Twenty years after
of our labours, it would be a ridiculous piece of silliness in you to
allow yourself to be controlled by Aramis, whose cunning you know—a
cunning which, we may say between ourselves, is not always without
egotism; or by Athos, a noble and disinterested man, but _blasé_, who,
desiring nothing further for himself, doesn’t sympathize with the
desires of others. What should you say if either of these two friends
proposed to you to let Mazarin go?”
“Why, I should say that we had too much trouble in taking him to let
him off so easily.”
“Bravo, Porthos! and you would be right, my friend; for in losing him
you would lose your barony, which you have in your grasp, to say
nothing of the fact that, were he once out of this, Mazarin would have
you hanged.”
“Do you think so?”
“I am sure of it.”
“Then I would kill him rather than let him go.”
“And you would act rightly. There is no question, you understand,
provided we secure our own interests, of securing those of the
Frondeurs; who, besides, don’t understand political matters as we old
soldiers do.”
“Never fear, dear friend,” said Porthos. “I shall see you through the
window as you mount your horse; I shall follow you with my eyes as long
as you are in sight; then I shall place myself at the cardinal’s door—a
door with glass windows. I shall see everything, and at the least
suspicious sign I shall begin to exterminate.”
“Bravo!” thought D’Artagnan; “on this side I think the cardinal will be
well guarded.” He pressed the hand of the lord of Pierrefonds and went
in search of Athos.
“My dear Athos,” he said, “I am going away. I have only one thing to
say to you. You know Anne of Austria; the captivity of Mazarin alone
guarantees my life; if you let him go I am a dead man.”
“I needed nothing less than that consideration, my dear D’Artagnan, to
persuade myself to adopt the _rôle_ of jailer. I give you my word that
you will find the cardinal where you leave him.”
“This reassures me more than all the royal signatures,” thought
D’Artagnan. “Now that I have the word of Athos I can set out.”
D’Artagnan started alone on his journey, without other escort than his
sword, and with a simple passport from Mazarin to secure his admission
to the queen’s presence. Six hours after he left Pierrefonds he was at
Saint Germain.
The disappearance of Mazarin was not as yet generally known. Anne of
Austria was informed of it and concealed her uneasiness from every one.
In the chamber of D’Artagnan and Porthos the two soldiers had been
found bound and gagged. On recovering the use of their limbs and
tongues they could, of course, tell nothing but what they knew—that
they had been seized, stripped and bound. But as to what had been done
by Porthos and D’Artagnan afterward they were as ignorant as all the
inhabitants of the château.
Bernouin alone knew a little more than the others. Bernouin, seeing
that his master did not return and hearing the stroke of midnight, had
made an examination of the orangery. The first door, barricaded with
furniture, had aroused in him certain suspicions, but without
communicating his suspicions to any one he had patiently worked his way
into the midst of all that confusion. Then he came to the corridor, all
the doors of which he found open; so, too, was the door of Athos’s
chamber and that of the park. From the latter point it was easy to
follow tracks on the snow. He saw that these tracks tended toward the
wall; on the other side he found similar tracks, then footprints of
horses and then signs of a troop of cavalry which had moved away in the
direction of Enghien. He could no longer cherish any doubt that the
cardinal had been carried off by the three prisoners, since the
prisoners had disappeared at the same time; and he had hastened to
Saint Germain to warn the queen of that disappearance.
Anne had enforced the utmost secrecy and had disclosed the event to no
one except the Prince de Condé, who had sent five or six hundred
horsemen into the environs of Saint Germain with orders to bring in any
suspicious person who was going away from Rueil, in whatsoever
direction it might be.
Now, since D’Artagnan did not constitute a body of horsemen, since he
was alone, since he was not going away from Rueil and was going to
Saint Germain, no one paid any attention to him and his journey was not
obstructed in any way.
On entering the courtyard of the old château the first person seen by
our ambassador was Maître Bernouin in person, who, standing on the
threshold, awaited news of his vanished master.
At the sight of D’Artagnan, who entered the courtyard on horseback,
Bernouin rubbed his eyes and thought he must be mistaken. But
D’Artagnan made a friendly sign to him with his head, dismounted, and
throwing his bridle to a lackey who was passing, he approached the
_valet-de-chambre_ with a smile on his lips.
“Monsieur d’Artagnan!” cried the latter, like a man who has the
nightmare and talks in his sleep, “Monsieur d’Artagnan!”
“Himself, Monsieur Bernouin.”
“And why have you come here?”
“To bring news of Monsieur de Mazarin—the freshest news there is.”
“What has become of him, then?”
“He is as well as you and I.”
“Nothing bad has happened to him, then?”
“Absolutely nothing. He felt the need of making a trip in the Ile de
France, and begged us—the Comte de la Fère and Monsieur du Vallon—to
accompany him. We were too devoted servants to refuse him a request of
that sort. We set out last evening and here we are.”
“Here you are.”
“His eminence had something to communicate to her majesty, something
secret and private—a mission that could be confided only to a sure
man—and so has sent me to Saint Germain. And therefore, my dear
Monsieur Bernouin, if you wish to do what will be pleasing to your
master, announce to her majesty that I have come, and tell her with
what purpose.”
Whether he spoke seriously or in jest, since it was evident that under
existing circumstances D’Artagnan was the only man who could relieve
the queen’s uneasiness, Bernouin went without hesitation to announce to
her this strange embassy; and as he had foreseen, the queen gave orders
to introduce Monsieur d’Artagnan at once.
D’Artagnan approached the sovereign with every mark of profound
respect, and having fallen on his knees presented to her the cardinal’s
letter
It was, however, merely a letter of introduction. The queen read it,
recognized the writing, and, since there were no details in it of what
had occurred, asked for particulars. D’Artagnan related everything with
that simple and ingenuous air which he knew how to assume on occasions.
The queen, as he went on, looked at him with increasing astonishment.
She could not comprehend how a man could conceive such an enterprise
and still less how he could have the audacity to disclose it to her
whose interest and almost duty it was to punish him.
“How, sir!” she cried, as D’Artagnan finished, “you dare to tell me the
details of your crime—to give me an account of your treason!”
“Pardon, madame, but I think that either I have expressed myself badly
or your majesty has imperfectly understood me. There is here no
question of crime or treason. Monsieur de Mazarin held us in prison,
Monsieur du Vallon and myself, because we could not believe that he had
sent us to England to quietly look on while they cut off the head of
Charles I., brother-in-law of the late king, your husband, the consort
of Madame Henrietta, your sister and your guest, and because we did all
that we could do to save the life of the royal martyr. We were then
convinced, my friend and I, that there was some error of which we were
the victims, and that an explanation was called for between his
eminence and ourselves. Now, that an explanation may bear fruit, it is
necessary that it should be quietly conducted, far from noise and
interruption. We have therefore taken away monsieur le cardinal to my
friend’s château and there we have come to an understanding. Well,
madame, it proved to be as we had supposed; there was a mistake.
Monsieur de Mazarin had thought that we had rendered service to General
Cromwell, instead of King Charles, which would have been a disgrace,
rebounding from us to him, and from him to your majesty—a dishonor
which would have tainted the royalty of your illustrious son. We were
able to prove the contrary, and that proof we are ready to give to your
majesty, calling in support of it the august widow weeping in the
Louvre, where your royal munificence has provided for her a home. That
proof satisfied him so completely that, as a sign of satisfaction, he
has sent me, as your majesty may see, to consider with you what
reparation should be made to gentlemen unjustly treated and wrongfully
persecuted.”
“I listen to you, and I wonder at you, sir,” said the queen. “In fact,
I have rarely seen such excess of impudence.”
“Your majesty, on your side,” said D’Artagnan, “is as much mistaken as
to our intentions as the Cardinal Mazarin has always been.”
“You are in error, sir,” answered the queen. “I am so little mistaken
that in ten minutes you shall be arrested, and in an hour I shall set
off at the head of my army to release my minister.”
“I am sure your majesty will not commit such an act of imprudence,
first, because it would be useless and would produce the most
disastrous results. Before he could be possibly set free the cardinal
would be dead; and indeed, so convinced is he of this, that he
entreated me, should I find your majesty disposed to act in this way,
to do all I could to induce you to change your resolution.”
“Well, then, I will content myself with arresting you!”
“Madame, the possibility of my arrest has been foreseen, and should I
not have returned by to-morrow, at a certain hour the next day the
cardinal will be brought to Paris and delivered to the parliament.”
“It is evident, sir, that your position has kept you out of relation to
men and affairs; otherwise you would know that since we left Paris
monsieur le cardinal has returned thither five or six times; that he
has there met De Beaufort, De Bouillon, the coadjutor and D’Elbeuf and
that not one of them had any desire to arrest him.”
“Your pardon, madame, I know all that. And therefore my friends will
conduct monsieur le cardinal neither to De Beaufort, nor to De
Bouillon, nor to the coadjutor, nor to D’Elbeuf. These gentlemen wage
war on private account, and in buying them up, by granting them what
they wished, monsieur le cardinal has made a good bargain. He will be
delivered to the parliament, members of which can, of course, be
bought, but even Monsieur de Mazarin is not rich enough to buy the
whole body.”
“I think,” returned Anne of Austria, fixing upon him a glance, which in
any woman’s face would have expressed disdain, but in a queen’s, spread
terror to those she looked upon, “nay, I perceive you dare to threaten
the mother of your sovereign.”
“Madame,” replied D’Artagnan, “I threaten simply and solely because I
am obliged to do so. Believe me, madame, as true a thing as it is that
a heart beats in this bosom—a heart devoted to you—believe that you
have been the idol of our lives; that we have, as you well know—good
Heaven!—risked our lives twenty times for your majesty. Have you, then,
madame, no compassion for your servants who for twenty years have
vegetated in obscurity, without betraying in a single sigh the solemn
and sacred secrets they have had the honor to share with you? Look at
me, madame—at me, whom you accuse of speaking loud and threateningly.
What am I? A poor officer, without fortune, without protection, without
a future, unless the eye of my queen, which I have sought so long,
rests on me for a moment. Look at the Comte de la Fère, a type of