M. Baisemeaux de Montlezun’s Accounts
The clock of St. Paul was striking seven as Aramis, on horseback,
dressed as a simple citizen, that is to say, in colored suit, with no
distinctive mark about him, except a kind of hunting-knife by his side,
passed before the Rue du Petit-Muse, and stopped opposite the Rue des
Tourelles, at the gate of the Bastile. Two sentinels were on duty at
the gate; they made no difficulty about admitting Aramis, who entered
without dismounting, and they pointed out the way he was to go by a
long passage with buildings on both sides. This passage led to the
drawbridge, or, in other words, to the real entrance. The drawbridge
was down, and the duty of the day was about being entered upon. The
sentinel at the outer guardhouse stopped Aramis’s further progress,
asking him, in a rough tone of voice, what had brought him there.
Aramis explained, with his usual politeness, that a wish to speak to M.
Baisemeaux de Montlezun had occasioned his visit. The first sentinel
then summoned a second sentinel, stationed within an inner lodge, who
showed his face at the grating, and inspected the new arrival most
attentively. Aramis reiterated the expression of his wish to see the
governor, whereupon the sentinel called to an officer of lower grade,
who was walking about in a tolerably spacious courtyard and who, in
turn, on being informed of his object, ran to seek one of the officers
of the governor’s staff. The latter, after having listened to Aramis’s
request, begged him to wait a moment, then went away a short distance,
but returned to ask his name. “I cannot tell it you, monsieur,” said
Aramis, “I need only mention that I have matters of such importance to
communicate to the governor, that I can only rely beforehand upon one
thing, that M. de Baisemeaux will be delighted to see me; nay, more
than that, when you have told him that it is the person whom he
expected on the first of June, I am convinced he will hasten here
himself.” The officer could not possibly believe that a man of the
governor’s importance should put himself out for a person of so little
importance as the citizen-looking visitor on horseback. “It happens
most fortunately, monsieur,” he said, “that the governor is just going
out, and you can perceive his carriage with the horses already
harnessed, in the courtyard yonder; there will be no occasion for him
to come to meet you, as he will see you as he passes by.” Aramis bowed
to signify his assent; he did not wish to inspire others with too
exalted an opinion of himself, and therefore waited patiently and in
silence, leaning upon the saddle-bow of his horse. Ten minutes had
hardly elapsed when the governor’s carriage was observed to move. The
governor appeared at the door, and got into the carriage, which
immediately prepared to start. The same ceremony was observed for the
governor himself as with a suspected stranger; the sentinel at the
lodge advanced as the carriage was about to pass under the arch, and
the governor opened the carriage-door, himself setting the example of
obedience to orders; so that, in this way, the sentinel could convince
himself that no one quitted the Bastile improperly. The carriage rolled
along under the archway, but at the moment the iron-gate was opened,
the officer approached the carriage, which had been again stopped, and
said something to the governor, who immediately put his head out of the
door-way, and perceived Aramis on horseback at the end of the
drawbridge. He immediately uttered almost a shout of delight, and got
out, or rather darted out of his carriage, running towards Aramis,
whose hands he seized, making a thousand apologies. He almost embraced
him. “What a difficult matter to enter the Bastile!” said Aramis. “Is
it the same for those who are sent here against their wills, as for
those who come of their own accord?”
“A thousand pardons, my lord. How delighted I am to see your Grace!”
“Hush! What are you thinking of, my dear M. Baisemeaux? What do you
suppose would be thought of a bishop in my present costume?”
“Pray, excuse me, I had forgotten. Take this gentleman’s horse to the
stables,” cried Baisemeaux.
“No, no,” said Aramis; “I have five thousand pistoles in the
saddle-bags.”
The governor’s countenance became so radiant, that if the prisoners had
seen him they would have imagined some prince of the blood royal had
arrived. “Yes, you are right, the horse shall be taken to the
government house. Will you get into the carriage, my dear M. d’Herblay?
and it shall take us back to my house.”
“Get into a carriage to cross a courtyard! do you believe I am so great
an invalid? No, no, we will go on foot.”
Baisemeaux then offered his arm as a support, but the prelate did not
accept it. They arrived in this manner at the government house,
Baisemeaux rubbing his hands and glancing at the horse from time to
time, while Aramis was looking at the bleak bare walls. A tolerably
handsome vestibule and a staircase of white stone led to the governor’s
apartments, who crossed the ante-chamber, the dining-room, where
breakfast was being prepared, opened a small side door, and closeted
himself with his guest in a large cabinet, the windows of which opened
obliquely upon the courtyard and the stables. Baisemeaux installed the
prelate with that all-inclusive politeness of which a good man, or a
grateful man, alone possesses the secret. An arm-chair, a footstool, a
small table beside him, on which to rest his hand, everything was
prepared by the governor himself. With his own hands, too, he placed
upon the table, with much solicitude, the bag containing the gold,
which one of the soldiers had brought up with the most respectful
devotion; and the soldier having left the room, Baisemeaux himself
closed the door after him, drew aside one of the window-curtains, and
looked steadfastly at Aramis to see if the prelate required anything
further.
“Well, my lord,” he said, still standing up, “of all men of their word,
you still continue to be the most punctual.”
“In matters of business, dear M. de Baisemeaux, exactitude is not a
virtue only, it is a duty as well.”
“Yes, in matters of business, certainly; but what you have with me is
not of that character; it is a service you are rendering me.”
“Come, confess, dear M. de Baisemeaux, that, notwithstanding this
exactitude, you have not been without a little uneasiness.”
“About your health, I certainly have,” stammered out Baisemeaux.
“I wished to come here yesterday, but I was not able, as I was too
fatigued,” continued Aramis. Baisemeaux anxiously slipped another
cushion behind his guest’s back. “But,” continued Aramis, “I promised
myself to come and pay you a visit to-day, early in the morning.”
“You are really very kind, my lord.”
“And it was a good thing for me I was punctual, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Yes, you were going out.” At which latter remark Baisemeaux colored
and said, “It is true I was going out.”
“Then I prevent you,” said Aramis; whereupon the embarrassment of
Baisemeaux became visibly greater. “I am putting you to inconvenience,”
he continued, fixing a keen glance upon the poor governor; “if I had
known that, I should not have come.”
“How can your lordship imagine that you could ever inconvenience me?”
“Confess you were going in search of money.”
“No,” stammered out Baisemeaux, “no! I assure you I was going to——”
“Does the governor still intend to go to M. Fouquet?” suddenly called
out the major from below. Baisemeaux ran to the window like a madman.
“No, no,” he exclaimed in a state of desperation, “who the deuce is
speaking of M. Fouquet? are you drunk below there? why an I interrupted
when I am engaged on business?”
“You were going to M. Fouquet’s,” said Aramis biting his lips, “to M.
Fouquet, the abbe, or the superintendent?”
Baisemeaux almost made up his mind to tell an untruth, but he could not
summon courage to do so. “To the superintendent,” he said.
“It is true, then, that you were in want of money, since you were going
to a person who gives it away!”
“I assure you, my lord——”
“You were afraid?”
“My dear lord, it was the uncertainty and ignorance in which I was as
to where you were to be found.”
“You would have found the money you require at M. Fouquet’s, for he is
a man whose hand is always open.”
“I swear that I should never have ventured to ask M. Fouquet for money.
I only wished to ask him for your address.”
“To ask M. Fouquet for my address?” exclaimed Aramis, opening his eyes
in real astonishment.
“Yes,” said Baisemeaux, greatly disturbed by the glance which the
prelate fixed upon him,—“at M. Fouquet’s certainly.”
“There is no harm in that, dear M. Baisemeaux, only I would ask, why
ask my address of M. Fouquet?”
“That I might write to you.”
“I understand,” said Aramis, smiling, “but that is not what I meant; I
do not ask you what you required my address for; I only ask why you
should go to M. Fouquet for it?”
“Oh!” said Baisemeaux, “as Belle-Isle is the property of M. Fouquet,
and as Belle-Isle is in the diocese of Vannes, and as you are bishop of
Vannes——”
“But, my dear Baisemeaux, since you knew I was bishop of Vannes, you
had no occasion to ask M. Fouquet for my address.”
“Well, monsieur,” said Baisemeaux, completely at bay, “if I have acted
indiscreetly, I beg your pardon most sincerely.”
“Nonsense,” observed Aramis, calmly: “how can you possibly have acted
indiscreetly?” And while he composed his face, and continued to smile
cheerfully on the governor, he was considering how Baisemeaux, who was
not aware of his address, knew, however, that Vannes was his residence.
“I shall clear all this up,” he said to himself, and then speaking
aloud, added,—“Well, my dear governor, shall we now arrange our little
accounts?”
“I am at your orders, my lord; but tell me beforehand, my lord, whether
you will do me the honor to breakfast with me as usual?”
“Very willingly, indeed.”
“Thai’s well,” said Baisemeaux, as he struck the bell before him three
times.
“What does that mean?” inquired Aramis.
“That I have some one to breakfast with me, and that preparations are
to be made accordingly.”
“And you rang thrice. Really, my dear governor, I begin to think you
are acting ceremoniously with me.”
“No, indeed. Besides, the least I can do is to receive you in the best
way I can.”
“But why so?”
“Because not even a prince could have done what you have done for me.”
“Nonsense! nonsense!”
“Nay, I assure you——”
“Let us speak of other matters,” said Aramis. “Or rather, tell me how
your affairs here are getting on.”
“Not over well.”
“The deuce!”
“M. de Mazarin was not hard enough.”
“Yes, I see; you require a government full of suspicion—like that of
the old cardinal, for instance.”
“Yes; matters went on better under him. The brother of his ‘gray
eminence’ made his fortune here.”
“Believe me, my dear governor,” said Aramis, drawing closer to
Baisemeaux, “a young king is well worth an old cardinal. Youth has its
suspicions, its fits of anger, its prejudices, as old age has its
hatreds, its precautions, and its fears. Have you paid your three
years’ profits to Louviere and Tremblay?”
“Most certainly I have.”
“So that you have nothing more to give them than the fifty thousand
francs I have brought with me?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you not saved anything, then?”
“My lord, in giving the fifty thousand francs of my own to these
gentlemen, I assure you that I give them everything I gain. I told M.
d’Artagnan so yesterday evening.”
“Ah!” said Aramis, whose eyes sparkled for a moment, but became
immediately afterwards as unmoved as before; “so you have seen my old
friend D’Artagnan; how was he?”
“Wonderfully well.”
“And what did you say to him, M. de Baisemeaux?”
“I told him,” continued the governor, not perceiving his own
thoughtlessness, “I told him that I fed my prisoners too well.”
“How many have you?” inquired Aramis, in an indifferent tone of voice.
“Sixty.”
“Well, that is a tolerably round number.”
“In former times, my lord, there were, during certain years, as many as
two hundred.”
“Still a minimum of sixty is not to be grumbled at.”
“Perhaps not; for, to anybody but myself, each prisoner would bring in
two hundred and fifty pistoles; for instance, for a prince of the blood
I have fifty francs a day.”
“Only you have no prince of the blood; at least, I suppose so,” said
Aramis, with a slight tremor in his voice.
“No, thank Heaven!—I mean, no, unfortunately.”
“What do you mean by unfortunately?”
“Because my appointment would be improved by it. So, fifty francs per
day for a prince of the blood, thirty-six for a marechal of France——”
“But you have as many marechals of France, I suppose, as you have
princes of the blood?”
“Alas! no more. It is true lieutenant-generals and brigadiers pay
twenty-six francs, and I have two of them. After that, come councilors
of parliament, who bring me fifteen francs, and I have six of them.”
“I did not know,” said Aramis, “that councilors were so productive.”
“Yes, but from fifteen francs I sink at once to ten francs; namely, for
an ordinary judge, and for an ecclesiastic.”
“And you have seven, you say; an excellent affair.”
“Nay, a bad one, and for this reason. How can I possibly treat these
poor fellows, who are of some good, at all events, otherwise than as a
councilor of parliament?”
“Yes, you are right; I do not see five francs difference between them.”
“You understand; if I have a fine fish, I pay four or five francs for
it; if I get a fine fowl, it costs me a franc and a half. I fatten a
good deal of poultry, but I have to buy grain, and you cannot imagine
the army of rats that infest this place.”
“Why not get half a dozen cats to deal with them?”
“Cats, indeed; yes, they eat them, but I was obliged to give up the
idea because of the way in which they treated my grain. I have been
obliged to have some terrier dogs sent me from England to kill the
rats. These dogs, unfortunately, have tremendous appetites; they eat as
much as a prisoner of the fifth order, without taking into account the
rabbits and fowls they kill.”
Was Aramis really listening or not? No one could have told; his
downcast eyes showed the attentive man; but the restless hand betrayed
the man absorbed in thought—Aramis was meditating.
“I was saying,” continued Baisemeaux, “that a good-sized fowl costs me
a franc and a half, and that a fine fish costs me four or five francs.
Three meals are served at the Bastile, and, as the prisoners, having
nothing to do, are always eating, a ten-franc man costs me seven francs
and a half.”
“But did you not say that you treated those at ten francs like those at
fifteen?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Very well! Then you gain seven francs and a half upon those who pay
you fifteen francs.”
“I must compensate myself somehow,” said Baisemeaux, who saw how he had
been snapped up.
“You are quite right, my dear governor; but have you no prisoners below
ten francs?”
“Oh, yes! we have citizens and barristers at five francs.
“And do they eat, too?”
“Not a doubt about it; only you understand that they do not get fish or
poultry, nor rich wines at every meal; but at all events thrice a week
they have a good dish at their dinner.”
“Really, you are quite a philanthropist, my dear governor, and you will
ruin yourself.”
“No, understand me; when the fifteen-franc has not eaten his fowl, or
the ten-franc has left his dish unfinished, I send it to the five-franc
prisoner; it is a feast for the poor devil, and one must be charitable,
you know.”
“And what do you make out of your five-franc prisoners?”
“A franc and a half.”
“Baisemeaux, you’re an honest fellow; in honest truth I say so.”
“Thank you, my lord. But I feel most for the small tradesmen and
bailiffs’ clerks, who are rated at three francs. They do not often see
Rhine carp or Channel sturgeon.”
“But do not the five-franc gentlemen sometimes leave some scraps?”
“Oh! my lord, do not believe I am so stingy as that; I delight the
heart of some poor little tradesman or clerk by sending him a wing of a
red partridge, a slice of venison, or a slice of a truffled pasty,
dishes which he never tasted except in his dreams; these are the
leavings of the twenty-four franc prisoners; and as he eats and drinks,
at dessert he cries ‘Long live the King,’ and blesses the Bastile; with
a couple of bottles of champagne, which cost me five sous, I made him
tipsy every Sunday. That class of people call down blessings upon me,
and are sorry to leave the prison. Do you know that I have remarked,
and it does me infinite honor, that certain prisoners, who have been
set at liberty, have, almost immediately afterwards, got imprisoned
again? Why should this be the case, unless it be to enjoy the pleasures
of my kitchen? It is really the fact.”
Aramis smiled with an expression of incredulity.
“You smile,” said Baisemeaux.
“I do,” returned Aramis.
“I tell you that we have names which have been inscribed on our books
thrice in the space of two years.”
“I must see it before I believe it,” said Aramis.
“Well, I can show it to you, although it is prohibited to communicate
the registers to strangers; and if you really wish to see it with your
own eyes——”
“I should be delighted, I confess.”
“Very well,” said Baisemeaux, and he took out of a cupboard a large
register. Aramis followed him most anxiously with his eyes, and
Baisemeaux returned, placed the register upon the table, and turned
over the leaves for a minute, and stayed at the letter M.
“Look here,” said he, “Martinier, January, 1659; Martinier, June, 1660;
Martinier, March, 1661. Mazarinades, etc.; you understand it was only a
pretext; people were not sent to the Bastile for jokes against M.
Mazarin; the fellow denounced himself in order to get imprisoned here.”
“And what was his object?”
“None other than to return to my kitchen at three francs a day.”
“Three francs—poor devil!”
“The poet, my lord, belongs to the lowest scale, the same style of
board as the small tradesman and bailiff’s clerk; but I repeat, it is
to those people only that I give these little surprises.”
Aramis mechanically turned over the leaves of the register, continuing
to read the names, but without appearing to take any interest in the
names he read.
“In 1661, you perceive,” said Baisemeaux, “eighty entries; and in 1659,
eighty also.”
“Ah!” said Aramis. “Seldon; I seem to know that name. Was it not you
who spoke to me about a certain young man?”
“Yes, a poor devil of a student, who made—What do you call that where
two Latin verses rhyme together?”
“A distich.”
“Yes; that is it.”
“Poor fellow; for a distich.”
“Do you know that he made this distich against the Jesuits?”
“That makes no difference; the punishment seems very severe.”
“Do not pity him; last year you seemed to interest yourself in him.”
“Yes, I did so.”
“Well, as your interest is all-powerful here, my lord, I have treated
him since that time as a prisoner at fifteen francs.”
“The same as this one, then,” said Aramis, who had continued turning
over the leaves, and who had stopped at one of the names which followed
Martinier.
“Yes, the same as that one.”
“Is that Marchiali an Italian?” said Aramis, pointing with his finger
to the name which had attracted his attention.
“Hush!” said Baisemeaux.
“Why hush?” said Aramis, involuntarily clenching his white hand.
“I thought I had already spoken to you about that Marchiali.”
“No, it is the first time I ever heard his name pronounced.”
“That may be, but perhaps I have spoken to you about him without naming
him.”
“Is he an old offender?” asked Aramis, attempting to smile.
“On the contrary, he is quite young.”
“Is his crime, then, very heinous?”
“Unpardonable.”
“Has he assassinated any one?”
“Bah!”
“An incendiary, then?”
“Bah!”
“Has he slandered any one?”
“No, no! It is he who—” and Baisemeaux approached Aramis’s ear, making
a sort of ear-trumpet of his hands, and whispered: “It is he who
presumes to resemble the——”
“Yes, yes.” said Aramis, “I now remember you already spoke about it
last year to me; but the crime appeared to me so slight.
“Slight, do you say?”
“Or rather, so involuntary.”
“My lord, it is not involuntarily that such a resemblance is detected.”
“Well, the fact is, I had forgotten it. But, my dear host,” said
Aramis, closing the register, “if I am not mistaken, we are summoned.”
Baisemeaux took the register, hastily restored it to its place in the
closet, which he locked, and put the key in his pocket. “Will it be
agreeable to your lordship to breakfast now?” said he; “for you are
right in supposing that breakfast was announced.”
“Assuredly, my dear governor,” and they passed into the dining-room.