are not, then, a man of the people?” said Mazarin, astonished.
“If I bore my proper title I should be a lord. If I bore my name you would have heard one of the most illustrious names of England.”
“What is your name, then?” asked Mazarin.
“My name is Mordaunt,” replied the young man, bowing.
Mazarin now understood that Cromwell’s envoy desired to retain his incognito. He was silent for an instant, and during that time he scanned the young man even more attentively than he had done at first. The messenger was unmoved.
“Devil take these Puritans,” said Mazarin aside; “they are carved from granite.” Then he added aloud, “But you have relations left you?”
“I have one remaining. Three times I presented myself to ask his support and three times he ordered his servants to turn me away.”
“Oh, mon Dieu! my dear Mr. Mordaunt,” said Mazarin, hoping by a display of affected pity to catch the young man in a snare, “how extremely your history interests me! You know not, then, anything of your birth—you have never seen your mother?”
“Yes, my lord; she came three times, whilst I was a child, to my nurse’s house; I remember the last time she came as well as if it were to-day.”
“You have a good memory,” said Mazarin.
“Oh! yes, my lord,” said the young man, with such peculiar emphasis that the cardinal felt a shudder run through every vein.
“And who brought you up?” he asked again.
“A French nurse, who sent me away when I was five years old because no one paid her for me, telling me the name of a relation of whom she had heard my mother often speak.”
“What became of you?”
“As I was weeping and begging on the high road, a minister from Kingston took me in, instructed me in the Calvinistic faith, taught me all he knew himself and aided me in my researches after my family.”
“And these researches?”
“Were fruitless; chance did everything.”
“You discovered what had become of your mother?”
“I learned that she had been assassinated by my relation, aided by four friends, but I was already aware that I had been robbed of my wealth and degraded from my nobility by King Charles I.”
“Oh! I now understand why you are in the service of Cromwell; you hate the king.”
“Yes, my lord, I hate him!” said the young man.
Mazarin marked with surprise the diabolical expression with which the young man uttered these words. Just as, ordinarily, faces are colored by blood, his face seemed dyed by hatred and became livid.
“Your history is a terrible one, Mr. Mordaunt, and touches me keenly; but happily for you, you serve an all-powerful master; he ought to aid you in your search; we have so many means of gaining information.”
“My lord, to a well-bred dog it is only necessary to show one end of a track; he is certain to reach the other.”
“But this relation you mentioned—do you wish me to speak to him?” said Mazarin, who was anxious to make a friend about Cromwell’s person.
“Thanks, my lord, I will speak to him myself. He will treat me better the next time I see him.”
“You have the means, then, of touching him?”
“I have the means of making myself feared.”
Mazarin looked at the young man, but at the fire which shot from his glance he bent his head; then, embarrassed how to continue such a conversation, he opened Cromwell’s letter.
The young man’s eyes gradually resumed their dull and glassy appearance and he fell into a profound reverie. After reading the first lines of the letter Mazarin gave a side glance at him to see if he was watching the expression of his face as he read. Observing his indifference, he shrugged his shoulders, saying:
“Send on your business those who do theirs at the same time! Let us see what this letter contains.”
We here present the letter verbatim:
“To his Eminence, Monseigneur le Cardinal Mazarini:
“I have wished, monseigneur, to learn your intentions relating to the existing state of affairs in England. The two kingdoms are so near that France must be interested in our situation, as we are interested in that of France. The English are almost of one mind in contending against the tyranny of Charles and his adherents. Placed by popular confidence at the head of that movement, I can appreciate better than any other its significance and its probable results. I am at present in the midst of war, and am about to deliver a decisive battle against King Charles. I shall gain it, for the hope of the nation and the Spirit of the Lord are with me. This battle won by me, the king will have no further resources in England or in Scotland; and if he is not captured or killed, he will endeavor to pass over into France to recruit soldiers and to refurnish himself with arms and money. France has already received Queen Henrietta, and, unintentionally, doubtless, has maintained a centre of inextinguishable civil war in my country. But Madame Henrietta is a daughter of France and was entitled to the hospitality of France. As to King Charles, the question must be viewed differently; in receiving and aiding him, France will censure the acts of the English nation, and thus so essentially harm England, and especially the well-being of the government, that such a proceeding will be equivalent to pronounced hostilities.”
At this moment Mazarin became very uneasy at the turn which the letter was taking and paused to glance under his eyes at the young man. The latter continued in thought. Mazarin resumed his reading:
“It is important, therefore, monseigneur, that I should be informed as to the intentions of France. The interests of that kingdom and those of England, though taking now diverse directions, are very nearly the same. England needs tranquillity at home, in order to consummate the expulsion of her king; France needs tranquillity to establish on solid foundations the throne of her young monarch. You need, as much as we do, that interior condition of repose which, thanks to the energy of our government, we are about to attain.
“Your quarrels with the parliament, your noisy dissensions with the princes, who fight for you to-day and to-morrow will fight against you, the popular following directed by the coadjutor, President Blancmesnil, and Councillor Broussel—all that disorder, in short, which pervades the several departments of the state, must lead you to view with uneasiness the possibility of a foreign war; for in that event England, exalted by the enthusiasm of new ideas, will ally herself with Spain, already seeking that alliance. I have therefore believed, monseigneur, knowing your prudence and your personal relation to the events of the present time, that you will choose to hold your forces concentrated in the interior of the French kingdom and leave to her own the new government of England. That neutrality consists simply in excluding King Charles from the territory of France and in refraining from helping him—a stranger to your country—with arms, with money or with troops.
“My letter is private and confidential, and for that reason I send it to you by a man who shares my most intimate counsels. It anticipates, through a sentiment which your eminence will appreciate, measures to be taken after the events. Oliver Cromwell considered it more expedient to declare himself to a mind as intelligent as Mazarin’s than to a queen admirable for firmness, without doubt, but too much guided by vain prejudices of birth and of divine right.
“Farewell, monseigneur; should I not receive a reply in the space of fifteen days, I shall presume my letter will have miscarried.
“Oliver Cromwell.”
“Mr. Mordaunt,” said the cardinal, raising his voice, as if to arouse the dreamer, “my reply to this letter will be more satisfactory to General Cromwell if I am convinced that all are ignorant of my having given one; go, therefore, and await it at Boulogne-sur-Mer, and promise me to set out to-morrow morning.”
“I promise, my lord,” replied Mordaunt; “but how many days does your eminence expect me to await your reply?”
“If you do not receive it in ten days you can leave.”
Mordaunt bowed.
“That is not all, sir,” continued Mazarin; “your private adventures have touched me to the quick; besides, the letter from Mr. Cromwell makes you an important person as ambassador; come, tell me, what can I do for you?”
Mordaunt reflected a moment and, after some hesitation, was about to speak, when Bernouin entered hastily and bending down to the ear of the cardinal, whispered:
“My lord, the Queen Henrietta Maria, accompanied by an English noble, is entering the Palais Royal at this moment.”
Mazarin made a bound from his chair, which did not escape the attention of the young man and suppressed the confidence he was about to make.
“Sir,” said the cardinal, “you have heard me? I fix on Boulogne because I presume that every town in France is indifferent to you; if you prefer another, name it; but you can easily conceive that, surrounded as I am by influences I can only muzzle by discretion, I desire your presence in Paris to be unknown.”
“I go, sir,” said Mordaunt, advancing a few steps to the door by which he had entered.
“No, not that way, I beg, sir,” quickly exclaimed the cardinal, “be so good as to pass by yonder gallery, by which you can regain the hall. I do not wish you to be seen leaving; our interview must be kept secret.”
Mordaunt followed Bernouin, who led him through the adjacent chamber and left him with a doorkeeper, showing him the way out.
The reader must now cross the Seine with us and follow us to the door of the Carmelite Convent in the Rue Saint Jacques. It is eleven o’clock in the morning and the pious sisters have just finished saying mass for the success of the armies of King Charles I. Leaving the church, a woman and a young girl dressed in black, the one as a widow and the other as an orphan, have re-entered their cell.
The woman kneels on a prie-dieu of painted wood and at a short distance from her stands the young girl, leaning against a chair, weeping.
The woman must have once been handsome, but traces of sorrow have aged her. The young girl is lovely and her tears only embellish her; the lady appears to be about forty years of age, the girl about fourteen.
“Oh, God!” prayed the kneeling suppliant, “protect my husband, guard my son, and take my wretched life instead!”
“Oh, God!” murmured the girl, “leave me my mother!”
“Your mother can be of no use to you in this world, Henrietta,” said the lady, turning around. “Your mother has no longer either throne or husband; she has neither son, money nor friends; the whole world, my poor child, has abandoned your mother!” And she fell back, weeping, into her daughter’s arms.
“Courage, take courage, my dear mother!” said the girl.
“Ah! ’tis an unfortunate year for kings,” said the mother. “And no one thinks of us in this country, for each must think about his own affairs. As long as your brother was with me he kept me up; but he is gone and can no longer send us news of himself, either to me or to your father. I have pledged my last jewels, sold your clothes and my own to pay his servants, who refused to accompany him unless I made this sacrifice. We are now reduced to live at the expense of these daughters of Heaven; we are the poor, succored by God.”
“But why not address yourself to your sister, the queen?” asked the girl.
“Alas! the queen, my sister, is no longer queen, my child. Another reigns in her name. One day you will be able to understand how all this is.”
“Well, then, to the king, your nephew. Shall I speak to him? You know how much he loves me, my mother.
“Alas! my nephew is not yet king, and you know Laporte has told us twenty times that he himself is in need of almost everything.”
“Then let us pray to Heaven,” said the girl.
The two women who thus knelt in united prayer were the daughter and grand-daughter of Henry IV., the wife and daughter of Charles I.[1]
They had just finished their double prayer, when a nun softly tapped at the door of the cell.
“Enter, my sister,” said the queen.
“I trust your majesty will pardon this intrusion on her meditations, but a foreign lord has arrived from England and waits in the parlor, demanding the honor of presenting a letter to your majesty.”
“Oh, a letter! a letter from the king, perhaps. News from your father, do you hear, Henrietta? And the name of this lord?”
“Lord de Winter.”
“Lord de Winter!” exclaimed the queen, “the friend of my husband. Oh, bid him enter!”
And the queen advanced to meet the messenger, whose hand she seized affectionately, whilst he knelt down and presented a letter to her, contained in a case of gold.
“Ah! my lord!” said the queen, “you bring us three things which we have not seen for a long time. Gold, a devoted friend, and a letter from the king, our husband and master.”
De Winter bowed again, unable to reply from excess of emotion.
On their side the mother and daughter retired into the embrasure of a window to read eagerly the following letter:
“Dear Wife,—We have now reached the moment of decision. I have concentrated here at Naseby camp[2] all the resources Heaven has left me, and I write to you in haste from thence. Here I await the army of my rebellious subjects. I am about to struggle for the last time with them. If victorious, I shall continue the struggle; if beaten, I am lost. I shall try, in the latter case (alas! in our position, one must provide for everything), I shall try to gain the coast of France. But can they, will they receive an unhappy king, who will bring such a sad story into a country already agitated by civil discord? Your wisdom and your affection must serve me as guides. The bearer of this letter will tell you, madame, what I dare not trust to pen and paper and the risks of transit. He will explain to you the steps that I expect you to pursue. I charge him also with my blessing for my children and with the sentiments of my soul for yourself, my dearest sweetheart.”
The letter bore the signature, not of “Charles, King,” but of “Charles—still king.”
“And let him be no longer king,” cried the queen. “Let him be conquered, exiled, proscribed, provided he still lives. Alas! in these days the throne is too dangerous a place for me to wish him to retain it. But my lord, tell me,” she continued, “hide nothing from me—what is, in truth, the king’s position? Is it as hopeless as he thinks?”
“Alas! madame, more hopeless than he thinks. His majesty has so good a heart that he cannot understand hatred; is so loyal that he does not suspect treason! England is torn in twain by a spirit of disturbance which, I greatly fear, blood alone can exorcise.”
“But Lord Montrose,”[3] replied the queen, “I have heard of his great and rapid successes of battles gained. I heard it said that he was marching to the frontier to join the king.”
“Yes, madame; but on the frontier he was met by Lesly; he had tried victory by means of superhuman undertakings. Now victory has abandoned him. Montrose, beaten at Philiphaugh, was obliged to disperse the remains of his army and to fly, disguised as a servant. He is at Bergen, in Norway.”
“Heaven preserve him!” said the queen. “It is at least a consolation to know that some who have so often risked their lives for us are safe. And now, my lord, that I see how hopeless the position of the king is, tell me with what you are charged on the part of my royal husband.”
“Well, then, madame,” said De Winter, “the king wishes you to try and discover the dispositions of the king and queen toward him.”
“Alas! you know that even now the king is but a child and the queen a woman weak enough. Here, Monsieur Mazarin is everything.”
“Does he desire to play the part in France that Cromwell plays in England?”
“Oh, no! He is a subtle, conscienceless Italian, who though he very likely dreams of crime, dares not commit it; and unlike Cromwell, who disposes of both Houses, Mazarin has had the queen to support him in his struggle with the parliament.”
“More reason, then, he should protect a king pursued by parliament.”
The queen shook her head despairingly.
“If I judge for myself, my lord,” she said, “the cardinal will do nothing, and will even, perhaps, act against us. The presence of my daughter and myself in France is already irksome to him; much more so would be that of the king. My lord,” added Henrietta, with a melancholy smile, “it is sad and almost shameful to be obliged to say that we have passed the winter in the Louvre without money, without linen, almost without bread, and often not rising from bed because we wanted fire.”
“Horrible!” cried De Winter; “the daughter of Henry IV., and the wife of King Charles! Wherefore did you not apply, then, madame, to the first person you saw from us?”
“Such is the hospitality shown to a queen by the minister from whom a king demands it.”
“But I heard that a marriage between the Prince of Wales and Mademoiselle d’Orléans was spoken of,” said De Winter.
“Yes, for an instant I hoped it was so. The young people felt a mutual esteem; but the queen, who at first sanctioned their affection, changed her mind, and Monsieur, the Duc d’Orléans, who had encouraged the familiarity between them, has forbidden his daughter to think any more about the union. Oh, my lord!” continued the queen, without restraining her tears, “it is better to fight as the king has done, and to die, as perhaps he will, than live in beggary like me.”
“Courage, madame! courage! Do not despair! The interests of the French crown, endangered at this moment, are to discountenance rebellion in a neighboring nation. Mazarin, as a statesman, will understand the politic necessity.”
“Are you sure,” said the queen doubtfully, “that you have not been forestalled?”
“By whom?”
“By the Joices, the Prinns, the Cromwells?”[4]
“By a tailor, a coachmaker, a brewer! Ah! I hope, madame, that the cardinal will not enter into negotiations with such men!”
“Ah! what is he himself?” asked Madame Henrietta.
“But for the honor of the king—of the queen.”
“Well, let us hope he will do something for the sake of their honor,” said the queen. “A true friend’s eloquence is so powerful, my lord, that you have reassured me. Give me your hand and let us go to the minister; and yet,” she added, “suppose he should refuse and that the king loses the battle?”
“His majesty will then take refuge in Holland, where I hear his highness the Prince of Wales now is.”
“And can his majesty count upon many such subjects as yourself for his flight?”
“Alas! no, madame,” answered De Winter; “but the case is provided for and I am come to France to seek allies.”
“Allies!” said the queen, shaking her head.
“Madame,” replied De Winter, “provided I can find some of my good old friends of former times I will answer for anything.”
“Come then, my lord,” said the queen, with the painful doubt that is felt by those who have suffered much; “come, and may Heaven hear you.”
_________
NOTES
Henrietta Maria of France (French: Henriette Marie; 25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669) was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland from her marriage to King Charles I on 13 June 1625 until his execution on 30 January 1649. She was the mother of Charles II and James II and VII. Under a decree of her husband, she was known in England as Queen Mary, but she did not like this name and signed her letters "Henriette" or "Henriette Marie".
Henrietta of England (Henrietta Anne Stuart; 16 June 1644 O.S. [26 June 1644 N.S.] – 30 June 1670) was the youngest child of King Charles I of England and Henrietta Maria of France. She was Duchess of Orléans through her marriage to Philippe I, Duke of Orléans.
Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.
The Battle of Naseby took place on 14 June 1645 during the First English Civil War, near the village of Naseby in Northamptonshire. The Parliamentarian New Model Army, commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell, destroyed the main Royalist army under Charles I and Prince Rupert. The defeat ended any real hope of Royalist victory, although Charles did not finally surrender until May 1646.
James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose (1612 – 21 May 1650) was a Scottish nobleman, poet, soldier and later viceroy and captain general of Scotland. Montrose initially joined the Covenanters in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, but subsequently supported King Charles I as the English Civil War developed. From 1644 to 1646, and again in 1650, he fought in the civil war in Scotland on behalf of the King. He is referred to as the Great Montrose.
Lieutenant-Colonel George Joyce (born 1618) was an officer and Agitator in the Parliamentary New Model Army during the English Civil War.
William Prynne (1600 – 24 October 1669), an English lawyer, voluble author, polemicist and political figure, was a prominent Puritan opponent of church policy under William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury (1633–1645). His views were Presbyterian, but he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for overall state control of religious matters.
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 – 3 September 1658) was an English statesman, farmer and soldier, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in British history. He came to prominence during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, initially as a senior commander in the Parliamentarian army and later as a politician. A leading advocate of the execution of Charles I in January 1649, which led to the establishment of the Commonwealth of England, Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector from December 1653 until his death.
The second interview between the former musketeers was not so formal and threatening as the first. Athos, with his superior understanding, wisely deemed that the supper table would be the most complete and satisfactory point of reunion, and at the moment when his friends, in deference to his deportment and sobriety, dared scarcely speak of some of their former good dinners, he was the first to propose that they should all assemble around some well spread table and abandon themselves unreservedly to their own natural character and manners—a freedom which had formerly contributed so much to that good understanding between them which gave them the name of the inseparables. For different reasons this was an agreeable proposition to them all, and it was therefore agreed that each should leave a very exact address and that upon the request of any of the associates a meeting should be convoked at a famous eating house in the Rue de la Monnaie, of the sign of the Hermitage. The first rendezvous was fixed for the following Wednesday, at eight o’clock in the evening precisely.
On that day, in fact, the four friends arrived punctually at the hour, each from his own abode or occupation. Porthos had been trying a new horse; D’Artagnan was on guard at the Louvre; Aramis had been to visit one of his penitents in the neighborhood; and Athos, whose domicile was established in the Rue Guénégaud, found himself close at hand. They were, therefore, somewhat surprised to meet altogether at the door of the Hermitage, Athos starting out from the Pont Neuf, Porthos by the Rue de la Roule, D’Artagnan by the Rue des Fosse Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, and Aramis by the Rue de Bethisy.
The first words exchanged between the four friends, on account of the ceremony which each of them mingled with their demonstration, were somewhat forced and even the repast began with a kind of stiffness. Athos perceived this embarrassment, and by way of supplying an effectual remedy, called for four bottles of champagne.
At this order, given in Athos’s habitually calm manner, the face of the Gascon relaxed and Porthos’s brow grew smooth. Aramis was astonished. He knew that Athos not only never drank, but more, that he had a kind of repugnance to wine. This astonishment was doubled when Aramis saw Athos fill a bumper and toss it off with all his former enthusiasm. His companions followed his example. In a very few minutes the four bottles were empty and this excellent specific succeeded in dissipating even the slightest cloud that might have rested on their spirits. Now the four friends began to speak loud, scarcely waiting till one had finished before another began, and each assumed his favorite attitude on or at the table. Soon—strange fact—Aramis undid two buttons of his doublet, seeing which, Porthos unfastened his entirely.
Battles, long journeys, blows given and received, sufficed for the first themes of conversation, which turned upon the silent struggles sustained against him who was now called the great cardinal.
“Faith,” said Aramis, laughing, “we have praised the dead enough, let us revile the living a little; I should like to say something evil of Mazarin; is it permissible?”
“Go on, go on,” replied D’Artagnan, laughing heartily; “relate your story and I will applaud it if it is a good one.”
“A great prince,” said Aramis, “with whom Mazarin sought an alliance, was invited by him to send him a list of the conditions on which he would do him the honor to negotiate with him. The prince, who had a great repugnance to treat with such an ill-bred fellow, made out a list, against the grain, and sent it. In this list there were three conditions which displeased Mazarin and he offered the prince ten thousand crowns to renounce them.”
“Ah, ha, ha!” laughed the three friends, “not a bad bargain; and there was no fear of being taken at his word; what did the prince do then?”
“The prince immediately sent fifty thousand francs to Mazarin, begging him never to write to him again, and offered twenty thousand francs more, on condition that he would never speak to him. What did Mazarin do?”
“Stormed!” suggested Athos.
“Beat the messenger!” cried Porthos.
“Accepted the money!” said D’Artagnan.
“You have guessed it,” answered Aramis; and they all laughed so heartily that the host appeared in order to inquire whether the gentlemen wanted anything; he thought they were fighting.
At last their hilarity calmed down and:
“Faith!” exclaimed D’Artagnan to the two friends, “you may well wish ill to Mazarin; for I assure you, on his side he wishes you no good.”
“Pooh! really?” asked Athos. “If I thought the fellow knew me by my name I would be rebaptized, for fear it might be thought I knew him.”
“He knows you better by your actions than your name; he is quite aware that there are two gentlemen who greatly aided the escape of Monsieur de Beaufort, and he has instigated an active search for them, I can answer for it.”
“By whom?”
“By me; and this morning he sent for me to ask me if I had obtained any information.”
“And what did you reply?”
“That I had none as yet; but that I was to dine to-day with two gentlemen, who would be able to give me some.”
“You told him that?” said Porthos, a broad smile spreading over his honest face. “Bravo! and you are not afraid of that, Athos?”
“No,” replied Athos, “it is not the search of Mazarin that I fear.”
“Now,” said Aramis, “tell me a little what you do fear.”
“Nothing for the present; at least, nothing in good earnest.”
“And with regard to the past?” asked Porthos.
“Oh! the past is another thing,” said Athos, sighing; “the past and the future.”
“Are you afraid for your young Raoul?” asked Aramis.
“Well,” said D’Artagnan, “one is never killed in a first engagement.”
“Nor in the second,” said Aramis
“Nor in the third,” returned Porthos; “and even when one is killed, one rises again, the proof of which is, that here we are!”
“No,” said Athos, “it is not Raoul about whom I am anxious, for I trust he will conduct himself like a gentleman; and if he is killed—well, he will die bravely; but hold—should such a misfortune happen—well—” Athos passed his hand across his pale brow.
“Well?” asked Aramis.
“Well, I shall look upon it as an expiation.”
“Ah!” said D’Artagnan; “I know what you mean.”
“And I, too,” added Aramis; “but you must not think of that, Athos; what is past, is past.”
“I don’t understand,” said Porthos.
“The affair at Armentières,” whispered D’Artagnan.
“The affair at Armentières?” asked he again.
“Milady.”
“Oh, yes!” said Porthos; “true, I had forgotten it!”
Athos looked at him intently.
“You have forgotten it, Porthos?” said he.
“Faith! yes, it is so long ago,” answered Porthos.
“This affair does not, then, weigh upon your conscience?”
“Faith, no.”
“And you, D’Artagnan?”
“I—I own that when my mind returns to that terrible period I have no recollection of anything but the rigid corpse of poor Madame Bonancieux. Yes, yes,” murmured he, “I have often felt regret for the victim, but never the very slightest remorse for the assassin.”
Athos shook his dead doubtfully.
“Consider,” said Aramis, “if you admit divine justice and its participation in the things of this world, that woman was punished by the will of heaven. We were but the instruments, that is all.”
“But as to free will, Aramis?”
“How acts the judge? He has a free will, yet he fearlessly condemns. What does the executioner? He is master of his arm, yet he strikes without remorse.”
“The executioner!” muttered Athos, as if arrested by some recollection.
“I know that it is terrible,” said D’Artagnan; “but when I reflect that we have killed English, Rochellais, Spaniards, nay, even French, who never did us any other harm but to aim at and to miss us, whose only fault was to cross swords with us and to be unable to ward off our blows—I can, on my honor, find an excuse for my share in the murder of that woman.”
“As for me,” said Porthos, “now that you have reminded me of it, Athos, I have the scene again before me, as if I now were there. Milady was there, as it were, where you sit.” (Athos changed color.) “I—I was where D’Artagnan stands. I wore a long sword which cut like a Damascus—you remember it, Aramis for you always called it Balizarde. Well, I swear to you, all three, that had the executioner of Bethune—was he not of Bethune?—yes, egad! of Bethune!—not been there, I would have cut off the head of that infamous being without thinking of it, or even after thinking of it. She was a most atrocious woman.”
“And then,” said Aramis, with the tone of philosophical indifference which he had assumed since he had belonged to the church and in which there was more atheism than confidence in God, “what is the use of thinking of it all? At the last hour we must confess this action and God knows better than we can whether it is a crime, a fault, or a meritorious deed. I repent of it? Egad! no. Upon my honor and by the holy cross; I only regret it because she was a woman.”
“The most satisfactory part of the matter,” said D’Artagnan, “is that there remains no trace of it.”
“She had a son,” observed Athos.
“Oh! yes, I know that,” said D’Artagnan, “and you mentioned it to me; but who knows what has become of him? If the serpent be dead, why not its brood? Do you think his uncle De Winter would have brought up that young viper? De Winter probably condemned the son as he had done the mother.”
“Then,” said Athos, “woe to De Winter, for the child had done no harm.”
“May the devil take me, if the child be not dead,” said Porthos. “There is so much fog in that detestable country, at least so D’Artagnan declares.”
Just as the quaint conclusion reached by Porthos was about to bring back hilarity to faces now more or less clouded, hasty footsteps were heard upon the stair and some one knocked at the door.
“Come in,” cried Athos.
“Please your honors,” said the host, “a person in a great hurry wishes to speak to one of you.”
“To which of us?” asked all the four friends.
“To him who is called the Comte de la Fère.”
“It is I,” said Athos, “and what is the name of the person?”
“Grimaud.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Athos, turning pale. “Back already! What can have happened, then, to Bragelonne?”
“Let him enter,” cried D’Artagnan; “let him come up.”
But Grimaud had already mounted the staircase and was waiting on the last step; so springing into the room he motioned the host to leave it. The door being closed, the four friends waited in expectation. Grimaud’s agitation, his pallor, the sweat which covered his face, the dust which soiled his clothes, all indicated that he was the messenger of some important and terrible news.
“Your honors,” said he, “that woman had a child; that child has become a man; the tigress had a little one, the tiger has roused himself; he is ready to spring upon you—beware!”
Athos glanced around at his friends with a melancholy smile. Porthos turned to look at his sword, which was hanging on the wall; Aramis seized his knife; D’Artagnan arose.
“What do you mean, Grimaud?” he exclaimed.
“That Milady’s son has left England, that he is in France, on his road to Paris, if he be not here already.”
“The devil he is!” said Porthos. “Are you sure of it?”
“Certain,” replied Grimaud.
This announcement was received in silence. Grimaud was so breathless, so exhausted, that he had fallen back upon a chair. Athos filled a beaker with champagne and gave it to him.
“Well, after all,” said D’Artagnan, “supposing that he lives, that he comes to Paris; we have seen many other such. Let him come.”
“Yes,” echoed Porthos, glancing affectionately at his sword, still hanging on the wall; “we can wait for him; let him come.”
“Moreover, he is but a child,” said Aramis.
Grimaud rose.
“A child!” he exclaimed. “Do you know what he has done, this child? Disguised as a monk he discovered the whole history in confession from the executioner of Bethune, and having confessed him, after having learned everything from him, he gave him absolution by planting this dagger into his heart. See, it is on fire yet with his hot blood, for it is not thirty hours since it was drawn from the wound.”
And Grimaud threw the dagger on the table.
D’Artagnan, Porthos and Aramis rose and in one spontaneous motion rushed to their swords. Athos alone remained seated, calm and thoughtful.
“And you say he is dressed as a monk, Grimaud?”
“Yes, as an Augustine monk.”
“What sized man is he?”
“About my height; thin, pale, with light blue eyes and tawny flaxen hair.”
“And he did not see Raoul?” asked Athos.
“Yes, on the contrary, they met, and it was the viscount himself who conducted him to the bed of the dying man.”
Athos, in his turn, rising without speaking, went and unhooked his sword.
“Heigh, sir,” said D’Artagnan, trying to laugh, “do you know we look very much like a flock of silly, mouse-evading women! How is it that we, four men who have faced armies without blinking, begin to tremble at the mention of a child?”
“It is true,” said Athos, “but this child comes in the name of Heaven.”
Raoul was aroused from his sombre reflections by his host, who rushed into the apartment crying out, “The Spaniards! the Spaniards!”
That cry was of such importance as to overcome all preoccupation. The young men made inquiries and ascertained that the enemy was advancing by way of Houdin and Bethune.
While Monsieur d’Arminges gave orders for the horses to be made ready for departure, the two young men ascended to the upper windows of the house and saw in the direction of Marsin and of Lens a large body of infantry and cavalry. This time it was not a wandering troop of partisans; it was an entire army. There was therefore nothing for them to do but to follow the prudent advice of Monsieur d’Arminges and beat a retreat. They quickly went downstairs. Monsieur d’Arminges was already mounted. Olivain had ready the horses of the young men, and the lackeys of the Count de Guiche guarded carefully between them the Spanish prisoner, mounted on a pony which had been bought for his use. As a further precaution they had bound his hands.
The little company started off at a trot on the road to Cambrin, where they expected to find the prince. But he was no longer there, having withdrawn on the previous evening to La Bassee, misled by false intelligence of the enemy’s movements. Deceived by this intelligence he had concentrated his forces between Vieille-Chapelle and La Venthie; and after a reconnoissance along the entire line, in company with Marshal de Grammont, he had returned and seated himself before a table, with his officers around him. He questioned them as to the news they had each been charged to obtain, but nothing positive had been learned. The hostile army had disappeared two days before and seemed to have gone out of existence.
Now an enemy is never so near and consequently so threatening, as when he has completely disappeared. The prince was, therefore, contrary to his custom, gloomy and anxious, when an officer entered and announced to Marshal de Grammont that some one wished to see him.
The Duc de Grammont received permission from the prince by a glance and went out. The prince followed him with his eyes and continued looking at the door; no one ventured to speak, for fear of disturbing him.
Suddenly a dull and heavy noise was heard. The prince leaped to his feet, extending his hand in the direction whence came the sound, there was no mistaking it—it was the noise of cannon. Every one stood up.
At that moment the door opened.
“Monseigneur,” said Marshal de Grammont, with a radiant face, “will your highness permit my son, Count de Guiche, and his traveling companion, Viscount de Bragelonne, to come in and give news of the enemy, whom they have found while we were looking for him?”
“What!” eagerly replied the prince, “will I permit? I not only permit, I desire; let them come in.”
The marshal introduced the two young men and placed them face to face with the prince.
“Speak, gentlemen,” said the prince, saluting them; “first speak; we shall have time afterward for the usual compliments. The most urgent thing now is to learn where the enemy is and what he is doing.”
It fell naturally to the Count de Guiche to make reply; not only was he the elder, but he had been presented to the prince by his father. Besides, he had long known the prince, whilst Raoul now saw him for the first time. He therefore narrated to the prince what they had seen from the inn at Mazingarbe.
Meanwhile Raoul closely observed the young general, already made so famous by the battles of Rocroy, Fribourg, and Nordlingen.
Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, who, since the death of his father, Henri de Bourbon, was called, in accordance with the custom of that period, Monsieur le Prince, was a young man, not more than twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, with the eye of an eagle—agl’ occhi grifani, as Dante says—aquiline nose, long, waving hair, of medium height, well formed, possessed of all the qualities essential to the successful soldier—that is to say, the rapid glance, quick decision, fabulous courage. At the same time he was a man of elegant manners and strong mind, so that in addition to the revolution he had made in war, by his new contributions to its methods, he had also made a revolution at Paris, among the young noblemen of the court, whose natural chief he was and who, in distinction from the social leaders of the ancient court, modeled after Bassompierre, Bellegarde and the Duke d’Angouleme, were called the petits-maîtres.
At the first words of the Count de Guiche, the prince, having in mind the direction whence came the sound of cannon, had understood everything. The enemy was marching upon Lens, with the intention, doubtless, of securing possession of that town and separating from France the army of France. But in what force was the enemy? Was it a corps sent out to make a diversion? Was it an entire army? To this question De Guiche could not respond.
Now, as these questions involved matters of gravest consequence, it was these to which the prince had especially desired an answer, exact, precise, positive.
Raoul conquered the very natural feeling of timidity he experienced and approaching the prince:
“My lord,” he said, “will you permit me to hazard a few words on that subject, which will perhaps relieve you of your uncertainty?”
The prince turned and seemed to cover the young man with a single glance; he smiled on perceiving that he was a child hardly fifteen years old.
“Certainly, monsieur, speak,” he said, softening his stern, accented tones, as if he were speaking to a woman.
“My lord,” said Raoul, blushing, “might examine the Spanish prisoner.”
“Have you a Spanish prisoner?” cried the prince.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Ah, that is true,” said De Guiche; “I had forgotten it.”
“That is easily understood; it was you who took him, count,” said Raoul, smiling.
The old marshal turned toward the viscount, grateful for that praise of his son, whilst the prince exclaimed:
“The young man is right; let the prisoner be brought in.”
Meanwhile the prince took De Guiche aside and asked him how the prisoner had been taken and who this young man was.
“Monsieur,” said the prince, turning toward Raoul, “I know that you have a letter from my sister, Madame de Longueville; but I see that you have preferred commending yourself to me by giving me good counsel.”
“My lord,” said Raoul, coloring up, “I did not wish to interrupt your highness in a conversation so important as that in which you were engaged with the count. But here is the letter.”
“Very well,” said the prince; “give it to me later. Here is the prisoner; let us attend to what is most pressing.”
The prisoner was one of those military adventurers who sold their blood to whoever would buy, and grew old in stratagems and spoils. Since he had been taken he had not uttered a word, so that it was not known to what country he belonged. The prince looked at him with unspeakable distrust.
“Of what country are you?” asked the prince.
The prisoner muttered a few words in a foreign tongue.
“Ah! ah! it seems that he is a Spaniard. Do you speak Spanish, Grammont?”
“Faith, my lord, but indifferently.”
“And I not at all,” said the prince, laughing. “Gentlemen,” he said, turning to those who were near him “can any one of you speak Spanish and serve me as interpreter?”
“I can, my lord,” said Raoul.
“Ah, you speak Spanish?”
“Enough, I think, to fulfill your highness’s wishes on this occasion.”
Meanwhile the prisoner had remained impassive and as if he had no understanding of what was taking place.
“My lord asks of what country you are,” said the young man, in the purest Castilian.
“Ich bin ein Deutscher,” replied the prisoner.
“What in the devil does he say?” asked the prince. “What new gibberish is that?”
“He says he is German, my lord,” replied Raoul; “but I doubt it, for his accent is bad and his pronunciation defective.”
“Then you speak German, also?” asked the prince.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Well enough to question him in that language?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Question him, then.”
Raoul began the examination, but the result justified his opinion. The prisoner did not understand, or seemed not to understand, what Raoul said to him; and Raoul could hardly understand his replies, containing a mixture of Flemish and Alsatian. However, amidst all the prisoner’s efforts to elude a systematic examination, Raoul had recognized his natural accent.
“Non siete Spagnuolo,” he said; “non siete Tedesco; siete Italiano.”
The prisoner started and bit his lips.
“Ah, that,” said the prince, “I understand that language thoroughly; and since he is Italian I will myself continue the examination. Thank you, viscount,” continued the prince, laughing, “and I appoint you from this moment my interpreter.”
But the prisoner was not less unwilling to respond in Italian than in the other languages; his aim was to elude the examination. Therefore, he knew nothing either of the enemy’s numbers, or of those in command, or of the purpose of the army.
“Very good,” said the prince, understanding the reason of that ignorance; “the man was caught in the act of assassination and robbery; he might have purchased his life by speaking; he doesn’t wish to speak. Take him out and shoot him.”
The prisoner turned pale. The two soldiers who had brought him in took him, each by one arm, and led him toward the door, whilst the prince, turning to Marshal de Grammont, seemed to have already forgotten the order he had given.
When he reached the threshold of the door the prisoner stopped. The soldiers, who knew only their orders, attempted to force him along.
“One moment,” said the prisoner, in French. “I am ready to speak, my lord.”
“Ah! ah!” said the prince, laughing, “I thought we should come to that. I have a sure method of limbering tongues. Young men, take advantage of it against the time when you may be in command.”
“But on condition,” continued the prisoner, “that your highness will swear that my life shall be safe.”
“Upon my honor,” said the prince.
“Question, then, my lord.”
“Where did the army cross the Lys?”
“Between Saint-Venant and Aire.”
“By whom is it commanded?”
“By Count de Fuonsaldagna, General Beck and the archduke.”
“Of how many does it consist?”
“Eighteen thousand men and thirty-six cannon.”
“And its aim is?”
“Lens.”
“You see; gentlemen!” said the prince, turning with a triumphant air toward Marshal de Grammont and the other officers.
“Yes, my lord,” said the marshal, “you have divined all that was possible to human genius.”
“Recall Le Plessis, Bellièvre, Villequier and D’Erlac,” said the prince, “recall all the troops that are on this side of the Lys. Let them hold themselves in readiness to march to-night. To-morrow, according to all probability, we shall attack the enemy.”
“But, my lord,” said Marshal de Grammont, “consider that when we have collected all our forces we shall have hardly thirteen thousand men.”
“Monsieur le maréchal,” said the prince, with that wonderful glance that was peculiar to him, “it is with small armies that great battles are won.”
Then turning toward the prisoner, “Take away that man,” he said, “and keep him carefully in sight. His life is dependent on the information he has given us; if it is true, he shall be free; if false, let him be shot.”
The prisoner was led away.
“Count de Guiche,” said the prince, “it is a long time since you saw your father, remain here with him. Monsieur,” he continued, addressing Raoul, “if you are not too tired, follow me.”
“To the end of the world, my lord!” cried Raoul, feeling an unknown enthusiasm for that young general, who seemed to him so worthy of his renown.
The prince smiled; he despised flatterers, but he appreciated enthusiasts.
“Come, monsieur,” he said, “you are good in council, as we have already discovered; to-morrow we shall know if you are good in action.”
“And I,” said the marshal, “what am I to do?”
“Wait here to receive the troops. I shall either return for them myself or shall send a courier directing you to bring them to me. Twenty guards, well mounted, are all that I shall need for my escort.”
“That is very few,” said the marshal.
“It is enough,” replied the prince. “Have you a good horse, Monsieur de Bragelonne?”
“My horse was killed this morning, my lord, and I am mounted provisionally on my lackey’s.”
“Choose for yourself in my stables the horse you like best. No false modesty; take the best horse you can find. You will need it this evening, perhaps; you will certainly need it to-morrow.”
Raoul didn’t wait to be told twice; he knew that with superiors, especially when those superiors are princes, the highest politeness is to obey without delay or argument; he went down to the stables, picked out a pie-bald Andalusian horse, saddled and bridled it himself, for Athos had advised him to trust no one with those important offices at a time of danger, and went to rejoin the prince, who at that moment mounted his horse.
“Now, monsieur,” he said to Raoul, “will you give me the letter you have brought?”
Raoul handed the letter to the prince.
“Keep near me,” said the latter.
The prince threw his bridle over the pommel of the saddle, as he was wont to do when he wished to have both hands free, unsealed the letter of Madame de Longueville and started at a gallop on the road to Lens, attended by Raoul and his small escort, whilst messengers sent to recall the troops set out with a loose rein in other directions. The prince read as he hastened on.
“Monsieur,” he said, after a moment, “they tell me great things of you. I have only to say, after the little that I have seen and heard, that I think even better of you than I have been told.”
Raoul bowed.
Meanwhile, as the little troop drew nearer to Lens, the noise of the cannon sounded louder. The prince kept his gaze fixed in the direction of the sound with the steadfastness of a bird of prey. One would have said that his gaze could pierce the branches of trees which limited his horizon. From time to time his nostrils dilated as if eager for the smell of powder, and he panted like a horse.
At length they heard the cannon so near that it was evident they were within a league of the field of battle, and at a turn of the road they perceived the little village of Aunay.
The peasants were in great commotion. The report of Spanish cruelty had gone out and every one was frightened. The women had already fled, taking refuge in Vitry; only a few men remained. On seeing the prince they hastened to meet him. One of them recognized him.
“Ah, my lord,” he said, “have you come to drive away those rascal Spaniards and those Lorraine robbers?”
“Yes,” said the prince, “if you will serve me as guide.”
“Willingly, my lord. Where does your highness wish to go?”
“To some elevated spot whence I can look down on Lens and the surrounding country——”
“In that case, I’m your man.”
“I can trust you—you are a true Frenchman?”
“I am an old soldier of Rocroy, my lord.”
“Here,” said the prince, handing him a purse, “here is for Rocroy. Now, do you want a horse, or will you go afoot?”
“Afoot, my lord; I have served always in the infantry. Besides, I expect to lead your highness into places where you will have to walk.”
“Come, then,” said the prince; “let us lose no time.”
The peasant started off, running before the prince’s horse; then, a hundred steps from the village, he took a narrow road hidden at the bottom of the valley. For a half league they proceeded thus, the cannon-shot sounding so near that they expected at each discharge to hear the hum of the balls. At length they entered a path which, going out from the road, skirted the mountainside. The prince dismounted, ordered one of his aids and Raoul to follow his example, and directed the others to await his orders, keeping themselves meanwhile on the alert. He then began to ascend the path.
In about ten minutes they reached the ruins of an old château; those ruins crowned the summit of a hill which overlooked the surrounding country. At a distance of hardly a quarter of a league they looked down on Lens, at bay, and before Lens the enemy’s entire army.
With a single glance the prince took in the extent of country that lay before him, from Lens as far as Vimy. In a moment the plan of the battle which on the following day was to save France the second time from invasion was unrolled in his mind. He took a pencil, tore a page from his tablets and wrote:
“My Dear Marshal,—In an hour Lens will be in the enemy’s possession. Come and rejoin me; bring with you the whole army. I shall be at Vendin to place it in position. To-morrow we shall retake Lens and beat the enemy.”
Then, turning toward Raoul: “Go, monsieur,” he said; “ride fast and give this letter to Monsieur de Grammont.”
Raoul bowed, took the letter, went hastily down the mountain, leaped on his horse and set out at a gallop. A quarter of an hour later he was with the marshal.
A portion of the troops had already arrived and the remainder was expected from moment to moment. Marshal de Grammont put himself at the head of all the available cavalry and infantry and took the road to Vendin, leaving the Duc de Châtillon to await and bring on the rest. All the artillery was ready to move, and started off at a moment’s notice.
It was seven o’clock in the evening when the marshal arrived at the appointed place. The prince awaited him there. As he had foreseen, Lens had fallen into the hands of the enemy immediately after Raoul’s departure. The event was announced by the cessation of the firing.
As the shadows of night deepened the troops summoned by the prince arrived in successive detachments. Orders were given that no drum should be beaten, no trumpet sounded.
At nine o’clock the night had fully come. Still a last ray of twilight lighted the plain. The army marched silently, the prince at the head of the column. Presently the army came in sight of Lens; two or three houses were in flames and a dull noise was heard which indicated what suffering was endured by a town taken by assault.
The prince assigned to every one his post. Marshal de Grammont was to hold the extreme left, resting on Mericourt. The Duc de Châtillon commanded the centre. Finally, the prince led the right wing, resting on Aunay. The order of battle on the morrow was to be that of the positions taken in the evening. Each one, on awaking, would find himself on the field of battle.
The movement was executed in silence and with precision. At ten o’clock every one was in his appointed position; at half-past ten the prince visited the posts and gave his final orders for the following day.
Three things were especially urged upon the officers, who were to see that the soldiers observed them scrupulously: the first, that the different corps should so march that cavalry and infantry should be on the same line and that each body should protect its gaps; the second, to go to the charge no faster than a walk; the third, to let the enemy fire first.
The prince assigned the Count de Guiche to his father and kept Bragelonne near his own person; but the two young men sought the privilege of passing the night together and it was accorded them. A tent was erected for them near that of the marshal.
Although the day had been fatiguing, neither of them was inclined to sleep. And besides, even for old soldiers the evening before a battle is a serious time; it was so with greater reason to two young men who were about to witness for the first time that terrible spectacle. On the evening before a battle one thinks of a thousand things forgotten till then; those who are indifferent to one another become friends and those who are friends become brothers. It need not be said that if in the depths of the heart there is a sentiment more tender, it reaches then, quite naturally, the highest exaltation of which it is capable. Some sentiment of this kind must have been cherished by each one of these two friends, for each of them almost immediately sat down by himself at an end of the tent and began to write.
The letters were long—the four pages were covered with closely written words. The writers sometimes looked up at each other and smiled; they understood without speaking, their organizations were so delicate and sympathetic. The letters being finished, each put his own into two envelopes, so that no one, without tearing the first envelope, could discover to whom the second was addressed; then they drew near to each other and smilingly exchanged their letters.
“In case any evil should happen to me,” said Bragelonne.
“In case I should be killed,” said De Guiche.
They then embraced each other like two brothers, and each wrapping himself in his cloak they soon passed into that kindly sleep of youth which is the prerogative of birds, flowers and infants.
Grimaud was left alone with the executioner, who in a few moments opened his eyes.
“Help, help,” he murmured; “oh, God! have I not a single friend in the world who will aid me either to live or to die?”
“Take courage,” said Grimaud; “they are gone to find assistance.”
“Who are you?” asked the wounded man, fixing his half opened eyes on Grimaud.
“An old acquaintance,” replied Grimaud.
“You?” and the wounded man sought to recall the features of the person now before him.
“Under what circumstances did we meet?” he asked again.
“One night, twenty years ago, my master fetched you from Bethune and conducted you to Armentières.”
“I know you well now,” said the executioner; “you were one of the four grooms.”
“Just so.”
“Where do you come from now?”
“I was passing by and drew up at this inn to rest my horse. They told me the executioner of Bethune was here and wounded, when you uttered two piercing cries. At the first we ran to the door and at the second forced it open.”
“And the monk?” exclaimed the executioner, “did you see the monk?”
“What monk?”
“The monk that was shut in with me.”
“No, he was no longer here; he appears to have fled by the window. Was he the man that stabbed you?”
“Yes,” said the executioner.
Grimaud moved as if to leave the room.
“What are you going to do?” asked the wounded man.
“He must be apprehended.”
“Do not attempt it; he has revenged himself and has done well. Now I may hope that God will forgive me, since my crime is expiated.”
“Explain yourself.” said Grimaud.
“The woman whom you and your masters commanded me to kill——”
“Milady?”
“Yes, Milady; it is true you called her thus.”
“What has the monk to do with this Milady?”
“She was his mother.”
Grimaud trembled and stared at the dying man in a dull and leaden manner.
“His mother!” he repeated.
“Yes, his mother.”
“But does he know this secret, then?”
“I mistook him for a monk and revealed it to him in confession.”
“Unhappy man!” cried Grimaud, whose face was covered with sweat at the bare idea of the evil results such a revelation might cause; “unhappy man, you named no one, I hope?”
“I pronounced no name, for I knew none, except his mother’s, as a young girl, and it was by this name that he recognized her, but he knows that his uncle was among her judges.”
Thus speaking, he fell back exhausted. Grimaud, wishing to relieve him, advanced his hand toward the hilt of the dagger.
“Touch me not!” said the executioner; “if this dagger is withdrawn I shall die.”
Grimaud remained with his hand extended; then, striking his forehead, he exclaimed:
“Oh! if this man should ever discover the names of the others, my master is lost.”
“Haste! haste to him and warn him,” cried the wounded man, “if he still lives; warn his friends, too. My death, believe me, will not be the end of this atrocious misadventure.”
“Where was the monk going?” asked Grimaud.
“Toward Paris.”
“Who stopped him?”
“Two young gentlemen, who were on their way to join the army and the name of one of whom I heard his companion mention—the Viscount de Bragelonne.”
“And it was this young man who brought the monk to you? Then it was the will of God that it should be so and this it is which makes it all so awful,” continued Grimaud. “And yet that woman deserved her fate; do you not think so?”
“On one’s death-bed the crimes of others appear very small in comparison with one’s own,” said the executioner; and falling back exhausted he closed his eyes.
Grimaud was reluctant to leave the man alone and yet he perceived the necessity of starting at once to bear these tidings to the Comte de la Fère. Whilst he thus hesitated the host re-entered the room, followed not only by a surgeon, but by many other persons, whom curiosity had attracted to the spot. The surgeon approached the dying man, who seemed to have fainted.
“We must first extract the steel from the side,” said he, shaking his head in a significant manner.
The prophecy which the wounded man had just uttered recurred to Grimaud, who turned away his head. The weapon, as we have already stated, was plunged into the body to the hilt, and as the surgeon, taking it by the end, drew it forth, the wounded man opened his eyes and fixed them on him in a manner truly frightful. When at last the blade had been entirely withdrawn, a red froth issued from the mouth of the wounded man and a stream of blood spouted afresh from the wound when he at length drew breath; then, fixing his eyes upon Grimaud with a singular expression, the dying man uttered the last death-rattle and expired.
Then Grimaud, lifting the dagger from the pool of blood which was gliding along the room, to the horror of all present, made a sign to the host to follow him, paid him with a generosity worthy of his master and again mounted his horse. Grimaud’s first intention had been to return to Paris, but he remembered the anxiety which his prolonged absence might occasion Raoul, and reflecting that there were now only two miles between the vicomte and himself and a quarter of an hour’s riding would unite them, and that the going, returning and explanation would not occupy an hour, he put spurs to his horse and a few minutes after had reached the only inn of Mazingarbe.
Raoul was seated at table with the Count de Guiche and his tutor, when all at once the door opened and Grimaud presented himself, travel-stained, dirty, and sprinkled with the blood of the unhappy executioner.
“Grimaud, my good Grimaud!” exclaimed Raoul “here you are at last! Excuse me, sirs, this is not a servant, but a friend. How did you leave the count?” continued he. “Does he regret me a little? Have you seen him since I left him? Answer, for I have many things to tell you, too; indeed, the last three days some odd adventures have happened—but what is the matter? how pale you are! and blood, too! What is this?”
“It is the blood of the unfortunate man whom you left at the inn and who died in my arms.”
“In your arms?—that man! but know you who he was?”
“He used to be the headsman of Bethune.”
“You knew him? and he is dead?”
“Yes.”
“Well, sir,” said D’Arminges, “it is the common lot; even an executioner is not exempted. I had a bad opinion of him the moment I saw his wound, and since he asked for a monk you know that it was his opinion, too, that death would follow.”
At the mention of the monk, Grimaud became pale.
“Come, come,” continued D’Arminges, “to dinner;” for like most men of his age and generation he did not allow sentiment or sensibility to interfere with a repast.
“You are right, sir,” said Raoul. “Come, Grimaud, order dinner for yourself and when you have rested a little we can talk.”
“No, sir, no,” said Grimaud. “I cannot stop a moment; I must start for Paris again immediately.”
“What? You start for Paris? You are mistaken; it is Olivain who leaves me; you are to remain.”
“On the contrary, Olivain is to stay and I am to go. I have come for nothing else but to tell you so.”
“But what is the meaning of this change?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Explain yourself.”
“I cannot explain myself.”
“Come, tell me, what is the joke?”
“Monsieur le vicomte knows that I never joke.”
“Yes, but I know also that Monsieur le Comte de la Fère arranged that you were to remain with me and that Olivain should return to Paris. I shall follow the count’s directions.”
“Not under present circumstances, monsieur.”
“Perhaps you mean to disobey me?”
“Yes, monsieur, I must.”
“You persist, then?”
“Yes, I am going; may you be happy, monsieur,” and Grimaud saluted and turned toward the door to go out.
Raoul, angry and at the same time uneasy, ran after him and seized him by the arm. “Grimaud!” he cried; “remain; I wish it.”
“Then,” replied Grimaud, “you wish me to allow monsieur le comte to be killed.” He saluted and made a movement to depart.
“Grimaud, my friend,” said the viscount, “will you leave me thus, in such anxiety? Speak, speak, in Heaven’s name!” And Raoul fell back trembling upon his chair.
“I can tell you but one thing, sir, for the secret you wish to know is not my own. You met a monk, did you not?”
“Yes.”
The young men looked at each other with an expression of fear.
“You conducted him to the wounded man and you had time to observe him, and perhaps you would know him again were you to meet him.”
“Yes, yes!” cried both young men.
“Very well; if ever you meet him again, wherever it may be, whether on the high road or in the street or in a church, anywhere that he or you may be, put your foot on his neck and crush him without pity, without mercy, as you would crush a viper or a scorpion! destroy him utterly and quit him not until he is dead; the lives of five men are not safe, in my opinion, as long as he is on the earth.”
And without adding another word, Grimaud, profiting by the astonishment and terror into which he had thrown his auditors, rushed from the room. Two minutes later the thunder of a horse’s hoofs was heard upon the road; it was Grimaud, on his way to Paris. When once in the saddle Grimaud reflected on two things; first, that at the pace he was going his horse would not carry him ten miles, and secondly, that he had no money. But Grimaud’s ingenuity was more prolific than his speech, and therefore at the first halt he sold his steed and with the money obtained from the purchase took post horses.
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This is what had taken place: We have seen that it was not of his own free will, but, on the contrary, very reluctantly, that the monk attended the wounded man who had been recommended to him in so strange a manner. Perhaps he would have sought to escape by flight had he seen any possibility of doing so. He was restrained by the threats of the two gentlemen and by the presence of their attendants, who doubtless had received their instructions. And besides, he considered it most expedient, without exhibiting too much ill-will, to follow to the end his rôle as confessor.
The monk entered the chamber and approached the bed of the wounded man. The executioner searched his face with the quick glance peculiar to those who are about to die and have no time to lose. He made a movement of surprise and said:
“Father, you are very young.”
“Men who bear my robe have no age,” replied the monk, dryly.
“Alas, speak to me more gently, father; in my last moments I need a friend.”
“Do you suffer much?” asked the monk.
“Yes, but in my soul much more than in my body.”
“We will save your soul,” said the young man; “but are you really the executioner of Bethune, as these people say?”
“That is to say,” eagerly replied the wounded man, who doubtless feared that the name of executioner would take from him the last help that he could claim—“that is to say, I was, but am no longer; it is fifteen years since I gave up the office. I still assist at executions, but no longer strike the blow myself—no, indeed.”
“You have, then, a repugnance to your profession?”
“So long as I struck in the name of the law and of justice my profession allowed me to sleep quietly, sheltered as I was by justice and law; but since that terrible night when I became an instrument of private vengeance and when with personal hatred I raised the sword over one of God’s creatures—since that day——”
The executioner paused and shook his head with an expression of despair.
“Tell me about it,” said the monk, who, sitting on the foot of the bed, began to be interested in a story so strangely introduced.
“Ah!” cried the dying man, with all the effusiveness of a grief declared after long suppression, “ah! I have sought to stifle remorse by twenty years of good deeds; I have assuaged the natural ferocity of those who shed blood; on every occasion I have exposed my life to save those who were in danger, and I have preserved lives in exchange for that I took away. That is not all; the money gained in the exercise of my profession I have distributed to the poor; I have been assiduous in attending church and those who formerly fled from me have become accustomed to seeing me. All have forgiven me, some have even loved me; but I think that God has not pardoned me, for the memory of that execution pursues me constantly and every night I see that woman’s ghost rising before me.”
“A woman! You have assassinated a woman, then?” cried the monk.
“You also!” exclaimed the executioner, “you use that word which sounds ever in my ears—‘assassinated!’ I have assassinated, then, and not executed! I am an assassin, then, and not an officer of justice!” and he closed his eyes with a groan.
The monk doubtless feared that he would die without saying more, for he exclaimed eagerly:
“Go on, I know nothing, as yet; when you have finished your story, God and I will judge.”
“Oh, father,” continued the executioner, without opening his eyes, as if he feared on opening them to see some frightful object, “it is especially when night comes on and when I have to cross a river, that this terror which I have been unable to conquer comes upon me; it then seems as if my hand grew heavy, as if the cutlass was still in its grasp, as if the water had the color of blood, and all the voices of nature—the whispering of the trees, the murmur of the wind, the lapping of the wave—united in a voice tearful, despairing, terrible, crying to me, ‘Place for the justice of God!’”
“Delirium!” murmured the monk, shaking his head.
The executioner opened his eyes, turned toward the young man and grasped his arm.
“‘Delirium,’” he repeated; “‘delirium,’ do you say? Oh, no! I remember too well. It was evening; I had thrown the body into the river and those words which my remorse repeats to me are those which I in my pride pronounced. After being the instrument of human justice I aspired to be that of the justice of God.”
“But let me see, how was it done? Speak,” said the monk.
“It was at night. A man came to me and showed me an order and I followed him. Four other noblemen awaited me. They led me away masked. I reserved the right of refusing if the office they required of me should seem unjust. We traveled five or six leagues, serious, silent, and almost without speaking. At length, through the window of a little hut, they showed me a woman sitting, leaning on a table, and said, ‘there is the person to be executed.’”
“Horrible!” said the monk. “And you obeyed?”
“Father, that woman was a monster. It was said that she had poisoned her second husband; she had tried to assassinate her brother-in-law; she had just poisoned a young woman who was her rival, and before leaving England she had, it was believed, caused the favorite of the king to be murdered.”
“Buckingham?” cried the monk.
“Yes, Buckingham.”
“The woman was English, then?”
“No, she was French, but she had married in England.”
The monk turned pale, wiped his brow and went and bolted the door. The executioner thought that he had abandoned him and fell back, groaning, upon his bed.
“No, no; I am here,” said the monk, quickly coming back to him. “Go on; who were those men?”
“One of them was a foreigner, English, I think. The four others were French and wore the uniform of musketeers.”
“Their names?” asked the monk.
“I don’t know them, but the four other noblemen called the Englishman ‘my lord.’”
“Was the woman handsome?”
“Young and beautiful. Oh, yes, especially beautiful. I see her now, as on her knees at my feet, with her head thrown back, she begged for life. I have never understood how I could have laid low a head so beautiful, with a face so pale.”
The monk seemed agitated by a strange emotion; he trembled all over; he seemed eager to put a question which yet he dared not ask. At length, with a violent effort at self-control:
“The name of that woman?” he said.
“I don’t know what it was. As I have said, she was twice married, once in France, the second time in England.”
“She was young, you say?”
“Twenty-five years old.”
“Beautiful?”
“Ravishingly.”
“Blond?”
“Yes.”
“Abundance of hair—falling over her shoulders?”
“Yes.”
“Eyes of an admirable expression?”
“When she chose. Oh, yes, it is she!”
“A voice of strange sweetness?”
“How do you know it?”
The executioner raised himself on his elbow and gazed with a frightened air at the monk, who became livid.
“And you killed her?” the monk exclaimed. “You were the tool of those cowards who dared not kill her themselves? You had no pity for that youthfulness, that beauty, that weakness? you killed that woman?”
“Alas! I have already told you, father, that woman, under that angelic appearance, had an infernal soul, and when I saw her, when I recalled all the evil she had done to me——”
“To you? What could she have done to you? Come, tell me!”
“She had seduced and ruined my brother, a priest. She had fled with him from her convent.”
“With your brother?”
“Yes, my brother was her first lover, and she caused his death. Oh, father, do not look in that way at me! Oh, I am guilty, then; you will not pardon me?”
The monk recovered his usual expression.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “I will pardon you if you tell me all.”
“Oh!” cried the executioner, “all! all! all!”
“Answer, then. If she seduced your brother—you said she seduced him, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“If she caused his death—you said that she caused his death?”
“Yes,” repeated the executioner.
“Then you must know what her name was as a young girl.”
“Oh, mon Dieu!” cried the executioner, “I think I am dying. Absolution, father! absolution.”
“Tell me her name and I will give it.”
“Her name was——My God, have pity on me!” murmured the executioner; and he fell back on the bed, pale, trembling, and apparently about to die.
“Her name!” repeated the monk, bending over him as if to tear from him the name if he would not utter it; “her name! Speak, or no absolution!”
The dying man collected all his forces.
The monk’s eyes glittered.
“Anne de Bueil,” murmured the wounded man.
“Anne de Bueil!” cried the monk, standing up and lifting his hands to Heaven. “Anne de Bueil! You said Anne de Bueil, did you not?”
“Yes, yes, that was her name; and now absolve me, for I am dying.”
“I, absolve you!” cried the priest, with a laugh which made the dying man’s hair stand on end; “I, absolve you? I am not a priest.”
“You are not a priest!” cried the executioner. “What, then, are you?”
“I am about to tell you, wretched man.”
“Oh, mon Dieu!”
“I am John Francis de Winter.”
“I do not know you,” said the executioner.
“Wait, wait; you are going to know me. I am John Francis de Winter,” he repeated, “and that woman——”
“Well, that woman?”
“Was my mother!”
The executioner uttered the first cry, that terrible cry which had been first heard.
“Oh, pardon me, pardon me!” he murmured; “if not in the name of God, at least in your own name; if not as priest, then as son.”
“Pardon you!” cried the pretended monk, “pardon you! Perhaps God will pardon you, but I, never!”
“For pity’s sake,” said the executioner, extending his arms.
“No pity for him who had no pity! Die, impenitent, die in despair, die and be damned!” And drawing a poniard from beneath his robe he thrust it into the breast of the wounded man, saying, “Here is my absolution!”
Then was heard that second cry, not so loud as the first and followed by a long groan.
The executioner, who had lifted himself up, fell back upon his bed. As to the monk, without withdrawing the poniard from the wound, he ran to the window, opened it, leaped out into the flowers of a small garden, glided onward to the stable, took out his mule, went out by a back gate, ran to a neighbouring thicket, threw off his monkish garb, took from his valise the complete habiliment of a cavalier, clothed himself in it, went on foot to the first post, secured there a horse and continued with a loose rein his journey to Paris.
Two men lay prone upon the ground, one bathed in blood and motionless, with his face toward the earth; this one was dead. The other leaned against a tree, supported there by the two valets, and was praying fervently, with clasped hands and eyes raised to Heaven. He had received a ball in his thigh, which had broken the bone. The young men first approached the dead man.
“He is a priest,” said Bragelonne, “he has worn the tonsure. Oh, the scoundrels! to lift their hands against a minister of God.”
“Come here, sir,” said Urban, an old soldier who had served under the cardinal duke in all his campaigns; “come here, there is nothing to be done with him, whilst we may perhaps be able to save the other.”
The wounded man smiled sadly. “Save me! Oh, no!” said he, “but help me to die, if you can.”
“Are you a priest?” asked Raoul.
“No sir.”
“I ask, as your unfortunate companion appeared to me to belong to the church.”
“He is the curate of Bethune, sir, and was carrying the holy vessels belonging to his church, and the treasure of the chapter, to a safe place, the prince having abandoned our town yesterday; and as it was known that bands of the enemy were prowling about the country, no one dared to accompany the good man, so I offered to do so.
“And, sir,” continued the wounded man, “I suffer much and would like, if possible, to be carried to some house.”
“Where you can be relieved?” asked De Guiche.
“No, where I can confess.”
“But perhaps you are not so dangerously wounded as you think,” said Raoul.
“Sir,” replied the wounded man, “believe me, there is no time to lose; the ball has broken the thigh bone and entered the intestines.”
“Are you a surgeon?” asked De Guiche.
“No, but I know a little about wounds, and mine, I know, is mortal. Try, therefore, either to carry me to some place where I may see a priest or take the trouble to send one to me here. It is my soul that must be saved; as for my body, it is lost.”
“To die whilst doing a good deed! It is impossible. God will help you.”
“Gentlemen, in the name of Heaven!” said the wounded man, collecting all his forces, as if to get up, “let us not lose time in useless words. Either help me to gain the nearest village or swear to me on your salvation that you will send me the first monk, the first curé, the first priest you may meet. But,” he added in a despairing tone, “perhaps no one will dare to come for it is known that the Spaniards are ranging through the country, and I shall die without absolution. My God! my God! Good God! good God!” added the wounded man, in an accent of terror which made the young men shudder; “you will not allow that? that would be too terrible!”
“Calm yourself, sir,” replied De Guiche. “I swear to you, you shall receive the consolation that you ask. Only tell us where we shall find a house at which we can demand aid and a village from which we can fetch a priest.”
“Thank you, and God reward you! About half a mile from this, on the same road, there is an inn, and about a mile further on, after leaving the inn, you will reach the village of Greney. There you must find the curate, or if he is not at home, go to the convent of the Augustines, which is the last house on the right, and bring me one of the brothers. Monk or priest, it matters not, provided only that he has received from holy church the power of absolving in articulo mortis.”[1]
“Monsieur d’Arminges,” said De Guiche, “remain beside this unfortunate man and see that he is removed as gently as possible. The vicomte and myself will go and find a priest.”
“Go, sir,” replied the tutor; “but in Heaven’s name do not expose yourself to danger!”
“Do not fear. Besides, we are safe for to-day; you know the axiom, ‘Non bis in idem.’”[2]
“Courage, sir,” said Raoul to the wounded man. “We are going to execute your wishes.”
“May Heaven prosper you!” replied the dying man, with an accent of gratitude impossible to describe.
The two young men galloped off in the direction mentioned and in ten minutes reached the inn. Raoul, without dismounting, called to the host and announced that a wounded man was about to be brought to his house and begged him in the meantime to prepare everything needful. He desired him also, should he know in the neighborhood any doctor or chirurgeon, to fetch him, taking on himself the payment of the messenger.
The host, who saw two young noblemen, richly clad, promised everything they required, and our two cavaliers, after seeing that preparations for the reception were actually begun, started off again and proceeded rapidly toward Greney.
They had gone rather more than a league and had begun to descry the first houses of the village, the red-tiled roofs of which stood out from the green trees which surrounded them, when, coming toward them mounted on a mule, they perceived a poor monk, whose large hat and gray worsted dress made them take him for an Augustine brother. Chance for once seemed to favor them in sending what they were so assiduously seeking. He was a man about twenty-two or twenty-three years old, but who appeared much older from ascetic exercises. His complexion was pale, not of that deadly pallor which is a kind of neutral beauty, but of a bilious, yellow hue; his colorless hair was short and scarcely extended beyond the circle formed by the hat around his head, and his light blue eyes seemed destitute of any expression.
“Sir,” began Raoul, with his usual politeness, “are you an ecclesiastic?”
“Why do you ask me that?” replied the stranger, with a coolness which was barely civil.
“Because we want to know,” said De Guiche, haughtily.
The stranger touched his mule with his heel and continued his way.
In a second De Guiche had sprung before him and barred his passage. “Answer, sir,” exclaimed he; “you have been asked politely, and every question is worth an answer.”
“I suppose I am free to say or not to say who I am to two strangers who take a fancy to ask me.”
It was with difficulty that De Guiche restrained the intense desire he had of breaking the monk’s bones.
“In the first place,” he said, making an effort to control himself, “we are not people who may be treated anyhow; my friend there is the Viscount of Bragelonne and I am the Count de Guiche. Nor was it from caprice we asked the question, for there is a wounded and dying man who demands the succor of the church. If you be a priest, I conjure you in the name of humanity to follow me to aid this man; if you be not, it is a different matter, and I warn you in the name of courtesy, of which you appear profoundly ignorant, that I shall chastise you for your insolence.”
The pale face of the monk became so livid and his smile so strange, that Raoul, whose eyes were still fixed upon him, felt as if this smile had struck to his heart like an insult.
“He is some Spanish or Flemish spy,” said he, putting his hand to his pistol. A glance, threatening and transient as lightning, replied to Raoul.
“Well, sir,” said De Guiche, “are you going to reply?”
“I am a priest,” said the young man.
“Then, father,” said Raoul, forcing himself to convey a respect by speech that did not come from his heart, “if you are a priest you have an opportunity, as my friend has told you, of exercising your vocation. At the next inn you will find a wounded man, now being attended by our servants, who has asked the assistance of a minister of God.”
“I will go,” said the monk.
And he touched his mule.
“If you do not go, sir,” said De Guiche, “remember that we have two steeds able to catch your mule and the power of having you seized wherever you may be; and then I swear your trial will be summary; one can always find a tree and a cord.”
The monk’s eye again flashed, but that was all; he merely repeated his phrase, “I will go,”—and he went.
“Let us follow him,” said De Guiche; “it will be the surest plan.”
“I was about to propose so doing,” answered De Bragelonne.
In the space of five minutes the monk turned around to ascertain whether he was followed or not.
“You see,” said Raoul, “we have done wisely.”
“What a horrible face that monk has,” said De Guiche.
“Horrible!” replied Raoul, “especially in expression.”
“Yes, yes,” said De Guiche, “a strange face; but these monks are subject to such degrading practices; their fasts make them pale, the blows of the discipline make them hypocrites, and their eyes become inflamed through weeping for the good things of this life we common folk enjoy, but they have lost.”
“Well,” said Raoul, “the poor man will get his priest, but, by Heaven, the penitent appears to me to have a better conscience than the confessor. I confess I am accustomed to priests of a very different appearance.”
“Ah!” exclaimed De Guiche, “you must understand that this is one of those wandering brothers, who go begging on the high road until some day a benefice falls down from Heaven on them; they are mostly foreigners—Scotch, Irish or Danish. I have seen them before.”
“As ugly?”
“No, but reasonably hideous.”
“What a misfortune for the wounded man to die under the hands of such a friar!”
“Pshaw!” said De Guiche. “Absolution comes not from him who administers it, but from God. However, for my part, I would rather die unshriven than have anything to say to such a confessor. You are of my opinion, are you not, viscount? and I see you playing with the pommel of your sword, as if you had a great inclination to break the holy father’s head.”
“Yes, count, it is a strange thing and one which might astonish you, but I feel an indescribable horror at the sight of yonder man. Have you ever seen a snake rise up on your path?”
“Never,” answered De Guiche.
“Well, it has happened to me to do so in our Blaisois forests, and I remember that the first time I encountered one with its eyes fixed upon me, curled up, swinging its head and pointing its tongue, I remained fixed, pale and as though fascinated, until the moment when the Comte de la Fère——”
“Your father?” asked De Guiche.
“No, my guardian,” replied Raoul, blushing.
“Very well——”
“Until the moment when the Comte de la Fère,” resumed Raoul, “said, ‘Come, Bragelonne, draw your sword;’ then only I rushed upon the reptile and cut it in two, just at the moment when it was rising on its tail and hissing, ere it sprang upon me. Well, I vow I felt exactly the same sensation at sight of that man when he said, ‘Why do you ask me that?’ and looked so strangely at me.”
“Then you regret that you did not cut your serpent in two morsels?”
“Faith, yes, almost,” said Raoul.
They had now arrived within sight of the little inn and could see on the opposite side the procession bearing the wounded man and guided by Monsieur d’Arminges. The youths spurred on.
“There is the wounded man,” said De Guiche, passing close to the Augustine brother. “Be good enough to hurry yourself a little, monsieur monk.”
As for Raoul, he avoided the monk by the whole width of the road and passed him, turning his head away in repulsion.
The young men rode up to the wounded man to announce that they were followed by the priest. He raised himself to glance in the direction which they pointed out, saw the monk, and fell back upon the litter, his face illumined by joy.
“And now,” said the youths, “we have done all we can for you; and as we are in haste to rejoin the prince’s army we must continue our journey. You will excuse us, sir, but we are told that a battle is expected and we do not wish to arrive the day after it.”
“Go, my young sirs,” said the sick man, “and may you both be blessed for your piety. You have done for me, as you promised, all that you could do. As for me I can only repeat, may God protect you and all dear to you!”
“Sir,” said De Guiche to his tutor, “we will precede you, and you can rejoin us on the road to Cambrin.”
The host was at his door and everything was prepared—bed, bandages, and lint; and a groom had gone to Lens, the nearest village, for a doctor.
“Everything,” said he to Raoul, “shall be done as you desire; but you will not stop to have your wound dressed?”
“Oh, my wound—mine—’tis nothing,” replied the viscount; “it will be time to think about it when we next halt; only have the goodness, should you see a cavalier who makes inquiries about a young man on a chestnut horse followed by a servant, to tell him, in fact, that you have seen me, but that I have continued my journey and intend to dine at Mazingarbe and to stop at Cambrin. This cavalier is my attendant.”
“Would it not be safer and more certain if I should ask him his name and tell him yours?” demanded the host.
“There is no harm in over-precaution. I am the Viscount de Bragelonne and he is called Grimaud.”
At this moment the wounded man arrived from one direction and the monk from the other, the latter dismounting from his mule and desiring that it should be taken to the stables without being unharnessed.
“Sir monk,” said De Guiche, “confess well that brave man; and be not concerned for your expenses or for those of your mule; all is paid.”
“Thanks, monsieur,” said the monk, with one of those smiles that made Bragelonne shudder.
“Come, count,” said Raoul, who seemed instinctively to dislike the vicinity of the Augustine; “come, I feel ill here,” and the two young men spurred on.
The litter, borne by two servants, now entered the house. The host and his wife were standing on the steps, whilst the unhappy man seemed to suffer dreadful pain and yet to be concerned only to know if he was followed by the monk. At sight of this pale, bleeding man, the wife grasped her husband’s arm.
“Well, what’s the matter?” asked the latter, “are you going to be ill just now?”
“No, but look,” replied the hostess, pointing to the wounded man; “I ask you if you recognize him?”
“That man—wait a bit.”
“Ah! I see you know him,” exclaimed the wife; “for you have become pale in your turn.”
“Truly,” cried the host, “misfortune is coming on our house; it is the former executioner of Bethune.”
“The former executioner of Bethune!” murmured the young monk, shrinking back and showing on his countenance the feeling of repugnance which his penitent inspired.
Monsieur d’Arminges, who was at the door, perceived his hesitation.
“Sir monk,” said he, “whether he is now or has been an executioner, this unfortunate being is none the less a man. Render to him, then, the last service he can by any possibility ask of you, and your work will be all the more meritorious.”
The monk made no reply, but silently wended his way to the room where the two valets had deposited the dying man on a bed. D’Arminges and Olivain and the two grooms then mounted their horses, and all four started off at a quick trot to rejoin Raoul and his companion. Just as the tutor and his escort disappeared in their turn, a new traveler stopped on the threshold of the inn.
“What does your worship want?” demanded the host, pale and trembling from the discovery he had just made.
The traveler made a sign as if he wished to drink, and then pointed to his horse and gesticulated like a man who is brushing something.
“Ah, diable!” said the host to himself; “this man seems dumb. And where will your worship drink?”
“There,” answered the traveler, pointing to the table.
“I was mistaken,” said the host, “he’s not quite dumb. And what else does your worship wish for?”
“To know if you have seen a young man pass, fifteen years of age, mounted on a chestnut horse and followed by a groom?”
“The Viscount de Bragelonne?
“Just so.”
“Then you are called Monsieur Grimaud?”
The traveler made a sign of assent.
“Well, then,” said the host, “your young master was here a quarter of an hour ago; he will dine at Mazingarbe and sleep at Cambrin.”
“How far is Mazingarbe?”
“Two miles and a half.”
“Thank you.”
Grimaud was drinking his wine silently and had just placed his glass on the table to be filled a second time, when a terrific scream resounded from the room occupied by the monk and the dying man. Grimaud sprang up.
“What is that?” said he; “whence comes that cry?”
“From the wounded man’s room,” replied the host.
“What wounded man?”
“The former executioner of Bethune, who has just been brought in here, assassinated by Spaniards, and who is now being confessed by an Augustine friar.”
“The old executioner of Bethune,” muttered Grimaud; “a man between fifty-five and sixty, tall, strong, swarthy, black hair and beard?”
“That is he, except that his beard has turned gray and his hair is white; do you know him?” asked the host.
“I have seen him once,” replied Grimaud, a cloud darkening his countenance at the picture so suddenly summoned to the bar of recollection.
At this instant a second cry, less piercing than the first, but followed by prolonged groaning, was heard.
The three listeners looked at one another in alarm.
“We must see what it is,” said Grimaud.
“It sounds like the cry of one who is being murdered,” murmured the host.
“Mon Dieu!” said the woman, crossing herself.
If Grimaud was slow in speaking, we know that he was quick to act; he sprang to the door and shook it violently, but it was bolted on the other side.
“Open the door!” cried the host; “open it instantly, sir monk!”
No reply.
“Unfasten it, or I will break it in!” said Grimaud.
The same silence, and then, ere the host could oppose his design, Grimaud seized a pair of pincers he perceived in a corner and forced the bolt. The room was inundated with blood, dripping from the mattresses upon which lay the wounded man, speechless; the monk had disappeared.
“The monk!” cried the host; “where is the monk?”
Grimaud sprang toward an open window which looked into the courtyard.
“He has escaped by this means,” exclaimed he.
“Do you think so?” said the host, bewildered; “boy, see if the mule belonging to the monk is still in the stable.”
“There is no mule,” cried he to whom this question was addressed.
The host clasped his hands and looked around him suspiciously, whilst Grimaud knit his brows and approached the wounded man, whose worn, hard features awoke in his mind such awful recollections of the past.
“There can be no longer any doubt but that it is himself,” said he.
“Does he still live?” inquired the innkeeper.
Making no reply, Grimaud opened the poor man’s jacket to feel if the heart beat, whilst the host approached in his turn; but in a moment they both fell back, the host uttering a cry of horror and Grimaud becoming pallid. The blade of a dagger was buried up to the hilt in the left side of the executioner.
“Run! run for help!” cried Grimaud, “and I will remain beside him here.”
The host quitted the room in agitation, and as for his wife, she had fled at the sound of her husband’s cries.
