The Vicomte de Bragelonne; Or, Ten Years Later<br />Being the completion of "The Three Musketeers" a by Alexandre Dumas (reading strategies book .TXT) 📗

the castle, then!" He returned thither. M. de Lyonne was coming out. He gave D'Artagnan both hands, but told him that the king had been busy all the preceding evening and all night, and that orders had been given that no one should be admitted.

"Not even the captain who takes the order?" cried D'Artagnan. "I think that he is rather too strong."

"Not even he," said M. de Lyonne.

"Since that is the case," replied D'Artagnan, wounded to the heart; "since the captain of the musketeers, who has always entered the king's chamber, is no longer allowed to enter it, his cabinet, or his salle-a-manger; either the king is dead, or his captain is in disgrace. In either case, he can no longer want him. Do me the favor, then, M. de Lyonne, who are in favor, to return and tell the king plainly, I send him my resignation."

"D'Artagnan, beware of what you are doing!"

"For friendship's sake, go!" and he pushed him gently toward the cabinet.

"Well, I will go," said Lyonne.

D'Artagnan waited, walking about the corridor in no enviable mood. Lyonne returned. "Well, what did the king say?" exclaimed D'Artagnan.

"He simply answered, 'That is well,'" replied Lyonne.

"That that was well!" said the captain, with an explosion. "That is to say, that he accepts it? Good! Now, then, I am free! I am only a plain citizen, M. de Lyonne. I have the pleasure of bidding you good-by! Farewell, castle, corridor, antechamber! a bourgeois, about to breathe at liberty, takes his farewell of you."

And without waiting longer, the captain sprang from the terrace down the staircase, where he had picked up the fragments of Gourville's letter. Five minutes after, he was at the hostelry, where, according to the custom of all great officers who have lodgings at the castle, he had taken what was called his city chamber. But when arrived there, instead of throwing off his sword and cloak, he took his pistols, put his money into a large leather purse, sent for his horses from the castle stables, and gave orders for reaching Vannes during the night. Everything went on according to his wishes. At eight o'clock in the evening, he was putting his foot in the stirrup, when M. de Gesvres appeared, at the head of twelve guards, in front of the hostelry. D'Artagnan saw all from the corner of his eye; he could not fail seeing thirteen men and thirteen horses. But he feigned not to observe anything, and was about to put his horse in motion. Gesvres rode up to him. "Monsieur d'Artagnan!" said he aloud.

"Ah, Monsieur de Gesvres! good-evening!"

"One would say you were getting on horseback."

"More than that—I am mounted, as you see."

"It is fortunate I have met with you."

"Were you looking for me, then?"

"Mon Dieu! yes."

"On the part of the king, I will wager?"

"Yes."

"As I, three days ago, went in search of M. Fouquet?"

"Oh!"

"Nonsense! It is of no use being delicate with me; that is all labor lost. Tell me at once you are come to arrest me."

"To arrest you—good heavens! no."

"Why do you come to accost me with twelve horsemen at your heels, then?"

"I am making my round."

"That isn't bad! And so you pick me up in your round, eh?"

"I don't pick you up; I meet with you, and I beg you to come with me."

"Where?"

"To the king."

"Good!" said D'Artagnan, with a bantering air; "the king has nothing to do at last!"

"For Heaven's sake, captain," said M. de Gesvres, in a low voice to the musketeer, "do not compromise yourself! these men hear you."[Pg 513]

D'Artagnan laughed aloud, and replied, "March! People who are arrested are placed between the six first guards and the six last."

"But as I do not arrest you," said M. de Gesvres, "you will march behind with me, if you please."

"Well," said D'Artagnan, "that is very polite, duc, and you are right in being so; for if ever I had had to make my rounds near your chambre-de-ville, I should have been courteous to you, I assure you, by the faith of a gentleman! Now, one favor more: what does the king want with me?"

"Oh, the king is furious!"

"Very well! the king, who has thought it worth while to be furious, may take the trouble of getting calm again; that is all that. I shan't die of that, I will swear."

"No, but—"

"But—I shall be sent to keep company with poor M. Fouquet. Mordioux! That is a gallant man, a worthy man! We shall live very sociably together, I will be bound."

"Here we are at our place of destination," said the duc. "Captain, for Heaven's sake be calm with the king!"

"Ah, ah! you are playing the brave man with me, duc!" said D'Artagnan, throwing one of his defiant glances over De Gesvres. "I have been told that you are ambitious of uniting your guards with my musketeers. This strikes me as a capital opportunity."

"I will take devilish good care not to avail myself of it, captain."

"And why not?"

"Oh, for many reasons—in the first place, for this: If I were to succeed you in the musketeers, after having arrested you—"

"Ah! then, you admit you have arrested me?"

"No, I don't."

"Say, met me, then. So you were saying, if you were to succeed me, after having arrested me?"

"Your musketeers, at the first exercise with ball cartridges, would all fire toward me, by mistake."[Pg 514]

"Ah! as to that I won't say; for the fellows do love me a little."

Gesvres made D'Artagnan pass in first, and took him straight to the cabinet where the king was waiting for his captain of the musketeers, and placed himself behind his colleague in the antechamber. The king could be heard distinctly, speaking aloud to Colbert, in the same cabinet where Colbert might have heard, a few days before, the king speaking aloud with M. d'Artagnan. The guards remained as a mounted piquet before the principal gate; and the report was quickly spread through the city that monsieur le capitaine of the musketeers had just been arrested by order of the king. Then, these men were seen to be in motion, as, in the good old times of Louis XIII., and M. de Treville; groups were formed, the staircases were filled; vague murmurs, issuing from the courts below, came rolling up to the upper stories, like the hoarse moanings of the tide-waves. M. de Gesvres became very uneasy. He looked at his guards, who, after being interrogated by the musketeers who had just got among their ranks, began to shun them with a manifestation of uneasiness. D'Artagnan was certainly less disturbed than M. de Gesvres, the captain of the guards, was. As soon as he entered, he had seated himself on the ledge of a window, whence, with his eagle glance, he saw all that was going on, without the least emotion. None of the progress of the fermentation which had manifested itself at the report of his arrest had escaped him. He foresaw the moment when the explosion would take place, and we know that his previsions were pretty correct.

"It would be very whimsical," thought he, "if, this evening, my prætorians should make me king of France. How I should laugh!"

But, at the height, all was stopped. Guards, musketeers, officers, soldiers, murmurs and uneasinesses, all dispersed, vanished, died away; no more tempest, no more menace, no more sedition. One word had calmed all the waves. The king had desired Brienne to say, "Hush, messieurs! you disturb the king."

D'Artagnan sighed. "All is over!" said he; "the musketeers of the present day are not those of his majesty Louis XIII. All is over!"

"M. d'Artagnan to the king's apartment," cried an usher.

CHAPTER CXXVII. KING LOUIS XIV.

The king was seated in his cabinet, with his back turned toward the door of entrance. In front of him was a mirror, in which, while turning over his papers, he could see with a glance those who came in. He did not take any notice of the entrance of D'Artagnan, but laid over his letters and plans the large silk cloth which he made use of to conceal his secrets from the importunate. D'Artagnan understood his play, and kept in the background; so that, at the end of a minute, the king, who heard nothing, and saw nothing but with the corner of his eye, was obliged to cry, "Is not M. D'Artagnan there?"

"I am here, sire," replied the musketeer, advancing.

"Well, monsieur," said the king, fixing his clear eye upon D'Artagnan, "what have you to say to me?"

"I, sire!" replied the latter, who watched the first blow of his adversary to make a good retort; "I have nothing to say to your majesty, unless it be that you have caused me to be arrested, and here I am."

The king was going to reply that he had not had D'Artagnan arrested, but the sentence appeared too much like an excuse, and he was silent. D'Artagnan likewise preserved an obstinate silence.

"Monsieur," at length resumed the king, "what did I charge you to go and do at Belle-Isle? Tell me, if you please."

The king, while speaking these words, looked fixedly at his captain. Here D'Artagnan was too fortunate; the king seemed to place the game in his hands.

"I believe," replied he, "that your majesty does me the honor to ask what I went to Belle-Isle to do?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Well! sire, I know nothing about it; it is not of me that question should be asked, but of that infinite number of officers of all kinds to whom have been given an infinite number of orders of all kinds, while to me, head of the expedition, nothing precise was ordered."

The king was wounded; he showed it by his reply. "Monsieur," said he, "orders have only been given to such as were judged faithful."

"And, therefore, I have been astonished, sire," retorted the musketeer, "that a captain like myself, who rank with a maréchal of France, should have found himself under the orders of five or six lieutenants or majors, good to make spies of, possibly, but not at all fit to conduct warlike expeditions. It was upon this subject I came to demand an explanation of your majesty, when I found the door closed against me, which, the last insult offered to a brave man, has led me to quit your majesty's service."

"Monsieur," replied the king, "you still believe you are living in an age when kings were, as you complain of having been, under the orders and at the discretion of their inferiors. You appear too much to forget that a king owes an account of his actions to none but God."

"I forget nothing at all, sire," said the musketeer, wounded by this lesson. "Besides, I do not see in what an honest man, when he asks of his king how he has ill served him, offends him."

"You have ill served me, monsieur, by taking part with my enemies against me."

"Who are your enemies, sire?"

"The men I sent you to fight with."

"Two men the enemies of the whole of your majesty's army! That is incredible."

"You have no power to judge of my will."

"But I have to judge of my own friendships, sire."

"He who serves his friends does not serve his master."

"I have so well understood that, sire,[Pg 515] that I have respectfully offered your majesty my resignation."

"And I have accepted it, monsieur," said the king. "Before being separated from you I was willing to prove to you that I know how to keep my word."

"Your majesty has kept more than your word, for your majesty has had me arrested," said D'Artagnan, with his cold bantering air; "you did not promise me that, sire."

The king would not condescend to perceive the pleasantry, and continued seriously, "You see, monsieur," said he, "to what your disobedience has forced me."

"My disobedience!" cried D'Artagnan, red with anger.

"That is the mildest name I can find," pursued the king. "My idea was to take and punish rebels; was I bound to inquire whether these rebels were your friends or not?"

"But I was," replied D'Artagnan. "It was a cruelty on your majesty's part to send me to take my friends and lead them to your gibbets."

"It was a trial I had to make, monsieur, of pretended servants, who eat my bread, and ought to defend my person. The trial has succeeded ill, M. d'Artagnan."

"For one bad servant your majesty loses," said the musketeer, with bitterness, "there are ten who have, on that same day, gone through their ordeal. Listen to me, sire; I am not accustomed to that service. Mine is a rebel sword when I am required to do ill. It was ill to send me in pursuit of two men whose lives M. Fouquet, your majesty's preserver, had implored you to save. Still further, these men