Twenty years after
have left off mine and put on yours.”
“Lord bless us! this is modesty indeed!” cried D’Artagnan. “Had I such
a uniform as your eminence possesses, I protest I should be mightily
content, and I would take an oath never to wear any other costume——”
“Yes, but for to-night’s adventure I don’t suppose my dress would have
been a very safe one. Give me my felt hat, Bernouin.”
The valet instantly brought to his master a regimental hat with a wide
brim. The cardinal put it on in military style.
“Your horses are ready saddled in their stables, are they not?” he
said, turning to D’Artagnan.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Well, let us set out.”
“How many men does your eminence wish to escort you?”
“You say that with four men you will undertake to disperse a hundred
low fellows; as it may happen that we shall have to encounter two
hundred, take eight——”
“As many as my lord wishes.”
“I will follow you. This way—light us downstairs Bernouin.”
The valet held a wax-light; the cardinal took a key from his bureau and
opening the door of a secret stair descended into the court of the
Palais Royal.
Chapter II.
A Nightly Patrol.
In ten minutes Mazarin and his party were traversing the street “Les
Bons Enfants” behind the theatre built by Richelieu expressly for the
play of “Mirame,” and in which Mazarin, who was an amateur of music,
but not of literature, had introduced into France the first opera that
was ever acted in that country.
The appearance of the town denoted the greatest agitation. Numberless
groups paraded the streets and, whatever D’Artagnan might think of it,
it was obvious that the citizens had for the night laid aside their
usual forbearance, in order to assume a warlike aspect. From time to
time noises came in the direction of the public markets. The report of
firearms was heard near the Rue Saint Denis and occasionally church
bells began to ring indiscriminately and at the caprice of the
populace. D’Artagnan, meantime, pursued his way with the indifference
of a man upon whom such acts of folly made no impression. When he
approached a group in the middle of the street he urged his horse upon
it without a word of warning; and the members of the group, whether
rebels or not, as if they knew with what sort of a man they had to
deal, at once gave place to the patrol. The cardinal envied that
composure, which he attributed to the habit of meeting danger; but none
the less he conceived for the officer under whose orders he had for the
moment placed himself, that consideration which even prudence pays to
careless courage. On approaching an outpost near the Barrière des
Sergens, the sentinel cried out, “Who’s there?” and D’Artagnan
answered—having first asked the word of the cardinal—“Louis and
Rocroy.” After which he inquired if Lieutenant Comminges were not the
commanding officer at the outpost. The soldier replied by pointing out
to him an officer who was conversing, on foot, his hand upon the neck
of a horse on which the individual to whom he was talking sat. Here was
the officer D’Artagnan was seeking.
“Here is Monsieur Comminges,” said D’Artagnan, returning to the
cardinal. He instantly retired, from a feeling of respectful delicacy;
it was, however, evident that the cardinal was recognized by both
Comminges and the other officers on horseback.
“Well done, Guitant,” cried the cardinal to the equestrian; “I see
plainly that, notwithstanding the sixty-four years that have passed
over your head, you are still the same man, active and zealous. What
were you saying to this youngster?”
“My lord,” replied Guitant, “I was observing that we live in troublous
times and that to-day’s events are very like those in the days of the
Ligue, of which I heard so much in my youth. Are you aware that the mob
have even suggested throwing up barricades in the Rue Saint Denis and
the Rue Saint Antoine?”
“And what was Comminges saying to you in reply, my good Guitant?”
“My lord,” said Comminges, “I answered that to compose a Ligue only one
ingredient was wanting—in my opinion an essential one—a Duc de Guise;
moreover, no generation ever does the same thing twice.”
“No, but they mean to make a Fronde, as they call it,” said Guitant.
“And what is a Fronde?” inquired Mazarin.
“My lord, Fronde is the name the discontented give to their party.”
“And what is the origin of this name?”
“It seems that some days since Councillor Bachaumont remarked at the
palace that rebels and agitators reminded him of schoolboys
slinging—_qui frondent_—stones from the moats round Paris, young
urchins who run off the moment the constable appears, only to return to
their diversion the instant his back is turned. So they have picked up
the word and the insurrectionists are called ‘Frondeurs,’ and yesterday
every article sold was ‘à la Fronde;’ bread ‘à la Fronde,’ hats ‘à la
Fronde,’ to say nothing of gloves, pocket-handkerchiefs, and fans; but
listen——”
At that moment a window opened and a man began to sing:
“A tempest from the Fronde
Did blow to-day:
I think ’twill blow
Sieur Mazarin away.”
“Insolent wretch!” cried Guitant.
“My lord,” said Comminges, who, irritated by his wounds, wished for
revenge and longed to give back blow for blow, “shall I fire off a ball
to punish that jester, and to warn him not to sing so much out of tune
in the future?”
And as he spoke he put his hand on the holster of his uncle’s
saddle-bow.
“Certainly not! certainly not,” exclaimed Mazarin. “_Diavolo!_ my dear
friend, you are going to spoil everything—everything is going on
famously. I know the French as well as if I had made them myself. They
sing—let them pay the piper. During the Ligue, about which Guitant was
speaking just now, the people chanted nothing except the mass, so
everything went to destruction. Come, Guitant, come along, and let’s
see if they keep watch at the Quinze-Vingts as at the Barrière des
Sergens.”
And waving his hand to Comminges he rejoined D’Artagnan, who instantly
put himself at the head of his troop, followed by the cardinal, Guitant
and the rest of the escort.
“Just so,” muttered Comminges, looking after Mazarin. “True, I forgot;
provided he can get money out of the people, that is all he wants.”
The street of Saint Honoré, when the cardinal and his party passed
through it, was crowded by an assemblage who, standing in groups,
discussed the edicts of that memorable day. They pitied the young king,
who was unconsciously ruining his country, and threw all the odium of
his proceedings on Mazarin. Addresses to the Duke of Orléans and to
Condé were suggested. Blancmesnil and Broussel seemed in the highest
favor.
D’Artagnan passed through the very midst of this discontented mob just
as if his horse and he had been made of iron. Mazarin and Guitant
conversed together in whispers. The musketeers, who had already
discovered who Mazarin was, followed in profound silence. In the street
of Saint Thomas-du-Louvre they stopped at the barrier distinguished by
the name of Quinze-Vingts. Here Guitant spoke to one of the subalterns,
asking how matters were progressing.
“Ah, captain!” said the officer, “everything is quiet hereabout—if I
did not know that something is going on in yonder house!”
And he pointed to a magnificent hotel situated on the very spot whereon
the Vaudeville now stands.
“In that hotel? it is the Hotel Rambouillet,” cried Guitant.
“I really don’t know what hotel it is; all I do know is that I observed
some suspicious looking people go in there——”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Guitant, with a burst of laughter; “those men
must be poets.”
“Come, Guitant, speak, if you please, respectfully of these gentlemen,”
said Mazarin; “don’t you know that I was in my youth a poet? I wrote
verses in the style of Benserade——”
“_You_, my lord?”
“Yes, I; shall I repeat to you some of my verses?”
“Just as you please, my lord. I do not understand Italian.”
“Yes, but you understand French,” and Mazarin laid his hand upon
Guitant’s shoulder. “My good, my brave Guitant, whatsoever command I
may give you in that language—in French—whatever I may order you to do,
will you not perform it?”
“Certainly. I have already answered that question in the affirmative;
but that command must come from the queen herself.”
“Yes! ah yes!” Mazarin bit his lips as he spoke; “I know your devotion
to her majesty.”
“I have been a captain in the queen’s guards for twenty years,” was the
reply.
“_En route_, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the cardinal; “all goes well in
this direction.”
D’Artagnan, in the meantime, had taken the head of his detachment
without a word and with that ready and profound obedience which marks
the character of an old soldier.
He led the way toward the hill of Saint Roche. The Rue Richelieu and
the Rue Villedot were then, owing to their vicinity to the ramparts,
less frequented than any others in that direction, for the town was
thinly inhabited thereabout.
“Who is in command here?” asked the cardinal.
“Villequier,” said Guitant.
“_Diavolo!_ Speak to him yourself, for ever since you were deputed by
me to arrest the Duc de Beaufort, this officer and I have been on bad
terms. He laid claim to that honor as captain of the royal guards.”
“I am aware of that, and I have told him a hundred times that he was
wrong. The king could not give that order, since at that time he was
hardly four years old.”
“Yes, but I could give him the order—I, Guitant—and I preferred to give
it to you.”
Guitant, without reply, rode forward and desired the sentinel to call
Monsieur de Villequier.
“Ah! so you are here!” cried the officer, in the tone of ill-humor
habitual to him; “what the devil are you doing here?”
“I wish to know—can you tell me, pray—is anything fresh occurring in
this part of the town?”
“What do you mean? People cry out, ‘Long live the king! down with
Mazarin!’ That’s nothing new; no, we’ve been used to those acclamations
for some time.”
“And you sing chorus,” replied Guitant, laughing.
“Faith, I’ve half a mind to do it. In my opinion the people are right;
and cheerfully would I give up five years of my pay—which I am never
paid, by the way—to make the king five years older.”
“Really! And pray what would come to pass, supposing the king were five
years older than he is?”
“As soon as ever the king comes of age he will issue his commands
himself, and ’tis far pleasanter to obey the grandson of Henry IV. than
the son of Peter Mazarin. ’Sdeath! I would die willingly for the king,
but supposing I happened to be killed on account of Mazarin, as your
nephew came near being to-day, there could be nothing in Paradise,
however well placed I might be there, that could console me for it.”
“Well, well, Monsieur de Villequier,” Mazarin interposed, “I shall make
it my care the king hears of your loyalty. Come, gentlemen,” addressing
the troop, “let us return.”
“Stop,” exclaimed Villequier, “so Mazarin was here! so much the better.
I have been waiting for a long time to tell him what I think of him. I
am obliged to you Guitant, although your intention was perhaps not very
favorable to me, for such an opportunity.”
He turned away and went off to his post, whistling a tune then popular
among the party called the “Fronde,” whilst Mazarin returned, in a
pensive mood, toward the Palais Royal. All that he had heard from these
three different men, Comminges, Guitant and Villequier, confirmed him
in his conviction that in case of serious tumults there would be no one
on his side except the queen; and then Anne of Austria had so often
deserted her friends that her support seemed most precarious. During
the whole of this nocturnal ride, during the whole time that he was
endeavoring to understand the various characters of Comminges, Guitant