The three musketeers
“It is that your Majesty will make him come here, will interrogate him
yourself, _tête-à-tête_, without witnesses, and that I shall see your
Majesty as soon as you have seen the duke.”
“What, then! You will bind yourself,” cried the king, “by what Monsieur
de la Trémouille shall say?”
“Yes, sire.”
“You will accept his judgment?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“And you will submit to the reparation he may require?”
“Certainly.”
“La Chesnaye,” said the king. “La Chesnaye!”
Louis XIII.’s confidential valet, who never left the door, entered in
reply to the call.
“La Chesnaye,” said the king, “let someone go instantly and find
Monsieur de la Trémouille; I wish to speak with him this evening.”
“Your Majesty gives me your word that you will not see anyone between
Monsieur de la Trémouille and myself?”
“Nobody, by the faith of a gentleman.”
“Tomorrow, then, sire?”
“Tomorrow, monsieur.”
“At what o’clock, please your Majesty?”
“At any hour you will.”
“But in coming too early I should be afraid of awakening your Majesty.”
“Awaken me! Do you think I ever sleep, then? I sleep no longer,
monsieur. I sometimes dream, that’s all. Come, then, as early as you
like—at seven o’clock; but beware, if you and your Musketeers are
guilty.”
“If my Musketeers are guilty, sire, the guilty shall be placed in your
Majesty’s hands, who will dispose of them at your good pleasure. Does
your Majesty require anything further? Speak, I am ready to obey.”
“No, monsieur, no; I am not called Louis the Just without reason.
Tomorrow, then, monsieur—tomorrow.”
“Till then, God preserve your Majesty!”
However ill the king might sleep, M. de Tréville slept still worse. He
had ordered his three Musketeers and their companion to be with him at
half past six in the morning. He took them with him, without
encouraging them or promising them anything, and without concealing
from them that their luck, and even his own, depended upon the cast of
the dice.
Arrived at the foot of the back stairs, he desired them to wait. If the
king was still irritated against them, they would depart without being
seen; if the king consented to see them, they would only have to be
called.
On arriving at the king’s private antechamber, M. de Tréville found La
Chesnaye, who informed him that they had not been able to find M. de la
Trémouille on the preceding evening at his hôtel, that he returned too
late to present himself at the Louvre, that he had only that moment
arrived and that he was at that very hour with the king.
This circumstance pleased M. de Tréville much, as he thus became
certain that no foreign suggestion could insinuate itself between M. de
la Trémouille’s testimony and himself.
In fact, ten minutes had scarcely passed away when the door of the
king’s closet opened, and M. de Tréville saw M. de la Trémouille come
out. The duke came straight up to him, and said: “Monsieur de Tréville,
his Majesty has just sent for me in order to inquire respecting the
circumstances which took place yesterday at my hôtel. I have told him
the truth; that is to say, that the fault lay with my people, and that
I was ready to offer you my excuses. Since I have the good fortune to
meet you, I beg you to receive them, and to hold me always as one of
your friends.”
“Monsieur the Duke,” said M. de Tréville, “I was so confident of your
loyalty that I required no other defender before his Majesty than
yourself. I find that I have not been mistaken, and I thank you that
there is still one man in France of whom may be said, without
disappointment, what I have said of you.”
“That’s well said,” cried the king, who had heard all these compliments
through the open door; “only tell him, Tréville, since he wishes to be
considered your friend, that I also wish to be one of his, but he
neglects me; that it is nearly three years since I have seen him, and
that I never do see him unless I send for him. Tell him all this for
me, for these are things which a king cannot say for himself.”
“Thanks, sire, thanks,” said the duke; “but your Majesty may be assured
that it is not those—I do not speak of Monsieur de Tréville—whom your
Majesty sees at all hours of the day that are most devoted to you.”
“Ah! You have heard what I said? So much the better, Duke, so much the
better,” said the king, advancing toward the door. “Ah! It is you,
Tréville. Where are your Musketeers? I told you the day before
yesterday to bring them with you; why have you not done so?”
“They are below, sire, and with your permission La Chesnaye will bid
them come up.”
“Yes, yes, let them come up immediately. It is nearly eight o’clock,
and at nine I expect a visit. Go, Monsieur Duke, and return often. Come
in, Tréville.”
The Duke saluted and retired. At the moment he opened the door, the
three Musketeers and D’Artagnan, conducted by La Chesnaye, appeared at
the top of the staircase.
“Come in, my braves,” said the king, “come in; I am going to scold
you.”
The Musketeers advanced, bowing, D’Artagnan following closely behind
them.
“What the devil!” continued the king. “Seven of his Eminence’s Guards
placed _hors de combat_ by you four in two days! That’s too many,
gentlemen, too many! If you go on so, his Eminence will be forced to
renew his company in three weeks, and I to put the edicts in force in
all their rigor. One now and then I don’t say much about; but seven in
two days, I repeat, it is too many, it is far too many!”
“Therefore, sire, your Majesty sees that they are come, quite contrite
and repentant, to offer you their excuses.”
“Quite contrite and repentant! Hem!” said the king. “I place no
confidence in their hypocritical faces. In particular, there is one
yonder of a Gascon look. Come hither, monsieur.”
D’Artagnan, who understood that it was to him this compliment was
addressed, approached, assuming a most deprecating air.
“Why, you told me he was a young man? This is a boy, Tréville, a mere
boy! Do you mean to say that it was he who bestowed that severe thrust
at Jussac?”
“And those two equally fine thrusts at Bernajoux.”
“Truly!”
“Without reckoning,” said Athos, “that if he had not rescued me from
the hands of Cahusac, I should not now have the honor of making my very
humble reverence to your Majesty.”
“Why he is a very devil, this Béarnais! _Ventre-saint-gris_, Monsieur
de Tréville, as the king my father would have said. But at this sort of
work, many doublets must be slashed and many swords broken. Now,
Gascons are always poor, are they not?”
“Sire, I can assert that they have hitherto discovered no gold mines in
their mountains; though the Lord owes them this miracle in recompense
for the manner in which they supported the pretensions of the king your
father.”
“Which is to say that the Gascons made a king of me, myself, seeing
that I am my father’s son, is it not, Tréville? Well, happily, I don’t
say nay to it. La Chesnaye, go and see if by rummaging all my pockets
you can find forty pistoles; and if you can find them, bring them to
me. And now let us see, young man, with your hand upon your conscience,
how did all this come to pass?”
D’Artagnan related the adventure of the preceding day in all its
details; how, not having been able to sleep for the joy he felt in the
expectation of seeing his Majesty, he had gone to his three friends
three hours before the hour of audience; how they had gone together to
the tennis court, and how, upon the fear he had manifested lest he
receive a ball in the face, he had been jeered at by Bernajoux, who had
nearly paid for his jeer with his life, and M. de la Trémouille, who
had nothing to do with the matter, with the loss of his hôtel.
“This is all very well,” murmured the king, “yes, this is just the
account the duke gave me of the affair. Poor cardinal! Seven men in two
days, and those of his very best! But that’s quite enough, gentlemen;
please to understand, that’s enough. You have taken your revenge for
the Rue Férou, and even exceeded it; you ought to be satisfied.”
“If your Majesty is so,” said Tréville, “we are.”
“Oh, yes; I am,” added the king, taking a handful of gold from La
Chesnaye, and putting it into the hand of D’Artagnan. “Here,” said he,
“is a proof of my satisfaction.”
At this epoch, the ideas of pride which are in fashion in our days did
not prevail. A gentleman received, from hand to hand, money from the
king, and was not the least in the world humiliated. D’Artagnan put his
forty pistoles into his pocket without any scruple—on the contrary,
thanking his Majesty greatly.
“There,” said the king, looking at a clock, “there, now, as it is half
past eight, you may retire; for as I told you, I expect someone at
nine. Thanks for your devotedness, gentlemen. I may continue to rely
upon it, may I not?”
“Oh, sire!” cried the four companions, with one voice, “we would allow
ourselves to be cut to pieces in your Majesty’s service.”
“Well, well, but keep whole; that will be better, and you will be more
useful to me. Tréville,” added the king, in a low voice, as the others
were retiring, “as you have no room in the Musketeers, and as we have
besides decided that a novitiate is necessary before entering that
corps, place this young man in the company of the Guards of Monsieur
Dessessart, your brother-in-law. Ah, _pardieu_, Tréville! I enjoy
beforehand the face the cardinal will make. He will be furious; but I
don’t care. I am doing what is right.”
The king waved his hand to Tréville, who left him and rejoined the
Musketeers, whom he found sharing the forty pistoles with D’Artagnan.
The cardinal, as his Majesty had said, was really furious, so furious
that during eight days he absented himself from the king’s gaming
table. This did not prevent the king from being as complacent to him as
possible whenever he met him, or from asking in the kindest tone,
“Well, Monsieur Cardinal, how fares it with that poor Jussac and that
poor Bernajoux of yours?”
Chapter VII.
THE INTERIOR OF THE MUSKETEERS
When D’Artagnan was out of the Louvre, and consulted his friends upon
the use he had best make of his share of the forty pistoles, Athos
advised him to order a good repast at the Pomme-de-Pin, Porthos to
engage a lackey, and Aramis to provide himself with a suitable
mistress.
The repast was carried into effect that very day, and the lackey waited
at table. The repast had been ordered by Athos, and the lackey
furnished by Porthos. He was a Picard, whom the glorious Musketeer had
picked up on the Bridge Tournelle, making rings and plashing in the
water.
Porthos pretended that this occupation was proof of a reflective and
contemplative organization, and he had brought him away without any
other recommendation. The noble carriage of this gentleman, for whom he
believed himself to be engaged, had won Planchet—that was the name of
the Picard. He felt a slight disappointment, however, when he saw that
this place was already taken by a compeer named Mousqueton, and when
Porthos signified to him that the state of his household, though great,
would not support two servants, and that he must enter into the service
of D’Artagnan. Nevertheless, when he waited at the dinner given by his
master, and saw him take out a handful of gold to pay for it, he
believed his fortune made, and returned thanks to heaven for having
thrown him into the service of such a Crœsus. He preserved this
opinion even after the feast, with the remnants of which he repaired
his own long abstinence; but when in the evening he made his master’s
bed, the chimeras of Planchet faded away. The bed was the only one in
the apartment, which consisted of an antechamber and a bedroom.
Planchet slept in the antechamber upon a coverlet taken from the bed of