Twenty years after
time to time and evinced his gratitude to D’Artagnan by the quality of
the wine he directed to be served. Therefore, when, at dessert, upon a
sign from D’Artagnan, Porthos had sent away his servants and the two
friends were alone:
“Porthos,” said D’Artagnan, “who will attend you in your campaigns?”
“Why,” replied Porthos, “Mouston, of course.”
This was a blow to D’Artagnan. He could already see the intendant’s
beaming smile change to a contortion of grief. “But,” he said, “Mouston
is not so young as he was, my dear fellow; besides, he has grown fat
and perhaps has lost his fitness for active service.”
“That may be true,” replied Porthos; “but I am used to him, and
besides, he wouldn’t be willing to let me go without him, he loves me
so much.”
“Oh, blind self-love!” thought D’Artagnan.
“And you,” asked Porthos, “haven’t you still in your service your old
lackey, that good, that brave, that intelligent—-what, then, is his
name?”
“Planchet—yes, I have found him again, but he is lackey no longer.”
“What is he, then?”
“With his sixteen hundred francs—you remember, the sixteen hundred
francs he earned at the siege of La Rochelle by carrying a letter to
Lord de Winter—he has set up a little shop in the Rue des Lombards and
is now a confectioner.”
“Ah, he is a confectioner in the Rue des Lombards! How does it happen,
then, that he is in your service?”
“He has been guilty of certain escapades and fears he may be
disturbed.” And the musketeer narrated to his friend Planchet’s
adventure.
“Well,” said Porthos, “if any one had told you in the old times that
the day would come when Planchet would rescue Rochefort and that you
would protect him in it——”
“I should not have believed him; but men are changed by events.”
“There is nothing truer than that,” said Porthos; “but what does not
change, or changes for the better, is wine. Taste of this; it is a
Spanish wine which our friend Athos thought much of.”
At that moment the steward came in to consult his master upon the
proceedings of the next day and also with regard to the shooting party
which had been proposed.
“Tell me, Mouston,” said Porthos, “are my arms in good condition?”
“Your arms, my lord—what arms?”
“Zounds! my weapons.”
“What weapons?”
“My military weapons.”
“Yes, my lord; at any rate, I _think_ so.”
“Make sure of it, and if they want it, have them burnished up. Which is
my best cavalry horse?”
“Vulcan.”
“And the best hack?”
“Bayard.”
“What horse dost thou choose for thyself?”
“I like Rustaud, my lord; a good animal, whose paces suit me.”
“Strong, thinkest thou?”
“Half Norman, half Mecklenburger; will go night and day.”
“That will do for us. See to these horses. Polish up or make some one
else polish my arms. Then take pistols with thee and a hunting-knife.”
“Are we then going to travel, my lord?” asked Mousqueton, rather
uneasy.
“Something better still, Mouston.”
“An expedition, sir?” asked the steward, whose roses began to change
into lilies.
“We are going to return to the service, Mouston,” replied Porthos,
still trying to restore his mustache to the military curl it had long
lost.
“Into the service—the king’s service?” Mousqueton trembled; even his
fat, smooth cheeks shook as he spoke, and he looked at D’Artagnan with
an air of reproach; he staggered, and his voice was almost choked.
“Yes and no. We shall serve in a campaign, seek out all sorts of
adventures—return, in short, to our former life.”
These last words fell on Mousqueton like a thunderbolt. It was those
very terrible old days that made the present so excessively delightful,
and the blow was so great he rushed out, overcome, and forgot to shut
the door.
The two friends remained alone to speak of the future and to build
castles in the air. The good wine which Mousqueton had placed before
them traced out in glowing drops to D’Artagnan a fine perspective,
shining with quadruples and pistoles, and showed to Porthos a blue
ribbon and a ducal mantle; they were, in fact, asleep on the table when
the servants came to light them to their bed.
Mousqueton was, however, somewhat consoled by D’Artagnan, who the next
day told him that in all probability war would always be carried on in
the heart of Paris and within reach of the Château du Vallon, which was
near Corbeil, or Bracieux, which was near Melun, and of Pierrefonds,
which was between Compiègne and Villars-Cotterets.
“But—formerly—it appears,” began Mousqueton timidly.
“Oh!” said D’Artagnan, “we don’t now make war as we did formerly.
To-day it’s a sort of diplomatic arrangement; ask Planchet.”
Mousqueton inquired, therefore, the state of the case of his old
friend, who confirmed the statement of D’Artagnan. “But,” he added, “in
this war prisoners stand a chance of being hung.”
“The deuce they do!” said Mousqueton; “I think I should like the siege
of Rochelle better than this war, then!”
Porthos, meantime, asked D’Artagnan to give him his instructions how to
proceed on his journey.
“Four days,” replied his friend, “are necessary to reach Blois; one day
to rest there; three or four days to return to Paris. Set out,
therefore, in a week, with your suite, and go to the Hotel de la
Chevrette, Rue Tiquetonne, and there await me.”
“That’s agreed,” said Porthos.
“As to myself, I shall go around to see Athos; for though I don’t think
his aid worth much, one must with one’s friends observe all due
politeness,” said D’Artagnan.
The friends then took leave of each other on the very border of the
estate of Pierrefonds, to which Porthos escorted his friend.
“At least,” D’Artagnan said to himself, as he took the road to
Villars-Cotterets, “at least I shall not be alone in my undertaking.
That devil, Porthos, is a man of prodigious strength; still, if Athos
joins us, well, we shall be three of us to laugh at Aramis, that little
coxcomb with his too good luck.”
At Villars-Cotterets he wrote to the cardinal:
“My Lord,—I have already one man to offer to your eminence, and he is
well worth twenty men. I am just setting out for Blois. The Comte de la
Fère inhabits the Castle of Bragelonne, in the environs of that city.”
Chapter XIII.
Two Angelic Faces.
The road was long, but the horses upon which D’Artagnan and Planchet
rode had been refreshed in the well supplied stables of the Lord of
Bracieux; the master and servant rode side by side, conversing as they
went, for D’Artagnan had by degrees thrown off the master and Planchet
had entirely ceased to assume the manners of a servant. He had been
raised by circumstances to the rank of a confidant to his master. It
was many years since D’Artagnan had opened his heart to any one; it
happened, however, that these two men, on meeting again, assimilated
perfectly. Planchet was in truth no vulgar companion in these new
adventures; he was a man of uncommonly sound sense. Without courting
danger he never shrank from an encounter; in short, he had been a
soldier and arms ennoble a man; it was, therefore, on the footing of
friends that D’Artagnan and Planchet arrived in the neighborhood of
Blois.
Going along, D’Artagnan, shaking his head, said:
“I know that my going to Athos is useless and absurd; but still I owe
this courtesy to my old friend, a man who had in him material for the
most noble and generous of characters.”
“Oh, Monsieur Athos was a noble gentleman,” said Planchet, “was he not?
Scattering money round about him as Heaven sprinkles rain. Do you
remember, sir, that duel with the Englishman in the inclosure des
Carmes? Ah! how lofty, how magnificent Monsieur Athos was that day,
when he said to his adversary: ‘You have insisted on knowing my name,
sir; so much the worse for you, since I shall be obliged to kill you.’
I was near him, those were his exact words, when he stabbed his foe as
he said he would, and his adversary fell without saying, ‘Oh!’ ’Tis a
noble gentleman—Monsieur Athos.”
“Yes, true as Gospel,” said D’Artagnan; “but one single fault has
swallowed up all these fine qualities.”
“I remember well,” said Planchet, “he was fond of drinking—in truth, he
drank, but not as other men drink. One seemed, as he raised the wine to
his lips, to hear him say, ‘Come, juice of the grape, and chase away my
sorrows.’ And how he used to break the stem of a glass or the neck of a
bottle! There was no one like him for that.”
“And now,” replied D’Artagnan, “behold the sad spectacle that awaits
us. This noble gentleman with his lofty glance, this handsome cavalier,
so brilliant in feats of arms that every one was surprised that he held
in his hand a sword only instead of a baton of command! Alas! we shall
find him changed into a broken down old man, with garnet nose and eyes
that slobber; we shall find him extended on some lawn, whence he will
look at us with a languid eye and peradventure will not recognize us.
God knows, Planchet, that I should fly from a sight so sad if I did not
wish to show my respect for the illustrious shadow of what was once the
Comte de la Fère, whom we loved so much.”
Planchet shook his head and said nothing. It was evident that he shared
his master’s apprehensions.
“And then,” resumed D’Artagnan, “to this decrepitude is probably added
poverty, for he must have neglected the little that he had, and the
dirty scoundrel, Grimaud, more taciturn than ever and still more
drunken than his master—stay, Planchet, it breaks my heart to merely
think of it.”
“I fancy myself there and that I see him staggering and hear him
stammering,” said Planchet, in a piteous tone, “but at all events we
shall soon know the real state of things, for I imagine that those
lofty walls, now turning ruby in the setting sun, are the walls of
Blois.”
“Probably; and those steeples, pointed and sculptured, that we catch a
glimpse of yonder, are similar to those that I have heard described at
Chambord.”
At this moment one of those heavy wagons, drawn by bullocks, which
carry the wood cut in the fine forests of the country to the ports of
the Loire, came out of a byroad full of ruts and turned on that which
the two horsemen were following. A man carrying a long switch with a
nail at the end of it, with which he urged on his slow team, was
walking with the cart.
“Ho! friend,” cried Planchet.
“What’s your pleasure, gentlemen?” replied the peasant, with a purity
of accent peculiar to the people of that district and which might have
put to shame the cultured denizens of the Sorbonne and the Rue de
l’Université.
“We are looking for the house of Monsieur de la Fère,” said D’Artagnan.
The peasant took off his hat on hearing this revered name.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “the wood that I am carting is his; I cut it in
his copse and I am taking it to the château.”
D’Artagnan determined not to question this man; he did not wish to hear
from another what he had himself said to Planchet.
“The château!” he said to himself, “what château? Ah, I understand!
Athos is not a man to be thwarted; he, like Porthos, has obliged his
peasantry to call him ‘my lord,’ and to dignify his pettifogging place
by the name of château. He had a heavy hand—dear old Athos—after
drinking.”
D’Artagnan, after asking the man the right way, continued his route,
agitated in spite of himself at the idea of seeing once more that
singular man whom he had so truly loved and who had contributed so much
by advice and example to his education as a gentleman. He checked by
degrees the speed of his horse and went on, his head drooping as if in
deep thought.
Soon, as the road turned, the Château de la Vallière appeared in view;
then, a quarter of a mile beyond, a white house, encircled in
sycamores, was visible at the farther end of a group of trees, which
spring had powdered with a snow of flowers.