The Vicomte de Bragelonne : being the continuation of "Three guardsmen," and "Twenty years after"

Chapter. I... The Letter

TowarpD the middle of the month of May, in the year 1660, at nine o’clock in the morning, when the sun, already high in the heavens, was tast absorbing the dew from the ravenelles of the castle of Blois, a little cavalcade, com- — posed of three men and two pages, re-entered the city by the bridge, without producing any other effect upon the passengers of the quay beyond a first movement of the hand to the head, as a salute, and a second movement of the tongue to express, in the purest French then spoken in France: ‘‘There is Monsieur returning from hunting.” And that was all. :

While, however, the horses were climbing the steep acclivity which leads from the river to the castle, several shop-boys approached the last horse, from whose saddle-bow a number of birds were suspended by the beak.

At seeing this, the inquisitive youths manifested with rustic freedom their contempt for such paltry sport, and, after a dissertation among themselves upon the disadvantages of hawking, they returned to their occupations. One only of the curious party, a stout, chubby, cheerful lad, having demanded how it was that Monsieur, who, from his great revenues, had it in his power tu amuse himself so much better, could be satisfied with such mean diversions.

“Do you not know,” one of the standers-by replied, ‘that Monsieur’s principal amusement is to weary himself?”

The light-hearted boy shrugged his shoulders with a gesture which said as clearas day: “‘In that case I would rather be plain Jack than a prince.” And all resumed their labors.

In the meantime, Monsieur continued his route with an haere THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE.

air at once so melancholy and so majestic, that he certainly would have attracted the attention of spectators, if spectators there had been; but the good citizens of Blois could not pardon Monsieur for having chosen their gay city for an abode in which to indulge melancholy at his ease, and as often as they caught a glimpse of the illustrious ennuyé, they stole away gaping, or drew back their heads into the interior of their dwellings, to escape the soporific influence of that long, pale face, of those watery eyes, and that langnid address; so that the worthy prince was almost certain to find the streets deserted whenever he chanced to pass through them.

*‘Now, on the part of the citizens of Blois this was a culpable piece of disrespect, for Monsieur was, after the king—nay, even, perhaps, before the king—the greatest noble of the kingdom. In fact, God, who had granted to Louis XIV., then reigning, the honor of being son of Louis XIII., had granted to Monsieur the honor of being son of Henry IV. It was not then, or, at least, it ought not to have been, a trifling source of pride for the city of Blois, that Gaston of Orleans had chosen it as his residence, and held his court in the ancient castle of its states.

But it was the destiny of this great prince to excite the attention and admiration of the public in a very modified degree wherever he might be. Monsieur had fallen into this situation by habit.

It was not, perhaps, this which gave him that air of listlessness. Monsieur had been tolerably busy in the course of his life. A man cannot allow the heads of a dozen of his best friends to be cut off without feeling a little excitement;.and as since the accession of Mazarin to power no heads had been cut off, Monsieur’s occupation was gone, and his morale suffered from it.

The life of the poor prince was then very dull. After his little morning hawking-party on the banks of the Beuvion, or in the woods of Chiverny, Monsieur crossed the Loire, went to breakfast at Chambord, with or without an appetite, and the city of Blois heard no more of its sovereign lord and master till the next hawking-day.

So much for the ennui extra muros; of the ennui of the interior we will give the reader an idea if he will with us follow the cavalcade to the majestic porch of the Castle of the States.

Monsieur rode a little steady-paced horse, equipped with alarge saddle of red Flemish velvet, with stirrups in the

| alae ie aaa — _ THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE. | 3 shape of buskins; the horse was of a bay color; Monsieur’s pourpoint of crimson velvet corresponded with the cloak of the same shade and the horse’s equipment, and it was only by this red appearance of the whole that the prince could be known from his two companions, the one dressed in violet the other in green. He on the left, in violet, was his equerry; he on the right, in green, was the grand veneur.

One of the pages carried two gerfalcons upon a perch,e the other a hunting-horn, which he blew with a careless note at twenty paces from the castle. Every one about this listless prince did what he had to do listlessly.

At this signal eight guards, who were lounging in the sun. in the square court, ran to their halberts, and Monsieur

_ made his solemn entry into the castle.

When he had disappeared under the shades of the porch, three or four idlers, who had followed the cavalcade to the castle, after pointing out the suspended birds to one another, dispersed with comments upon what they saw; and when they were gone, the street, the place, and the court, all remained deserted alike.

Monsieur dismounted without speaking a word, went straight to his apartments, where his valet changed his dress, and as madame had not yet sent orders respecting breakfast, Monsieur stretched himself upon a chaise-longue, and was soon as fast asleep as if it had been eleven o’clock at night.

The eight guards, who concluded their service for the day was over, laid themselves down very comfortably in the sun upon some stone benches; the grooms disappeared with their horses into the stables, and, with the exception of a few joyous birds, startling one another with their sharp chirping in the tufts of gillyflowers, it might have been thought that the whole castle was as soundly asleep as Monsieur was.

All at once, in the midst of this delicious silence, there resounded a clear, ringing laugh, which caused several of the halberdiers in the enjoyment of their szesta to open at least one eye. ;

This burst of laughter. proceeded from a window of the castle, visited at this moment by the sun, which united it in one of those large angles which the profiles of the chimneys marked out upon the walls before midday.

The little balcony of wrought iron which advanced in front of this window was furnished with a pot of red gillyflowers, another pot of primroses, and an early rose-tree, oil © yp ee >> a . Pe? we , ad ety eS ae oe eee eee

4 ¥ THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE. re the foliage of which, beautifully green, was variegated with numerous red specks announcing future roses. :

In the chamber, lighted by this window, was a square

table, covered with an old, large-flowered Harlem tapestry; in the center of this table was a long-necked stone bottle, in which were irises and lilies of the valley; at each end of this table was a young girl. . Lhe position of these two young people was singular; they might have been taken for two boarders escaped from aconvent.. One of them, with both elbows on the table, and a pen in her hand, was tracing characters upon a sheet of fine Dutch paper; the other, kneeling upon a chair, which allowed her to advance her head and bust over the back of it to the middle of the table, was watching her com- -panion as she wrote, or rather hesitated to write.

Thence the thousand cries, the thousand railleries, the thousand laughs, one of which, more brilliant than the rest, had startled the birds of the ravenelles, and disturbed the slumbers of Monsieur’s guards.

_. We are taking portraits now; we shall be allowed, therefore, we hope, to sketch the two last of this chapter.

The one who was leaning in the chair—that is to say, the joyous, the laughing one—was a beautiful girl of from eighteen to twenty, with brown complexion and brown hair, ‘splendid, from eyes which sparkled beneath strongly marked brows, and particularly from her teeth, which seemed to shine like pearls between her red coral lips. Her every movement seemed the result of a springing mine; she did not live—she bounded.

The other, she who was writing, looked at her turbulent companion with an eye as limpid, as pure, and as blue as

» the heaven of that day. Her hair, of a shaded fairness, arranged with exquisite taste, fell in silky curls over her lovely mantling cheeks; she passed across the-paper a delicate hand, whose thinness announced her extreme youth. At each burst of laughter that proceeded from her friend, she raised, as if annoyed, her white shoulders in a poetical and mild manner, but they were wanting in that rich fuilness of mold which was likewise to be wished in her arms and hands.

‘“Montalais! Montalais!’’ said she at length, in a voice soft and caressing as a melody, ‘“‘you laugh too loud—vou laugh like a man, You will not only draw the attention of messieurs the guards, but you will not hear madame’s bell when madame rings.”’

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This admonition neither made the young girl called Mon- _ talais cease to laugh nor gesticulate. She only replied: “Louise, you do not speak as you think, my dear; you know that messieurs the guards, as you call them, have only just commenced their sleep, and that a cannon would not waken them; you know that madame’s bell can be heard at the bridge of Blois, and that consequently I shall hear it when my services are required by madame. What annoys you, my child, is that I laugh while you are writing; and what you are afraid of is that Madame de St. Remy, your mother, should come up here, as she does sometimes when we laugh too loud, that she should surprise us, and that she should see that enormous sheet of paper upon which, na quarter of an hour, you have only traced the words Monsieur Raoul. Now, you are right, my dear Louise, because. after these words, ‘Monsieur Raoul,’ others may be put so significant and so incendiary as to cause Madame de St. Remy to burst out into fire and flames! Hein! is not that true now?—say.”’

And Montalais redoubled her laughter and noisy provocations.

The fair girl at length became quite angry; she tore the sheet of paper on which, in fact, the words ‘‘Monsieur Raoul”’ were written in good characters; and, crushing the paper in her trembling hands, she threw it out of the window.

‘There! there!’’? said Mlle. de Montalais; ‘‘there is our little lamb, our gentle dove angry! Don’t be afraid, Louise —Madame de St. Remy will not come; and if she should, you know I havea quick ear. Besides, what can be more permissible than to write to an old friend of twelve years’ standing, particularly when the letter begins with the words ‘Monsieur Raoul?’ ”’

“Tt is all very well—I will not write to him at all,” said the young girl.

“‘Ah, ah! in good sooth, Montalais is properly punished,” cried the jeering brunette, still laughing. ‘‘Come, come! let us try another sheet of paper, and finish our dispatch off-hand. Good! there is the bell ringing now. By my faith, so much the worse! Madame must wait, or else do | without her first maid of honor this morning.”

A bell, in fact, did ring; it announced that madame had finished her toilet, and waited for Monsieur to give her his hand, and conduct her from the salon to the refectory.

This formality being accomplished with great ceremony,

Wiss «a «sie mee LUM a eee ee) ee ae ee eee the husband and wife breakfasted, and then separated till the hour of dinner, invariably fixed at two o’clock.

The sound-of this bell caused a door to be opened in the offices on the left hand of the court, from which filed two maitres a hétel, followed by eight scullions bearing a kind of hand-barrow loaded with dishes under silver covers.

One of the maitres d’hétel, the first in rank, touched one of the guards, who was snoring on his bench, slightly with his wand; he even carried his kindness so far as to place the halbert which stood against the wall in the hands of the man, stupid with sleep, after which the soldier, without explanation, escorted the viande of Monsieur to the refectory, preceded by a page and the two maitres d’hétel.

Wherever the viande passed, the soldiers ported arms.

Mile. de Montalais and her companion had watched from their window the details of this ceremony, to which, by the bye, they must have been pretty well accustomed. But they did not look so much from curiosity as to be assured they should not be disturbed. So guards, scullions, mattres @hétel, and pages having passed, they resumed their places at the table; and the sun, which, through the windowframe, had for an instant fallen upon those two charming countenances, now only shed its light upon the gillyflowers, primroses, and rose-tree.

‘Bah!’ said Mlle. de Montalais, taking her place again; ‘‘madame will breakfast very well without me!’’

“Oh, Montalais, you will be punished!’’ replied the other girl, sitting down quietly in hers.

‘Punished, indeed!—that is to say, deprived of a ride! That is just the way in which I wish to be punished. To go out in the grand coach, perched upon a doorstep; to turn to the left, twist round to the right, over roads full of ruts, where we cannot exceed a league in two hours; and then to come back straight toward the wing of the castle in which is the window of Mary de Medici, so that madame never fails to say: ‘Could one believe it possible that Mary de Medici should have escaped from that window—fortyseven feet high? The mother of two princes and three princesses!’ If you call that relaxation, Louise, all I ask is to be punished every day; particularly when my punishment is to remain with you and write such interesting letters as we write!’’

‘‘Montalais! Montalais! there are duties to be performed.”’

“You talk of them very much at your ease, my little heart!—you, who are left quite free amid this tedious

Zia . THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE. ili court. You are the only person that reaps the aphiny t y

_ of them without incurring the trouble—you, who are reall more one of madame’s maids of honor than I am, because madame makes her affection for your father-in-law glance off upon you; so that you enter this dull house as the birds fly into yonder court, inhaling the air, pecking the flowers, picking up the grain, without having the least service to

_ perform, or the least annoyance to undergo. And you talk | to me of duties to be performed! In sooth, my pretty idler, what are your own proper duties, unless to write to handsome Raoul? And even that you don’t do;.so that it looks to me as if you likewise were rather negligent of your duties.”’

Louise assumed a serious air, leaned her chin upon her

‘hand, and, in a tone full of candid remonstrance, ‘‘And do you reproach me with my good fortune?’ said she. ‘Can you have the heart to doit? You have a future; you belong to the court; the king, if he should marry, will require

_ Monsieur to be near his person; you will see splendid fetes;

you will see the king, who they say is so handsome, so agreeable!’’

“Ay, and still more, I shall see Raoul, who attends upon Monsieur le Prince,’’ added Montalais maliciously.

**Poor Raoul!’ sighed Louise.

“‘Now is the time to write to him, my pretty dear! Come, begin again, with that famous ‘Monsieur Raoul’ which figures at the top of the poor torn sheet.”’

She then held the pen toward her, and with a charming smile encouraged her hand, which quickly traced the words she named.

‘‘What next?’’ asked the younger of the two girls.

“Why, now write what you think, Louise,’’ replied Montalais.

“‘Are you quite sure I think of anything?”’

“‘You think of somebody, and that amounts to the same thing, or rather even worse.”’

‘Do you think so, Montalais?’’

‘Louise! Louise! your blue eyes are as deep as the sea I saw at Boulogne last year! No, no, I mistake—the sea is perfidious; your eyes are as deep as the azure yonder—lock —over our heads!’’

“‘Well, since you can read so well in my eyes, tell me what I am thinking about, Montalais.’’

‘‘In the first place, you don’t think, Monsieur Raoul; you think, My dear Raoul.”’

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_ “Never blush for such a trifle as that! ‘My dear Raoul,’ we will say, ‘You implore me to write to you at Paris, where you are detained by your attendance on Monsieur le Prince. As you must be very dull there, to seek for amusement in the remembrance of a provinciale &. 4 {

Louise rose up suddenly. ‘‘No, Montalais,” said she, with a smile; ‘‘I don’t think a word of that. Look, this is what I think;’’ and she seized the pen boldly, and traced, with a firm hand, the following words:

“I should have been very unhappy if your entreaties to obtain a remembrance of me had been less warm. Everything here reminds me of our early days, which so quickly passed away, which so delightfully fiew by, that no others will ever replace the charm of them in my heart.”

Montalais, who watched the flying pen, and read, the wrong way upward, as fast as her friend wrote, here interrupted by clapping her hands. ‘‘Capital!’’ cried she; “there is frankness—there is heart—there is style! Show these Parisians, my dear, that Blois is the city for fine language!”’

‘“‘He knows very well that Blois was a paradise to me,”’ replied the girl.

“That is exactly what you mean to say; and you speak like an angel.”’

“I will finish, Montalais;’’ and she continued as follows: “You often think of me, you say, Monsieur Raoul; I thank you; but that does not surprise me, when I recollect how often our hearts have beaten close to each other.”

“Oh! oh!”’ said Montalais. ‘‘Beware, my lamb! You are scattering your wool, and there are wolves about.’

Louise was about to reply, when the gallop of a horse resounded under the porch of the castle.

“‘What is that?’ said Montalais, approaching the window. “‘A handsome cavalier, by my faith!’

“Oh! Raoul!’ exclaimed Louise, who had made the same movement as her friend, and, becoming pale as death, sunk back beside her unfinished letter.

““Now, he is a clever lover, upon my word!” cried Montalais; “‘he arrives just at the proper moment.’’

“Come in, come in, I implore you!’? murmured Louise.

“Bah! he does not know me. Let me see what he has come here for.”’

Chapter II. The Messenger

MLE. DE MonTALAIS was right; the young cavalier was goodly to look upon.

He was a young man of from twenty-four to twenty-five years of age, tall and slender, wearing gracefully the picturesque military costume of the period. His large boots contained a foot which Mlle. de Montalais might not have disowned if she had been transformed into a man. With one of his delicate but nervous hands he checked his horse in the middle of the court, and with the other raised his hat, whose long plumes shaded his at once serious and ingenuous countenance.

The guards, roused by the steps of the horse, awoke, and were on foot in a minute. The young man waited till one of them was close to his saddle-bow; then, stooping toward him, in a clear, distinct voice, which was perfectly audible at the window where the two girls were concealed, “‘ message for his royal highness,’’ he said.

“‘Ah, ah!’’ cried the soldier. ‘‘Officer, a messenger!”’

But this brave guard knew very well that no officer would appear, seeing that the only one who could have appeared dwelt at the other side of the castle, in an apartment looking intothe gardens. So he hastened to add: ‘“The officer, monsieur, is on his rounds; but, in his absence, Monsieur de St. Remy, the maitre d’hétel, shall be informed.”’ ;

‘Monsieur de St. Remy?’’ repeated the cavalier, slightly blushing.

“Do you know him?”’

‘“Why, yes; but request him, if you please, that my visit be announced to his royal highness as soon as possible.”’

‘It appears to be pressing,”’ said the guard, as if speaking to himself, but really in the hope of obtaining an answer.

The messenger made an affirmative sign with his head.

“In that case,” said the guard, ‘‘I will go and seek the mattre d@’ hotel myself.’’

The young man, in the meantime, dismounted; and while the others were making their remarks upon the fine horse the cavalier rode, the soldier returned.

‘“‘Your pardon, young gentleman; but your name, if you please?”’ :

‘The Vicomte de Bragelonne, on the part of his highness

Monsieur le Prince de Condé.”’

ae fa eh i Ate wae TO re THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE.

The soldier made a profound bow, and, as if _the name of the conqueror of Rocroy and Sens had given him wings, he stepped lightly up the steps leading to the antechamber.

M. de Bragelonne had not had time to fasten his horse to the iron bars of the perron, when M. de St. Remy came running, out of breath, supporting his capacious stomach with one hand, while with the other he cut the air asa fisherman cleaves the waves with his oar.

“Ah, Monsieur le Vicomte! You at Blois!’ cried he. “Well, that is a wonder. Good-day to you—good-day, Monsieur Raoul.”’ i

“I offer you a thousand respects, Monsieur de St. Remy.”’

*““How Madame de la Vall—I mean, how delighted Madame de St. Remy will be to see you! But comein. His royal highness is at breakfast—must he be interrupted? Is the matter serious?’’

“Yes, and no, Monsieur de St. Remy. A moment’s delay, however, would be disagreeable to his royal highness.”’

‘If that is the case, we will force the consigne, Monsieur le Vicomte. Come in. Besides, Monsieur is in an excellent humor to-day. And then you bring news, do you not?’’

“Great news, Monsieur de St. Remy.”

‘And good, I presume?’’

‘*Excellent.’’

“Come quickly, come quickly, then!”’ cried the worthy man, putting his dress to rights as he went along.

Raoul followed him, hat in hand, and a little disconcerted at the noise made by his spurs in these immense salons.

As soon as he had disappeared in the interior of the palace, the window of the court was repeopled, and an animated whispering betrayed the emotion of the two girls. They soon appeared to have formed a resolution, for one of the two faces disappeared from the window. This was the brunette; the other remained behind the balcony, concealed by the flowers, watching attentively through the branches the analy by which M. de Bragelonne had entered the castle.

In the meantime, the object of so much laudable curiosity continued his route, following the steps of the maitre a’hétel. The noise of quick steps, an odor of wine and viands, a clinking of crystal and plates, warned them that gall were coming to the end of their course.

The pages, valets, and officers, assembled in the office

ON en |) P —wh ® i A THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE, at

— which preceded the refectory, welcomed the newcomer with the proverbial politeness of the country; some of them were acquainted with Raoul, and all knew that he came from Paris. It might be said that his arrival for a moment suspended the service. In fact, a page, who was pouring out wine for his royal highness, on hearing the jingling of spurs in the next chamber, turned round like a child, without perceiving that he was continuing to pour out, not into the glass, but upon the tablecloth.

Madame, who was not so preoccupied as her glorious spouse was, remarked this distraction of the page. :

‘*Well?’? exclaimed she.

‘‘Well!’’? repeated Monsieur; “‘what is going on then?”

M. de St. Remy, who had just introduced his head through the doorway, took advantage of the moment.

‘‘Why am I to be disturbed?”’ said Gaston, helping himself to a thick slice of one of the largest salmon that had ever ascended the Loire to be captured between Painboouf and St. Nazaire.

‘‘There is a messenger from Paris. Oh! but after monséigneur has breakfasted will do; there is plenty of time.”

“From Paris!’’ cried the prince, letting his fork fall. ‘A messenger from Paris, do you say? And on whose part does this messenger come?”’

“On the part of Monsieur le Prince,’’ said the maitre d@’hétel promptly.

Every one knows that the Prince de Condé was so called.

“A messenger from Monsieur le Prince!’’ said Gaston, with an inquietude that escaped none of the assistants, and consequently redoubled the general curiosity.

Monsieur, perhaps, fancied himself brought back again to the happy times when the opening of a door gave him an emotion, in which every letter might contain a state secret —in which every message was connected with a dark and complicated intrigue. Perhaps, likewise, the great name ot M. le Prince expanded itself, beneath the roofs of Blois, into proportions of a phantom.

Monsieur pushed away his plate.

“<Shall I tell the envoy to wait?’ said M. de St. Remy.

A glance from madame emboldened Gaston, who replied: “‘No, no; let him come in at once, on the contrary. Apropos, who is he?”

‘‘A gentleman of this country, Monsieur le Vicomte de

Bragelonne.”’

‘“‘Ah, very well! Introduce him, St. Remy—introduce 9)

him.

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Tor. THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE. * Se

And when he had let fall these words, with his accustomed gravity, Monsieur turned his eyes, in a certain manner, upon the people of his suite, so that all, pages, officers, and equerries, quitted the service, knives and goblets, and made toward the second chamber a retreat as rapid as it was disorderly.

This little army had dispersed in two files when Raoul _ de Bragelonne, preceded by M. de St. Remy, entered the refectory.

The short moment of solitude in which this retreat had left him permitted Monsieur the time to assume a diplomatic countenance. He did not turn round, but waited till the maitre d’hotel should bring the messenger face to face with him.

Raoul stopped even with the lower end of the table, so as to be exactly between Monsieur and madame. From this place he made a profound bow to Monsieur, and a very humble one to madame; then, drawing himself up into

military pose, he waited for Monsieur to address him. __ Qn his part the prince waited till the doors were hermetically closed; he would not turn round to ascertain the fact, _as that would have been derogatory to his dignity, but he listened with all his ears for the noise of the lock, which would promise him at least an appearance of secrecy.

The doors being closed, Monsieur raised his eyes toward the vicomte, and said, “It appears that you come from Paris, monsieur?’’

“This minute, monseigneur.”’

““How is the king?’’

“His majesty is in perfect health, monseigneur.”’

“‘And my sister-in-law ?”’

“Her majesty, the queen-mother, still suffers from the complaint in her lungs, but for the last month she hag been rather better.’’

“Somebody told me you came on the part of Monsieur le Prince. They must have been mistaken, surely ?”’

‘“No, monseigneur; Monsieur le Prince has charged me to convey this letter to your royal highness, and I am to wait for an answer to it.”

Raoul had been a little annoyed by this cold and cautious reception, and his voice insensibly sunk to a low key.

The prince forgot that he was the cause of this apparent mystery, and his fears returned.

He received the letter from the Prince de Condé witha haggard look, unsealed it as he would have unsealed a gusa ™ ay m picious packet, and in order to read it so that no one should remark its effect upon his countenance, he turned round.

Madame followed, with an anxiety almost equal to that of the prince, every maneuver of her august husband.

Raoul, impassible, and a little disengaged by the attention of his hosts, looked from his place through the open window at the gardens and the statues which peopled them.

“Well!” cried Monsieur, all at once, with a cheerful smile ; “here is an agreeable surprise, and a charming letter from Monsieur le Prince. Look, madame!”

The table was too large to allow the arm of the prince to - reach the hand of madame; Raoul sprung forward to be their

intermediary, and did it with so good a grace as to procure a flattering acknowledgment from the princess.

“You know the contents of this letter, no doubt ?” said Gaston to Raoul.

“Yes, monseigneur; Monsieur le Prince gave me the message verbally, but upon reflection his highness took up his pen.”

“Tt is beautiful writing,” said madame, “but I cannot read Ng

‘Will you read it to madame, Monsieur de Bragelonne ?” said the duke.

“Yes; read it, if you please, monsieur.”

Raoul began to read, Monsieur giving again all his attention. The letter was conceived in these terms :