Part 46

The king summoned M. de Guiche and dismissed the Chevalier de Lorraine; in such a manner that Monsieur fell ill over it.

Madame departed for London, where she applied herself so well to making Charles II, her brother, appreciate the political counsels of Mlle de Kéroualle, that the alliance between France and England was signed, and that the English vessels, ballasted with a few millions in French gold, waged a terrible campaign against the fleets of the United Provinces.

Charles II had promised Mlle de Kéroualle a little gratitude for her good advice: he made her Duchess of Portsmouth.

Colbert had promised the king ships, munitions, and victories. He kept his word, as we know.

Lastly, Aramis, he of all men on whose promises one could least rely, wrote the following letter to Colbert concerning the negotiations he had undertaken at Madrid:

“Monsieur Colbert,

“I have the honour of sending you the R. P. d’Oliva, interim general of the Society of Jesus, my provisional successor.

“The reverend father will explain to you, Monsieur Colbert, that I retain the direction of all the affairs of the order concerning France and Spain; but that I do not wish to keep the title of general, which would cast too much light upon the progress of the negotiations with which His Catholic Majesty has been pleased to charge me. I shall resume that title by order of His Majesty when the labours I have undertaken, in concert with you, for the greater glory of God and of His Church, shall have been brought to a successful conclusion.

“The R. P. d’Oliva will also inform you, Monsieur, of the consent given by His Catholic Majesty to the signing of a treaty assuring the neutrality of Spain, in the event of a war between France and the United Provinces.

“This consent would be valid even if England, instead of acting actively, were content to remain neutral.

“As for Portugal, of which you and I spoke, Monsieur, I can assure you that it will contribute all its resources to aiding the Most Christian King in his war.

“I beg you, Monsieur Colbert, to keep me in your friendship, as also to believe in my profound attachment, and to lay my respects at the feet of His Most Christian Majesty.

_Signed_: Duke of Alameda.”

Aramis had therefore kept more than he had promised; it remained to be seen how the king, M. Colbert, and M. d’Artagnan would be faithful, each to the other.

In the spring, as Colbert had predicted, the land army went into campaign.

It preceded, in magnificent order, the Court of Louis XIV, who, setting out on horseback, surrounded by coaches full of ladies and courtiers, led the elite of his kingdom to that bloody festival.

The army officers had, it is true, no other music than the artillery of the Dutch forts; but that was enough for a great number, who found in this war honours, promotion, fortune, or death.

M. d’Artagnan set out, commanding a corps of twelve thousand men, cavalry and infantry, with which he was ordered to take the several places that are the knots of that strategic net called Friesland.

Never was an army led more gallantly to an expedition. The officers knew that the master, as prudent and cunning as he was brave, would sacrifice neither a man nor an inch of ground without necessity.

He had the old habits of war: to live off the land, to keep the soldier singing and the enemy weeping.

The captain of the king’s musketeers took a pride in showing that he knew his trade. Never were occasions better chosen, surprise attacks better supported, the besieged’s mistakes better turned to account. D’Artagnan’s army took twelve small places in a month.

He was at the thirteenth, and this one had held for five days. D’Artagnan had the trench opened without seeming to suppose that those people could ever be taken.

The pioneers and labourers were, in this man’s army, a body full of emulation, ideas, and zeal, because he treated them as soldiers, knew how to make their work glorious, and never let them be killed except when he could not do otherwise.

So one had to see the fury with which the marshy clods of Holland were turned over. These peat-bogs and clays, according to the soldiers, melted like butter in the great pans of the Frisian housewives.

M. d’Artagnan dispatched a courier to the king to give him news of the latest successes; which redoubled His Majesty’s good humour and his disposition to feast the ladies well.

These victories of M. d’Artagnan gave such majesty to the prince, that Mme de Montespan no longer called him anything but Louis the Invincible.

Likewise, Mlle de La Vallière, who called the king only Louis the Victorious, lost much of His Majesty’s favour. Besides, she often had red eyes, and, for an invincible, nothing is so repellent as a mistress who weeps, while all around him smiles. Mlle de La Vallière’s star was drowning at the horizon in clouds and tears.

But the gaiety of Mme de Montespan redoubled with the king’s successes, and consoled him for any other disgrace.

It was to d’Artagnan that the king owed this.

His Majesty wished to acknowledge these services; he wrote to M. Colbert:

“Monsieur Colbert, we have a promise to fulfil toward M. d’Artagnan, who keeps his own. I inform you that the hour has come to execute it. All provisions to that effect will be furnished you in due time.

“Louis.”

In consequence, Colbert, who kept d’Artagnan’s envoy near him, gave this officer a letter from himself, Colbert, for d’Artagnan, and a small coffer of ebony wood inlaid with gold, which was not very bulky in appearance, but which was no doubt very heavy, since the messenger was given an escort of five men to help him carry it.

These people arrived before the place d’Artagnan was besieging toward daybreak, and presented themselves at the general’s quarters.

They were answered that M. d’Artagnan, vexed at a sortie the governor, a sneaking fellow, had made the evening before, in which the works had been filled in, seventy-seven men killed, and a breach begun to be repaired, had just gone out with some ten companies of grenadiers to have the works rebuilt.

M. Colbert’s envoy had orders to seek M. d’Artagnan wherever he might be, at whatever hour of the day or night. He therefore made his way toward the trenches, followed by his escort, all on horseback.

They caught sight, in open plain, of M. d’Artagnan with his hat laced with gold, his long cane, and his great gold-bordered cuffs. He was chewing his white moustache, and was occupied only with brushing off, with his left hand, the dust that the cannonballs flung up on him as they passed and hollowed the ground.

So, in that terrible fire which filled the air with whistling, one saw the officers wield the spade, the soldiers roll the barrows, and the great fascines, rising, carried or dragged by ten to twenty men, cover the front of the trench, reopened to its heart by the furious effort of the general animating his soldiers.

In three hours, all had been restored. D’Artagnan began to speak more gently. He was quite calmed when the captain of the pioneers came to tell him, hat in hand, that the trench was habitable.

This man had scarcely finished speaking when a cannonball cut off his leg and he fell into d’Artagnan’s arms. The latter raised his soldier, and, calmly, with all manner of caresses, carried him down into the trench, to the enthusiastic applause of the regiments.

Thenceforth it was no longer ardour but delirium; two companies stole away and ran to the advance posts, which they overturned in a trice. When their comrades, withheld only with great difficulty by d’Artagnan, saw them lodged on the bastions, they too dashed forward, and soon a furious assault was given to the counterscarp, on which the safety of the place depended.

D’Artagnan saw that he had but one means of stopping his army, which was to lodge it in the place; he pushed everyone onto two breaches the besieged were busy repairing; the shock was terrible. Eighteen companies took part in it, and d’Artagnan advanced with the rest to half cannon-range of the place, to support the assault in echelons.

One distinctly heard the cries of the Dutchmen stabbed at their guns by d’Artagnan’s grenadiers; the struggle grew with all the despair of the governor, who disputed his position inch by inch.

D’Artagnan, to make an end and have the never-ceasing fire extinguished, sent a new column, which bored like an auger through the still solid gates, and soon one saw upon the ramparts, in the fire, the frightened flight of the besieged pursued by the besiegers.

It was at this moment that the general, breathing and full of gladness, heard at his side a voice saying to him:

— Monsieur, if you please, from M. Colbert.

He broke the seal of a letter containing these words:

“Monsieur d’Artagnan, the king charges me to inform you that he has named you Marshal of France in reward for your good services and the honour you do his arms.

“The king is charmed, Monsieur, with the captures you have made; he commands you, above all, to finish the siege you have begun, with good fortune for you and success for him.”

D’Artagnan was standing, face flushed, eye sparkling. He raised his eyes to see the progress of his troops upon those walls all wrapped in red and black whirlwinds.

— I have finished, he answered the messenger. The town will surrender in a quarter of an hour.

He continued his reading.

“The little coffer, Monsieur d’Artagnan, is my present to you. You will not be displeased to see that, while you warriors draw the sword to defend the king, I animate the peaceful arts to adorn you with rewards worthy of you.

“I commend myself to your friendship, Monsieur le Maréchal, and beg you to believe in all of mine.

“Colbert.”

D’Artagnan, drunk with joy, made a sign to the messenger, who approached, his coffer in his hands. But at the moment the marshal was about to apply himself to looking at it, a strong explosion resounded upon the ramparts and called his attention toward the town.

— It is strange, said d’Artagnan, that I do not yet see the king’s flag upon the walls, and that the chamade is not heard beating.

He launched three hundred fresh men, under the conduct of an officer full of ardour, and ordered another breach to be beaten.

Then, more at ease, he turned toward the coffer the envoy of Colbert held out to him. It was his own; he had earned it.

D’Artagnan was stretching out his arm to open this coffer, when a cannonball, coming from the town, crushed the coffer between the officer’s arms, struck d’Artagnan full in the breast, and overthrew him upon an earth-bank, while the fleur-de-lis baton, escaping from the mutilated flanks of the box, came rolling to place itself under the failing hand of the marshal.

D’Artagnan tried to rise. He had been thought overthrown but unhurt. A terrible cry went up from the group of his terrified officers: the marshal was covered with blood; the pallor of death slowly mounted to his noble face.

Leaning on the arms that, from all sides, stretched out to receive him, he could turn his gaze once more toward the place, and distinguish the white flag on the crest of the principal bastion; his ears, already deaf to the noises of life, faintly perceived the roll of the drum announcing victory.

Then, clutching with his clenched hand the baton embroidered with golden lilies, he lowered toward himself his eyes that no longer had the strength to look to heaven, and fell murmuring these strange words, which seemed to the astonished soldiers as many cabalistic words, words that had once represented so much on earth, and that none, save this dying man, understood any longer:

— Athos, Porthos, farewell. — Aramis, forever, adieu!

Of the four valiant men whose history we have told, there remained but a single body: God had taken back the souls.

THE END

“Stories of the world, in your language.”