Twenty years after
less patient than the others, took it into his head to cry out,
‘Guard!’ and drew upon us a patrol of archers. Duc d’Harcourt,
Fontrailles, and the others escaped; De Rieux was inclined to do
likewise, but I told him they wouldn’t look for us where we were. He
wouldn’t listen, put his foot on the spur to get down, the spur broke,
he fell with a broken leg, and, instead of keeping quiet, took to
crying out like a gallows-bird. I then was ready to dismount, but it
was too late; I descended into the arms of the archers. They conducted
me to the Châtelet, where I slept soundly, being very sure that on the
next day I should go forth free. The next day came and passed, the day
after, a week; I then wrote to the cardinal. The same day they came for
me and took me to the Bastile. That was five years ago. Do you believe
it was because I committed the sacrilege of mounting _en croupe_ behind
Henry IV.?”
“No; you are right, my dear Rochefort, it couldn’t be for that; but you
will probably learn the reason soon.”
“Ah, indeed! I forgot to ask you—where are you taking me?”
“To the cardinal.”
“What does he want with me?”
“I do not know. I did not even know that you were the person I was sent
to fetch.”
“Impossible—you—a favorite of the minister!”
“A favorite! no, indeed!” cried D’Artagnan. “Ah, my poor friend! I am
just as poor a Gascon as when I saw you at Meung, twenty-two years ago,
you know; alas!” and he concluded his speech with a deep sigh.
“Nevertheless, you come as one in authority.”
“Because I happened to be in the ante-chamber when the cardinal called
me, by the merest chance. I am still a lieutenant in the musketeers and
have been so these twenty years.”
“Then no misfortune has happened to you?”
“And what misfortune could happen to me? To quote some Latin verses I
have forgotten, or rather, never knew well, ‘the thunderbolt never
falls on the valleys,’ and I am a valley, dear Rochefort,—one of the
lowliest of the low.”
“Then Mazarin is still Mazarin?”
“The same as ever, my friend; it is said that he is married to the
queen.”
“Married?”
“If not her husband, he is unquestionably her lover.”
“You surprise me. Rebuff Buckingham and consent to Mazarin!”
“Just like the women,” replied D’Artagnan, coolly.
“Like women, not like queens.”
“Egad! queens are the weakest of their sex, when it comes to such
things as these.”
“And M. de Beaufort—is he still in prison?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Oh, nothing, but that he might get me out of this, if he were
favorably inclined to me.”
“You are probably nearer freedom than he is, so it will be your
business to get him out.”
“And,” said the prisoner, “what talk is there of war with Spain?”
“With Spain, no,” answered D’Artagnan; “but Paris.”
“What do you mean?” cried Rochefort.
“Do you hear the guns, pray? The citizens are amusing themselves in the
meantime.”
“And you—do you really think that anything could be done with these
_bourgeois?_”
“Yes, they might do well if they had any leader to unite them in one
body.”
“How miserable not to be free!”
“Don’t be downcast. Since Mazarin has sent for you, it is because he
wants you. I congratulate you! Many a long year has passed since any
one has wanted to employ _me;_ so you see in what a situation _I_ am.”
“Make your complaints known; that’s my advice.”
“Listen, Rochefort; let us make a compact. We are friends, are we not?”
“Egad! I bear the traces of our friendship—three slits or slashes from
your sword.”
“Well, if you should be restored to favor, don’t forget me.”
“On the honor of a Rochefort; but you must do the like for me.”
“There’s my hand,—I promise.”
“Therefore, whenever you find any opportunity of saying something in my
behalf——”
“I shall say it, and you?”
“I shall do the same.”
“Apropos, are we to speak of your friends also, Athos, Porthos, and
Aramis? or have you forgotten them?”
“Almost.”
“What has become of them?”
“I don’t know; we separated, as you know. They are alive, that’s all
that I can say about them; from time to time I hear of them indirectly,
but in what part of the world they are, devil take me if I know, No, on
my honor, I have not a friend in the world but you, Rochefort.”
“And the illustrious—what’s the name of the lad whom I made a sergeant
in Piedmont’s regiment?”
“Planchet!”
“The illustrious Planchet. What has become of him?”
“I shouldn’t wonder if he were at the head of the mob at this very
moment. He married a woman who keeps a confectioner’s shop in the Rue
des Lombards, for he’s a lad who was always fond of sweetmeats; he’s
now a citizen of Paris. You’ll see that that queer fellow will be a
sheriff before I shall be a captain.”
“Come, dear D’Artagnan, look up a little! Courage! It is when one is
lowest on the wheel of fortune that the merry-go-round wheels and
rewards us. This evening your destiny begins to change.”
“Amen!” exclaimed D’Artagnan, stopping the carriage.
“What are you doing?” asked Rochefort.
“We are almost there and I want no one to see me getting out of your
carriage; we are supposed not to know each other.”
“You are right. Adieu.”
“_Au revoir_. Remember your promise.”
In five minutes the party entered the courtyard and D’Artagnan led the
prisoner up the great staircase and across the corridor and
ante-chamber.
As they stopped at the door of the cardinal’s study, D’Artagnan was
about to be announced when Rochefort slapped him on his shoulder.
“D’Artagnan, let me confess to you what I’ve been thinking about during
the whole of my drive, as I looked out upon the parties of citizens who
perpetually crossed our path and looked at you and your four men with
fiery eyes.”
“Speak out,” answered D’Artagnan.
“I had only to cry out ‘Help!’ for you and for your companions to be
cut to pieces, and _then_ I should have been free.”
“Why didn’t you do it?” asked the lieutenant.
“Come, come!” cried Rochefort. “Did we not swear friendship? Ah! had
any one but you been there, I don’t say——”
D’Artagnan bowed. “Is it possible that Rochefort has become a better
man than I am?” he said to himself. And he caused himself to be
announced to the minister.
“Let M. de Rochefort enter,” said Mazarin, eagerly, on hearing their
names pronounced; “and beg M. d’Artagnan to wait; I shall have further
need of him.”
These words gave great joy to D’Artagnan. As he had said, it had been a
long time since any one had needed him; and that demand for his
services on the part of Mazarin seemed to him an auspicious sign.
Rochefort, rendered suspicious and cautious by these words, entered the
apartment, where he found Mazarin sitting at the table, dressed in his
ordinary garb and as one of the prelates of the Church, his costume
being similar to that of the abbés in that day, excepting that his
scarf and stockings were violet.
As the door was closed Rochefort cast a glance toward Mazarin, which
was answered by one, equally furtive, from the minister.
There was little change in the cardinal; still dressed with sedulous
care, his hair well arranged and curled, his person perfumed, he
looked, owing to his extreme taste in dress, only half his age. But
Rochefort, who had passed five years in prison, had become old in the
lapse of a few years; the dark locks of this estimable friend of the
defunct Cardinal Richelieu were now white; the deep bronze of his
complexion had been succeeded by a mortal pallor which betokened
debility. As he gazed at him Mazarin shook his head slightly, as much
as to say, “This is a man who does not appear to me fit for much.”
After a pause, which appeared an age to Rochefort, Mazarin took from a
bundle of papers a letter, and showing it to the count, he said:
“I find here a letter in which you sue for liberty, Monsieur de
Rochefort. You are in prison, then?”
Rochefort trembled in every limb at this question. “But I thought,” he
said, “that your eminence knew that circumstance better than any one——”
“I? Oh no! There is a congestion of prisoners in the Bastile, who were
cooped up in the time of Monsieur de Richelieu; I don’t even know their
names.”
“Yes, but in regard to myself, my lord, it cannot be so, for I was
removed from the Châtelet to the Bastile owing to an order from your
eminence.”
“You _think_ you were.”
“I am certain of it.”
“Ah, stay! I fancy I remember it. Did you not once refuse to undertake
a journey to Brussels for the queen?”
“Ah! ah!” exclaimed Rochefort. “There is the true reason! Idiot that I
am, though I have been trying to find it out for five years, I never
found it out.”
“But I do not _say_ it was the cause of your imprisonment. I merely ask
you, did you not refuse to go to Brussels for the queen, whilst you had
consented to go there to do some service for the late cardinal?”
“That is the very reason I refused to go back to Brussels. I was there
at a fearful moment. I was sent there to intercept a correspondence
between Chalais and the archduke, and even then, when I was discovered
I was nearly torn to pieces. How could I, then, return to Brussels? I
should injure the queen instead of serving her.”
“Well, since the best motives are liable to misconstruction, the queen
saw in your refusal nothing but a refusal—a distinct refusal she had
also much to complain of you during the lifetime of the late cardinal;
yes, her majesty the queen——”
Rochefort smiled contemptuously.
“Since I was a faithful servant, my lord, to Cardinal Richelieu during
his life, it stands to reason that now, after his death, I should serve
you well, in defiance of the whole world.”
“With regard to myself, Monsieur de Rochefort,” replied Mazarin, “I am
not, like Monsieur de Richelieu, all-powerful. I am but a minister, who
wants no servants, being myself nothing but a servant of the queen’s.
Now, the queen is of a sensitive nature. Hearing of your refusal to
obey her she looked upon it as a declaration of war, and as she
considers you a man of superior talent, and consequently dangerous, she
desired me to make sure of you; that is the reason of your being shut
up in the Bastile. But your release can be managed. You are one of
those men who can comprehend certain matters and having understood
them, can act with energy——”
“Such was Cardinal Richelieu’s opinion, my lord.”
“The cardinal,” interrupted Mazarin, “was a great politician and
therein shone his vast superiority over me. I am a straightforward,
simple man; that’s my great disadvantage. I am of a frankness of
character quite French.”
Rochefort bit his lips in order to prevent a smile.
“Now to the point. I want friends; I want faithful servants. When I say
I want, I mean the queen wants them. I do nothing without her
commands—pray understand that; not like Monsieur de Richelieu, who went
on just as he pleased. So I shall never be a great man, as he was, but
to compensate for that, I shall be a good man, Monsieur de Rochefort,
and I hope to prove it to you.”
Rochefort knew well the tones of that soft voice, in which sounded
sometimes a sort of gentle lisp, like the hissing of young vipers.
“I am disposed to believe your eminence,” he replied; “though I have
had but little evidence of that good-nature of which your eminence
speaks. Do not forget that I have been five years in the Bastile and
that no medium of viewing things is so deceptive as the grating of a
prison.”
“Ah, Monsieur de Rochefort! have I not told you already that I had
nothing to do with that? The queen—cannot you make allowances for the
pettishness of a queen and a princess? But that has passed away as
suddenly as it came, and is forgotten.”
“I can easily suppose, sir, that her majesty has forgotten it amid the
_fêtes_ and the courtiers of the Palais Royal, but I who have passed