Twenty years after
Richelieu having discovered in him great financial aptitude, had
introduced him with a strong recommendation to Louis XIII. under his
assumed name, in order that he might be appointed to the post he
subsequently held.
“You surprise me!” exclaimed the monarch. “I am rejoiced to hear you
speak of Monsieur d’Emery as calculated for a post which requires a man
of probity. I was really afraid that you were going to force that
villain Particelli upon me.”
“Sire,” replied Richelieu, “rest assured that Particelli, the man to
whom your majesty refers, has been hanged.”
“Ah; so much the better!” exclaimed the king. “It is not for nothing
that I am styled Louis the Just,” and he signed Emery’s appointment.
This was the same Emery who became eventually superintendent of
finance.
He was sent for by the ministers and he came before them pale and
trembling, declaring that his son had very nearly been assassinated the
day before, near the palace. The mob had insulted him on account of the
ostentatious luxury of his wife, whose house was hung with red velvet
edged with gold fringe. This lady was the daughter of Nicholas de
Camus, who arrived in Paris with twenty francs in his pocket, became
secretary of state, and accumulated wealth enough to divide nine
millions of francs among his children and to keep an income of forty
thousand for himself.
The fact was that Emery’s son had run a great chance of being
suffocated, one of the rioters having proposed to squeeze him until he
gave up all the gold he had swallowed. Nothing, therefore, was settled
that day, as Emery’s head was not steady enough for business after such
an occurrence.
On the next day Mathieu Molé, the chief president, whose courage at
this crisis, says the Cardinal de Retz, was equal to that of the Duc de
Beaufort and the Prince de Condé—in other words, of the two men who
were considered the bravest in France—had been attacked in his turn.
The people threatened to hold him responsible for the evils that hung
over them. But the chief president had replied with his habitual
coolness, without betraying either disturbance or surprise, that should
the agitators refuse obedience to the king’s wishes he would have
gallows erected in the public squares and proceed at once to hang the
most active among them. To which the others had responded that they
would be glad to see the gallows erected; they would serve for the
hanging of those detestable judges who purchased favor at court at the
price of the people’s misery.
Nor was this all. On the eleventh the queen in going to mass at Notre
Dame, as she always did on Saturdays, was followed by more than two
hundred women demanding justice. These poor creatures had no bad
intentions. They wished only to be allowed to fall on their knees
before their sovereign, and that they might move her to compassion; but
they were prevented by the royal guard and the queen proceeded on her
way, haughtily disdainful of their entreaties.
At length parliament was convoked; the authority of the king was to be
maintained.
One day—it was the morning of the day my story begins—the king, Louis
XIV., then ten years of age, went in state, under pretext of returning
thanks for his recovery from the small-pox, to Notre Dame. He took the
opportunity of calling out his guard, the Swiss troops and the
musketeers, and he had planted them round the Palais Royal, on the
quays, and on the Pont Neuf. After mass the young monarch drove to the
Parliament House, where, upon the throne, he hastily confirmed not only
such edicts as he had already passed, but issued new ones, each one,
according to Cardinal de Retz, more ruinous than the others—a
proceeding which drew forth a strong remonstrance from the chief
president, Molé—whilst President Blancmesnil and Councillor Broussel
raised their voices in indignation against fresh taxes.
The king returned amidst the silence of a vast multitude to the Palais
Royal. All minds were uneasy, most were foreboding, many of the people
used threatening language.
At first, indeed, they were doubtful whether the king’s visit to the
parliament had been in order to lighten or increase their burdens; but
scarcely was it known that the taxes were to be still further
increased, when cries of “Down with Mazarin!” “Long live Broussel!”
“Long live Blancmesnil!” resounded through the city. For the people had
learned that Broussel and Blancmesnil had made speeches in their
behalf, and, although the eloquence of these deputies had been without
avail, it had none the less won for them the people’s good-will. All
attempts to disperse the groups collected in the streets, or silence
their exclamations, were in vain. Orders had just been given to the
royal guards and the Swiss guards, not only to stand firm, but to send
out patrols to the streets of Saint Denis and Saint Martin, where the
people thronged and where they were the most vociferous, when the mayor
of Paris was announced at the Palais Royal.
He was shown in directly; he came to say that if these offensive
precautions were not discontinued, in two hours Paris would be under
arms.
Deliberations were being held when a lieutenant in the guards, named
Comminges, made his appearance, with his clothes all torn, his face
streaming with blood. The queen on seeing him uttered a cry of surprise
and asked him what was going on.
As the mayor had foreseen, the sight of the guards had exasperated the
mob. The tocsin was sounded. Comminges had arrested one of the
ringleaders and had ordered him to be hanged near the cross of Du
Trahoir; but in attempting to execute this command the soldiery were
attacked in the market-place with stones and halberds; the delinquent
had escaped to the Rue des Lombards and rushed into a house. They broke
open the doors and searched the dwelling, but in vain. Comminges,
wounded by a stone which had struck him on the forehead, had left a
picket in the street and returned to the Palais Royal, followed by a
menacing crowd, to tell his story.
This account confirmed that of the mayor. The authorities were not in a
condition to cope with serious revolt. Mazarin endeavored to circulate
among the people a report that troops had only been stationed on the
quays and on the Pont Neuf, on account of the ceremonial of the day,
and that they would soon withdraw. In fact, about four o’clock they
were all concentrated about the Palais Royal, the courts and ground
floors of which were filled with musketeers and Swiss guards, and there
awaited the outcome of all this disturbance.
Such was the state of affairs at the very moment we introduced our
readers to the study of Cardinal Mazarin—once that of Cardinal
Richelieu. We have seen in what state of mind he listened to the
murmurs from below, which even reached him in his seclusion, and to the
guns, the firing of which resounded through that room. All at once he
raised his head; his brow slightly contracted like that of a man who
has formed a resolution; he fixed his eyes upon an enormous clock that
was about to strike ten, and taking up a whistle of silver gilt that
stood upon the table near him, he shrilled it twice.
A door hidden in the tapestry opened noiselessly and a man in black
silently advanced and stood behind the chair on which Mazarin sat.
“Bernouin,” said the cardinal, not turning round, for having whistled,
he knew that it was his _valet-de-chambre_ who was behind him; “what
musketeers are now within the palace?”
“The Black Musketeers, my lord.”
“What company?”
“Tréville’s company.”
“Is there any officer belonging to this company in the ante-chamber?”
“Lieutenant d’Artagnan.”
“A man on whom we can depend, I hope.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Give me a uniform of one of these musketeers and help me to put it
on.”
The valet went out as silently as he had entered and appeared in a few
minutes bringing the dress demanded.
The cardinal, in deep thought and in silence, began to take off the
robes of state he had assumed in order to be present at the sitting of
parliament, and to attire himself in the military coat, which he wore
with a certain degree of easy grace, owing to his former campaigns in
Italy. When he was completely dressed he said:
“Send hither Monsieur d’Artagnan.”
The valet went out of the room, this time by the centre door, but still
as silently as before; one might have fancied him an apparition.
When he was left alone the cardinal looked at himself in the glass with
a feeling of self-satisfaction. Still young—for he was scarcely
forty-six years of age—he possessed great elegance of form and was
above the middle height; his complexion was brilliant and beautiful;
his glance full of expression; his nose, though large, was well
proportioned; his forehead broad and majestic; his hair, of a chestnut
color, was curled slightly; his beard, which was darker than his hair,
was turned carefully with a curling iron, a practice that greatly
improved it. After a short time the cardinal arranged his shoulder
belt, then looked with great complacency at his hands, which were most
elegant and of which he took the greatest care; and throwing on one
side the large kid gloves tried on at first, as belonging to the
uniform, he put on others of silk only. At this instant the door
opened.
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the _valet-de-chambre_.
An officer, as he spoke, entered the apartment. He was a man between
thirty-nine and forty years of age, of medium height but a very well
proportioned figure; with an intellectual and animated physiognomy; his
beard black, and his hair turning gray, as often happens when people
have found life either too gay or too sad, more especially when they
happen to be of swart complexion.
D’Artagnan advanced a few steps into the apartment.
How perfectly he remembered his former entrance into that very room!
Seeing, however, no one there except a musketeer of his own troop, he
fixed his eyes upon the supposed soldier, in whose dress, nevertheless,
he recognized at the first glance the cardinal.
The lieutenant remained standing in a dignified but respectful posture,
such as became a man of good birth, who had in the course of his life
been frequently in the society of the highest nobles.
The cardinal looked at him with a cunning rather than serious glance,
yet he examined his countenance with attention and after a momentary
silence said:
“You are Monsieur d’Artagnan?”
“I am that individual,” replied the officer.
Mazarin gazed once more at a countenance full of intelligence, the play
of which had been, nevertheless, subdued by age and experience; and
D’Artagnan received the penetrating glance like one who had formerly
sustained many a searching look, very different, indeed, from those
which were inquiringly directed on him at that instant.
“Sir,” resumed the cardinal, “you are to come with me, or rather, I am
to go with you.”
“I am at your command, my lord,” returned D’Artagnan.
“I wish to visit in person the outposts which surround the Palais
Royal; do you suppose that there is any danger in so doing?”
“Danger, my lord!” exclaimed D’Artagnan with a look of astonishment,
“what danger?”
“I am told that there is a general insurrection.”
“The uniform of the king’s musketeers carries a certain respect with
it, and even if that were not the case I would engage with four of my
men to put to flight a hundred of these clowns.”
“Did you witness the injury sustained by Comminges?”
“Monsieur de Comminges is in the guards and not in the musketeers——”
“Which means, I suppose, that the musketeers are better soldiers than
the guards.” The cardinal smiled as he spoke.
“Every one likes his own uniform best, my lord.”
“Myself excepted,” and again Mazarin smiled; “for you perceive that I