Twenty years after
this civility infuriated Monsieur de Beaufort.
At last his patience was exhausted. He assembled his keepers, and
notwithstanding his well-known difficulty of utterance, addressed them
as follows:
“Gentlemen! will you permit a grandson of Henry IV. to be overwhelmed
with insults and ignominy?
“Odds fish! as my grandfather used to say, I once reigned in Paris! do
you know that? I had the king and Monsieur the whole of one day in my
care. The queen at that time liked me and called me the most honest man
in the kingdom. Gentlemen and citizens, set me free; I shall go to the
Louvre and strangle Mazarin. You shall be my body-guard. I will make
you all captains, with good pensions! Odds fish! On! march forward!”
But eloquent as he might be, the eloquence of the grandson of Henry IV.
did not touch those hearts of stone; not one man stirred, so Monsieur
de Beaufort was obliged to be satisfied with calling them all kinds of
rascals underneath the sun.
Sometimes, when Monsieur de Chavigny paid him a visit, the duke used to
ask him what he should think if he saw an army of Parisians, all fully
armed, appear at Vincennes to deliver him from prison.
“My lord,” answered De Chavigny, with a low bow, “I have on the
ramparts twenty pieces of artillery and in my casemates thirty thousand
guns. I should bombard the troops till not one grain of gunpowder was
unexploded.”
“Yes, but after you had fired off your thirty thousand guns they would
take the donjon; the donjon being taken, I should be obliged to let
them hang you—at which I should be most unhappy, certainly.”
And in his turn the duke bowed low to Monsieur de Chavigny.
“For myself, on the other hand, my lord,” returned the governor, “when
the first rebel should pass the threshold of my postern doors I should
be obliged to kill you with my own hand, since you were confided
peculiarly to my care and as I am obliged to give you up, dead or
alive.”
And once more he bowed low before his highness.
These bitter-sweet pleasantries lasted ten minutes, sometimes longer,
but always finished thus:
Monsieur de Chavigny, turning toward the door, used to call out:
“Halloo! La Ramee!”
La Ramee came into the room.
“La Ramee, I recommend Monsieur le Duc to you, particularly; treat him
as a man of his rank and family ought to be treated; that is, never
leave him alone an instant.”
La Ramee became, therefore, the duke’s dinner guest by compulsion—an
eternal keeper, the shadow of his person; but La Ramee—gay, frank,
convivial, fond of play, a great hand at tennis, had one defect in the
duke’s eyes—his incorruptibility.
Now, although La Ramee appreciated, as of a certain value, the honor of
being shut up with a prisoner of so great importance, still the
pleasure of living in intimacy with the grandson of Henry IV. hardly
compensated for the loss of that which he had experienced in going from
time to time to visit his family.
One may be a jailer or a keeper and at the same time a good father and
husband. La Ramee adored his wife and children, whom now he could only
catch a glimpse of from the top of the wall, when in order to please
him they used to walk on the opposite side of the moat. ’Twas too brief
an enjoyment, and La Ramee felt that the gayety of heart he had
regarded as the cause of health (of which it was perhaps rather the
result) would not long survive such a mode of life.
He accepted, therefore, with delight, an offer made to him by his
friend the steward of the Duc de Grammont, to give him a substitute; he
also spoke of it to Monsieur de Chavigny, who promised that he would
not oppose it in any way—that is, if he approved of the person
proposed.
We consider it useless to draw a physical or moral portrait of Grimaud;
if, as we hope, our readers have not wholly forgotten the first part of
this work, they must have preserved a clear idea of that estimable
individual, who is wholly unchanged, except that he is twenty years
older, an advance in life that has made him only more silent; although,
since the change that had been working in himself, Athos had given
Grimaud permission to speak.
But Grimaud had for twelve or fifteen years preserved habitual silence,
and a habit of fifteen or twenty years’ duration becomes second nature.
Chapter XVIII.
Grimaud begins his Functions.
Grimaud thereupon presented himself with his smooth exterior at the
donjon of Vincennes. Now Monsieur de Chavigny piqued himself on his
infallible penetration; for that which almost proved that he was the
son of Richelieu was his everlasting pretension; he examined
attentively the countenance of the applicant for place and fancied that
the contracted eyebrows, thin lips, hooked nose, and prominent
cheek-bones of Grimaud were favorable signs. He addressed about twelve
words to him; Grimaud answered in four.
“Here’s a promising fellow and it is I who have found out his merits,”
said Monsieur de Chavigny. “Go,” he added, “and make yourself agreeable
to Monsieur la Ramee, and tell him that you suit me in all respects.”
Grimaud had every quality that could attract a man on duty who wishes
to have a deputy. So, after a thousand questions which met with only a
word in reply, La Ramee, fascinated by this sobriety in speech, rubbed
his hands and engaged Grimaud.
“My orders?” asked Grimaud.
“They are these; never to leave the prisoner alone; to keep away from
him every pointed or cutting instrument, and to prevent his conversing
any length of time with the keepers.”
“Those are all?” asked Grimaud.
“All now,” replied La Ramee.
“Good,” answered Grimaud; and he went right to the prisoner.
The duke was in the act of combing his beard, which he had allowed to
grow, as well as his hair, in order to reproach Mazarin with his
wretched appearance and condition. But having some days previously seen
from the top of the donjon Madame de Montbazon pass in her carriage,
and still cherishing an affection for that beautiful woman, he did not
wish to be to her what he wished to be to Mazarin, and in the hope of
seeing her again, had asked for a leaden comb, which was allowed him.
The comb was to be a leaden one, because his beard, like that of most
fair people, was rather red; he therefore dyed it thus whilst combing
it.
As Grimaud entered he saw this comb on the tea-table; he took it up,
and as he took it he made a low bow.
The duke looked at this strange figure with surprise. The figure put
the comb in its pocket.
“Ho! hey! what’s that?” cried the duke. “Who is this creature?”
Grimaud did not answer, but bowed a second time.
“Art thou dumb?” cried the duke.
Grimaud made a sign that he was not.
“What art thou, then? Answer! I command thee!” said the duke.
“A keeper,” replied Grimaud.
“A keeper!” reiterated the duke; “there was nothing wanting in my
collection, except this gallows-bird. Halloo! La Ramee! some one!”
La Ramee ran in haste to obey the call.
“Who is this wretch who takes my comb and puts it in his pocket?” asked
the duke.
“One of your guards, my prince; a man of talent and merit, whom you
will like, as I and Monsieur de Chavigny do, I am sure.”
“Why does he take my comb?”
“Why do you take my lord’s comb?” asked La Ramee.
Grimaud drew the comb from his pocket and passing his fingers over the
largest teeth, pronounced this one word, “Pointed.”
“True,” said La Ramee.
“What does the animal say?” asked the duke.
“That the king has forbidden your lordship to have any pointed
instrument.”
“Are you mad, La Ramee? You yourself gave me this comb.”
“I was very wrong, my lord, for in giving it to you I acted in
opposition to my orders.”
The duke looked furiously at Grimaud.
“I perceive that this creature will be my particular aversion,” he
muttered.
Grimaud, nevertheless, was resolved for certain reasons not at once to
come to a full rupture with the prisoner; he wanted to inspire, not a
sudden repugnance, but a good, sound, steady hatred; he retired,
therefore, and gave place to four guards, who, having breakfasted,
could attend on the prisoner.
A fresh practical joke now occurred to the duke. He had asked for
crawfish for his breakfast on the following morning; he intended to
pass the day in making a small gallows and hang one of the finest of
these fish in the middle of his room—the red color evidently conveying
an allusion to the cardinal—so that he might have the pleasure of
hanging Mazarin in effigy without being accused of having hung anything
more significant than a crawfish.
The day was employed in preparations for the execution. Every one grows
childish in prison, but the character of Monsieur de Beaufort was
particularly disposed to become so. In the course of his morning’s walk
he collected two or three small branches from a tree and found a small
piece of broken glass, a discovery that quite delighted him. When he
came home he formed his handkerchief into a loop.
Nothing of all this escaped Grimaud, but La Ramee looked on with the
curiosity of a father who thinks that he may perhaps get a cheap idea
concerning a new toy for his children. The guards looked on it with
indifference. When everything was ready, the gallows hung in the middle
of the room, the loop made, and when the duke had cast a glance upon
the plate of crawfish, in order to select the finest specimen among
them, he looked around for his piece of glass; it had disappeared.
“Who has taken my piece of glass?” asked the duke, frowning. Grimaud
made a sign to denote that he had done so.
“What! thou again! Why didst thou take it?”
“Yes—why?” asked La Ramee.
Grimaud, who held the piece of glass in his hand, said: “Sharp.”
“True, my lord!” exclaimed La Ramee. “Ah! deuce take it! we have a
precious fellow here!”
“Monsieur Grimaud!” said the duke, “for your sake I beg of you, never
come within the reach of my fist!”
“Hush! hush!” cried La Ramee, “give me your gibbet, my lord. I will
shape it out for you with my knife.”
And he took the gibbet and shaped it out as neatly as possible.
“That’s it,” said the duke, “now make me a little hole in the floor
whilst I go and fetch the culprit.”
La Ramee knelt down and made a hole in the floor; meanwhile the duke
hung the crawfish up by a thread. Then he placed the gibbet in the
middle of the room, bursting with laughter.
La Ramee laughed also and the guards laughed in chorus; Grimaud,
however, did not even smile. He approached La Ramee and showing him the
crawfish hung up by the thread:
“Cardinal,” he said.
“Hung by order of his Highness the Duc de Beaufort!” cried the
prisoner, laughing violently, “and by Master Jacques Chrysostom La
Ramee, the king’s commissioner.”
La Ramee uttered a cry of horror and rushed toward the gibbet, which he
broke at once and threw the pieces out of the window. He was going to
throw the crawfish out also, when Grimaud snatched it from his hands.
“Good to eat!” he said, and put it in his pocket.
This scene so enchanted the duke that at the moment he forgave Grimaud
for his part in it; but on reflection he hated him more and more, being
convinced he had some evil motive for his conduct.
But the story of the crab made a great noise through the interior of
the donjon and even outside. Monsieur de Chavigny, who at heart
detested the cardinal, took pains to tell the story to two or three
friends, who put it into immediate circulation.
The prisoner happened to remark among the guards one man with a very
good countenance; and he favored this man the more as Grimaud became
the more and more odious to him. One morning he took this man on one
side and had succeeded in speaking to him, when Grimaud entered and
seeing what was going on approached the duke respectfully, but took the
guard by the arm.
“Go away,” he said.