Part 38

Without that great familiarity the musketeer had with crowds and the irresistible wrist to which was joined an uncommon suppleness of the shoulders, neither of the two travelers would have reached their destination.

They were following the quay they had gained upon leaving the Rue Saint-Honoré, into which they had turned after taking leave of Athos.

D'Artagnan walked ahead: his elbow, his wrist, his shoulder formed three wedges which he knew how to drive with skill into the groups to make them burst and come apart like pieces of wood. Often he used as reinforcement the iron hilt of his sword. He introduced it between ribs too stubborn, and making it work, by way of lever or pincers, separated in good time the husband from the wife, the uncle from the nephew, the brother from the brother. All this so naturally and with such gracious smiles, that one would have needed ribs of bronze not to cry mercy when the hilt did its work, or hearts of diamond not to be delighted when the smile bloomed upon the musketeer's lips. Raoul, following his friend, spared the women, who admired his beauty, restrained the men, who felt the rigidity of his muscles, and both cleft, thanks to this maneuver, the somewhat compact and somewhat muddy wave of the populace.

They arrived in sight of the two gallows, and Raoul turned his eyes away with disgust. As for D'Artagnan, he did not even see them; his house with the notched gable, its windows full of curious onlookers, attracted, even absorbed, all the attention of which he was capable.

He distinguished in the square and around the houses a good number of off-duty musketeers, who, some with women, others with friends, awaited the instant of the ceremony. What rejoiced him above all was to see that the tavern-keeper, his tenant, knew not which way to turn.

Three waiters could not suffice to serve the drinkers. There were some in the shop, in the rooms, in the courtyard itself. D'Artagnan pointed out this influx to Raoul and added:

— The rogue will have no excuse for not paying his rent. See all these drinkers, Raoul, one would say they were people of good company. Mortbleu! but we have no room here.

However, D'Artagnan managed to catch the landlord by the corner of his apron and to make himself recognized by him.

— Ah! Monsieur the Chevalier, said the tavern-keeper half mad, one minute, I beg you! I have here a hundred madmen who are turning my cellar upside down.

— The cellar, good, but not the strongbox.

— Oh! Monsieur, your thirty-seven pistoles and a half are up there all counted in my room; but there are in that room thirty companions who are sucking the staves of a small cask of port which I broached this morning for them... Give me a minute, just one minute.

— Very well, very well.

— I am going, said Raoul low to D'Artagnan; this joy is ignoble.

— Monsieur, replied D'Artagnan severely, you are going to do me the pleasure of remaining here. The soldier must familiarize himself with all spectacles. There are in the eye, when it is young, fibers which must be hardened, and one is truly generous and good only from the moment the eye has become hard and the heart remained tender. Besides, my little Raoul, would you leave me alone here? That would be wrong of you. Look, there is the courtyard yonder, and a tree in that courtyard; come into the shade, we shall breathe better than in this hot atmosphere of spilled wines.

From the place where the two new guests of the Image-de-Notre-Dame had stationed themselves, they heard the ever-swelling murmur of the waves of the people, and lost not a cry nor a gesture of the drinkers seated at tables in the tavern or scattered in the rooms. D'Artagnan could not have posted himself better had he wished to scout for an expedition.

The tree under which Raoul and he were seated covered them with already thick foliage. It was a squat chestnut tree, with leaning branches, which poured its shade upon a table so broken that the drinkers had had to give up using it.

We say that from this post D'Artagnan saw everything. He observed, indeed, the comings and goings of the waiters, the arrival of new drinkers, the welcome sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile, which was given certain arrivals by certain settled ones. He observed to pass the time, for the thirty-seven pistoles and a half were very slow in coming.

Raoul pointed this out to him.

— Monsieur, said he to him, you are not pressing your tenant, and presently the patients will arrive. There will be such a crush at that moment that we shall no longer be able to get out.

— You are right, said the musketeer. Hola! ho! someone, mortbleu!

But cry as he might, strike upon the remnants of the table, which fell to dust under his fist, no one came. D'Artagnan was preparing to go find the tavern-keeper himself to force a definitive explanation from him, when the gate of the courtyard in which he found himself with Raoul, a gate which communicated with the garden situated behind, opened creaking painfully on its rusty hinges, and a man dressed as a horseman came out of that garden, sword in scabbard but not at belt, crossed the courtyard without closing the gate, and having cast an oblique glance upon D'Artagnan and his companion, directed himself toward the tavern itself, roving his eyes everywhere which seemed to pierce walls and consciences.

'Why, said D'Artagnan to himself, my tenants communicate... Ah! that is no doubt still some hanging-curious fellow.'

At the same moment, the cries and the uproar of the drinkers ceased in the upper rooms. Silence, in such circumstance, surprises like a redoubling of noise. D'Artagnan wished to see what was the cause of this sudden silence. He then saw that this man, in horseman's habit, had just entered the main room and was haranguing the drinkers, who all listened to him with minute attention. His speech, D'Artagnan might have heard it but for the dominating noise of popular clamors which made a formidable accompaniment to the orator's harangue. But it soon ended, and all the people the tavern contained went out one after another in small groups; in such a way, however, that only six remained in the room: one of these six, the man with the sword, took the tavern-keeper aside, occupying him with more or less serious discourse, while the others lit a great fire in the hearth: a thing strange enough in such fine weather and heat.

— That is singular, said D'Artagnan to Raoul; but I know those faces.

— Do you not find, said Raoul, that it smells of smoke here?

— I find rather that it smells of conspiracy, replied D'Artagnan.

He had not finished when four of those men had come down into the courtyard, and, without appearance of evil design, mounted guard in the vicinity of the communicating gate, casting at intervals at D'Artagnan glances which signified many things.

— Mortbleu! said D'Artagnan low to Raoul, there is something. Are you curious, you, Raoul?

— That depends, Monsieur the Chevalier.

— I, I am curious as an old woman. Come a little to the front, we shall see the view of the square. There is much to wager that this view is going to be curious.

— But you know, Monsieur the Chevalier, that I do not wish to make myself the passive and indifferent spectator of the death of two poor devils.

— And I either, do you think I am a savage? We shall go in when it is time to go in. Come!

They therefore made their way toward the main building and placed themselves near the window, which, a thing stranger still than the rest, had remained unoccupied.

The two last drinkers, instead of looking through this window, were tending the fire.

On seeing D'Artagnan and his friend enter:

— Ah! ah! reinforcements, they murmured.

D'Artagnan nudged Raoul with his elbow.

— Yes, my brave fellows, reinforcements, said he; cordieu! there is a famous fire... Whom do you mean to cook then?

The two men burst into a jovial laugh, and, instead of answering, added wood to the fire. D'Artagnan could not tire of looking at them.

— Come, said one of the stokers, you were sent to tell us the moment, were you not?

— Doubtless, said D'Artagnan, who wished to know where he stood. Why else should I be here, if not for that?

— Then place yourselves at the window, if you please.

D'Artagnan smiled in his mustache, signed to Raoul and complaisantly placed himself at the window.

Chapter LXII — Long Live Colbert!

It was a frightful spectacle that which the Grève presented at that moment. The heads, leveled by perspective, stretched far off, thick and moving like ears of corn in a great plain. From time to time, an unknown noise, a distant rumor, made the heads oscillate and thousands of eyes flash.

Sometimes there were great recoils. All those ears bent and became waves more shifting than those of the ocean, which rolled from the extremities to the center, and went to beat, like tides, the hedge of archers which surrounded the gallows. Then the shafts of the halberds lowered upon the head or shoulders of the daring invaders; sometimes too it was the steel instead of the wood, and, in this case, a wide empty circle formed around the guard: space conquered at the expense of the extremities, which suffered in their turn the oppression of this sudden recoil which pushed them back against the parapets of the Seine.

From the height of his window, which dominated the whole square, D'Artagnan saw, with an interior satisfaction, that those of the musketeers and guards who found themselves caught in the crowd knew, with blows of fist and sword-pommels, to make room for themselves. He remarked even that they had succeeded, by virtue of that esprit de corps which doubles the soldier's strength, in reuniting in a group of about fifty men; and that, save a dozen strays whom he still saw rolling here and there, the nucleus was complete and within call. But it was not only the musketeers and guards who attracted D'Artagnan's attention. Around the gallows, and above all at the approaches of the Saint-Jean arcade, stirred a noisy, meddling, busy whirlwind; bold faces, resolved looks outlined here and there amid the silly faces and indifferent looks; signals were exchanged, hands touched. D'Artagnan remarked in the groups, and even in the most animated groups, the face of the horseman he had seen enter by the communicating gate of his garden and who had gone up to the first floor to harangue the drinkers. This man was organizing squads and distributing orders.

— Mortbleu! cried D'Artagnan, I was not mistaken, I know that man, it is Menneville. What the devil is he doing here?

A muffled murmur which accentuated by degrees stopped his reflection and drew his gaze to another side. This murmur was occasioned by the arrival of the patients; a strong picket of archers preceded them and appeared at the angle of the arcade. The whole crowd began to utter cries. All those cries formed an immense howl. D'Artagnan saw Raoul grow pale; he struck him roughly on the shoulder.

The stokers, at this great cry, turned round and asked how matters stood.

— The condemned are arriving, said D'Artagnan.

— Good, they answered, reviving the flame of the chimney.

D'Artagnan looked at them with uneasiness; it was evident that these men who made such a fire, without any utility whatever, had strange intentions.

The condemned appeared upon the square. They marched on foot, the executioner before them; fifty archers stood in line to their right and to their left. Both were clothed in black, pale but resolved. They looked impatiently above the heads, raising themselves at each step.

D'Artagnan remarked this movement.

— Mortbleu! said he, they are in great haste to see the gallows.

Raoul drew back without having, however, the strength to quite leave the window. Terror too has its attraction.

— To death! to death! cried fifty thousand voices.

— Yes, to death! howled a hundred furious ones, as if the great mass had given them the cue.

— To the halter! to the halter! cried the great ensemble; long live the king!

— Why, murmured D'Artagnan, it is funny, I should have thought it was M. de Colbert who was having them hanged, myself.

There was at this moment a recoil which stopped for an instant the march of the condemned.

The men with bold and resolved looks whom D'Artagnan had remarked, by dint of pressing, pushing, raising themselves, had managed to almost touch the hedge of archers.

The cortège resumed its march.

Suddenly, at the cries of: 'Long live Colbert!' these men whom D'Artagnan never lost sight of threw themselves upon the escort, which tried in vain to struggle. Behind these men, there was the crowd. Then began, amid a dreadful clamor, a dreadful confusion.

This time, these are better than cries of expectation or cries of joy, these are cries of pain.

Indeed, the halberds strike, the swords pierce, the muskets begin to fire.

There was then a strange whirling in the midst of which D'Artagnan saw nothing more. Then from this chaos suddenly emerged like a visible intention, like a settled will.

The condemned had been snatched from the hands of the guards and they were being dragged toward the house of the Image-de-Notre-Dame. Those who dragged them cried:

— Long live Colbert!

The people hesitated, not knowing if it should fall upon the archers or upon the assailants.

What stopped the people was that those who cried: 'Long live Colbert!' began to cry at the same time: 'No halter! down with the gallows! to the fire! to the fire! let us burn the thieves! let us burn the starvers!' This cry uttered in unison obtained a success of enthusiasm. The populace had come to see a punishment, and behold one offered it the occasion to make one itself.

It was what could be most agreeable to the populace.

It therefore ranged itself immediately on the side of the assailants against the archers, crying with the minority, become, thanks to it, the most compact of majorities:

— Yes, yes, to the fire, the thieves! long live Colbert!

— Mortbleu! cried D'Artagnan, it seems to me that this is becoming serious.

One of the men who held near the chimney approached the window, his firebrand in hand.

— Ah! ah! said he, it heats up.

Then, turning toward his companion:

— There is the signal! said he.

And suddenly he pressed the burning brand to the woodwork. It was not quite a new house, that tavern of the Image-de-Notre-Dame; likewise it did not need asking to catch fire.

In a second, the planks crack and the flame rises crackling. A hurlement from without answers the cries uttered by the incendiaries.

D'Artagnan, who has seen nothing because he looks upon the square, feels at once the smoke which stifles him and the flame which scorches him.

— Hola! cries he, turning round, is the fire here? are you mad or rabid, my masters?

The two men looked at him with a surprised air.

— What! asked they of D'Artagnan, is it not a thing agreed?

— A thing agreed that you will burn my house? vociferates D'Artagnan, snatching the brand from the incendiary's hands and bearing it to his face.

The second wishes to bring aid to his comrade; but Raoul seizes him, lifts him and throws him by the window, while D'Artagnan pushes his companion down the steps. Raoul, first free, tears off the paneling which he throws still smoking about the room.

At a glance, D'Artagnan sees there is nothing more to fear from the fire and runs to the window.

Disorder is at its height. They cry at once: — To the fire! to the murder! to the halter! to the stake! long live Colbert and long live the king!

The group which tears the patients from the hands of the archers has drawn near the house, which seems the goal toward which they are dragged. Menneville is at the head of the group crying louder than anyone: — To the fire! to the fire! long live Colbert!

D'Artagnan begins to understand. They wish to burn the condemned, and his house is the stake they prepare for them.

— Halt there! cried he, sword in hand and one foot on the window. Menneville, what do you want?

— Monsieur d'Artagnan, cries the latter, passage, passage!

— To the fire! to the fire, the thieves! long live Colbert! cries the crowd.

These cries exasperated D'Artagnan.

— Mortbleu! said he, to burn these poor devils who are condemned only to be hanged, is infamous!

However, before the door, the mass of the curious, pushed back against the walls, is thicker and blocks the way.

Menneville and his men, who drag the patients, are no more than ten paces from the door.

Menneville makes a last effort.

— Passage! passage! cries he, pistol in hand.

— Burn them! burn them! repeats the crowd. The fire is at the Image-de-Notre-Dame. Let us burn the thieves! let us burn them both in the Image-de-Notre-Dame.

This time, there is no doubt, it is indeed D'Artagnan's house that is aimed at.

D'Artagnan recalls the old cry, always so effectively uttered by him.

— To me, musketeers!... said he in a giant's voice, one of those voices which dominate the cannon, the sea, the tempest; to me, musketeers!...

And, suspending himself by the arm from the balcony, he lets himself fall amid the crowd, which begins to draw aside from this house whence men rain down. Raoul is on the ground as soon as he. Both have sword in hand. All the musketeers in the square have heard this call; all have turned at this cry and recognized D'Artagnan.

— To the captain! to the captain! they all cry in their turn.

And the crowd opens before them like before the prow of a vessel. At this moment D'Artagnan and Menneville found themselves face to face.

— Passage! passage! cries Menneville, seeing he has but to extend the arm to touch the door.

— No passage! said D'Artagnan.

— Hold, said Menneville, firing his pistol almost point-blank.

But before the wheel has turned, D'Artagnan has raised Menneville's arm with the hilt of his sword and passed the blade through his body.

— I told you to keep quiet, said D'Artagnan to Menneville who rolled at his feet.

— Passage! passage! cry the companions of Menneville, terrified at first, but who soon reassure themselves on perceiving they have to deal with but two men.

But these two men are two giants with a hundred arms, the sword flutters between their hands like the flaming glaive of the archangel. It pierces with the point, strikes with the back, strikes with the edge. Each blow overturns its man.

— For the king! cries D'Artagnan at each man he strikes, that is to say at each man who falls.

This cry becomes the password of the musketeers, who, guided by him, rejoin D'Artagnan.

During this time the archers recover from the panic they have felt, charge the assailants in the rear, and, regular as mills, trample and fell all they meet. The crowd, which sees the swords glitter, the drops of blood fly in the air, the crowd flees and crushes itself.

At length cries of mercy and despair resound; it is the adieu of the vanquished. The two condemned have fallen back into the hands of the archers.

D'Artagnan approaches them, and seeing them pale and dying:

— Console yourselves, poor folk, said he, you will not suffer the frightful torture with which these wretches threatened you. The king has condemned you to be hanged. You shall but be hanged. Come! let them be hanged, and that is all.

There is no longer anything at the Image-de-Notre-Dame. The fire has been extinguished with two tuns of wine for want of water. The conspirators have fled by the garden. The archers drag the patients to the gallows.

The affair was not long from that moment.

The executioner, little careful to operate according to the forms of art, hastens and dispatches the two unfortunates in a minute.

Meanwhile they throng around D'Artagnan; they congratulate him, they caress him. He wipes his brow streaming with sweat, his sword streaming with blood, shrugs his shoulders on seeing Menneville who writhes at his feet in the last convulsions of agony. And while Raoul turns away his eyes with compassion, he shows the musketeers the gallows charged with their sad fruits.

— Poor devils! said he, I hope they died blessing me, for I saved them fine ones.

These words are about to reach Menneville at the moment when he himself is about to render the last sigh. A dark and ironic sigh hovers on his lips. He wishes to reply, but the effort he makes completes the breaking of his life. He expires.

— Oh! all this is frightful, murmured Raoul; let us go, Monsieur the Chevalier.

— You are not wounded? asks D'Artagnan.

— No, thank you.

— Well! you are a brave fellow, mortbleu! It is the father's head and Porthos's arm. Ah! had he been here, Porthos, he would have seen fine things.

Then, by way of remembering:

— But where the devil can this good Porthos be? murmured D'Artagnan.

— Come, Chevalier, come, insisted Raoul.

— One last minute, my friend, that I take my thirty-seven pistoles and a half, I am yours. The house is of good yield, added D'Artagnan re-entering the Image-de-Notre-Dame; but decidedly, though it were less productive, I should like it better in another quarter.

Chapter LXIII — How the Diamond of M. d'Eymeris Passed into the Hands of D'Artagnan

While this noisy and bloody scene was passing on the Grève, several men, barricaded behind the communicating gate of the garden, replaced their swords in the scabbard, helped one of them mount his fully saddled horse which waited in the garden, and, like a flight of frightened birds, fled in all directions, some scaling the walls, others precipitating themselves through the doors with all the ardor of panic.

He who mounted the horse and made it feel the spur with such brutality that the animal well-nigh cleared the wall, this horseman, we say, crossed the Place Baudoyer, passed like lightning before the crowds of the streets, crushing, overturning, throwing down all, and ten minutes after arrived at the gates of the surintendance, more out of breath even than his horse. The Abbé Fouquet, at the resounding noise of irons on the pavement, appeared at a window of the courtyard, and even before the horseman had dismounted:

— Well! Danicamp? asked he, half leaning out of the window.

— Well! it is finished, answered the horseman.

— Finished! cried the abbé; then they are saved?

— Not at all, Monsieur, replied the horseman. They are hanged.

— Hanged! repeated the abbé, growing pale.

A side door opened suddenly, and Fouquet appeared in the room, pale, distracted, his lips parted by a cry of grief and anger.

He stopped on the threshold, listening to what was said from the courtyard to the window.

— Wretches! said the abbé, you did not then fight!

— Like lions.

— Say like cowards.

— Monsieur!

— A hundred men of war, sword in hand, are worth ten thousand archers in a surprise. Where is Menneville, that braggart, that boaster who was to return only dead or victorious?

— Well! Monsieur, he kept his word. He is dead.

— Dead! who killed him?

— A demon disguised as a man, a giant armed with ten flaming swords, a madman who with a single blow extinguished the fire, extinguished the riot, and made a hundred musketeers issue from the pavement of the Place de Grève.

Fouquet raised his brow all streaming with sweat.

— Oh! Lyodot and d'Eymeris! murmured he, dead! dead! dead! and I dishonored.

The abbé turned round, and perceiving his brother crushed, livid:

“Stories of the world, in your language.”