The three musketeers
nobility gives you the right—sustain worthily your name of gentleman,
which has been worthily borne by your ancestors for five hundred years,
both for your own sake and the sake of those who belong to you. By the
latter I mean your relatives and friends. Endure nothing from anyone
except Monsieur the Cardinal and the king. It is by his courage, please
observe, by his courage alone, that a gentleman can make his way
nowadays. Whoever hesitates for a second perhaps allows the bait to
escape which during that exact second fortune held out to him. You are
young. You ought to be brave for two reasons: the first is that you are
a Gascon, and the second is that you are my son. Never fear quarrels,
but seek adventures. I have taught you how to handle a sword; you have
thews of iron, a wrist of steel. Fight on all occasions. Fight the more
for duels being forbidden, since consequently there is twice as much
courage in fighting. I have nothing to give you, my son, but fifteen
crowns, my horse, and the counsels you have just heard. Your mother
will add to them a recipe for a certain balsam, which she had from a
Bohemian and which has the miraculous virtue of curing all wounds that
do not reach the heart. Take advantage of all, and live happily and
long. I have but one word to add, and that is to propose an example to
you—not mine, for I myself have never appeared at court, and have only
taken part in religious wars as a volunteer; I speak of Monsieur de
Tréville, who was formerly my neighbor, and who had the honor to be, as
a child, the play-fellow of our king, Louis XIII., whom God preserve!
Sometimes their play degenerated into battles, and in these battles the
king was not always the stronger. The blows which he received increased
greatly his esteem and friendship for Monsieur de Tréville. Afterward,
Monsieur de Tréville fought with others: in his first journey to Paris,
five times; from the death of the late king till the young one came of
age, without reckoning wars and sieges, seven times; and from that date
up to the present day, a hundred times, perhaps! So that in spite of
edicts, ordinances, and decrees, there he is, captain of the
Musketeers; that is to say, chief of a legion of Cæsars, whom the king
holds in great esteem and whom the cardinal dreads—he who dreads
nothing, as it is said. Still further, Monsieur de Tréville gains ten
thousand crowns a year; he is therefore a great noble. He began as you
begin. Go to him with this letter, and make him your model in order
that you may do as he has done.”
Upon which M. d’Artagnan the elder girded his own sword round his son,
kissed him tenderly on both cheeks, and gave him his benediction.
On leaving the paternal chamber, the young man found his mother, who
was waiting for him with the famous recipe of which the counsels we
have just repeated would necessitate frequent employment. The adieux
were on this side longer and more tender than they had been on the
other—not that M. d’Artagnan did not love his son, who was his only
offspring, but M. d’Artagnan was a man, and he would have considered it
unworthy of a man to give way to his feelings; whereas Mme. D’Artagnan
was a woman, and still more, a mother. She wept abundantly; and—let us
speak it to the praise of M. d’Artagnan the younger—notwithstanding the
efforts he made to remain firm, as a future Musketeer ought, nature
prevailed, and he shed many tears, of which he succeeded with great
difficulty in concealing the half.
The same day the young man set forward on his journey, furnished with
the three paternal gifts, which consisted, as we have said, of fifteen
crowns, the horse, and the letter for M. de Tréville—the counsels being
thrown into the bargain.
With such a _vade mecum_ D’Artagnan was morally and physically an exact
copy of the hero of Cervantes, to whom we so happily compared him when
our duty of an historian placed us under the necessity of sketching his
portrait. Don Quixote took windmills for giants, and sheep for armies;
D’Artagnan took every smile for an insult, and every look as a
provocation—whence it resulted that from Tarbes to Meung his fist was
constantly doubled, or his hand on the hilt of his sword; and yet the
fist did not descend upon any jaw, nor did the sword issue from its
scabbard. It was not that the sight of the wretched pony did not excite
numerous smiles on the countenances of passers-by; but as against the
side of this pony rattled a sword of respectable length, and as over
this sword gleamed an eye rather ferocious than haughty, these
passers-by repressed their hilarity, or if hilarity prevailed over
prudence, they endeavored to laugh only on one side, like the masks of
the ancients. D’Artagnan, then, remained majestic and intact in his
susceptibility, till he came to this unlucky city of Meung.
But there, as he was alighting from his horse at the gate of the Jolly
Miller, without anyone—host, waiter, or hostler—coming to hold his
stirrup or take his horse, D’Artagnan spied, though an open window on
the ground floor, a gentleman, well-made and of good carriage, although
of rather a stern countenance, talking with two persons who appeared to
listen to him with respect. D’Artagnan fancied quite naturally,
according to his custom, that he must be the object of their
conversation, and listened. This time D’Artagnan was only in part
mistaken; he himself was not in question, but his horse was. The
gentleman appeared to be enumerating all his qualities to his auditors;
and, as I have said, the auditors seeming to have great deference for
the narrator, they every moment burst into fits of laughter. Now, as a
half-smile was sufficient to awaken the irascibility of the young man,
the effect produced upon him by this vociferous mirth may be easily
imagined.
Nevertheless, D’Artagnan was desirous of examining the appearance of
this impertinent personage who ridiculed him. He fixed his haughty eye
upon the stranger, and perceived a man of from forty to forty-five
years of age, with black and piercing eyes, pale complexion, a strongly
marked nose, and a black and well-shaped mustache. He was dressed in a
doublet and hose of a violet color, with aiguillettes of the same
color, without any other ornaments than the customary slashes, through
which the shirt appeared. This doublet and hose, though new, were
creased, like traveling clothes for a long time packed in a
portmanteau. D’Artagnan made all these remarks with the rapidity of a
most minute observer, and doubtless from an instinctive feeling that
this stranger was destined to have a great influence over his future
life.
Now, as at the moment in which D’Artagnan fixed his eyes upon the
gentleman in the violet doublet, the gentleman made one of his most
knowing and profound remarks respecting the Béarnese pony, his two
auditors laughed even louder than before, and he himself, though
contrary to his custom, allowed a pale smile (if I may be allowed to
use such an expression) to stray over his countenance. This time there
could be no doubt; D’Artagnan was really insulted. Full, then, of this
conviction, he pulled his cap down over his eyes, and endeavoring to
copy some of the court airs he had picked up in Gascony among young
traveling nobles, he advanced with one hand on the hilt of his sword
and the other resting on his hip. Unfortunately, as he advanced, his
anger increased at every step; and instead of the proper and lofty
speech he had prepared as a prelude to his challenge, he found nothing
at the tip of his tongue but a gross personality, which he accompanied
with a furious gesture.
“I say, sir, you sir, who are hiding yourself behind that shutter—yes,
you, sir, tell me what you are laughing at, and we will laugh
together!”
The gentleman raised his eyes slowly from the nag to his cavalier, as
if he required some time to ascertain whether it could be to him that
such strange reproaches were addressed; then, when he could not
possibly entertain any doubt of the matter, his eyebrows slightly bent,
and with an accent of irony and insolence impossible to be described,
he replied to D’Artagnan, “I was not speaking to you, sir.”
“But I am speaking to you!” replied the young man, additionally
exasperated with this mixture of insolence and good manners, of
politeness and scorn.
The stranger looked at him again with a slight smile, and retiring from
the window, came out of the hostelry with a slow step, and placed
himself before the horse, within two paces of D’Artagnan. His quiet
manner and the ironical expression of his countenance redoubled the
mirth of the persons with whom he had been talking, and who still
remained at the window.
D’Artagnan, seeing him approach, drew his sword a foot out of the
scabbard.
“This horse is decidedly, or rather has been in his youth, a
buttercup,” resumed the stranger, continuing the remarks he had begun,
and addressing himself to his auditors at the window, without paying
the least attention to the exasperation of D’Artagnan, who, however,
placed himself between him and them. “It is a color very well known in
botany, but till the present time very rare among horses.”
“There are people who laugh at the horse that would not dare to laugh
at the master,” cried the young emulator of the furious Tréville.
“I do not often laugh, sir,” replied the stranger, “as you may perceive
by the expression of my countenance; but nevertheless I retain the
privilege of laughing when I please.”
“And I,” cried D’Artagnan, “will allow no man to laugh when it
displeases me!”
“Indeed, sir,” continued the stranger, more calm than ever; “well, that
is perfectly right!” and turning on his heel, was about to re-enter the
hostelry by the front gate, beneath which D’Artagnan on arriving had
observed a saddled horse.
But, D’Artagnan was not of a character to allow a man to escape him
thus who had the insolence to ridicule him. He drew his sword entirely
from the scabbard, and followed him, crying, “Turn, turn, Master Joker,
lest I strike you behind!”
“Strike me!” said the other, turning on his heels, and surveying the
young man with as much astonishment as contempt. “Why, my good fellow,
you must be mad!” Then, in a suppressed tone, as if speaking to
himself, “This is annoying,” continued he. “What a godsend this would
be for his Majesty, who is seeking everywhere for brave fellows to
recruit for his Musketeers!”
He had scarcely finished, when D’Artagnan made such a furious lunge at
him that if he had not sprung nimbly backward, it is probable he would
have jested for the last time. The stranger, then perceiving that the
matter went beyond raillery, drew his sword, saluted his adversary, and
seriously placed himself on guard. But at the same moment, his two
auditors, accompanied by the host, fell upon D’Artagnan with sticks,
shovels and tongs. This caused so rapid and complete a diversion from
the attack that D’Artagnan’s adversary, while the latter turned round
to face this shower of blows, sheathed his sword with the same
precision, and instead of an actor, which he had nearly been, became a
spectator of the fight—a part in which he acquitted himself with his
usual impassiveness, muttering, nevertheless, “A plague upon these
Gascons! Replace him on his orange horse, and let him begone!”
“Not before I have killed you, poltroon!” cried D’Artagnan, making the
best face possible, and never retreating one step before his three
assailants, who continued to shower blows upon him.
“Another gasconade!” murmured the gentleman. “By my honor, these
Gascons are incorrigible! Keep up the dance, then, since he will have
it so. When he is tired, he will perhaps tell us that he has had enough
of it.”
But the stranger knew not the headstrong personage he had to do with;