Aramis and Porthos, having profited by the time granted them by Fouquet,
did honor to the French cavalry by their speed. Porthos did not clearly
understand on what kind of mission he was forced to display so much
velocity; but as he saw Aramis spurring on furiously, he, Porthos,
spurred on in the same way. They had soon, in this manner, placed twelve
leagues between them and Vaux; they were then obliged to change horses,
and organize a sort of post arrangement. It was during a relay that
Porthos ventured to interrogate Aramis discreetly.
“Hush!” replied the latter, “know only that our fortune depends on our
speed.”
As if Porthos had still been the musketeer, without a sou or a _maille_
of 1626, he pushed forward. That magic word “fortune” always means
something in the human ear. It means _enough_ for those who have
nothing; it means _too much_ for those who have enough.
“I shall be made a duke!” said Porthos, aloud. He was speaking to
himself.
“That is possible,” replied Aramis, smiling after his own fashion, as
Porthos’s horse passed him. Aramis felt, notwithstanding, as though his
brain were on fire; the activity of the body had not yet succeeded
in subduing that of the mind. All there is of raging passion, mental
toothache or mortal threat, raged, gnawed and grumbled in the thoughts
of the unhappy prelate. His countenance exhibited visible traces of this
rude combat. Free on the highway to abandon himself to every impression
of the moment, Aramis did not fail to swear at every start of his horse,
at every inequality in the road. Pale, at times inundated with boiling
sweats, then again dry and icy, he flogged his horses till the blood
streamed from their sides. Porthos, whose dominant fault was not
sensibility, groaned at this. Thus traveled they on for eight long
hours, and then arrived at Orleans. It was four o’clock in the
afternoon. Aramis, on observing this, judged that nothing showed pursuit
to be a possibility. It would be without example that a troop capable
of taking him and Porthos should be furnished with relays sufficient to
perform forty leagues in eight hours. Thus, admitting pursuit, which was
not at all manifest, the fugitives were five hours in advance of their
pursuers.
Aramis thought that there might be no imprudence in taking a little
rest, but that to continue would make the matter more certain. Twenty
leagues more, performed with the same rapidity, twenty more leagues
devoured, and no one, not even D’Artagnan, could overtake the enemies
of the king. Aramis felt obliged, therefore, to inflict upon Porthos the
pain of mounting on horseback again. They rode on till seven o’clock in
the evening, and had only one post more between them and Blois. But here
a diabolical accident alarmed Aramis greatly. There were no horses at
the post. The prelate asked himself by what infernal machination
his enemies had succeeded in depriving him of the means of going
further,--he who never recognized chance as a deity, who found a
cause for every accident, preferred believing that the refusal of the
postmaster, at such an hour, in such a country, was the consequence of
an order emanating from above: an order given with a view of stopping
short the king-maker in the midst of his flight. But at the moment he
was about to fly into a passion, so as to procure either a horse or an
explanation, he was struck with the recollection that the Comte de la
Fere lived in the neighborhood.
“I am not traveling,” said he; “I do not want horses for a whole
stage. Find me two horses to go and pay a visit to a nobleman of my
acquaintance who resides near this place.”
“What nobleman?” asked the postmaster.
“M. le Comte de la Fere.”
“Oh!” replied the postmaster, uncovering with respect, “a very worthy
nobleman. But, whatever may be my desire to make myself agreeable to
him, I cannot furnish you with horses, for all mine are engaged by M. le
Duc de Beaufort.”
“Indeed!” said Aramis, much disappointed.
“Only,” continued the postmaster, “if you will put up with a little
carriage I have, I will harness an old blind horse who has still his
legs left, and peradventure will draw you to the house of M. le Comte de
la Fere.”
“It is worth a louis,” said Aramis.
“No, monsieur, such a ride is worth no more than a crown; that is what
M. Grimaud, the comte’s intendant, always pays me when he makes use of
that carriage; and I should not wish the Comte de la Fere to have to
reproach me with having imposed on one of his friends.”
“As you please,” said Aramis, “particularly as regards disobliging the
Comte de la Fere; only I think I have a right to give you a louis for
your idea.”
“Oh! doubtless,” replied the postmaster with delight. And he himself
harnessed the ancient horse to the creaking carriage. In the meantime
Porthos was curious to behold. He imagined he had discovered a clew to
the secret, and he felt pleased, because a visit to Athos, in the first
place, promised him much satisfaction, and, in the next, gave him the
hope of finding at the same time a good bed and good supper. The master,
having got the carriage ready, ordered one of his men to drive the
strangers to La Fere. Porthos took his seat by the side of Aramis,
whispering in his ear, “I understand.”
“Aha!” said Aramis, “and what do you understand, my friend?”
“We are going, on the part of the king, to make some great proposal to
Athos.”
“Pooh!” said Aramis.
“You need tell me nothing about it,” added the worthy Porthos,
endeavoring to reseat himself so as to avoid the jolting, “you need tell
me nothing, I shall guess.”
“Well! do, my friend; guess away.”
They arrived at Athos’s dwelling about nine o’clock in the evening,
favored by a splendid moon. This cheerful light rejoiced Porthos beyond
expression; but Aramis appeared annoyed by it in an equal degree. He
could not help showing something of this to Porthos, who replied--“Ay!
ay! I guess how it is! the mission is a secret one.”
These were his last words in the carriage. The driver interrupted him by
saying, “Gentlemen, we have arrived.”
Porthos and his companion alighted before the gate of the little
chateau, where we are about to meet again our old acquaintances Athos
and Bragelonne, the latter of whom had disappeared since the discovery
of the infidelity of La Vallière. If there be one saying truer than
another, it is this: great griefs contain within themselves the germ
of consolation. This painful wound, inflicted upon Raoul, had drawn
him nearer to his father again; and God knows how sweet were the
consolations which flowed from the eloquent mouth and generous heart of
Athos. The wound was not cicatrized, but Athos, by dint of conversing
with his son and mixing a little more of his life with that of the young
man, had brought him to understand that this pang of a first infidelity
is necessary to every human existence; and that no one has loved without
encountering it. Raoul listened, again and again, but never understood.
Nothing replaces in the deeply afflicted heart the remembrance and
thought of the beloved object. Raoul then replied to the reasoning of
his father:
“Monsieur, all that you tell me is true; I believe that no one has
suffered in the affections of the heart so much as you have; but you
are a man too great by reason of intelligence, and too severely tried by
adverse fortune not to allow for the weakness of the soldier who suffers
for the first time. I am paying a tribute that will not be paid a second
time; permit me to plunge myself so deeply in my grief that I may forget
myself in it, that I may drown even my reason in it.”
“Raoul! Raoul!”
“Listen, monsieur. Never shall I accustom myself to the idea that
Louise, the chastest and most innocent of women, has been able to so
basely deceive a man so honest and so true a lover as myself. Never can
I persuade myself that I see that sweet and noble mask change into
a hypocritical lascivious face. Louise lost! Louise infamous!
Ah! monseigneur, that idea is much more cruel to me than Raoul
abandoned--Raoul unhappy!”
Athos then employed the heroic remedy. He defended Louise against Raoul,
and justified her perfidy by her love. “A woman who would have yielded
to a king because he is a king,” said he, “would deserve to be styled
infamous; but Louise loves Louis. Young, both, they have forgotten, he
his rank, she her vows. Love absolves everything, Raoul. The two young
people love each other with sincerity.”
And when he had dealt this severe poniard-thrust, Athos, with a sigh,
saw Raoul bound away beneath the rankling wound, and fly to the thickest
recesses of the wood, or the solitude of his chamber, whence, an hour
after, he would return, pale, trembling, but subdued. Then, coming up
to Athos with a smile, he would kiss his hand, like the dog who, having
been beaten, caresses a respected master, to redeem his fault. Raoul
redeemed nothing but his weakness, and only confessed his grief. Thus
passed away the days that followed that scene in which Athos had
so violently shaken the indomitable pride of the king. Never, when
conversing with his son, did he make any allusion to that scene; never
did he give him the details of that vigorous lecture, which might,
perhaps, have consoled the young man, by showing him his rival humbled.
Athos did not wish that the offended lover should forget the respect due
to his king. And when Bragelonne, ardent, angry, and melancholy, spoke
with contempt of royal words, of the equivocal faith which certain
madmen draw from promises that emanate from thrones, when, passing over
two centuries, with that rapidity of a bird that traverses a narrow
strait to go from one continent to the other, Raoul ventured to predict
the time in which kings would be esteemed as less than other men, Athos
said to him, in his serene, persuasive voice, “You are right, Raoul;
all that you say will happen; kings will lose their privileges, as
stars which have survived their aeons lose their splendor. But when that
moment comes, Raoul, we shall be dead. And remember well what I say
to you. In this world, all, men, women, and kings, must live for the
present. We can only live for the future for God.”
This was the manner in which Athos and Raoul were, as usual, conversing,
and walking backwards and forwards in the long alley of limes in the
park, when the bell which served to announce to the comte either the
hour of dinner or the arrival of a visitor, was rung; and, without
attaching any importance to it, he turned towards the house with his
son; and at the end of the alley they found themselves in the presence
of Aramis and Porthos.