Twenty years after
The cornet of a troop had in fact just raised the standard of the
prince.
“Farewell, till the next time we meet,” cried Châtillon, and he set
off, full gallop.
Athos and Aramis turned also and went to salute the coadjutor and the
Duc de Beaufort. As to the Duc de Bouillon, he had such a fit of gout
as obliged him to return to Paris in a litter; but his place was well
filled by the Duc d’Elbeuf and his four sons, ranged around him like a
staff. Meantime, between Charenton and the royal army was left a space
which looked ready to serve as a last resting place for the dead.
“Gentlemen,” cried the coadjutor, tightening his sash, which he wore,
after the fashion of the ancient military prelates, over his
archiepiscopal simar, “there’s the enemy approaching. Let us save them
half of their journey.”
And without caring whether he were followed or not he set off; his
regiment, which bore the name of the regiment of Corinth, from the name
of his archbishopric, darted after him and began the fight. Monsieur de
Beaufort sent his cavalry, toward Etampes and Monsieur de Chanleu, who
defended the place, was ready to resist an assault, or if the enemy
were repulsed, to attempt a sortie.
The battle soon became general and the coadjutor performed miracles of
valor. His proper vocation had always been the sword and he was
delighted whenever he could draw it from the scabbard, no matter for
whom or against whom.
Chanleu, whose fire at one time repulsed the royal regiment, thought
that the moment was come to pursue it; but it was reformed and led
again to the charge by the Duc de Châtillon in person. This charge was
so fierce, so skillfully conducted, that Chanleu was almost surrounded.
He commanded a retreat, which began, step by step, foot by foot;
unhappily, in an instant he fell, mortally wounded. De Châtillon saw
him fall and announced it in a loud voice to his men, which raised
their spirits and completely disheartened their enemies, so that every
man thought only of his own safety and tried to gain the trenches,
where the coadjutor was trying to reform his disorganized regiment.
Suddenly a squadron of cavalry galloped up to encounter the royal
troops, who were entering, _pêle-mêle_, the intrenchments with the
fugitives. Athos and Aramis charged at the head of their squadrons;
Aramis with sword and pistol in his hands, Athos with his sword in his
scabbard, his pistol in his saddle-bags; calm and cool as if on the
parade, except that his noble and beautiful countenance became sad as
he saw slaughtered so many men who were sacrificed on the one side to
the obstinacy of royalty and on the other to the personal rancor of the
princes. Aramis, on the contrary, struck right and left and was almost
delirious with excitement. His bright eyes kindled, and his mouth, so
finely formed, assumed a wicked smile; every blow he aimed was sure,
and his pistol finished the deed—annihilated the wounded wretch who
tried to rise again.
On the opposite side two cavaliers, one covered with a gilt cuirass,
the other wearing simply a buff doublet, from which fell the sleeves of
a vest of blue velvet, charged in front. The cavalier in the gilt
cuirass fell upon Aramis and struck a blow that Aramis parried with his
wonted skill.
“Ah! ’tis you, Monsieur de Châtillon,” cried the chevalier; “welcome to
you—I expected you.”
“I hope I have not made you wait too long, sir,” said the duke; “at all
events, here I am.”
“Monsieur de Châtillon,” cried Aramis, taking from his saddle-bags a
second pistol, “I think if your pistols have been discharged you are a
dead man.”
“Thank God, sir, they are not!”
And the duke, pointing his pistol at Aramis, fired. But Aramis bent his
head the instant he saw the duke’s finger press the trigger and the
ball passed without touching him.
“Oh! you’ve missed me,” cried Aramis, “but I swear to Heaven! I will
not miss you.”
“If I give you time!” cried the duke, spurring on his horse and rushing
upon him with his drawn sword.
Aramis awaited him with that terrible smile which was peculiar to him
on such occasions, and Athos, who saw the duke advancing toward Aramis
with the rapidity of lightning, was just going to cry out, “Fire! fire,
then!” when the shot was fired. De Châtillon opened his arms and fell
back on the crupper of his horse.
The ball had entered his breast through a notch in the cuirass.
“I am a dead man,” he said, and fell from his horse to the ground.
“I told you this, I am now grieved I have kept my word. Can I be of any
use to you?”
Châtillon made a sign with his hand and Aramis was about to dismount
when he received a violent shock; ’twas a thrust from a sword, but his
cuirass turned aside the blow.
He turned around and seized his new antagonist by the wrist, when he
started back, exclaiming, “Raoul!”
“Raoul?” cried Athos.
The young man recognized at the same instant the voices of his father
and the Chevalier d’Herblay; two officers in the Parisian forces rushed
at that instant on Raoul, but Aramis protected him with his sword.
“My prisoner!” he cried.
Athos took his son’s horse by the bridle and led him forth out of the
_mêlée_.
At this crisis of the battle, the prince, who had been seconding De
Châtillon in the second line, appeared in the midst of the fight; his
eagle eye made him known and his blows proclaimed the hero.
On seeing him, the regiment of Corinth, which the coadjutor had not
been able to reorganize in spite of all his efforts, threw itself into
the midst of the Parisian forces, put them into confusion and
re-entered Charenton flying. The coadjutor, dragged along with his
fugitive forces, passed near the group formed by Athos, Raoul and
Aramis. Aramis could not in his jealousy avoid being pleased at the
coadjutor’s misfortune, and was about to utter some _bon mot_ more
witty than correct, when Athos stopped him.
“On, on!” he cried, “this is no moment for compliments; or rather,
back, for the battle seems to be lost by the Frondeurs.”
“It is a matter of indifference to me,” said Aramis; “I came here only
to meet De Châtillon; I have met him, I am contented; ’tis something to
have met De Châtillon in a duel!”
“And besides, we have a prisoner,” said Athos, pointing to Raoul.
The three cavaliers continued their road on full gallop.
“What were you doing in the battle, my friend?” inquired Athos of the
youth; “’twas not your right place, I think, as you were not equipped
for an engagement!”
“I had no intention of fighting to-day, sir; I was charged, indeed,
with a mission to the cardinal and had set out for Rueil, when, seeing
Monsieur de Châtillon charge, an invincible desire possessed me to
charge at his side. It was then that he told me two cavaliers of the
Parisian army were seeking me and named the Comte de la Fère.”
“What! you knew we were there and yet wished to kill your friend the
chevalier?”
“I did not recognize the chevalier in armor, sir!” said Raoul,
blushing; “though I might have known him by his skill and coolness in
danger.”
“Thank you for the compliment, my young friend,” replied Aramis, “we
can see from whom you learned courtesy. Then you were going to Rueil?”
“Yes! I have a despatch from the prince to his eminence.”
“You must still deliver it,” said Athos.
“No false generosity, count! the fate of our friends, to say nothing of
our own, is perhaps in that very despatch.”
“This young man must not, however, fail in his duty,” said Athos.
“In the first place, count, this youth is our prisoner; you seem to
forget that. What I propose to do is fair in war; the vanquished must
not be dainty in the choice of means. Give me the despatch, Raoul.”
The young man hesitated and looked at Athos as if seeking to read in
his eyes a rule of conduct.
“Give him the despatch, Raoul! you are the chevalier’s prisoner.”
Raoul gave it up reluctantly; Aramis instantly seized and read it.
“You,” he said, “you, who are so trusting, read and reflect that there
is something in this letter important for us to see.”
Athos took the letter, frowning, but an idea that he should find
something in this letter about D’Artagnan conquered his unwillingness
to read it.
“My lord, I shall send this evening to your eminence in order to
reinforce the troop of Monsieur de Comminges, the ten men you demand.
They are good soldiers, fit to confront the two violent adversaries
whose address and resolution your eminence is fearful of.”
“Oh!” cried Athos.
“Well,” said Aramis, “what think you about these two enemies whom it
requires, besides Comminges’s troop, ten good soldiers to confront; are
they not as like as two drops of water to D’Artagnan and Porthos?”
“We’ll search Paris all day long,” said Athos, “and if we have no news
this evening we will return to the road to Picardy; and I feel no doubt
that, thanks to D’Artagnan’s ready invention, we shall then find some
clew which will solve our doubts.”
“Yes, let us search Paris and especially inquire of Planchet if he has
yet heard from his former master.”
“That poor Planchet! You speak of him very much at your ease, Aramis;
he has probably been killed. All those fighting citizens went out to
battle and they have been massacred.”
It was, then, with a sentiment of uneasiness whether Planchet, who
alone could give them information, was alive or dead, that the friends
returned to the Place Royale; to their great surprise they found the
citizens still encamped there, drinking and bantering each other,
although, doubtless, mourned by their families, who thought they were
at Charenton in the thickest of the fighting.
Athos and Aramis again questioned Planchet, but he had seen nothing of
D’Artagnan; they wished to take Planchet with them, but he could not
leave his troop, who at five o’clock returned home, saying that they
were returning from the battle, whereas they had never lost sight of
the bronze equestrian statue of Louis XIII.
Chapter LXXIX.
The Road to Picardy.
On leaving Paris, Athos and Aramis well knew that they would be
encountering great danger; but we know that for men like these there
could be no question of danger. Besides, they felt that the
_dénouement_ of this second Odyssey was at hand and that there remained
but a single effort to make.
Besides, there was no tranquillity in Paris itself. Provisions began to
fail, and whenever one of the Prince de Conti’s generals wished to gain
more influence he got up a little popular tumult, which he put down
again, and thus for the moment gained a superiority over his
colleagues.
In one of these risings, the Duc de Beaufort pillaged the house and
library of Mazarin, in order to give the populace, as he put it,
something to gnaw at. Athos and Aramis left Paris after this
_coup-d’état_, which took place on the very evening of the day in which
the Parisians had been beaten at Charenton.
They quitted Paris, beholding it abandoned to extreme want, bordering
on famine; agitated by fear, torn by faction. Parisians and Frondeurs
as they were, the two friends expected to find the same misery, the
same fears, the same intrigue in the enemy’s camp; but what was their
surprise, after passing Saint Denis, to hear that at Saint Germain
people were singing and laughing, and leading generally cheerful lives.
The two gentlemen traveled by byways in order not to encounter the
Mazarinists scattered about the Isle of France, and also to escape the
Frondeurs, who were in possession of Normandy and who never failed to
conduct captives to the Duc de Longueville, in order that he might
ascertain whether they were friends or foes. Having escaped these
dangers, they returned by the main road to Boulogne, at Abbeville, and
followed it step by step, examining every track.