Twenty years after
and Villequier, Mazarin was, in truth, studying more especially one
man. This man, who had remained immovable as bronze when menaced by the
mob—not a muscle of whose face was stirred, either at Mazarin’s
witticisms or by the jests of the multitude—seemed to the cardinal a
peculiar being, who, having participated in past events similar to
those now occurring, was calculated to cope with those now on the eve
of taking place.
The name of D’Artagnan was not altogether new to Mazarin, who, although
he did not arrive in France before the year 1634 or 1635, that is to
say, about eight or nine years after the events which we have related
in a preceding narrative, * fancied he had heard it pronounced as that
of one who was said to be a model of courage, address and loyalty.
* “The Three Musketeers.”
Possessed by this idea, the cardinal resolved to know all about
D’Artagnan immediately; of course he could not inquire from D’Artagnan
himself who he was and what had been his career; he remarked, however,
in the course of conversation that the lieutenant of musketeers spoke
with a Gascon accent. Now the Italians and the Gascons are too much
alike and know each other too well ever to trust what any one of them
may say of himself; so in reaching the walls which surrounded the
Palais Royal, the cardinal knocked at a little door, and after thanking
D’Artagnan and requesting him to wait in the court of the Palais Royal,
he made a sign to Guitant to follow him.
They both dismounted, consigned their horses to the lackey who had
opened the door, and disappeared in the garden.
“My dear friend,” said the cardinal, leaning, as they walked through
the garden, on his friend’s arm, “you told me just now that you had
been twenty years in the queen’s service.”
“Yes, it’s true. I have,” returned Guitant.
“Now, my dear Guitant, I have often remarked that in addition to your
courage, which is indisputable, and your fidelity, which is invincible,
you possess an admirable memory.”
“You have found that out, have you, my lord? Deuce take it—all the
worse for me!”
“How?”
“There is no doubt but that one of the chief accomplishments of a
courtier is to know when to forget.”
“But you, Guitant, are not a courtier. You are a brave soldier, one of
the few remaining veterans of the days of Henry IV. Alas! how few
to-day exist!”
“Plague on’t, my lord, have you brought me here to get my horoscope out
of me?”
“No; I only brought you here to ask you,” returned Mazarin, smiling,
“if you have taken any particular notice of our lieutenant of
musketeers?”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan? I have had no occasion to notice him
particularly; he’s an old acquaintance. He’s a Gascon. De Tréville
knows him and esteems him very highly, and De Tréville, as you know, is
one of the queen’s greatest friends. As a soldier the man ranks well;
he did his whole duty and even more, at the siege of Rochelle—as at
Suze and Perpignan.”
“But you know, Guitant, we poor ministers often want men with other
qualities besides courage; we want men of talent. Pray, was not
Monsieur d’Artagnan, in the time of the cardinal, mixed up in some
intrigue from which he came out, according to report, quite cleverly?”
“My lord, as to the report you allude to”—Guitant perceived that the
cardinal wished to make him speak out—“I know nothing but what the
public knows. I never meddle in intrigues, and if I occasionally become
a confidant of the intrigues of others I am sure your eminence will
approve of my keeping them secret.”
Mazarin shook his head.
“Ah!” he said; “some ministers are fortunate and find out all that they
wish to know.”
“My lord,” replied Guitant, “such ministers do not weigh men in the
same balance; they get their information on war from warriors; on
intrigues, from intriguers. Consult some politician of the period of
which you speak, and if you pay well for it you will certainly get to
know all you want.”
“Eh, _pardieu!_” said Mazarin, with a grimace which he always made when
spoken to about money. “They will be paid, if there is no way of
getting out of it.”
“Does my lord seriously wish me to name any one who was mixed up in the
cabals of that day?”
“By Bacchus!” rejoined Mazarin, impatiently, “it’s about an hour since
I asked you for that very thing, wooden-head that you are.”
“There is one man for whom I can answer, if he will speak out.”
“That’s my concern; I will make him speak.”
“Ah, my lord, ’tis not easy to make people say what they don’t wish to
let out.”
“Pooh! with patience one must succeed. Well, this man. Who is he?”
“The Comte de Rochefort.”
“The Comte de Rochefort!”
“Unfortunately he has disappeared these four or five years and I don’t
know where he is.”
“_I_ know, Guitant,” said Mazarin.
“Well, then, how is it that your eminence complained just now of want
of information?”
“You think,” resumed Mazarin, “that Rochefort——”
“He was Cardinal Richelieu’s creature, my lord. I warn you, however,
his services will cost you something. The cardinal was lavish to his
underlings.”
“Yes, yes, Guitant,” said Mazarin; “Richelieu was a great man, a very
great man, but he had that defect. Thanks, Guitant; I shall benefit by
your advice this very evening.”
Here they separated and bidding adieu to Guitant in the court of the
Palais Royal, Mazarin approached an officer who was walking up and down
within that inclosure.
It was D’Artagnan, who was waiting for him.
“Come hither,” said Mazarin in his softest voice; “I have an order to
give you.”
D’Artagnan bent low and following the cardinal up the secret staircase,
soon found himself in the study whence they had first set out.
The cardinal seated himself before his bureau and taking a sheet of
paper wrote some lines upon it, whilst D’Artagnan stood imperturbable,
without showing either impatience or curiosity. He was like a soldierly
automaton, or rather, like a magnificent marionette.
The cardinal folded and sealed his letter.
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” he said, “you are to take this dispatch to the
Bastile and bring back here the person it concerns. You must take a
carriage and an escort, and guard the prisoner with the greatest care.”
D’Artagnan took the letter, touched his hat with his hand, turned round
upon his heel like a drill-sergeant, and a moment afterward was heard,
in his dry and monotonous tone, commanding “Four men and an escort, a
carriage and a horse.” Five minutes afterward the wheels of the
carriage and the horses’ shoes were heard resounding on the pavement of
the courtyard.
Chapter III.
Dead Animosities.
D’Artagnan arrived at the Bastile just as it was striking half-past
eight. His visit was announced to the governor, who, on hearing that he
came from the cardinal, went to meet him and received him at the top of
the great flight of steps outside the door. The governor of the Bastile
was Monsieur du Tremblay, the brother of the famous Capuchin, Joseph,
that fearful favorite of Richelieu’s, who went by the name of the Gray
Cardinal.
During the period that the Duc de Bassompierre passed in the
Bastile—where he remained for twelve long years—when his companions, in
their dreams of liberty, said to each other: “As for me, I shall go out
of the prison at such a time,” and another, at such and such a time,
the duke used to answer, “As for me, gentlemen, I shall leave only when
Monsieur du Tremblay leaves;” meaning that at the death of the cardinal
Du Tremblay would certainly lose his place at the Bastile and De
Bassompierre regain his at court.
His prediction was nearly fulfilled, but in a very different way from
that which De Bassompierre supposed; for after the death of Richelieu
everything went on, contrary to expectation, in the same way as before;
and Bassompierre had little chance of leaving his prison.
Monsieur du Tremblay received D’Artagnan with extreme politeness and
invited him to sit down with him to supper, of which he was himself
about to partake.
“I should be delighted to do so,” was the reply; “but if I am not
mistaken, the words ‘In haste,’ are written on the envelope of the
letter which I brought.”
“You are right,” said Du Tremblay. “Halloo, major! tell them to order
Number 25 to come downstairs.”
The unhappy wretch who entered the Bastile ceased, as he crossed the
threshold, to be a man—he became a number.
D’Artagnan shuddered at the noise of the keys; he remained on
horseback, feeling no inclination to dismount, and sat looking at the
bars, at the buttressed windows and the immense walls he had hitherto
only seen from the other side of the moat, but by which he had for
twenty years been awe-struck.
A bell resounded.
“I must leave you,” said Du Tremblay; “I am sent for to sign the
release of a prisoner. I shall be happy to meet you again, sir.”
“May the devil annihilate me if I return thy wish!” murmured
D’Artagnan, smiling as he pronounced the imprecation; “I declare I feel
quite ill after only being five minutes in the courtyard. Go to! go to!
I would rather die on straw than hoard up a thousand a year by being
governor of the Bastile.”
He had scarcely finished this soliloquy before the prisoner arrived. On
seeing him D’Artagnan could hardly suppress an exclamation of surprise.
The prisoner got into the carriage without seeming to recognize the
musketeer.
“Gentlemen,” thus D’Artagnan addressed the four musketeers, “I am
ordered to exercise the greatest possible care in guarding the
prisoner, and since there are no locks to the carriage, I shall sit
beside him. Monsieur de Lillebonne, lead my horse by the bridle, if you
please.” As he spoke he dismounted, gave the bridle of his horse to the
musketeer and placing himself by the side of the prisoner said, in a
voice perfectly composed, “To the Palais Royal, at full trot.”
The carriage drove on and D’Artagnan, availing himself of the darkness
in the archway under which they were passing, threw himself into the
arms of the prisoner.
“Rochefort!” he exclaimed; “you! is it you, indeed? I am not mistaken?”
“D’Artagnan!” cried Rochefort.
“Ah! my poor friend!” resumed D’Artagnan, “not having seen you for four
or five years I concluded you were dead.”
“I’faith,” said Rochefort, “there’s no great difference, I think,
between a dead man and one who has been buried alive; now I have been
buried alive, or very nearly so.”
“And for what crime are you imprisoned in the Bastile.”
“Do you wish me to speak the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, _I don’t know_.”
“Have you any suspicion of me, Rochefort?”
“No! on the honor of a gentleman; but I cannot be imprisoned for the
reason alleged; it is impossible.”
“What reason?” asked D’Artagnan.
“For stealing.”
“For stealing! you, Rochefort! you are laughing at me.”
“I understand. You mean that this demands explanation, do you not?”
“I admit it.”
“Well, this is what actually took place: One evening after an orgy in
Reinard’s apartment at the Tuileries with the Duc d’Harcourt,
Fontrailles, De Rieux and others, the Duc d’Harcourt proposed that we
should go and pull cloaks on the Pont Neuf; that is, you know, a
diversion which the Duc d’Orléans made quite the fashion.”
“Were you crazy, Rochefort? at your age!”
“No, I was drunk. And yet, since the amusement seemed to me rather
tame, I proposed to Chevalier de Rieux that we should be spectators
instead of actors, and, in order to see to advantage, that we should
mount the bronze horse. No sooner said than done. Thanks to the spurs,
which served as stirrups, in a moment we were perched upon the
_croupe;_ we were well placed and saw everything. Four or five cloaks
had already been lifted, with a dexterity without parallel, and not one
of the victims had dared to say a word, when some fool of a fellow,