Part 16

The king made a sign to the musketeer, the other to de Saint-Aignan.

The sign was imperious and meant: "On your life, hold your tongue!"

D'Artagnan withdrew, like a soldier, into the corner of the cabinet.

De Saint-Aignan, like a favorite, leaned upon the back of the king's armchair.

Manicamp, right leg forward, smile upon his lips, white and graceful hands, advanced to make his reverence to the king.

The king returned the salute with his head.

— Good evening, Monsieur de Manicamp, said he.

— Your Majesty did me the honor of summoning me to him, said Manicamp.

— Yes, to learn from you all the details of the unfortunate accident that befell the Count de Guiche.

— Oh! Sire, it is grievous.

— Were you there?

— Not precisely, Sire.

— But you arrived upon the scene of the accident a few moments after it had occurred?

— That is so, yes, Sire, about half an hour.

— And where did this accident take place?

— I believe, Sire, that the place is called the round-point of the Rochin wood.

— Yes, a hunting rendezvous.

— Precisely so, Sire.

— Well! relate to me what details you know of this misfortune, Monsieur de Manicamp. Relate.

— It may be that Your Majesty is already informed, and I should fear to weary you with repetitions.

— No, do not fear.

Manicamp looked all about him; he saw only D'Artagnan leaning against the wainscot, D'Artagnan calm, kindly, simple-hearted, and de Saint-Aignan, with whom he had come, and who still leaned against the king's armchair with an equally gracious countenance.

He therefore made up his mind to speak.

— Your Majesty is not unaware, said he, that accidents are common to the hunt?

— To the hunt?

— Yes, Sire, I mean to the stand.

— Ah! ah! said the king, it was at the stand that the accident happened?

— But yes, Sire, ventured Manicamp; did Your Majesty not know it?

— Why, almost, said the king very quickly, for Louis XIV always recoiled from lying; it was at the stand, you say, that the accident happened?

— Alas! yes, unhappily, Sire.

The king paused.

— At the stand for what animal? he asked.

— The wild boar, Sire.

— And what notion, then, had de Guiche to go off thus, all alone, to the stand for wild boar? That is a countryman's exercise, fit, at best, for one who has not, like the Marshal de Grammont, dogs and huntsmen to hunt like a gentleman.

Manicamp shrugged his shoulders.

— Youth is reckless, he said sententiously.

— Well!... continue, said the king.

— So it is, continued Manicamp, not daring to venture and setting down one word after another, as a salt-marsh worker sets down his feet in a bog, so it is, Sire, that poor de Guiche went off alone to the stand.

— All alone, forsooth! a fine huntsman! Does not M. de Guiche know that the boar charges back upon the shot?

— That is precisely what happened, Sire.

— He had then got wind of the beast?

— Yes, Sire. Peasants had seen it in their potato fields.

— And what manner of animal was it?

— A young boar.

— You should then have warned me, sir, that de Guiche had suicidal notions; for, after all, I have seen him hunt, he is a very expert woodsman. When he fires upon the cornered beast holding to the dogs, he takes all his precautions, and yet he fires with a carbine, and this time he goes to face the boar with mere pistols!

Manicamp started.

— Luxury pistols, excellent for dueling with a man and not with a boar, the devil!

— Sire, there are things that are not easily explained.

— You are right, and the event that occupies us is one of those. Continue.

During this account, de Saint-Aignan, who might perhaps have signaled Manicamp not to dig himself in deeper, was covered by the obstinate gaze of the king.

There was thus, between him and Manicamp, an impossibility of communicating. As for D'Artagnan, the statue of Silence at Athens was more noisy and more expressive than he.

Manicamp therefore continued, launched upon the path he had taken, to sink deeper into the panel.

— Sire, said he, here is probably how the thing came to pass. De Guiche was waiting for the boar.

— On horseback or on foot? asked the king.

— On horseback. He fired upon the beast, missed it.

— The clumsy fellow!

— The beast charged him.

— And the horse was killed?

— Ah! Your Majesty knows that?

— I was told a horse had been found dead at the crossroads of the Rochin wood. I presumed it was de Guiche's horse.

— It was indeed, Sire.

— There is the horse, that is well; but de Guiche?

— De Guiche once on the ground, was rooted by the boar and wounded in the hand and breast.

— It is a horrible accident; but, it must be said, it is de Guiche's fault. How does one go to the stand for such an animal with pistols! Had he then forgotten the fable of Adonis?

Manicamp scratched his ear.

— True, said he, great imprudence.

— Do you explain this to yourself, Monsieur de Manicamp?

— Sire, what is written is written.

— Ah! you are a fatalist!

Manicamp fidgeted, very ill at ease.

— I am displeased with you, Monsieur de Manicamp, continued the king.

— With me, Sire.

— Yes! How now! you are Guiche's friend, you know he is subject to such follies, and you do not stop him?

Manicamp knew not what to make of it; the king's tone was no longer precisely that of a credulous man.

On the other hand, that tone had neither the severity of drama nor the insistence of interrogation.

There was more raillery than threat.

— And you say then, continued the king, that it is indeed de Guiche's horse that was found dead?

— Oh! my God, yes, the very one.

— Did that surprise you?

— No, Sire. At the last hunt, M. de Saint-Maure, Your Majesty will recall, had a horse killed under him, and in the same fashion.

— Yes, but disemboweled.

— No doubt, Sire.

— De Guiche's horse, had it been disemboweled like M. de Saint-Maure's, would not astonish me in the least, egad!

Manicamp opened wide his eyes.

— But what astonishes me, continued the king, is that de Guiche's horse, instead of having its belly opened, has its head broken.

Manicamp grew troubled.

— Am I mistaken? resumed the king; was it not at the temple that de Guiche's horse was struck? Confess, Monsieur de Manicamp, that is a singular blow.

— Sire, you know the horse is a very intelligent animal, it will have tried to defend itself.

— But a horse defends itself with its hind feet, and not with its head.

— Then, the horse, frightened, fell, said Manicamp, and the boar, you understand, Sire, the boar...

— Yes, I understand about the horse; but about the rider?

— Well! it is quite simple: the boar went from the horse to the rider, and, as I have already had the honor of saying to Your Majesty, crushed de Guiche's hand at the moment he was about to fire his second pistol shot at it; then, with a tusk-thrust, bored through his chest.

— That is most plausible indeed, Monsieur de Manicamp; you are wrong to distrust your eloquence, and you relate admirably.

— The king is too good, said Manicamp with a most embarrassed bow.

— From today only, I shall forbid my gentlemen to go to the stand. Plague! it would be as well to permit them dueling.

Manicamp started and made a motion to withdraw.

— Is the king satisfied? he asked.

— Delighted; but do not withdraw yet, Monsieur de Manicamp, said Louis, I have need of you.

"Come, come," thought D'Artagnan, "here is another who is not of our sort."

And he heaved a sigh that might signify: "Oh! the men of our sort, where are they now?"

At that moment, an usher lifted the curtain and announced the king's physician.

— Ah! cried Louis, there is just M. Valot, who comes from visiting M. de Guiche. We shall have news of the wounded man.

Manicamp felt more ill at ease than ever.

— At least in this way, added the king, we shall have a clear conscience.

And he looked at D'Artagnan, who did not flinch.

Chapter CLVII — The Physician

M. Valot entered.

The staging was the same: the king seated, de Saint-Aignan still leaning on his armchair, D'Artagnan still against the wall, Manicamp still standing.

— Well! Monsieur Valot, said the king, have you obeyed me?

— With eagerness, Sire.

— You went to your colleague at Fontainebleau?

— Yes, Sire.

— And you found M. de Guiche there?

— I found M. de Guiche there.

— In what state? Speak frankly.

— In a very pitiful state, Sire.

— However, come, the boar did not devour him?

— Devour whom?

— Guiche.

— What boar?

— The boar that wounded him.

— M. de Guiche was wounded by a boar?

— So it is said, at least.

— Some poacher rather...

— How, some poacher?...

— Some jealous husband, some ill-used lover, who, to avenge himself, fired upon him.

— But what are you saying there, Monsieur Valot? Are not M. de Guiche's wounds produced by the defense of a boar?

— M. de Guiche's wounds are produced by a pistol ball that crushed the ring-finger and little finger of the right hand, after which it lodged in the intercostal muscles of the chest.

— A ball! Are you sure M. de Guiche was wounded by a ball?... cried the king playing the surprised man.

— My faith, said Valot, as sure as here it is, Sire.

And he presented to the king a half-flattened ball.

The king looked at it without touching it.

— He had that in his chest, the poor boy? he asked.

— Not precisely. The ball had not penetrated, it had flattened, as you see, either under the pistol guard or on the right side of the sternum.

— Good God! said the king seriously, you told me none of this, Monsieur de Manicamp?

— Sire...

— What then, come, is this invention of boar, of stand, of night hunt? Come, speak.

— Ah! Sire...

— It seems to me you are right, said the king turning toward his captain of musketeers, and that there has been a fight.

The king had, more than any other, that faculty given to great men of compromising and dividing inferiors.

Manicamp cast upon the musketeer a glance full of reproach.

D'Artagnan understood that glance, and would not remain under the weight of the accusation.

He took a step.

— Sire, said he, Your Majesty commanded me to go explore the crossroads of the Rochin wood, and to tell him, according to my estimate, what had passed there. I made known to him my observations, but without denouncing anyone. It is His Majesty himself who, first, named the Count de Guiche.

— Good! good! sir, said the king with hauteur; you have done your duty, and I am satisfied with you, that should suffice you. But you, Monsieur de Manicamp, you have not done yours, for you have lied to me.

— Lied, Sire! The word is harsh.

— Find another.

— Sire, I shall not seek one. I have already had the misfortune to displease His Majesty, and what I find best is to humbly accept the reproaches he shall judge fit to address to me.

— You are right, sir, one always displeases me by hiding the truth from me.

— Sometimes, Sire, one is ignorant.

— Lie no more, or I double the penalty.

Manicamp bowed, growing pale.

D'Artagnan took yet another step forward, resolved to intervene, should the ever-growing anger of the king reach certain limits.

— Sir, continued the king, you see it is useless to deny the thing any longer. M. de Guiche has fought.

— I do not say no, Sire, and Your Majesty would have been generous in not forcing a gentleman to lie.

— Forced! Who forced you?

— Sire, M. de Guiche is my friend. Your Majesty has forbidden duels under pain of death. A lie saves my friend. I lie.

— Well, murmured D'Artagnan, there is a fine fellow, by the devil!

— Sir, resumed the king, instead of lying, you should have prevented him from fighting.

— Oh! Sire, Your Majesty, who is the most accomplished gentleman in France, knows well that we, men of the sword, have never regarded M. de Boutteville as dishonored for having died on the Grève. What dishonors is to avoid one's enemy, and not to meet the executioner.

— Well! be it so, said Louis XIV, I am willing to open you a means of repairing all.

— If it is one that befits a gentleman, I shall seize it with eagerness, Sire.

— The name of M. de Guiche's adversary?

— Oh! oh! murmured D'Artagnan, are we going to continue Louis XIII?...

— Sire!... said Manicamp with an accent of reproach.

— You will not name him, it appears? said the king.

— Sire, I do not know it.

— Bravo! said D'Artagnan.

— Monsieur de Manicamp, surrender your sword to the captain.

Manicamp bowed gracefully, detached his sword smiling, and extended it to the musketeer.

But de Saint-Aignan advanced quickly between D'Artagnan and him.

— Sire, said he, with Your Majesty's permission.

— Do, said the king, perhaps delighted at heart that someone placed himself between him and the anger into which he had let himself be carried.

— Manicamp, you are a brave man, and the king will appreciate your conduct; but to wish to serve one's friends too well is to harm them. Manicamp, you know the name His Majesty asks of you?

— True, I know it.

— Then, you will tell it.

— Had I been to tell it, it would already be done.

— Then I shall tell it, I who, unlike you, am not interested in this honest prudence.

— You, you are free; but it seems to me however...

— Oh! enough of magnanimity; I shall not let you go to the Bastille thus. Speak, or I speak.

Manicamp was a man of wit, and understood he had done enough to give a perfect opinion of himself; now it was only a matter of persevering in it by regaining the king's good graces.

— Speak, sir, said he to de Saint-Aignan. I have done on my part all my conscience bade me do, and my conscience must have commanded loudly indeed, he added turning toward the king, since it prevailed over His Majesty's commands; but His Majesty will forgive me, I hope, when he knows I had to guard a lady's honor.

— A lady's? asked the king, uneasy.

— Yes, Sire.

— A lady was the cause of this fight?

Manicamp bowed.

The king rose and approached Manicamp.

— If the person is considerable, said he, I shall not complain that you took precautions, on the contrary.

— Sire, all that touches the house of the king, or the house of his brother, is considerable in my eyes.

— The house of my brother? repeated Louis XIV with a sort of hesitation... The cause of this fight is a lady of my brother's house?

— Or of Madame's.

— Ah! of Madame's?

— Yes, Sire.

— Thus, this lady?...

— Is one of the maids of honor of the household of Her Royal Highness Madame the Duchess of Orleans.

— For whom M. de Guiche fought, you say?

— Yes, and, this time, I lie no more.

Louis made a motion full of trouble.

— Gentlemen, said he turning toward the spectators of this scene, be pleased to withdraw a moment, I need to remain alone with M. de Manicamp. I know he has precious things to tell me for his justification, and dares not do so before witnesses... Surrender your sword, Monsieur de Manicamp.

Manicamp returned his sword to the belt.

— The rogue is, decidedly, full of presence of mind, murmured the musketeer taking Saint-Aignan's arm and withdrawing with him.

— He will get out of it, said the latter in D'Artagnan's ear.

— And with honor, count.

Manicamp addressed to de Saint-Aignan and the captain a look of thanks that passed unnoticed by the king.

— Come, come, said D'Artagnan crossing the threshold of the door, I had a poor opinion of the new generation. Well! I was mistaken, and these young fellows have their good points.

Valot preceded the favorite and the captain.

The king and Manicamp remained alone in the cabinet.

Chapter CLVIII — Where D'Artagnan acknowledges he was mistaken, and that it was Manicamp who was right

The king assured himself by going to the door that no one listened, and came back to place himself precipitately before his interlocutor.

— Now! said he, now that we are alone, Monsieur de Manicamp, explain yourself.

— With the greatest frankness, Sire, answered the young man.

— And first of all, added the king, know that nothing lies so near my heart as the honor of ladies.

— That is just why I was sparing your delicacy, Sire.

— Yes, I understand all now. You say then it was a daughter of my sister-in-law's, and that the person in question, the adversary of Guiche, the man finally whom you will not name...

— But whom M. de Saint-Aignan will name to you, Sire.

— Yes. You say then that this man offended someone of Madame's household.

— Mlle de La Vallière, yes, Sire.

— Ah! said the king, as if he had expected it, and as if yet this blow had pierced his heart; ah! it is Mlle de La Vallière who was being outraged?

— I do not say precisely that she was outraged, Sire.

— But after all...

— I say that one spoke of her in unbecoming terms.

— In unbecoming terms of Mlle de La Vallière! And you refuse to tell me who was the insolent?...

— Sire, I thought it was a settled thing, and that Your Majesty had renounced making of me an informer.

— That is just, you are right, resumed the king moderating himself; besides, I shall always learn soon enough the name of him I must punish.

Manicamp saw well that the question was turned.

As for the king, he perceived he had just let himself be carried a little too far.

So he recovered himself:

— And I shall punish, not because it concerns Mlle de La Vallière, though I esteem her particularly; but because the object of the quarrel is a woman. Now I intend that at my court women be respected, and that one not quarrel.

Manicamp bowed.

— Now, come, Monsieur de Manicamp, continued the king, what was said of Mlle de La Vallière?

— But does not Your Majesty guess?

— I?

— Your Majesty knows well what sort of jests young men allow themselves.

— They said no doubt that she loved someone, ventured the king.

— That is probable.

— But Mlle de La Vallière has the right to love whom she pleases, said the king.

— That is precisely what de Guiche maintained.

— And it is for that he fought?

— Yes, Sire, for that sole cause.

The king reddened.

— And, said he, you know no more?

— On what chapter, Sire?

— Why, on the very interesting chapter you are now relating.

— And what is it the king would have me know?

— Why, for example, the name of the man La Vallière loves and whom de Guiche's adversary disputed her right to love?

— Sire, I know nothing, I heard nothing, surprised nothing; but I hold from Guiche that he is a great heart, and, if he momentarily substituted himself for La Vallière's protector, it is that this protector was too highly placed to take his own defense.

These words were more than transparent; they also made the king redden, but this time with pleasure.

He tapped lightly upon Manicamp's shoulder.

— Come, come, you are not only a spirited fellow, Monsieur de Manicamp, but a brave gentleman besides, and I find your friend de Guiche a paladin quite to my taste; you will testify so to him, will you not?

— Thus, Sire, Your Majesty forgives me?

— Entirely.

— And I am free?

The king smiled and extended his hand to Manicamp.

Manicamp seized this hand and kissed it.

— And then, added the king, you relate admirably.

— I, Sire?

— You gave me an excellent account of this accident that befell de Guiche. I see the boar issuing from the wood, I see the horse falling, I see the beast going from horse to rider. You do not relate, sir, you paint.

— Sire, I believe Your Majesty deigns to rally me, said Manicamp.

— On the contrary, said Louis XIV seriously, I laugh so little, Monsieur de Manicamp, that I wish you to relate this adventure to everyone.

— The adventure of the stand?

— Yes, such as you told it to me, without changing a single word, you understand?

— Perfectly, Sire.

— And you will relate it?

— Without losing a minute.

— Well! now, recall M. d'Artagnan yourself; I hope you no longer fear him.

— Oh! Sire, once I am sure of Your Majesty's kindness toward me, I fear nothing more.

— Call then, said the king.

Manicamp opened the door.

— Gentlemen, said he, the king calls you.

D'Artagnan, Saint-Aignan and Valot re-entered.

— Gentlemen, said the king, I had you recalled to tell you that Monsieur de Manicamp's explanation has entirely satisfied me.

D'Artagnan cast upon Valot on one side, and upon Saint-Aignan on the other, a glance that signified: "Well! what did I tell you?"

The king drew Manicamp toward the door, then very low:

— Let M. de Guiche take care of himself, he said to him, and above all let him heal quickly; I wish to hasten to thank him in the name of all the ladies, but above all let him never begin again.

— Though he die a hundred times, Sire, he will begin a hundred times again if it concerns Your Majesty's honor.

It was direct. But, we have said, King Louis XIV loved incense, and, provided one gave him some, he was not very exacting as to its quality.

— That is well, that is well, said he dismissing Manicamp, I shall see de Guiche myself and make him listen to reason.

Then the king, turning toward the three spectators of this scene:

— Monsieur d'Artagnan? said he.

— Sire.

— Tell me then, how is it you have such troubled sight, you who ordinarily have such good eyes?

— I have troubled sight, I, Sire?

— Doubtless.

— That must certainly be, since Your Majesty says so. But in what troubled, if you please?

— Why, as to this event of the Rochin wood.

— Ah! ah!

— Doubtless. You saw the traces of two horses, the steps of two men, you noted the details of a fight. None of that existed; pure illusion!

— Ah! ah! said D'Artagnan again.

— It is like those tramplings of the horse, like those indices of struggle. Struggle of de Guiche against the boar, nothing else; only, the struggle was long and terrible, it appears.

— Ah! ah! continued D'Artagnan.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”