THE ROUND OF M. DE GESVRES.
D'Artagnan was not accustomed to resistances like that he had just
experienced. He returned, profoundly irritated, to Nantes. Irritation
with this vigorous man vented itself in an impetuous attack, which, few
people, hitherto, were they king, were they giants, had been able to
resist. D'Artagnan, trembling with rage, went straight to the castle,
and asked to speak to the king. It might be about seven o'clock in the
morning, and, since his arrival at Nantes, the king had been an early
riser. But, on arriving at the little corridor with which we are
acquainted, D'Artagnan found M. de Gesvres, who stopped him very
politely, telling him not to speak too loud and disturb the king. "Is
the king asleep?" said D'Artagnan--"well, I will let him sleep. But
about what o'clock do you suppose he will rise?"
"Oh! in about two hours; the king has been up all night."
D'Artagnan took his hat again, bowed to M. de Gesvres, and returned to
his own apartments. He came back at half-past nine, and was told that
the king was at breakfast. "That will just suit me," said D'Artagnan, "I
will talk to the king while he is eating."
M. de Brienne reminded D'Artagnan that the king would not receive any
one during his repasts.
"But," said D'Artagnan, looking askant at Brienne, "you do not know
perhaps, monsieur, that I have the privilege of entrée anywhere, and at
any hour."
Brienne took the hand of the captain kindly, and said, "Not at Nantes,
dear Monsieur d'Artagnan. The king in this journey has changed
everything."
D'Artagnan, a little softened, asked about what o'clock the king would
have finished his breakfast.
"We don't know."
"How!--don't know! What does that mean? You don't know how much time the
king devotes to eating? It is generally an hour; and, if we admit that
the air of the Loire gives an additional appetite, we will extend it to
an hour and a half; that is enough, I think. I will wait where I am."
"Oh! dear Monsieur d'Artagnan, the order is, not to allow any person to
remain in this corridor; I am on guard for that purpose."
D'Artagnan felt his anger mounting a second time to his brain. He went
out quickly, for fear of complicating the affair by a display of
ill-humor. As soon as he was out he began to reflect. "The king," said
he, "will not receive me, that is evident. The young man is angry; he is
afraid of the words I may speak to him. Yes; but in the meantime,
Belle-Isle is besieged, and my two friends are taken or killed. Poor
Porthos! As to Master Aramis, he is always full of resources, and I am
quite easy on his account. But, no, no; Porthos is not yet an invalid,
and Aramis is not yet in his dotage. The one with his arm, the other
with his imagination, will find work for his majesty's soldiers. Who
knows if these brave men may not get up for the edification of his Most
Christian Majesty a little bastion of Saint-Gervais! I don't despair of
it. They have cannon and a garrison. And yet," continued D'Artagnan, "I
don't know whether it would not be better to stop the combat. For myself
alone, I will not put up with either surly looks, or treason, on the
part of the king; but for my friends, rebuffs, insults, I have a right
to receive everything. Shall I go to M. Colbert? Now there is a man,
whom I must acquire the habit of terrifying. I will go to M. Colbert."
And D'Artagnan set forward bravely to find M. Colbert, but he was told
he was working with the king, at the castle of Nantes. "Good!" cried he,
"the times are returned in which I measured my steps from M. de
Treville to the cardinal, from the cardinal to the queen, from the
queen to Louis XIII. Truly is it said that men, in growing old, become
children again!--To the castle, then!" He returned thither. M. de Lyonne
was coming out. He gave D'Artagnan both hands, but told him that the
king had been busy all the preceding evening and all night, and that
orders had been given that no one should be admitted.
"Not even the captain who takes the order?" cried D'Artagnan. "I think
that he is rather too strong."
"Not even he," said M. de Lyonne.
"Since that is the case," replied D'Artagnan, wounded to the heart;
"since the captain of the musketeers, who has always entered the king's
chamber, is no longer allowed to enter it, his cabinet, or his
_salle-a-manger_; either the king is dead, or his captain is in
disgrace. In either case, he can no longer want him. Do me the favor,
then, M. de Lyonne, who are in favor, to return and tell the king
plainly, I send him my resignation."
"D'Artagnan, beware of what you are doing!"
"For friendship's sake, go!" and he pushed him gently toward the
cabinet.
"Well, I will go," said Lyonne.
D'Artagnan waited, walking about the corridor in no enviable mood.
Lyonne returned. "Well, what did the king say?" exclaimed D'Artagnan.
"He simply answered, 'That is well,'" replied Lyonne.
"That that was well!" said the captain, with an explosion. "That is to
say, that he accepts it? Good! Now, then, I am free! I am only a plain
citizen, M. de Lyonne. I have the pleasure of bidding you good-by!
Farewell, castle, corridor, antechamber! a _bourgeois_, about to breathe
at liberty, takes his farewell of you."
And without waiting longer, the captain sprang from the terrace down the
staircase, where he had picked up the fragments of Gourville's letter.
Five minutes after, he was at the hostelry, where, according to the
custom of all great officers who have lodgings at the castle, he had
taken what was called his city chamber. But when arrived there, instead
of throwing off his sword and cloak, he took his pistols, put his money
into a large leather purse, sent for his horses from the castle stables,
and gave orders for reaching Vannes during the night. Everything went on
according to his wishes. At eight o'clock in the evening, he was putting
his foot in the stirrup, when M. de Gesvres appeared, at the head of
twelve guards, in front of the hostelry. D'Artagnan saw all from the
corner of his eye; he could not fail seeing thirteen men and thirteen
horses. But he feigned not to observe anything, and was about to put his
horse in motion. Gesvres rode up to him. "Monsieur d'Artagnan!" said he
aloud.
"Ah, Monsieur de Gesvres! good-evening!"
"One would say you were getting on horseback."
"More than that--I am mounted, as you see."
"It is fortunate I have met with you."
"Were you looking for me, then?"
"Mon Dieu! yes."
"On the part of the king, I will wager?"
"Yes."
"As I, three days ago, went in search of M. Fouquet?"
"Oh!"
"Nonsense! It is of no use being delicate with me; that is all labor
lost. Tell me at once you are come to arrest me."
"To arrest you--good heavens! no."
"Why do you come to accost me with twelve horsemen at your heels, then?"
"I am making my round."
"That isn't bad! And so you pick me up in your round, eh?"
"I don't pick you up; I meet with you, and I beg you to come with me."
"Where?"
"To the king."
"Good!" said D'Artagnan, with a bantering air; "the king has nothing to
do at last!"
"For Heaven's sake, captain," said M. de Gesvres, in a low voice to the
musketeer, "do not compromise yourself! these men hear you."
D'Artagnan laughed aloud, and replied, "March! People who are arrested
are placed between the six first guards and the six last."
"But as I do not arrest you," said M. de Gesvres, "you will march behind
with me, if you please."
"Well," said D'Artagnan, "that is very polite, duc, and you are right in
being so; for if ever I had had to make my rounds near your
_chambre-de-ville_, I should have been courteous to you, I assure you,
by the faith of a gentleman! Now, one favor more: what does the king
want with me?"
"Oh, the king is furious!"
"Very well! the king, who has thought it worth while to be furious, may
take the trouble of getting calm again; that is all that. I shan't die
of that, I will swear."
"No, but--"
"But--I shall be sent to keep company with poor M. Fouquet. Mordioux!
That is a gallant man, a worthy man! We shall live very sociably
together, I will be bound."
"Here we are at our place of destination," said the duc. "Captain, for
Heaven's sake be calm with the king!"
"Ah, ah! you are playing the brave man with me, duc!" said D'Artagnan,
throwing one of his defiant glances over De Gesvres. "I have been told
that you are ambitious of uniting your guards with my musketeers. This
strikes me as a capital opportunity."
"I will take devilish good care not to avail myself of it, captain."
"And why not?"
"Oh, for many reasons--in the first place, for this: If I were to
succeed you in the musketeers, after having arrested you--"
"Ah! then, you admit you have arrested me?"
"No, I don't."
"Say, met me, then. So you were saying, _if_ you were to succeed me,
after having arrested me?"
"Your musketeers, at the first exercise with ball cartridges, would all
fire toward me, by mistake."
"Ah! as to that I won't say; for the fellows do love me a little."
Gesvres made D'Artagnan pass in first, and took him straight to the
cabinet where the king was waiting for his captain of the musketeers,
and placed himself behind his colleague in the antechamber. The king
could be heard distinctly, speaking aloud to Colbert, in the same
cabinet where Colbert might have heard, a few days before, the king
speaking aloud with M. d'Artagnan. The guards remained as a mounted
piquet before the principal gate; and the report was quickly spread
through the city that monsieur le capitaine of the musketeers had just
been arrested by order of the king. Then, these men were seen to be in
motion, as, in the good old times of Louis XIII., and M. de Treville;
groups were formed, the staircases were filled; vague murmurs, issuing
from the courts below, came rolling up to the upper stories, like the
hoarse moanings of the tide-waves. M. de Gesvres became very uneasy. He
looked at his guards, who, after being interrogated by the musketeers
who had just got among their ranks, began to shun them with a
manifestation of uneasiness. D'Artagnan was certainly less disturbed
than M. de Gesvres, the captain of the guards, was. As soon as he
entered, he had seated himself on the ledge of a window, whence, with
his eagle glance, he saw all that was going on, without the least
emotion. None of the progress of the fermentation which had manifested
itself at the report of his arrest had escaped him. He foresaw the
moment when the explosion would take place, and we know that his
previsions were pretty correct.
"It would be very whimsical," thought he, "if, this evening, my
prætorians should make me king of France. How I should laugh!"
But, at the height, all was stopped. Guards, musketeers, officers,
soldiers, murmurs and uneasinesses, all dispersed, vanished, died away;
no more tempest, no more menace, no more sedition. One word had calmed
all the waves. The king had desired Brienne to say, "Hush, messieurs!
you disturb the king."
D'Artagnan sighed. "All is over!" said he; "the musketeers of the
present day are not those of his majesty Louis XIII. All is over!"
"M. d'Artagnan to the king's apartment," cried an usher.