PROMISES.
Scarcely had D'Artagnan re-entered his apartment with his two friends,
than one of the soldiers of the fort came to inform him that the
governor was seeking for him. The bark which Raoul had perceived at sea,
and which appeared so eager to gain the port, came to Sainte-Marguerite
with an important dispatch for the captain of the musketeers. On opening
it, D'Artagnan recognized the writing of the king: "I should think,"
said Louis XIV., "you will have completed the execution of my orders,
Monsieur d'Artagnan; return then immediately to Paris, and join me at
the Louvre."
"There is the end of my exile!" cried the musketeer with joy; "God be
praised, I am no longer a jailer!" And he showed the letter to Athos.
"So then you must leave us?" replied the latter, in a melancholy tone.
"Yes; but to meet again, dear friend, seeing that Raoul is old enough
now to go alone with M. de Beaufort, and who will prefer his father
going back in company with M. d'Artagnan, to forcing him to travel two
hundred leagues solitarily to reach home at La Fere; would you not,
Raoul?"
"Certainly," stammered the latter, with an expression of tender regret.
"No, no, my friend," interrupted Athos, "I will never quit Raoul till
the day his vessel shall have disappeared on the horizon. As long as he
remains in France, he shall not be separated from me."
"As you please, dear friend; but we will, at least, leave
Sainte-Marguerite together; take advantage of the bark which will convey
me back to Antibes."
"With all my heart; we cannot too soon be at a distance from this fort,
and from the spectacle which saddened us so just now."
The three friends quitted the little isle, after paying their respects
to the governor, and by the last flashes of the departing tempest they
took their farewell of the white walls of the fort. D'Artagnan parted
from his friends that same night, after having seen fire set to the
carriage upon the shore by the orders of Saint-Mars, according to the
advice the captain had given him. Before getting on horseback, and after
leaving the arms of Athos: "My friends," said he, "you bear too much
resemblance to two soldiers who are abandoning their post. Something
warns me that Raoul will require being supported by you in his rank.
Will you allow me to ask permission to go over into Africa with a
hundred good muskets? The king will not refuse me, and I will take you
with me."
"Monsieur d'Artagnan," replied Raoul, pressing his hand with emotion,
"thanks for that offer, which would give us more than we wish, either
Monsieur le Comte or I. I, who am young, stand in need of labor of mind
and fatigue of body; Monsieur le Comte wants the profoundest repose. You
are his best friend. I recommend him to your care. In watching over him,
you will hold both our souls in your hands."
"I must go; my horse is all in a fret," said D'Artagnan, with whom the
most manifest sign of a lively emotion was the change of ideas in a
conversation. "Come, comte, how many days longer has Raoul to stay
here?"
"Three days at most."
"And how long will it take you to reach home?"
"Oh! a considerable time," replied Athos. "I shall not like the idea of
being separated too quickly from Raoul. Time will travel too fast of
itself to require me to aid it by distance. I shall only make
half-stages."
"And why so, my friend? Nothing is more dull than traveling slowly; and
hostelry life does not become a man like you."
"My friend, I came hither on post-horses; but I wish to purchase two
animals of a superior kind. Now, to take them home fresh, it would not
be prudent to make them travel more than seven or eight leagues a day."
"Where is Grimaud?"
"He arrived yesterday morning, with Raoul's appointments; and I have
left him to sleep."
"That is, never to come back again," D'Artagnan suffered to escape him.
"Till we meet again, then, dear Athos--and if you are diligent, well, I
shall embrace you the sooner." So saying, he put his foot in the
stirrup, which Raoul held.
"Farewell!" said the young man, embracing him.
"Farewell!" said D'Artagnan, as he got into his saddle.
His horse made a movement which divided the cavalier from his friends.
This scene had taken place in front of the house chosen by Athos, near
the gates of Antibes, whither D'Artagnan, after his supper, had ordered
his horses to be brought. The road began to extend there, white and
undulating in the vapors of the night. The horse eagerly respired the
salt, sharp perfume of the marshes. D'Artagnan put him into a trot; and
Athos and Raoul sadly turned toward the house. All at once they heard
the rapid approach of a horse's steps, and at first believed it to be
one of those singular repercussions which deceive the ear at every turn
in a road. But it was really the return of the horseman. They uttered a
cry of joyous surprise; and the captain, springing to the ground like a
young man, seized within his arms the two beloved heads of Athos and
Raoul. He held them long embraced thus, without speaking a word, or
suffering the sigh which was bursting his breast to escape him. Then, as
rapidly as he had come back, he set off again, with a sharp application
of his spurs to the sides of his fiery horse.
"Alas!" said the comte, in a low voice, "alas! alas!"
"Evil presage!" on his side said D'Artagnan to himself, making up for
lost time. "I could not smile upon them. An evil presage!"
The next day Grimaud was on foot again. The service commanded by M. de
Beaufort was happily accomplished. The flotilla, sent to Toulon by the
exertions of Raoul, had set out, dragging after it in little nutshells,
almost invisible, the wives and friends of the fishermen and smugglers
put in requisition for the service of the fleet. The time, so short,
which remained for the father and the son to live together, appeared to
have doubled in rapidity, as the swiftness of everything increases which
inclines toward mixing with the gulf of eternity.
Athos and Raoul returned to Toulon, which began to be filled with the
noise of carriages, with the noise of arms, with the noise of neighing
horses. The trumpeters sounded their spirited marches; the drummers
signalized their strength; the streets were overflowing with soldiers,
servants, and tradespeople. The Duc de Beaufort was everywhere,
superintending the embarkation with the zeal and interest of a good
captain. He encouraged even the most humble of his companions; he
scolded his lieutenants, even those of the highest rank. Artillery,
provisions, baggage, he insisted upon seeing all himself. He examined
the equipment of every soldier; he assured himself of the health and
soundness of every horse. It was plain that, light, boastful, and
egotistical, in his hotel, the gentleman became the soldier again--the
high noble, a captain--in face of the responsibility he had accepted.
And yet, it must be admitted that, whatever was the care with which he
presided over the preparations for departure, it was easy to perceive
careless precipitation, and the absence of all the precaution which make
the French soldier the first soldier in the world, because, in that
world, he is the one most abandoned to his own physical and moral
resources. All things having satisfied, or appearing to have satisfied,
the admiral, he paid his compliments to Raoul, and gave the last orders
for sailing, which was ordered the next morning at daybreak. He invited
the comte and his son to dine with him; but they, under a pretext of the
service, kept themselves apart. Gaining their hostelry, situated under
the trees of the great Place, they took their repast in haste, and
Athos led Raoul to the rocks which dominate the city, vast gray
mountains, whence the view is infinite, and embraces a liquid horizon,
which appears, so remote is it, on a level with the rocks themselves.
The night was fine, as it always is in these happy climates. The moon,
rising behind the rocks, unrolled, like a silver sheet, upon the blue
carpet of the sea. In the road, maneuvered silently the vessels which
had just taken their rank to facilitate the embarkation. The sea, loaded
with phosphoric light, opened beneath the hulls of the barks which
transported the baggage and munitions; every dip of the prow plowed up
this gulf of white flames; and from every oar dropped liquid diamonds.
The sailors, rejoicing in the largesses of the admiral, were heard
murmuring their slow and artless songs. Sometimes, the grinding of the
chains was mixed with the dull noise of shot falling into the holds.
These harmonies, and this spectacle, oppress the heart like fear, and
dilate it like hope. All this life speaks of death. Athos had seated
himself with his son, upon the moss, among the brambles of the
promontory. Around their heads passed and repassed large bats, carried
along in the fearful whirl of their blind chase. The feet of Raoul were
across the edge of the cliff, and bathed in that void which is peopled
by vertigo and provokes to annihilation. When the moon had risen to its
full height, caressing with its light the neighboring peaks, when the
watery mirror was illumined in its full extent, and the little red fires
had made their openings in the black masses of every ship, Athos
collected all his ideas, and all his courage, and said:
"God has made all that we see, Raoul; He has made us, also--poor atoms
mixed up with this great universe. We shine like those fires and those
stars; we sigh like those waves; we suffer like those great ships which
are worn out in plowing the waves, in obeying the wind which urges them
toward an end, as the breath of God blows us toward a port. Everything
likes to live, Raoul; and everything is beautiful in living things."
"Monsieur," said Raoul, "we have before us a beautiful spectacle!"
"How good D'Artagnan is!" interrupted. Athos, suddenly, "and what a rare
good fortune it is to be supported during a whole life by such a friend
as he is! That is what you have wanted, Raoul."
"A friend!" cried Raoul, "I have wanted a friend!"
"M. de Guiche is an agreeable companion," resumed the comte, coldly,
"but I believe, in the times in which you live, men are more engaged in
their own interests and their own pleasures than they were in our times.
You have sought a secluded life; that is a great happiness, but you have
lost your strength in it. We four, more weaned from these delicate
abstractions which constitute your joy, we furnished much more
resistance when misfortune presented itself."
"I have not interrupted you, monsieur, to tell you that I had a friend,
and that that friend is M. Guiche. Certes, he is good and generous, and,
moreover, he loves me. But I have lived under the guardianship of
another friendship, monsieur, as precious and as strong as that of which
you speak, since that is yours."
"I have not been a friend for you, Raoul," said Athos.
"Eh! monsieur, and in what respect not?"
"Because I have given you reason to think that life has but one face,
because, sad and severe, alas! I have always cut off for you, without,
God knows, wishing to do so, the joyous buds which incessantly spring
from the tree of youth; so that at this moment I repent of not having
made of you a more expansive, dissipated, animated man."
"I know why you say that, monsieur. No, it is not you who have made me
what I am; it was love which took me at the time when children have only
inclinations; it is the constancy natural to my character, which with
other creatures is but a habit. I believed that I should always be as I
was; I thought God had cast me in a path quite cleared, quite straight,
bordered with fruits and flowers. I had watching over me your vigilance
and your strength. I believed myself to be vigilant and strong. Nothing
prepared me; I fell once, and that once deprived me of courage for the
whole of my life. It is quite true that I wrecked myself. Oh, no,
monsieur! you are nothing in my past but a happiness--you are nothing in
my future but a hope! No, I have no reproach to make against life, such
as you made it for me; I bless you, and I love you ardently."
"My dear Raoul, your words do me good. They prove to me that you will
act a little for me in the time to come."
"I shall only act for you, monsieur."
"Raoul, what I have never hitherto done with respect to you, I will
henceforward do. I will be your friend, not your father. We will live in
expanding ourselves, instead of living and holding ourselves prisoners,
when you come back. And that will be soon, will it not?"
"Certainly, monsieur, for such an expedition cannot be long."
"Soon then, Raoul, soon, instead of living moderately upon my income, I
will give you the capital of my estates. It will suffice for launching
you into the world till my death; and you will give me, I hope, before
that time, the consolation of not seeing my race extinct."
"I will do all you shall command," said Raoul, much agitated.
"It is not necessary, Raoul, that your duty as aid-de-camp should lead
you into too hazardous enterprises. You have gone through your ordeal;
you are known to be good under fire. Remember that war with the Arabs is
a war of snares, ambuscades, and assassinations."
"So it is said, monsieur."
"There is never much glory in falling in an ambuscade. It is a death
which always implies a little rashness or want of foresight. Often,
indeed, he who falls in it meets with but little pity. They who are not
pitied, Raoul, have died uselessly. Still further, the conqueror laughs,
and we Frenchmen ought not to allow stupid infidels to triumph over our
faults. Do you clearly understand what I am saying to you, Raoul? God
forbid I should encourage you to avoid encounters."
"I am naturally prudent, monsieur, and I have very good fortune," said
Raoul, with a smile which chilled the heart of his poor father; "for,"
the young man hastened to add, "in twenty combats in which I have been,
I have only received one scratch."
"There is in addition," said Athos, "the climate to be dreaded: that is
an ugly end, that fever! King Saint-Louis prayed God to send him an
arrow or the plague, rather than the fever."
"Oh! monsieur, with sobriety, with reasonable exercise--"
"I have already obtained from M. de Beaufort a promise that his
dispatches shall be sent off every fortnight to France. You, as his
aid-de-camp, will be charged with expediting them, and will be sure not
to forget me."
"No, monsieur," said Raoul, almost choked with emotion.
"Besides, Raoul, as you are a good Christian, and I am one also, we
ought to reckon upon a more special protection of God and his guardian
angels. Promise me that if anything evil should happen to you on any
occasion, you will think of me at once."
"First and at once! Oh! yes, monsieur."
"And will call upon me?"
"Instantly."
"You dream of me sometimes, do you not, Raoul?"
"Every night, monsieur. During my early youth I saw you in my dreams,
calm and mild, with one hand stretched out over my head, and that it was
that made me sleep so soundly--_formerly_."
"We love each other too dearly," said the comte, "that from this moment
in which we separate, a portion of both our souls should not travel with
one and the other of us, and should not dwell where-ever we may dwell.
Whenever you may be sad, Raoul, I feel that my heart will be drowned in
sadness; and when you smile on thinking of me, be assured you will send
me, from however remote a distance, a ray of your joy."
"I will not promise you to be joyous," replied the young man: "but you
may be certain that I will never pass an hour without thinking of you,
not one hour, I swear, unless I be dead."
Athos could contain himself no longer: he threw his arm round the neck
of his son, and held him embraced with all the powers of his heart. The
moon began to be now eclipsed by twilight; a golden band surrounded the
horizon, announcing the approach of day. Athos threw his cloak over the
shoulders of Raoul, and led him back to the city, where burdens and
porters were already in motion, like a vast ant-hill. At the extremity
of the plateau, which Athos and Bragelonne were quitting, they saw a
dark shadow moving uneasily backward and forward, as if in indecision or
ashamed to be seen. It was Grimaud, who, in his anxiety, had tracked his
master, and was waiting for him.
"Oh! my good Grimaud," cried Raoul, "what do you want? You are come to
tell us it is time to be gone, have you not?"
"Alone?" said Grimaud, addressing Athos, and pointing to Raoul in a tone
of reproach, which showed to what an extent the old man was troubled.
"Oh! you are right!" cried the comte. "No, Raoul, do not go alone; no,
he shall not be left alone in a strange land, without some friendly hand
to support him, some friendly heart to recall to him all he loved!"
"I?" said Grimaud.
"You, yes, you!" cried Raoul, touched to his inmost heart.
"Alas!" said Athos, "you are very old, my good Grimaud."
"So much the better," replied the latter, with an inexpressible depth of
feeling and intelligence.
"But the embarkation is begun," said Raoul, "and you are not prepared."
"Yes," said Grimaud, showing the keys of his trunks, mixed with those of
his young master.
"But," again objected Raoul, "you cannot leave M. le Comte thus alone:
M. le Comte, whom you have never quitted?"
Grimaud turned his dimmed eyes upon Athos and Raoul, as if to measure
the strength of both. The comte uttered not a word.
"M. le Comte will prefer my going," said Grimaud.
"I should," said Athos, by an inclination of the head.
At that moment the drums suddenly rolled, and the clarions filled the
air with their inspiring notes. The regiments destined for the
expedition began to debouch from the city. They advanced to the number
of five, each composed of forty companies. Royals marched first,
distinguished by their white uniform, faced with blue. The ordonnance
colors, quartered crosswise, violet and dead leaf, with a sprinkling of
golden fleurs-de-lis, left the white-colored flag, with its
fleur-de-lised cross, to dominate over the whole. Musketeers at the
wings, with their forked sticks and their muskets on their shoulders;
pikemen in the center, with their lances, fourteen feet in length,
marched gaily toward the transports, which carried them in detail to the
ships. The regiments of Picardy, Navarre, Normandy, and Royal Vaisseau,
followed after. M. de Beaufort had known well how to select his troops.
He himself was seen closing the march, with his staff--it would take a
full hour before he could reach the sea. Raoul with Athos turned his
steps slowly toward the beach, in order to take his place when the
prince embarked. Grimaud, boiling with the ardor of a young man,
superintended the embarkation of Raoul's baggage in the admiral's
vessel. Athos, with his arm passed through that of the son he was about
to lose, absorbed in melancholy meditation, was deaf to the noise around
him. An officer came quickly toward them to inform Raoul that M. de
Beaufort was anxious to have him by his side.
"Have the kindness to tell the prince," said Raoul, "that I request he
will allow me this hour to enjoy the company of my father."
"No, no," said Athos, "an aid-de-camp ought not thus to quit his
general. Please to tell the prince, monsieur, that the vicomte will join
him immediately." The officer set off at a gallop.
"Whether we part here or part there," added the comte, "it is no less a
separation." He carefully brushed the dust off his son's coat, and
passed his hand over his hair as they walked along. "But, Raoul," said
he, "you want money. M. de Beaufort's train will be splendid, and I am
certain it would be agreeable to you to purchase horses and arms, which
are very dear things in Africa. Now, as you are not actually in the
service of the king or M. de Beaufort, and are simply a volunteer, you
must not reckon upon either pay or largesses. But I should not like you
to want for anything at Gigelli. Here are two hundred pistoles; if you
would please me, Raoul, spend them."
Raoul pressed the hand of his father, and, at the turning of a street,
they saw M. de Beaufort, mounted upon a magnificent white genet, which
replied by graceful curvets to the applauses of the women of the city.
The duc called Raoul and held out his hand to the comte. He spoke to him
for some time, with such a kindly expression, that the heart of the poor
father even felt a little comforted. It was, however, evident to both
father and son that their walk was directed to nothing less than a
punishment. There was a terrible moment--that at which, on quitting the
sands of the shore, the soldiers and sailors exchanged the last kisses
with their families and friends; a supreme moment, in which,
notwithstanding the clearness of the heavens, the warmth of the sun, of
the perfumes of the air, and the rich life that was circulating in their
veins, everything appeared black, everything appeared bitter, everything
created doubts of a God, while speaking by the mouth, even, of God. It
was customary for the admiral and his suite to embark the last: the
cannon waited to announce, with its formidable voice, that the leader
had placed his foot on board his vessel. Athos, forgetful of both the
admiral and the fleet, and of his own dignity as a strong man, opened
his arms to his son, and pressed him, convulsively, to his heart.
"Accompany us on board," said the duc, very much affected; "you will
gain a good half-hour."
"No," said Athos, "my farewell is spoken. I do not wish to speak a
second."
"Then, vicomte, embark--embark quickly!" added the prince, wishing to
spare the tears of these two men, whose hearts were bursting. And
paternally, tenderly, very much as Porthos might have done, he took
Raoul in his arms and placed him in the boat; the oars of which, at a
signal, immediately were dipped in the waves. Himself, forgetful of
ceremony, he jumped into his boat, and pushed it off with a vigorous
foot.
"Adieu!" cried Raoul.
Athos replied only by a sign, but he felt something burning on his hand;
it was the respectful kiss of Grimaud--the last farewell of the faithful
dog. This kiss given, Grimaud jumped from the step of the mole upon the
stem of a two-oared yawl, which had just been taken in tow by a
_chaland_ served by twelve galley-oars. Athos seated himself on the
mole, stunned, deaf, abandoned. Every instant took from him one of the
features, one of the shades of the pale face of his son. With his arms
hanging down, his eyes fixed, his mouth open, he remained confounded
with Raoul--in one same look, in one same thought, in one same stupor.
The sea, by degrees, carried away boats and faces, until at the distance
at which men become nothing but points--loves, nothing but remembrances,
Athos saw his son ascend the ladder of the admiral's ship, he saw him
lean upon the rail of the deck, and place himself in such a manner as to
be always an object in the eye of his father. In vain the cannon
thundered, in vain from the ship sounded a long and loud tumult,
responded to by immense acclamations from the shore; in vain did the
noise deafen the ear of the father, and the smoke obscure the cherished
object of all his aspirations. Raoul appeared to him up to the last
moment; and the imperceptible atom, passing from black to pale, from
pale to white, from white to nothing, disappeared for Athos--disappeared
very long after, for all the eyes of the spectators, had disappeared
both gallant ships and swelling sails. Toward mid-day, when the sun
devoured space, and scarcely the tops of the masts dominated the
incandescent line of the sea, Athos perceived a soft, aërial shadow
rise, and vanish as soon as seen. This was the smoke of a cannon, which
M. de Beaufort ordered to be fired as a last salute to the coast of
France. The point was buried in its turn beneath the sky, and Athos
returned painfully and slowly to his hostelry.