Louise de la Valliere by Alexandre Dumas (best sales books of all time TXT) 📗
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
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“As everybody is, indeed,” said the king.
“Oh! no!” returned Saint-Aignan, “you are mistaken sire; every one is not precisely a friend of M. de Guiche.”
“How do you know that?”
“Does your majesty require me to explain myself?”
“Certainly I do.”
“Well, sire, I believe I have heard something said about a quarrel between two gentlemen.”
“When?”
“This very evening, before your majesty’s supper was served.”
“That can hardly be. I have issued such stringent and severe ordinances with respect to duelling, that no one, I presume, would dare to disobey them.”
“In that case, Heaven preserve me from excusing any one!” exclaimed Saint-Aignan. “Your majesty commanded me to speak, and I spoke accordingly.”
“Tell me, then, in what way the Comte de Guiche has been wounded?”
“Sire, it is said to have been at a boar-hunt.”
“This evening?”
“Yes, sire.”
“One of his hands shattered, and a hole in his breast. Who was at the hunt with M. de Guiche?”
“I do not know, sire; but M. de Manicamp knows, or ought to know.”
“You are concealing something from me, Saint-Aignan.”
“Nothing, sire, I assure you.”
“Then, explain to me how the accident happened; was it a musket that burst?”
“Very likely, sire. But yet, on reflection, it could hardly have been that, for De Guiche’s pistol was found close by him still loaded.”
“His pistol? But a man does not go to a boar-hunt with a pistol, I should think.”
“Sire, it is also said that De Guiche’s horse was killed and that the horse is still to be found in the wide open glade in the forest.”
“His horse?—Guiche go on horseback to a boar-hunt?—Saint-Aignan, I do not understand a syllable of what you have been telling me. Where did this affair happen?”
“At the Rond-point, in that part of the forest called the Bois-Rochin.”
“That will do. Call M. d’Artagnan.” Saint-Aignan obeyed, and the musketeer entered.
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the king, “you will leave this place by the little door of the private staircase.”
“Yes, sire.”
“You will mount your horse.”
“Yes, sire.”
“And you will proceed to the Rond-point du Bois-Rochin. Do you know the spot?”
“Yes, sire. I have fought there twice.”
“What!” exclaimed the king, amazed at the reply.
“Under the edicts, sire, of Cardinal Richelieu,” returned D’Artagnan, with his usual impassability.
“That is very different, monsieur. You will, therefore, go there, and will examine the locality very carefully. A man has been wounded there, and you will find a horse lying dead. You will tell me what your opinion is upon the whole affair.”
“Very good, sire.”
“As a matter of course, it is your own opinion I require, and not that of any one else.”
“You shall have it in an hour’s time, sire.”
“I prohibit your speaking with any one, whoever it may be.”
“Except with the person who must give me a lantern,” said D’Artagnan.
“Oh! that is a matter of course,” said the king, laughing at the liberty, which he tolerated in no one but his captain of the musketeers. D’Artagnan left by the little staircase.
“Now, let my physician be sent for,” said Louis. Ten minutes afterwards the king’s physician arrived, quite out of breath.
“You will go, monsieur,” said the king to him, “and accompany M. de Saint-Aignan wherever he may take you; you will render me an account of the state of the person you may see in the house you will be taken to.” The physician obeyed without a remark, as at that time people began to obey Louis XIV., and left the room preceding Saint-Aignan.
“Do you, Saint-Aignan, send Manicamp to me, before the physician can possibly have spoken to him.” And Saint-Aignan left in his turn.
Chapter XVI. Showing in What Way D’Artagnan Discharged the Mission with Which the King Had Intrusted Him.
While the king was engaged in making these last-mentioned arrangements in order to ascertain the truth, D’Artagnan, without losing a second, ran to the stable, took down the lantern, saddled his horse himself, and proceeded towards the place his majesty had indicated. According to the promise he had made, he had not accosted any one; and, as we have observed, he had carried his scruples so far as to do without the assistance of the stable-helpers altogether. D’Artagnan was one of those who in moments of difficulty pride themselves on increasing their own value. By dint of hard galloping, he in less than five minutes reached the wood, fastened his horse to the first tree he came to, and penetrated to the broad open space on foot. He then began to inspect most carefully, on foot and with his lantern in his hand, the whole surface of the Rond-point, went forward, turned back again, measured, examined, and after half an hour’s minute inspection, he returned silently to where he had left his horse, and pursued his way in deep reflection and at a foot-pace to Fontainebleau. Louis was waiting in his cabinet; he was alone, and with a pencil was scribbling on paper certain lines which D’Artagnan at the first glance recognized as unequal and very much touched up. The conclusion he arrived at was, that they must be verses. The king raised his head and perceived D’Artagnan. “Well, monsieur,” he said, “do you bring me any news?”
“Yes, sire.”
“What have you seen?”
“As far as probability goes, sire—” D’Artagnan began to reply.
“It was certainty I requested of you.”
“I will approach it as near as I possibly can. The weather was very well adapted for investigations of the character I have just made; it has been raining this evening, and the roads were wet and muddy—”
“Well, the result, M. d’Artagnan?”
“Sire, your majesty told me that there was a horse lying dead in the cross-road of the Bois-Rochin, and I
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