Cellini,” replied Athos.
“What battle does it represent?”
“That of Marignan, just at the point where one of my forefathers is
offering his sword to Francis I., who has broken his. It was on that
occasion that my ancestor, Enguerrand de la Fère, was made a knight of
the Order of St. Michael; besides which, the king, fifteen years
afterward, gave him also this ewer and a sword which you may have seen
formerly in my house, also a lovely specimen of workmanship. Men were
giants in those times,” said Athos; “now we are pigmies in comparison.
Let us sit down to supper. Call Charles,” he added, addressing the boy
who waited.
“My good Charles, I particularly recommend to your care Planchet, the
_laquais_ of Monsieur D’Artagnan. He likes good wine; now you have the
key of the cellar. He has slept a long time on a hard bed, so he won’t
object to a soft one; take every care of him, I beg of you.” Charles
bowed and retired.
“You think of everything,” said D’Artagnan; “and I thank you for
Planchet, my dear Athos.”
Raoul stared on hearing this name and looked at the count to be quite
sure that it was he whom the lieutenant thus addressed.
“That name sounds strange to you,” said Athos, smiling; “it was my _nom
de guerre_ when Monsieur D’Artagnan, two other gallant friends and
myself performed some feats of arms at the siege of La Rochelle, under
the deceased cardinal and Monsieur de Bassompierre. My friend is still
so kind as to address me by that old and well beloved appellation,
which makes my heart glad when I hear it.”
“’Tis an illustrious name,” said the lieutenant, “and had one day
triumphal honors paid to it.”
“What do you mean, sir?” inquired Raoul.
“You have not forgotten St. Gervais, Athos, and the napkin which was
converted into a banner?” and he then related to Raoul the story of the
bastion, and Raoul fancied he was listening to one of those deeds of
arms belonging to days of chivalry, so gloriously recounted by Tasso
and Ariosto.
“D’Artagnan does not tell you, Raoul,” said Athos, in his turn, “that
he was reckoned one of the finest swordsmen of his time—a knuckle of
iron, a wrist of steel, a sure eye and a glance of fire; that’s what
his adversary met with. He was eighteen, only three years older than
you are, Raoul, when I saw him set to work, pitted against tried men.”
“And did Monsieur D’Artagnan come off the conqueror?” asked the young
man, with glistening eye.
“I killed one man, if I recollect rightly,” replied D’Artagnan, with a
look of inquiry directed to Athos; “another I disarmed or wounded, I
don’t remember which.”
“Wounded!” said Athos; “it was a phenomenon of skill.”
The young man would willingly have prolonged this conversation far into
the night, but Athos pointed out to him that his guest must need
repose. D’Artagnan would fain have declared that he was not fatigued,
but Athos insisted on his retiring to his chamber, conducted thither by
Raoul.
Chapter XV.
Athos as a Diplomatist.
D’Artagnan retired to bed—not to sleep, but to think over all he had
heard that evening. Being naturally goodhearted, and having had once a
liking for Athos, which had grown into a sincere friendship, he was
delighted at thus meeting a man full of intelligence and moral
strength, instead of a drunkard. He admitted without annoyance the
continued superiority of Athos over himself, devoid as he was of that
jealousy which might have saddened a less generous disposition; he was
delighted also that the high qualities of Athos appeared to promise
favorably for his mission. Nevertheless, it seemed to him that Athos
was not in all respects sincere and frank. Who was the youth he had
adopted and who bore so striking a resemblance to him? What could
explain Athos’s having re-entered the world and the extreme sobriety he
had observed at table? The absence of Grimaud, whose name had never
once been uttered by Athos, gave D’Artagnan uneasiness. It was evident
either that he no longer possessed the confidence of his friend, or
that Athos was bound by some invisible chain, or that he had been
forewarned of the lieutenant’s visit.
He could not help thinking of M. Rochefort, whom he had seen in Notre
Dame; could De Rochefort have forestalled him with Athos? Again, the
moderate fortune which Athos possessed, concealed as it was, so
skillfully, seemed to show a regard for appearances and to betray a
latent ambition which might be easily aroused. The clear and vigorous
intellect of Athos would render him more open to conviction than a less
able man would be. He would enter into the minister’s schemes with the
more ardor, because his natural activity would be doubled by necessity.
Resolved to seek an explanation on all these points on the following
day, D’Artagnan, in spite of his fatigue, prepared for an attack and
determined that it should take place after breakfast. He determined to
cultivate the good-will of the youth Raoul and, either whilst fencing
with him or when out shooting, to extract from his simplicity some
information which would connect the Athos of old times with the Athos
of the present. But D’Artagnan at the same time, being a man of extreme
caution, was quite aware what injury he should do himself, if by any
indiscretion or awkwardness he should betray has manoeuvering to the
experienced eye of Athos. Besides, to tell truth, whilst D’Artagnan was
quite disposed to adopt a subtle course against the cunning of Aramis
or the vanity of Porthos, he was ashamed to equivocate with Athos,
true-hearted, open Athos. It seemed to him that if Porthos and Aramis
deemed him superior to them in the arts of diplomacy, they would like
him all the better for it; but that Athos, on the contrary, would
despise him.
“Ah! why is not Grimaud, the taciturn Grimaud, here?” thought
D’Artagnan, “there are so many things his silence would have told me;
with Grimaud silence was another form of eloquence!”
There reigned a perfect stillness in the house. D’Artagnan had heard
the door shut and the shutters barred; the dogs became in their turn
silent. At last a nightingale, lost in a thicket of shrubs, in the
midst of its most melodious cadences had fluted low and lower into
stillness and fallen asleep. Not a sound was heard in the castle,
except of a footstep up and down, in the chamber above—as he supposed,
the bedroom of Athos.
“He is walking about and thinking,” thought D’Artagnan; “but of what?
It is impossible to know; everything else might be guessed, but not
that.”
At length Athos went to bed, apparently, for the noise ceased.
Silence and fatigue together overcame D’Artagnan and sleep overtook him
also. He was not, however, a good sleeper. Scarcely had dawn gilded his
window curtains when he sprang out of bed and opened the windows.
Somebody, he perceived, was in the courtyard, moving stealthily. True
to his custom of never passing anything over that it was within his
power to know, D’Artagnan looked out of the window and perceived the
close red coat and brown hair of Raoul.
The young man was opening the door of the stable. He then, with
noiseless haste, took out the horse that he had ridden on the previous
evening, saddled and bridled it himself and led the animal into the
alley to the right of the kitchen-garden, opened a side door which
conducted him to a bridle road, shut it after him, and D’Artagnan saw
him pass by like a dart, bending, as he went, beneath the pendent
flowery branches of maple and acacia. The road, as D’Artagnan had
observed, was the way to Blois.
“So!” thought the Gascon “here’s a young blade who has already his love
affair, who doesn’t at all agree with Athos in his hatred to the fair
sex. He’s not going to hunt, for he has neither dogs nor arms; he’s not
going on a message, for he goes secretly. Why does he go in secret? Is
he afraid of me or of his father? for I am sure the count is his
father. By Jove! I shall know about that soon, for I shall soon speak
out to Athos.”
Day was now advanced; all the noises that had ceased the night before
reawakened, one after the other. The bird on the branch, the dog in his
kennel, the sheep in the field, the boats moored in the Loire, even,
became alive and vocal. The latter, leaving the shore, abandoned
themselves gaily to the current. The Gascon gave a last twirl to his
mustache, a last turn to his hair, brushed, from habit, the brim of his
hat with the sleeve of his doublet, and went downstairs. Scarcely had
he descended the last step of the threshold when he saw Athos bent down
toward the ground, as if he were looking for a crown-piece in the dust.
“Good-morning, my dear host,” cried D’Artagnan.
“Good-day to you; have you slept well?”
“Excellently, Athos, but what are you looking for? You are perhaps a
tulip fancier?”
“My dear friend, if I am, you must not laugh at me for being so. In the
country people alter; one gets to like, without knowing it, all those
beautiful objects that God causes to spring from the earth, which are
despised in cities. I was looking anxiously for some iris roots I
planted here, close to this reservoir, and which some one has trampled
upon this morning. These gardeners are the most careless people in the
world; in bringing the horse out to the water they’ve allowed him to
walk over the border.”
D’Artagnan began to smile.
“Ah! you think so, do you?”
And he took his friend along the alley, where a number of tracks like
those which had trampled down the flowerbeds, were visible.
“Here are the horse’s hoofs again, it seems, Athos,” he said
carelessly.
“Yes, indeed, the marks are recent.”
“Quite so,” replied the lieutenant.
“Who went out this morning?” Athos asked, uneasily. “Has any horse got
loose?”
“Not likely,” answered the Gascon; “these marks are regular.”
“Where is Raoul?” asked Athos; “how is it that I have not seen him?”
“Hush!” exclaimed D’Artagnan, putting his finger on his lips; and he
related what he had seen, watching Athos all the while.
“Ah, he’s gone to Blois; the poor boy——”
“Wherefore?”
“Ah, to inquire after the little La Vallière; she has sprained her
foot, you know.”
“You think he has?”
“I am sure of it,” said Athos; “don’t you see that Raoul is in love?”
“Indeed! with whom—with a child seven years old?”
“Dear friend, at Raoul’s age the heart is so expansive that it must
encircle one object or another, fancied or real. Well, his love is half
real, half fanciful. She is the prettiest little creature in the world,
with flaxen hair, blue eyes,—at once saucy and languishing.”
“But what say you to Raoul’s fancy?”
“Nothing—I laugh at Raoul; but this first desire of the heart is
imperious. I remember, just at his age, how deep in love I was with a
Grecian statue which our good king, then Henry IV., gave my father,
insomuch that I was mad with grief when they told me that the story of
Pygmalion was nothing but a fable.”
“It is mere want of occupation. You do not make Raoul work, so he takes
his own way of employing himself.”
“Exactly; therefore I think of sending him away from here.”
“You will be wise to do so.”
“No doubt of it; but it will break his heart. So long as three or four
years ago he used to adorn and adore his little idol, whom he will some
day fall in love with in right earnest if he remains here. The parents
of little La Vallière have for a long time perceived and been amused at
it; now they begin to look concerned.”
“Nonsense! However, Raoul must be diverted from this fancy. Send him
away or you will never make a man of him.”
“I think I shall send him to Paris.”
“So!” thought D’Artagnan, and it seemed to him that the moment for
attack had arrived.
“Suppose,” he said, “we roughly chalk out a career for this young man.
I wish to consult you about some thing.”
“Do so.”
“Do you think it is time for us to enter the service?”
“But are you not still in the service—you, D’Artagnan?”
“I mean active service. Our former life, has it still no attractions
for you? would you not be happy to begin anew in my society and in that
of Porthos, the exploits of our youth?”
“Do you propose to me to do so, D’Artagnan?”
“Decidedly and honestly.”
“On whose side?” asked Athos, fixing his clear, benevolent glance on
the countenance of the Gascon.
“Ah, devil take it, you speak in earnest——”
“And must have a definite answer. Listen, D’Artagnan. There is but one
person, or rather, one cause, to whom a man like me can be useful—that
of the king.”
“Exactly,” answered the musketeer.
“Yes, but let us understand each other,” returned Athos, seriously. “If
by the cause of the king you mean that of Monsieur de Mazarin, we do
_not_ understand each other.”
“I don’t say exactly,” answered the Gascon, confused.
“Come, D’Artagnan, don’t let us play a sidelong game; your hesitation,
your evasion, tells me at once on whose side you are; for that party no
one dares openly to recruit, and when people recruit for it, it is with
averted eyes and humble voice.”
“Ah! my dear Athos!”
“You know that I am not alluding to you; you are the pearl of brave,
bold men. I speak of that spiteful and intriguing Italian—of the pedant
who has tried to put on his own head a crown which he stole from under
a pillow—of the scoundrel who calls his party the party of the king—who
wants to send the princes of the blood to prison, not daring to kill
them, as our great cardinal—our cardinal did—of the miser, who weighs
his gold pieces and keeps the clipped ones for fear, though he is rich,
of losing them at play next morning—of the impudent fellow who insults
the queen, as they say—so much the worse for her—and who is going in
three months to make war upon us, in order that he may retain his
pensions; is that the master whom you propose to me? I thank you,
D’Artagnan.”
“You are more impetuous than you were,” returned D’Artagnan. “Age has
warmed, not chilled your blood. Who informed you this was the master I
propose to you? Devil take it,” he muttered to himself, “don’t let me
betray my secrets to a man not inclined to entertain them.”
“Well, then,” said Athos, “what are your schemes? what do you propose?”
“Zounds! nothing more than natural. You live on your estate, happy in
golden mediocrity. Porthos has, perhaps, sixty thousand francs income.
Aramis has always fifty duchesses quarreling over the priest, as they
quarreled formerly over the musketeer; but I—what have I in the world?
I have worn my cuirass these twenty years, kept down in this inferior
rank, without going forward or backward, hardly half living. In fact, I
am dead. Well! when there is some idea of being resuscitated, you say
he’s a scoundrel, an impudent fellow, a miser, a bad master! By Jove! I
am of your opinion, but find me a better one or give me the means of
living.”
Athos was for a few moments thoughtful.
“Good! D’Artagnan is for Mazarin,” he said to himself.
From that moment he grew very guarded.
On his side D’Artagnan became more cautious also.
“You spoke to me,” Athos resumed, “of Porthos; have you persuaded him
to seek his fortune? But he has wealth, I believe, already.”
“Doubtless he has. But such is man, we always want something more than
we already have.”
“What does Porthos wish for?”
“To be a baron.”
“Ah, true! I forgot,” said Athos, laughing.
“’Tis true!” thought the Gascon, “where has he heard it? Does he
correspond with Aramis? Ah! if I knew that he did I should know all.”
The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Raoul.
“Is our little neighbor worse?” asked D’Artagnan, seeing a look of
vexation on the face of the youth.
“Ah, sir!” replied Raoul, “her fall is a very serious one, and without
any ostensible injury, the physician fears she will be lame for life.”
“This is terrible,” said Athos.
“And what makes me all the more wretched, sir, is, that I was the cause
of this misfortune.”
“How so?” asked Athos.
“It was to run to meet me that she leaped from that pile of wood.”
“There’s only one remedy, dear Raoul—that is, to marry her as a
compensation.” remarked D’Artagnan.
“Ah, sir!” answered Raoul, “you joke about a real misfortune; that is
cruel, indeed.”
The good understanding between the two friends was not in the least
altered by the morning’s skirmish. They breakfasted with a good
appetite, looking now and then at poor Raoul, who with moist eyes and a
full heart, scarcely ate at all.
After breakfast two letters arrived for Athos, who read them with
profound attention, whilst D’Artagnan could not restrain himself from
jumping up several times on seeing him read these epistles, in one of
which, there being at the time a very strong light, he perceived the
fine writing of Aramis. The other was in a feminine hand, long, and
crossed.
“Come,” said D’Artagnan to Raoul, seeing that Athos wished to be alone,
“come, let us take a turn in the fencing gallery; that will amuse you.”
And they both went into a low room where there were foils, gloves,
masks, breastplates, and all the accessories for a fencing match.
In a quarter of an hour Athos joined them and at the same moment
Charles brought in a letter for D’Artagnan, which a messenger had just
desired might be instantly delivered.
It was now Athos’s turn to take a sly look.
D’Artagnan read the letter with apparent calmness and said, shaking his
head:
“See, dear friend, what it is to belong to the army. Faith, you are
indeed right not to return to it. Monsieur de Tréville is ill, so my
company can’t do without me; there! my leave is at an end!”
“Do you return to Paris?” asked Athos, quickly.
“Egad! yes; but why don’t you come there also?”
Athos colored a little and answered:
“Should I go, I shall be delighted to see you there.”
“Halloo, Planchet!” cried the Gascon from the door, “we must set out in
ten minutes; give the horses some hay.”
Then turning to Athos he added:
“I seem to miss something here. I am really sorry to go away without
having seen Grimaud.”
“Grimaud!” replied Athos. “I’m surprised you have never so much as
asked after him. I have lent him to a friend——”
“Who will understand the signs he makes?” returned D’Artagnan.
“I _hope_ so.”
The friends embraced cordially; D’Artagnan pressed Raoul’s hand.
“Will you not come with me?” he said; “I shall pass by Blois.”
Raoul turned toward Athos, who showed him by a secret sign that he did
not wish him to go.
“No, monsieur,” replied the young man; “I will remain with monsieur le
comte.”
“Adieu, then, to both, my good friends,” said D’Artagnan; “may God
preserve you! as we used to say when we said good-bye to each other in
the late cardinal’s time.”
Athos waved his hand, Raoul bowed, and D’Artagnan and Planchet set out.
The count followed them with his eyes, his hands resting on the
shoulders of the youth, whose height was almost equal to his own; but
as soon as they were out of sight he said:
“Raoul, we set out to-night for Paris.”
“Eh?” cried the young man, turning pale.
“You may go and offer your adieux and mine to Madame de Saint-Remy. I
shall wait for you here till seven.”
The young man bent low, with an expression of sorrow and gratitude
mingled, and retired in order to saddle his horse.
As to D’Artagnan, scarcely, on his side, was he out of sight when he
drew from his pocket a letter, which he read over again:
“Return immediately to Paris.—J. M——.”
“The epistle is laconic,” said D’Artagnan; “and if there had not been a
postscript, probably I should not have understood it; but happily there
is a postscript.”
And he read that welcome postscript, which made him forget the
abruptness of the letter.
“P. S.—Go to the king’s treasurer, at Blois; tell him your name and
show him this letter; you will receive two hundred pistoles.”
“Assuredly,” said D’Artagnan, “I admire this piece of prose. The
cardinal writes better than I thought. Come, Planchet, let us pay a
visit to the king’s treasurer and then set off.”
“Toward Paris, sir?”
“Toward Paris.”
And they set out at as hard a canter as their horses could maintain.
Chapter XVI.
The Duc de Beaufort.
The circumstances that had hastened the return of D’Artagnan to Paris
were as follows:
One evening, when Mazarin, according to custom, went to visit the
queen, in passing the guard-chamber he heard loud voices; wishing to
know on what topic the soldiers were conversing, he approached with his
wonted wolf-like step, pushed open the door and put his head close to
the chink.
There was a dispute among the guards.
“I tell you,” one of them was saying, “that if Coysel predicted that,
’tis as good as true; I know nothing about it, but I have heard say
that he’s not only an astrologer, but a magician.”
“Deuce take it, friend, if he’s one of thy friends thou wilt ruin him
in saying so.”
“Why?”
“Because he may be tried for it.”
“Ah! absurd! they don’t burn sorcerers nowadays.”
“No? ’Tis not a long time since the late cardinal burnt Urban Grandier,
though.”
“My friend, Urban Grandier wasn’t a sorcerer, he was a learned man. He
didn’t predict the future, he knew the past—often a more dangerous
thing.”
Mazarin nodded an assent, but wishing to know what this prediction was,
about which they disputed, he remained in the same place.
“I don’t say,” resumed the guard, “that Coysel is not a sorcerer, but I
say that if his prophecy gets wind, it’s a sure way to prevent it’s
coming true.”
“How so?”
“Why, in this way: if Coysel says loud enough for the cardinal to hear
him, on such or such a day such a prisoner will escape, ’tis plain that
the cardinal will take measures of precaution and that the prisoner
will not escape.”
“Good Lord!” said another guard, who might have been thought asleep on
a bench, but who had lost not a syllable of the conversation, “do you
suppose that men can escape their destiny? If it is written yonder, in
Heaven, that the Duc de Beaufort is to escape, he will escape; and all
the precautions of the cardinal will not prevent it.”
Mazarin started. He was an Italian and therefore superstitious. He
walked straight into the midst of the guards, who on seeing him were
silent.
“What were you saying?” he asked with his flattering manner; “that
Monsieur de Beaufort had escaped, were you not?”
“Oh, no, my lord!” said the incredulous soldier. “He’s well guarded
now; we only said he would escape.”
“Who said so?”
“Repeat your story, Saint Laurent,” replied the man, turning to the
originator of the tale.
“My lord,” said the guard, “I have simply mentioned the prophecy I
heard from a man named Coysel, who believes that, be he ever so closely
watched and guarded, the Duke of Beaufort will escape before
Whitsuntide.”
“Coysel is a madman!” returned the cardinal.
“No,” replied the soldier, tenacious in his credulity; “he has foretold
many things which have come to pass; for instance, that the queen would
have a son; that Monsieur Coligny would be killed in a duel with the
Duc de Guise; and finally, that the coadjutor would be made cardinal.
Well! the queen has not only one son, but two; then, Monsieur de
Coligny was killed, and——”
“Yes,” said Mazarin, “but the coadjutor is not yet made cardinal!”
“No, my lord, but he will be,” answered the guard.
Mazarin made a grimace, as if he meant to say, “But he does not wear
the cardinal’s cap;” then he added:
“So, my friend, it’s your opinion that Monsieur de Beaufort will
escape?”
“That’s my idea, my lord; and if your eminence were to offer to make me
at this moment governor of the castle of Vincennes, I should refuse it.
After Whitsuntide it would be another thing.”
There is nothing so convincing as a firm conviction. It has its own
effect upon the most incredulous; and far from being incredulous,
Mazarin was superstitious. He went away thoughtful and anxious and
returned to his own room, where he summoned Bernouin and desired him to
fetch thither in the morning the special guard he had placed over
Monsieur de Beaufort and to awaken him whenever he should arrive.
The guard had, in fact, touched the cardinal in the tenderest point.
During the whole five years in which the Duc de Beaufort had been in
prison not a day had passed in which the cardinal had not felt a secret
dread of his escape. It was not possible, as he knew well, to confine
for the whole of his life the grandson of Henry IV., especially when
this young prince was scarcely thirty years of age. But however and
whensoever he did escape, what hatred he must cherish against him to
whom he owed his long imprisonment; who had taken him, rich, brave,
glorious, beloved by women, feared by men, to cut off his life’s best,
happiest years; for it is not life, it is merely existence, in prison!
Meantime, Mazarin redoubled his surveillance over the duke. But like
the miser in the fable, he could not sleep for thinking of his
treasure. Often he awoke in the night, suddenly, dreaming that he had
been robbed of Monsieur de Beaufort. Then he inquired about him and had
the vexation of hearing that the prisoner played, drank, sang, but that
whilst playing, drinking, singing, he often stopped short to vow that
Mazarin should pay dear for all the amusements he had forced him to
enter into at Vincennes.
So much did this one idea haunt the cardinal even in his sleep, that
when at seven in the morning Bernouin came to arouse him, his first
words were: “Well, what’s the matter? Has Monsieur de Beaufort escaped
from Vincennes?”
“I do not think so, my lord,” said Bernouin; “but you will hear about
him, for La Ramee is here and awaits the commands of your eminence.”
“Tell him to come in,” said Mazarin, arranging his pillows, so that he
might receive the visitor sitting up in bed.
The officer entered, a large fat man, with an open physiognomy. His air
of perfect serenity made Mazarin uneasy.
“Approach, sir,” said the cardinal.
The officer obeyed.
“Do you know what they are saying here?”
“No, your eminence.”
“Well, they say that Monsieur de Beaufort is going to escape from
Vincennes, if he has not done so already.”
The officer’s face expressed complete stupefaction. He opened at once
his little eyes and his great mouth, to inhale better the joke his
eminence deigned to address to him, and ended by a burst of laughter,
so violent that his great limbs shook in hilarity as they would have
done in an ague.
“Escape! my lord—escape! Your eminence does not then know where
Monsieur de Beaufort is?”
“Yes, I do, sir; in the donjon of Vincennes.”
“Yes, sir; in a room, the walls of which are seven feet thick, with
grated windows, each bar as thick as my arm.”
“Sir,” replied Mazarin, “with perseverance one may penetrate through a
wall; with a watch-spring one may saw through an iron bar.”
“Then my lord does not know that there are eight guards about him, four
in his chamber, four in the antechamber, and that they never leave
him.”
“But he leaves his room, he plays at tennis at the Mall?”
“Sir, those amusements are allowed; but if your eminence wishes it, we
will discontinue the permission.”
“No, no!” cried Mazarin, fearing that should his prisoner ever leave
his prison he would be the more exasperated against him if he thus
retrenched his amusement. He then asked with whom he played.
“My lord, either with the officers of the guard, with the other
prisoners, or with me.”
“But does he not approach the walls while playing?”
“Your eminence doesn’t know those walls; they are sixty feet high and I
doubt if Monsieur de Beaufort is sufficiently weary of life to risk his
neck by jumping off.”
“Hum!” said the cardinal, beginning to feel more comfortable. “You mean
to say, then, my dear Monsieur la Ramee——”
“That unless Monsieur de Beaufort can contrive to metamorphose himself
into a little bird, I will continue answerable for him.”
“Take care! you assert a great deal,” said Mazarin. “Monsieur de
Beaufort told the guards who took him to Vincennes that he had often
thought what he should do in case he were put into prison, and that he
had found out forty ways of escaping.”
“My lord, if among these forty there had been one good way he would
have been out long ago.”
“Come, come; not such a fool as I fancied!” thought Mazarin.
“Besides, my lord must remember that Monsieur de Chavigny is governor
of Vincennes,” continued La Ramee, “and that Monsieur de Chavigny is
not friendly to Monsieur de Beaufort.”
“Yes, but Monsieur de Chavigny is sometimes absent.”
“When he is absent I am there.”
“But when you leave him, for instance?”
“Oh! when I leave him, I place in my stead a bold fellow who aspires to
be his majesty’s special guard. I promise you he keeps a good watch
over the prisoner. During the three weeks that he has been with me, I
have only had to reproach him with one thing—being too severe with the
prisoners.”
“And who is this Cerberus?”
“A certain Monsieur Grimaud, my lord.”
“And what was he before he went to Vincennes?”
“He was in the country, as I was told by the person who recommended him
to me.”
“And who recommended this man to you?”
“The steward of the Duc de Grammont.”
“He is not a gossip, I hope?”
“Lord a mercy, my lord! I thought for a long time that he was dumb; he
answers only by signs. It seems his former master accustomed him to
that.”
“Well, dear Monsieur la Ramee,” replied the cardinal “let him prove a
true and thankful keeper and we will shut our eyes upon his rural
misdeeds and put on his back a uniform to make him respectable, and in
the pockets of that uniform some pistoles to drink to the king’s
health.”
Mazarin was large in promises,—quite unlike the virtuous Monsieur
Grimaud so bepraised by La Ramee; for he said nothing and did much.
It was now nine o’clock. The cardinal, therefore, got up, perfumed
himself, dressed, and went to the queen to tell her what had detained
him. The queen, who was scarcely less afraid of Monsieur de Beaufort
than the cardinal himself, and who was almost as superstitious as he
was, made him repeat word for word all La Ramee’s praises of his
deputy. Then, when the cardinal had ended:
“Alas, sir! why have we not a Grimaud near every prince?”
“Patience!” replied Mazarin, with his Italian smile; “that may happen
one day; but in the meantime——”
“Well, in the meantime?”
“I shall still take precautions.”
And he wrote to D’Artagnan to hasten his return.
Chapter XVII.
Duc de Beaufort amused his Leisure Hours in the Donjon of Vincennes.
The captive who was the source of so much alarm to the cardinal and
whose means of escape disturbed the repose of the whole court, was
wholly unconscious of the terror he caused at the Palais Royal.
He had found himself so strictly guarded that he soon perceived the
fruitlessness of any attempt at escape. His vengeance, therefore,
consisted in coining curses on the head of Mazarin; he even tried to
make some verses on him, but soon gave up the attempt, for Monsieur de
Beaufort had not only not received from Heaven the gift of versifying,
he had the greatest difficulty in expressing himself in prose.
The duke was the grandson of Henry IV. and Gabrielle d’Estrées—as
good-natured, as brave, as proud, and above all, as Gascon as his
ancestor, but less elaborately educated. After having been for some
time after the death of Louis XIII. the favorite, the confidant, the
first man, in short, at the court, he had been obliged to yield his
place to Mazarin and so became the second in influence and favor; and
eventually, as he was stupid enough to be vexed at this change of
position, the queen had had him arrested and sent to Vincennes in
charge of Guitant, who made his appearance in these pages in the
beginning of this history and whom we shall see again. It is
understood, of course, that when we say “the queen,” Mazarin is meant.
During the five years of this seclusion, which would have improved and
matured the intellect of any other man, M. de Beaufort, had he not
affected to brave the cardinal, despise princes, and walk alone without
adherents or disciples, would either have regained his liberty or made
partisans. But these considerations never occurred to the duke and
every day the cardinal received fresh accounts of him which were as
unpleasant as possible to the minister.
After having failed in poetry, Monsieur de Beaufort tried drawing. He
drew portraits, with a piece of coal, of the cardinal; and as his
talents did not enable him to produce a very good likeness, he wrote
under the picture that there might be little doubt regarding the
original: “Portrait of the Illustrious Coxcomb, Mazarin.” Monsieur de
Chavigny, the governor of Vincennes, waited upon the duke to request
that he would amuse himself in some other way, or that at all events,
if he drew likenesses, he would not put mottoes underneath them. The
next day the prisoner’s room was full of pictures and mottoes. Monsieur
de Beaufort, in common with many other prisoners, was bent upon doing
things that were prohibited; and the only resource the governor had
was, one day when the duke was playing at tennis, to efface all these
drawings, consisting chiefly of profiles. M. de Beaufort did not
venture to draw the cardinal’s fat face.
The duke thanked Monsieur de Chavigny for having, as he said, cleaned
his drawing-paper for him; he then divided the walls of his room into
compartments and dedicated each of these compartments to some incident
in Mazarin’s life. In one was depicted the “Illustrious Coxcomb”
receiving a shower of blows from Cardinal Bentivoglio, whose servant he
had been; another, the “Illustrious Mazarin” acting the part of
Ignatius Loyola in a tragedy of that name; a third, the “Illustrious
Mazarin” stealing the portfolio of prime minister from Monsieur de
Chavigny, who had expected to have it; a fourth, the “Illustrious
Coxcomb Mazarin” refusing to give Laporte, the young king’s valet,
clean sheets, and saving that “it was quite enough for the king of
France to have clean sheets every three months.”
The governor, of course, thought proper to threaten his prisoner that
if he did not give up drawing such pictures he should be obliged to
deprive him of all the means of amusing himself in that manner. To this
Monsieur de Beaufort replied that since every opportunity of
distinguishing himself in arms was taken from him, he wished to make
himself celebrated in the arts; since he could not be a Bayard, he
would become a Raphael or a Michael Angelo. Nevertheless, one day when
Monsieur de Beaufort was walking in the meadow his fire was put out,
his charcoal all removed, taken away; and thus his means of drawing
utterly destroyed.
The poor duke swore, fell into a rage, yelled, and declared that they
wished to starve him to death as they had starved the Maréchal Ornano
and the Grand Prior of Vendôme; but he refused to promise that he would
not make any more drawings and remained without any fire in the room
all the winter.
His next act was to purchase a dog from one of his keepers. With this
animal, which he called Pistache, he was often shut up for hours alone,
superintending, as every one supposed, its education. At last, when
Pistache was sufficiently well trained, Monsieur de Beaufort invited
the governor and officers of Vincennes to attend a representation which
he was going to have in his apartment.
The party assembled, the room was lighted with waxlights, and the
prisoner, with a bit of plaster he had taken out of the wall of his
room, had traced a long white line, representing a cord, on the floor.
Pistache, on a signal from his master, placed himself on this line,
raised himself on his hind paws, and holding in his front paws a wand
with which clothes used to be beaten, he began to dance upon the line
with as many contortions as a rope-dancer. Having been several times up
and down it, he gave the wand back to his master and began without
hesitation to perform the same evolutions over again.
The intelligent creature was received with loud applause.
The first part of the entertainment being concluded Pistache was
desired to say what o’clock it was; he was shown Monsieur de Chavigny’s
watch; it was then half-past six; the dog raised and dropped his paw
six times; the seventh he let it remain upraised. Nothing could be
better done; a sun-dial could not have shown the hour with greater
precision.
Then the question was put to him who was the best jailer in all the
prisons in France.
The dog performed three evolutions around the circle and laid himself,
with the deepest respect, at the feet of Monsieur de Chavigny, who at
first seemed inclined to like the joke and laughed long and loud, but a
frown succeeded, and he bit his lips with vexation.
Then the duke put to Pistache this difficult question, who was the
greatest thief in the world?
Pistache went again around the circle, but stopped at no one, and at
last went to the door and began to scratch and bark.
“See, gentlemen,” said M. de Beaufort, “this wonderful animal, not
finding here what I ask for, seeks it out of doors; you shall, however,
have his answer. Pistache, my friend, come here. Is not the greatest
thief in the world, Monsieur (the king’s secretary) Le Camus, who came
to Paris with twenty francs in his pocket and who now possesses ten
millions?”
The dog shook his head.
“Then is it not,” resumed the duke, “the Superintendent Emery, who gave
his son, when he was married, three hundred thousand francs and a
house, compared to which the Tuileries are a heap of ruins and the
Louvre a paltry building?”
The dog again shook his head as if to say “no.”
“Then,” said the prisoner, “let’s think who it can be. Can it be, can
it possibly be, the ‘Illustrious Coxcomb, Mazarin de Piscina,’ hey?”
Pistache made violent signs that it was, by raising and lowering his
head eight or ten times successively.
“Gentlemen, you see,” said the duke to those present, who dared not
even smile, “that it is the ‘Illustrious Coxcomb’ who is the greatest
thief in the world; at least, according to Pistache.”
“Let us go on to another of his exercises.”
“Gentlemen!”—there was a profound silence in the room when the duke
again addressed them—“do you not remember that the Duc de Guise taught
all the dogs in Paris to jump for Mademoiselle de Pons, whom he styled
‘the fairest of the fair?’ Pistache is going to show you how superior
he is to all other dogs. Monsieur de Chavigny, be so good as to lend me
your cane.”
Monsieur de Chavigny handed his cane to Monsieur de Beaufort. Monsieur
de Beaufort placed it horizontally at the height of one foot.
“Now, Pistache, my good dog, jump the height of this cane for Madame de
Montbazon.”
“But,” interposed Monsieur de Chavigny, “it seems to me that Pistache
is only doing what other dogs have done when they jumped for
Mademoiselle de Pons.”
“Stop,” said the duke, “Pistache, jump for the queen.” And he raised
his cane six inches higher.
The dog sprang, and in spite of the height jumped lightly over it.
“And now,” said the duke, raising it still six inches higher, “jump for
the king.”
The dog obeyed and jumped quickly over the cane.
“Now, then,” said the duke, and as he spoke, lowered the cane almost
level with the ground; “Pistache, my friend, jump for the ‘Illustrious
Coxcomb, Mazarin de Piscina.’”
The dog turned his back to the cane.
“What,” asked the duke, “what do you mean?” and he gave him the cane
again, first making a semicircle from the head to the tail of Pistache.
“Jump then, Monsieur Pistache.”
But Pistache, as at first, turned round on his legs and stood with his
back to the cane.
Monsieur de Beaufort made the experiment a third time, but by this time
Pistache’s patience was exhausted; he threw himself furiously upon the
cane, wrested it from the hands of the prince and broke it with his
teeth.
Monsieur de Beaufort took the pieces out of his mouth and presented
them with great formality to Monsieur de Chavigny, saying that for that
evening the entertainment was ended, but in three months it should be
repeated, when Pistache would have learned a few new tricks.
Three days afterward Pistache was found dead—poisoned.
Then the duke said openly that his dog had been killed by a drug with
which they meant to poison him; and one day after dinner he went to
bed, calling out that he had pains in his stomach and that Mazarin had
poisoned him.
This fresh impertinence reached the ears of the cardinal and alarmed
him greatly. The donjon of Vincennes was considered very unhealthy and
Madame de Rambouillet had said that the room in which the Maréchal
Ornano and the Grand Prior de Vendôme had died was worth its weight in
arsenic—a _bon mot_ which had great success. So it was ordered the
prisoner was henceforth to eat nothing that had not previously been
tasted, and La Ramee was in consequence placed near him as taster.
Every kind of revenge was practiced upon the duke by the governor in
return for the insults of the innocent Pistache. De Chavigny, who,
according to report, was a son of Richelieu’s, and had been a creature
of the late cardinal’s, understood tyranny. He took from the duke all
the steel knives and silver forks and replaced them with silver knives
and wooden forks, pretending that as he had been informed that the duke
was to pass all his life at Vincennes, he was afraid of his prisoner
attempting suicide. A fortnight afterward the duke, going to the tennis
court, found two rows of trees about the size of his little finger
planted by the roadside; he asked what they were for and was told that
they were to shade him from the sun on some future day. One morning the
gardener went to him and told him, as if to please him, that he was
going to plant a bed of asparagus for his especial use. Now, since, as
every one knows, asparagus takes four years in coming to perfection,
this civility infuriated Monsieur de Beaufort.
At last his patience was exhausted. He assembled his keepers, and
notwithstanding his well-known difficulty of utterance, addressed them
as follows:
“Gentlemen! will you permit a grandson of Henry IV. to be overwhelmed
with insults and ignominy?
“Odds fish! as my grandfather used to say, I once reigned in Paris! do
you know that? I had the king and Monsieur the whole of one day in my
care. The queen at that time liked me and called me the most honest man
in the kingdom. Gentlemen and citizens, set me free; I shall go to the
Louvre and strangle Mazarin. You shall be my body-guard. I will make
you all captains, with good pensions! Odds fish! On! march forward!”
But eloquent as he might be, the eloquence of the grandson of Henry IV.
did not touch those hearts of stone; not one man stirred, so Monsieur
de Beaufort was obliged to be satisfied with calling them all kinds of
rascals underneath the sun.
Sometimes, when Monsieur de Chavigny paid him a visit, the duke used to
ask him what he should think if he saw an army of Parisians, all fully
armed, appear at Vincennes to deliver him from prison.
“My lord,” answered De Chavigny, with a low bow, “I have on the
ramparts twenty pieces of artillery and in my casemates thirty thousand
guns. I should bombard the troops till not one grain of gunpowder was
unexploded.”
“Yes, but after you had fired off your thirty thousand guns they would
take the donjon; the donjon being taken, I should be obliged to let
them hang you—at which I should be most unhappy, certainly.”
And in his turn the duke bowed low to Monsieur de Chavigny.
“For myself, on the other hand, my lord,” returned the governor, “when
the first rebel should pass the threshold of my postern doors I should
be obliged to kill you with my own hand, since you were confided
peculiarly to my care and as I am obliged to give you up, dead or
alive.”
And once more he bowed low before his highness.
These bitter-sweet pleasantries lasted ten minutes, sometimes longer,
but always finished thus:
Monsieur de Chavigny, turning toward the door, used to call out:
“Halloo! La Ramee!”
La Ramee came into the room.
“La Ramee, I recommend Monsieur le Duc to you, particularly; treat him
as a man of his rank and family ought to be treated; that is, never
leave him alone an instant.”
La Ramee became, therefore, the duke’s dinner guest by compulsion—an
eternal keeper, the shadow of his person; but La Ramee—gay, frank,
convivial, fond of play, a great hand at tennis, had one defect in the
duke’s eyes—his incorruptibility.
Now, although La Ramee appreciated, as of a certain value, the honor of
being shut up with a prisoner of so great importance, still the
pleasure of living in intimacy with the grandson of Henry IV. hardly
compensated for the loss of that which he had experienced in going from
time to time to visit his family.
One may be a jailer or a keeper and at the same time a good father and
husband. La Ramee adored his wife and children, whom now he could only
catch a glimpse of from the top of the wall, when in order to please
him they used to walk on the opposite side of the moat. ’Twas too brief
an enjoyment, and La Ramee felt that the gayety of heart he had
regarded as the cause of health (of which it was perhaps rather the
result) would not long survive such a mode of life.
He accepted, therefore, with delight, an offer made to him by his
friend the steward of the Duc de Grammont, to give him a substitute; he
also spoke of it to Monsieur de Chavigny, who promised that he would
not oppose it in any way—that is, if he approved of the person
proposed.
We consider it useless to draw a physical or moral portrait of Grimaud;
if, as we hope, our readers have not wholly forgotten the first part of
this work, they must have preserved a clear idea of that estimable
individual, who is wholly unchanged, except that he is twenty years
older, an advance in life that has made him only more silent; although,
since the change that had been working in himself, Athos had given
Grimaud permission to speak.
But Grimaud had for twelve or fifteen years preserved habitual silence,
and a habit of fifteen or twenty years’ duration becomes second nature.
Chapter XVIII.
Grimaud begins his Functions.
Grimaud thereupon presented himself with his smooth exterior at the
donjon of Vincennes. Now Monsieur de Chavigny piqued himself on his
infallible penetration; for that which almost proved that he was the
son of Richelieu was his everlasting pretension; he examined
attentively the countenance of the applicant for place and fancied that
the contracted eyebrows, thin lips, hooked nose, and prominent
cheek-bones of Grimaud were favorable signs. He addressed about twelve
words to him; Grimaud answered in four.
“Here’s a promising fellow and it is I who have found out his merits,”
said Monsieur de Chavigny. “Go,” he added, “and make yourself agreeable
to Monsieur la Ramee, and tell him that you suit me in all respects.”
Grimaud had every quality that could attract a man on duty who wishes
to have a deputy. So, after a thousand questions which met with only a
word in reply, La Ramee, fascinated by this sobriety in speech, rubbed
his hands and engaged Grimaud.
“My orders?” asked Grimaud.
“They are these; never to leave the prisoner alone; to keep away from
him every pointed or cutting instrument, and to prevent his conversing
any length of time with the keepers.”
“Those are all?” asked Grimaud.
“All now,” replied La Ramee.
“Good,” answered Grimaud; and he went right to the prisoner.
The duke was in the act of combing his beard, which he had allowed to
grow, as well as his hair, in order to reproach Mazarin with his
wretched appearance and condition. But having some days previously seen
from the top of the donjon Madame de Montbazon pass in her carriage,
and still cherishing an affection for that beautiful woman, he did not
wish to be to her what he wished to be to Mazarin, and in the hope of
seeing her again, had asked for a leaden comb, which was allowed him.
The comb was to be a leaden one, because his beard, like that of most
fair people, was rather red; he therefore dyed it thus whilst combing
it.
As Grimaud entered he saw this comb on the tea-table; he took it up,
and as he took it he made a low bow.
The duke looked at this strange figure with surprise. The figure put
the comb in its pocket.
“Ho! hey! what’s that?” cried the duke. “Who is this creature?”
Grimaud did not answer, but bowed a second time.
“Art thou dumb?” cried the duke.
Grimaud made a sign that he was not.
“What art thou, then? Answer! I command thee!” said the duke.
“A keeper,” replied Grimaud.
“A keeper!” reiterated the duke; “there was nothing wanting in my
collection, except this gallows-bird. Halloo! La Ramee! some one!”
La Ramee ran in haste to obey the call.
“Who is this wretch who takes my comb and puts it in his pocket?” asked
the duke.
“One of your guards, my prince; a man of talent and merit, whom you
will like, as I and Monsieur de Chavigny do, I am sure.”
“Why does he take my comb?”
“Why do you take my lord’s comb?” asked La Ramee.
Grimaud drew the comb from his pocket and passing his fingers over the
largest teeth, pronounced this one word, “Pointed.”
“True,” said La Ramee.
“What does the animal say?” asked the duke.
“That the king has forbidden your lordship to have any pointed
instrument.”
“Are you mad, La Ramee? You yourself gave me this comb.”
“I was very wrong, my lord, for in giving it to you I acted in
opposition to my orders.”
The duke looked furiously at Grimaud.
“I perceive that this creature will be my particular aversion,” he
muttered.
Grimaud, nevertheless, was resolved for certain reasons not at once to
come to a full rupture with the prisoner; he wanted to inspire, not a
sudden repugnance, but a good, sound, steady hatred; he retired,
therefore, and gave place to four guards, who, having breakfasted,
could attend on the prisoner.
A fresh practical joke now occurred to the duke. He had asked for
crawfish for his breakfast on the following morning; he intended to
pass the day in making a small gallows and hang one of the finest of
these fish in the middle of his room—the red color evidently conveying
an allusion to the cardinal—so that he might have the pleasure of
hanging Mazarin in effigy without being accused of having hung anything
more significant than a crawfish.
The day was employed in preparations for the execution. Every one grows
childish in prison, but the character of Monsieur de Beaufort was
particularly disposed to become so. In the course of his morning’s walk
he collected two or three small branches from a tree and found a small
piece of broken glass, a discovery that quite delighted him. When he
came home he formed his handkerchief into a loop.
Nothing of all this escaped Grimaud, but La Ramee looked on with the
curiosity of a father who thinks that he may perhaps get a cheap idea
concerning a new toy for his children. The guards looked on it with
indifference. When everything was ready, the gallows hung in the middle
of the room, the loop made, and when the duke had cast a glance upon
the plate of crawfish, in order to select the finest specimen among
them, he looked around for his piece of glass; it had disappeared.
“Who has taken my piece of glass?” asked the duke, frowning. Grimaud
made a sign to denote that he had done so.
“What! thou again! Why didst thou take it?”
“Yes—why?” asked La Ramee.
Grimaud, who held the piece of glass in his hand, said: “Sharp.”
“True, my lord!” exclaimed La Ramee. “Ah! deuce take it! we have a
precious fellow here!”
“Monsieur Grimaud!” said the duke, “for your sake I beg of you, never
come within the reach of my fist!”
“Hush! hush!” cried La Ramee, “give me your gibbet, my lord. I will
shape it out for you with my knife.”
And he took the gibbet and shaped it out as neatly as possible.
“That’s it,” said the duke, “now make me a little hole in the floor
whilst I go and fetch the culprit.”
La Ramee knelt down and made a hole in the floor; meanwhile the duke
hung the crawfish up by a thread. Then he placed the gibbet in the
middle of the room, bursting with laughter.
La Ramee laughed also and the guards laughed in chorus; Grimaud,
however, did not even smile. He approached La Ramee and showing him the
crawfish hung up by the thread:
“Cardinal,” he said.
“Hung by order of his Highness the Duc de Beaufort!” cried the
prisoner, laughing violently, “and by Master Jacques Chrysostom La
Ramee, the king’s commissioner.”
La Ramee uttered a cry of horror and rushed toward the gibbet, which he
broke at once and threw the pieces out of the window. He was going to
throw the crawfish out also, when Grimaud snatched it from his hands.
“Good to eat!” he said, and put it in his pocket.
This scene so enchanted the duke that at the moment he forgave Grimaud
for his part in it; but on reflection he hated him more and more, being
convinced he had some evil motive for his conduct.
But the story of the crab made a great noise through the interior of
the donjon and even outside. Monsieur de Chavigny, who at heart
detested the cardinal, took pains to tell the story to two or three
friends, who put it into immediate circulation.
The prisoner happened to remark among the guards one man with a very
good countenance; and he favored this man the more as Grimaud became
the more and more odious to him. One morning he took this man on one
side and had succeeded in speaking to him, when Grimaud entered and
seeing what was going on approached the duke respectfully, but took the
guard by the arm.
“Go away,” he said.
The guard obeyed.
“You are insupportable!” cried the duke; “I shall beat you.”
Grimaud bowed.
“I will break every bone in your body!” cried the duke.
Grimaud bowed, but stepped back.
“Mr. Spy,” cried the duke, more and more enraged, “I will strangle you
with my own hands.”
And he extended his hands toward Grimaud, who merely thrust the guard
out and shut the door behind him. At the same time he felt the duke’s
arms on his shoulders like two iron claws; but instead either of
calling out or defending himself, he placed his forefinger on his lips
and said in a low tone:
“Hush!” smiling as he uttered the word.
A gesture, a smile and a word from Grimaud, all at once, were so
unusual that his highness stopped short, astounded.
Grimaud took advantage of that instant to draw from his vest a charming
little note with an aristocratic seal, and presented it to the duke
without a word.
The duke, more and more bewildered, let Grimaud loose and took the
note.
“From Madame de Montbazon?” he cried.
Grimaud nodded assent.
The duke tore open the note, passed his hands over his eyes, for he was
dazzled and confused, and read:
“My Dear Duke,—You may entirely confide in the brave lad who will give
you this note; he has consented to enter the service of your keeper and
to shut himself up at Vincennes with you, in order to prepare and
assist your escape, which we are contriving. The moment of your
deliverance is at hand; have patience and courage and remember that in
spite of time and absence all your friends continue to cherish for you
the sentiments they have so long professed and truly entertained.
“Yours wholly and most affectionately,
“Marie de Montbazon.
“P.S.—I sign my full name, for I should be vain if I could suppose that
after five years of absence you would remember my initials.”
The poor duke became perfectly giddy. What for five years he had been
wanting—a faithful servant, a friend, a helping hand—seemed to have
fallen from Heaven just when he expected it the least.
“Oh, dearest Marie! she thinks of me, then, after five years of
separation! Heavens! there is constancy!” Then turning to Grimaud, he
said:
“And thou, my brave fellow, thou consentest thus to aid me?”
Grimaud signified his assent.
“And you have come here with that purpose?”
Grimaud repeated the sign.
“And I was ready to strangle you!” cried the duke.
Grimaud smiled.
“Wait, then,” said the duke, fumbling in his pocket. “Wait,” he
continued, renewing his fruitless search; “it shall not be said that
such devotion to a grandson of Henry IV. went without recompense.”
The duke’s endeavors evinced the best intention in the world, but one
of the precautions taken at Vincennes was that of allowing prisoners to
keep no money. Whereupon Grimaud, observing the duke’s disappointment,
drew from his pocket a purse filled with gold and handed it to him.
“Here is what you are looking for,” he said.
The duke opened the purse and wanted to empty it into Grimaud’s hands,
but Grimaud shook his head.
“Thank you, monseigneur,” he said, drawing back; “I am paid.”
The duke went from one surprise to another. He held out his hand.
Grimaud drew near and kissed it respectfully. The grand manner of Athos
had left its mark on Grimaud.
“What shall we do? and when? and how proceed?”
“It is now eleven,” answered Grimaud. “Let my lord at two o’clock ask
leave to make up a game at tennis with La Ramee and let him send two or
three balls over the ramparts.”
“And then?”
“Your highness will approach the walls and call out to a man who works
in the moat to send them back again.”
“I understand,” said the duke.
Grimaud made a sign that he was going away.
“Ah!” cried the duke, “will you not accept any money from me?”
“I wish my lord would make me one promise.”
“What! speak!”
“’Tis this: when we escape together, that I shall go everywhere and be
always first; for if my lord should be overtaken and caught, there’s
every chance of his being brought back to prison, whereas if I am
caught the least that can befall me is to be—hung.”
“True, on my honor as a gentleman it shall be as thou dost suggest.”
“Now,” resumed Grimaud, “I’ve only one thing more to ask—that your
highness will continue to detest me.”
“I’ll try,” said the duke.
At this moment La Ramee, after the interview we have described with the
cardinal, entered the room. The duke had thrown himself, as he was wont
to do in moments of dullness and vexation, on his bed. La Ramee cast an
inquiring look around him and observing the same signs of antipathy
between the prisoner and his guardian he smiled in token of his inward
satisfaction. Then turning to Grimaud:
“Very good, my friend, very good. You have been spoken of in a
promising quarter and you will soon, I hope, have news that will be
agreeable to you.”
Grimaud saluted in his politest manner and withdrew, as was his custom
on the entrance of his superior.
“Well, my lord,” said La Ramee, with his rude laugh, “you still set
yourself against this poor fellow?”
“So! ’tis you, La Ramee; in faith, ’tis time you came back again. I
threw myself on the bed and turned my nose to the wall, that I mightn’t
break my promise and strangle Grimaud.”
“I doubt, however,” said La Ramee, in sprightly allusion to the silence
of his subordinate, “if he has said anything disagreeable to your
highness.”
“_Pardieu!_ you are right—a mute from the East! I swear it was time for
you to come back, La Ramee, and I was eager to see you again.”
“Monseigneur is too good,” said La Ramee, flattered by the compliment.
“Yes,” continued the duke, “really, I feel bored today beyond the power
of description.”
“Then let us have a match in the tennis court,” exclaimed La Ramee.
“If you wish it.”
“I am at your service, my lord.”
“I protest, my dear La Ramee,” said the duke, “that you are a charming
fellow and that I would stay forever at Vincennes to have the pleasure
of your society.”
“My lord,” replied La Ramee, “I think if it depended on the cardinal
your wishes would be fulfilled.”
“What do you mean? Have you seen him lately?”
“He sent for me to-day.”
“Really! to speak to you about me?”
“Of what else do you imagine he would speak to me? Really, my lord, you
are his nightmare.”
The duke smiled with bitterness.
“Ah, La Ramee! if you would but accept my offers! I would make your
fortune.”
“How? you would no sooner have left prison than your goods would be
confiscated.”
“I shall no sooner be out of prison than I shall be master of Paris.”
“Pshaw! pshaw! I cannot hear such things said as that; this is a fine
conversation with an officer of the king! I see, my lord, I shall be
obliged to fetch a second Grimaud!”
“Very well, let us say no more about it. So you and the cardinal have
been talking about me? La Ramee, some day when he sends for you, you
must let me put on your clothes; I will go in your stead; I will
strangle him, and upon my honor, if that is made a condition I will
return to prison.”
“Monseigneur, I see well that I must call Grimaud.”
“Well, I am wrong. And what did the _cuistre_ [pettifogger] say about
me?”
“I admit the word, monseigneur, because it rhymes with _ministre_
[minister]. What did he say to me? He told me to watch you.”
“And why so? why watch me?” asked the duke uneasily.
“Because an astrologer had predicted that you would escape.”
“Ah! an astrologer predicted that?” said the duke, starting in spite of
himself.
“Oh, _mon Dieu!_ yes! those imbeciles of magicians can only imagine
things to torment honest people.”
“And what did you reply to his most illustrious eminence?”
“That if the astrologer in question made almanacs I would advise him
not to buy one.”
“Why not?”
“Because before you could escape you would have to be turned into a
bird.”
“Unfortunately, that is true. Let us go and have a game at tennis, La
Ramee.”
“My lord—I beg your highness’s pardon—but I must beg for half an hour’s
leave of absence.”
“Why?”
“Because Monseigneur Mazarin is a prouder man than his highness, though
not of such high birth: he forgot to ask me to breakfast.”
“Well, shall I send for some breakfast here?”
“No, my lord; I must tell you that the confectioner who lived opposite
the castle—Daddy Marteau, as they called him——”
“Well?”
“Well, he sold his business a week ago to a confectioner from Paris, an
invalid, ordered country air for his health.”
“Well, what have I to do with that?”
“Why, good Lord! this man, your highness, when he saw me stop before
his shop, where he has a display of things which would make your mouth
water, my lord, asked me to get him the custom of the prisoners in the
donjon. ‘I bought,’ said he, ‘the business of my predecessor on the
strength of his assurance that he supplied the castle; whereas, on my
honor, Monsieur de Chavigny, though I’ve been here a week, has not
ordered so much as a tartlet.’ ‘But,’ I then replied, ‘probably
Monsieur de Chavigny is afraid your pastry is not good.’ ‘My pastry not
good! Well, Monsieur La Ramee, you shall judge of it yourself and at
once.’ ‘I cannot,’ I replied; ‘it is absolutely necessary for me to
return to the château.’ ‘Very well,’ said he, ‘go and attend to your
affairs, since you seem to be in a hurry, but come back in half an
hour.’ ‘In half an hour?’ ‘Yes, have you breakfasted?’ ‘Faith, no.’
‘Well, here is a pâté that will be ready for you, with a bottle of old
Burgundy.’ So, you see, my lord, since I am hungry, I would, with your
highness’s leave——” And La Ramee bent low.
“Go, then, animal,” said the duke; “but remember, I only allow you half
an hour.”
“May I promise your custom to the successor of Father Marteau, my
lord?”
“Yes, if he does not put mushrooms in his pies; thou knowest that
mushrooms from the wood of Vincennes are fatal to my family.”
La Ramee went out, but in five minutes one of the officers of the guard
entered in compliance with the strict orders of the cardinal that the
prisoner should never be left alone a moment.
But during these five minutes the duke had had time to read again the
note from Madame de Montbazon, which proved to the prisoner that his
friends were concerting plans for his deliverance, but in what way he
knew not.
But his confidence in Grimaud, whose petty persecutions he now
perceived were only a blind, increased, and he conceived the highest
opinion of his intellect and resolved to trust entirely to his
guidance.
Chapter XIX.
Pâtés made by the Successor of Father Marteau are described.
In half an hour La Ramee returned, full of glee, like most men who have
eaten, and more especially drank to their heart’s content. The pâtés
were excellent, the wine delicious.
The weather was fine and the game at tennis took place in the open air.
At two o’clock the tennis balls began, according to Grimaud’s
directions, to take the direction of the moat, much to the joy of La
Ramee, who marked fifteen whenever the duke sent a ball into the moat;
and very soon balls were wanting, so many had gone over. La Ramee then
proposed to send some one to pick them up, but the duke remarked that
it would be losing time; and going near the rampart himself and looking
over, he saw a man working in one of the numerous little gardens
cleared out by the peasants on the opposite side of the moat.
“Hey, friend!” cried the duke.
The man raised his head and the duke was about to utter a cry of
surprise. The peasant, the gardener, was Rochefort, whom he believed to
be in the Bastile.
“Well? Who’s up there?” said the man.
“Be so good as to collect and throw us back our balls,” said the duke.
The gardener nodded and began to fling up the balls, which were picked
up by La Ramee and the guard. One, however, fell at the duke’s feet,
and seeing that it was intended for him, he put it into his pocket.
La Ramee was in ecstasies at having beaten a prince of the blood.
The duke went indoors and retired to bed, where he spent, indeed, the
greater part of every day, as they had taken his books away. La Ramee
carried off all his clothes, in order to be certain that the duke would
not stir. However, the duke contrived to hide the ball under his
bolster and as soon as the door was closed he tore off the cover of the
ball with his teeth and found underneath the following letter:
My Lord,—Your friends are watching over you and the hour of your
deliverance is at hand. Ask day after to-morrow to have a pie supplied
you by the new confectioner opposite the castle, and who is no other
than Noirmont, your former _maître d’hôtel_. Do not open the pie till
you are alone. I hope you will be satisfied with its contents.
“Your highness’s most devoted servant,
“In the Bastile, as elsewhere,
“Comte de Rochefort.”
The duke, who had latterly been allowed a fire, burned the letter, but
kept the ball, and went to bed, hiding the ball under his bolster. La
Ramee entered; he smiled kindly on the prisoner, for he was an
excellent man and had taken a great liking for the captive prince. He
endeavored to cheer him up in his solitude.
“Ah, my friend!” cried the duke, “you are so good; if I could but do as
you do, and eat pâtés and drink Burgundy at the house of Father
Marteau’s successor.”
“’Tis true, my lord,” answered La Ramee, “that his pâtés are famous and
his wine magnificent.”
“In any case,” said the duke, “his cellar and kitchen might easily
excel those of Monsieur de Chavigny.”
“Well, my lord,” said La Ramee, falling into the trap, “what is there
to prevent your trying them? Besides, I have promised him your
patronage.”
“You are right,” said the duke. “If I am to remain here permanently, as
Monsieur Mazarin has kindly given me to understand, I must provide
myself with a diversion for my old age, I must turn gourmand.”
“My lord,” said La Ramee, “if you will take a bit of good advice, don’t
put that off till you are old.”
“Good!” said the Duc de Beaufort to himself, “every man in order that
he may lose his heart and soul, must receive from celestial bounty one
of the seven capital sins, perhaps two; it seems that Master La Ramee’s
is gluttony. Let us then take advantage of it.” Then, aloud:
“Well, my dear La Ramee! the day after to-morrow is a holiday.”
“Yes, my lord—Pentecost.”
“Will you give me a lesson the day after to-morrow?”
“In what?”
“In gastronomy?”
“Willingly, my lord.”
“But _tête-à-tête_. Send the guards to take their meal in the canteen
of Monsieur de Chavigny; we’ll have a supper here under your
direction.”
“Hum!” said La Ramee.
The proposal was seductive, but La Ramee was an old stager, acquainted
with all the traps a prisoner was likely to set. Monsieur de Beaufort
had said that he had forty ways of getting out of prison. Did this
proposed breakfast cover some stratagem? He reflected, but he
remembered that he himself would have charge of the food and the wine
and therefore that no powder could be mixed with the food, no drug with
the wine. As to getting him drunk, the duke couldn’t hope to do that,
and he laughed at the mere thought of it. Then an idea came to him
which harmonized everything.
The duke had followed with anxiety La Ramee’s unspoken soliloquy,
reading it from point to point upon his face. But presently the
exempt’s face suddenly brightened.
“Well,” he asked, “that will do, will it not?”
“Yes, my lord, on one condition.”
“What?”
“That Grimaud shall wait on us at table.”
Nothing could be more agreeable to the duke, however, he had presence
of mind enough to exclaim:
“To the devil with your Grimaud! He will spoil the feast.”
“I will direct him to stand behind your chair, and since he doesn’t
speak, your highness will neither see nor hear him and with a little
effort can imagine him a hundred miles away.”
“Do you know, my friend, I find one thing very evident in all this, you
distrust me.”
“My lord, the day after to-morrow is Pentecost.”
“Well, what is Pentecost to me? Are you afraid that the Holy Spirit
will come as a tongue of fire to open the doors of my prison?”
“No, my lord; but I have already told you what that damned magician
predicted.”
“And what was it?”
“That the day of Pentecost would not pass without your highness being
out of Vincennes.”
“You believe in sorcerers, then, you fool?”
“I—-I mind them no more than that——” and he snapped his fingers; “but
it is my Lord Giulio who cares about them; as an Italian he is
superstitious.”
The duke shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, then,” with well acted good-humor, “I allow Grimaud, but no one
else; you must manage it all. Order whatever you like for supper—the
only thing I specify is one of those pies; and tell the confectioner
that I will promise him my custom if he excels this time in his
pies—not only now, but when I leave my prison.”
“Then you think you will some day leave it?” said La Ramee.
“The devil!” replied the prince; “surely, at the death of Mazarin. I am
fifteen years younger than he is. At Vincennes, ’tis true, one lives
faster——”
“My lord,” replied La Ramee, “my lord——”
“Or dies sooner, for it comes to the same thing.”
La Ramee was going out. He stopped, however, at the door for an
instant.
“Whom does your highness wish me to send to you?”
“Any one, except Grimaud.”
“The officer of the guard, then, with his chessboard?”
“Yes.”
Five minutes afterward the officer entered and the duke seemed to be
immersed in the sublime combinations of chess.
A strange thing is the mind, and it is wonderful what revolutions may
be wrought in it by a sign, a word, a hope. The duke had been five
years in prison, and now to him, looking back upon them, those five
years, which had passed so slowly, seemed not so long a time as were
the two days, the forty-eight hours, which still parted him from the
time fixed for his escape. Besides, there was one thing that engaged
his most anxious thought—in what way was the escape to be effected?
They had told him to hope for it, but had not told him what was to be
hidden in the mysterious pâté. And what friends awaited him without? He
had friends, then, after five years in prison? If that were so he was
indeed a highly favored prince. He forgot that besides his friends of
his own sex, a woman, strange to say, had remembered him. It is true
that she had not, perhaps, been scrupulously faithful to him, but she
had remembered him; that was something.
So the duke had more than enough to think about; accordingly he fared
at chess as he had fared at tennis; he made blunder upon blunder and
the officer with whom he played found him easy game.
But his successive defeats did service to the duke in one way—they
killed time for him till eight o’clock in the evening; then would come
night, and with night, sleep. So, at least, the duke believed; but
sleep is a capricious fairy, and it is precisely when one invokes her
presence that she is most likely to keep him waiting. The duke waited
until midnight, turning on his mattress like St. Laurence on his
gridiron. Finally he slept.
But at daybreak he awoke. Wild dreams had disturbed his repose. He
dreamed that he was endowed with wings—he wished to fly away. For a
time these wings supported him, but when he reached a certain height
this new aid failed him. His wings were broken and he seemed to sink
into a bottomless abyss, whence he awoke, bathed in perspiration and
nearly as much overcome as if he had really fallen. He fell asleep
again and another vision appeared. He was in a subterranean passage by
which he was to leave Vincennes. Grimaud was walking before him with a
lantern. By degrees the passage narrowed, yet the duke continued his
course. At last it became so narrow that the fugitive tried in vain to
proceed. The sides of the walls seem to close in, even to press against
him. He made fruitless efforts to go on; it was impossible.
Nevertheless, he still saw Grimaud with his lantern in front,
advancing. He wished to call out to him but could not utter a word.
Then at the other extremity he heard the footsteps of those who were
pursuing him. These steps came on, came fast. He was discovered; all
hope of flight was gone. Still the walls seemed to be closing on him;
they appeared to be in concert with his enemies. At last he heard the
voice of La Ramee. La Ramee took his hand and laughed aloud. He was
captured again, and conducted to the low and vaulted chamber, in which
Ornano, Puylaurens, and his uncle had died. Their three graves were
there, rising above the ground, and a fourth was also there, yawning
for its ghastly tenant.
The duke was obliged to make as many efforts to awake as he had done to
go to sleep; and La Ramee found him so pale and fatigued that he
inquired whether he was ill.
“In fact,” said one of the guards who had remained in the chamber and
had been kept awake by a toothache, brought on by the dampness of the
atmosphere, “my lord has had a very restless night and two or three
times, while dreaming, he called for help.”
“What is the matter with your highness?” asked La Ramee.
“’Tis your fault, you simpleton,” answered the duke. “With your idle
nonsense yesterday about escaping, you worried me so that I dreamed
that I was trying to escape and broke my neck in doing so.”
La Ramee laughed.
“Come,” he said, “’tis a warning from Heaven. Never commit such an
imprudence as to try to escape, except in your dreams.”
“And you are right, my dear La Ramee,” said the duke, wiping away the
sweat that stood on his brow, wide awake though he was; “after this I
will think of nothing but eating and drinking.”
“Hush!” said La Ramee; and one by one he sent away the guards, on
various pretexts.
“Well?” asked the duke when they were alone.
“Well!” replied La Ramee, “your supper is ordered.”
“Ah! and what is it to be? Monsieur, my majordomo, will there be a
pie?”
“I should think so, indeed—almost as high as a tower.”
“You told him it was for me?”
“Yes, and he said he would do his best to please your highness.”
“Good!” exclaimed the duke, rubbing his hands.
“Devil take it, my lord! what a gourmand you are growing; I haven’t
seen you with so cheerful a face these five years.”
The duke saw that he had not controlled himself as he ought, but at
that moment, as if he had listened at the door and comprehended the
urgent need of diverting La Ramee’s ideas, Grimaud entered and made a
sign to La Ramee that he had something to say to him.
La Ramee drew near to Grimaud, who spoke to him in a low voice.
The duke meanwhile recovered his self-control.
“I have already forbidden that man,” he said, “to come in here without
my permission.”
“You must pardon him, my lord,” said La Ramee, “for I directed him to
come.”
“And why did you so direct when you know that he displeases me?”
“My lord will remember that it was agreed between us that he should
wait upon us at that famous supper. My lord has forgotten the supper.”
“No, but I have forgotten Monsieur Grimaud.”
“My lord understands that there can be no supper unless he is allowed
to be present.”
“Go on, then; have it your own way.”
“Come here, my lad,” said La Ramee, “and hear what I have to say.”
Grimaud approached, with a very sullen expression on his face.
La Ramee continued: “My lord has done me the honor to invite me to a
supper to-morrow _en tête-à-tête_.”
Grimaud made a sign which meant that he didn’t see what that had to do
with him.
“Yes, yes,” said La Ramee, “the matter concerns you, for you will have
the honor to serve us; and besides, however good an appetite we may
have and however great our thirst, there will be something left on the
plates and in the bottles, and that something will be yours.”
Grimaud bowed in thanks.
“And now,” said La Ramee, “I must ask your highness’s pardon, but it
seems that Monsieur de Chavigny is to be away for a few days and he has
sent me word that he has certain directions to give me before his
departure.”
The duke tried to exchange a glance with Grimaud, but there was no
glance in Grimaud’s eyes.
“Go, then,” said the duke, “and return as soon as possible.”
“Does your highness wish to take revenge for the game of tennis
yesterday?”
Grimaud intimated by a scarcely perceptible nod that he should consent.
“Yes,” said the duke, “but take care, my dear La Ramee, for I propose
to beat you badly.”
La Ramee went out. Grimaud looked after him, and when the door was
closed he drew out of his pocket a pencil and a sheet of paper.
“Write, my lord,” he said.
“And what?”
Grimaud dictated.
“All is ready for to-morrow evening. Keep watch from seven to nine.
Have two riding horses ready. We shall descend by the first window in
the gallery.”
“What next?”
“Sign your name, my lord.”
The duke signed.
“Now, my lord, give me, if you have not lost it, the ball—that which
contained the letter.”
The duke took it from under his pillow and gave it to Grimaud. Grimaud
gave a grim smile.
“Well?” asked the duke.
“Well, my lord, I sew up the paper in the ball and you, in your game of
tennis, will send the ball into the ditch.”
“But will it not be lost?”
“Oh no; there will be some one at hand to pick it up.”
“A gardener?”
Grimaud nodded.
“The same as yesterday?”
Another nod on the part of Grimaud.
“The Count de Rochefort?”
Grimaud nodded the third time.
“Come, now,” said the duke, “give some particulars of the plan for our
escape.”
“That is forbidden me,” said Grimaud, “until the last moment.”
“Who will be waiting for me beyond the ditch?”
“I know nothing about it, my lord.”
“But at least, if you don’t want to see me turn crazy, tell what that
famous pâté will contain.”
“Two poniards, a knotted rope and a _poire d’angoisse_.” *
* This _poire d’angoisse_ was a famous gag, in the form of a pear,
which, being thrust into the mouth, by the aid of a spring, dilated, so
as to distend the jaws to their greatest width.
“Yes, I understand.”
“My lord observes that there will be enough to go around.”
“We shall take to ourselves the poniards and the rope,” replied the
duke.
“And make La Ramee eat the pear,” answered Grimaud.
“My dear Grimaud, thou speakest seldom, but when thou dost, one must do
thee justice—thy words are words of gold.”
Chapter XX.
One of Marie Michon’s Adventures.
Whilst these projects were being formed by the Duc de Beaufort and
Grimaud, the Comte de la Fère and the Vicomte de Bragelonne were
entering Paris by the Rue du Faubourg Saint Marcel.
They stopped at the sign of the Fox, in the Rue du Vieux Colombier, a
tavern known for many years by Athos, and asked for two bedrooms.
“You must dress yourself, Raoul,” said Athos, “I am going to present
you to some one.”
“To-day, monsieur?” asked the young man.
“In half an hour.”
The young man bowed. Perhaps, not being endowed with the endurance of
Athos, who seemed to be made of iron, he would have preferred a bath in
the river Seine of which he had heard so much, and afterward his bed;
but the Comte de la Fère had spoken and he had no thought but to obey.
“By the way,” said Athos, “take some pains with your toilet, Raoul; I
want you to be approved.”
“I hope, sir,” replied the youth, smiling, “that there’s no idea of a
marriage for me; you know of my engagement to Louise?”
Athos, in his turn, smiled also.
“No, don’t be alarmed, although it is to a lady that I am going to
present you, and I am anxious that you should love her——”
The young man looked at the count with a certain uneasiness, but at a
smile from Athos he was quickly reassured.
“How old is she?” inquired the Vicomte de Bragelonne.
“My dear Raoul, learn, once for all, that that is a question which is
never asked. When you can find out a woman’s age by her face, it is
useless to ask it; when you cannot do so, it is indiscreet.”
“Is she beautiful?”
“Sixteen years ago she was deemed not only the prettiest, but the most
graceful woman in France.”
This reply reassured the vicomte. A woman who had been a reigning
beauty a year before he was born could not be the subject of any scheme
for him. He retired to his toilet. When he reappeared, Athos received
him with the same paternal smile as that which he had often bestowed on
D’Artagnan, but a more profound tenderness for Raoul was now visibly
impressed upon his face.
Athos cast a glance at his feet, hands and hair—those three marks of
race. The youth’s dark hair was neatly parted and hung in curls,
forming a sort of dark frame around his face; such was the fashion of
the day. Gloves of gray kid, matching the hat, well displayed the form
of a slender and elegant hand; whilst his boots, similar in color to
the hat and gloves, confined feet small as those of a boy twelve years
old.
“Come,” murmured Athos, “if she is not proud of him, she must be hard
to please.”
It was three o’clock in the afternoon. The two travelers proceeded to
the Rue Saint Dominique and stopped at the door of a magnificent hotel,
surmounted with the arms of De Luynes.
“’Tis here,” said Athos.
He entered the hotel and ascended the front steps, and addressing a
footman who waited there in a grand livery, asked if the Duchess de
Chevreuse was visible and if she could receive the Comte de la Fère?
The servant returned with a message to say, that, though the duchess
had not the honor of knowing Monsieur de la Fère, she would receive
him.
Athos followed the footman, who led him through a long succession of
apartments and paused at length before a closed door. Athos made a sign
to the Vicomte de Bragelonne to remain where he was.
The footman opened the door and announced Monsieur le Comte de la Fère.
Madame de Chevreuse, whose name appears so often in our story “The
Three Musketeers,” without her actually having appeared in any scene,
was still a beautiful woman. Although about forty-four or forty-five
years old, she might have passed for thirty-five. She still had her
rich fair hair; her large, animated, intelligent eyes, so often opened
by intrigue, so often closed by the blindness of love. She had still
her nymph-like form, so that when her back was turned she still was not
unlike the girl who had jumped, with Anne of Austria, over the moat of
the Tuileries in 1563. In all other respects she was the same mad
creature who threw over her amours such an air of originality as to
make them proverbial for eccentricity in her family.
She was in a little boudoir, hung with blue damask, adorned by red
flowers, with a foliage of gold, looking upon a garden; and reclined
upon a sofa, her head supported on the rich tapestry which covered it.
She held a book in her hand and her arm was supported by a cushion.
At the footman’s announcement she raised herself a little and peeped
out, with some curiosity.
Athos appeared.
He was dressed in violet-tinted velvet, trimmed with silk of the same
color. His shoulder-knots were of burnished silver, his mantle had no
gold nor embroidery on it; a simple plume of violet feathers adorned
his hat; his boots were of black leather, and at his girdle hung that
sword with a magnificent hilt that Porthos had so often admired in the
Rue Féron. Splendid lace adorned the falling collar of his shirt, and
lace fell also over the top of his boots.
In his whole person he bore such an impress of high degree, that Madame
de Chevreuse half rose from her seat when she saw him and made him a
sign to sit down near her.
Athos bowed and obeyed. The footman was withdrawing, but Athos stopped
him by a sign.
“Madame,” he said to the duchess, “I have had the boldness to present
myself at your hotel without being known to you; it has succeeded,
since you deign to receive me. I have now the boldness to ask you for
an interview of half an hour.”
“I grant it, monsieur,” replied Madame de Chevreuse with her most
gracious smile.
“But that is not all, madame. Oh, I am very presuming, I am aware. The
interview for which I ask is of us two alone, and I very earnestly wish
that it may not be interrupted.”
“I am not at home to any one,” said the Duchess de Chevreuse to the
footman. “You may go.”
The footman went out.
There ensued a brief silence, during which these two persons, who at
first sight recognized each other so clearly as of noble race, examined
each other without embarrassment on either side.
The duchess was the first to speak.
“Well, sir, I am waiting with impatience to hear what you wish to say
to me.”
“And I, madame,” replied Athos, “am looking with admiration.”
“Sir,” said Madame de Chevreuse, “you must excuse me, but I long to
know to whom I am talking. You belong to the court, doubtless, yet I
have never seen you at court. Have you, by any chance, been in the
Bastile?”
“No, madame, I have not; but very likely I am on the road to it.”
“Ah! then tell me who you are, and get along with you upon your
journey,” replied the duchess, with the gayety which made her so
charming, “for I am sufficiently in bad odor already, without
compromising myself still more.”
“Who I am, madame? My name has been mentioned to you—the Comte de la
Fère; you do not know that name. I once bore another, which you knew,
but you have certainly forgotten it.”
“Tell it me, sir.”
“Formerly,” said the count, “I was Athos.”
Madame de Chevreuse looked astonished. The name was not wholly
forgotten, but mixed up and confused with ancient recollections.
“Athos?” said she; “wait a moment.”
And she placed her hands on her brow, as if to force the fugitive ideas
it contained to concentration in a moment.
“Shall I help you, madame?” asked Athos.
“Yes, do,” said the duchess.
“This Athos was connected with three young musketeers, named Porthos,
D’Artagnan, and——”
He stopped short.
“And Aramis,” said the duchess, quickly.
“And Aramis; I see you have not forgotten the name.”
“No,” she said; “poor Aramis; a charming man, elegant, discreet, and a
writer of poetical verses. I am afraid he has turned out ill,” she
added.
“He has; he is an abbé.”
“Ah, what a misfortune!” exclaimed the duchess, playing carelessly with
her fan. “Indeed, sir, I thank you; you have recalled one of the most
agreeable recollections of my youth.”
“Will you permit me, then, to recall another to you?”
“Relating to him?”
“Yes and no.”
“Faith!” said Madame de Chevreuse, “say on. With a man like you I fear
nothing.”
Athos bowed. “Aramis,” he continued, “was intimate with a young
needlewoman from Tours, a cousin of his, named Marie Michon.”
“Ah, I knew her!” cried the duchess. “It was to her he wrote from the
siege of Rochelle, to warn her of a plot against the Duke of
Buckingham.”
“Exactly so; will you allow me to speak to you of her?”
“If,” replied the duchess, with a meaning look, “you do not say too
much against her.”
“I should be ungrateful,” said Athos, “and I regard ingratitude, not as
a fault or a crime, but as a vice, which is much worse.”
“You ungrateful to Marie Michon, monsieur?” said Madame de Chevreuse,
trying to read in Athos’s eyes. “But how can that be? You never knew
her.”
“Eh, madame, who knows?” said Athos. “There is a popular proverb to the
effect that it is only mountains that never meet; and popular proverbs
contain sometimes a wonderful amount of truth.”
“Oh, go on, monsieur, go on!” said Madame de Chevreuse eagerly; “you
can’t imagine how much this conversation interests me.”
“You encourage me,” said Athos, “I will continue, then. That cousin of
Aramis, that Marie Michon, that needlewoman, notwithstanding her low
condition, had acquaintances in the highest rank; she called the
grandest ladies of the court her friend, and the queen—proud as she is,
in her double character as Austrian and as Spaniard—called her her
sister.”
“Alas!” said Madame de Chevreuse, with a slight sigh and a little
movement of her eyebrows that was peculiarly her own, “since that time
everything has changed.”
“And the queen had reason for her affection, for Marie was devoted to
her—devoted to that degree that she served her as medium of intercourse
with her brother, the king of Spain.”
“Which,” interrupted the duchess, “is now brought up against her as a
great crime.”
“And therefore,” continued Athos, “the cardinal—the true cardinal, the
other one—determined one fine morning to arrest poor Marie Michon and
send her to the Château de Loches. Fortunately the affair was not
managed so secretly but that it became known to the queen. The case had
been provided for: if Marie Michon should be threatened with any danger
the queen was to send her a prayer-book bound in green velvet.”
“That is true, monsieur, you are well informed.”
“One morning the green book was brought to her by the Prince de
Marsillac. There was no time to lose. Happily Marie and a follower of
hers named Kitty could disguise themselves admirably in men’s clothes.
The prince procured for Marie Michon the dress of a cavalier and for
Kitty that of a lackey; he sent them two excellent horses, and the
fugitives went out hastily from Tours, shaping their course toward
Spain, trembling at the least noise, following unfrequented roads, and
asking for hospitality when they found themselves where there was no
inn.”
“Why, really, it was all exactly as you say!” cried Madame de
Chevreuse, clapping her hands. “It would indeed be strange if——” she
checked herself.
“If I should follow the two fugitives to the end of their journey?”
said Athos. “No, madame, I will not thus waste your time. We will
accompany them only to a little village in Limousin, lying between
Tulle and Angouleme—a little village called Roche-l’Abeille.”
Madame de Chevreuse uttered a cry of surprise, and looked at Athos with
an expression of astonishment that made the old musketeer smile.
“Wait, madame,” continued Athos, “what remains for me to tell you is
even more strange than what I have narrated.”
“Monsieur,” said Madame de Chevreuse, “I believe you are a sorcerer; I
am prepared for anything. But really—No matter, go on.”
“The journey of that day had been long and wearing; it was a cold day,
the eleventh of October, there was no inn or château in the village and
the homes of the peasants were poor and unattractive. Marie Michon was
a very aristocratic person; like her sister the queen, she had been
accustomed to pleasing perfumes and fine linen; she resolved,
therefore, to seek hospitality of the priest.”
Athos paused.
“Oh, continue!” said the duchess. “I have told you that I am prepared
for anything.”
“The two travelers knocked at the door. It was late; the priest, who
had gone to bed, cried out to them to come in. They entered, for the
door was not locked—there is much confidence among villagers. A lamp
burned in the chamber occupied by the priest. Marie Michon, who made
the most charming cavalier in the world, pushed open the door, put her
head in and asked for hospitality. ‘Willingly, my young cavalier,’ said
the priest, ‘if you will be content with the remains of my supper and
with half my chamber.’
“The two travelers consulted for a moment. The priest heard a burst of
laughter and then the master, or rather, the mistress, replied: ‘Thank
you, monsieur le curé, I accept.’ ‘Sup, then, and make as little noise
as possible,’ said the priest, ‘for I, too, have been on the go all day
and shall not be sorry to sleep to-night.’”
Madame de Chevreuse evidently went from surprise to astonishment, and
from astonishment to stupefaction. Her face, as she looked at Athos,
had taken on an expression that cannot be described. It could be seen
that she had wished to speak, but she had remained silent through fear
of losing one of her companion’s words.
“What happened then?” she asked.
“Then?” said Athos. “Ah, I have come now to what is most difficult.”
“Speak, speak! One can say anything to me. Besides, it doesn’t concern
me; it relates to Mademoiselle Marie Michon.”
“Ah, that is true,” said Athos. “Well, then, Marie Michon had supper
with her follower, and then, in accordance with the permission given
her, she entered the chamber of her host, Kitty meanwhile taking
possession of an armchair in the room first entered, where they had
taken their supper.”
“Really, monsieur,” said Madame de Chevreuse, “unless you are the devil
in person I don’t know how you could become acquainted with all these
details.”
“A charming woman was that Marie Michon,” resumed Athos, “one of those
wild creatures who are constantly conceiving the strangest ideas. Now,
thinking that her host was a priest, that coquette took it into her
head that it would be a happy souvenir for her old age, among the many
happy souvenirs she already possessed, if she could win that of having
damned an abbé.”
“Count,” said the duchess, “upon my word, you frighten me.”
“Alas!” continued Athos, “the poor abbé was not a St. Ambroise, and I
repeat, Marie Michon was an adorable creature.”
“Monsieur!” cried the duchess, seizing Athos’s hands, “tell me this
moment how you know all these details, or I will send to the convent of
the Vieux Augustins for a monk to come and exorcise you.”
Athos laughed. “Nothing is easier, madame. A cavalier, charged with an
important mission, had come an hour before your arrival, seeking
hospitality, at the very moment that the curé, summoned to the bedside
of a dying person, left not only his house but the village, for the
entire night. The priest having all confidence in his guest, who,
besides, was a nobleman, had left to him his house, his supper and his
chamber. And therefore Marie came seeking hospitality from the guest of
the good abbé and not from the good abbé himself.”
“And that cavalier, that guest, that nobleman who arrived before she
came?”
“It was I, the Comte de la Fère,” said Athos, rising and bowing
respectfully to the Duchess de Chevreuse.
The duchess remained a moment stupefied; then, suddenly bursting into
laughter:
“Ah! upon my word,” said she, “it is very droll, and that mad Marie
Michon fared better than she expected. Sit down, dear count, and go on
with your story.”
“At this point I have to accuse myself of a fault, madame. I have told
you that I was traveling on an important mission. At daybreak I left
the chamber without noise, leaving my charming companion asleep. In the
front room the follower was also still asleep, her head leaning back on
the chair, in all respects worthy of her mistress. Her pretty face
arrested my attention; I approached and recognized that little Kitty
whom our friend Aramis had placed with her. In that way I discovered
that the charming traveler was——”
“Marie Michon!” said Madame de Chevreuse, hastily.
“Marie Michon,” continued Athos. “Then I went out of the house; I
proceeded to the stable and found my horse saddled and my lackey ready.
We set forth on our journey.”
“And have you never revisited that village?” eagerly asked Madame de
Chevreuse.
“A year after, madame.”
“Well?”
“I wanted to see the good curé again. I found him much preoccupied with
an event that he could not at all comprehend. A week before he had
received, in a cradle, a beautiful little boy three months old, with a
purse filled with gold and a note containing these simple words: ‘11
October, 1633.’”
“It was the date of that strange adventure,” interrupted Madame de
Chevreuse.
“Yes, but he couldn’t understand what it meant, for he had spent that
night with a dying person and Marie Michon had left his house before
his return.”
“You must know, monsieur, that Marie Michon, when she returned to
France in 1643, immediately sought for information about that child; as
a fugitive she could not take care of it, but on her return she wished
to have it near her.”
“And what said the abbé?” asked Athos.
“That a nobleman whom he did not know had wished to take charge of it,
had answered for its future, and had taken it away.”
“That was true.”
“Ah! I see! That nobleman was you; it was his father!”
“Hush! do not speak so loud, madame; he is there.”
“He is there! my son! the son of Marie Michon! But I must see him
instantly.”
“Take care, madame,” said Athos, “for he knows neither his father nor
his mother.”
“You have kept the secret! you have brought him to see me, thinking to
make me happy. Oh, thanks! sir, thanks!” cried Madame de Chevreuse,
seizing his hand and trying to put it to her lips; “you have a noble
heart.”
“I bring him to you, madame,” said Athos, withdrawing his hand, “hoping
that in your turn you will do something for him; till now I have
watched over his education and I have made him, I hope, an accomplished
gentleman; but I am now obliged to return to the dangerous and
wandering life of party faction. To-morrow I plunge into an adventurous
affair in which I may be killed. Then it will devolve on you to push
him on in that world where he is called on to occupy a place.”
“Rest assured,” cried the duchess, “I shall do what I can. I have but
little influence now, but all that I have shall most assuredly be his.
As to his title and fortune——”
“As to that, madame, I have made over to him the estate of Bragelonne,
my inheritance, which will give him ten thousand francs a year and the
title of vicomte.”
“Upon my soul, monsieur,” said the duchess, “you are a true nobleman!
But I am eager to see our young vicomte. Where is he?”
“There, in the _salon_. I will have him come in, if you really wish
it.”
Athos moved toward the door; the duchess held him back.
“Is he handsome?” she asked.
Athos smiled.
“He resembles his mother.”
So he opened the door and beckoned the young man in.
The duchess could not restrain a cry of joy on seeing so handsome a
young cavalier, so far surpassing all that her maternal pride had been
able to conceive.
“Vicomte, come here,” said Athos; “the duchess permits you to kiss her
hand.”
The youth approached with his charming smile and his head bare, and
kneeling down, kissed the hand of the Duchess de Chevreuse.
“Sir,” he said, turning to Athos, “was it not in compassion to my
timidity that you told me that this lady was the Duchess de Chevreuse,
and is she not the queen?”
“No, vicomte,” said Madame de Chevreuse, taking his hand and making him
sit near her, while she looked at him with eyes sparkling with
pleasure; “no, unhappily, I am not the queen. If I were I should do for
you at once the most that you deserve. But let us see; whatever I may
be,” she added, hardly restraining herself from kissing that pure brow,
“let us see what profession you wish to follow.”
Athos, standing, looked at them both with indescribable pleasure.
“Madame,” answered the youth in his sweet voice, “it seems to me that
there is only _one_ career for a gentleman—that of the army. I have
been brought up by monsieur le comte with the intention, I believe, of
making me a soldier; and he gave me reason to hope that at Paris he
would present me to some one who would recommend me to the favor of the
prince.”
“Yes, I understand it well. Personally, I am on bad terms with him, on
account of the quarrels between Madame de Montbazon, my mother-in-law,
and Madame de Longueville. But the Prince de Marsillac! Yes, indeed,
that’s the right thing. The Prince de Marsillac—my old friend—will
recommend our young friend to Madame de Longueville, who will give him
a letter to her brother, the prince, who loves her too tenderly not to
do what she wishes immediately.”
“Well, that will do charmingly,” said the count; “but may I beg that
the greatest haste may be made, for I have reasons for wishing the
vicomte not to sleep longer than to-morrow night in Paris!”
“Do you wish it known that you are interested about him, monsieur le
comte?”
“Better for him in future that he should be supposed never to have seen
me.”
“Oh, sir!” cried Raoul.
“You know, Bragelonne,” said Athos, “I never speak without reflection.”
“Well, comte, I am going instantly,” interrupted the duchess, “to send
for the Prince de Marsillac, who is happily, in Paris just now. What
are you going to do this evening?”
“We intend to visit the Abbé Scarron, for whom I have a letter of
introduction and at whose house I expect to meet some of my friends.”
“’Tis well; I will go there also, for a few minutes,” said the duchess;
“do not quit his _salon_ until you have seen me.”
Athos bowed and prepared to leave.
“Well, monsieur le comte,” said the duchess, smiling, “does one leave
so solemnly his old friends?”
“Ah,” murmured Athos, kissing her hand, “had I only sooner known that
Marie Michon was so charming a creature!” And he withdrew, sighing.
Chapter XXI.
The Abbé Scarron.
There was once in the Rue des Tournelles a house known by all the sedan
chairmen and footmen of Paris, and yet, nevertheless, this house was
neither that of a great lord nor of a rich man. There was neither
dining, nor playing at cards, nor dancing in that house. Nevertheless,
it was the rendezvous of the great world and all Paris went there. It
was the abode of the little Abbé Scarron.
In the home of the witty abbé dwelt incessant laughter; there all the
items of the day had their source and were so quickly transformed,
misrepresented, metamorphosed, some into epigrams, some into
falsehoods, that every one was anxious to pass an hour with little
Scarron, listening to what he said, reporting it to others.
The diminutive Abbé Scarron, who, however, was an abbé only because he
owned an abbey, and not because he was in orders, had formerly been one
of the gayest prebendaries in the town of Mans, which he inhabited. On
a day of the carnival he had taken a notion to provide an unusual
entertainment for that good town, of which he was the life and soul. He
had made his valet cover him with honey; then, opening a feather bed,
he had rolled in it and had thus become the most grotesque fowl it is
possible to imagine. He then began to visit his friends of both sexes,
in that strange costume. At first he had been followed through
astonishment, then with derisive shouts, then the porters had insulted
him, then children had thrown stones at him, and finally he was obliged
to run, to escape the missiles. As soon as he took to flight every one
pursued him, until, pressed on all sides, Scarron found no way of
escaping his escort, except by throwing himself into the river; but the
water was icy cold. Scarron was heated, the cold seized on him, and
when he reached the farther bank he found himself crippled.
Every means had been employed in vain to restore the use of his limbs.
He had been subjected to a severe disciplinary course of medicine, at
length he sent away all his doctors, declaring that he preferred the
disease to the treatment, and came to Paris, where the fame of his wit
had preceded him. There he had a chair made on his own plan, and one
day, visiting Anne of Austria in this chair, she asked him, charmed as
she was with his wit, if he did not wish for a title.
“Yes, your majesty, there is a title which I covet much,” replied
Scarron.
“And what is that?”
“That of being _your_ invalid,” answered Scarron.
So he was called the queen’s invalid, with a pension of fifteen hundred
francs.
From that lucky moment Scarron led a happy life, spending both income
and principal. One day, however, an emissary of the cardinal’s gave him
to understand that he was wrong in receiving the coadjutor so often.
“And why?” asked Scarron; “is he not a man of good birth?”
“Certainly.”
“Agreeable?”
“Undeniably.”
“Witty?”
“He has, unfortunately, too much wit.”
“Well, then, why do you wish me to give up seeing such a man?”
“Because he is an enemy.”
“Of whom?”
“Of the cardinal.”
“What?” answered Scarron, “I continue to receive Monsieur Gilles
Despreaux, who thinks ill of _me_, and you wish me to give up seeing
the coadjutor, because he thinks ill of another man. Impossible!”
The conversation had rested there and Scarron, through sheer obstinacy,
had seen Monsieur de Gondy only the more frequently.
Now, the very morning of which we speak was that of his quarter-day
payment, and Scarron, as usual, had sent his servant to get his money
at the pension-office, but the man had returned and said that the
government had no more money to give Monsieur Scarron.
It was on Thursday, the abbé’s reception day; people went there in
crowds. The cardinal’s refusal to pay the pension was known about the
town in half an hour and he was abused with wit and vehemence.
In the Rue Saint Honoré Athos fell in with two gentlemen whom he did
not know, on horseback like himself, followed by a lackey like himself,
and going in the same direction that he was. One of them, hat in hand,
said to him:
“Would you believe it, monsieur? that contemptible Mazarin has stopped
poor Scarron’s pension.”
“That is unreasonable,” said Athos, saluting in his turn the two
cavaliers. And they separated with courteous gestures.
“It happens well that we are going there this evening,” said Athos to
the vicomte; “we will pay our compliments to that poor man.”
“What, then, is this Monsieur Scarron, who thus puts all Paris in
commotion? Is he some minister out of office?”
“Oh, no, not at all, vicomte,” Athos replied; “he is simply a gentleman
of great genius who has fallen into disgrace with the cardinal through
having written certain verses against him.”
“Do gentlemen, then, make verses?” asked Raoul, naïvely, “I thought it
was derogatory.”
“So it is, my dear vicomte,” said Athos, laughing, “to make bad ones;
but to make good ones increases fame—witness Monsieur de Rotrou.
Nevertheless,” he continued, in the tone of one who gives wholesome
advice, “I think it is better not to make them.”
“Then,” said Raoul, “this Monsieur Scarron is a poet?”
“Yes; you are warned, vicomte. Consider well what you do in that house.
Talk only by gestures, or rather always listen.”
“Yes, monsieur,” replied Raoul.
“You will see me talking with one of my friends, the Abbé d’Herblay, of
whom you have often heard me speak.”
“I remember him, monsieur.”
“Come near to us from time to time, as if to speak; but do not speak,
and do not listen. That little stratagem may serve to keep off
interlopers.”
“Very well, monsieur; I will obey you at all points.”
Athos made two visits in Paris; at seven o’clock he and Raoul directed
their steps to the Rue des Tournelles; it was stopped by porters,
horses and footmen. Athos forced his way through and entered, followed
by the young man. The first person that struck him on his entrance was
Aramis, planted near a great chair on castors, very large, covered with
a canopy of tapestry, under which there moved, enveloped in a quilt of
brocade, a little face, youngish, very merry, somewhat pallid, whilst
its eyes never ceased to express a sentiment at once lively,
intellectual, and amiable. This was the Abbé Scarron, always laughing,
joking, complimenting—yet suffering—and toying nervously with a small
switch.
Around this kind of rolling tent pressed a crowd of gentlemen and
ladies. The room was neatly, comfortably furnished. Large valances of
silk, embroidered with flowers of gay colors, which were rather faded,
fell from the wide windows; the fittings of the room were simple, but
in excellent taste. Two well trained servingmen were in attendance on
the company. On perceiving Athos, Aramis advanced toward him, took him
by the hand and presented him to Scarron. Raoul remained silent, for he
was not prepared for the dignity of the _bel esprit_.
After some minutes the door opened and a footman announced Mademoiselle
Paulet.
Athos touched the shoulder of the vicomte.
“Look at this lady, Raoul, she is an historic personage; it was to
visit her King Henry IV. was going when he was assassinated.”
Every one thronged around Mademoiselle Paulet, for she was always very
much the fashion. She was a tall woman, with a slender figure and a
forest of golden curls, such as Raphael was fond of and Titian has
painted all his Magdalens with. This fawn-colored hair, or, perhaps the
sort of ascendancy which she had over other women, gave her the name of
“La Lionne.” Mademoiselle Paulet took her accustomed seat, but before
sitting down, she cast, in all her queen-like grandeur, a look around
the room, and her eyes rested on Raoul.
Athos smiled.
“Mademoiselle Paulet has observed you, vicomte; go and bow to her;
don’t try to appear anything but what you are, a true country youth; on
no account speak to her of Henry IV.”
“When shall we two walk together?” Athos then said to Aramis.
“Presently—there are not a sufficient number of people here yet; we
shall be remarked.”
At this moment the door opened and in walked the coadjutor.
At this name every one looked around, for his was already a very
celebrated name. Athos did the same. He knew the Abbé de Gondy only by
report.
He saw a little dark man, ill made and awkward with his hands in
everything—except drawing a sword and firing a pistol—with something
haughty and contemptuous in his face.
Scarron turned around toward him and came to meet him in his chair.
“Well,” said the coadjutor, on seeing him, “you are in disgrace, then,
abbé?”
This was the orthodox phrase. It had been said that evening a hundred
times—and Scarron was at his hundredth _bon mot_ on the subject; he was
very nearly at the end of his humoristic tether, but one despairing
effort saved him.
“Monsieur, the Cardinal Mazarin has been so kind as to think of me,” he
said.
“But how can you continue to receive us?” asked the coadjutor; “if your
income is lessened I shall be obliged to make you a canon of Notre
Dame.”
“Oh, no!” cried Scarron, “I should compromise you too much.”
“Perhaps you have resources of which we are ignorant?”
“I shall borrow from the queen.”
“But her majesty has no property,” interposed Aramis.
At this moment the door opened and Madame de Chevreuse was announced.
Every one arose. Scarron turned his chair toward the door, Raoul
blushed, Athos made a sign to Aramis, who went and hid himself in the
enclosure of a window.
In the midst of all the compliments that awaited her on her entrance,
the duchess seemed to be looking for some one; at last she found out
Raoul and her eyes sparkled; she perceived Athos and became thoughtful;
she saw Aramis in the seclusion of the window and gave a start of
surprise behind her fan.
“Apropos,” she said, as if to drive away thoughts that pursued her in
spite of herself, “how is poor Voiture, do you know, Scarron?”
“What, is Monsieur Voiture ill?” inquired a gentleman who had spoken to
Athos in the Rue Saint Honoré; “what is the matter with him?”
“He was acting, but forgot to take the precaution to have a change of
linen ready after the performance,” said the coadjutor, “so he took
cold and is about to die.”
“Is he then so ill, dear Voiture?” asked Aramis, half hidden by the
window curtain.
“Die!” cried Mademoiselle Paulet, bitterly, “_he!_ Why, he is
surrounded by sultanas, like a Turk. Madame de Saintot has hastened to
him with broth; La Renaudot warms his sheets; the Marquise de
Rambouillet sends him his _tisanes_.”
“You don’t like him, my dear Parthénie,” said Scarron.
“What an injustice, my dear invalid! I hate him so little that I should
be delighted to order masses for the repose of his soul.”
“You are not called ‘Lionne’ for nothing,” observed Madame de
Chevreuse, “your teeth are terrible.”
“You are unjust to a great poet, it seems to me,” Raoul ventured to
say.
“A great poet! come, one may easily see, vicomte, that you are lately
from the provinces and have never so much as seen him. A great poet! he
is scarcely five feet high.”
“Bravo bravo!” cried a tall man with an enormous mustache and a long
rapier, “bravo, fair Paulet, it is high time to put little Voiture in
his right place. For my part, I always thought his poetry detestable,
and I think I know _something_ about poetry.”
“Who is this officer,” inquired Raoul of Athos, “who is speaking?”
“Monsieur de Scudéry, the author of ‘Clélie,’ and of ‘Le Grand Cyrus,’
which were composed partly by him and partly by his sister, who is now
talking to that pretty person yonder, near Monsieur Scarron.”
Raoul turned and saw two faces just arrived. One was perfectly
charming, delicate, pensive, shaded by beautiful dark hair, and eyes
soft as velvet, like those lovely flowers, the heartsease, in which
shine out the golden petals. The other, of mature age, seemed to have
the former one under her charge, and was cold, dry and yellow—the true
type of a duenna or a devotee.
Raoul resolved not to quit the room without having spoken to the
beautiful girl with the soft eyes, who by a strange fancy, although she
bore no resemblance, reminded him of his poor little Louise, whom he
had left in the Château de la Vallière and whom, in the midst of all
the party, he had never for one moment quite forgotten. Meantime Aramis
had drawn near to the coadjutor, who, smiling all the while, contrived
to drop some words into his ear. Aramis, notwithstanding his
self-control, could not refrain from a slight movement of surprise.
“Laugh, then,” said Monsieur de Retz; “they are looking at us.” And
leaving Aramis he went to talk with Madame de Chevreuse, who was in the
midst of a large group.
Aramis affected a laugh, to divert the attention of certain curious
listeners, and perceiving that Athos had betaken himself to the
embrasure of a window and remained there, he proceeded to join him,
throwing out a few words carelessly as he moved through the room.
As soon as the two friends met they began a conversation which was
emphasized by frequent gesticulation.
Raoul then approached them as Athos had directed him to do.
“’Tis a rondeau by Monsieur Voiture that monsieur l’abbé is repeating
to me.” said Athos in a loud voice, “and I confess I think it
incomparable.”
Raoul stayed only a few minutes near them and then mingled with the
group round Madame de Chevreuse.
“Well, then?” asked Athos, in a low tone.
“It is to be to-morrow,” said Aramis hastily.
“At what time?”
“Six o’clock.”
“Where?”
“At Saint Mandé.”
“Who told you?”
“The Count de Rochefort.”
Some one drew near.
“And then philosophic ideas are wholly wanting in Voiture’s works, but
I am of the same opinion as the coadjutor—he is a poet, a true poet.”
Aramis spoke so as to be heard by everybody.
“And I, too,” murmured the young lady with the velvet eyes. “I have the
misfortune also to admire his poetry exceedingly.”
“Monsieur Scarron, do me the honor,” said Raoul, blushing, “to tell me
the name of that young lady whose opinion seems so different from that
of others of the company.”
“Ah! my young vicomte,” replied Scarron, “I suppose you wish to propose
to her an alliance offensive and defensive.”
Raoul blushed again.
“You asked the name of that young lady. She is called the fair Indian.”
“Excuse me, sir,” returned Raoul, blushing still more deeply, “I know
no more than I did before. Alas! I am from the country.”
“Which means that you know very little about the nonsense which here
flows down our streets. So much the better, young man! so much the
better! Don’t try to understand it—you will only lose your time.”
“You forgive me, then, sir,” said Raoul, “and you will deign to tell me
who is the person that you call the young Indian?”
“Certainly; one of the most charming persons that lives—Mademoiselle
Frances d’Aubigné.”
“Does she belong to the family of the celebrated Agrippa, the friend of
Henry IV.?”