Part 1

Alexandre Dumas THE VISCOUNT OF BRAGELONNE VOLUME II

(1848 – 1850)

Table of Contents

Chapter LXXII — The greatness of the Bishop of Vannes 5

Chapter LXXIII — Where Porthos begins to be vexed at having come with d'Artagnan 20

Chapter LXXIV — Where d'Artagnan runs, where Porthos snores, where Aramis advises 39

Chapter LXXV — Where M. Fouquet acts 49

Chapter LXXVI — Where d'Artagnan finally ends by laying his hand at last on his captain's commission 63

Chapter LXXVII — A lover and a mistress 74

Chapter LXXVIII — Where the true heroine of this story is at last seen to reappear 85

Chapter LXXIX — Malicorne and Manicamp 98

Chapter LXXX — Manicamp and Malicorne 104

Chapter LXXXI — The court of the Hôtel Grammont 118

Chapter LXXXII — The portrait of Madame 131

Chapter LXXXIII — At Le Havre 142

Chapter LXXXIV — At sea 151

Chapter LXXXV — The tents 161

Chapter LXXXVI — The night 175

Chapter LXXXVII — From Le Havre to Paris 183

Chapter LXXXVIII — What the Chevalier de Lorraine thought of Madame 196

Chapter LXXXIX — Mademoiselle de Montalais's surprise 210

Chapter XC — Athos's consent 224

Chapter XCI — Monsieur is jealous of the Duke of Buckingham 232

Chapter XCII — For ever! 246

Chapter XCIII — Where His Majesty Louis XIV finds Mlle de La Vallière neither rich enough nor pretty enough for a gentleman of the rank of the Viscount of Bragelonne 256

Chapter XCIV — A host of sword-thrusts in the water 266

Chapter XCV — M. Baisemeaux de Montlezun 292

Chapter XCVI — The king's game 305

Chapter XCVII — The little accounts of M. Baisemeaux de Montlezun 322

Chapter XCVIII — M. de Baisemeaux's breakfast 341

Chapter XCIX — The second of La Bertaudière 353

Chapter C — The two friends 368

Chapter CI — The silver plate of Mme de Bellière 380

Chapter CII — The dowry 389

Chapter CIII — God's ground 401

Chapter CIV — Triple love 413

Chapter CV — M. de Lorraine's jealousy 421

Chapter CVI — Monsieur is jealous of Guiche 433

Chapter CVII — The mediator 446

Chapter CVIII — The advisers 459

Chapter CIX — Fontainebleau 476

Chapter CX — The bath 485

Chapter CXI — The butterfly hunt 490

Chapter CXII — What one catches in hunting butterflies 497

Chapter CXIII — The ballet of the Seasons 512

Chapter CXIV — The nymphs of the Fontainebleau park 523

Chapter CXV — What was said beneath the royal oak 537

Chapter CXVI — The king's uneasiness 551

Chapter CXVII — The king's secret 559

Chapter CXVIII — Night rides 574

Chapter CXIX — Where Madame acquires proof that one may, by listening, hear what is said 587

Chapter CXX — Aramis's correspondence 597

Chapter CXXI — The clerk of orders 610

Chapter CXXII — Fontainebleau at two in the morning 624

Chapter CXXIII — The labyrinth 637

Chapter CXXIV — How Malicorne had been dislodged from the Hôtel du Beau-Paon 650

Chapter CXXV — What had really passed at the inn of the Beau-Paon 663

Chapter CXXVI — A Jesuit of the eleventh year 680

Chapter CXXVII — The state secret 688

Chapter CXXVIII — Mission 706

Chapter CXXIX — Happy as a prince 718

Chapter CXXX — History of a naiad and a dryad 745

Chapter CXXXI — End of the history of a naiad and a dryad 762

Chapter LXXII — The greatness of the Bishop of Vannes

Porthos and d'Artagnan had entered the bishop's palace by a private door, known only to the friends of the house.

It goes without saying that Porthos had served as guide to d'Artagnan. The worthy baron behaved pretty much everywhere as if he were at home. However, whether from a tacit acknowledgment of the saintliness of Aramis's person and character, or from a habit of respecting whatever imposed itself upon him morally—a worthy habit which had always made of Porthos a model soldier and an excellent fellow—for all these reasons, we say, Porthos preserved, in the presence of His Grace the Bishop of Vannes, a sort of reserve which d'Artagnan noticed at once in the attitude he adopted toward the servants and the household.

This reserve, however, did not go so far as to deprive him of asking questions; Porthos questioned.

It was then learned that His Grace had just retired to his apartments, and was preparing to appear, in private, less majestic than he had seemed with his flock.

Indeed, after a quarter of an hour spent by d'Artagnan and Porthos in mutually gazing into each other's eyes and twirling their thumbs through the various evolutions that lead from north to south, a door of the room opened and His Grace was seen to appear, clad in the full small costume of a prelate.

Aramis carried his head high, like a man accustomed to command, his violet cloth robe hitched up on one side, and his fist upon his hip.

Moreover, he had kept the fine moustache and the lengthened royal beard of the time of Louis XIII.

As he entered, he exhaled that delicate perfume which, in elegant men and great ladies, never changes, and seems to have become incorporated in the person whose natural emanation it is. This time only the perfume retained something of the religious sublimity of incense. It no longer intoxicated, it penetrated; it no longer inspired desire, it inspired respect.

Aramis, on entering the room, did not hesitate for an instant, and, without uttering a word which, whatever it might be, would have been cold on such an occasion, came straight to the musketeer so well disguised beneath the costume of M. Agnan, and clasped him in his arms with a tenderness of which the most suspicious could not have suspected either coldness or affectation.

D'Artagnan, for his part, embraced him with equal warmth. Porthos pressed Aramis's delicate hand in his great paws, and d'Artagnan remarked that His Grace was pressing his left hand, probably from habit, seeing that Porthos must already ten times have bruised his ring-adorned fingers by crushing the flesh in the vise of his wrist. Aramis, warned by the pain, was therefore on his guard, and offered only flesh to be squeezed, not fingers to be crushed against gold or diamond facets.

Between two embraces, Aramis looked d'Artagnan full in the face, offered him a chair, and sat down in the shadow, observing that the daylight fell upon his interlocutor's face.

This manoeuvre, familiar to diplomats and to women, much resembles the advantage of the guard which combatants seek, according to their skill or their habit, to obtain upon the field of duel. D'Artagnan was not deceived by the manoeuvre; but he did not appear to notice it.

He felt himself taken; but, precisely because he was taken, he felt himself upon the track of discovery, and little did it matter to him, old condottiere that he was, to be apparently beaten, provided he drew from his pretended defeat the advantages of victory.

It was Aramis who began the conversation.

— Ah! dear friend! my good d'Artagnan! said he, what an excellent chance!

— It is a chance, my reverend companion, said d'Artagnan, which I shall call friendship. I seek you, as always I have sought you, as soon as I had some great enterprise to offer you or some hours of liberty to give you.

— Ah! truly, said Aramis without effusion, you seek me?

— Why, yes, he seeks you, my dear Aramis, said Porthos, and the proof is that he hunted me down, me, at Belle-Île. That's friendly, isn't it?

— Ah! said Aramis, certainly, at Belle-Île…

"Good!" said d'Artagnan to himself, "there is my booby Porthos who, without thinking of it, has drawn the cannon of attack at the first shot."

— At Belle-Île, said Aramis, in that hole, in that desert! It is friendly, indeed.

— And it is I who told him you were at Vannes, continued Porthos in the same tone.

D'Artagnan armed his mouth with an almost ironical finesse.

— To be sure, I knew it, said he; but I wished to see.

— See what?

— Whether our old friendship still held; whether, on seeing each other, our heart, all shrivelled as it is by age, still let escape that good cry of joy which hails the coming of a friend.

— Well! you must have been satisfied? asked Aramis.

— So-so.

— How so?

— Yes, Porthos said to me: 'Hush!' and you…

— Well! and I?

— And you, you gave me your blessing.

— What would you have! my friend, said Aramis smiling, that is the most precious thing a poor prelate like me has to give.

— Come now, my dear friend.

— Doubtless.

— It is said, however, in Paris that the bishopric of Vannes is one of the best in France.

— Ah! you mean the temporal goods? said Aramis with a detached air.

— But certainly I mean them. I care about that, I do.

— In that case, let us speak of them, said Aramis with a smile.

— You admit to being one of the richest prelates in France?

— My dear fellow, since you ask me for my accounts, I will tell you that the bishopric of Vannes is worth twenty thousand livres of income, neither more nor less. It is a diocese containing a hundred and sixty parishes.

— That is very pretty, said d'Artagnan.

— That is superb, said Porthos.

— But yet, resumed d'Artagnan, covering Aramis with his gaze, you have not buried yourself here forever?

— Pardon me. Only I do not admit the word buried.

— But it seems to me that at this distance from Paris one is buried, or very near it.

— My friend, I am growing old, said Aramis; the noise and bustle of the city no longer suit me.

"At fifty-seven, one must seek calm and meditation. I have found them here. What is more beautiful and more severe at once than this old Armorica? I find here, dear d'Artagnan, the very opposite of what I once loved, and that is what is needed at the end of life, which is the opposite of the beginning. A little of my former pleasure still comes from time to time to salute me here, without distracting me from my salvation. I am still of this world, and yet, with every step I take, I draw nearer to God.

— Eloquent, wise, discreet, you are an accomplished prelate, Aramis, and I congratulate you.

— But, said Aramis smiling, you have not come merely, dear friend, to pay me compliments… Speak, what brings you? Should I be fortunate enough that, in some way, you had need of me?

— Thank God, no, my dear friend, said d'Artagnan, it is nothing of that sort. I am rich and free.

— Rich?

— Yes, rich for myself; not for you or for Porthos, of course. I have some fifteen thousand livres of income.

Aramis looked at him suspiciously. He could not believe, especially on seeing his former friend in that humble aspect, that he had made so fine a fortune.

Then d'Artagnan, seeing that the hour of explanations had come, related his story of England.

During the narration, he saw ten times the eyes of the prelate sparkle and his slender fingers tremble. As for Porthos, it was not admiration that he manifested for d'Artagnan, it was enthusiasm, it was delirium. When d'Artagnan had finished his tale:

— Well? said Aramis.

— Well! said d'Artagnan, you see that I have friends and properties in England, a treasure in France. If you have the heart for it, I offer them to you. That is why I have come.

However assured his gaze, he could not at that moment sustain Aramis's look. He therefore let his eye stray toward Porthos, like a sword which yields to an all-powerful pressure and seeks another path.

— At any rate, said the bishop, you have taken a singular travelling costume, dear friend.

— Hideous! I know it. You understand that I did not wish to travel either as a horseman or as a lord. Since I have been rich, I am stingy.

— And you say then that you came to Belle-Île? said Aramis without transition.

— Yes, replied d'Artagnan, I knew I should find Porthos and you there.

— Me! cried Aramis. Me! for a year that I have been here I have not once crossed the sea.

— Oh! said d'Artagnan, I did not know you were so stay-at-home.

— Ah! dear friend, I must tell you that I am no longer the man of former times. The horse incommodes me, the sea fatigues me; I am a poor ailing priest, always complaining, always grumbling, and inclined to austerities, which seem to me accommodations with old age, parleys with death. I reside, my dear d'Artagnan, I reside.

— Well! so much the better, my friend, for we shall probably become neighbours.

— Bah! said Aramis, not without a certain surprise which he did not even seek to disguise, you, my neighbour?

— Eh! my God, yes.

— How so?

— I am going to buy some very advantageous salt-works situated between Piriac and Le Croisic. Fancy, my dear fellow, a yield of twelve per cent clear income; never any bad debt, never any hidden costs; the ocean, faithful and regular, brings its contribution to my coffers every six hours. I am the first Parisian who imagined such a speculation. Do not give away the mine, I beg you, and before long we shall communicate. I shall have three leagues of land for thirty thousand livres.

Aramis cast a glance at Porthos as if to ask him if all this were true, if some snare were not hidden beneath these appearances of indifference. But soon, as if ashamed of having consulted that poor auxiliary, he gathered all his forces for a new assault or a new defence.

— I had been assured, said he, that you had had some quarrel with the court, but that you had come out of it as you know how to come out of everything, my dear d'Artagnan, with the honours of war.

— I? cried the musketeer with a great burst of laughter insufficient to hide his embarrassment; for, at these words of Aramis, he might believe him informed of his latest relations with the king; I? Ah! tell me that, my dear Aramis.

— Yes, I had been told, I, poor bishop lost amid the moors, I had been told that the king had taken you for confidant of his loves.

— With whom?

— With Mlle de Mancini.

D'Artagnan breathed again.

— Ah! I do not say no, replied he.

— It appears that the king took you one morning beyond the bridge of Blois to talk with his beauty.

— That is true, said d'Artagnan. Ah! you know that? But then, you must know that, the very same day, I gave in my resignation.

— Sincere?

— Ah! my friend, it could not be more sincere.

— It was then that you went to the Count de La Fère?

— Yes.

— To me?

— Yes.

— And to Porthos?

— Yes.

— Was it to pay us a simple visit?

— No; I did not know you were attached, and I wished to take you to England.

— Yes, I understand, and then you executed alone, wonderful man, what you wished to propose to us four to execute. I suspected you were something in that fine restoration, when I learned that you had been seen at the receptions of King Charles, who spoke to you as a friend, or rather as an obliged man.

— But how the devil did you know all that? asked d'Artagnan, who feared that Aramis's investigations might extend further than he wished.

— Dear d'Artagnan, said the prelate, my friendship resembles a little the solicitude of that night-watchman we have in the small tower of the mole, at the end of the quay. That good man lights a lantern every evening to light the boats that come from the sea. He is hidden in his sentry-box, and the fishermen do not see him; but he follows them with interest; he divines them, he calls them, he draws them into the way of the port. I resemble that watchman; from time to time a few reports reach me and recall to my memory all that I loved. Then I follow the friends of former days upon the stormy sea of the world, I, poor watcher to whom God has been pleased to give the shelter of a sentry-box.

— And, said d'Artagnan, after England, what have I done?

— Ah! there! said Aramis, you would force my sight. I know nothing more since your return, d'Artagnan; my eyes grew troubled. I regretted that you did not think of me. I wept your forgetfulness. I was wrong. I see you again, and it is a feast, a great feast, I swear to you… How is Athos?

— Very well, thank you.

— And our young ward?

— Raoul?

— Yes.

— He appears to have inherited the address of his father Athos and the strength of his tutor Porthos.

— And on what occasion could you judge of that?

— Eh! my God! the very eve of my departure.

— Truly?

— Yes, there was an execution in the Grève, and, following that execution, a riot. We found ourselves in the riot, and, following the riot, we had to play with the sword; he got out of it marvellously.

— Bah! and what did he do? said Porthos.

— First he threw a man out of the window, as he would have done with a bale of cotton.

— Oh! very good! cried Porthos.

— Then he drew, pointed, thrust, as we used to do in our fine time, we others.

— And on what account was this riot? asked Porthos.

D'Artagnan remarked upon the face of Aramis a complete indifference to this question of Porthos.

— But, said he, looking at Aramis, on account of two tax-farmers from whom the king was forcing restitution, two friends of M. Fouquet who were being hanged.

Scarcely a slight frown of the prelate's brows indicated that he had heard.

— Oh! oh! said Porthos, and what were these friends of M. Fouquet called?

— MM. d'Emerys and Lyodot, said d'Artagnan. Do you know those names, Aramis?

— No, said the prelate disdainfully; they look to me like names of financiers.

— Exactly.

— Oh! M. Fouquet let his friends be hanged? cried Porthos.

— And why not? said Aramis.

— It seems to me…

— If these unfortunates were hanged, it was by order of the king. Now, M. Fouquet, though he be superintendent of finances, has not, I suppose, the right of life and death.

— All the same, grumbled Porthos, in M. Fouquet's place…

Aramis understood that Porthos was about to say something foolish. He broke off the conversation.

— Come, said he, my dear d'Artagnan, that is enough of speaking of others; let us speak a little of you.

— But, of me, you know all that I can tell you. Let us speak of you, rather, dear Aramis.

— I have told you, my friend, there is no longer any Aramis in me.

— Not even the Abbé d'Herblay?

— Not even. You see a man whom God has taken by the hand and led to a position he neither should nor dared hope for.

— God? questioned d'Artagnan.

— Yes.

— Well! that is strange; I had been told, I, that it was M. Fouquet.

— Who told you that? said Aramis, without all the power of his will being able to prevent a slight redness from colouring his cheeks.

— Upon my word! it was Bazin.

— The fool!

— I do not say he is a man of genius, it is true; but he told me, and after him, I repeat it to you.

— I have never seen M. Fouquet, replied Aramis with a gaze as calm and as pure as that of a young virgin who has never lied.

— But, replied d'Artagnan, even had you seen him and even known him, there would be no harm in it; M. Fouquet is a very worthy man.

— Ah!

— A great politician.

Aramis made a gesture of indifference.

— A all-powerful minister.

— I am answerable only to the king and the pope, said Aramis.

— Why! listen then, said d'Artagnan in the most naïve tone, I tell you that, I, because everybody here swears by M. Fouquet. The plain belongs to M. Fouquet, the salt-works I have bought belong to M. Fouquet, the island in which Porthos has made himself a topographer belongs to M. Fouquet, the garrison belongs to M. Fouquet, the galleys belong to M. Fouquet. I confess therefore that nothing would have surprised me in your enfeoffment, or rather in that of your diocese, to M. Fouquet. He is another master than the king, that is all, but as powerful as a king.

— Thank God! I am enfeoffed to no one; I belong to no one and am all my own, replied Aramis, who, during this conversation, followed with his eye every gesture of d'Artagnan, every wink of Porthos.

But d'Artagnan was impassive and Porthos immobile; the blows skilfully dealt were parried by a skilful adversary; none touched.

Nevertheless each felt the fatigue of such a struggle, and the announcement of supper was well received by all. Supper changed the course of the conversation. Besides, they had understood that, on their guard as they each were on his side, neither would know more than the other.

Porthos had understood nothing at all. He had remained immobile because Aramis had signalled to him not to move. Supper was therefore for him only supper. But that was quite enough for Porthos. Supper therefore passed marvelously.

D'Artagnan was of a dazzling gaiety. Aramis surpassed himself by his sweet affability. Porthos ate like the late Pélops. They talked of war and finance, arts and loves. Aramis affected astonishment at every word of politics that d'Artagnan risked. That long series of surprises increased the distrust of d'Artagnan, as the eternal indifference of d'Artagnan provoked the distrust of Aramis.

At length d'Artagnan let fall, by design, the name of Colbert. He had reserved this stroke for the last.

— What is Colbert? asked the bishop.

"Oh! this time, said d'Artagnan to himself, it is too much. Let us watch, 'sdeath! let us watch."

And he gave Aramis all the information he could desire upon Colbert.

Supper, or rather the conversation, was prolonged until one in the morning between d'Artagnan and Aramis.

At ten precisely, Porthos had fallen asleep upon his chair and snored like an organ.

At midnight, he was awakened and sent to bed.

— Hum! said he; it seems to me I dozed off; yet what you were saying was very interesting.

At one, Aramis conducted d'Artagnan to the chamber destined for him, which was the best in the episcopal palace. Two servants were placed at his orders.

— Tomorrow, at eight o'clock, said he, taking leave of d'Artagnan, we will take, if you wish, a ride on horseback with Porthos.

— At eight o'clock! said d'Artagnan, so late?

— You know I need seven hours of sleep, said Aramis.

— That is just.

— Good night, dear friend!

And he embraced the musketeer with cordiality. D'Artagnan let him go.

— Good! said he when his door was shut behind Aramis, at five I shall be on my feet.

Then, this resolution taken, he went to bed and, as they say, doubled the stakes.

Chapter LXXIII — Where Porthos begins to be vexed at having come with d'Artagnan

Scarcely had d'Artagnan extinguished his candle than Aramis, who was watching through his curtains for the last flicker of light in his friend's room, crossed the corridor on tiptoe and passed into Porthos's chamber. The giant, abed for some hour and a half or so, was luxuriating upon the eiderdown. He was in that happy calm of first sleep which, in Porthos, resisted the noise of bells and of cannon. His head floated in that soft oscillation which recalls the supple motion of a ship. One minute more, and Porthos would have been dreaming.

The door of his chamber opened gently under the delicate pressure of Aramis's hand.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”