The three musketeers
At first the king answered that he would not go; but he could not
resist his love of sport, and set out after dinner.”
“And the king has seen the cardinal?” asked M. de Tréville.
“In all probability he has,” replied the valet, “for I saw the horses
harnessed to his Eminence’s carriage this morning, and when I asked
where he was going, they told me, ‘To St. Germain.’”
“He is beforehand with us,” said M. de Tréville. “Gentlemen, I will see
the king this evening; but as to you, I do not advise you to risk doing
so.”
This advice was too reasonable, and moreover came from a man who knew
the king too well, to allow the four young men to dispute it. M. de
Tréville recommended everyone to return home and wait for news.
On entering his hôtel, M. de Tréville thought it best to be first in
making the complaint. He sent one of his servants to M. de la
Trémouille with a letter in which he begged of him to eject the
cardinal’s Guardsmen from his house, and to reprimand his people for
their audacity in making _sortie_ against the king’s Musketeers. But M.
de la Trémouille—already prejudiced by his esquire, whose relative, as
we already know, Bernajoux was—replied that it was neither for M. de
Tréville nor the Musketeers to complain, but, on the contrary, for him,
whose people the Musketeers had assaulted and whose hôtel they had
endeavored to burn. Now, as the debate between these two nobles might
last a long time, each becoming, naturally, more firm in his own
opinion, M. de Tréville thought of an expedient which might terminate
it quietly. This was to go himself to M. de la Trémouille.
He repaired, therefore, immediately to his hôtel, and caused himself to
be announced.
The two nobles saluted each other politely, for if no friendship
existed between them, there was at least esteem. Both were men of
courage and honor; and as M. de la Trémouille—a Protestant, and seeing
the king seldom—was of no party, he did not, in general, carry any bias
into his social relations. This time, however, his address, although
polite, was cooler than usual.
“Monsieur,” said M. de Tréville, “we fancy that we have each cause to
complain of the other, and I am come to endeavor to clear up this
affair.”
“I have no objection,” replied M. de la Trémouille, “but I warn you
that I am well informed, and all the fault is with your Musketeers.”
“You are too just and reasonable a man, monsieur!” said Tréville, “not
to accept the proposal I am about to make to you.”
“Make it, monsieur, I listen.”
“How is Monsieur Bernajoux, your esquire’s relative?”
“Why, monsieur, very ill indeed! In addition to the sword thrust in his
arm, which is not dangerous, he has received another right through his
lungs, of which the doctor says bad things.”
“But has the wounded man retained his senses?”
“Perfectly.”
“Does he talk?”
“With difficulty, but he can speak.”
“Well, monsieur, let us go to him. Let us adjure him, in the name of
the God before whom he must perhaps appear, to speak the truth. I will
take him for judge in his own cause, monsieur, and will believe what he
will say.”
M. de la Trémouille reflected for an instant; then as it was difficult
to suggest a more reasonable proposal, he agreed to it.
Both descended to the chamber in which the wounded man lay. The latter,
on seeing these two noble lords who came to visit him, endeavored to
raise himself up in his bed; but he was too weak, and exhausted by the
effort, he fell back again almost senseless.
M. de la Trémouille approached him, and made him inhale some salts,
which recalled him to life. Then M. de Tréville, unwilling that it
should be thought that he had influenced the wounded man, requested M.
de la Trémouille to interrogate him himself.
That happened which M. de Tréville had foreseen. Placed between life
and death, as Bernajoux was, he had no idea for a moment of concealing
the truth; and he described to the two nobles the affair exactly as it
had passed.
This was all that M. de Tréville wanted. He wished Bernajoux a speedy
convalescence, took leave of M. de la Trémouille, returned to his
hôtel, and immediately sent word to the four friends that he awaited
their company at dinner.
M. de Tréville entertained good company, wholly anticardinalist,
though. It may easily be understood, therefore, that the conversation
during the whole of dinner turned upon the two checks that his
Eminence’s Guardsmen had received. Now, as D’Artagnan had been the hero
of these two fights, it was upon him that all the felicitations fell,
which Athos, Porthos, and Aramis abandoned to him, not only as good
comrades, but as men who had so often had their turn that they could
very well afford him his.
Toward six o’clock M. de Tréville announced that it was time to go to
the Louvre; but as the hour of audience granted by his Majesty was
past, instead of claiming the _entrée_ by the back stairs, he placed
himself with the four young men in the antechamber. The king had not
yet returned from hunting. Our young men had been waiting about half an
hour, amid a crowd of courtiers, when all the doors were thrown open,
and his Majesty was announced.
At his announcement D’Artagnan felt himself tremble to the very marrow
of his bones. The coming instant would in all probability decide the
rest of his life. His eyes therefore were fixed in a sort of agony upon
the door through which the king must enter.
Louis XIII. appeared, walking fast. He was in hunting costume covered
with dust, wearing large boots, and holding a whip in his hand. At the
first glance, D’Artagnan judged that the mind of the king was stormy.
This disposition, visible as it was in his Majesty, did not prevent the
courtiers from ranging themselves along his pathway. In royal
antechambers it is worth more to be viewed with an angry eye than not
to be seen at all. The three Musketeers therefore did not hesitate to
make a step forward. D’Artagnan on the contrary remained concealed
behind them; but although the king knew Athos, Porthos, and Aramis
personally, he passed before them without speaking or looking—indeed,
as if he had never seen them before. As for M. de Tréville, when the
eyes of the king fell upon him, he sustained the look with so much
firmness that it was the king who dropped his eyes; after which his
Majesty, grumbling, entered his apartment.
“Matters go but badly,” said Athos, smiling; “and we shall not be made
Chevaliers of the Order this time.”
“Wait here ten minutes,” said M. de Tréville; “and if at the expiration
of ten minutes you do not see me come out, return to my hôtel, for it
will be useless for you to wait for me longer.”
The four young men waited ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, twenty
minutes; and seeing that M. de Tréville did not return, went away very
uneasy as to what was going to happen.
M. de Tréville entered the king’s cabinet boldly, and found his Majesty
in a very ill humor, seated on an armchair, beating his boot with the
handle of his whip. This, however, did not prevent his asking, with the
greatest coolness, after his Majesty’s health.
“Bad, monsieur, bad!” replied the king; “I am bored.”
This was, in fact, the worst complaint of Louis XIII., who would
sometimes take one of his courtiers to a window and say, “Monsieur
So-and-so, let us weary ourselves together.”
“How! Your Majesty is bored? Have you not enjoyed the pleasures of the
chase today?”
“A fine pleasure, indeed, monsieur! Upon my soul, everything
degenerates; and I don’t know whether it is the game which leaves no
scent, or the dogs that have no noses. We started a stag of ten
branches. We chased him for six hours, and when he was near being
taken—when St. Simon was already putting his horn to his mouth to sound
the _halali_—crack, all the pack takes the wrong scent and sets off
after a two-year-older. I shall be obliged to give up hunting, as I
have given up hawking. Ah, I am an unfortunate king, Monsieur de
Tréville! I had but one gerfalcon, and he died day before yesterday.”
“Indeed, sire, I wholly comprehend your disappointment. The misfortune
is great; but I think you have still a good number of falcons, sparrow
hawks, and tiercels.”
“And not a man to instruct them. Falconers are declining. I know no one
but myself who is acquainted with the noble art of venery. After me it
will all be over, and people will hunt with gins, snares, and traps. If
I had but the time to train pupils! But there is the cardinal always at
hand, who does not leave me a moment’s repose; who talks to me about
Spain, who talks to me about Austria, who talks to me about England!
Ah! _à propos_ of the cardinal, Monsieur de Tréville, I am vexed with
you!”
This was the chance at which M. de Tréville waited for the king. He
knew the king of old, and he knew that all these complaints were but a
preface—a sort of excitation to encourage himself—and that he had now
come to his point at last.
“And in what have I been so unfortunate as to displease your Majesty?”
asked M. de Tréville, feigning the most profound astonishment.
“Is it thus you perform your charge, monsieur?” continued the king,
without directly replying to de Tréville’s question. “Is it for this I
name you captain of my Musketeers, that they should assassinate a man,
disturb a whole quarter, and endeavor to set fire to Paris, without
your saying a word? But yet,” continued the king, “undoubtedly my haste
accuses you wrongfully; without doubt the rioters are in prison, and
you come to tell me justice is done.”
“Sire,” replied M. de Tréville, calmly, “on the contrary, I come to
demand it of you.”
“And against whom?” cried the king.
“Against calumniators,” said M. de Tréville.
“Ah! This is something new,” replied the king. “Will you tell me that
your three damned Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and your
youngster from Béarn, have not fallen, like so many furies, upon poor
Bernajoux, and have not maltreated him in such a fashion that probably
by this time he is dead? Will you tell me that they did not lay siege
to the hôtel of the Duc de la Trémouille, and that they did not
endeavor to burn it?—which would not, perhaps, have been a great
misfortune in time of war, seeing that it is nothing but a nest of
Huguenots, but which is, in time of peace, a frightful example. Tell
me, now, can you deny all this?”
“And who told you this fine story, sire?” asked Tréville, quietly.
“Who has told me this fine story, monsieur? Who should it be but he who
watches while I sleep, who labors while I amuse myself, who conducts
everything at home and abroad—in France as in Europe?”
“Your Majesty probably refers to God,” said M. de Tréville; “for I know
no one except God who can be so far above your Majesty.”
“No, monsieur; I speak of the prop of the state, of my only servant, of
my only friend—of the cardinal.”
“His Eminence is not his holiness, sire.”
“What do you mean by that, monsieur?”
“That it is only the Pope who is infallible, and that this
infallibility does not extend to cardinals.”
“You mean to say that he deceives me; you mean to say that he betrays
me? You accuse him, then? Come, speak; avow freely that you accuse
him!”
“No, sire, but I say that he deceives himself. I say that he is
ill-informed. I say that he has hastily accused your Majesty’s
Musketeers, toward whom he is unjust, and that he has not obtained his
information from good sources.”
“The accusation comes from Monsieur de la Trémouille, from the duke
himself. What do you say to that?”
“I might answer, sire, that he is too deeply interested in the question
to be a very impartial witness; but so far from that, sire, I know the
duke to be a royal gentleman, and I refer the matter to him—but upon
one condition, sire.”
“What?”