The three musketeers
radiance; but his father, a sun _pluribus impar_, left his personal
splendor to each of his favorites, his individual value to each of his
courtiers. In addition to the levees of the king and the cardinal,
there might be reckoned in Paris at that time more than two hundred
smaller but still noteworthy levees. Among these two hundred levees,
that of Tréville was one of the most sought.
The court of his hôtel, situated in the Rue du Vieux-Colombier,
resembled a camp from by six o’clock in the morning in summer and eight
o’clock in winter. From fifty to sixty Musketeers, who appeared to
replace one another in order always to present an imposing number,
paraded constantly, armed to the teeth and ready for anything. On one
of those immense staircases, upon whose space modern civilization would
build a whole house, ascended and descended the office seekers of
Paris, who ran after any sort of favor—gentlemen from the provinces
anxious to be enrolled, and servants in all sorts of liveries, bringing
and carrying messages between their masters and M. de Tréville. In the
antechamber, upon long circular benches, reposed the elect; that is to
say, those who were called. In this apartment a continued buzzing
prevailed from morning till night, while M. de Tréville, in his office
contiguous to this antechamber, received visits, listened to
complaints, gave his orders, and like the king in his balcony at the
Louvre, had only to place himself at the window to review both his men
and arms.
The day on which D’Artagnan presented himself the assemblage was
imposing, particularly for a provincial just arriving from his
province. It is true that this provincial was a Gascon; and that,
particularly at this period, the compatriots of D’Artagnan had the
reputation of not being easily intimidated. When he had once passed the
massive door covered with long square-headed nails, he fell into the
midst of a troop of swordsmen, who crossed one another in their
passage, calling out, quarreling, and playing tricks one with another.
In order to make one’s way amid these turbulent and conflicting waves,
it was necessary to be an officer, a great noble, or a pretty woman.
It was, then, into the midst of this tumult and disorder that our young
man advanced with a beating heart, ranging his long rapier up his lanky
leg, and keeping one hand on the edge of his cap, with that half-smile
of the embarrassed provincial who wishes to put on a good face. When he
had passed one group he began to breathe more freely; but he could not
help observing that they turned round to look at him, and for the first
time in his life D’Artagnan, who had till that day entertained a very
good opinion of himself, felt ridiculous.
Arrived at the staircase, it was still worse. There were four
Musketeers on the bottom steps, amusing themselves with the following
exercise, while ten or twelve of their comrades waited upon the landing
place to take their turn in the sport.
One of them, stationed upon the top stair, naked sword in hand,
prevented, or at least endeavored to prevent, the three others from
ascending.
These three others fenced against him with their agile swords.
D’Artagnan at first took these weapons for foils, and believed them to
be buttoned; but he soon perceived by certain scratches that every
weapon was pointed and sharpened, and that at each of these scratches
not only the spectators, but even the actors themselves, laughed like
so many madmen.
He who at the moment occupied the upper step kept his adversaries
marvelously in check. A circle was formed around them. The conditions
required that at every hit the man touched should quit the game,
yielding his turn for the benefit of the adversary who had hit him. In
five minutes three were slightly wounded, one on the hand, another on
the ear, by the defender of the stair, who himself remained intact—a
piece of skill which was worth to him, according to the rules agreed
upon, three turns of favor.
However difficult it might be, or rather as he pretended it was, to
astonish our young traveler, this pastime really astonished him. He had
seen in his province—that land in which heads become so easily heated—a
few of the preliminaries of duels; but the daring of these four fencers
appeared to him the strongest he had ever heard of even in Gascony. He
believed himself transported into that famous country of giants into
which Gulliver afterward went and was so frightened; and yet he had not
gained the goal, for there were still the landing place and the
antechamber.
On the landing they were no longer fighting, but amused themselves with
stories about women, and in the antechamber, with stories about the
court. On the landing D’Artagnan blushed; in the antechamber he
trembled. His warm and fickle imagination, which in Gascony had
rendered him formidable to young chambermaids, and even sometimes their
mistresses, had never dreamed, even in moments of delirium, of half the
amorous wonders or a quarter of the feats of gallantry which were here
set forth in connection with names the best known and with details the
least concealed. But if his morals were shocked on the landing, his
respect for the cardinal was scandalized in the antechamber. There, to
his great astonishment, D’Artagnan heard the policy which made all
Europe tremble criticized aloud and openly, as well as the private life
of the cardinal, which so many great nobles had been punished for
trying to pry into. That great man who was so revered by D’Artagnan the
elder served as an object of ridicule to the Musketeers of Tréville,
who cracked their jokes upon his bandy legs and his crooked back. Some
sang ballads about Mme. d’Aguillon, his mistress, and Mme. Cambalet,
his niece; while others formed parties and plans to annoy the pages and
guards of the cardinal duke—all things which appeared to D’Artagnan
monstrous impossibilities.
Nevertheless, when the name of the king was now and then uttered
unthinkingly amid all these cardinal jests, a sort of gag seemed to
close for a moment on all these jeering mouths. They looked
hesitatingly around them, and appeared to doubt the thickness of the
partition between them and the office of M. de Tréville; but a fresh
allusion soon brought back the conversation to his Eminence, and then
the laughter recovered its loudness and the light was not withheld from
any of his actions.
“Certes, these fellows will all either be imprisoned or hanged,”
thought the terrified D’Artagnan, “and I, no doubt, with them; for from
the moment I have either listened to or heard them, I shall be held as
an accomplice. What would my good father say, who so strongly pointed
out to me the respect due to the cardinal, if he knew I was in the
society of such pagans?”
We have no need, therefore, to say that D’Artagnan dared not join in
the conversation, only he looked with all his eyes and listened with
all his ears, stretching his five senses so as to lose nothing; and
despite his confidence on the paternal admonitions, he felt himself
carried by his tastes and led by his instincts to praise rather than to
blame the unheard-of things which were taking place.
Although he was a perfect stranger in the court of M. de Tréville’s
courtiers, and this his first appearance in that place, he was at
length noticed, and somebody came and asked him what he wanted. At this
demand D’Artagnan gave his name very modestly, emphasized the title of
compatriot, and begged the servant who had put the question to him to
request a moment’s audience of M. de Tréville—a request which the
other, with an air of protection, promised to transmit in due season.
D’Artagnan, a little recovered from his first surprise, had now leisure
to study costumes and physiognomy.
The center of the most animated group was a Musketeer of great height
and haughty countenance, dressed in a costume so peculiar as to attract
general attention. He did not wear the uniform cloak—which was not
obligatory at that epoch of less liberty but more independence—but a
cerulean-blue doublet, a little faded and worn, and over this a
magnificent baldric, worked in gold, which shone like water ripples in
the sun. A long cloak of crimson velvet fell in graceful folds from his
shoulders, disclosing in front the splendid baldric, from which was
suspended a gigantic rapier. This Musketeer had just come off guard,
complained of having a cold, and coughed from time to time affectedly.
It was for this reason, as he said to those around him, that he had put
on his cloak; and while he spoke with a lofty air and twisted his
mustache disdainfully, all admired his embroidered baldric, and
D’Artagnan more than anyone.
“What would you have?” said the Musketeer. “This fashion is coming in.
It is a folly, I admit, but still it is the fashion. Besides, one must
lay out one’s inheritance somehow.”
“Ah, Porthos!” cried one of his companions, “don’t try to make us
believe you obtained that baldric by paternal generosity. It was given
to you by that veiled lady I met you with the other Sunday, near the
gate St. Honoré.”
“No, upon honor and by the faith of a gentleman, I bought it with the
contents of my own purse,” answered he whom they designated by the name
Porthos.
“Yes; about in the same manner,” said another Musketeer, “that I bought
this new purse with what my mistress put into the old one.”
“It’s true, though,” said Porthos; “and the proof is that I paid twelve
pistoles for it.”
The wonder was increased, though the doubt continued to exist.
“Is it not true, Aramis?” said Porthos, turning toward another
Musketeer.
This other Musketeer formed a perfect contrast to his interrogator, who
had just designated him by the name of Aramis. He was a stout man, of
about two- or three-and-twenty, with an open, ingenuous countenance, a
black, mild eye, and cheeks rosy and downy as an autumn peach. His
delicate mustache marked a perfectly straight line upon his upper lip;
he appeared to dread to lower his hands lest their veins should swell,
and he pinched the tips of his ears from time to time to preserve their
delicate pink transparency. Habitually he spoke little and slowly,
bowed frequently, laughed without noise, showing his teeth, which were
fine and of which, as the rest of his person, he appeared to take great
care. He answered the appeal of his friend by an affirmative nod of the
head.
This affirmation appeared to dispel all doubts with regard to the
baldric. They continued to admire it, but said no more about it; and
with a rapid change of thought, the conversation passed suddenly to
another subject.
“What do you think of the story Chalais’s esquire relates?” asked
another Musketeer, without addressing anyone in particular, but on the
contrary speaking to everybody.
“And what does he say?” asked Porthos, in a self-sufficient tone.
“He relates that he met at Brussels Rochefort, the _âme damnée_ of the
cardinal disguised as a Capuchin, and that this cursed Rochefort,
thanks to his disguise, had tricked Monsieur de Laigues, like a ninny
as he is.”
“A ninny, indeed!” said Porthos; “but is the matter certain?”
“I had it from Aramis,” replied the Musketeer.
“Indeed?”
“Why, you knew it, Porthos,” said Aramis. “I told you of it yesterday.
Let us say no more about it.”
“Say no more about it? That’s _your_ opinion!” replied Porthos.
“Say no more about it! _Peste!_ You come to your conclusions quickly.
What! The cardinal sets a spy upon a gentleman, has his letters stolen
from him by means of a traitor, a brigand, a rascal—has, with the help
of this spy and thanks to this correspondence, Chalais’s throat cut,
under the stupid pretext that he wanted to kill the king and marry
Monsieur to the queen! Nobody knew a word of this enigma. You unraveled