26. Heart and Mind…

26. Heart and Mind

“My lord,” said the Comte de la Fere, “you are a noble Englishman, you are a loyal man; you are speaking to a noble Frenchman, to a man of heart. The gold contained in these two casks before us, I have told you was mine. I was wrong—it is the first lie I have pronounced in my life, a temporary lie, it is true. This gold is the property of King Charles II., exiled from his country, driven from his palaces, the orphan at once of his father and his throne, and deprived of everything, even of the melancholy happiness of kissing on his knees the stone upon which the hands of his murderers have written that simple epitaph which will eternally cry out for vengeance upon them:—‘Here lies Charles I.’”

Monk grew slightly pale, and an imperceptible shudder crept over his skin and raised his gray mustache.

“I,” continued Athos, “I, Comte de la Fere, the last, only faithful friend the poor abandoned prince has left, I have offered him to come hither to find the man upon whom now depends the fate of royalty and of England; and I have come, and placed myself under the eye of this man, and have placed myself naked and unarmed in his hands, saying:—‘My lord, here are the last resources of a prince whom God made your master, whom his birth made your king; upon you, and you alone, depend his life and his future. Will you employ this money in consoling England for the evils it must have suffered from anarchy; that is to say, will you aid, and if not aid, will you allow King Charles II. to act? You are master, you are king, all-powerful master and king, for chance sometimes defeats the work of time and God. I am here alone with you, my lord: if divided success alarms you, if my complicity annoys you, you are armed, my lord, and here is a grave ready dug; if, on the contrary, the enthusiasm of your cause carries you away, if you are what you appear to be, if your hand in what it undertakes obeys your mind, and your mind your heart, here are the means of ruining forever the cause of your enemy, Charles Stuart. Kill, then, the man you have before you, for that man will never return to him who has sent him without bearing with him the deposit which Charles I., his father, confided to him, and keep the gold which may assist in carrying on the civil war. Alas! my lord, it is the fate of this unfortunate prince. He must either corrupt or kill, for everything resists him, everything repulses him, everything is hostile to him; and yet he is marked with the divine seal, and he must, not to belie his blood, reascend the throne, or die upon the sacred soil of his country.’

“My lord, you have heard me. To any other but the illustrious man who listens to me, I would have said: ‘My lord, you are poor; my lord, the king offers you this million as an earnest of an immense bargain; take it, and serve Charles II. as I served Charles I., and I feel assured that God, who listens to us, who sees us, who alone reads in your heart, shut from all human eyes,—I am assured God will give you a happy eternal life after a happy death.’ But to General Monk, to the illustrious man of whose standard I believe I have taken measure, I say: ‘My lord, there is for you in the history of peoples and kings a brilliant place, an immortal, imperishable glory, if alone, without any other interest but the good of your country and the interests of justice, you become the supporter of your king. Many others have been conquerors and glorious usurpers; you, my lord, you will be content with being the most virtuous, the most honest, and the most incorruptible of men: you will have held a crown in your hand, and instead of placing it upon your own brow, you will have deposited it upon the head of him for whom it was made. Oh, my lord, act thus, and you will leave to posterity the most enviable of names, in which no human creature can rival you.’”

Athos stopped. During the whole time that the noble gentleman was speaking, Monk had not given one sign of either approbation or disapprobation; scarcely even, during this vehement appeal, had his eyes been animated with that fire which bespeaks intelligence. The Comte de la Fere looked at him sorrowfully, and on seeing that melancholy countenance, felt discouragement penetrate to his very heart. At length Monk appeared to recover, and broke the silence.

“Monsieur,” said he, in a mild, calm tone, “in reply to you, I will make use of your own words. To any other but yourself I would reply by expulsion, imprisonment, or still worse, for, in fact, you tempt me and you force me at the same time. But you are one of those men, monsieur, to whom it is impossible to refuse the attention and respect they merit; you are a brave gentleman, monsieur—I say so, and I am a judge. You just now spoke of a deposit which the late king transmitted through you to his son—are you, then, one of those Frenchmen who, as I have heard, endeavored to carry off Charles I. from Whitehall?”

“Yes, my lord, it was I who was beneath the scaffold during the execution; I, who had not been able to redeem it, received upon my brow the blood of the martyred king. I received, at the same time, the last word of Charles I., it was to me he said, ‘Remember!’ and in saying, ‘Remember!’ he alluded to the money at your feet, my lord.”

“I have heard much of you, monsieur,” said Monk, “but I am happy to have, in the first place, appreciated you by my own observations, and not by my remembrances. I will give you, then, explanations that I have given to no other, and you will appreciate what a distinction I make between you and the persons who have hitherto been sent to me.”

Athos bowed, and prepared to absorb greedily the words which fell, one by one, from the mouth of Monk,—those words rare and precious as the dew in the desert.

“You spoke to me,” said Monk, “of Charles II.; but pray, monsieur, of what consequence to me is that phantom of a king? I have grown old in a war and in a policy which are nowadays so closely linked together, that every man of the sword must fight in virtue of his rights or his ambition with a personal interest, and not blindly behind an officer, as in ordinary wars. For myself, I perhaps desire nothing, but I fear much. In the war of to-day rests the liberty of England, and, perhaps, that of every Englishman. How can you expect that I, free in the position I have made for myself, should go willingly and hold out my hands to the shackles of a stranger? That is all Charles is to me. He has fought battles here which he has lost, he is therefore a bad captain; he has succeeded in no negotiation, he is therefore a bad diplomatist; he has paraded his wants and his miseries in all the courts of Europe, he has therefore a weak and pusillanimous heart. Nothing noble, nothing great, nothing strong has hitherto emanated from that genius which aspires to govern one of the greatest kingdoms of the earth. I know this Charles, then, under none but bad aspects, and you would wish me, a man of good sense, to go and make myself gratuitously the slave of a creature who is inferior to me in military capacity, in politics, and in dignity! No, monsieur. When some great and noble action shall have taught me to value Charles, I shall perhaps recognize his rights to a throne from which we have cast the father because he wanted the virtues which his son has hitherto lacked, but, in fact of rights, I only recognize my own; the revolution made me a general, my sword will make me protector, if I wish it. Let Charles show himself, let him present himself, let him enter the competition open to genius, and, above all, let him remember that he is of a race from whom more will be expected than from any other. Therefore, monsieur, say no more about him. I neither refuse nor accept: I reserve myself—I wait.”

Athos knew Monk to be too well informed of all concerning Charles to venture to urge the discussion further; it was neither the time nor the place. “My lord,” then said he, “I have nothing to do but to thank you.”

“And why, monsieur? Because you have formed a correct opinion of me, or because I have acted according to your judgment? Is that, in truth, worthy of thanks? This gold which you are about to carry to Charles will serve me as a test for him, by seeing the use he will make of it. I shall have an opinion which now I have not.”

“And yet does not your honor fear to compromise yourself by allowing such a sum to be carried away for the service of your enemy?”

“My enemy, say you? Eh, monsieur, I have no enemies. I am in the service of the parliament, which orders me to fight General Lambert and Charles Stuart—its enemies, and not mine. I fight them. If the parliament, on the contrary, ordered me to unfurl my standards on the port of London, and to assemble my soldiers on the banks to receive Charles II.——”

“You would obey?” cried Athos, joyfully.

“Pardon me,” said Monk, smiling, “I was going—I, a gray-headed man—in truth, how could I forget myself? was going to speak like a foolish young man.”

“Then you would not obey?” said Athos.

“I do not say that either, monsieur. The welfare of my country before everything. God, who has given me the power, has, no doubt, willed that I should have that power for the good of all, and He has given me, at the same time, discernment. If the parliament were to order such a thing, I should reflect.”

The brow of Athos became clouded. “Then I may positively say that your honor is not inclined to favor King Charles II.?”

“You continue to question me, monsieur le comte; allow me to do so in turn, if you please.”

“Do, monsieur; and may God inspire you with the idea of replying to me as frankly as I shall reply to you.”

“When you shall have taken this money back to your prince, what advice will you give him?”

Athos fixed upon Monk a proud and resolute look.

“My lord,” said he, “with this million, which others would perhaps employ in negotiating, I would advise the king to raise two regiments, to enter Scotland, which you have just pacified: to give to the people the franchises which the revolution promised them, and in which it has not, in all cases, kept its word. I should advise him to command in person this little army, which would, believe me, increase, and to die, standard in hand, and sword in its sheath, saying, ‘Englishmen! I am the third king of my race you have killed; beware of the justice of God!’”

Monk hung down his head, and mused for an instant. “If he succeeded,” said he, “which is very improbable, but not impossible—for everything is possible in this world—what would you advise him to do?”

“To think that by the will of God he lost his crown but by the good will of men he recovered it.”

An ironical smile passed over the lips of Monk.

“Unfortunately, monsieur,” said he, “kings do not know how to follow good advice.”

“Ah, my lord, Charles II. is not a king,” replied Athos, smiling in his turn, but with a very different expression from Monk.

“Let us terminate this, monsieur le comte,—that is your desire, is it not?”

Athos bowed.

“I shall give orders to have these two casks transported whither you please. Where are you lodging, monsieur?”

“In a little hamlet at the mouth of the river, your honor.”

“Oh, I know the hamlet; it consists of five or six houses, does it not?”

“Exactly. Well, I inhabit the first,—two net-makers occupy it with me; it is their bark which brought me ashore.”

“But your own vessel, monsieur?”

“My vessel is at anchor, a quarter of a mile at sea, and waits for me.”

“You do not think, however, of setting out immediately?”

“My lord, I shall try once more to convince your honor.”

“You will not succeed,” replied Monk; “but it is of consequence that you should depart from Newcastle without leaving of your passage the least suspicion that might prove injurious to me or you. To-morrow my officers think Lambert will attack me. I, on the contrary, am convinced that he will not stir; it is in my opinion impossible. Lambert leads an army devoid of homogeneous principles, and there is no possible army with such elements. I have taught my soldiers to consider my authority subordinate to another, therefore after me, round me, and beneath me they still look for something. It would result that if I were dead, whatever might happen, my army would not be demoralized all at once; it results, that if I choose to absent myself, for instance, as it does please me to do sometimes, there would not be in the camp the shadow of uneasiness or disorder. I am the magnet—the sympathetic and natural strength of the English. All those scattered irons that will be sent against me I shall attract to myself. Lambert, at this moment, commands eighteen thousand deserters, but I have never mentioned that to my officers, you may easily suppose. Nothing is more useful to an army than the expectation of a coming battle; everybody is awake—everybody is on guard. I tell you this that you may live in perfect security. Do not be in a hurry, then, to cross the seas; within a week there will be something fresh, either a battle or an accomodation. Then, as you have judged me to be a honorable man, and confided your secret to me, I have to thank you for this confidence, and I shall come and pay you a visit or send for you. Do not go before I send you word. I repeat the request.”

“I promise you, general,” cried Athos, with a joy so great, that in spite of all his circumspection, he could not prevent its sparkling in his eyes.

Monk surprised this flash, and immediately extinguished it by one of those silent smiles which always caused his interlocutors to know they had made no inroad on his mind.

“Then, my lord, it is a week that you desire me to wait?”

“A week? yes, monsieur.”

“And during these days what shall I do?”

“If there should be a battle, keep at a distance from it, I beseech you. I know the French delight in such amusements,—you might take a fancy to see how we fight, and you might receive some chance shot. Our Scotchmen are very bad marksmen, and I do not wish that a worthy gentleman like you should return to France wounded. Nor should I like to be obliged myself, to send to your prince his million left here by you, for then it would be said, and with some reason, that I paid the Pretender to enable him to make war against the parliament. Go, then, monsieur, and let it be done as has been agreed upon.”

“Ah, my lord,” said Athos, “what joy it would give me to be the first that penetrated to the noble heart which beats beneath that cloak!”

“You think, then, that I have secrets,” said Monk, without changing the half cheerful expression of his countenance. “Why, monsieur, what secret can you expect to find in the hollow head of a soldier? But it is getting late, and our torch is almost out; let us call our man.”

“Hola!” cried Monk in French, approaching the stairs; “hola! fisherman!”

The fisherman, benumbed by the cold night air, replied in a hoarse voice, asking what they wanted of him.

“Go to the post,” said Monk, “and order a sergeant, in the name of General Monk, to come here immediately.”

This was a commission easily performed; for the sergeant, uneasy at the general’s being in that desolate abbey, had drawn nearer by degrees, and was not much further off than the fisherman. The general’s order was therefore heard by him, and he hastened to obey it.

“Get a horse and two men,” said Monk.

“A horse and two men?” repeated the sergeant.

“Yes,” replied Monk. “Have you any means of getting a horse with a pack-saddle or two paniers?”

“No doubt, at a hundred paces off, in the Scotch camp.”

“Very well.”

“What shall I do with the horse, general?”

“Look here.”

The sergeant descended the three steps which separated him from Monk, and came into the vault.

“You see,” said Monk, “that gentleman yonder?”

“Yes, general.”

“And you see these two casks?”

“Perfectly.”

“They are two casks, one containing powder, and the other balls; I wish these casks to be transported to the little hamlet at the mouth of the river, and which I intend to occupy to-morrow with two hundred muskets. You understand that the commission is a secret one, for it is a movement that may decide the fate of the battle.”

“Oh, general!” murmured the sergeant.

“Mind, then! Let these casks be fastened on to the horse, and let them be escorted by two men and you to the residence of this gentleman, who is my friend. But take care that nobody knows it.”

“I would go by the marsh if I knew the road,” said the sergeant.

“I know one myself,” said Athos; “it is not wide, but it is solid, having been made upon piles; and with care we shall get over safely enough.”

“Do everything this gentleman shall order you to do.”

“Oh! oh! the casks are heavy,” said the sergeant, trying to lift one.

“They weigh four hundred pounds each, if they contain what they ought to contain, do they not, monsieur?”

“Thereabouts,” said Athos.

The sergeant went in search of the two men and the horse. Monk, left alone with Athos, affected to speak to him on nothing but indifferent subjects while examining the vault in a cursory manner. Then, hearing the horse’s steps,—

“I leave you with your men, monsieur,” said he, “and return to the camp. You are perfectly safe.”

“I shall see you again, then, my lord?” asked Athos.

“That is agreed upon, monsieur, and with much pleasure.”

Monk held out his hand to Athos.

“Ah! my lord, if you would!” murmured Athos.

“Hush! monsieur, it is agreed that we shall speak no more of that.” And bowing to Athos, he went up the stairs, meeting about half-way his men, who were coming down. He had not gone twenty paces, when a faint but prolonged whistle was heard at a distance. Monk listened, but seeing nothing and hearing nothing, he continued his route, Then he remembered the fisherman, and looked about for him; but the fisherman had disappeared. If he had, however, looked with more attention, he might have seen that man, bent double, gliding like a serpent along the stones and losing himself in the mist that floated over the surface of the marsh. He might have equally seen, had he attempted to pierce that mist, a spectacle that might have attracted his attention; and that was the rigging of the vessel, which had changed place, and was now nearer the shore. But Monk saw nothing; and thinking he had nothing to fear, he entered the deserted causeway which led to his camp. It was then that the disappearance of the fisherman appeared strange, and that a real suspicion began to take possession of his mind. He had just placed at the orders of Athos the only post that could protect him. He had a mile of causeway to traverse before he could regain his camp. The fog increased with such intensity that he could scarcely distinguish objects at ten paces’ distance. Monk then thought he heard the sound of an oar over the marsh on the right. “Who goes there?” said he.

But nobody answered; then he cocked his pistol, took his sword in his hand, and quickened his pace without, however, being willing to call anybody. Such a summons, for which there was no absolute necessity, appeared unworthy of him.

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27. The Next Day

It was seven o’clock in the morning, the first rays of day lightened the pools of the marsh, in which the sun was reflected like a red ball, when Athos, awaking and opening the window of his bed-chamber, which looked out upon the banks of the river, perceived, at fifteen paces’ distance from him, the sergeant and the men who had accompanied him the evening before, and who, after having deposited the casks at his house, had returned to the camp by the causeway on the right.

Why had these men come back after having returned to the camp? That was the question which first presented itself to Athos. The sergeant, with his head raised, appeared to be watching the moment when the gentleman should appear, to address him. Athos, surprised to see these men, whom he had seen depart the night before, could not refrain from expressing his astonishment to them.

“There is nothing surprising in that, monsieur,” said the sergeant; “for yesterday the general commanded me to watch over your safety, and I thought it right to obey that order.”

“Is the general at the camp?” asked Athos.

“No doubt he is, monsieur; as when he left you he was going back.”

“Well, wait for me a moment; I am going thither to render an account of the fidelity with which you fulfilled your duty, and to get my sword, which I left upon the table in the tent.”

“That happens very well,” said the sergeant, “for we were about to request you to do so.”

Athos fancied he could detect an air of equivocal bonhomie upon the countenance of the sergeant; but the adventure of the vault might have excited the curiosity of the man, and it was not surprising that he allowed some of the feelings which agitated his mind to appear in his face. Athos closed the doors carefully, confiding the keys to Grimaud, who had chosen his domicile beneath the shed itself, which led to the cellar where the casks had been deposited. The sergeant escorted the Comte de la Fere to the camp. There a fresh guard awaited him, and relieved the four men who had conducted Athos.

This fresh guard was commanded by the aid-de-camp Digby, who, on their way, fixed upon Athos looks so little encouraging, that the Frenchman asked himself whence arose, with regard to him, this vigilance and this severity, when the evening before he had been left perfectly free. He nevertheless continued his way to the headquarters, keeping to himself the observations which men and things forced him to make. He found in the general’s tent, to which he had been introduced the evening before, three superior officers: these were Monk’s lieutenant and two colonels. Athos perceived his sword; it was still on the table where he left it. Neither of the officers had seen Athos, consequently neither of them knew him. Monk’s lieutenant asked, at the appearance of Athos, if that were the same gentleman with whom the General had left the tent.

“Yes, your honor,” said the sergeant; “it is the same.”

“But,” said Athos haughtily, “I do not deny it, I think; and now, gentlemen, in turn, permit me to ask you to what purpose these questions are asked, and particularly some explanation upon the tone in which you ask them?”

“Monsieur,” said the lieutenant, “if we address these questions to you, it is because we have a right to do so, and if we make them in a particular tone, it is because that tone, believe me, agrees with the circumstances.”

“Gentlemen,” said Athos, “you do not know who I am; but I must tell you I acknowledge no one here but General Monk as my equal. Where is he? Let me be conducted to him, and if he has any questions to put to me, I will answer him and to his satisfaction, I hope. I repeat, gentlemen, where is the general?”

“Eh! good God! you know better than we do where he is,” said the lieutenant.

“I?”

“Yes, you.”

“Monsieur,” said Athos, “I do not understand you.”

“You will understand me—and, in the first place, do not speak so loud.”

Athos smiled disdainfully.

“We don’t ask you to smile,” said one of the colonels warmly; “we require you to answer.”

“And I, gentlemen, declare to you that I will not reply until I am in the presence of the general.”

“But,” replied the same colonel who had already spoken, “you know very well that is impossible.”

“This is the second time I have received this strange reply to the wish I express,” said Athos. “Is the general absent?”

This question was made with such apparent good faith, and the gentleman wore an air of such natural surprise, that the three officers exchanged a meaning look. The lieutenant, by a tacit convention with the other two, was spokesman.

“Monsieur, the general left you last night on the borders of the monastery.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“And you went——”

“It is not for me to answer you, but for those who have accompanied me. They were your soldiers, ask them.”

“But if we please to question you?”

“Then it will please me to reply, monsieur, that I do not recognize any one here, that I know no one here but the general, and that it is to him alone I will reply.”

“So be it, monsieur; but as we are the masters, we constitute ourselves a council of war, and when you are before judges you must reply.”

The countenance of Athos expressed nothing but astonishment and disdain, instead of the terror the officers expected to read in it at this threat.

“Scotch or English judges upon me, a subject of the king of France; upon me, placed under the safeguard of British honor! You are mad, gentlemen!” said Athos, shrugging his shoulders.

The officers looked at each other. “Then, monsieur,” said one of them, “do you pretend not to know where the general is?”

“To that, monsieur, I have already replied.”

“Yes, but you have already replied an incredible thing.”

“It is true, nevertheless, gentlemen. Men of my rank are not generally liars. I am a gentleman, I have told you, and when I have at my side the sword which, by an excess of delicacy, I left last night upon the table whereon it still lies, believe me, no man says that to me which I am unwilling to hear. I am at this moment disarmed; if you pretend to be my judges, try me; if you are but my executioners, kill me.”

“But, monsieur——” asked the lieutenant, in a more courteous voice, struck with the lofty coolness of Athos.

“Sir, I came to speak confidentially with your general about affairs of importance. It was not an ordinary welcome that he gave me. The accounts your soldiers can give you may convince you of that. If, then, the general received me in that manner, he knew my titles to his esteem. Now, you do not suspect, I should think that I should reveal my secrets to you, and still less his.”

“But these casks, what do they contain?”

“Have you not put that question to your soldiers? What was their reply?”

“That they contained powder and ball.”

“From whom had they that information? They must have told you that.”

“From the general; but we are not dupes.”

“Beware, gentlemen, it is not to me you are now giving the lie, it is to your leader.”

The officers again looked at each other. Athos continued: “Before your soldiers the general told me to wait a week, and at the expiration of that week he would give me the answer he had to make me. Have I fled away? No, I wait.”

“He told you to wait a week!” cried the lieutenant.

“He told me that so clearly, sir, that I have a sloop at the mouth of the river, which I could with ease have joined yesterday, and embarked. Now, if I have remained, it was only in compliance with the desire of your general, his honor having requested me not to depart without a last audience, which fixed at a week hence. I repeat to you, then, I am waiting.”

The lieutenant turned towards the other officers, and said, in a low voice: “If this gentleman speaks truth, there may still be some hope. The general may be carrying out some negotiations so secret, that he thought it imprudent to inform even us. Then the time limited for his absence would be a week.” Then, turning towards Athos: “Monsieur,” said he, “your declaration is of the most serious importance; are you willing to repeat it under the seal of an oath?”

“Sir,” replied Athos, “I have always lived in a world where my simple word was regarded as the most sacred of oaths.”

“This time, however, monsieur, the circumstance is more grave than any you may have been placed in. The safety of the whole army is at stake. Reflect, the general has disappeared, and our search for him has been vain. Is this disappearance natural? Has a crime been committed? Are we not bound to carry our investigations to extremity? Have we any right to wait with patience? At this moment, everything, monsieur, depends upon the words you are about to pronounce.”

“Thus questioned, gentlemen, I no longer hesitate,” said Athos. “Yes, I came hither to converse confidentially with General Monk, and ask him for an answer regarding certain interests; yes, the general being, doubtless, unable to pronounce before the expected battle, begged me to remain a week in the house I inhabit, promising me that in a week I should see him again. Yes, all this is true, and I swear it by the God who is the absolute master of my life and yours.” Athos pronounced these words with so much grandeur and solemnity, that the three officers were almost convinced. Nevertheless, one of the colonels made a last attempt.

“Monsieur,” said he, “although we may be now persuaded of the truth of what you say, there is yet a strange mystery in all this. The general is too prudent a man to have thus abandoned his army on the eve of a battle without having at least given notice of it to one of us. As for myself, I cannot believe but that some strange event has been the cause of this disappearance. Yesterday some foreign fishermen came to sell their fish here; they were lodged yonder among the Scots; that is to say, on the road the general took with this gentleman, to go to the abbey, and to return from it. It was one of those fishermen that accompanied the general with a light. And this morning, bark and fishermen have all disappeared, carried away by the night’s tide.”

“For my part,” said the lieutenant, “I see nothing in that that is not quite natural, for these people were not prisoners.”

“No, but I repeat it was one of them who lighted the general and this gentleman to the abbey, and Digby assures us that the general had strong suspicions concerning those people. Now, who can say whether these people were not connected with this gentleman; and that, the blow being struck, the gentleman, who is evidently brave, did not remain to reassure us by his presence, and to prevent our researches being made in a right direction?”

This speech made an impression upon the other two officers.

“Sir,” said Athos, “permit me to tell you, that your reasoning, though specious in appearance, nevertheless wants consistency, as regards me. I have remained, you say, to divert suspicion. Well! on the contrary, suspicions arise in me as well as in you; and I say, it is impossible, gentlemen, that the general, on the eve of a battle, should leave his army without saying anything to at least one of his officers. Yes, there is some strange event connected with this; instead of being idle and waiting, you must display all the activity and all the vigilance possible. I am your prisoner, gentlemen, upon parole or otherwise. My honor is concerned in ascertaining what has become of General Monk, and to such a point, that if you were to say to me, ‘Depart!’ I should reply ‘No, I will remain!’ And if you were to ask my opinion, I should add: ‘Yes, the general is the victim of some conspiracy, for, if he had intended to leave the camp he would have told me so.’ Seek then, search the land, search the sea; the general has not gone of his own good will.”

The lieutenant made a sign to the other two officers.

“No, monsieur,” said he, “no; in your turn you go too far. The general has nothing to suffer from these events, and, no doubt, has directed them. What Monk is now doing he has often done before. We are wrong in alarming ourselves; his absence will, doubtless, be of short duration; therefore, let us beware, lest by a pusillanimity which the general would consider a crime, of making his absence public, and by that means demoralize the army. The general gives a striking proof of his confidence in us; let us show ourselves worthy of it. Gentlemen, let the most profound silence cover all this with an impenetrable veil; we will detain this gentleman, not from mistrust of him with regard to the crime, but to assure more effectively the secret of the general’s absence by keeping among ourselves; therefore, until fresh orders, the gentleman will remain at headquarters.”

“Gentlemen,” said Athos, “you forget that last night the general confided to me a deposit over which I am bound to watch. Give me whatever guard you like, chain me if you like, but leave me the house I inhabit for my prison. The general, on his return, would reproach you, I swear on the honor of a gentleman, for having displeased him in this.”

“So be it, monsieur,” said the lieutenant; “return to your abode.”

Then they placed over Athos a guard of fifty men, who surrounded his house, without losing sight of him for a minute.

The secret remained secure, but hours, days passed away without the general’s returning, or without anything being heard of him.

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28. Smuggling

Two days after the events we have just related, and while General Monk was expected every minute in the camp to which he did not return, a little Dutch felucca, manned by eleven men, cast anchor upon the coast of Scheveningen, nearly within cannon-shot of the port. It was night, the darkness was great, the tide rose in the darkness; it was a capital time to land passengers and merchandise.

The road of Scheveningen forms a vast crescent; it is not very deep and not very safe; therefore, nothing is seen stationed there but large Flemish hoys, or some of those Dutch barks which fishermen draw up on the sand on rollers, as the ancients did, according to Virgil. When the tide is rising, and advancing on land, it is not prudent to bring the vessels too close inshore, for, if the wind is fresh, the prows are buried in the sand; and the sand of that coast is spongy; it receives easily, but does not yield so well. It was on this account, no doubt, that a boat was detached from the bark as soon as the latter had cast anchor, and came with eight sailors, amidst whom was to be seen an object of an oblong form, a sort of large pannier or bale.

The shore was deserted; the few fishermen inhabiting the down were gone to bed. The only sentinel that guarded the coast (a coast very badly guarded, seeing that a landing from large ships was impossible), without having been able to follow the example of the fishermen, who were gone to bed, imitated them so far, that he slept at the back of his watch-box as soundly as they slept in their beds. The only noise to be heard, then, was the whistling of the night breeze among the bushes and the brambles of the downs. But the people who were approaching were doubtless mistrustful people, for this real silence and apparent solitude did not satisfy them. Their boat, therefore, scarcely as visible as a dark speck upon the ocean, glided along noiselessly, avoiding the use of their oars for fear of being heard, and gained the nearest land.

Scarcely had it touched the ground when a single man jumped out of the boat, after having given a brief order, in a manner which denoted the habit of commanding. In consequence of this order, several muskets immediately glittered in the feeble light reflected from that mirror of the heavens, the sea; and the oblong bale of which we spoke, containing no doubt some contraband object, was transported to land, with infinite precautions. Immediately after that, the man who had landed first set off at a rapid pace diagonally towards the village of Scheveningen, directing his course to the nearest point of the wood. When there, he sought for that house already described as the temporary residence—and a very humble residence—of him who was styled by courtesy king of England.

All were asleep there, as everywhere else, only a large dog, of the race of those which the fishermen of Scheveningen harness to little carts to carry fish to the Hague, began to bark formidably as soon as the stranger’s steps were audible beneath the windows. But the watchfulness, instead of alarming the newly-landed man, appeared, on the contrary, to give him great joy, for his voice might perhaps have proved insufficient to rouse the people of the house, whilst, with an auxiliary of that sort, his voice became almost useless. The stranger waited, then, till these reiterated and sonorous barkings should, according to all probability, have produced their effect, and then he ventured a summons. On hearing his voice, the dog began to roar with such violence that another voice was soon heard from the interior, quieting the dog. With that the dog was quieted.

“What do you want?” asked that voice, at the same time weak, broken, and civil.

“I want his majesty King Charles II., king of England,” said the stranger.

“What do you want with him?”

“I want to speak to him.”

“Who are you?”

“Ah! Mordioux! you ask too much; I don’t like talking through doors.”

“Only tell me your name.”

“I don’t like to declare my name in the open air, either; besides, you may be sure I shall not eat your dog, and I hope to God he will be as reserved with respect to me.”

“You bring news, perhaps, monsieur, do you not?” replied the voice, patient and querulous as that of an old man.

“I will answer for it, I bring you news you little expect. Open the door, then, if you please, hein!”

“Monsieur,” persisted the old man, “do you believe, upon your soul and conscience, that your news is worth waking the king?”

“For God’s sake, my dear monsieur, draw your bolts; you will not be sorry, I swear, for the trouble it will give you. I am worth my weight in gold, parole d’honneur!”

“Monsieur, I cannot open the door till you have told me your name.”

“Must I, then?”

“It is by the order of my master, monsieur.”

“Well, my name is—but, I warn you, my name will tell you absolutely nothing.”

“Never mind, tell it, notwithstanding.”

“Well, I am the Chevalier d’Artagnan.”

The voice uttered an exclamation.

“Oh! good heavens!” said a voice on the other side of the door. “Monsieur d’Artagnan. What happiness! I could not help thinking I knew that voice.”

“Humph!” said D’Artagnan. “My voice is known here! That’s flattering.”

“Oh! yes, we know it,” said the old man, drawing the bolts; “and here is the proof.” And at these words he let in D’Artagnan, who, by the light of the lantern he carried in his hand, recognized his obstinate interlocutor.

“Ah! Mordioux!” cried he: “why, it is Parry! I ought to have known that.”

“Parry, yes, my dear Monsieur d’Artagnan, it is I. What joy to see you once again!”

“You are right there, what joy!” said D’Artagnan, pressing the old man’s hand. “There, now you’ll go and inform the king, will you not?”

“But the king is asleep, my dear monsieur.”

“Mordioux! then wake him. He won’t scold you for having disturbed him, I will promise you.”

“You come on the part of the count, do you not?”

“The Comte de la Fere?”

“From Athos?”

“Ma foi! no; I come on my own part. Come, Parry, quick! The king—I want the king.”

Parry did not think it his duty to resist any longer; he knew D’Artagnan of old; he knew that, although a Gascon, his words never promised more than they could stand to. He crossed a court and a little garden, appeased the dog, that seemed most anxious to taste of the musketeer’s flesh, and went to knock at the window of a chamber forming the ground-floor of a little pavilion. Immediately a little dog inhabiting that chamber replied to the great dog inhabiting the court.

“Poor king!” said D’Artagnan to himself, “these are his body-guards. It is true he is not the worse guarded on that account.”

“What is wanted with me?” asked the king, from the back of the chamber.

“Sire, it is M. le Chevalier d’Artagnan, who brings you some news.”

A noise was immediately heard in the chamber, a door was opened, and a flood of light inundated the corridor and the garden. The king was working by the light of a lamp. Papers were lying about upon his desk, and he had commenced the foul copy of a letter which showed, by the numerous erasures, the trouble he had had in writing it.

“Come in, monsieur le chevalier,” said he, turning around. Then perceiving the fisherman, “What do you mean, Parry? Where is M. le Chevalier d’Artagnan?” asked Charles.

“He is before you, sire,” said M. d’Artagnan.

“What, in that costume?”

“Yes; look at me, sire; do you not remember having seen me at Blois, in the ante-chambers of King Louis XIV.?”

“Yes, monsieur, and I remember I was much pleased with you.”

D’Artagnan bowed. “It was my duty to behave as I did, the moment I knew that I had the honor of being near your majesty.”

“You bring me news, do you say?”

“Yes, sire.”

“From the king of France?”

“Ma foi! no, sire,” replied D’Artagnan. “Your majesty must have seen yonder that the king of France is only occupied with his own majesty.”

Charles raised his eyes towards heaven.

“No, sire, no,” continued D’Artagnan. “I bring news entirely composed of personal facts. Nevertheless, I hope your majesty will listen to the facts and news with some favor.”

“Speak, monsieur.”

“If I am not mistaken, sire, your majesty spoke a great deal, at Blois, of the embarrassed state in which the affairs of England are.”

Charles colored. “Monsieur,” said he, “it was to the king of France I related——”

“Oh! your majesty is mistaken,” said the musketeer, coolly; “I know how to speak to kings in misfortune. It is only when they are in misfortune that they speak to me; once fortunate, they look upon me no more. I have, then, for your majesty, not only the greatest respect, but, still more, the most absolute devotion; and that, believe me, with me, sire, means something. Now, hearing your majesty complain of fate, I found that you were noble and generous, and bore misfortune well.”

“In truth,” said Charles, much astonished, “I do not know which I ought to prefer, your freedoms or your respects.”

“You will choose presently, sire,” said D’Artagnan. “Then your majesty complained to your brother, Louis XIV., of the difficulty you experienced in returning to England and regaining your throne for want of men and money.”

Charles allowed a movement of impatience to escape him.

“And the principal object your majesty found in your way,” continued D’Artagnan, “was a certain general commanding the armies of the parliament, and who was playing yonder the part of another Cromwell. Did not your majesty say so?”

“Yes, but I repeat to you, monsieur, those words were for the king’s ears alone.”

“And you will see, sire, that it is very fortunate that they fell into those of his lieutenant of musketeers. That man so troublesome to your majesty was one General Monk, I believe; did I not hear his name correctly, sire?”

“Yes, monsieur, but once more, to what purpose are all these questions?”

“Oh! I know very well, sire, that etiquette will not allow kings to be questioned. I hope, however, presently you will pardon my want of etiquette. Your majesty added that, notwithstanding, if you could see him, confer with him, and meet him face to face, you would triumph, either by force or persuasion, over that obstacle—the only serious one, the only insurmountable one, the only real one you met with on your road.”

“All that is true, monsieur: my destiny, my future, my obscurity, or my glory depend upon that man; but what do you draw from that?”

“One thing alone, that if this General Monk is troublesome to the point your majesty describes, it would be expedient to get rid of him or to make an ally of him.”

“Monsieur, a king who has neither army nor money, as you have heard my conversation with my brother Louis, has no means of acting against a man like Monk.”

“Yes, sire, that was your opinion, I know very well; but, fortunately, for you, it was not mine.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That, without an army and without a million, I have done—I, myself—what your majesty thought could alone be done with an army and a million.”

“How! What do you say? What have you done?”

“What have I done? Eh! well, sire, I went yonder to take this man who is so troublesome to your majesty.”

“In England?”

“Exactly, sire.”

“You went to take Monk in England?”

“Should I by chance have done wrong, sire?”

“In truth, you are mad, monsieur!”

“Not the least in the world, sire.”

“You have taken Monk?”

“Yes, sire.”

“Where?”

“In the midst of his camp.”

The king trembled with impatience.

“And having taken him on the causeway of Newcastle, I bring him to your majesty,” said D’Artagnan, simply.

“You bring him to me!” cried the king, almost indignant at what he considered a mystification.

“Yes, sire,” replied D’Artagnan, the same tone, “I bring him to you; he is down below yonder, in a large chest pierced with holes, so as to allow him to breathe.”

“Good God!”

“Oh! don’t be uneasy, sire, we have taken the greatest possible care of him. He comes in good state, and in perfect condition. Would your majesty please to see him, to talk with him, or to have him thrown into the sea?”

“Oh, heavens!” repeated Charles, “oh, heavens! do you speak the truth, monsieur? Are you not insulting me with some unworthy joke? You have accomplished this unheard-of act of audacity and genius—impossible!”

“Will your majesty permit me to open the window?” said D’Artagnan, opening it.

The king had not time to reply, yes on no. D’Artagnan gave a shrill and prolonged whistle, which he repeated three times through the silence of the night.

“There!” said he, “he will be brought to your majesty.”

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29. In which D’Artagnan begins to fear he has placed his Money and that of Planchet in the Sinking Fund

The king could not overcome his surprise, and looked sometimes at the smiling face of the musketeer, and sometimes at the dark window which opened into the night. But before he had fixed his ideas, eight of D’Artagnan’s men, for two had remained to take care of the bark, brought to the house, where Parry received him, that object of an oblong form, which, for the moment inclosed the destinies of England. Before he left Calais, D’Artagnan had had made in that city a sort of coffin, large and deep enough for a man to turn in it at his ease. The bottom and sides, properly upholstered, formed a bed sufficiently soft to prevent the rolling of the ship turning this kind of cage into a rat-trap. The little grating, of which D’Artagnan had spoken to the king, like the visor of a helmet, was placed opposite to the man’s face. It was so constructed that, at the least cry, a sudden pressure would stifle that cry, and, if necessary, him who had uttered that cry.

D’Artagnan was so well acquainted with his crew and his prisoner, that during the whole voyage he had been in dread of two things: either that the general would prefer death to this sort of imprisonment, and would smother himself by endeavoring to speak, or that his guards would allow themselves to be tempted by the offers of the prisoner, and put him, D’Artagnan, into the box instead of Monk.

D’Artagnan, therefore, had passed the two days and the two nights of the voyage close to the coffin, alone with the general, offering him wine and food, which the latter had refused, and constantly endeavoring to reassure him upon the destiny which awaited him at the end of this singular captivity. Two pistols on the table and his naked sword made D’Artagnan easy with regard to indiscretions from without.

When once at Scheveningen he had felt completely reassured. His men greatly dreaded any conflict with the lords of the soil. He had, besides, interested in his cause him who had morally served him as lieutenant, and whom we have seen reply to the name of Menneville. The latter, not being a vulgar spirit, had more to risk than the others, because he had more conscience. He believed in a future in the service of D’Artagnan, and consequently would have allowed himself to be cut to pieces, rather than violate the order given by his leader. Thus it was that, once landed, it was to him D’Artagnan had confided the care of the chest and the general’s breathing. It was he, too, he had ordered to have the chest brought by the seven men as soon as he should hear the triple whistle. We have seen that the lieutenant obeyed. The coffer once in the house, D’Artagnan dismissed his men with a gracious smile, saying, “Messieurs, you have rendered a great service to King Charles II., who in less than six weeks will be king of England. Your gratification will then be doubled. Return to the boat and wait for me.” Upon which they departed with such shouts of joy as terrified even the dog himself.

D’Artagnan had caused the coffer to be brought as far as the king’s ante-chamber. He then, with great care, closed the door of this ante-chamber, after which he opened the coffer, and said to the general:

“General, I have a thousand excuses to make to you; my manner of acting has not been worthy of such a man as you, I know very well; but I wished you to take me for the captain of a bark. And then England is a very inconvenient country for transports. I hope, therefore, you will take all that into consideration. But now, general, you are at liberty to get up and walk.” This said, he cut the bonds which fastened the arms and hands of the general. The latter got up, and then sat down with the countenance of a man who expects death. D’Artagnan opened the door of Charles’s study, and said, “Sire, here is your enemy, M. Monk; I promised myself to perform this service for your majesty. It is done; now order as you please. M. Monk,” added he, turning towards the prisoner, “you are in the presence of his majesty Charles II., sovereign lord of Great Britain.”

Monk raised towards the prince his coldly stoical look, and replied: “I know no king of Great Britain; I recognize even here no one worthy of bearing the name of gentleman: for it is in the name of King Charles II. that an emissary, whom I took for an honest man, came and laid an infamous snare for me. I have fallen into that snare; so much the worse for me. Now, you the tempter,” said he to the king, “you the executor,” said he to D’Artagnan; “remember what I am about to say to you; you have my body, you may kill it, and I advise you to do so, for you shall never have my mind or my will. And now, ask me not a single word, as from this moment I will not open my mouth even to cry out. I have said.”

And he pronounced these words with the savage, invincible resolution of the most mortified Puritan. D’Artagnan looked at his prisoner like a man, who knows the value of every word, and who fixes that value according to the accent with which it has been pronounced.

“The fact is,” said he, in a whisper to the king, “the general is an obstinate man; he would not take a mouthful of bread, nor swallow a drop of wine, during the two days of our voyage. But as from this moment it is your majesty who must decide his fate, I wash my hands of him.”

Monk, erect, pale, and resigned, waited with his eyes fixed and his arms folded. D’Artagnan turned towards him. “You will please to understand perfectly,” said he, “that your speech, otherwise very fine, does not suit anybody, not even yourself. His majesty wished to speak to you, you refused him an interview; why, now that you are face to face, that you are here by a force independent of your will, why do you confine yourself to rigors which I consider useless and absurd? Speak! what the devil! speak, if only to say ‘No.’”

Monk did not unclose his lips, Monk did not turn his eyes; Monk stroked his mustache with a thoughtful air, which announced that matters were going on badly.

During all this time Charles II. had fallen into a profound reverie. For the first time he found himself face to face with Monk; with the man he had so much desired to see; and, with that peculiar glance which God has given to eagles and kings, he had fathomed the abyss of his heart. He beheld Monk, then, resolved positively to die rather than speak, which was not to be wondered at in so considerable a man, the wound in whose mind must at the moment have been cruel. Charles II. formed, on the instant, one of those resolutions upon which an ordinary man risks his life, a general his fortune, and a king his kingdom. “Monsieur,” said he to Monk, “you are perfectly right upon certain points; I do not, therefore, ask you to answer me, but to listen to me.”

There was a moment’s silence, during which the king looked at Monk, who remained impassible.

“You have made me just now a painful reproach, monsieur,” continued the king; “you said that one of my emissaries had been to Newcastle to lay a snare for you, and that, parenthetically, cannot be understood by M. d’Artagnan, here, and to whom, before everything, I owe sincere thanks for his generous, his heroic devotion.”

D’Artagnan bowed with respect; Monk took no notice.

“For M. d’Artagnan—and observe, M. Monk, I do not say this to excuse myself—for M. d’Artagnan,” continued the king, “went to England of his free will, without interest, without orders, without hope, like a true gentleman as he is, to render a service to an unfortunate king, and to add to the illustrious actions of an existence, already so well filled, one glorious deed more.”

D’Artagnan colored a little, and coughed to keep his countenance. Monk did not stir.

“You do not believe what I tell you, M. Monk,” continued the king. “I can understand that,—such proofs of devotion are so rare, that their reality may well be put in doubt.”

“Monsieur would do wrong not to believe you, sire,” cried D’Artagnan: “for that which your majesty has said is the exact truth, and the truth so exact that it seems, in going to fetch the general, I have done something which sets everything wrong. In truth, if it be so, I am in despair.”

“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the king, pressing the hand of the musketeer, “you have obliged me as much as if you had promoted the success of my cause, for you have revealed to me an unknown friend, to whom I shall ever be grateful, and whom I shall always love.” And the king pressed his hand cordially. “And,” continued he, bowing to Monk, “an enemy whom I shall henceforth esteem at his proper value.”

The eyes of the Puritan flashed, but only once, and his countenance, for an instant, illuminated by that flash, resumed its somber impassibility.

“Then, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” continued Charles, “this is what was about to happen: M. le Comte de la Fere, whom you know, I believe, has set out for Newcastle.”

“What, Athos!” exclaimed D’Artagnan.

“Yes, that was his nom de guerre, I believe. The Comte de la Fere had then set out for Newcastle, and was going, perhaps, to bring the general to hold a conference with me or with those of my party, when you violently, as it appears, interfered with the negotiation.”

“Mordioux!” replied D’Artagnan, “he entered the camp the very evening in which I succeeded in getting into it with my fishermen——”

An almost imperceptible frown on the brow of Monk told D’Artagnan that he had surmised rightly.

“Yes, yes,” muttered he; “I thought I knew his person; I even fancied I knew his voice. Unlucky wretch that I am! Oh! sire, pardon me! I thought I had so successfully steered my bark.”

“There is nothing ill in it, sir,” said the king, “except that the general accuses me of having laid a snare for him, which is not the case. No, general, those are not the arms which I contemplated employing with you as you will soon see. In the meanwhile, when I give you my word upon the honor of a gentleman, believe me, sir, believe me! Now, Monsieur d’Artagnan, a word with you, if you please.”

“I listen on my knees, sire.”

“You are truly at my service, are you not?”

“Your majesty has seen I am, too much so.”

“That is well; from a man like you one word suffices. In addition to that word you bring actions. General, have the goodness to follow me. Come with us, M. d’Artagnan.”

D’Artagnan, considerably surprised, prepared to obey. Charles II. went out, Monk followed him, D’Artagnan followed Monk. Charles took the path by which D’Artagnan had come to his abode; the fresh sea breezes soon caressed the faces of the three nocturnal travelers, and, at fifty paces from the little gate which Charles opened, they found themselves upon the down in the face of the ocean, which, having ceased to rise, reposed upon the shore like a wearied monster. Charles II. walked pensively along, his head hanging down and his hand beneath his cloak. Monk followed him, with crossed arms and an uneasy look. D’Artagnan came last, with his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Where is the boat in which you came, gentlemen?” said Charles to the musketeer.

“Yonder, sire, I have seven men and an officer waiting me in that little bark which is lighted by a fire.”

“Yes, I see; the boat is drawn upon the sand, but you certainly did not come from Newcastle in that frail bark?”

“No, sire; I freighted a felucca, at my own expense, which is at anchor within cannon-shot of the downs. It was in that felucca we made the voyage.”

“Sir,” said the king to Monk, “you are free.”

However firm of his will, Monk could not suppress an exclamation. The king added an affirmative motion of his head, and continued: “We shall waken a fisherman of the village, who will put his boat to sea immediately, and will take you back to any place you may command him. M. d’Artagnan here will escort your honor. I place M. d’Artagnan under the safeguard of your loyalty, M. Monk.”

Monk allowed a murmur of surprise to escape him, and D’Artagnan a profound sigh. The king, without appearing to notice either, knocked against the deal trellis which inclosed the cabin of the principal fisherman inhabiting the down.

“Hey! Keyser!” cried he, “awake!”

“Who calls me?” asked the fisherman.

“I, Charles the king.”

“Ah, my lord!” cried Keyser, rising ready dressed from the sail in which he slept, as people sleep in a hammock. “What can I do to serve you?”

“Captain Keyser,” said Charles, “you must set sail immediately. Here is a traveler who wishes to freight your bark, and will pay you well; serve him well.” And the king drew back a few steps to allow Monk to speak to the fisherman.

“I wish to cross over into England,” said Monk, who spoke Dutch enough to make himself understood.

“This minute,” said the patron, “this very minute, if you wish it.”

“But will that be long?” said Monk.

“Not half an hour, your honor. My eldest son is at this moment preparing the boat, as we were going out fishing at three o’clock in the morning.”

“Well, is all arranged?” asked the king, drawing near.

“All but the price,” said the fisherman; “yes, sire.”

“That is my affair,” said Charles, “the gentleman is my friend.”

Monk started and looked at Charles on hearing this word.

“Very well, my lord,” replied Keyser. And at that moment they heard Keyser’s eldest son, signaling from the shore with the blast of a bull’s horn.

“Now, gentlemen,” said the king, “depart.”

“Sire,” said D’Artagnan, “will it please your majesty to grant me a few minutes? I have engaged men, and I am going without them; I must give them notice.”

“Whistle to them,” said Charles, smiling.

D’Artagnan, accordingly, whistled, whilst the patron Keyser replied to his son; and four men, led by Menneville, attended the first summons.

“Here is some money in account,” said D’Artagnan, putting into their hands a purse containing two thousand five hundred livres in gold. “Go and wait for me at Calais, you know where.” And D’Artagnan heaved a profound sigh, as he let the purse fall into the hands of Menneville.

“What, are you leaving us?” cried the men.

“For a short time,” said D’Artagnan, “or for a long time, who knows? But with 2,500 livres, and the 2,500 you have already received, you are paid according to our agreement. We are quits, then, my friend.”

“But the boat?”

“Do not trouble yourself about that.”

“Our things are on board the felucca.”

“Go and seek them, and then set off immediately.”

“Yes, captain.”

D’Artagnan returned to Monk, saying,—“Monsieur, I await your orders, for I understand we are to go together, unless my company be disagreeable to you.”

“On the contrary, monsieur,” said Monk.

“Come, gentlemen, on board,” cried Keyser’s son.

Charles bowed to the general with grace and dignity, saying,—“You will pardon me this unfortunate accident, and the violence to which you have been subjected, when you are convinced that I was not the cause of them.”

Monk bowed profoundly without replying. On his side, Charles affected not to say a word to D’Artagnan in private, but aloud,—“Once more, thanks, monsieur le chevalier,” said he, “thanks for your services. They will be repaid you by the Lord God, who, I hope, reserves trials and troubles for me alone.”

Monk followed Keyser, and his son embarked with them. D’Artagnan came after, muttering to himself,—“Poor Planchet! poor Planchet! I am very much afraid we have made a bad speculation.”

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30. The Shares of Planchet and Company rise again to Par

During the passage, Monk only spoke to D’Artagnan in cases of urgent necessity. Thus, when the Frenchman hesitated to come and take his meals, poor meals, composed of salt fish, biscuit, and Hollands gin, Monk called him, saying,—“To table, monsieur, to table!”

This was all. D’Artagnan, from being himself on all great occasions extremely concise, did not draw from the general’s conciseness a favorable augury of the result of his mission. Now, as D’Artagnan had plenty of time for reflection, he battered his brains during this time in endeavoring to find out how Athos had seen King Charles, how he had conspired his departure with him, and lastly, how he had entered Monk’s camp; and the poor lieutenant of musketeers plucked a hair from his mustache every time he reflected that the horseman who accompanied Monk on the night of the famous abduction must have been Athos.

At length, after a passage of two nights and two days, the patron Keyser touched at the point where Monk, who had given all the orders during the voyage, had commanded they should land. It was exactly at the mouth of the little river, near which Athos had chosen his abode.

Daylight was waning, a splendid sun, like a red steel buckler, was plunging the lower extremity of its disc beneath the blue line of the sea. The felucca was making fair way up the river, tolerably wide in that part, but Monk, in his impatience, desired to be landed, and Keyser’s boat set him and D’Artagnan upon the muddy bank, amidst the reeds. D’Artagnan, resigned to obedience, followed Monk exactly as a chained bear follows his master; but the position humiliated him not a little, and he grumbled to himself that the service of kings was a bitter one, and that the best of them was good for nothing. Monk walked with long and hasty strides; it might be thought that he did not yet feel certain of having reached English land. They had already begun to perceive distinctly a few of the cottages of the sailors and fishermen spread over the little quay of this humble port, when, all at once, D’Artagnan cried out,—“God pardon me, there is a house on fire!”

Monk raised his eyes, and perceived there was, in fact, a house which the flames were beginning to devour. It had begun at a little shed belonging to the house, the roof of which had caught. The fresh evening breeze agitated the fire. The two travelers quickened their steps, hearing loud cries, and seeing, as they drew nearer, soldiers with their glittering arms pointing towards the house on fire. It was doubtless this menacing occupation which had made them neglect to signal the felucca. Monk stopped short for an instant, and, for the first time, formulated his thoughts into words. “Eh! but,” said he, “perhaps they are not my soldiers, but Lambert’s.”

These words contained at once a sorrow, an apprehension, and a reproach perfectly intelligible to D’Artagnan. In fact, during the general’s absence, Lambert might have given battle, conquered, and dispersed the parliament’s army, and taken with his own the place of Monk’s army, deprived of its strongest support. At this doubt, which passed from the mind of Monk to his own, D’Artagnan reasoned in this manner: “One of two things is going to happen; either Monk has spoken correctly, and there are no longer any but Lambertists in the country—that is to say, enemies, who would receive me wonderfully well, since it is to me they owe their victory; or nothing is changed, and Monk, transported with joy at finding his camp still in the same place, will not prove too severe in his settlement with me.” Whilst thinking thus, the two travelers advanced, and began to mingle with a little knot of sailors, who looked on with sorrow at the burning house, but did not dare to say anything on account of the threats of the soldiers.

Monk addressed one of these sailors:—“What is going on here?” asked he.

“Sir,” replied the man, not recognizing Monk as an officer, under the thick cloak which enveloped him, “that house was inhabited by a foreigner, and this foreigner became suspected by the soldiers. They wanted to get into his house under pretense of taking him to the camp; but he, without being frightened by their number, threatened death to the first who should cross the threshold of his door, and as there was one who did venture, the Frenchman stretched him on the earth with a pistol-shot.”

“Ah! he is a Frenchman, is he?” said D’Artagnan, rubbing his hands. “Good!”

“How good?” replied the fisherman.

“No, I don’t mean that.—What then—my tongue slipped.”

“What then, sir—why, the other men became as enraged as so many lions: they fired more than a hundred shots at the house; but the Frenchman was sheltered by the wall, and every time they tried to enter by the door they met with a shot from his lackey, whose aim is deadly, d’ye see? Every time they threatened the window, they met with a pistol-shot from the master. Look and count—there are seven men down.

“Ah! my brave countryman,” cried D’Artagnan, “wait a little, wait a little. I will be with you, and we will settle with this rabble.”

“One instant, sir,” said Monk, “wait.”

“Long?”

“No; only the time to ask a question.” Then, turning towards the sailor, “My friend,” asked he with an emotion which, in spite of all his self-command, he could not conceal, “whose soldiers are these, pray tell me?”

“Whose should they be but that madman, Monk’s?”

“There has been no battle, then?”

“A battle, ah, yes! for what purpose? Lambert’s army is melting away like snow in April. All come to Monk, officers and soldiers. In a week Lambert won’t have fifty men left.”

The fisherman was interrupted by a fresh discharge directed against the house, and by another pistol-shot which replied to the discharge and struck down the most daring of the aggressors. The rage of the soldiers was at its height. The fire still continued to increase, and a crest of flame and smoke whirled and spread over the roof of the house. D’Artagnan could no longer contain himself. “Mordioux!” said he to Monk, glancing at him sideways: “you are a general, and allow your men to burn houses and assassinate people, while you look on and warm your hands at the blaze of the conflagration? Mordioux! you are not a man.”

“Patience, sir, patience!” said Monk, smiling.

“Patience! yes, until that brave gentleman is roasted—is that what you mean?” And D’Artagnan rushed forward.

“Remain where you are, sir,” said Monk, in a tone of command. And he advanced towards the house, just as an officer had approached it, saying to the besieged: “The house is burning, you will be roasted within an hour! There is still time—come, tell us what you know of General Monk, and we will spare your life. Reply, or by Saint Patrick——”

The besieged made no answer; he was no doubt reloading his pistol.

“A reinforcement is expected,” continued the officer; “in a quarter of an hour there will be a hundred men around your house.”

“I reply to you,” said the Frenchman. “Let your men be sent away; I will come out freely and repair to the camp alone, or else I will be killed here!”

“Mille tonnerres!” shouted D’Artagnan; “why that’s the voice of Athos! Ah, canailles!” and the sword of D’Artagnan flashed from its sheath. Monk stopped him and advanced himself, exclaiming, in a sonorous voice: “Hola! what is going on here? Digby, whence this fire? why these cries?”

“The general!” cried Digby, letting the point of his sword fall.

“The general!” repeated the soldiers.

“Well, what is there so astonishing in that?” said Monk, in a calm tone. Then, silence being re-established—“Now,” said he, “who lit this fire?”

The soldiers hung their heads.

“What! do I ask a question, and nobody answers me?” said Monk. “What! do I find a fault, and nobody repairs it? The fire is still burning, I believe.”

Immediately the twenty men rushed forward, seizing pails, buckets, jars, barrels, and extinguishing the fire with as much ardor as they had, an instant before employed in promoting it. But already, and before all the rest, D’Artagnan had applied a ladder to the house crying, “Athos! it is I, D’Artagnan! Do not kill me my dearest friend!” And in a moment the count was clasped in his arms.

In the meantime, Grimaud, preserving his calmness, dismantled the fortification of the ground-floor, and after having opened the door, stood with his arms folded quietly on the sill. Only, on hearing the voice of D’Artagnan, he uttered an exclamation of surprise. The fire being extinguished, the soldiers presented themselves, Digby at their head.

“General,” said he, “excuse us; what we have done was for love of your honor, whom we thought lost.”

“You are mad, gentlemen. Lost! Is a man like me to be lost? Am I not permitted to be absent, according to my pleasure, without giving formal notice? Do you, by chance, take me for a citizen from the city? Is a gentleman, my friend, my guest, to be besieged, entrapped, and threatened with death, because he is suspected? What signifies that word, suspected? Curse me if I don’t have every one of you shot like dogs that the brave gentleman has left alive!”

“General,” said Digby, piteously, “there were twenty-eight of us, and see, there are eight on the ground.”

“I authorize M. le Comte de la Fere to send the twenty to join the eight,” said Monk, stretching out his hand to Athos. “Let them return to camp. Mr. Digby, you will consider yourself under arrest for a month.”

“General——”

“That is to teach you, sir, not to act, another time, without orders.”

“I had those of the lieutenant, general.”

“The lieutenant has no such orders to give you, and he shall be placed under arrest, instead of you, if he has really commanded you to burn this gentleman.”

“He did not command that, general; he commanded us to bring him to the camp; but the count was not willing to follow us.”

“I was not willing that they should enter and plunder my house,” said Athos to Monk, with a significant look.

“And you were quite right. To the camp, I say.” The soldiers departed with dejected looks. “Now we are alone,” said Monk to Athos, “have the goodness to tell me, monsieur, why you persisted in remaining here, whilst you had your felucca——”

“I waited for you, general,” said Athos. “Had not your honor appointed to meet me in a week?”

An eloquent look from D’Artagnan made it clear to Monk that these two men, so brave and so loyal, had not acted in concert for his abduction. He knew already it could not be so.

“Monsieur,” said he to D’Artagnan, “you were perfectly right. Have the kindness to allow me a moment’s conversation with M. le Comte de la Fere?”

D’Artagnan took advantage of this to go and ask Grimaud how he was. Monk requested Athos to conduct him to the chamber he lived in.

This chamber was still full of smoke and rubbish. More than fifty balls had passed through the windows and mutilated the walls. They found a table, inkstand, and materials for writing. Monk took up a pen, wrote a single line, signed it, folded the paper, sealed the letter with the seal of his ring, and handed over the missive to Athos, saying, “Monsieur, carry, if you please, this letter to King Charles II., and set out immediately, if nothing detains you here any longer.”

“And the casks?” said Athos.

“The fisherman who brought me hither will assist you in transporting them on board. Depart, if possible, within an hour.”

“Yes, general,” said Athos.

“Monsieur d’Artagnan!” cried Monk, from the window. D’Artagnan ran up precipitately.

“Embrace your friend and bid him adieu, sir; he is returning to Holland.”

“To Holland!” cried D’Artagnan; “and I?”

“You are at liberty to follow him, monsieur, but I request you to remain,” said Monk. “Will you refuse me?”

“Oh, no, general; I am at your orders.”

D’Artagnan embraced Athos, and only had time to bid him adieu. Monk watched them both. Then he took upon himself the preparations for the departure, the transportation of the casks on board, and the embarking of Athos; then, taking D’Artagnan by the arm, who was quite amazed and agitated, he led him towards Newcastle. Whilst going along, the general leaning on his arm, D’Artagnan could not help murmuring to himself,—“Come, come, it seems to me that the shares of the firm of Planchet and Company are rising.”

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31. Monk reveals himself

D’Artagnan, although he flattered himself with better success, had, nevertheless, not too well comprehended his situation. It was a strange and grave subject for him to reflect upon—this voyage of Athos into England; this league of the king with Athos, and that extraordinary combination of his design with that of the Comte de la Fere. The best way was to let things follow their own train. An imprudence had been committed, and, whilst having succeeded, as he had promised, D’Artagnan found that he had gained no advantage by his success. Since everything was lost, he could risk no more.

D’Artagnan followed Monk through his camp. The return of the general had produced a marvelous effect, for his people had thought him lost. But Monk, with his austere look and icy demeanor, appeared to ask of his eager lieutenants and delighted soldiers the cause of all this joy. Therefore, to the lieutenants who had come to meet him, and who expressed the uneasiness with which they had learnt his departure,—

“Why is all this?” said he; “am I obliged to give you an account of myself?”

“But, your honor, the sheep may well tremble without the shepherd.”

“Tremble!” replied Monk, in his calm and powerful voice; “ah, monsieur, what a word! Curse me, if my sheep have not both teeth and claws; I renounce being their shepherd. Ah, you tremble, gentlemen, do you?”

“Yes, general, for you.”

“Oh! pray meddle with your own concerns. If I have not the wit God gave to Oliver Cromwell, I have that which He has sent to me: I am satisfied with it, however little it may be.”

The officer made no reply; and Monk, having imposed silence on his people, all remained persuaded that he had accomplished some important work or made some important trial. This was forming a very poor conception of his patience and scrupulous genius. Monk, if he had the good faith of the Puritans, his allies, must have returned fervent thanks to the patron saint who had taken him from the box of M. d’Artagnan. Whilst these things were going on, our musketeer could not help constantly repeating,—

“God grant that M. Monk may not have as much pride as I have; for I declare if any one had put me into a coffer with that grating over my mouth, and carried me packed up, like a calf, across the seas, I should cherish such a memory of my piteous looks in that coffer, and such an ugly animosity against him who had inclosed me in it, I should dread so greatly to see a sarcastic smile blooming upon the face of the malicious wretch, or in his attitude any grotesque imitation of my position in the box, that, Mordioux! I should plunge a good dagger into his throat in compensation for the grating, and would nail him down in a veritable bier, in remembrance of the false coffin in which I had been left to grow moldy for two days.”

And D’Artagnan spoke honestly when he spoke thus; for the skin of our Gascon was a very thin one. Monk, fortunately, entertained other ideas. He never opened his mouth to his timid conqueror concerning the past; but he admitted him very near to his person in his labors, took him with him to several reconnoiterings, in such a way as to obtain that which he evidently warmly desired,—a rehabilitation in the mind of D’Artagnan. The latter conducted himself like a past-master in the art of flattery: he admired all Monk’s tactics, and the ordering of his camp, he joked very pleasantly upon the circumvallations of Lambert’s camp, who had, he said, very uselessly given himself the trouble to inclose a camp for twenty thousand men, whilst an acre of ground would have been quite sufficient for the corporal and fifty guards who would perhaps remain faithful to him.

Monk, immediately after his arrival, had accepted the proposition made by Lambert the evening before, for an interview, and which Monk’s lieutenants had refused under the pretext that the general was indisposed. This interview was neither long nor interesting: Lambert demanded a profession of faith from his rival. The latter declared he had no other opinion than that of the majority. Lambert asked if it would not be more expedient to terminate the quarrel by an alliance than by a battle. Monk hereupon demanded a week for consideration. Now, Lambert could not refuse this: and Lambert, nevertheless, had come, saying that he should devour Monk’s army. Therefore, at the end of the interview, which Lambert’s party watched with impatience, nothing was decided—neither treaty nor battle—the rebel army, as M. d’Artagnan had foreseen, began to prefer the good cause to the bad one, and the parliament, rumpish as it was, to the pompous nothings of Lambert’s designs.

They remembered, likewise, the good feasts of London—-the profusion of ale and sherry with which the citizens of London paid their friends the soldiers;—they looked with terror at the black war bread, at the troubled waters of the Tweed,—too salt for the glass, not enough so for the pot; and they said to themselves, “Are not the roast meats kept warm for Monk in London?” From that time nothing was heard of but desertion in Lambert’s army. The soldiers allowed themselves to be drawn away by the force of principles, which are, like discipline, the obligatory tie in everybody constituted for any purpose. Monk defended the parliament—Lambert attacked it. Monk had no more inclination to support parliament than Lambert, but he had it inscribed on his standards, so that all those of the contrary party were reduced to write upon theirs “Rebellion,” which sounded ill to puritan ears. They flocked, then, from Lambert to Monk, as sinners flock from Baal to God.

Monk made his calculations, at a thousand desertions a day Lambert had men enough to last twenty days; but there is in sinking things such a growth of weight and swiftness, which combine with each other, that a hundred left the first day, five hundred the second, a thousand the third. Monk thought he had obtained his rate. But from one thousand the deserters increased to two thousand, then to four thousand, and, a week after, Lambert, perceiving that he had no longer the possibility of accepting battle, if it were offered to him, took the wise resolution of decamping during the night, returning to London, and being beforehand with Monk in constructing a power with the wreck of the military party.

But Monk, free and without uneasiness, marched towards London as a conqueror, augmenting his army with all the floating parties on his way. He encamped at Barnet, that is to say, within four leagues of the capital, cherished by the parliament, which thought it beheld in him a protector, and awaited by the people, who were anxious to see him reveal himself, that they might judge him. D’Artagnan himself had not been able to fathom his tactics; he observed—he admired. Monk could not enter London with a settled determination without bringing about civil war. He temporized for a short time.

Suddenly, when least expected, Monk drove the military party out of London, and installed himself in the city amidst the citizens, by order of the parliament; then, at the moment when the citizens were crying out against Monk—at the moment when the soldiers themselves were accusing their leader—Monk, finding himself certain of a majority, declared to the Rump Parliament that it must abdicate—be dissolved—and yield its place to a government which would not be a joke. Monk pronounced this declaration, supported by fifty thousand swords, to which, that same evening, were united, with shouts of delirious joy, the five hundred thousand inhabitants of the good city of London. At length, at the moment when the people, after their triumphs and festive repasts in the open streets, were looking about for a master, it was affirmed that a vessel had left the Hague, bearing Charles II. and his fortunes.

“Gentlemen,” said Monk to his officers, “I am going to meet the legitimate king. He who loves me will follow me.” A burst of acclamations welcomed these words, which D’Artagnan did not hear without the greatest delight.

“Mordioux!” said he to Monk, “that is bold, monsieur.”

“You will accompany me, will you not?” said Monk.

“Pardieu! general. But tell me, I beg, what you wrote by Athos, that is to say, the Comte de la Fere—you know—the day of our arrival?”

“I have no secrets from you now,” replied Monk. “I wrote these words: ‘Sire, I expect your majesty in six weeks at Dover.’”

“Ah!” said D’Artagnan, “I no longer say it is bold; I say it is well played; it is a fine stroke!”

“You are something of a judge in such matters,” replied Monk.

And this was the only time the general had ever made an allusion to his voyage to Holland.

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32. Athos and D’Artagnan meet once more at the Hostelry of the Corne du Cerf

The king of England made his entree into Dover with great pomp, as he afterwards did in London. He had sent for his brothers; he had brought over his mother and sister. England had been for so long a time given up to herself—that is to say, to tyranny, mediocrity, and nonsense—that this return of Charles II., whom the English only knew as the son of the man whose head they had cut off, was a festival for the three kingdoms. Consequently, all the good wishes, all the acclamations which accompanied his return, struck the young king so forcibly that he stooped and whispered in the ear of James of York, his younger brother, “In truth, James, it seems to have been our own fault that we were so long absent from a country where we are so much beloved!” The pageant was magnificent. Beautiful weather favored the solemnity. Charles had regained all his youth, all his good humor; he appeared to be transfigured; hearts seemed to smile on him like the sun. Amongst this noisy crowd of courtiers and worshippers, who did not appear to remember they had conducted to the scaffold at Whitehall the father of the new king, a man, in the garb of a lieutenant of musketeers, looked, with a smile upon his thin, intellectual lips, sometimes at the people vociferating their blessings, and sometimes at the prince, who pretended emotion, and who bowed most particularly to the women, whose bouquets fell beneath his horse’s feet.

“What a fine trade is that of king!” said this man, so completely absorbed in contemplation that he stopped in the middle of his road, leaving the cortege to file past. “Now, there is, in good truth, a prince all bespangled over with gold and diamonds, enamelled with flowers like a spring meadow; he is about to plunge his empty hands into the immense coffer in which his now faithful—but so lately unfaithful—subjects have amassed one or two cartloads of ingots of gold. They cast bouquets enough upon him to smother him; and yet, if he had presented himself to them two months ago, they would have sent as many bullets and balls at him as they now throw flowers. Decidedly it is worth something to be born in a certain sphere, with due respect to the lowly, who pretend that it is of very little advantage to them to be born lowly.” The cortege continued to file on, and, with the king, the acclamations began to die away in the direction of the palace which, however, did not prevent our officer from being pushed about.

“Mordioux!” continued the reasoner, “these people tread upon my toes and look upon me as of very little consequence, or rather of none at all, seeing that they are Englishmen and I am a Frenchman. If all these people were asked,—‘Who is M. d’Artagnan?’ they would reply, ‘Nescio vos.’ But let any one say to them, ‘There is the king going by,’ ‘There is M. Monk going by,’ they would run away, shouting,—‘Vive le roi!’ ‘Vive M. Monk!’ till their lungs were exhausted. And yet,” continued he, surveying, with that look sometimes so keen and sometimes so proud, the diminishing crowd,—“and yet, reflect a little, my good people, on what your king has done, on what M. Monk has done, and then think what has been done by this poor unknown, who is called M. d’Artagnan! It is true you do not know him, since he is here unknown, and that prevents your thinking about the matter! But, bah! what matters it! All that does not prevent Charles II. from being a great king, although he has been exiled twelve years, or M. Monk from being a great captain, although he did make a voyage to Holland in a box. Well, then, since it is admitted that one is a great king and the other a great captain,—‘Hurrah for King Charles II.!—Hurrah for General Monk!’” And his voice mingled with the voices of the hundreds of spectators, over which it sounded for a moment. Then, the better to play the devoted man, he took off his hat and waved it in the air. Some one seized his arm in the very height of his expansive royalism. (In 1660 that was so termed which we now call royalism.)

“Athos!” cried D’Artagnan, “you here!” And the two friends seized each other’s hands.

“You here!—and being here,” continued the musketeer, “you are not in the midst of all these courtiers my dear comte! What! you, the hero of the fete, you are not prancing on the left hand of the king, as M. Monk is prancing on the right? In truth, I cannot comprehend your character, nor that of the prince who owes you so much!”

“Always scornful, my dear D’Artagnan!” said Athos. “Will you never correct yourself of that vile habit?”

“But, you do not form part of the pageant?”

“I do not, because I was not willing to do so.”

“And why were you not willing?”

“Because I am neither envoy nor ambassador, nor representative of the king of France; and it does not become me to exhibit myself thus near the person of another king than the one God has given me for a master.”

“Mordioux! you came very near to the person of the king, his father.”

“That was another thing, my friend; he was about to die.”

“And yet that which you did for him——”

“I did it because it was my duty to do it. But you know I hate all ostentation. Let King Charles II., then, who no longer stands in need of me, leave me to my rest, and in the shadow; that is all I claim of him.”

D’Artagnan sighed.

“What is the matter with you?” said Athos. “One would say that this happy return of the king to London saddens you, my friend; you who have done at least as much for his majesty as I have.”

“Have I not,” replied D’Artagnan, with his Gascon laugh, “have I not done much for his majesty, without any one suspecting it?”

“Yes, yes, but the king is well aware of it my friend,” cried Athos.

“He is aware of it!” said the musketeer bitterly. “By my faith! I did not suspect so, and I was even a moment ago trying to forget it myself.”

“But he, my friend, will not forget it, I will answer for him.”

“You tell me that to console me a little, Athos.”

“For what?”

“Mordioux! for all the expense I incurred. I have ruined myself, my friend, ruined myself for the restoration of this young prince who has just passed, cantering on his isabelle colored horse.”

“The king does not know you have ruined yourself, my friend, but he knows he owes you much.”

“And say, Athos, does that advance me in any respect? for, to do you justice, you have labored nobly. But I—I, who in appearance marred your combinations, it was I who really made them succeed. Follow my calculations; closely, you might not have, by persuasions or mildness convinced General Monk, whilst I so roughly treated this dear general, that I furnished your prince with an opportunity of showing himself generous: this generosity was inspired in him by the fact of my fortunate mistake, and Charles is paid by the restoration which Monk has brought about.”

“All that, my dear friend, is strikingly true,” replied Athos.

“Well, strikingly true as it may be, it is not less true, my friend, that I shall return—greatly beloved by M. Monk, who calls me dear captain all day long, although I am neither dear to him nor a captain;—and much appreciated by the king, who has already forgotten my name;—it is not less true, I say, that I shall return to my beautiful country, cursed by the soldiers I had raised with the hopes of large pay, cursed by the brave Planchet, of whom I borrowed a part of his fortune.”

“How is that? What the devil had Planchet to do in all this?”

“Ah, yes, my friend, but this king, so spruce, so smiling, so adored, M. Monk fancies he has recalled him, you fancy you have supported him, I fancy I have brought him back, the people fancy they have reconquered him, he himself fancies he has negotiated his restoration; and yet nothing of all this is true, for Charles II., king of England, Scotland, and Ireland, has been replaced upon the throne by a French grocer, who lives in the Rue des Lombards, and is named Planchet. And such is grandeur! ‘Vanity!’ says the Scripture: ‘vanity, all is vanity.’”

Athos could not help laughing at this whimsical outbreak of his friend.

“My dear D’Artagnan,” said he, pressing his hand affectionately, “should you not exercise a little more philosophy? Is it not some further satisfaction to you to have saved my life as you did by arriving so fortunately with Monk, when those damned parliamentarians wanted to burn me alive?”

“Well, but you, in some degree, deserved a little burning, my friend.”

“How so? What, for having saved King Charles’s million?”

“What million?”

“Ah, that is true! you never knew that, my friend; but you must not be angry, for it was not my secret. That word ‘Remember’ which the king pronounced upon the scaffold.”

“And which means ‘souviens-toi!’”

“Exactly. That was signified. ‘Remember there is a million buried in the vaults of Newcastle Abbey, and that that million belongs to my son.’”

“Ah! very well, I understand. But what I understand likewise, and what is very frightful, is, that every time his majesty Charles II. will think of me, he will say to himself: ‘There is the man who came very near making me lose my crown. Fortunately I was generous, great, full of presence of mind.’ That will be said by the young gentleman in a shabby black doublet, who came to the chateau of Blois, hat in hand, to ask me if I would give him access to the king of France.”

“D’Artagnan! D’Artagnan!” said Athos, laying his hand on the shoulder of the musketeer, “you are unjust.”

“I have a right to be so.”

“No—for you are ignorant of the future.”

D’Artagnan looked his friend full in the face, and began to laugh. “In truth, my dear Athos,” said he, “you have some sayings so superb, that they only belong to you and M. le Cardinal Mazarin.”

Athos frowned slightly.

“I beg your pardon,” continued D’Artagnan, laughing, “I beg your pardon, if I have offended you. The future! Nein! what pretty words are words that promise, and how well they fill the mouth in default of other things! Mordioux! After having met with so many who promised, when shall I find one who will give? But, let that pass!” continued D’Artagnan. “What are you doing here, my dear Athos? Are you the king’s treasurer?”

“How—why the king’s treasurer?”

“Well, since the king possesses a million, he must want a treasurer. The king of France, although he is not worth a sou, has still a superintendent of finance, M. Fouquet. It is true that, in exchange, M. Fouquet, they say, has a good number of millions of his own.”

“Oh! our million was spent long ago,” said Athos, laughing in his turn.

“I understand, it was frittered away in satin, precious stones, velvet, and feathers of all sorts and colors. All these princes and princesses stood in great need of tailors and dressmakers. Eh! Athos, do you remember what we fellows spent in equipping ourselves for the campaign of La Rochelle, and to make our appearance on horseback? Two or three thousand livres, by my faith! But a king’s robe is more ample; it would require a million to purchase the stuff. At least, Athos, if you are not treasurer, you are on a good footing at court.”

“By the faith of a gentleman, I know nothing about it,” said Athos, simply.

“What! you know nothing about it?”

“No! I have not seen the king since we left Dover.”

“Then he has forgotten you, too! Mordioux! That is shameful!”

“His majesty has had so much business to transact.”

“Oh!” cried D’Artagnan, with one of those intelligent grimaces which he alone knew how to make, “that is enough to make me recover my love for Monseigneur Giulio Mazarini. What, Athos the king has not seen you since then?”

“No.”

“And you are not furious?”

“I! Why should I be? Do you imagine, my dear D’Artagnan, that it was on the king’s account I acted as I have done? I did not know the young man. I defended the father, who represented a principle—sacred in my eyes, and I allowed myself to be drawn towards the son from sympathy for this same principle. Besides, he was a worthy knight, a noble creature, that father: do you remember him?”

“Yes; that is true; he was a brave, an excellent man, who led a sad life, but made a fine end.”

“Well, my dear D’Artagnan, understand this; to that king, to that man of heart, to that friend of my thoughts, if I durst venture to say so, I swore at the last hour to preserve faithfully the secret of a deposit which was to be transmitted to his son, to assist him in his hour of need. This young man came to me; he described his destitution; he was ignorant that he was anything to me save a living memory of his father. I have accomplished towards Charles II. what I promised Charles I.; that is all! Of what consequence is it to me, then, whether he be grateful or not? It is to myself I have rendered a service, by relieving myself of this responsibility, and not to him.”

“Well, I have always said,” replied D’Artagnan, with a sigh, “that disinterestedness was the finest thing in the world.”

“Well, and you, my friend,” resumed Athos, “are you not in the same situation as myself? If I have properly understood your words, you allowed yourself to be affected by the misfortunes of this young man; that, on your part, was much greater than it was upon mine, for I had a duty to fulfill, whilst you were under no obligation to the son of the martyr. You had not, on your part, to pay him the price of that precious drop of blood which he let fall upon my brow, through the floor of his scaffold. That which made you act was heart alone—the noble and good heart which you possess beneath your apparent skepticism and sarcastic irony; you have engaged the fortune of a servitor, and your own, I suspect, my benevolent miser! and your sacrifice is not acknowledged! Of what consequence is it? You wish to repay Planchet his money. I can comprehend that, my friend: for it is not becoming in a gentleman to borrow from his inferior, without returning to him principal and interest. Well, I will sell La Fere if necessary, and if not, some little farm. You shall pay Planchet, and there will be enough, believe me, of corn left in my granaries for us two and Raoul. In this way, my friend, you will be under obligations to nobody but yourself, and, if I know you well, it will not be a small satisfaction to your mind to be able to say, ‘I have made a king!’ Am I right?”

“Athos! Athos!” murmured D’Artagnan, thoughtfully, “I have told you more than once that the day on which you will preach I shall attend the sermon; the day on which you will tell me there is a hell—Mordioux! I shall be afraid of the gridiron and the pitchforks. You are better than I, or rather, better than anybody, and I only acknowledge the possession of one quality, and that is, of not being jealous. Except that defect, damme, as the English say, if I have not all the rest.”

“I know no one equal to D’Artagnan,” replied Athos; “but here we are, having quietly reached the house I inhabit. Will you come in, my friend?”

“Eh! why, this is the tavern of the Corne du Cerf, I think,” said D’Artagnan.

“I confess I chose it on purpose. I like old acquaintances; I like to sit down on that place, whereon I sank, overcome by fatigue, overwhelmed with despair, when you returned on the 31st of January.”

“After having discovered the abode of the masked executioner? Yes, that was a terrible day!”

“Come in, then,” said Athos, interrupting him.

They entered the large apartment, formerly the common one. The tavern, in general, and this room in particular, had undergone great changes; the ancient host of the musketeers, having become tolerably rich for an innkeeper, had closed his shop, and made of this room of which we were speaking, a store-room for colonial provisions. As for the rest of the house, he let it ready furnished to strangers. It was with unspeakable emotion D’Artagnan recognized all the furniture of the chamber of the first story; the wainscoting, the tapestries, and even that geographical chart which Porthos had so fondly studied in his moments of leisure.

“It is eleven years ago,” cried D’Artagnan. “Mordioux! it appears to me a century!”

“And to me but a day,” said Athos. “Imagine the joy I experience, my friend, in seeing you there, in pressing your hand, in casting from me sword and dagger, and tasting without mistrust this glass of sherry. And, oh! what still further joy it would be, if our two friends were there, at the two corners of the tables, and Raoul, my beloved Raoul, on the threshold, looking at us with his large eyes, at once so brilliant and so soft!”

“Yes, yes,” said D’Artagnan, much affected, “that is true. I approve particularly of the first part of your thought; it is very pleasant to smile there where we have so legitimately shuddered in thinking that from one moment to another M. Mordaunt might appear upon the landing.”

At this moment the door opened, and D’Artagnan, brave as he was, could not restrain a slight movement of fright. Athos understood him, and, smiling,—

“It is our host,” said he, “bringing me a letter.”

“Yes, my lord,” said the good man; “here is a letter for your honor.”

“Thank you,” said Athos, taking the letter without looking at it. “Tell me, my dear host, if you do not remember this gentleman?”

The old man raised his head, and looked attentively at D’Artagnan.

“No,” said he.

“It is,” said Athos, “one of those friends of whom I have spoken to you, and who lodged here with me eleven years ago.”

“Oh! but,” said the old man, “so many strangers have lodged here!”

“But we lodged here on the 30th of January, 1649,” added Athos, believing he should stimulate the lazy memory of the host by this remark.

“That is very possible,” replied he, smiling; “but it is so long ago!” and he bowed, and went out.

“Thank you,” said D’Artagnan—“perform exploits, accomplish revolutions, endeavor to engrave your name in stone or bronze with strong swords! there is something more rebellious, more hard, more forgetful than iron, bronze, or stone, and that is, the brain of a lodging-house keeper who has grown rich in the trade,—he does not know me! Well, I should have known him, though.”

Athos, smiling at his friend’s philosophy, unsealed his letter.

“Ah!” said he, “a letter from Parry.”

“Oh! oh!” said D’Artagnan; “read it, my friend, read it! No doubt it contains news.”

Athos shook his head, and read:

Monsieur le Comte.—The king has experienced much regret at not seeing you to-day beside him, at his entrance. His majesty commands me to say so, and to recall him to your memory. His majesty will expect you this evening, at the palace of St. James, between nine and ten o’clock.

“I am, respectfully, monsieur le comte, your honor’s very humble and very obedient servant,—Parry.”

“You see, my dear D’Artagnan,” said Athos, “we must not despair of the hearts of kings.”

“Not despair! you are right to say so!” replied D’Artagnan.

“Oh! my dear, very dear friend,” resumed Athos, whom the almost imperceptible bitterness of D’Artagnan had not escaped. “Pardon me! can I have unintentionally wounded my best comrade?”

“You are mad, Athos, and to prove it, I shall conduct you to the palace; to the very gate, I mean; the walk will do me good.”

“You shall go in with me, my friend; I will speak to his majesty.”

“No, no!” replied D’Artagnan, with true pride, free from all mixture; “if there is anything worse than begging yourself, it is making others beg for you. Come, let us go, my friend, the walk will be charming; on the way I shall show you the house of M. Monk, who has detained me with him. A beautiful house, by my faith. Being a general in England is better than being a marechal in France, please to know.”

Athos allowed himself to be led along, quite saddened by D’Artagnan’s forced attempts at gayety. The whole city was in a state of joy; the two friends were jostled at every moment by enthusiasts who required them, in their intoxication, to cry out, “Long live good King Charles!” D’Artagnan replied by a grunt, and Athos by a smile. They arrived thus in front of Monk’s house, before which, as we have said, they had to pass on their way to St. James’s.

Athos and D’Artagnan said but little on the road, for the simple reason that they would have had so many things to talk about if they had spoken. Athos thought that by speaking he should evince satisfaction, and that might wound D’Artagnan. The latter feared that in speaking he should allow some little bitterness to steal into his words which would render his company unpleasant to his friend. It was a singular emulation of silence between contentment and ill-humor. D’Artagnan gave way first to that itching at the tip of his tongue which he so habitually experienced.

“Do you remember, Athos,” said he, “the passage of the ‘Memoires de D’Aubigny,’ in which that devoted servant, a Gascon like myself, poor as myself, and, I was going to add, brave as myself, relates instances of the meanness of Henry IV.? My father always told me, I remember, that D’Aubigny was a liar. But, nevertheless, examine how all the princes, the issue of the great Henry, keep up the character of the race.”

“Nonsense!” said Athos, “the kings of France misers? You are mad, my friend.”

“Oh! you are so perfect yourself, you never agree to the faults of others. But, in reality, Henry IV. was covetous, Louis XIII., his son, was so likewise; we know something of that, don’t we? Gaston carried this vice to exaggeration, and has made himself, in this respect, hated by all who surround him. Henriette, poor woman, might well be avaricious, she who did not eat every day, and could not warm herself every winter; and that is an example she has given to her son Charles II., grandson of the great Henry IV., who is as covetous as his mother and his grandfather. See if I have well traced the genealogy of the misers?”

“D’Artagnan, my friend,” cried Athos, “you are very rude towards that eagle race called the Bourbons.”

“Eh! and I have forgotten the best instance of all—the other grandson of the Bearnais, Louis XIV., my ex-master. Well, I hope he is miserly enough, he who would not lend a million to his brother Charles! Good! I see you are beginning to be angry. Here we are, by good luck, close to my house, or rather to that of my friend, M. Monk.”

“My dear D’Artagnan, you do not make me angry, you make me sad; it is cruel, in fact, to see a man of your deserts out of the position his services ought to have acquired; it appears to me, my dear friend, that your name is as radiant as the greatest names in war and diplomacy. Tell me if the Luynes, the Ballegardes, and the Bassompierres have merited, as we have, fortunes and honors? You are right, my friend, a hundred times right.”

D’Artagnan sighed, and preceded his friend under the porch of the mansion Monk inhabited, at the extremity of the city. “Permit me,” said he, “to leave my purse at home; for if in the crowd those clever pickpockets of London, who are much boasted of, even in Paris, were to steal from me the remainder of my poor crowns, I should not be able to return to France. Now, content I left France, and wild with joy I should return to it, seeing that all my prejudices of former days against England have returned, accompanied by many others.”

Athos made no reply.

“So then, my dear friend, one second, and I will follow you,” said D’Artagnan. “I know you are in a hurry to go yonder to receive your reward, but, believe me, I am not less eager to partake of your joy, although from a distance. Wait for me.” And D’Artagnan was already passing through the vestibule, when a man, half servant, half soldier, who filled in Monk’s establishment the double functions of porter and guard, stopped our musketeer, saying to him in English:

“I beg your pardon, my Lord d’Artagnan!”

“Well,” replied the latter: “what is it? Is the general going to dismiss me? I only needed to be expelled by him.”

These words, spoken in French, made no impression upon the person to whom they were addressed and who himself only spoke an English mixed with the rudest Scotch. But Athos was grieved at them, for he began to think D’Artagnan was not wrong.

The Englishman showed D’Artagnan a letter: “From the general,” said he.

“Aye! that’s it, my dismissal!” replied the Gascon. “Must I read it, Athos?”

“You must be deceived,” said Athos, “or I know no more honest people in the world but you and myself.”

D’Artagnan shrugged his shoulders and unsealed the letter, while the impassible Englishman held for him a large lantern, by the light of which he was enabled to read it.

“Well, what is the matter?” said Athos, seeing the countenance of the reader change.

“Read it yourself,” said the musketeer.

Athos took the paper and read:

“Monsieur d’Artagnan.—The king regrets very much you did not come to St. Paul’s with his cortege. He missed you, as I also have missed you, my dear captain. There is but one means of repairing all this. His majesty expects me at nine o’clock at the palace of St. James’s: will you be there at the same time with me? His gracious majesty appoints that hour for an audience he grants you.”

This letter was from Monk.

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33. The Audience

“Well?” cried Athos with a mild look of reproach when D’Artagnan had read the letter addressed to him by Monk.

“Well!” said D’Artagnan, red with pleasure, and a little with shame, at having so hastily accused the king and Monk. “This is a politeness,—which leads to nothing, it is true, but yet it is a politeness.”

“I had great difficulty in believing the young prince ungrateful,” said Athos.

“The fact is, that his present is still too near his past,” replied D’Artagnan; “after all, everything to the present moment proved me right.”

“I acknowledge it, my dear friend, I acknowledge it. Ah! there is your cheerful look returned. You cannot think how delighted I am.”

“Thus you see,” said D’Artagnan, “Charles II. receives M. Monk at nine o’clock; he will receive me at ten; it is a grand audience, of the sort which at the Louvre are called ‘distributions of court holy water.’ Come, let us go and place ourselves under the spout, my dear friend! Come along.”

Athos replied nothing; and both directed their steps, at a quick pace, towards the palace of St. James’s, which the crowd still surrounded, to catch, through the windows, the shadows of the courtiers, and the reflection of the royal person. Eight o’clock was striking when the two friends took their places in the gallery filled with courtiers and politicians. Every one looked at these simply-dressed men in foreign costumes, at these two noble heads so full of character and meaning. On their side, Athos and D’Artagnan, having with two glances taken the measure of the whole assembly, resumed their chat.

A great noise was suddenly heard at the extremity of the gallery,—it was General Monk, who entered, followed by more than twenty officers, all eager for a smile, as only the evening before he was master of all England, and a glorious morrow was looked to, for the restorer of the Stuart family.

“Gentlemen,” said Monk, turning round, “henceforward I beg you to remember that I am no longer anything. Lately I commanded the principal army of the republic; now that army is the king’s, into whose hands I am about to surrender, at his command, my power of yesterday.”

Great surprise was painted on all the countenances, and the circle of adulators and suppliants which surrounded Monk an instant before, was enlarged by degrees, and ended by being lost in the large undulations of the crowd. Monk was going into the ante-chamber as others did. D’Artagnan could not help remarking this to the Comte de la Fere, who frowned on beholding it. Suddenly the door of the royal apartment opened, and the young king appeared, preceded by two officers of his household.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” said he. “Is General Monk here?”

“I am here, sire,” replied the old general.

Charles stepped hastily towards him, and seized his hand with the warmest demonstration of friendship. “General,” said the king, aloud, “I have just signed your patent,—you are Duke of Albemarle; and my intention is that no one shall equal you in power and fortune in this kingdom, where—the noble Montrose excepted—no one has equaled you in loyalty, courage, and talent. Gentlemen, the duke is commander of our armies of land and sea; pay him your respects, if you please, in that character.”

Whilst every one was pressing round the general, who received all this homage without losing his impassibility for an instant, D’Artagnan said to Athos: “When one thinks that this duchy, this commander of the land and sea forces, all these grandeurs, in a word, have been shut up in a box six feet long and three feet wide——”

“My friend,” replied Athos, “much more imposing grandeurs are confined in boxes still smaller,—and remain there forever.”

All at once Monk perceived the two gentlemen, who held themselves aside until the crowd had diminished; he made himself a passage towards them, so that he surprised them in the midst of their philosophical reflections. “Were you speaking of me?” said he, with a smile.

“My lord,” replied Athos, “we were speaking likewise of God.”

Monk reflected for a moment, and then replied gayly: “Gentlemen, let us speak a little of the king likewise, if you please; for you have, I believe, an audience of his majesty.”

“At nine o’clock,” said Athos.

“At ten o’clock,” said D’Artagnan.

“Let us go into this closet at once,” replied Monk, making a sign to his two companions to precede him; but to that neither would consent.

The king, during this discussion so characteristic of the French, had returned to the center of the gallery.

“Oh! my Frenchmen!” said he, in that tone of careless gayety which, in spite of so much grief and so many crosses, he had never lost. “My Frenchmen! my consolation!” Athos and D’Artagnan bowed.

“Duke, conduct these gentlemen into my study. I am at your service, messieurs,” added he in French. And he promptly expedited his court, to return to his Frenchmen, as he called them. “Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said he, as he entered his closet, “I am glad to see you again.”

“Sire, my joy is at its height, at having the honor to salute your majesty in your own palace of St. James’s.”

“Monsieur, you have been willing to render me a great service, and I owe you my gratitude for it. If I did not fear to intrude upon the rights of our commanding general, I would offer you some post worthy of you near our person.”

“Sire,” replied D’Artagnan, “I have quitted the service of the king of France, making a promise to my prince not to serve any other king.”

“Humph!” said Charles, “I am sorry to hear that; I should like to do much for you; I like you very much.”

“Sire——”

“But let us see,” said Charles with a smile, “if we cannot make you break your word. Duke, assist me. If you were offered, that is to say, if I offered you the chief command of my musketeers?” D’Artagnan bowed lower than before.

“I should have the regret to refuse what your gracious majesty would offer me,” said he; “a gentleman has but his word, and that word, as I have had the honor to tell your majesty, is engaged to the king of France.”

“We shall say no more about it, then,” said the king, turning towards Athos, and leaving D’Artagnan plunged in the deepest pangs of disappointment.

“Ah! I said so!” muttered the musketeer. “Words! words! Court holy water! Kings have always a marvellous talent for offering us that which they know we will not accept, and in appearing generous without risk. So be it!—triple fool that I was to have hoped for a moment!”

During this time Charles took the hand of Athos. “Comte,” said he, “you have been to me a second father; the services you have rendered me are above all price. I have, nevertheless, thought of a recompense. You were created by my father a Knight of the Garter—-that is an order which all the kings of Europe cannot bear; by the queen regent, Knight of the Holy Ghost—which is an order not less illustrious; I join to it that of the Golden Fleece sent me by the king of France, to whom the king of Spain, his father-in-law, gave two on the occasion of his marriage; but in return, I have a service to ask of you.”

“Sire,” said Athos, with confusion, “the Golden Fleece for me! when the king of France is the only person in my country who enjoys that distinction?”

“I wish you to be in your country and all others the equal of all those whom sovereigns have honored with their favor,” said Charles, drawing the chain from his neck; “and I am sure, comte, my father smiles on me from his grave.”

“It is unaccountably strange,” said D’Artagnan to himself, whilst his friend, on his knees, received the eminent order which the king conferred on him—“it is almost incredible that I have always seen showers of prosperity fall upon all who surrounded me, and that not a drop ever reached me! If I were a jealous man it would be enough to make one tear one’s hair, parole d’honneur!”

Athos rose from his knees, and Charles embraced him tenderly. “General!” said he to Monk—then stopping with a smile, “pardon me, duke, I mean. No wonder if I make a mistake; the word duke is too short for me, I always seek some title to lengthen it. I should wish to see you so near my throne, that I might say to you as to Louis XIV., my brother! Oh! I have it, and you will be almost my brother, for I make you viceroy of Ireland and of Scotland, my dear duke. So, after that fashion, henceforward I shall not make a mistake.”

The duke seized the hand of the king, but without enthusiasm, without joy, as he did everything. His heart, however, had been moved by this last favor. Charles, by skillfully husbanding his generosity, had given the duke time to wish, although he might not have wished for so much as was given him.

“Mordioux!” grumbled D’Artagnan, “there is the shower beginning again! Oh! it is enough to turn one’s brain!” and he turned away with an air so sorrowful and so comically piteous, that the king, who caught it, could not restrain a smile. Monk was preparing to leave the room, to take leave of Charles.

“What! my trusty and well-beloved!” said the king to the duke, “are you going?”

“With your majesty’s permission, for in truth I am weary. The emotions of the day have worn me out; I stand in need of rest.”

“But,” said the king, “you are not going without M. d’Artagnan, I hope.”

“Why not, sire?” said the old warrior.

“Well! you know very well why,” said the king.

Monk looked at Charles with astonishment.

“Oh! it may be possible; but if you forget, you, M. d’Artagnan, do not.”

Astonishment was painted on the face of the musketeer.

“Well, then, duke,” said the king, “do you not lodge with M. d’Artagnan?”

“I had the honor of offering M. d’Artagnan a lodging; yes, sire.”

“That idea is your own, and yours solely?”

“Mine and mine only; yes, sire.”

“Well! but it could not be otherwise—the prisoner always lodges with his conqueror.”

Monk colored in his turn. “Ah! that is true,” said he, “I am M. d’Artagnan’s prisoner.”

“Without doubt, duke, since you are not yet ransomed, but have no care of that; it was I who took you out of M. d’Artagnan’s hands, and it is I who will pay your ransom.”

The eyes of D’Artagnan regained their gayety and their brilliancy. The Gascon began to understand. Charles advanced towards him.

“The general,” said he, “is not rich, and cannot pay you what he is worth. I am richer, certainly, but now that he is a duke, and if not a king, almost a king, he is worth a sum I could not perhaps pay. Come, M. d’Artagnan, be moderate with me; how much do I owe you?”

D’Artagnan, delighted at the turn things were taking, but not for a moment losing his self-possession, replied,—“Sire, your majesty has no occasion to be alarmed. When I had the good fortune to take his grace, M. Monk was only a general; it is therefore only a general’s ransom that is due to me. But if the general will have the kindness to deliver me his sword, I shall consider myself paid; for there is nothing in the world but the general’s sword which is worth so much as himself.”

“Odds fish! as my father said,” cried Charles. “That is a gallant proposal, and a gallant man, is he not, duke?”

“Upon my honor, yes, sire,” and he drew his sword. “Monsieur,” said he to D’Artagnan, “here is what you demand. Many may have handled a better blade; but however modest mine may be, I have never surrendered it to any one.”

D’Artagnan received with pride the sword which had just made a king.

“Oh! oh!” cried Charles II.; “what, a sword that has restored me to my throne—to go out of the kingdom—and not, one day, to figure among the crown jewels. No, on my soul! that shall not be! Captain d’Artagnan, I will give you two hundred thousand crowns for your sword! If that is too little, say so.”

“It is too little, sire,” replied D’Artagnan, with inimitable seriousness. “In the first place, I do not at all wish to sell it; but your majesty desires me to do so, and that is an order. I obey, then, but the respect I owe to the illustrious warrior who hears me commands me to estimate at a third more the reward of my victory. I ask then three hundred thousand crowns for the sword, or I shall give it to your majesty for nothing.” And taking it by the point he presented it to the king. Charles broke into hilarious laughter.

“A gallant man, and a merry companion! Odds fish! is he not, duke? is he not, comte? He pleases me! I like him! Here, Chevalier d’Artagnan, take this.” And going to the table, he took a pen and wrote an order upon his treasurer for three hundred thousand crowns.

D’Artagnan took it, and turning gravely towards Monk: “I have still asked too little, I know,” said he, “but believe me, your grace, I would rather have died than allow myself to be governed by avarice.”

The king began to laugh again, like the happiest cockney of his kingdom.

“You will come and see me again before you go, chevalier?” said he; “I shall want to lay in a stock of gayety now my Frenchmen are leaving me.”

“Ah! sire, it will not be with the gayety as with the duke’s sword; I will give it to your majesty gratis,” replied D’Artagnan, whose feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground.

“And you, comte,” added Charles, turning towards Athos, “come again, also, I have an important message to confide to you. Your hand, duke.” Monk pressed the hand of the king.

“Adieu! gentlemen,” said Charles, holding out each of his hands to the two Frenchmen, who carried them to their lips.

“Well,” said Athos, when they were out of the palace, “are you satisfied?”

“Hush!” said D’Artagnan, wild with joy, “I have not yet returned from the treasurer’s—a shutter may fall upon my head.”

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34. Of the Embarrassment of Riches

D’Artagnan lost no time, and as soon as the thing was suitable and opportune, he paid a visit to the lord treasurer of his majesty. He had then the satisfaction to exchange a piece of paper, covered with very ugly writing, for a prodigious number of crowns, recently stamped with the effigies of his very gracious majesty Charles II.

D’Artagnan easily controlled himself: and yet, on this occasion, he could not help evincing a joy which the reader will perhaps comprehend, if he deigns to have some indulgence for a man who, since his birth, had never seen so many pieces and rolls of pieces juxtaplaced in an order truly agreeable to the eye. The treasurer placed all the rolls in bags, and closed each bag with a stamp sealed with the arms of England, a favor which treasurers do not grant to everybody. Then impassible, and just as polite as he ought to be towards a man honored with the friendship of the king, he said to D’Artagnan:

“Take away your money, sir.” Your money! These words made a thousand chords vibrate in the heart of D’Artagnan, which he had never felt before. He had the bags packed in a small cart, and returned home meditating deeply. A man who possesses three hundred thousand crowns can no longer expect to wear a smooth brow; a wrinkle for every hundred thousand livres is not too much.

D’Artagnan shut himself up, ate no dinner, closed his door to everybody, and, with a lighted lamp, and a loaded pistol on the table, he watched all night, ruminating upon the means of preventing these lovely crowns, which from the coffers of the king had passed into his coffers, from passing from his coffers into the pockets of any thief whatever. The best means discovered by the Gascon was to inclose his treasure, for the present, under locks so solid that no wrist could break them, and so complicated that no master-key could open them. D’Artagnan remembered that the English are masters in mechanics and conservative industry; and he determined to go in the morning in search of a mechanic who would sell him a strong box. He did not go far; Master Will Jobson, dwelling in Piccadilly, listened to his propositions, comprehended his wishes, and promised to make him a safety lock that should relieve him from all future fear.

“I will give you,” said he, “a piece of mechanism entirely new. At the first serious attempt upon your lock, an invisible plate will open of itself and vomit forth a pretty copper bullet of the weight of a mark—which will knock down the intruder, and not without a loud report. What do you think of it?”

“I think it very ingenious,” cried D’Artagnan, “the little copper bullet pleases me mightily. So now, sir mechanic, the terms?”

“A fortnight for the execution, and fifteen hundred crowns payable on delivery,” replied the artisan.

D’Artagnan’s brow darkened. A fortnight was delay enough to allow the thieves of London time to remove all occasion for the strong box. As to the fifteen hundred crowns—that would be paying too dear for what a little vigilance would procure him for nothing.

“I will think of it,” said he, “thank you, sir.” And he returned home at full speed; nobody had yet touched his treasure. That same day Athos paid a visit to his friend and found him so thoughtful that he could not help expressing his surprise.

“How is this?” said he, “you are rich and not gay—you, who were so anxious for wealth!”

“My friend, the pleasures to which we are not accustomed oppress us more than the griefs with which we are familiar. Give me your opinion, if you please. I can ask you, who have always had money: when we have money, what do we do with it?”

“That depends.”

“What have you done with yours, seeing that it has not made you a miser or a prodigal? For avarice dries up the heart, and prodigality drowns it—is not that so?”

“Fabricius could not have spoken more justly. But in truth, my money has never been a burden to me.”

“How so? Do you place it out at interest?”

“No; you know I have a tolerably handsome house; and that house composes the better part of my property.”

“I know it does.”

“So that you can be as rich as I am, and, indeed more rich, whenever you like, by the same means.”

“But your rents,—do you lay them by?”

“What do you think of a chest concealed in a wall?”

“I never made use of such a thing.”

“Then you must have some confidant, some safe man of business who pays you interest at a fair rate.”

“Not at all.”

“Good heavens! what do you do with it, then?”

“I spend all I have, and I only have what I spend, my dear D’Artagnan.”

“Ah that may be. But you are something of a prince, fifteen or sixteen thousand livres melt away between your fingers; and then you have expenses and appearances——”

“Well, I don’t see why you should be less of a noble than I am, my friend; your money would be quite sufficient.”

“Three hundred thousand crowns! Two-thirds too much!”

“I beg your pardon—did you not tell me?—I thought I heard you say—I fancied you had a partner——”

“Ah! Mordioux! that’s true,” cried D’Artagnan, coloring; “there is Planchet. I had forgotten Planchet, upon my life! Well! there are my three hundred thousand crowns broken into. That’s a pity! it was a round sum, and sounded well. That is true, Athos; I am no longer rich. What a memory you have!”

“Tolerably good; yes, thank God!”

“The worthy Planchet!” grumbled D’Artagnan; “his was not a bad dream! What a speculation! Peste! Well! what is said is said.”

“How much are you to give him?”

“Oh!” said D’Artagnan, “he is not a bad fellow; I shall arrange matters with him. I have had a great deal of trouble, you see, and expenses; all that must be taken into account.”

“My dear friend, I can depend upon you, and have no fear for the worthy Planchet; his interests are better in your hands than in his own. But now that you have nothing more to do here, we shall depart, if you please. You can go and thank his majesty, ask if he has any commands, and in six days we may be able to get sight of the towers of Notre Dame.”

“My friend, I am most anxious to be off, and will go at once and pay my respects to the king.”

“I,” said Athos, “am going to call upon some friends in the city, and shall then be at your service.”

“Will you lend me Grimaud?”

“With all my heart. What do you want to do with him?”

“Something very simple, and which will not fatigue him; I shall only beg him to take charge of my pistols, which lie there on the table near that coffer.”

“Very well!” replied Athos, imperturbably.

“And he will not stir, will he?”

“Not more than the pistols themselves.”

“Then I shall go and take leave of his majesty. Au revoir!”

D’Artagnan arrived at St. James’s, where Charles II. who was busy writing, kept him in the ante-chamber a full hour. Whilst walking about in the gallery, from the door to the window, from the window to the door, he thought he saw a cloak like Athos’s cross the vestibule; but at the moment he was going to ascertain if it were he, the usher summoned him to his majesty’s presence. Charles II. rubbed his hands while receiving the thanks of our friend.

“Chevalier,” said he, “you are wrong to express gratitude to me; I have not paid you a quarter of the value of the history of the box into which you put the brave general—the excellent Duke of Albemarle, I mean.” And the king laughed heartily.

D’Artagnan did not think it proper to interrupt his majesty, and bowed with much modesty.

“A propos,” continued Charles, “do you think my dear Monk has really pardoned you?”

“Pardoned me! yes, I hope so, sire!”

“Eh!—but it was a cruel trick! Odds fish! to pack up the first personage of the English revolution like a herring. In your place I would not trust him, chevalier.”

“But, sire——”

“Yes, I know very well that Monk calls you his friend, but he has too penetrating an eye not to have a memory, and too lofty a brow not to be very proud, you know grande supercilium.”

“I shall certainly learn Latin,” said D’Artagnan to himself.

“But stop,” cried the merry monarch, “I must manage your reconciliation; I know how to set about it; so——”

D’Artagnan bit his mustache. “Will your majesty permit me to tell you the truth?”

“Speak, chevalier, speak.”

“Well, sire, you alarm me greatly. If your majesty undertakes the affair, as you seem inclined to do, I am a lost man; the duke will have me assassinated.”

The king burst into a fresh roar of laughter, which changed D’Artagnan’s alarm into downright terror.

“Sire, I beg you to allow me to settle this matter myself, and if your majesty has no further need of my services——”

“No, chevalier. What, do you want to leave us?” replied Charles, with a hilarity that grew more and more alarming.

“If your majesty has no more commands for me.”

Charles became more serious.

“One single thing. See my sister, the Lady Henrietta. Do you know her?”

“No, sire, but—an old soldier like me is not an agreeable spectacle for a young and gay princess.”

“Ah! but my sister must know you; she must in case of need have you to depend upon.”

“Sire, every one that is dear to your majesty will be sacred to me.”

“Very well!—Parry! Come here, Parry!”

The side door opened and Parry entered, his face beaming with pleasure as soon as he saw D’Artagnan.

“What is Rochester doing?” said the king.

“He is on the canal with the ladies,” replied Parry.

“And Buckingham?”

“He is there also.”

“That is well. You will conduct the chevalier to Villiers; that is the Duke of Buckingham, chevalier; and beg the duke to introduce M. d’Artagnan to the Princess Henrietta.”

Parry bowed and smiled to D’Artagnan.

“Chevalier,” continued the king, “this is your parting audience; you can afterwards set out as soon as you please.”

“Sire, I thank you.”

“But be sure you make your peace with Monk!”

“Oh, sire——”

“You know there is one of my vessels at your disposal?”

“Sire, you overpower me; I cannot think of putting your majesty’s officers to inconvenience on my account.”

The king slapped D’Artagnan upon the shoulder.

“Nobody will be inconvenienced on your account, chevalier, but for that of an ambassador I am about sending to France, and to whom you will willingly serve as a companion, I fancy, for you know him.”

D’Artagnan appeared astonished.

“He is a certain Comte de la Fere,—whom you call Athos,” added the king, terminating the conversation, as he had begun it, by a joyous burst of laughter. “Adieu, chevalier, adieu. Love me as I love you.” And thereupon making a sign to Parry to ask if there were any one waiting for him in the adjoining closet, the king disappeared into that closet, leaving the chevalier perfectly astonished by this singular audience. The old man took his arm in a friendly way, and led him towards the garden.

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35. On the Canal

Upon the green waters of the canal bordered with marble, upon which time had already scattered black spots and tufts of mossy grass, there glided majestically a long, flat bark adorned with the arms of England, surmounted by a dais, and carpeted with long damasked stuffs, which trailed their fringes in the water. Eight rowers, leaning lazily to their oars, made it move upon the canal with the graceful slowness of the swans, which, disturbed in their ancient possessions by the approach of the bark, looked from a distance at this splendid and noisy pageant. We say noisy—for the bark contained four guitar and lute players, two singers, and several courtiers, all sparkling with gold and precious stones, and showing their white teeth in emulation of each other, to please the Lady Henrietta Stuart, grand-daughter of Henry IV., daughter of Charles I., and sister of Charles II., who occupied the seat of honor under the dais of the bark. We know this young princess, we have seen her at the Louvre with her mother, wanting wood, wanting bread, and fed by the coadjuteur and the parliament. She had, therefore, like her brothers, passed through an uneasy youth; then, all at once, she had just awakened from a long and horrible dream, seated on the steps of a throne, surrounded by courtiers and flatterers. Like Mary Stuart on leaving prison, she aspired not only to life and liberty, but to power and wealth.

The Lady Henrietta, in growing, had attained remarkable beauty, which the recent restoration had rendered celebrated. Misfortune had taken from her the luster of pride, but prosperity had restored it to her. She was resplendent, then, in her joy and her happiness,—like those hot-house flowers which, forgotten during a frosty autumn night, have hung their heads, but which on the morrow, warmed once more by the atmosphere in which they were born, rise again with greater splendor than ever. Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, son of him who played so conspicuous a part in the early chapters of this history,—Villiers of Buckingham, a handsome cavalier, melancholy with women, a jester with men,—and Wilmot, Lord Rochester, a jester with both sexes, were standing at this moment before the Lady Henrietta, disputing the privilege of making her smile. As to that young and beautiful princess, reclining upon a cushion of velvet bordered with gold, her hands hanging listlessly so as to dip in the water, she listened carelessly to the musicians without hearing them, and heard the two courtiers without appearing to listen to them.

This Lady Henrietta—this charming creature—this woman who joined the graces of France to the beauties of England, not having yet loved, was cruel in her coquetry. The smile, then,—that innocent favor of young girls,—did not even lighten her countenance; and if, at times, she did raise her eyes, it was to fasten them upon one or other of the cavaliers with such a fixity, that their gallantry, bold as it generally was, took the alarm, and became timid.

In the meanwhile the boat continued its course, the musicians made a great noise, and the courtiers began, like them, to be out of breath. Besides, the excursion became doubtless monotonous to the princess, for all at once, shaking her head with an air of impatience,—“Come, gentlemen,—enough of this;—let us land.”

“Ah, madam,” said Buckingham, “we are very unfortunate! We have not succeeded in making the excursion agreeable to your royal highness.”

“My mother expects me,” replied the princess; “and I must frankly admit, gentlemen, I am bored.” And whilst uttering this cruel word, Henrietta endeavored to console by a look each of the two young men, who appeared terrified at such frankness. The look produced its effect—the two faces brightened; but immediately, as if the royal coquette thought she had done too much for simple mortals, she made a movement, turned her back on both her adorers, and appeared plunged in a reverie in which it was evident they had no part.

Buckingham bit his lips with anger, for he was truly in love with Lady Henrietta, and, in that case, took everything in a serious light. Rochester bit his lips likewise; but his wit always dominated over his heart, it was purely and simply to repress a malicious smile. The princess was then allowing the eyes she turned from the young nobles to wander over the green and flowery turf of the park, when she perceived Parry and D’Artagnan at a distance.

“Who is coming yonder?” said she.

The two young men turned round with the rapidity of lightning.

“Parry,” replied Buckingham, “nobody but Parry.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Rochester, “but I think he has a companion.”

“Yes,” said the princess, at first with languor, but then,—“What mean those words, ‘Nobody but Parry;’ say, my lord?”

“Because, madam,” replied Buckingham, piqued, “because the faithful Parry, the wandering Parry, the eternal Parry, is not, I believe, of much consequence.”

“You are mistaken, duke. Parry—the wandering Parry, as you call him—has always wandered in the service of my family, and the sight of that old man always gives me satisfaction.”

The Lady Henrietta followed the usual progress of pretty women, particularly coquettish women; she passed from caprice to contradiction;—the gallant had undergone the caprice, the courtier must bend beneath the contradictory humor. Buckingham bowed, but made no reply.

“It is true, madam,” said Rochester, bowing in his turn, “that Parry is the model of servants; but, madam, he is no longer young, and we laugh only when we see cheerful objects. Is an old man a gay object?”

“Enough, my lord,” said the princess, coolly; “the subject of conversation is unpleasant to me.”

Then, as if speaking to herself, “It is really unaccountable,” said she, “how little regard my brother’s friends have for his servants.”

“Ah, madam,” cried Buckingham, “your royal highness pierces my heart with a dagger forged by your own hands.”

“What is the meaning of that speech, which is turned so like a French madrigal, duke? I do not understand it.”

“It means, madam, that you yourself, so good, so charming, so sensible, you have laughed sometimes—smiled, I should say—at the idle prattle of that good Parry, for whom your royal highness to-day entertains such a marvelous susceptibility.”

“Well, my lord, if I have forgotten myself so far,” said Henrietta, “you do wrong to remind me of it.” And she made a sign of impatience. “The good Parry wants to speak to me, I believe: please order them to row to the shore, my Lord Rochester.”

Rochester hastened to repeat the princess’s command; and a moment later the boat touched the bank.

“Let us land, gentlemen,” said Henrietta, taking the arm which Rochester offered her, although Buckingham was nearer to her, and had presented his. Then Rochester, with an ill-dissembled pride, which pierced the heart of the unhappy Buckingham through and through, led the princess across the little bridge which the rowers had cast from the royal boat to the shore.

“Which way will your royal highness go?” asked Rochester.

“You see, my lord, towards that good Parry, who is wandering, as my lord of Buckingham says, and seeking me with eyes weakened by the tears he has shed over our misfortunes.”

“Good heavens!” said Rochester, “how sad your royal highness is to-day; in truth we seem ridiculous fools to you, madam.”

“Speak for yourself, my lord,” interrupted Buckingham with vexation; “for my part, I displease her royal highness to such a degree, that I appear absolutely nothing to her.”

Neither Rochester nor the princess made any reply; Henrietta only urged her companion more quickly on. Buckingham remained behind, and took advantage of this isolation to give himself up to his anger; he bit his handkerchief so furiously that it was soon in shreds.

“Parry my good Parry,” said the princess, with her gentle voice, “come hither. I see you are seeking me, and I am waiting for you.”

“Ah, madam,” said Rochester, coming charitably to the help of his companion, who had remained, as we have said, behind, “if Parry cannot see your royal highness, the man who follows him is a sufficient guide, even for a blind man, for he has eyes of flame. That man is a double-lamped lantern.”

“Lighting a very handsome martial countenance,” said the princess, determined to be as ill-natured as possible. Rochester bowed. “One of those vigorous soldiers’ heads seen nowhere but in France,” added the princess, with the perseverance of a woman sure of impunity.

Rochester and Buckingham looked at each other, as much as to say,—“What can be the matter with her?”

“See, my lord of Buckingham, what Parry wants,” said Henrietta. “Go!”

The young man, who considered this order as a favor, resumed his courage, and hastened to meet Parry, who, followed by D’Artagnan, advanced slowly on account of his age. D’Artagnan walked slowly but nobly, as D’Artagnan, doubled by the third of a million, ought to walk, that is to say, without conceit or swagger, but without timidity. When Buckingham, very eager to comply with the desire of the princess, who had seated herself on a marble bench, as if fatigued with the few steps she had gone,—when Buckingham, we say, was at a distance of only a few paces from Parry, the latter recognized him.

“Ah I my lord!” cried he, quite out of breath, “will your grace obey the king?”

“In what, Mr. Parry?” said the young man, with a kind of coolness tempered by a desire to make himself agreeable to the princess.

“Well, his majesty begs your grace to present this gentleman to her royal highness the Princess Henrietta.”

“In the first place, what is the gentleman’s name?” said the duke, haughtily.

D’Artagnan, as we know, was easily affronted, and the Duke of Buckingham’s tone displeased him. He surveyed the courtier from head to foot, and two flashes beamed from beneath his bent brows. But, after a struggle,—“Monsieur le Chevalier d’Artagnan, my lord,” replied he, quietly.

“Pardon me, sir, that name teaches me your name but nothing more.”

“You mean——”

“I mean I do not know you.”

“I am more fortunate than you, sir,” replied D’Artagnan, “for I have had the honor of knowing your family, and particularly my lord Duke of Buckingham, your illustrious father.”

“My father?” said Buckingham. “Well, I think I now remember. Monsieur le Chevalier d’Artagnan, do you say?”

D’Artagnan bowed. “In person,” said he.

“Pardon me, but are you one of those Frenchmen who had secret relations with my father?”

“Exactly, my lord duke, I am one of those Frenchmen.”

“Then, sir, permit me to say that it was strange my father never heard of you during his lifetime.”

“No, monsieur, but he heard of me at the moment of his death: it was I who sent to him, through the hands of the valet de chambre of Anne of Austria, notice of the dangers which threatened him; unfortunately, it came too late.”

“Never mind, monsieur,” said Buckingham. “I understand now, that, having had the intention of rendering a service to the father, you have come to claim the protection of the son.”

“In the first place, my lord,” replied D’Artagnan, phlegmatically, “I claim the protection of no man. His majesty Charles II., to whom I have had the honor of rendering some services—I may tell you, my lord, my life has been passed in such occupations—King Charles II., then, who wishes to honor me with some kindness, desires me to be presented to her royal highness the Princess Henrietta, his sister, to whom I shall, perhaps, have the good fortune to be of service hereafter. Now, the king knew that you at this moment were with her royal highness, and sent me to you. There is no other mystery, I ask absolutely nothing of you; and if you will not present me to her royal highness, I shall be compelled to do without you, and present myself.”

“At least, sir,” said Buckingham, determined to have the last word, “you will not refuse me an explanation provoked by yourself.”

“I never refuse, my lord,” said D’Artagnan.

“As you have had relations with my father, you must be acquainted with some private details?”

“These relations are already far removed from us, my lord—for you were not then born—and for some unfortunate diamond studs, which I received from his hands and carried back to France, it is really not worth while awakening so many remembrances.”

“Ah! sir,” said Buckingham, warmly, going up to D’Artagnan, and holding out his hand to him, “it is you, then—you whom my father sought everywhere and who had a right to expect so much from us.”

“To expect, my lord, in truth, that is my forte; all my life I have expected.”

At this moment, the princess, who was tired of not seeing the stranger approach her, arose and came towards them.

“At least, sir,” said Buckingham, “you shall not wait for the presentation you claim of me.”

Then turning toward the princess and bowing: “Madam,” said the young man, “the king, your brother, desires me to have the honor of presenting to your royal highness, Monsieur le Chevalier d’Artagnan.”

“In order that your royal highness may have, in case of need, a firm support and a sure friend,” added Parry. D’Artagnan bowed.

“You have still something to say, Parry,” replied Henrietta, smiling upon D’Artagnan, while addressing the old servant.

“Yes, madam, the king desires you to preserve religiously in your memory the name and merit of M. d’Artagnan, to whom his majesty owes, he says, the recovery of his kingdom.” Buckingham, the princess, and Rochester looked at each other.

“That,” said D’Artagnan, “is another little secret, of which, in all probability, I shall not boast to his majesty’s son, as I have done to you with respect to the diamond studs.”

“Madam,” said Buckingham, “monsieur has just, for the second time, recalled to my memory an event which excites my curiosity to such a degree, that I shall venture to ask your permission to take him to one side for a moment, to converse in private.”

“Do, my lord,” said the princess, “but restore to the sister, as quickly as possible, this friend so devoted to the brother.” And she took the arm of Rochester whilst Buckingham took that of D’Artagnan.

“Oh! tell me, chevalier,” said Buckingham, “all that affair of the diamonds, which nobody knows in England, not even the son of him who was the hero of it.”

“My lord, one person alone had a right to relate all that affair, as you call it, and that was your father; he thought proper to be silent. I must beg you to allow me to be so likewise.” And D’Artagnan bowed like a man upon whom it was evident no entreaties could prevail.

“Since it is so, sir,” said Buckingham, “pardon my indiscretion, I beg you; and if, at any time, I should go into France——” and he turned round to take a last look at the princess, who took but little notice of him, totally occupied as she was, or appeared to be, with Rochester. Buckingham sighed.

“Well?” said D’Artagnan.

“I was saying that if, any day, I were to go to France——”

“You will go, my lord,” said D’Artagnan. “I shall answer for that.”

“And how so?”

“Oh, I have strange powers of prediction; if I do predict anything I am seldom mistaken. If, then, you do come to France?”

“Well, then, monsieur, you, of whom kings ask that valuable friendship which restores crowns to them, I will venture to beg of you a little of that great interest you took in my father.”

“My lord,” replied D’Artagnan, “believe me, I shall deem myself highly honored if, in France, you remember having seen me here. And now permit——”

Then, turning towards the princess: “Madam,” said he, “your royal highness is a daughter of France; and in that quality I hope to see you again in Paris. One of my happy days will be that on which your royal highness shall give me any command whatever, thus proving to me that you have not forgotten the recommendations of your august brother.” And he bowed respectfully to the young princess, who gave him her hand to kiss with a right royal grace.

“Ah! madam,” said Buckingham, in a subdued voice, “what can a man do to obtain a similar favor from your royal highness?”

“Dame! my lord,” replied Henrietta, “ask Monsieur d’Artagnan; he will tell you.”

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36. How D’Artagnan drew, as a Fairy would have done, a Country-seat from a Deal Box

The king’s words regarding the wounded pride of Monk had not inspired D’Artagnan with a small portion of apprehension. The lieutenant had had, all his life, the great art of choosing his enemies; and when he had found them implacable and invincible, it was when he had not been able, under any pretense, to make them otherwise. But points of view change greatly in the course of a life. It is a magic lantern, of which the eye of man every year changes the aspects. It results that from the last day of a year on which we saw white, to the first day of the year on which we shall see black, there is but the interval of a single night.

Now, D’Artagnan, when he left Calais with his ten scamps, would have hesitated as little in attacking a Goliath, a Nebuchadnezzar, or a Holofernes as he would in crossing swords with a recruit or caviling with a landlady. Then he resembled the sparrow-hawk which, when fasting, will attack a ram. Hunger is blind. But D’Artagnan satisfied—D’Artagnan rich—D’Artagnan a conqueror—D’Artagnan proud of so difficult a triumph—D’Artagnan had too much to lose not to reckon, figure by figure, with probable misfortune.

His thoughts were employed, therefore, all the way on the road from his presentation, with one thing, and that was, how he should conciliate a man like Monk, a man whom Charles himself, kind as he was, conciliated with difficulty; for, scarcely established, the protected might again stand in need of the protector, and would, consequently, not refuse him, such being the case, the petty satisfaction of transporting M. d’Artagnan, or of confining him in one of the Middlesex prisons, or drowning him a little on his passage from Dover to Boulogne. Such sorts of satisfaction kings are accustomed to render to viceroys without disagreeable consequences.

It would not be at all necessary for the king to be active in that contrepartie of the play in which Monk should take his revenge. The part of the king would be confined to simply pardoning the viceroy of Ireland all he should undertake against D’Artagnan. Nothing more was necessary to place the conscience of the Duke of Albemarle at rest than a te absolvo said with a laugh, or the scrawl of “Charles the King,” traced at the foot of a parchment; and with these two words pronounced, and these two words written, poor D’Artagnan was forever crushed beneath the ruins of his imagination.

And then, a thing sufficiently disquieting for a man with such foresight as our musketeer, he found himself alone; and even the friendship of Athos could not restore his confidence. Certainly if the affair had only concerned a free distribution of sword-thrusts, the musketeer would have counted upon his companion; but in delicate dealings with a king, when the perhaps of an unlucky chance should arise in justification of Monk or of Charles of England, D’Artagnan knew Athos well enough to be sure he would give the best possible coloring to the loyalty of the survivor, and would content himself with shedding floods of tears on the tomb of the dead, supposing the dead to be his friend, and afterwards composing his epitaph in the most pompous superlatives.

“Decidedly,” thought the Gascon; and this thought was the result of the reflections which he had just whispered to himself and which we have repeated aloud—“decidedly, I must be reconciled with M. Monk, and acquire a proof of his perfect indifference for the past. If, and God forbid it should be so! he is still sulky and reserved in the expression of this sentiment, I shall give my money to Athos to take away with him, and remain in England just long enough to unmask him, then, as I have a quick eye and a light foot, I shall notice the first hostile sign; to decamp or conceal myself at the residence of my lord of Buckingham, who seems a good sort of devil at the bottom, and to whom, in return for his hospitality, I shall relate all that history of the diamonds, which can now compromise nobody but an old queen, who need not be ashamed, after being the wife of a miserly creature like Mazarin, of having formerly been the mistress of a handsome nobleman like Buckingham. Mordioux! that is the thing, and this Monk shall not get the better of me. Eh? and besides I have an idea!”

We know that, in general, D’Artagnan was not wanting in ideas; and during this soliloquy, D’Artagnan buttoned his vest up to the chin, and nothing excited his imagination like this preparation for a combat of any kind, called accinction by the Romans. He was quite heated when he reached the mansion of the Duke of Albemarle. He was introduced to the viceroy with a promptitude which proved that he was considered as one of the household. Monk was in his business-closet.

“My lord,” said D’Artagnan, with that expression of frankness which the Gascon knew so well how to assume, “my lord, I have come to ask your grace’s advice!”

Monk, as closely buttoned up morally as his antagonist was physically, replied: “Ask, my friend;” and his countenance presented an expression not less open than that of D’Artagnan.

“My lord, in the first place, promise me secrecy and indulgence.”

“I promise you all you wish. What is the matter? Speak!”

“It is, my lord, that I am not quite pleased with the king.”

“Indeed! And on what account, my dear lieutenant?”

“Because his majesty gives way sometimes to jest very compromising for his servants; and jesting, my lord, is a weapon that seriously wounds men of the sword, as we are.”

Monk did all in his power not to betray his thought, but D’Artagnan watched him with too close an attention not to detect an almost imperceptible flush upon his face. “Well, now, for my part,” said he, with the most natural air possible, “I am not an enemy of jesting, my dear Monsieur d’Artagnan; my soldiers will tell you that even many times in camp, I listened very indifferently, and with a certain pleasure, to the satirical songs which the army of Lambert passed into mine, and which, certainly, would have caused the ears of a general more susceptible than I am to tingle.”

“Oh, my lord,” said D’Artagnan, “I know you are a complete man; I know you have been, for a long time placed above human miseries; but there are jests and jests of a certain kind, which have the power of irritating me beyond expression.”

“May I inquire what kind, my friend?”

“Such as are directed against my friends or against people I respect, my lord!”

Monk made a slight movement, which D’Artagnan perceived. “Eh! and in what,” asked Monk, “in what can the stroke of a pin which scratches another tickle your skin? Answer me that.”

“My lord, I can explain it to you in one single sentence; it concerns you.”

Monk advanced a single step towards D’Artagnan. “Concerns me?” said he.

“Yes, and this is what I cannot explain; but that arises, perhaps, from my want of knowledge of his character. How can the king have the heart to jest about a man who has rendered him so many and such great services? How can one understand that he should amuse himself in setting by the ears a lion like you with a gnat like me?”

“I cannot conceive that in any way,” said Monk.

“But so it is. The king, who owed me a reward, might have rewarded me as a soldier, without contriving that history of the ransom, which affects you, my lord.”

“No,” said Monk, laughing: “it does not affect me in any way, I can assure you.”

“Not as regards me, I can understand, you know me, my lord, I am so discreet that the grave would appear a babbler compared to me; but—do you understand, my lord?”

“No,” replied Monk, with persistent obstinacy.

“If another knew the secret which I know——”

“What secret?”

“Eh! my lord, why, that unfortunate secret of Newcastle.”

“Oh! the million of M. le Comte de la Fere?”

“No, my lord, no; the enterprise made upon you grace’s person.”

“It was well played, chevalier, that is all, and no more is to be said about it: you are a soldier, both brave and cunning, which proves that you unite the qualities of Fabius and Hannibal. You employed your means, force and cunning: there is nothing to be said against that: I ought to have been on guard.”

“Ah! yes; I know, my lord, and I expected nothing less from your partiality; so that if it were only the abduction in itself, Mordieux! that would be nothing; but there are——”

“What?”

“The circumstances of that abduction.”

“What circumstances?”

“Oh! you know very well what I mean, my lord.”

“No, curse me if I do.”

“There is—in truth, it is difficult to speak it.”

“There is?”

“Well, there is that devil of a box!”

Monk colored visibly. “Well, I have forgotten it.”

“Deal box,” continued D’Artagnan, “with holes for the nose and mouth. In truth, my lord, all the rest was well; but the box, the box! that was really a coarse joke.” Monk fidgeted about in his chair. “And, notwithstanding my having done that,” resumed D’Artagnan, “I, a soldier of fortune, it was quite simple, because by the side of that action, a little inconsiderate I admit, which I committed, but which the gravity of the case may excuse, I am circumspect and reserved.”

“Oh!” said Monk, “believe me, I know you well, Monsieur d’Artagnan, and I appreciate you.”

D’Artagnan never took his eyes off Monk; studying all which passed in the mind of the general, as he prosecuted his idea. “But it does not concern me,” resumed he.

“Well, then, whom does it concern?” said Monk, who began to grow a little impatient.

“It relates to the king, who will never restrain his tongue.”

“Well! and suppose he should say all he knows?” said Monk, with a degree of hesitation.

“My lord,” replied D’Artagnan, “do not dissemble, I implore you, with a man who speaks so frankly as I do. You have a right to feel your susceptibility excited, however benignant it may be. What, the devil! it is not the place for a man like you, a man who plays with crowns and scepters as a Bohemian plays with his balls; it is not the place of a serious man, I said, to be shut up in a box like some freak of natural history; for you must understand it would make all your enemies ready to burst with laughter, and you are so great, so noble, so generous, that you must have many enemies. This secret is enough to set half the human race laughing, if you were represented in that box. It is not decent to have the second personage in the kingdom laughed at.”

Monk was quite out of countenance at the idea of seeing himself represented in his box. Ridicule, as D’Artagnan had judiciously foreseen, acted upon him in a manner which neither the chances of war, the aspirations of ambition, nor the fear of death had been able to do.

“Good,” thought the Gascon, “he is frightened: I am safe.”

“Oh! as to the king,” said Monk, “fear nothing, my dear Monsieur d’Artagnan; the king will not jest with Monk, I assure you!”

The momentary flash of his eye was noticed by D’Artagnan. Monk lowered his tone immediately: “The king,” continued he, “is of too noble a nature, the king’s heart is too high to allow him to wish ill to those who do him good.”

“Oh! certainly,” cried D’Artagnan. “I am entirely of your grace’s opinion with regard to his heart, but not as to his head—it is good, but it is trifling.”

“The king will not trifle with Monk, be assured.”

“Then you are quite at ease, my lord?”

“On that side, at least! yes, perfectly.”

“Oh! I understand you; you are at ease as far as the king is concerned?”

“I have told you I was.”

“But you are not so much so on my account?”

“I thought I had told you that I had faith in your loyalty and discretion.”

“No doubt, no doubt, but you must remember one thing——”

“What is that?”

“That I was not alone, that I had companions; and what companions!”

“Oh! yes, I know them.”

“And, unfortunately, my lord, they know you, too!”

“Well?”

“Well; they are yonder, at Boulogne, waiting for me.”

“And you fear——”

“Yes, I fear that in my absence—Parbleu! If I were near them, I could answer for their silence.”

“Was I not right in saying that the danger, if there was any danger, would not come from his majesty, however disposed he may be to jest, but from your companions, as you say? To be laughed at by a king may be tolerable, but by the horse-boys and scamps of the army! Damn it!”

“Yes, I understand, that would be unbearable, that is why, my lord, I came to say,—do you not think it would be better for me to set out for France as soon as possible?”

“Certainly, if you think your presence——”

“Would impose silence upon these scoundrels? Oh! I am sure of that, my lord.”

“Your presence will not prevent the report from spreading, if the tale has already transpired.”

“Oh! it has not transpired, my lord, I will wager. At all events, be assured I am determined upon one thing.”

“What is that?”

“To blow out the brains of the first who shall have propagated that report, and of the first who has heard it. After which I shall return to England to seek an asylum, and perhaps employment with your grace.”

“Oh, come back! come back!”

“Unfortunately, my lord, I am acquainted with nobody here but your grace, and if I should no longer find you, or if you should have forgotten me in your greatness?”

“Listen to me, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” replied Monk; “you are a superior man, full of intelligence and courage; you deserve all the good fortune this world can bring you; come with me into Scotland, and, I swear to you, I shall arrange for you a fate which all may envy.”

“Oh! my lord, that is impossible. At present I have a sacred duty to perform; I have to watch over your glory, I have to prevent a low jester from tarnishing in the eyes of our contemporaries—who knows? in the eyes of posterity—the splendor of your name.”

“Of posterity, Monsieur d’Artagnan?”

“Doubtless. It is necessary, as regards posterity, that all the details of that history should remain a mystery; for, admit that this unfortunate history of the deal box should spread, and it should be asserted that you had not re-established the king loyally, and of your own free will, but in consequence of a compromise entered into at Scheveningen between you two. It would be vain for me to declare how the thing came about, for though I know I should not be believed, it would be said that I had received my part of the cake, and was eating it.”

Monk knitted his brow.—“Glory, honor, probity!” said he, “you are but empty words.”

“Mist!” replied D’Artagnan; “nothing but mist, through which nobody can see clearly.”

“Well, then, go to France, my dear Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Monk; “go, and to render England more attractive and agreeable to you, accept a remembrance of me.

“What now?” thought D’Artagnan.

“I have on the banks of the Clyde,” continued Monk, “a little house in a grove, cottage as it is called here. To this house are attached a hundred acres of land. Accept it as a souvenir.”

“Oh my lord!——”

“Faith! you will be there in your own home, and that will be the place of refuge you spoke of just now.”

“For me to be obliged to your lordship to such an extent! Really, your grace, I am ashamed.”

“Not at all, not at all, monsieur,” replied Monk, with an arch smile; “it is I who shall be obliged to you. And,” pressing the hand of the musketeer, “I shall go and draw up the deed of gift,”—and he left the room.

D’Artagnan looked at him as he went out with something of a pensive and even an agitated air.

“After all,” said he, “he is a brave man. It is only a sad reflection that it is from fear of me, and not affection that he acts thus. Well, I shall endeavor that affection may follow.” Then, after an instant’s deeper reflection,—“Bah!” said he, “to what purpose? He is an Englishman.” And he in his turn went out, a little confused after the combat.

“So,” said he, “I am a land-owner! But how the devil am I to share the cottage with Planchet? Unless I give him the land, and I take the chateau, or that he takes the house and I—nonsense! M. Monk will never allow me to share a house he has inhabited, with a grocer. He is too proud for that. Besides, why should I say anything about it to him? It was not with the money of the company I have acquired that property, it was with my mother-wit alone; it is all mine, then. So, now I will go and find Athos.” And he directed his steps towards the dwelling of the Comte de la Fere

CHAPTER 37. How D’Artagnan regulated the “Assets” of the Company before he established its “Liabilities”

“Decidedly,” said D’Artagnan to himself, “I have struck a good vein. That star which shines once in the life of every man, which shone for Job and Iris, the most unfortunate of the Jews and the poorest of the Greeks, is come at last to shine on me. I will commit no folly, I will take advantage of it; it comes quite late enough to find me reasonable.”

He supped that evening, in very good humor, with his friend Athos; he said nothing to him about the expected donation, but he could not forbear questioning his friend, while eating, about country produce, sowing, and planting. Athos replied complacently, as he always did. His idea was that D’Artagnan wished to become a land-owner, only he could not help regretting, more than once, the absence of the lively humor and amusing sallies of the cheerful companion of former days. In fact, D’Artagnan was so absorbed, that, with his knife, he took advantage of the grease left at the bottom of his plate, to trace ciphers and make additions of surprising rotundity.

The order, or rather license, for their embarkation, arrived at Athos’s lodgings that evening. While this paper was remitted to the comte, another messenger brought to D’Artagnan a little bundle of parchments, adorned with all the seals employed in setting off property deeds in England. Athos surprised him turning over the leaves of these different acts which establish the transmission of property. The prudent Monk—others would say the generous Monk—had commuted the donation into a sale, and acknowledged the receipt of the sum of fifteen thousand crowns as the price of the property ceded. The messenger was gone. D’Artagnan still continued reading, Athos watched him with a smile. D’Artagnan, surprising one of those smiles over his shoulder, put the bundle in its wrapper.

“I beg your pardon,” said Athos.

“Oh! not at all, my friend,” replied the lieutenant, “I shall tell you——”

“No, don’t tell me anything, I beg you; orders are things so sacred, that to one’s brother, one’s father, the person charged with such orders should never open his mouth. Thus I, who speak to you, and love you more tenderly than brother, father, or all the world——”

“Except your Raoul?”

“I shall love Raoul still better when he shall be a man, and I shall have seen him develop himself in all the phases of his character and his actions—as I have seen you, my friend.”

“You said, then, that you had an order likewise, and that you would not communicate it to me.”

“Yes, my dear D’Artagnan.”

The Gascon sighed. “There was a time,” said he, “when you would have placed that order open upon the table, saying, ‘D’Artagnan, read this scrawl to Porthos, Aramis, and to me.’”

“That is true. Oh! that was the time of youth, confidence, the generous season when the blood commands, when it is warmed by feeling!”

“Well! Athos, will you allow me to tell you?”

“Speak, my friend!”

“That delightful time, that generous season, that ruling by warm blood, were all very fine things, no doubt; but I do not regret them at all. It is absolutely like the period of studies. I have constantly met with fools who would boast of the days of pensums, ferules and crusts of dry bread. It is singular, but I never loved all that; for my part, however active and sober I might be (you know if I was so, Athos), however simple I might appear in my clothes, I would not the less have preferred the braveries and embroideries of Porthos to my little perforated cassock, which gave passage to the wind in winter and the sun in summer. I should always, my friend, mistrust him who would pretend to prefer evil to good. Now, in times past all went wrong with me, and every month found a fresh hole in my cassock and in my skin, a gold crown less in my poor purse; of that execrable time of small beer and see-saw, I regret absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing save our friendship; for within me I have a heart, and it is a miracle that heart has not been dried up by the wind of poverty which passed through the holes of my cloak, or pierced by the swords of all shapes which passed through the holes in my poor flesh.”

“Do not regret our friendship,” said Athos, “that will only die with ourselves. Friendship is composed, above all things, of memories and habits, and if you have just now made a little satire upon mine, because I hesitate to tell you the nature of my mission into France——”

“Who! I?—Oh! heavens! if you knew, my dear friend, how indifferent all the missions of the world will henceforth become to me!” And he laid his hand upon the parchment in his vest pocket.

Athos rose from the table and called the host in order to pay the reckoning.

“Since I have known you, my friend,” said D’Artagnan, “I have never discharged the reckoning. Porthos often did, Aramis sometimes, and you, you almost always drew out your purse with the dessert. I am now rich and should like to try if it is heroic to pay.”

“Do so,” said Athos; returning his purse to his pocket.

The two friends then directed their steps towards the port, not, however, without D’Artagnan’s frequently turning round to watch the transportation of his dear crowns. Night had just spread her thick veil over the yellow waters of the Thames; they heard those noises of casks and pulleys, the preliminaries of preparing to sail which had so many times made the hearts of the musketeers beat when the dangers of the sea were the least of those they were going to face. This time they were to embark on board a large vessel which awaited them at Gravesend, and Charles II., always delicate in small matters, had sent one of his yachts, with twelve men of his Scotch guard, to do honor to the ambassador he was sending to France. At midnight the yacht had deposited its passengers on board the vessel, and at eight o’clock in the morning, the vessel landed the ambassador and his friend on the wharf at Boulogne. Whilst the comte, with Grimaud, was busy procuring horses to go straight to Paris, D’Artagnan hastened to the hostelry where, according to his orders, his little army was to wait for him. These gentlemen were at breakfast upon oysters, fish, and spiced brandy, when D’Artagnan appeared. They were all very gay, but not one of them had yet exceeded the bounds of reason. A hurrah of joy welcomed the general. “Here I am,” said D’Artagnan, “the campaign is ended. I am come to bring to each his supplement of pay, as agreed upon.” Their eyes sparkled. “I will lay a wager there are not, at this moment, a hundred crowns remaining in the purse of the richest among you.”

“That is true,” cried they in chorus.

“Gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, “then, this is the last order. The treaty of commerce has been concluded thanks to our coup-de-main which made us masters of the most skillful financier of England, for now I am at liberty to confess to you that the man we had to carry off was the treasurer of General Monk.”

This word treasurer produced a certain effect on his army. D’Artagnan observed that the eyes of Menneville alone did not evince perfect faith. “This treasurer,” he continued, “I conveyed to a neutral territory, Holland; I forced him to sign the treaty; I have even reconducted him to Newcastle, and as he was obliged to be satisfied with our proceedings towards him—the deal coffer being always carried without jolting, and being lined softly, I asked for a gratification for you. Here it is.” He threw a respectable-looking purse upon the cloth; and all involuntarily stretched out their hands. “One moment, my lambs,” said D’Artagnan; “if there are profits, there are also charges.”

“Oh! oh!” murmured they.

“We are about to find ourselves, my friends, in a position that would not be tenable for people without brains. I speak plainly: we are between the gallows and the Bastile.”

“Oh! oh!” said the chorus.

“That is easily understood. It was necessary to explain to General Monk the disappearance of his treasurer. I waited, for that purpose, till the very unhopedfor moment of the restoration of King Charles II., who is one of my friends.”

The army exchanged a glance of satisfaction in reply to the sufficiently proud look of D’Artagnan. “The king being restored, I restored to Monk his man of business, a little plucked, it is true, but, in short, I restored him. Now, General Monk, when he pardoned me, for he has pardoned me, could not help repeating these words to me, which I charge every one of you to engrave deeply there, between the eyes, under the vault of the cranium:—‘Monsieur, the joke has been a good one, but I don’t naturally like jokes; if ever a word of what you have done’ (you understand me, Menneville) ‘escapes from your lips, or the lips of your companions, I have, in my government of Scotland and Ireland, seven hundred and forty-one wooden gibbets, of strong oak, clamped with iron, and freshly greased every week. I will make a present of one of these gibbets to each of you, and observe well, M. d’Artagnan,’ added he (observe it also, M. Menneville), ‘I shall still have seven hundred and thirty left for my private pleasure. And still further——’”

“Ah! ah!” said the auxiliaries, “is there more still?”

“A mere trifle. ‘Monsieur d’Artagnan, I send to the king of France the treaty in question, with a request that he will cast into the Bastile provisionally, and then send to me, all who have taken part in this expedition; and that is a prayer with which the king will certainly comply.’”

A cry of terror broke from all corners of the table.

“There! there! there,” said D’Artagnan, “this brave M. Monk has forgotten one thing, and that is he does not know the name of any one of you, I alone know you, and it is not I, you may well believe, who will betray you. Why should I? As for you—I cannot suppose you will be silly enough to denounce yourselves, for then the king, to spare himself the expense of feeding and lodging you, will send you off to Scotland, where the seven hundred and forty-one gibbets are to be found. That is all, messieurs; I have not another word to add to what I have had the honor to tell you. I am sure you have understood me perfectly well, have you not, M. Menneville?”

“Perfectly,” replied the latter.

“Now the crowns!” said D’Artagnan. “Shut the doors,” he cried, and opened the bag upon the table, from which rolled several fine gold crowns. Every one made a movement towards the floor.

“Gently!” cried D’Artagnan. “Let no one stoop, and then I shall not be out in my reckoning.” He found it all right, gave fifty of those splendid crowns to each man, and received as many benedictions as he bestowed pieces. “Now,” said he, “if it were possible for you to reform a little, if you could become good and honest citizens——”

“That is rather difficult,” said one of the troop.

“What then, captain?” said another.

“Because I might be able to find you again, and, who knows what other good fortune?” He made a sign to Menneville, who listened to all he said with a composed air. “Menneville,” said he, “come with me. Adieu my brave fellows! I need not warn you to be discreet.”

Menneville followed him, whilst the salutations of the auxiliaries were mingled with the sweet sound of the money clinking in their pockets.

“Menneville,” said D’Artagnan, when they were once in the street, “you were not my dupe; beware of being so. You did not appear to me to have any fear of the gibbets of Monk, or the Bastile of his majesty, King Louis XIV., but you will do me the favor of being afraid of me. Then listen at the smallest word that shall escape you, I will kill you as I would a fowl. I have absolution from our holy father, the pope, in my pocket.”

“I assure you I know absolutely nothing, my dear M. d’Artagnan, and that your words have all been to me so many articles of faith.”

“I was quite sure you were an intelligent fellow,” said the musketeer; “I have tried you for a length of time. These fifty gold crowns which I give you above the rest will prove the esteem I have for you. Take them.”

“Thanks, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Menneville.

“With that sum you can really become an honest man,” replied D’Artagnan, in the most serious tone possible. “It would be disgraceful for a mind like yours, and a name you no longer dare to bear, to sink forever under the rust of an evil life. Become a gallant man, Menneville, and live for a year upon those hundred gold crowns: it is a good provision; twice the pay of a high officer. In a year come to me, and, Mordioux! I will make something of you.”

Menneville swore, as his comrades had sworn, that he would be as silent as the grave. And yet some one must have spoken; and as, certainly, it was not one of the nine companions, and quite as certainly, it was not Menneville, it must have been D’Artagnan, who, in his quality of a Gascon, had his tongue very near to his lips. For, in short, if it were not he, who could it be? And how can it be explained that the secret of the deal coffer pierced with holes should come to our knowledge, and in so complete a fashion that we have, as has been seen, related the history of it in all its most minute details; details which, besides, throw a light as new as unexpected upon all that portion of the history of England which has been left, up to the present day, completely in darkness by the historian of our neighbors?

CHAPTER 38. In which it is seen that the French Grocer had already been established in the Seventeenth Century

His accounts once settled, and his recommendations made, D’Artagnan thought of nothing but returning to Paris as soon as possible. Athos, on his part, was anxious to reach home and to rest a little. However whole the character and the man may remain after the fatigues of a voyage, the traveler perceives with pleasure, at the close of the day—even though the day has been a fine one—that night is approaching, and will bring a little sleep with it. So, from Boulogne to Paris, jogging on, side by side, the two friends, in some degree absorbed each in his individual thoughts, conversed of nothing sufficiently interesting for us to repeat to our readers. Each of them given up to his personal reflections, and constructing his future after his own fashion, was, above all, anxious to abridge the distance by speed. Athos and D’Artagnan arrived at the gates of Paris on the evening of the fourth day after leaving Boulogne.

“Where are you going, my friend?” asked Athos. “I shall direct my course straight to my hotel.”

“And I straight to my partner’s.”

“To Planchet’s?”

“Yes; at the Pilon d’Or.”

“Well, but shall we not meet again?”

“If you remain in Paris, yes, for I shall stay here.”

“No: after having embraced Raoul, with whom I have appointed a meeting at my hotel, I shall set out immediately for La Fere.”

“Well, adieu, then, dear and true friend.”

“Au revoir! I should rather say, for why can you not come and live with me at Blois? You are free, you are rich, I shall purchase for you, if you like, a handsome estate in the vicinity of Chiverny or of Bracieux. On the one side you will have the finest woods in the world, which join those of Chambord; on the other, admirable marshes. You who love sporting, and who, whether you admit it or not, are a poet, my dear friend, you will find pheasants, rail and teal, without counting sunsets and excursions on the water, to make you fancy yourself Nimrod and Apollo themselves. While awaiting the purchase, you can live at La Fere, and we shall go together to fly our hawks among the vines, as Louis XIII. used to do. That is a quiet amusement for old fellows like us.”

D’Artagnan took the hands of Athos in his own. “Dear count,” said he, “I shall say neither ‘Yes’ nor ‘No.’ Let me pass in Paris the time necessary for the regulation of my affairs, and accustom myself, by degrees, to the heavy and glittering idea which is beating in my brain and dazzles me. I am rich, you see, and from this moment until the time when I shall have acquired the habit of being rich, I know myself, and I shall be an insupportable animal. Now, I am not enough of a fool to wish to appear to have lost my wits before a friend like you, Athos. The cloak is handsome, the cloak is richly gilded, but it is new, and does not seem to fit me.”

Athos smiled. “So be it,” said he. “But a propos of this cloak, dear D’Artagnan, will you allow me to offer you a little advice?”

“Yes, willingly.”

“You will not be angry?”

“Proceed.”

“When wealth comes to a man late in life or all at once, that man, in order not to change, must most likely become a miser—that is to say, not spend much more money than he had done before; or else become a prodigal, and contract so many debts as to become poor again.”

“Oh! but what you say looks very much like a sophism, my dear philosophic friend.”

“I do not think so. Will you become a miser?”

“No, pardieu! I was one already, having nothing. Let us change.”

“Then be prodigal.”

“Still less, Mordioux! Debts terrify me. Creditors appear to me, by anticipation like those devils who turn the damned upon the gridirons, and as patience is not my dominant virtue, I am always tempted to thrash those devils.”

“You are the wisest man I know, and stand in no need of advice from any one. Great fools must they be who think they have anything to teach you. But are we not at the Rue Saint Honore?”

“Yes, dear Athos.”

“Look yonder, on the left, that small, long white house is the hotel where I lodge. You may observe that it has but two stories; I occupy the first; the other is let to an officer whose duties oblige him to be absent eight or nine months in the year,—so I am in that house as in my own home, without the expense.”

“Oh! how well you manage, Athos! What order and what liberality! They are what I wish to unite! But, of what use trying! that comes from birth, and cannot be acquired.”

“You are a flatterer! Well! adieu, dear friend. A propos, remember me to Master Planchet; he was always a bright fellow.”

“And a man of heart, too, Athos. Adieu.”

And they separated. During all this conversation, D’Artagnan had not for a moment lost sight of a certain pack-horse, in whose panniers, under some hay, were spread the sacoches (messenger’s bags) with the portmanteau. Nine o’clock was striking at Saint-Merri. Planchet’s helps were shutting up his shop. D’Artagnan stopped the postilion who rode the pack-horse, at the corner of the Rue des Lombards, under a penthouse, and calling one of Planchet’s boys, he desired him not only to take care of the two horses, but to watch the postilion; after which he entered the shop of the grocer, who had just finished supper, and who, in his little private room, was, with a degree of anxiety, consulting the calendar, on which, every evening, he scratched out the day that was past. At the moment when Planchet, according to his daily custom, with the back of his pen, erased another day, D’Artagnan kicked the door with his foot, and the blow made his steel spur jingle. “Oh! good Lord!” cried Planchet. The worthy grocer could say no more; he had just perceived his partner. D’Artagnan entered with a bent back and a dull eye: the Gascon had an idea with regard to Planchet.

“Good God!” thought the grocer, looking earnestly at the traveler, “he looks sad!” The musketeer sat down.

“My dear Monsieur d’Artagnan!” said Planchet, with a horrible palpitation of the heart. “Here you are! and your health?”

“Tolerably good, Planchet, tolerably good!” said D’Artagnan, with a profound sigh.

“You have not been wounded, I hope?”

“Phew!”

“Ah, I see,” continued Planchet, more and more alarmed, “the expedition has been a trying one?”

“Yes,” said D’Artagnan. A shudder ran down Planchet’s back. “I should like to have something to drink,” said the musketeer, raising his head piteously.

Planchet ran to the cupboard, and poured out to D’Artagnan some wine in a large glass. D’Artagnan examined the bottle.

“What wine is that?” asked he.

“Alas! that which you prefer, monsieur,” said Planchet; “that good old Anjou wine, which was one day nearly costing us all so dear.”

“Ah!” replied D’Artagnan, with a melancholy smile, “Ah! my poor Planchet, ought I still to drink good wine?”

“Come! my dear master,” said Planchet, making a superhuman effort, whilst all his contracted muscles, his pallor, and his trembling, betrayed the most acute anguish. “Come! I have been a soldier and consequently have some courage; do not make me linger, dear Monsieur d’Artagnan; our money is lost, is it not?”

Before he answered, D’Artagnan took his time, and that appeared an age to the poor grocer. Nevertheless he did nothing but turn about on his chair.

“And if that were the case,” said he, slowly, moving his head up and down, “if that were the case, what would you say, my dear friend?”

Planchet, from being pale, turned yellow. It might have been thought he was going to swallow his tongue, so full became his throat, so red were his eyes!

“Twenty thousand livres!” murmured he. “Twenty thousand livres, and yet——”

D’Artagnan, with his neck elongated, his legs stretched out, and his hands hanging listlessly, looked like a statue of discouragement. Planchet drew up a sigh from the deepest cavities of his breast.

“Well,” said he, “I see how it is. Let us be men! It is all over, is it not? The principal thing is, monsieur, that your life is safe.”

“Doubtless! doubtless!—life is something—but I am ruined!”

“Cordieu! monsieur!” said Planchet, “if it is so, we must not despair for that; you shall become a grocer with me; I shall take you for my partner, we will share the profits, and if there should be no more profits, well, why then we shall share the almonds, raisins and prunes, and we will nibble together the last quarter of Dutch cheese.”

D’Artagnan could hold out no longer. “Mordioux!” cried he, with great emotion, “thou art a brave fellow on my honor, Planchet. You have not been playing a part, have you? You have not seen the pack-horse with the bags under the shed yonder?”

“What horse? What bags?” said Planchet, whose trembling heart began to suggest that D’Artagnan was mad.

“Why, the English bags, Mordioux!” said D’Artagnan, all radiant, quite transfigured.

“Ah! good God!” articulated Planchet, drawing back before the dazzling fire of his looks.

“Imbecile!” cried D’Artagnan, “you think me mad! Mordioux! On the contrary, never was my head more clear, or my heart more joyous. To the bags, Planchet, to the bags!”

“But to what bags, good heavens!”

D’Artagnan pushed Planchet towards the window.

“Under the shed yonder, don’t you see a horse?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you see how his back is laden?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Don’t you see your lad talking with the postilion?”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

“Well, you know the name of that lad, because he is your own. Call him.”

“Abdon! Abdon!” vociferated Planchet, from the window.

“Bring the horse!” shouted D’Artagnan.

“Bring the horse!” screamed Planchet.

“Now give ten crowns to the postilion,” said D’Artagnan, in the tone he would have employed in commanding a maneuver; “two lads to bring up the two first bags, two to bring up the two last,—and move, Mordioux! be lively!”

Planchet rushed down the stairs, as if the devil had been at his heels. A moment later the lads ascended the staircase, bending beneath their burden. D’Artagnan sent them off to their garrets, carefully closed the door, and addressing Planchet, who, in his turn, looked a little wild,—

“Now, we are by ourselves,” said he, and he spread upon the floor a large cover, and emptied the first bag into it. Planchet did the same with the second; then D’Artagnan, all in a tremble, let out the precious bowels of the third with a knife. When Planchet heard the provoking sound of the silver and gold—when he saw bubbling out of the bags the shining crowns, which glittered like fish from the sweep-net—when he felt himself plunging his hands up to the elbow in that still rising tide of yellow and white coins, a giddiness seized him, and like a man struck by lightning, he sank heavily down upon the enormous heap, which his weight caused to roll away in all directions. Planchet, suffocated with joy, had lost his senses. D’Artagnan threw a glass of white wine in his face, which incontinently recalled him to life.

“Ah! good heavens! good heavens! good heavens!” said Planchet, wiping his mustache and beard.

At that time, as they do now, grocers wore the cavalier mustache and the lansquenet beard, only the money baths, already rare in those days, have become almost unknown now.

“Mordieux!” said D’Artagnan, “there are a hundred thousand crowns for you, partner. Draw your share, if you please, and I will draw mine.”

“Oh! the lovely sum! Monsieur d’Artagnan, the lovely sum!”

“I confess that half an hour ago I regretted that I had to give you so much, but I now no longer regret it; thou art a brave grocer, Planchet. There, let us close our accounts, for, as they say, short reckonings make long friends.”

“Oh! rather, in the first place, tell me the whole history,” said Planchet; “that must be better than the money.”

“Ma foi!” said D’Artagnan, stroking his mustache, “I can’t say no, and if ever the historian turns to me for information, he will be able to say he has not dipped his bucket into a dry spring. Listen, then, Planchet, I will tell you all about it.”

“And I shall build piles of crowns,” said Planchet. “Begin, my dear master.”

“Well, this is it,” said D’Artagnan, drawing breath.

“And that is it,” said Planchet, picking up his first handful of crowns.

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39. Mazarin’s Gaming Party

In a large chamber of the Palais Royal, hung with a dark colored velvet, which threw into strong relief the gilded frames of a great number of magnificent pictures, on the evening of the arrival of the two Frenchmen, the whole court was assembled before the alcove of M. le Cardinal de Mazarin, who gave a card party to the king and queen.

A small screen separated three prepared tables. At one of these tables the king and the two queens were seated. Louis XIV., placed opposite to the young queen, his wife, smiled upon her with an expression of real happiness. Anne of Austria held the cards against the cardinal, and her daughter-in-law assisted her in the game, when she was not engaged in smiling at her husband. As for the cardinal, who was lying on his bed with a weary and careworn face, his cards were held by the Comtesse de Soissons, and he watched them with an incessant look of interest and cupidity.

The cardinal’s face had been painted by Bernouin; but the rouge, which glowed only on his cheeks, threw into stronger contrast the sickly pallor of his countenance and the shining yellow of his brow. His eyes alone acquired a more brilliant luster from this auxiliary, and upon those sick man’s eyes were, from time to time, turned the uneasy looks of the king, the queen, and the courtiers. The fact is, that the two eyes of the Signor Mazarin were the stars more or less brilliant in which the France of the seventeenth century read its destiny every evening and every morning.

Monseigneur neither won nor lost; he was, therefore neither gay nor sad. It was a stagnation in which, full of pity for him, Anne of Austria would not have willingly left him; but in order to attract the attention of the sick man by some brilliant stroke, she must have either won or lost. To win would have been dangerous, because Mazarin would have changed his indifference into an ugly grimace; to lose would likewise have been dangerous, because she must have cheated, and the infanta, who watched her game, would, doubtless, have exclaimed against her partiality for Mazarin. Profiting by this calm, the courtiers were chatting. When not in a bad humor, M. de Mazarin was a very debonnaire prince, and he, who prevented nobody from singing, provided they paid, was not tyrant enough to prevent people from talking, provided they made up their minds to lose.

They were therefore chatting. At the first table, the king’s younger brother, Philip, Duc d’Anjou, was admiring his handsome face in the glass of a box. His favorite, the Chevalier de Lorraine, leaning over the back of the prince’s chair, was listening, with secret envy, to the Comte de Guiche, another of Philip’s favorites, who was relating in choice terms the various vicissitudes of fortune of the royal adventurer Charles II. He told, as so many fabulous events, all the history of his perigrinations in Scotland, and his terrors when the enemy’s party was so closely on his track, of nights spent in trees, and days spent in hunger and combats. By degrees, the fate of the unfortunate king interested his auditors so greatly, that the play languished even at the royal table, and the young king, with a pensive look and downcast eye, followed, without appearing to give any attention to it, the smallest details of this Odyssey, very picturesquely related by the Comte de Guiche.

The Comtesse de Soissons interrupted the narrator: “Confess, count, you are inventing.”

“Madame, I am repeating like a parrot all the stories related to me by different Englishmen. To my shame I am compelled to say, I am as exact as a copy.”

“Charles II. would have died before he could have endured all that.”

Louis XIV. raised his intelligent and proud head. “Madame,” said he, in a grave tone, still partaking something of the timid child, “monsieur le cardinal will tell you that during my minority the affairs of France were in jeopardy,—and that if I had been older, and obliged to take sword in hand, it would sometimes have been for the evening meal.”

“Thanks to God,” said the cardinal, who spoke for the first time, “your majesty exaggerates, and your supper has always been ready with that of your servants.”

The king colored.

“Oh!” cried Philip, inconsiderately, from his place, and without ceasing to admire himself,—“I recollect once, at Melun, the supper was laid for nobody, and that the king ate two-thirds of a slice of bread, and abandoned to me the other third.”

The whole assembly, seeing Mazarin smile, began to laugh. Courtiers flatter kings with the remembrance of past distresses, as with the hopes of future good fortune.

“It is not to be denied that the crown of France has always remained firm upon the heads of its kings,” Anne of Austria hastened to say, “and that it has fallen off of that of the king of England; and when by chance that crown oscillated a little,—for there are throne-quakes as well as earthquakes,—every time, I say, that rebellion threatened it, a good victory restored tranquillity.”

“With a few gems added to the crown,” said Mazarin.

The Comte de Guiche was silent: the king composed his countenance, and Mazarin exchanged looks with Anne of Austria, as if to thank her for her intervention.

“It is of no consequence,” said Philip, smoothing his hair; “my cousin Charles is not handsome, but he is very brave, and fought like a landsknecht; and if he continues to fight thus, no doubt he will finish by gaining a battle, like Rocroy——”

“He has no soldiers,” interrupted the Chevalier de Lorraine.

“The king of Holland, his ally, will give him some. I would willingly have given him some if I had been king of France.”

Louis XIV. blushed excessively. Mazarin affected to be more attentive to his game than ever.

“By this time,” resumed the Comte de Guiche, “the fortune of this unhappy prince is decided. If he has been deceived by Monk, he is ruined. Imprisonment, perhaps death, will finish what exile, battles, and privations have commenced.”

Mazarin’s brow became clouded.

“Is it certain,” said Louis XIV. “that his majesty Charles II., has quitted the Hague?”

“Quite certain, your majesty,” replied the young man; “my father has received a letter containing all the details; it is even known that the king has landed at Dover; some fishermen saw him entering the port; the rest is still a mystery.”

“I should like to know the rest,” said Philip, impetuously. “You know,—you, my brother.”

Louis XIV. colored again. That was the third time within an hour. “Ask my lord cardinal,” replied he, in a tone which made Mazarin, Anne of Austria, and everybody else open their eyes.

“That means, my son,” said Anne of Austria, laughing, “that the king does not like affairs of state to be talked of out of the council.”

Philip received the reprimand with good grace, and bowed, first smiling at his brother, and then his mother. But Mazarin saw from the corner of his eye that a group was about to be formed in the corner of the room, and that the Duc d’Anjou, with the Comte de Guiche, and the Chevalier de Lorraine, prevented from talking aloud, might say, in a whisper, what it was not convenient should be said. He was beginning, then, to dart at them glances full of mistrust and uneasiness, inviting Anne of Austria to throw perturbation in the midst of the unlawful assembly, when, suddenly, Bernouin, entering from behind the tapestry of the bedroom, whispered in the ear of Mazarin, “Monseigneur, an envoy from his majesty, the king of England.”

Mazarin could not help exhibiting a slight emotion, which was perceived by the king. To avoid being indiscreet, rather than to appear useless, Louis XIV. rose immediately, and approaching his eminence, wished him good-night. All the assembly had risen with a great noise of rolling of chairs and tables being pushed away.

“Let everybody depart by degrees,” said Mazarin in a whisper to Louis XIV., “and be so good as to excuse me a few minutes. I am going to dispatch an affair about which I wish to converse with your majesty this very evening.”

“And the queens?” asked Louis XIV.

“And M. le Duc d’Anjou,” said his eminence.

At the same time he turned round in his ruelle, the curtains of which, in falling, concealed the bed. The cardinal, nevertheless, did not lose sight of the conspirators.

“M. le Comte de Guiche,” said he, in a fretful voice, whilst putting on, behind the curtain, his dressing-gown, with the assistance of Bernouin.

“I am here, my lord,” said the young man, as he approached.

“Take my cards, you are lucky. Win a little money for me of these gentlemen.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The young man sat down at the table from which the king withdrew to talk with the two queens. A serious game was commenced between the comte and several rich courtiers. In the meantime Philip was discussing the questions of dress with the Chevalier de Lorraine, and they had ceased to hear the rustling of the cardinal’s silk robe from behind the curtain. His eminence had followed Bernouin into the closet adjoining the bedroom.

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40. An Affair of State

The cardinal, on passing into his cabinet, found the Comte de la Fere, who was waiting for him, engaged in admiring a very fine Raphael placed over a sideboard covered with plate. His eminence came in softly, lightly, and silently as a shadow, and surprised the countenance of the comte, as he was accustomed to do, pretending to divine by the simple expression of the face of his interlocutor what would be the result of the conversation.

But this time Mazarin was foiled in his expectation: he read nothing upon the face of Athos, not even the respect he was accustomed to see on all faces. Athos was dressed in black, with a simple lacing of silver. He wore the Holy Ghost, the Garter, and the Golden Fleece, three orders of such importance, that a king alone, or else a player, could wear them at once.

Mazarin rummaged a long time in his somewhat troubled memory to recall the name he ought to give to this icy figure, but he did not succeed. “I am told,” said he, at length, “you have a message from England for me.”

And he sat down, dismissing Bernouin, who, in his quality of secretary, was getting his pen ready.

“On the part of his majesty, the king of England, yes, your eminence.”

“You speak very good French for an Englishman monsieur,” said Mazarin, graciously, looking through his fingers at the Holy Ghost, Garter, and Golden Fleece, but more particularly at the face of the messenger.

“I am not an Englishman, but a Frenchman, monsieur le cardinal,” replied Athos.

“It is remarkable that the king of England should choose a Frenchman for his ambassador; it is an excellent augury. Your name, monsieur, if you please.”

“Comte de la Fere,” replied Athos, bowing more slightly than the ceremonial and pride of the all-powerful minister required.

Mazarin bent his shoulders, as if to say:—

“I do not know that name.”

Athos did not alter his carriage.

“And you come, monsieur,” continued Mazarin, “to tell me——”

“I come on the part of his majesty the king of Great Britain to announce to the king of France”—Mazarin frowned—“to announce to the king of France,” continued Athos, imperturbably, “the happy restoration of his majesty Charles II. to the throne of his ancestors.”

This shade did not escape his cunning eminence. Mazarin was too much accustomed to mankind, not to see in the cold and almost haughty politeness of Athos, an index of hostility, which was not of the temperature of that hot-house called a court.

“You have powers. I suppose?” asked Mazarin, in a short, querulous tone.

“Yes, monseigneur.” And the word “monseigneur” came so painfully from the lips of Athos that it might be said it skinned them.

Athos took from an embroidered velvet bag which he carried under his doublet a dispatch. The cardinal held out his hand for it. “Your pardon, monseigneur,” said Athos. “My dispatch is for the king.”

“Since you are a Frenchman, monsieur, you ought to know the position of a prime minister at the court of France.”

“There was a time,” replied Athos, “when I occupied myself with the importance of prime ministers, but I have formed, long ago, a resolution to treat no longer with any but the king.”

“Then, monsieur,” said Mazarin, who began to be irritated, “you will neither see the minister nor the king.”

Mazarin rose. Athos replaced his dispatch in its bag, bowed gravely, and made several steps towards the door. This coolness exasperated Mazarin. “What strange diplomatic proceedings are these!” cried he. “Have we returned to the times when Cromwell sent us bullies in the guise of charges d’affaires? You want nothing monsieur, but the steel cap on your head, and a Bible at your girdle.”

“Monsieur,” said Athos, dryly, “I have never had, as you have, the advantage of treating with Cromwell; and I have only seen his charges d’affaires sword in hand, I am therefore ignorant of how he treated with prime ministers. As for the king of England, Charles II., I know that when he writes to his majesty King Louis XIV., he does not write to his eminence the Cardinal Mazarin. I see no diplomacy in that distinction.”

“Ah!” cried Mazarin, raising his attenuated hand and striking his head, “I remember now!” Athos looked at him in astonishment. “Yes, that is it!” said the cardinal, continuing to look at his interlocutor; “yes, that is certainly it. I know you now, monsieur. Ah! diavolo! I am no longer astonished.”

“In fact, I was astonished that, with your eminence’s excellent memory,” replied Athos, smiling, “you had not recognized me before.”

“Always refractory and grumbling—monsieur—monsieur—What do they call you? Stop—a name of a river—Potamos; no—the name of an island—Naxos; no, per Giove!—the name of a mountain—Athos! now I have it. Delighted to see you again, and to be no longer at Rueil, where you and your damned companions made me pay ransom. Fronde! still Fronde! accursed Fronde! Oh, what grudges! Why, monsieur, have your antipathies survived mine? If any one had cause to complain, I think it could not be you, who got out of the affair not only in a sound skin, but with the cordon of the Holy Ghost around your neck.”

“My lord cardinal,” replied Athos, “permit me not to enter into considerations of that kind. I have a mission to fulfill. Will you facilitate the means of my fulfilling that mission, or will you not?”

“I am astonished,” said Mazarin,—quite delighted at having recovered his memory, and bristling with malice—“I am astonished, Monsieur—Athos—that a Frondeur like you should have accepted a mission for the Mazarin, as used to be said in the good old times——” And Mazarin began to laugh, in spite of a painful cough, which cut short his sentences, converting them into sobs.

“I have only accepted the mission near the king of France, monsieur le cardinal,” retorted the comte, though with less asperity, for he thought he had sufficiently the advantage to show himself moderate.

“And yet, Monsieur le Frondeur,” said Mazarin gayly, “the affair which you have taken in charge must, from the king——”

“With which I have been given in charge, monseigneur. I do not run after affairs.”

“Be it so. I say that this negotiation must pass through my hands. Let us lose no precious time, then. Tell me the conditions.”

“I have had the honor of assuring your eminence that only the letter of his majesty King Charles II. contains the revelation of his wishes.”

“Pooh! you are ridiculous with your obstinacy, Monsieur Athos. It is plain you have kept company with the Puritans yonder. As to your secret, I know it better than you do; and you have done wrongly, perhaps, in not having shown some respect for a very old and suffering man, who has labored much during his life, and kept the field for his ideas as bravely as you have for yours. You will not communicate your letter to me? You will say nothing to me? Very well! Come with me into my chamber; you shall speak to the king—and before the king.—Now, then, one last word: who gave you the Fleece? I remember you passed for having the Garter; but as to the Fleece, I do not know——”

“Recently, my lord, Spain, on the occasion of the marriage of his majesty Louis XIV., sent King Charles II. a brevet of the Fleece in blank, Charles II. immediately transmitted it to me, filling up the blank with my name.”

Mazarin arose, and leaning on the arm of Bernouin, he returned to his ruelle at the moment the name of M. le Prince was being announced. The Prince de Conde, the first prince of the blood, the conqueror of Rocroy, Lens and Nordlingen, was, in fact, entering the apartment of Monseigneur de Mazarin, followed by his gentlemen, and had already saluted the king, when the prime minister raised his curtain. Athos had time to see Raoul pressing the hand of the Comte de Guiche, and send him a smile in return for his respectful bow. He had time, likewise, to see the radiant countenance of the cardinal, when he perceived before him, upon the table, an enormous heap of gold, which the Comte de Guiche had won in a run of luck, after his eminence had confided his cards to him. So forgetting ambassador, embassy and prince, his first thought was of the gold. “What!” cried the old man—“all that—won?”

“Some fifty thousand crowns; yes, monseigneur!” replied the Comte de Guiche, rising. “Must I give up my place to your eminence, or shall I continue?”

“Give up! give up! you are mad. You would lose all you have won. Peste!”

“My lord!” said the Prince de Conde, bowing.

“Good-evening, monsieur le prince,” said the minister, in a careless tone; “it is very kind of you to visit an old sick friend.”

“A friend!” murmured the Comte de la Fere, at witnessing with stupor this monstrous alliance of words;—“friends! when the parties are Conde and Mazarin!”

Mazarin seemed to divine the thought of the Frondeur, for he smiled upon him with triumph, and immediately,—“Sire,” said he to the king, “I have the honor of presenting to your majesty, Monsieur le Comte de la Fere, ambassador from his Britannic majesty. An affair of state, gentlemen,” added he, waving his hand to all who filled the chamber, and who, the Prince de Conde at their head, all disappeared at the simple gesture. Raoul, after a last look cast at the comte, followed M. de Conde. Philip of Anjou and the queen appeared to be consulting about departing.

“A family affair,” said Mazarin, suddenly, detaining them in their seats. “This gentleman is the bearer of a letter in which King Charles II., completely restored to his throne, demands an alliance between Monsieur, the brother of the king, and Mademoiselle Henrietta, grand-daughter of Henry IV. Will you remit your letter of credit to the king, monsieur le comte?”

Athos remained for a minute stupefied. How could the minister possibly know the contents of the letter which had never been out of his keeping for a single instant? Nevertheless, always master of himself, he held out the dispatch to the young king, Louis XIV., who took it with a blush. A solemn silence reigned in the cardinal’s chamber. It was only troubled by the dull sound of the gold, which Mazarin with his yellow dry hand, piled up in a casket, whilst the king was reading.

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