Part 10

— I do not doubt it, Sire; but here is the end of that terrible truth which I had to tell you: Were I to see upon this table the marshal's baton, the constable's sword, the crown of Poland, instead of later, I swear to you, Sire, that I would still say it all at once. Oh! pardon me, Sire, I am from the country of your ancestor Henri IV: I do not speak often, but when I speak, I say all.

— The future of my reign tempts you little, it would seem, monsieur? said Louis with haughtiness.

— Oblivion, oblivion everywhere! cried the officer with nobility; the master has forgotten the servant, and behold the servant reduced to forgetting his master. I live in an unhappy time, Sire! I see the youth full of discouragement and fear, I see it timid and stripped bare, when it should be rich and powerful. I opened last night, for example, the door of the King of France to a King of England whom I, feeble as I am, had nearly saved the father of, if God had not set Himself against me, God, who inspired His elect Cromwell!

"I open, I say, that door, that is to say the palace of one brother to another, and I see — look you, Sire, it wrings my heart! — and I see the minister of that king drive out the outcast and humiliate his master by condemning to misery another king, his equal; finally I see my prince, who is young, handsome, brave, who has courage in his heart and lightning in his eyes, I see him tremble before a priest who laughs at him behind the curtains of his alcove, where he digests in his bed all the gold of France, which he then swallows up in unknown coffers. Yes, I understand your glance, Sire. I make myself bold to the point of madness; but what would you have! I am an old man, and I say here, to you, my king, things which I would force back down the throat of any who should utter them before me.

"In short, you commanded me to pour out before you the bottom of my heart, Sire, and I spill at the feet of Your Majesty the bile I have amassed for thirty years, as I would spill all my blood if Your Majesty so ordered.

The king wiped without a word the floods of a cold and abundant sweat that streamed from his temples.

The minute of silence which followed this vehement outburst represented for him who had spoken and for him who had heard it centuries of suffering.

— Monsieur, said the king at last, you have pronounced the word oblivion, I heard only that word; I shall answer therefore to it alone. Others may have been forgetful, but I am not, and the proof is that I remember how one day of riot, one day when the furious people, furious and roaring like the sea, invaded the Palais-Royal; one day, in short, when I feigned to sleep in my bed, a single man, sword bare, hidden behind my pillow, watched over my life, ready to risk his own for me, as he had already risked it twenty times for those of my family. Did not that gentleman, whose name I then asked, bear the name of M. d'Artagnan, say, monsieur?

— Your Majesty has a good memory; replied the officer coldly.

— See then, monsieur, continued the king, if I have such childhood memories, what I may amass in the age of reason.

— Your Majesty has been richly endowed by God, said the officer in the same tone.

— Come, M. d'Artagnan, continued Louis with a febrile agitation, will you not be as patient as I? will you not do as I do? come now.

— And what do you do, Sire?

— I wait.

— Your Majesty may do so, because you are young; but I, Sire, have not the time to wait: old age is at my door, and death follows it, looking even to the bottom of my house. Your Majesty begins life; she is full of hope and of fortune to come; but I, Sire, I, am at the other end of the horizon, and we find ourselves so far one from the other, that I should never have the time to wait until Your Majesty came as far as me.

Louis took a turn about the chamber, ever wiping that sweat which would have sorely frightened the physicians, had the physicians been able to see the king in such a state.

— Enough, monsieur, said Louis XIV then in a brief voice; you desire your retirement? you shall have it. You offer me your resignation of the rank of lieutenant of musketeers?

— I lay it most humbly at the feet of Your Majesty, Sire.

— That suffices. I shall have your pension ordered.

— I shall be a thousand times obliged to Your Majesty.

— Monsieur, said the king again, making an evident effort upon himself, I believe you are losing a good master.

— And I, I am sure of it, Sire.

— Shall you ever find one like him again?

— Oh! Sire, I know well that Your Majesty is unique in the world; hence I shall henceforth take service with no king on earth, and shall have no other master but myself.

— You say it?

— I swear it to Your Majesty.

— I hold to that word, monsieur.

D'Artagnan bowed.

— And you know that I have a good memory, continued the king.

— Yes, Sire, and yet I wish that this memory might fail Your Majesty at this hour, so that she might forget the miseries I was forced to display before her eyes. Her Majesty is so far above the poor and the lowly, that I hope...

— My Majesty, monsieur, shall do as the sun, which sees all, great and small, rich and wretched, giving lustre to some, warmth to others, life to all. Farewell, M. d'Artagnan, farewell, you are free.

And the king, with a raucous sob which was lost in his throat, passed quickly into the adjoining chamber.

D'Artagnan took up his hat from the table where he had flung it, and went out.

Chapter XV — The Outcast

D'Artagnan was not at the foot of the stairs when the king called his gentleman.

— I have a commission to give you, monsieur, said he.

— I am at the orders of Your Majesty.

— Wait then.

And the young king set himself to write the following letter, which cost him more than one sigh, though at the same time something like the sense of triumph shone in his eyes.

"Monsieur le Cardinal, Thanks to your good counsels, and above all thanks to your firmness, I have known how to vanquish and tame a weakness unworthy of a king. You have too skillfully arranged my destiny for gratitude not to stay me at the moment of destroying your work. I have understood that I was wrong to wish to turn my life from the road you had traced for it. Certainly, it would have been unfortunate for France, and unfortunate for my family, that misunderstanding should break out between my minister and myself.

It is yet what would certainly have happened had I made your niece my wife. I understand it perfectly, and henceforth shall oppose nothing to the accomplishment of my destiny. I am therefore ready to marry the Infanta Maria Theresa. You may fix from this instant the opening of the conferences.

Your affectionate, Louis."

The king reread the letter, then sealed it himself.

— This letter to M. le Cardinal, said he.

The gentleman set off. At Mazarin's door, he met Bernouin, who waited in anxiety.

— Well? asked the minister's valet de chambre.

— Monsieur, said the gentleman, here is a letter for His Eminence.

— A letter! Ah! we expected it, after the little journey of this morning.

— Ah! you knew that His Majesty...

— In quality of First Minister, it is a duty of our charge to know all. And His Majesty prays, supplicates, I presume?

— I know not, but he sighed many times in writing it.

— Yes, yes, yes, we know what that means. One sighs from happiness as from sorrow, monsieur.

— However, the king had not the air very happy on returning, monsieur.

— You will not have seen well. Besides, you saw His Majesty only on the return, since he was accompanied but by his sole lieutenant of the guards. But I, I had His Eminence's telescope, and I looked when he was weary. Both wept, I am sure of it.

— Well! was it also from happiness that they wept?

— No, but from love, and they swore each other a thousand tender things which the king asks nothing better than to keep. Now, this letter is a beginning of execution.

— And what does His Eminence think of this love, which, besides, is a secret to no one?

Bernouin took the arm of Louis's messenger, and while mounting the stairs:

— Confidentially, replied he half-voice, His Eminence expects the success of the affair. I know well we shall have war with Spain; but bah! war will satisfy the nobility. M. le Cardinal moreover will dowry royally, and even more than royally, his niece. There will be money, feasts and blows; all the world will be content.

— Well! to me, answered the gentleman shaking his head, it seems that here is a letter very light to contain all that.

— Friend, answered Bernouin, I am sure of what I say; M. d'Artagnan told me all.

— Good! and what did he say? come now!

— I approached him to ask news on the cardinal's part, without discovering our designs, well understood, for M. d'Artagnan is a fine limier.

"— My dear M. Bernouin, did he answer, the king is madly in love with Mlle de Mancini. That is all I can tell you.

"— Eh! did I ask him, is it then to this point that you believe him capable of going beyond the designs of His Eminence?

"— Ah! question me not; I believe the king capable of all. He has a head of iron, and what he wills, he wills well. If he has shod in his brain to marry Mlle de Mancini, he will marry her.

"And thereupon he left me and went to the stables, took a horse, saddled it himself, sprang upon it, and departed as if the devil carried him.

— So that you believe...?

— I believe that M. the lieutenant of the guards knew more than he wished to say.

— So well that in your opinion, M. d'Artagnan...

— Runs, according to all probabilities, after the exiled ladies to make all useful steps for the success of the king's love.

In talking thus, the two confidants had arrived at the door of the cabinet of His Eminence. His Eminence no longer had the gout, he walked with anxiety in his chamber, listening at doors and looking from windows.

Bernouin entered, followed by the gentleman who had order from the king to place the letter in the hands themselves of His Eminence.

Mazarin took the letter; but before opening it he composed himself a smile of circumstance, a convenient bearing to veil emotions of whatever kind they might be. In this way, whatever impression he might receive from the letter, no reflection of that impression transpired upon his face.

— Well! said he when he had read and reread the letter, to a marvel, monsieur. Announce to the king that I thank him for his obedience to the desires of the queen mother, and that I am going to do all to accomplish his will.

The gentleman went out. Scarcely had the door been closed again, than the cardinal, who had no mask for Bernouin, removed that with which he had but momentarily covered his physiognomy, and with his darkest expression:

— Call M. de Brienne, said he.

The secretary entered five minutes after.

— Monsieur, said Mazarin to him, I have just rendered a great service to the monarchy, the greatest I have ever rendered it. You shall carry this letter, which bears witness thereto, to Her Majesty the queen mother, and when she shall have returned it to you, you shall lodge it in carton B, which is full of documents and pieces relative to my service.

Brienne departed, and as this so interesting letter was unsealed, he failed not to read it on the way. It goes without saying that Bernouin, who was well with all the world, approached near enough the secretary to be able to read over his shoulder. The news spread in the château with such rapidity, that Mazarin feared for an instant lest it should reach the ears of the queen before M. de Brienne should remit to her the letter of Louis XIV. A moment after, all orders were given for the departure, and M. de Condé, having gone to salute the king at his pretended rising, inscribed upon his tablets the city of Poitiers as place of sojourn and repose for Their Majesties. Thus unknotted in a few instants an intrigue which had sullenly occupied all the diplomacies of Europe. It had however for result clear and net only to make a poor lieutenant of musketeers lose his post and his fortune. It is true that in exchange he gained his liberty.

We shall soon know how M. d'Artagnan profited by his. For the moment, if the reader permits, we must return to the Hostelry of the Medici, of which a window had just opened at the very moment when orders were being given at the château for the king's departure. This window which opened was that of one of Charles's chambers. The unhappy prince had passed the night dreaming, the head in his two hands and the elbows on a table, while Parry, shapeless and old, had fallen asleep in a corner, weary of body and of spirit.

Strange destiny that of this faithful servant, who saw recommence for the second generation the frightful series of misfortunes which had weighed upon the first. When Charles II had well thought upon the new defeat he had just undergone, when he had well understood the complete isolation in which he had just fallen in seeing flee behind him his new hope, he was seized as with a vertigo and fell back into the wide armchair at the edge of which he sat. Then God took pity on the unhappy prince and sent him sleep, innocent brother of death. He awoke therefore but at half past six, that is to say when the sun already resplended in his chamber and Parry, immobile for fear of waking him, regarded with a profound sorrow the eyes of this young man already reddened by watching, his cheeks already paled by suffering and privations. At last the noise of some heavy carts which descended toward the Loire awoke Charles. He rose, looked around him like a man who has forgotten all, perceived Parry, pressed his hand, and bade him settle the account with master Cropole.

Master Cropole, forced to settle his accounts with Parry, acquitted himself, it must be said, as an honest man; he made only his habitual remark, that is to say that the two travelers had not eaten, which had the double disadvantage of being humiliating for his kitchen and of forcing him to ask the price of a meal not used, but nevertheless lost.

Parry found nothing to say and paid.

— I hope, said the king, that it has not been the same with the horses. I do not see that they have eaten at your charge, and it would be unfortunate for travelers who, like us, have a long road to make to find weakened horses.

But Cropole, at this doubt, took his air of majesty, and answered that the crib of the Medici was no less hospitable than his refectory.

The king mounted his horse therefore, his old servant did the same, and both took the road to Paris without having almost met anyone on their way, in the streets and in the faubourgs of the town.

For the prince, the blow was so much the more cruel that it was a new exile. The unhappy attach themselves to the least hopes, as the happy to the greatest fortunes, and when they must quit the place where that hope has caressed their heart, they feel the mortal regret that the banished feels when he sets foot on the vessel which must carry him away to exile. It is apparently that the heart already wounded so many times suffers from the least prick; it is that it regards as a good the momentary absence of ill, which is only the absence of pain; it is that, in fine, in the most terrible misfortunes, God has cast hope like that drop of water which the wicked rich man in hell asked of Lazarus. An instant even the hope of Charles II had been more than a fugitive joy. It was when he had seen himself well received by his brother Louis. Then it had taken a body and made itself reality; then all at once the refusal of Mazarin had brought the factitious reality down to the state of dream. This promise of Louis XIV so soon taken back had been but a derision. Derision like his crown, like his scepter, like his friends, like all that had surrounded his royal childhood and had abandoned his proscribed youth. Derision! all was derision for Charles II, save that cold and black repose which death promised him.

Such were the thoughts of the unhappy prince then, lying upon his horse whose reins he abandoned, he marched under the warm and soft sun of the month of May, in which the somber misanthropy of the exile saw a last insult to his grief.

Chapter XVI — Remember!

A horseman who passed rapidly on the road remounting toward Blois, which he had left about half an hour before, crossed the two travelers, and, however pressed he was, raised his hat in passing near them. The king paid scarcely attention to this young man, for this horseman who crossed them was a young man of four-and-twenty to five-and-twenty years, who, turning sometimes, made signs of friendship to a man standing before the grille of a fine white and red house, that is to say of bricks and stones, with a slate roof, situated to the left of the road the prince followed.

This man, a tall and lean old man, with white hair, we speak of him who held near the grille, this man answered the signals the young man made him by signs of farewell as tender as a father would have made. The young man ended by disappearing at the first turn of the road bordered with fine trees, and the old man was preparing to re-enter the house, when the two travelers, arrived opposite this grille, attracted his attention.

The king, we have said, journeyed with head lowered, the arms inert, letting himself go to the pace and almost to the caprice of his horse; while Parry, behind him, to better let himself be penetrated by the tepid influence of the sun, had removed his hat and wandered his looks to right and left of the way. His eyes met those of the old man leaning against the grille, and who, as if struck by some strange spectacle, uttered an exclamation and made a step toward the two travelers. From Parry, his eyes immediately carried to the king, upon whom they rested an instant.

This examination, rapid though it was, was reflected at the same instant in a visible fashion upon the features of the tall old man; for scarcely had he recognized the younger of the travelers, and we say recognized, for there was but a positive recognition which could explain such an act; scarcely, we say, had he recognized the younger of the two travelers, than he first joined his hands with a respectful surprise, and, raising his hat from his head, bowed so profoundly that one would have said he knelt.

This demonstration, however distracted or rather plunged the king was in his reflections, attracted his attention at the same instant. Charles, stopping his horse and turning toward Parry:

— My God! Parry, said he, who is this man who salutes me thus? Would he by chance know me?

Parry, all agitated, all pale, had already pushed his horse toward the grille.

— Ah! Sire, said he stopping suddenly at five or six paces from the old man still kneeling, Sire, you see me seized with astonishment, for it seems to me I recognize this brave man. Eh! yes, it is well he himself. Does Your Majesty permit that I speak to him?

— Assuredly.

— Is it then you, M. Grimaud? asked Parry.

— Yes, I, said the tall old man straightening, but without losing aught of his respectful attitude.

— Sire, said then Parry, I had not deceived myself, this man is the servant of the Count de La Fère, and the Count de La Fère, if you remember, is that worthy gentleman of whom I have so often spoken to Your Majesty, the memory of whom must have remained, not only in his mind, but yet in his heart.

— He who assisted the king my father at his last moments? asked Charles.

And Charles visibly trembled at this remembrance.

— Exactly, Sire.

— Alas! said Charles.

Then, addressing Grimaud, whose lively and intelligent eyes seemed to seek to divine his thought:

— My friend, asked he, your master, M. the Count de La Fère, would he dwell in the environs?

— There, answered Grimaud, designating with his arm extended behind the grille of the white and red house.

— And M. the Count de La Fère is at home at this moment?

— At the bottom, under the chestnut trees.

— Parry, said the king, I will not miss this occasion so precious for me to thank the gentleman to whom our house owes so fair an example of devotion and of generosity. Hold my horse, my friend, I pray you.

And throwing the bridle into Grimaud's hands, the king entered alone into Athos's house, as an equal into his equal's. Charles had been informed by the so concise explanation of Grimaud, at the bottom, under the chestnut trees; he left therefore the house to the left and marched straight toward the designated walk. The thing was easy; the summit of those great trees, already covered with leaves and flowers, surpassed that of all the others. On arriving under the luminous and dark lozenges by turns which diapered the soil of this walk, according to the caprice of their vaults more or less leaved, the young prince perceived a gentleman who walked with his arms behind his back and seeming plunged in a serene reverie. Doubtless, he had often had it repeated how this gentleman was, for without hesitation Charles II marched straight to him. At the noise of his steps, the Count de La Fère raised his head, and seeing an unknown of elegant and noble bearing who directed himself his way, he raised his hat from his head and waited. At some paces from him, Charles II, on his side, put his hat in hand; then, as to answer the mute interrogation of the count:

— Monsieur le Comte, said he, I come to accomplish near you a duty. I have this long while the expression of a profound gratitude to bring you. I am Charles II, son of Charles Stuart, who reigned over England and died upon the scaffold.

At this illustrious name, Athos felt like a shiver in his veins; but at the sight of this young prince standing, uncovered before him and tendering him his hand two tears came an instant to trouble the limpid azure of his fine eyes.

He bowed respectfully; but the prince took his hand:

“Stories of the world, in your language.”