Twenty years after
give you some.”
“A week is too long. I must find them within three days.”
“Three days are a short time and France is large.”
“No matter; you know the word _must;_ with that word great things are
done.”
“And when do you set out?”
“I am now on my road.”
“Good luck to you.”
“And to you—a good journey.”
“Perhaps we shall meet on our road.”
“That is not probable.”
“Who knows? Chance is so capricious. Adieu, till we meet again!
Apropos, should Mazarin speak to you about me, tell him that I should
have requested you to acquaint him that in a short time he will see
whether I am, as he says, too old for action.”
And Rochefort went away with one of those diabolical smiles which used
formerly to make D’Artagnan shudder, but D’Artagnan could now see it
without alarm, and smiling in his turn, with an expression of
melancholy which the recollections called up by that smile could,
perhaps, alone give to his countenance, he said:
“Go, demon, do what thou wilt! It matters little now to me. There’s no
second Constance in the world.”
On his return to the cathedral, D’Artagnan saw Bazin, who was
conversing with the sacristan. Bazin was making, with his spare little
short arms, ridiculous gestures. D’Artagnan perceived that he was
enforcing prudence with respect to himself.
D’Artagnan slipped out of the cathedral and placed himself in ambuscade
at the corner of the Rue des Canettes; it was impossible that Bazin
should go out of the cathedral without his seeing him.
In five minutes Bazin made his appearance, looking in every direction
to see if he were observed, but he saw no one. Calmed by appearances he
ventured to walk on through the Rue Notre Dame. Then D’Artagnan rushed
out of his hiding place and arrived in time to see Bazin turn down the
Rue de la Juiverie and enter, in the Rue de la Calandre, a respectable
looking house; and this D’Artagnan felt no doubt was the habitation of
the worthy beadle. Afraid of making any inquiries at this house,
D’Artagnan entered a small tavern at the corner of the street and asked
for a cup of hypocras. This beverage required a good half-hour to
prepare. And D’Artagnan had time, therefore, to watch Bazin
unsuspected.
He perceived in the tavern a pert boy between twelve and fifteen years
of age whom he fancied he had seen not twenty minutes before under the
guise of a chorister. He questioned him, and as the boy had no interest
in deceiving, D’Artagnan learned that he exercised, from six o’clock in
the morning until nine, the office of chorister, and from nine o’clock
till midnight that of a waiter in the tavern.
Whilst he was talking to this lad a horse was brought to the door of
Bazin’s house. It was saddled and bridled. Almost immediately Bazin
came downstairs.
“Look!” said the boy, “there’s our beadle, who is going a journey.”
“And where is he going?” asked D’Artagnan.
“Forsooth, I don’t know.”
“Half a pistole if you can find out,” said D’Artagnan.
“For me?” cried the boy, his eyes sparkling with joy, “if I can find
out where Bazin is going? That is not difficult. You are not joking,
are you?”
“No, on the honor of an officer; there is the half-pistole;” and he
showed him the seductive coin, but did not give it him.
“I shall ask him.”
“Just the very way not to know. Wait till he is set out and then,
marry, come up, ask, and find out. The half-pistole is ready,” and he
put it back again into his pocket.
“I understand,” said the child, with that jeering smile which marks
especially the “gamin de Paris.” “Well, we must wait.”
They had not long to wait. Five minutes afterward Bazin set off on a
full trot, urging on his horse by the blows of a parapluie, which he
was in the habit of using instead of a riding whip.
Scarcely had he turned the corner of the Rue de la Juiverie when the
boy rushed after him like a bloodhound on full scent.
Before ten minutes had elapsed the child returned.
“Well!” said D’Artagnan.
“Well!” answered the boy, “the thing is done.”
“Where is he gone?”
“The half-pistole is for me?”
“Doubtless, answer me.”
“I want to see it. Give it me, that I may see it is not false.”
“There it is.”
The child put the piece of money into his pocket.
“And now, where is he gone?” inquired D’Artagnan.
“He is gone to Noisy.”
“How dost thou know?”
“Ah, faith! there was no great cunning necessary. I knew the horse he
rode; it belonged to the butcher, who lets it out now and then to M.
Bazin. Now I thought that the butcher would not let his horse out like
that without knowing where it was going. And he answered ‘that Monsieur
Bazin went to Noisy.’ ’Tis his custom. He goes two or three times a
week.”
“Dost thou know Noisy well?”
“I think so, truly; my nurse lives there.”
“Is there a convent at Noisy?”
“Isn’t there a great and grand one—the convent of Jesuits?”
“What is thy name?”
“Friquet.”
D’Artagnan wrote the child’s name in his tablets.
“Please, sir,” said the boy, “do you think I can gain any more
half-pistoles in any way?”
“Perhaps,” replied D’Artagnan.
And having got out all he wanted, he paid for the hypocras, which he
did not drink, and went quickly back to the Rue Tiquetonne.
Chapter VIII.
D’Artagnan, Going to a Distance to discover Aramis.
On entering the hotel D’Artagnan saw a man sitting in a corner by the
fire. It was Planchet, but so completely transformed, thanks to the old
clothes that the departing husband had left behind, that D’Artagnan
himself could hardly recognize him. Madeleine introduced him in
presence of all the servants. Planchet addressed the officer with a
fine Flemish phrase; the officer replied in words that belonged to no
language at all, and the bargain was concluded; Madeleine’s brother
entered D’Artagnan’s service.
The plan adopted by D’Artagnan was soon perfected. He resolved not to
reach Noisy in the day, for fear of being recognized; he had therefore
plenty of time before him, for Noisy is only three or four leagues from
Paris, on the road to Meaux.
He began his day by breakfasting substantially—a bad beginning when one
wants to employ the head, but an excellent precaution when one wants to
work the body; and about two o’clock he had his two horses saddled, and
followed by Planchet he quitted Paris by the Barrière de la Villete. A
most active search was still prosecuted in the house near the Hotel de
la Chevrette for the discovery of Planchet.
At about a league and a half from the city, D’Artagnan, finding that in
his impatience he had set out too soon, stopped to give the horses
breathing time. The inn was full of disreputable looking people, who
seemed as if they were on the point of commencing some nightly
expedition. A man, wrapped in a cloak, appeared at the door, but seeing
a stranger he beckoned to his companions, and two men who were drinking
in the inn went out to speak to him.
D’Artagnan, on his side, went up to the landlady, praised her
wine—which was a horrible production from the country of Montreuil—and
heard from her that there were only two houses of importance in the
village; one of these belonged to the Archbishop of Paris, and was at
that time the abode of his niece the Duchess of Longueville; the other
was a convent of Jesuits and was the property—a by no means unusual
circumstance—of these worthy fathers.
At four o’clock D’Artagnan recommenced his journey. He proceeded slowly
and in deep reverie. Planchet also was lost in thought, but the subject
of their reflections was not the same.
One word which their landlady had pronounced had given a particular
turn to D’Artagnan’s deliberations; this was the name of Madame de
Longueville.
That name was indeed one to inspire imagination and produce thought.
Madame de Longueville was one of the highest ladies in the realm; she
was also one of the greatest beauties at court. She had formerly been
suspected of an intimacy of too tender a nature with Coligny, who, for
her sake, had been killed in a duel, in the Place Royale, by the Duc de
Guise. She was now connected by bonds of a political nature with the
Prince de Marsillac, the eldest son of the old Duc de Rochefoucauld,
whom she was trying to inspire with an enmity toward the Duc de Condé,
her brother-in-law, whom she now hated mortally.
D’Artagnan thought of all these matters. He remembered how at the
Louvre he had often seen, as she passed by him in the full radiance of
her dazzling charms, the beautiful Madame de Longueville. He thought of
Aramis, who, without possessing any greater advantages than himself,
had formerly been the lover of Madame de Chevreuse, who had been to a
former court what Madame de Longueville was in that day; and he
wondered how it was that there should be in the world people who
succeed in every wish, some in ambition, others in love, whilst others,
either from chance, or from ill-luck, or from some natural defect or
impediment, remain half-way upon the road toward fulfilment of their
hopes and expectations.
He was confessing to himself that he belonged to the latter unhappy
class, when Planchet approached and said:
“I will lay a wager, your honor, that you and I are thinking of the
same thing.”
“I doubt it, Planchet,” replied D’Artagnan, “but what are you thinking
of?”
“I am thinking, sir, of those desperate looking men who were drinking
in the inn where we rested.”
“Always cautious, Planchet.”
“’Tis instinct, your honor.”
“Well, what does your instinct tell you now?”
“Sir, my instinct told me that those people were assembled there for
some bad purpose; and I was reflecting on what my instinct had told me,
in the darkest corner of the stable, when a man wrapped in a cloak and
followed by two other men, came in.”
“Ah ah!” said D’Artagnan, Planchet’s recital agreeing with his own
observations. “Well?”
“One of these two men said, ‘He must certainly be at Noisy, or be
coming there this evening, for I have seen his servant.’
“‘Art thou sure?’ said the man in the cloak.
“‘Yes, my prince.’”
“My prince!” interrupted D’Artagnan.
“Yes, ‘my prince;’ but listen. ‘If he is here’—this is what the other
man said—‘let’s see decidedly what to do with him.’
“‘What to do with him?’ answered the prince.
“‘Yes, he’s not a man to allow himself to be taken anyhow; he’ll defend
himself.’
“‘Well, we must try to take him alive. Have you cords to bind him with
and a gag to stop his mouth?’
“‘We have.’
“‘Remember that he will most likely be disguised as a horseman.’
“‘Yes, yes, my lord; don’t be uneasy.’
“‘Besides, I shall be there.’
“‘You will assure us that justice——’
“‘Yes, yes! I answer for all that,’ the prince said.
“‘Well, then, we’ll do our best.’ Having said that, they went out of
the stable.”
“Well, what matters all that to us?” said D’Artagnan. “This is one of
those attempts that happen every day.”
“Are you sure that we are not its objects?”
“We? Why?”
“Just remember what they said. ‘I have seen his servant,’ said one, and
that applies very well to me.”
“Well?”
“‘He must certainly be at Noisy, or be coming there this evening,’ said
the other; and that applies very well to you.”
“What else?”
“Then the prince said: ‘Take notice that in all probability he will be
disguised as a cavalier;’ which seems to me to leave no room for doubt,
since you are dressed as a cavalier and not as an officer of
musketeers. Now then, what do you say to that?”
“Alas! my dear Planchet,” said D’Artagnan, sighing, “we are
unfortunately no longer in those times in which princes would care to
assassinate me. Those were good old days; never fear—these people owe
us no grudge.”
“Is your honor _sure?_”
“I can answer for it they do not.”
“Well, we won’t speak of it any more, then;” and Planchet took his