Part 33

— By whom? I was the one who commanded the musketeers: they would have had to order me myself to conduct myself to prison; I should never have consented; I should have resisted myself... And then I went to England... no more d'Artagnan... Today, the cardinal is dead or nearly so: they know I am in Paris; they lay hands on me.

— The cardinal was then your protector?

— The cardinal knew me; he knew certain particulars about me; I knew certain ones about him too: we appreciated each other... And then, in giving his soul to the devil, he will have advised Anne of Austria to have me lodged in a safe place. Go find your father, tell him the fact, and farewell!

— My dear Monsieur d'Artagnan, said Raoul, quite moved, after looking out the window, you cannot even flee.

— Why not?

— Because there is below a Swiss officer who awaits you.

— Well?

— Well! he will arrest you.

D'Artagnan burst into Homeric laughter.

— Oh! I know well that you will resist him, that you will even fight him; I know well that you will be victorious; but that is rebellion, that, and you are an officer yourself, knowing what discipline is.

— Devil of a child! how elevated, how logical that is! grumbled d'Artagnan.

— You approve of me, do you not?

— Yes. Instead of going through the street where that fool awaits me, I shall simply slip out by the back. I have a horse in the stable; it is good; I shall kill it, my means allow it, and, from killed horse to killed horse, I shall arrive at Boulogne in eleven hours; I know the way... Tell but one thing to your father.

— Which?

— That... what he well knows is placed at Planchet's, save a fifth, and that...

— But, my dear Monsieur d'Artagnan, take good care; if you flee, two things will be said.

— Which, dear friend?

— First, that you were afraid.

— Oh! who then will say that?

— The king first of all.

— Well! but... he will be telling the truth. I am afraid.

— The second, is that you felt guilty.

— Guilty of what?

— Why, of the crimes that men will be pleased to impute to you.

— That is true again... And so you advise me to go get myself locked up?

— The Count de La Fère would advise you as I do.

— I know that, by God! said d'Artagnan dreamily; you are right, I shall not run away. But if they throw me into the Bastille?

— We shall get you out, said Raoul with a tranquil and calm air.

— Mordioux! cried d'Artagnan, taking his hand, you said that in a brave way, Raoul; that is pure Athos. Well! I am off. Forget not my last word.

— Save a fifth, said Raoul.

— Yes, you are a fine lad, and I wish you to add one thing to that last.

— Speak!

— It is that, if you do not get me out of the Bastille and I die there... Oh! it has been seen... and I should be a detestable prisoner, I who was a passable man... in that case, I give three fifths to you and the fourth to your father.

— Chevalier!

— Mordioux! if you wish to make me say masses, you are free to.

That said, d'Artagnan unhooked his baldric, girded his sword, took a hat whose plume was fresh, and offered his hand to Raoul, who threw himself into his arms.

Once in the shop, he cast a glance at the lads, who regarded the scene with a pride mingled with some uneasiness; then, plunging his hand into a box of small dried currants of Corinth, he stepped toward the officer, who waited philosophically before the shop door.

— Those features!... It is you, Monsieur de Friedisch! cried the musketeer gaily. Eh! eh! we arrest our friends then?

— Arrest! said the lads among themselves.

— It is I, said the Swiss. Bonjour, Monsieur d'Artagnan.

— Must I give you my sword? I warn you it is long and heavy. Leave it to me as far as the Louvre; I am quite silly when I have no sword in the streets, and you would be even sillier than I to have two.

— The king haf not said, replied the Swiss, keep your sword then.

— Well! that is very kind of the king. Let us depart quickly.

M. de Friedisch was not talkative, and d'Artagnan had too much to think of to be so. From Planchet's shop to the Louvre there was not far; they arrived in ten minutes. It was night then. M. de Friedisch wished to enter by the wicket.

— No, said d'Artagnan, you will lose time that way: take the little staircase.

The Swiss did as d'Artagnan recommended and conducted him to the vestibule of Louis XIV's cabinet. Arrived there, he saluted his prisoner, and, without saying anything, returned to his post.

D'Artagnan had not had time to ask himself why they did not take his sword from him, when the cabinet door opened and a valet de chambre called:

— Monsieur d'Artagnan!

The musketeer assumed his parade bearing and entered, eye wide open, brow calm, moustache stiff.

The king was seated before his table and writing. He did not stir when the musketeer's step rang upon the parquet; he did not even turn his head. D'Artagnan advanced to the middle of the room, and seeing that the king paid him no attention, understanding besides very well that it was affectation, a sort of vexatious preamble to the explanation that was preparing, he turned his back to the prince and set himself to look with all his eyes at the frescoes of the cornice and the cracks of the ceiling. This maneuver was accompanied by this little tacit monologue: "Ah! you wish to humiliate me, you whom I saw quite small, you whom I saved like my child, you whom I served like my God, that is to say for nothing... Wait, wait; you shall see what a man can do who whistled the tune of the Huguenots' branle under the very nose of Monsieur the cardinal, the true cardinal!"

Louis XIV turned at that moment.

— You are there, Monsieur d'Artagnan? said he.

D'Artagnan saw the movement and imitated it.

— Yes, Sire, said he.

— Good, be pleased to wait until I have added up.

D'Artagnan answered nothing; he only bowed.

"That is polite enough, he thought, and I have nothing to say."

Louis made a violent stroke of the pen and threw his quill with anger.

"Go on, get angry to get into train, thought the musketeer, you will put me at my ease: besides, I did not, the other day at Blois, empty the bottom of the sack."

Louis rose, passed a hand over his brow; then, stopping opposite d'Artagnan, he looked at him with an air at once imperious and benevolent.

"What does he want of me? Come, let him finish," thought the musketeer.

— Monsieur, said the king, you know doubtless that Monsieur the cardinal is dead?

— I suspect it, Sire.

— You know consequently that I am master in my own house?

— That is not a thing dating from the cardinal's death, Sire; one is always master in one's own house when one wishes it.

— Yes; but you recall all that you said to me at Blois?

"Here we are, thought d'Artagnan; I was not mistaken. So much the better! it is a sign that my scent is still fine enough."

— You do not answer me? said Louis.

— Sire, I believe I remember...

— You only believe?

— It is long ago.

— If you do not recall, I remember, I. Here is what you said to me; listen attentively.

— Oh! I listen with all my ears, Sire; for presumably the conversation will turn in a way interesting to me.

Louis looked once more at the musketeer. The latter caressed the plume of his hat, then his moustache, and waited intrepidly. Louis XIV continued:

— You left my service, monsieur, after telling me the whole truth?

— Yes, Sire.

— That is to say after declaring to me all that you believed to be true as to my way of thinking and acting. That is still a merit. You began by telling me that you had served my family for thirty-four years, and that you were tired.

— I said it, yes, Sire.

— And you then avowed that this fatigue was a pretext, that discontent was the real cause.

— I was discontented, in fact; but this discontent betrayed itself nowhere, that I know of, and if like a man of courage I spoke loud before Your Majesty, I did not even think in the face of anyone else.

— Do not excuse yourself, d'Artagnan, and continue to listen to me. In making me the reproach that you were discontented, you received for answer a promise; I said to you: 'Wait.' Is that true?

— Yes, Sire, true as what I said to you.

— You answered me: 'Later? Not so; right away, that is well!...' Do not excuse yourself, I tell you... It was natural; but you had no charity for your prince, Monsieur d'Artagnan.

— Sire... charity!... for a king, on the part of a poor soldier!

— You understand me well; you know well that I had need of it; you know well that I was not master; you know well that I had the future in hope. Now, you answered me, when I spoke of that future: 'My discharge... right away!'

D'Artagnan bit his moustache.

— It is true, murmured he.

— You did not flatter me when I was in distress, added Louis XIV.

— But, said d'Artagnan, raising his head with nobility, I did not flatter Your poor Majesty, I did not betray it either. I shed my blood for nothing; I watched like a dog at the door, knowing well that they would throw me neither bread nor bone. Poor also, myself, I asked nothing but the discharge of which Your Majesty speaks.

— I know that you are a brave man; but I was a young man, you should have spared me... What had you to reproach the king with? that he left Charles II without help?... say more... that he did not marry Mlle de Mancini?

In saying this word, the king fixed upon the musketeer a profound glance.

"Ah! ah! thought the latter, he does more than remember, he divines... Devil!"

— Your judgment, continued Louis XIV, fell upon the king and fell upon the man... But, Monsieur d'Artagnan... this weakness, for you regarded that as a weakness...

D'Artagnan answered not.

— You reproached me with it also toward the late Monsieur the cardinal; for did not Monsieur the cardinal raise me, sustain me?... in raising himself, in sustaining himself, I know it well; but after all, the benefit remains acquired. Ungrateful, egoistical, you would then have loved me more, served me better?

— Sire...

— Let us speak no more of that, monsieur: it would cause you too many regrets, me too much pain.

D'Artagnan was not convinced. The young king, in resuming with him a tone of haughtiness, advanced not in affairs.

— You have reflected since? resumed Louis XIV.

— Upon what, Sire? asked d'Artagnan politely.

— Why, upon all that I told you, monsieur.

— Yes, Sire, doubtless...

— And you awaited only an occasion to go back upon your words?

— Sire...

— You hesitate, it seems to me...

— I do not understand well what Your Majesty does me the honor to say to me.

Louis knit his brow.

— Be pleased to excuse me, Sire; I have a particularly thick mind... things penetrate it only with difficulty; true it is that once entered, they stay there.

— Yes, you seem to me to have memory.

— Almost as much as Your Majesty.

— Then, give me quickly a solution... My time is precious. What do you do since your discharge?

— My fortune, Sire.

— The word is harsh, Monsieur d'Artagnan.

— Your Majesty takes it in bad part, certainly. I have for the king but a profound respect, and, were I impolite, which may be excused by my long habit of camps and barracks, His Majesty is too far above me to take offense at a word innocently escaped from a soldier.

— Indeed, I know that you did a brilliant deed in England, monsieur. I regret only that you failed your promise.

— I? cried d'Artagnan.

— Doubtless... You engaged me your faith to serve no prince in leaving my service... Now, it is for King Charles II that you worked at the marvelous abduction of M. Monck.

— Pardon me, Sire, it is for myself.

— Did it succeed for you?

— As for the captains of the fifteenth century, exploits and adventures.

— What do you call success? a fortune?

— A hundred thousand crowns, Sire, which I possess: that is, in one week, the triple of all the money I had had in fifty years.

— The sum is fine... but you are ambitious, I believe?

— I, Sire? The quarter seemed to me a treasure, and I swear to you that I do not think to increase it.

— Ah! you count upon remaining idle?

— Yes, Sire.

— Quitting the sword?

— That is done already.

— Impossible, Monsieur d'Artagnan, said Louis with resolution.

— But, Sire...

— Well?

— Why?

— Because I will it not! said the young prince in a voice so grave and imperious that d'Artagnan made a movement of surprise, even of uneasiness.

— Will Your Majesty permit me a word in reply? asked he.

— Speak.

— That resolution, I had taken being poor and destitute.

— So be it. After?

— Now, then, that, by my industry, I have acquired an assured comfort, Your Majesty would strip me of my liberty, Your Majesty would condemn me at least when I have well earned the most.

— Who permitted you, monsieur, to sound my designs and to count with me? resumed Louis in a voice almost angered; who told you what I shall do, what you yourself shall do?

— Sire, said quietly the musketeer, frankness, as I see, is no longer the order of the conversation, as the day we explained ourselves at Blois.

— No, monsieur, all is changed.

— I make to Your Majesty my sincere compliments; but...

— But you do not believe it?

— I am not a great statesman, however I have my eye for affairs; it lacks not in sureness; now, I do not see quite as Your Majesty, Sire. The reign of Mazarin is finished, but that of the financiers begins. They have the money: Your Majesty should not see much of it. To live under the paw of those famished wolves, is hard for a man who counted on independence.

At that moment someone scratched at the cabinet door; the king lifted his head proudly.

— Pardon, Monsieur d'Artagnan, said he; it is M. Colbert who comes to make me a report. Enter, Monsieur Colbert.

D'Artagnan stepped aside. Colbert entered, papers in hand, and came before the king.

It goes without saying that the Gascon lost not the occasion to apply his eye so fine and so quick upon the new figure that presented itself.

— The inquiry is then made? asked the king of Colbert.

— Yes, Sire.

— And the opinion of the examiners?

— Is that the accused have merited confiscation and death.

— Ah! ah! made the king without flinching, casting an oblique glance at d'Artagnan... And your opinion, you, Monsieur Colbert? said the king.

Colbert looked at d'Artagnan in his turn. That embarrassing figure stopped the word upon his lips. Louis XIV understood.

— Do not trouble yourself, said he, it is M. d'Artagnan; do you not recognize M. d'Artagnan?

These two men then looked at each other; d'Artagnan, eye open and flaming; Colbert, eye half covered and cloudy. The frank intrepidity of the one displeased the other; the cunning circumspection of the financier displeased the soldier.

— Ah! ah! it is Monsieur who did that fine stroke in England, said Colbert.

And he saluted d'Artagnan slightly.

— Ah! ah! said the Gascon, it is Monsieur who pared the money of the Swiss braid... Laudable economy!

And he saluted profoundly.

The financier had thought to embarrass the musketeer; but the musketeer saw through the financier.

— Monsieur d'Artagnan, resumed the king, who had not remarked all the nuances of which Mazarin would not have let escape a single one, it is a question of tax-farmers who robbed me, whom I have arrested, and of whom I am going to sign the death warrant.

D'Artagnan started.

— Oh! oh! made he.

— You say?

— Nothing, Sire; they are not my affairs.

The king already held the pen and brought it near the paper.

— Sire, said half-voice Colbert, I warn Your Majesty that if an example is necessary, this example may raise some difficulties in the execution.

— What say you? said Louis XIV.

— Do not hide from yourself, continued quietly Colbert, that to touch the tax-farmers, is to touch the superintendency. The two unhappy men, the two guilty in question are particular friends of a powerful personage, and the day of the punishment, which besides one may stifle in the Châtelet, troubles will arise, beyond doubt.

Louis reddened and turned toward d'Artagnan, who softly gnawed his moustache, not without a smile of pity for the financier, as also for the king, who listened to him so long.

Then Louis XIV seized the pen and, with a movement so rapid that his hand trembled, affixed his two signatures at the foot of the papers presented by Colbert; then, looking the latter in the face:

— Monsieur Colbert, said he, when you speak affairs to me, erase often the word difficulty from your reasonings and your advices; as for the word impossibility, never pronounce it.

Colbert bowed, very humiliated to have undergone this lesson before the musketeer; then he was about to leave; but, jealous to repair his check:

— I forgot to announce to Your Majesty, said he, that the confiscations amount to the sum of five millions of livres.

"That is nice," thought d'Artagnan.

— Which makes in my coffers? said the king.

— Eighteen millions of livres, Sire, replied Colbert bowing.

— Mordioux! grumbled d'Artagnan, that is fine!

— Monsieur Colbert, added the king, you will cross, I pray you, the gallery where M. de Lyonne waits, and you will tell him to bring what he has drawn up... by my order.

— This instant, Sire. Your Majesty has no further need of me this evening?

— No, monsieur; adieu!

Colbert went out.

— Let us return to our affair, Monsieur d'Artagnan, resumed Louis XIV, as if nothing had passed. You see that, as to money, there is already a notable change.

— As from zero to eighteen, replied gaily the musketeer. Ah! that is what His Majesty should have had, the day His Majesty Charles II came to Blois. The two States would not be at odds today, for, it must be said, there too I see a stumbling block.

— And first, retorted Louis, you are unjust, monsieur; for if Providence had permitted me to give that day the million to my brother, you would not have left my service, and, consequently, you would not have made your fortune... as you said but now... But, besides this happiness, I have another, and my quarrel with Great Britain should not astonish you.

A valet de chambre interrupted the king and announced M. de Lyonne.

— Enter, monsieur, said the king; you are exact, that is of a good servant. Let us see your letter to my brother Charles II.

D'Artagnan pricked up his ear.

— One moment, monsieur, said negligently Louis to the Gascon; I must dispatch to London the consent to the marriage of my brother, M. the Duke of Orleans, with lady Henriette Stuart.

— He beats me, it seems to me, murmured d'Artagnan, while the king signed this letter and dismissed M. de Lyonne; but, faith, I confess it, the more I am beaten, the more I shall be content.

The king followed with his eyes M. de Lyonne until the door was well closed behind him; he even made three steps, as if he would follow his minister. But, after these three steps, stopping, making a pause and coming back upon the musketeer;

— Now, monsieur, said he; let us hasten to finish. You told me the other day at Blois that you were not rich?

— I am so now, Sire.

— Yes, but that regards me not; you have your money, not mine; that is not my account.

— I do not understand very well what Your Majesty says.

— Then, instead of letting you draw the words, speak spontaneously. Will you have enough of twenty thousand livres per year, fixed money?

— But, Sire... said d'Artagnan opening wide eyes.

— Will you have enough of four horses maintained and furnished, and a supplement of funds such as you shall ask, according to occasions and necessities; or do you prefer a fixed sum which would be, for example, of forty thousand livres? Answer.

— Sire, Your Majesty...

— Yes, you are surprised, that is quite natural, and I expected it; answer, come, or I shall believe you no longer have that rapidity of judgment which I have always appreciated in you.

— It is certain, Sire, that twenty thousand livres per year are a fine sum; but...

— No buts. Yes or no; is it an honorable indemnity?

— Oh! certainly...

— You will content yourself with it then! That is very well. It is better, besides, to count you the incidental expenses apart; you will arrange that with Colbert; now, let us pass to something more important.

— But, Sire, I had said to Your Majesty...

— That you wished to rest, I know well; only, I answered you that I would it not... I am the master, I think?

— Yes, Sire.

— That is right! You were in the vein to become formerly captain of the musketeers?

— Yes, Sire.

— Well! here is your commission signed. I put it in the drawer. The day you return from a certain expedition I have to confide to you, that day you shall take yourself this commission from the drawer.

D'Artagnan still hesitated and held his head lowered.

— Come, monsieur, said the king, one would think to see you that you do not know that at the court of the most Christian king the captain general of the musketeers has precedence over the marshals of France?

— Sire, I know it.

— Then, one would say that you do not trust my word?

— Oh! Sire, never... believe not such things.

— I wished to prove to you that you, such a good servant, had lost a good master: am I somewhat the master you need?

— I begin to think that yes, Sire.

— Then, monsieur, you are going to enter into functions. Your company is all disorganized since your departure, and the men go loafing and jostling the cabarets where one fights, despite my edicts and those of my father. You will reorganize the service as quickly as possible.

— Yes, Sire.

— You will quit my person no more.

— Good.

— And you will march with me to the army, where you will camp around my tent.

— Then, Sire, said d'Artagnan, if it is to impose on me a service like that, Your Majesty has no need to give me twenty thousand livres that I shall not earn.

— I wish you to have a household; I wish you to keep table; I wish my captain of the musketeers to be a personage.

— And I, said brusquely d'Artagnan, I do not like found money; I want earned money! Your Majesty gives me a lazy man's trade, which the first comer will do for four thousand livres.

— You are a fine Gascon, Monsieur d'Artagnan; you draw my secret from my heart.

— Bah! Your Majesty has then a secret?

— Yes, monsieur.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”