Part 39

The cardinal therefore remained master of the siege without having, at least momentarily, anything to fear from the English.

But, as we have just said, the rest was only momentary.

An envoy of the Duke of Buckingham, named Montaigu, had been taken, and proof had been acquired of a league between the Empire, Spain, England, and Lorraine.

This league was directed against France.

Moreover, in Buckingham's lodgings, which he had been forced to abandon more precipitously than he had believed, papers had been found that confirmed this league, and which, as M. the Cardinal assures in his memoirs, greatly compromised Mme de Chevreuse, and consequently the queen.

It was on the cardinal that all the responsibility weighed, for one is not an absolute minister without being responsible; also all the resources of his vast genius were strained night and day, and employed in listening to the slightest noise that arose in any of the great kingdoms of Europe.

The cardinal knew the activity and especially the hatred of Buckingham; if the league that threatened France triumphed, all his influence was lost: Spanish politics and Austrian politics had their representatives in the Louvre cabinet, where they still had only partisans; he, Richelieu, the French minister, the national minister par excellence, was lost. The king, who, while obeying him like a child, hated him as a child hates his master, would abandon him to the united vengeances of Monsieur and the queen; he was therefore lost, and perhaps France with him. He had to guard against all this.

Thus couriers, becoming more numerous every moment, were seen succeeding each other night and day in that little house at the Pont de La Pierre, where the cardinal had established his residence.

They were monks who wore the frock so badly that it was easy to recognize that they belonged especially to the militant church; women somewhat constrained in their page's costumes, and whose wide breeches could not entirely conceal their rounded forms; finally, peasants with blackened hands, but with a fine leg, and who smelled of the gentleman for a league around.

Then there were other, less pleasant visits, for two or three times the rumor spread that the cardinal had nearly been assassinated.

It is true that the enemies of His Eminence said that it was she herself who set the clumsy assassins in motion, in order to have, if needed, the right to use reprisals; but one must believe neither what ministers say, nor what their enemies say.

This did not prevent the cardinal, to whom his harshest detractors have never denied personal bravery, from making many nocturnal journeys, sometimes to communicate important orders to the Duke of Angoulême, sometimes to go and concert with the king, sometimes to confer with some messenger whom he did not want to be allowed into his house.

For their part, the musketeers, who had not much to do at the siege, were not strictly held and led a merry life. This was all the easier for them, especially for our three companions, since, being friends of M. de Tréville, they easily obtained from him permission to stay out late and remain after the closing of the camp with special leaves.

Now, one evening when d'Artagnan, who was on trench duty, had not been able to accompany them, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, mounted on their war horses, wrapped in their war cloaks, a hand on the butt of their pistols, were all three returning from a tavern that Athos had discovered two days before on the road to La Jarrie, and which was called the Red Dovecote, following the path that led to the camp, while keeping on their guard, as we have said, for fear of an ambush, when about a quarter of a league from the village of Boisnar they thought they heard the step of a cavalcade coming toward them; immediately all three stopped, pressed close together, and waited, keeping to the middle of the road; after a moment, and as the moon was just emerging from a cloud, they saw appear at the turn of a path two horsemen who, on perceiving them, stopped in their turn, seeming to deliberate whether they should continue their road or turn back. This hesitation gave some suspicion to the three friends, and Athos, taking a few steps forward, cried in his firm voice:

"Who goes there?"

"Who goes there yourself?" replied one of the two horsemen.

"That is not an answer!" said Athos. "Who goes there? Answer, or we charge."

"Take care what you are about to do, gentlemen!" said then a vibrant voice that seemed accustomed to command.

"It is some superior officer making his night rounds," said Athos; "what do you want to do, gentlemen?"

"Who are you?" said the same voice in the same tone of command; "answer in your turn, or you might find yourselves ill from your disobedience."

"King's Musketeers," said Athos, more and more convinced that the one who questioned them had the right to do so.

"What company?"

"Company of Tréville."

"Advance to be ordered, and come and give me an account of what you are doing here at this hour."

The three companions advanced, with ears somewhat lowered, for all three were now convinced that they had to do with someone stronger than themselves; it was left, however, to Athos to do the talking.

One of the two horsemen, he who had spoken second, was ten paces ahead of his companion; Athos made a sign to Porthos and Aramis to remain behind on their side, and advanced alone.

"Pardon, my officer!" said Athos; "but we did not know to whom we had to deal, and you can see that we were keeping good guard."

"Your name?" said the officer, who covered part of his face with his cloak.

"But you yourself, sir," said Athos, who was beginning to revolt against this inquisition; "give me, I pray you, proof that you have the right to question me."

"Your name?" repeated the horseman a second time, letting fall his cloak so as to have his face uncovered.

"Monsieur the Cardinal!" cried the musketeer, stupefied.

"Your name?" repeated His Eminence for the third time.

"Athos," said the musketeer.

The cardinal made a sign to his esquire, who drew near.

"These three musketeers shall follow us," he said in a low voice; "I do not want it known that I have left the camp, and, by following us, we shall be sure that they will tell no one."

"We are gentlemen, Monseigneur," said Athos; "therefore ask us for our word and do not concern yourself about anything. Thank God, we know how to keep a secret."

The cardinal fixed his piercing eyes on this bold interlocutor.

"You have a fine ear, Monsieur Athos," said the cardinal; "but now, listen to this: it is not from distrust that I ask you to follow me, it is for my safety. Doubtless your two companions are MM. Porthos and Aramis?"

"Yes, Your Eminence," said Athos, while the two musketeers who had remained behind drew near, hat in hand.

"I know you, gentlemen," said the cardinal, "I know you: I know that you are not entirely my friends, and I am sorry for it, but I know that you are brave and loyal gentlemen, and that one can trust you. Monsieur Athos, do me therefore the honor of accompanying me, you and your two friends, and then I shall have an escort that will make His Majesty envious, should we meet him."

The three musketeers bowed down to the necks of their horses.

"Well, upon my honor," said Athos, "Your Eminence is right to take us with her: we have met frightful faces on the road, and we even had a quarrel with four of those faces at the Red Dovecote."

"A quarrel, and why, gentlemen?" said the cardinal; "I do not like quarrelers, you know!"

"It is precisely for that reason that I have the honor of informing Your Eminence of what has just happened; for she might learn of it from others than ourselves, and, upon a false report, believe that we are in the wrong."

"And what were the results of this quarrel?" asked the cardinal, knitting his brow.

"But my friend Aramis, here, received a slight sword wound in the arm, which will not prevent him, as Your Eminence can see, from mounting to the assault tomorrow, if Your Eminence orders the scaling."

"But you are not men to let yourselves be given sword wounds like that," said the cardinal; "come now, be frank, gentlemen, you gave back some, no doubt; confess, you know that I have the right to give absolution."

"As for me, Monseigneur," said Athos, "I did not even put my hand to my sword, but I seized the one I had to do with by the body and threw him out of the window; it seems that in falling," continued Athos with some hesitation, "he broke his thigh."

"Ah! ah!" said the cardinal; "and you, Monsieur Porthos?"

"As for me, Monseigneur," said Porthos, "knowing that dueling is forbidden, I seized a bench, and gave one of those brigands a blow which, I believe, broke his shoulder."

"Good," said the cardinal; "and you, Monsieur Aramis?"

"As for me, Monseigneur," said Aramis, "as I am of a very gentle nature, and besides, what Monseigneur perhaps does not know, I am on the point of entering holy orders, I wanted to separate my comrades, when one of those wretches treacherously gave me a sword thrust through the left arm: then my patience failed me, I drew my sword in turn, and as he came back to the charge, I think I felt that, in throwing himself upon me, he ran it through his body: I know well that he only fell, and it seemed to me that he was carried off with his two companions."

"Devil, gentlemen!" said the cardinal; "three men put out of action for a tavern quarrel, you don't go about it with a dead hand; and on what account did the quarrel arise?"

"Those wretches were drunk," said Athos, "and knowing that there was a woman who had arrived at the tavern that evening, they wanted to force the door."

"Force the door!" said the cardinal; "and to do what?"

"To do her violence, no doubt," said Athos; "I had the honor of telling Your Eminence that those wretches were drunk."

"And was this woman young and pretty?" asked the cardinal with a certain uneasiness.

"We did not see her, Monseigneur," said Athos.

"You did not see her; ah! very well," replied the cardinal quickly; "you did well to defend the honor of a woman, and as it is to the Red Dovecote tavern that I am going myself, I shall know if you have told me the truth."

"Monseigneur," said Athos proudly, "we are gentlemen, and to save our heads, we would not tell a lie."

"Therefore I do not doubt what you tell me, Monsieur Athos, I do not doubt it for a single instant; but," he added to change the conversation, "this lady was then alone?"

"This lady had a gentleman shut up with her," said Athos; "but, as despite the noise this gentleman did not show himself, it is to be presumed that he is a coward."

"Do not judge rashly," says the gospel," replied the cardinal.

Athos bowed.

"And now, gentlemen, it is well," continued His Eminence; "I know what I wanted to know; follow me."

The three musketeers passed behind the cardinal, who again wrapped his face in his cloak and set his horse in motion, keeping eight or ten paces ahead of his four companions.

They soon arrived at the silent and solitary inn; no doubt the host knew what illustrious visitor he was expecting, and consequently he had sent away the importunate.

Ten paces before reaching the door, the cardinal made a sign to his esquire and the three musketeers to halt; a horse, fully saddled, was tied to the shutter; the cardinal knocked three times and in a certain manner.

A man wrapped in a cloak immediately came out and exchanged a few rapid words with the cardinal; after which he remounted his horse and departed in the direction of Surgères, which was also that of Paris.

"Advance, gentlemen," said the cardinal.

"You have told me the truth, my gentlemen," he said, addressing the three musketeers; "it shall not be my fault if our meeting this evening is not advantageous to you; in the meantime, follow me."

The cardinal dismounted, the three musketeers did the same; the cardinal threw his horse's bridle into the hands of his esquire, the three musketeers tied the bridles of theirs to the shutters.

The host stood on the threshold of the door; for him, the cardinal was only an officer coming to visit a lady.

"Have you any room on the ground floor where these gentlemen may wait for me near a good fire?" said the cardinal.

The host opened the door of a large room, in which a bad stove had just been replaced by a large and excellent fireplace.

"I have this one," he replied.

"It is well," said the cardinal; "go in there, gentlemen, and please wait for me; I shall not be more than half an hour."

And while the three musketeers entered the ground-floor room, the cardinal, without asking for further information, ascended the stairs like a man who does not need to be shown his way.

CHAPTER XLIV. THE UTILITY OF STOVEPIPES

It was evident that, without suspecting it, and moved only by their chivalrous and adventurous character, our three friends had just rendered service to someone whom the cardinal honored with his particular protection.

Now who was this someone? That was the question that the three musketeers first asked themselves; then, seeing that none of the answers that their intelligence could give them was satisfactory, Porthos called the host and asked for dice.

Porthos and Aramis placed themselves at a table and began to play. Athos walked about, reflecting.

While reflecting and walking, Athos passed and repassed before the stovepipe, broken in half, the other end of which opened into the upper room, and each time he passed and repassed, he heard a murmur of words which finally fixed his attention. Athos drew near, and he distinguished a few words which seemed to him doubtless to merit such great interest that he made a sign to his companions to be silent, remaining himself bent, his ear stretched to the height of the lower orifice.

"Listen, Milady," said the cardinal, "the affair is important; sit down there and let us talk."

"Milady!" murmured Athos.

"I listen to Your Eminence with the greatest attention," replied a woman's voice which made the musketeer start.

"A small vessel with an English crew, whose captain is mine, awaits you at the mouth of the Charente, at Fort de La Pointe; it will set sail tomorrow morning."

"I must then go there tonight?"

"At once, that is to say, when you have received my instructions. Two men whom you will find at the door on going out will serve as your escort; you will let me go out first, then half an hour after me, you will go out in your turn."

"Yes, Monseigneur. Now let us return to the mission with which you are willing to charge me; and as I am anxious to continue to merit the confidence of Your Eminence, deign to explain it to me in clear and precise terms, so that I may commit no error."

There was a moment of profound silence between the two speakers; it was evident that the cardinal was measuring in advance the terms in which he was going to speak, and that Milady was collecting all her intellectual faculties to understand the things he was going to say and to engrave them in her memory when they were said.

Athos took advantage of this moment to tell his two companions to close the door from inside and to make a sign to them to come and listen with him.

The two musketeers, who loved their comfort, brought a chair for each of them, and a chair for Athos. All three then sat down, their heads close together and their ears on the alert.

"You are going to start for London," continued the cardinal. "Arrived in London, you will go to Buckingham."

"I will observe to His Eminence," said Milady, "that since the affair of the diamond studs, for which the duke has always suspected me, His Grace distrusts me."

"Therefore this time," said the cardinal, "it is no longer a question of captaining his confidence, but of presenting yourself frankly and loyally to him as a negotiator."

"Frankly and loyally," repeated Milady with an inexpressible expression of duplicity.

"Yes, frankly and loyally," repeated the cardinal in the same tone; "all this negotiation must be carried on openly."

"I will follow to the letter the instructions of Your Eminence, and I await your giving them to me."

"You will go to Buckingham on my behalf, and you will tell him that I know all the preparations he is making, but that I am not much concerned about them, since at the first movement he risks, I lose the queen."

"Will he believe that Your Eminence is in a position to carry out the threat you make to him?"

"Yes, for I have proofs."

"I must be able to present these proofs for his appreciation."

"Without doubt, and you will tell him that I publish the report of Bois-Robert and the Marquis de Beautru concerning the interview the duke had at Madame the Constable's with the queen, on the evening that Madame the Constable gave a masked ball; you will tell him, so that he may doubt nothing, that he came there in the costume of the Great Mogul, which the Chevalier de Guise was to wear, and that he bought it from the latter for the sum of three thousand pistoles."

"Good, Monseigneur."

"All the details of his entrance into the Louvre and his exit during the night when he introduced himself into the palace in the costume of an Italian fortune-teller are known to me; you will tell him, so that he may still not doubt the authenticity of my information, that under his cloak he wore a large white robe embroidered with black teardrops, death's heads, and crossbones; for, in case of surprise, he was to pass himself off as the ghost of the White Lady, who, as everyone knows, returns to the Louvre whenever some great event is about to take place."

"Is that all, Monseigneur?"

"Tell him that I know all the details of the Amiens adventure, that I will have a little novel made of it, wittily turned, with a plan of the garden and portraits of the principal actors in that nocturnal scene."

"I will tell him that."

"Tell him also that I hold Montaigu, that Montaigu is in the Bastille, that no letters were found on him, it is true, but that torture can make him tell what he knows, and even... what he does not know."

"Excellent."

"Finally add that His Grace, in the haste with which he left the Isle of Ré, forgot in his lodgings a certain letter from Mme de Chevreuse which compromises the queen singularly, in that it proves not only that Her Majesty can love the enemies of the king, but even that she conspires with those of France. You have well remembered all that I have told you, have you not?"

"Your Eminence will judge: the Constable's ball; the Louvre night; the Amiens evening; the arrest of Montaigu; the letter of Mme de Chevreuse."

"That is it," said the cardinal; "that is it: you have a very happy memory, Milady."

"But," resumed she to whom the cardinal had just addressed this flattering compliment, "if despite all these reasons the duke does not yield and continues to threaten France?"

"The duke is in love like a madman, or rather like a fool," resumed Richelieu with profound bitterness; "like the ancient paladins, he undertook this war only to obtain a glance from his fair one. If he knows that this war may cost the honor and perhaps the liberty of the lady of his thoughts, as he says, I answer for it that he will think twice."

"And yet," said Milady with a persistence that proved she wanted to see clearly to the end, in the mission with which she was about to be charged, "yet if he persists?"

"If he persists," said the cardinal... "it is not probable."

"It is possible," said Milady.

"If he persists..."

His Eminence paused and resumed...

"If he persists, well then, I will hope for one of those events that change the face of states."

"If Your Eminence would cite to me in history some of those events," said Milady, "perhaps I would share your confidence in the future."

"Well, look!" for example, said Richelieu, "when in 1610, for a cause almost similar to that which moves the duke, King Henry IV, of glorious memory, was about to invade Flanders and Italy at the same time, to strike Austria on both sides, well, did not an event happen that saved Austria? Why should the King of France not have the same chance as the emperor?"

"Your Eminence means the knife blow of the Rue de la Ferronnerie?"

"Exactly," said the cardinal.

"Does not Your Eminence fear that the punishment of Ravaillac will frighten those who might for a moment have the idea of imitating him?"

"There will be in all times and in all countries, especially if those countries are divided in religion, fanatics who ask nothing better than to make themselves martyrs. And look, it just occurs to me at this hour that the Puritans are furious against the Duke of Buckingham and that their preachers designate him as the Antichrist."

"Well?" said Milady.

"Well," continued the cardinal with an indifferent air, "it would only be necessary, for the moment, for example, to find a woman, beautiful, young, clever, who would have a personal revenge to take upon the duke. Such a woman may be met with: the duke is a man of gallant adventures, and if he has sown many loves by his promises of eternal constancy, he must have sown much hatred also by his eternal infidelities."

"Without doubt," said Milady coldly, "such a woman may be met with."

"Well, such a woman, who would put the knife of Jacques Clément or Ravaillac into the hands of a fanatic, would save France."

"Yes, but she would be an accomplice to an assassination."

"Were the accomplices of Ravaillac or of Jacques Clément ever known?"

"No, for perhaps they were placed too high for anyone to dare to go and seek them where they were; one would not burn down the Palais de Justice for everyone, Monseigneur."

"You believe then that the fire at the Palais de Justice had a cause other than chance?" asked Richelieu in the tone in which he would ask a question of no importance.

"I, Monseigneur," replied Milady, "I believe nothing; I cite a fact, that is all; only I say that if my name were Mlle de Montpensier or Queen Marie de Médicis, I would take fewer precautions than I take, calling myself simply Lady Clarick."

"That is just," said Richelieu; "and what would you wish then?"

"I would wish an order that would ratify in advance everything that I shall think it necessary to do for the greatest good of France."

"But you must first find the woman I have spoken of, who would have a revenge to take upon the duke."

"She is found," said Milady.

"Then you must find the wretched fanatic who will serve as instrument of God's justice."

"He will be found."

"Well then," said the cardinal, "it will be time to claim the order that you asked for just now."

“Stories of the world, in your language.”