Part 45

"Yes, I understand, after inheriting from my brother, it would have been sweet for you to inherit from me; but know this in advance, you may kill me or have me killed, my precautions are taken, not a penny of what I possess will pass into your hands. Are you not already rich enough, you who possess nearly a million, and could you not stop on your fatal path, if you only did evil for the infinite and supreme pleasure of doing it? Oh! listen, I tell you, if the memory of my brother were not sacred to me, you would rot in a state dungeon or satisfy the curiosity of sailors at Tyburn; I will remain silent, but you, bear your captivity quietly; in fifteen or twenty days I leave for La Rochelle with the army; but the night before my departure, a ship will come to take you, which I shall see depart and which will lead you to our southern colonies; and, be at ease, I shall assign you a companion who will blow your brains out at the first attempt you risk to return to England or to the continent."

Milady listened with an attention that dilated her fiery eyes.

"Yes, but for now," continued Lord de Winter, "you will remain in this castle: the walls are thick, the doors are strong, the bars are solid; besides, your window drops sheer down to the sea: the men of my crew, who are devoted to me in life and death, keep guard around this apartment, and watch all the passages leading to the courtyard; then, once in the courtyard, you would still have three gates to cross. The orders are precise: a step, a gesture, a word that simulates an escape, and they will fire upon you; if they kill you, English justice will, I hope, owe me some gratitude for having spared it the trouble. Ah! your features are regaining their calm, your face is recovering its composure: Fifteen days, twenty days you say, bah! by then, I have an inventive mind, some idea will come to me; I have an infernal mind, and I will find some victim. In fifteen days, you say, I will be out of here. Ah! ah! try!"

Milady, seeing herself guessed, dug her nails into her flesh to suppress any movement that might give her countenance any expression other than that of anguish.

Lord de Winter continued:

"The officer who commands here alone in my absence, you have seen him, so you already know him, knows, as you see, how to obey an order, for you did not come from Portsmouth here, I know you, without having tried to make him speak. What do you say to that? Would a marble statue have been more impassive and more mute? You have already tried the power of your seductions on many men, and unfortunately you have always succeeded; but try with that one, by God! if you succeed, I declare you the devil himself."

He went to the door and opened it abruptly.

"Have Mr. Felton summoned," he said. "Wait another moment, and I will recommend you to him."

A strange silence fell between these two characters, during which the sound of a slow and regular footstep was heard approaching; soon, in the shadow of the corridor, a human form became visible, and the young lieutenant with whom we have already made acquaintance stopped on the threshold, awaiting the baron's orders.

"Come in, my dear John," said Lord de Winter, "come in and close the door."

The young officer entered.

"Now," said the baron, "look at this woman: she is young, she is beautiful, she has all the seductions of the earth, well, she is a monster who, at twenty-five, has been guilty of as many crimes as you can read about in a year in the archives of our tribunals; her voice predisposes in her favor, her beauty serves as bait for victims, her body itself pays for what she has promised, that much justice must be done her; she will try to seduce you, perhaps she will even try to kill you. I rescued you from poverty, Felton, I had you made a lieutenant, I saved your life once, you know on what occasion; I am for you not only a protector, but a friend; not only a benefactor, but a father; this woman has returned to England to conspire against my life; I hold this serpent in my hands; well, I summon you and I say: Friend Felton, John, my child, guard me and above all guard yourself from this woman; swear on your salvation to keep her for the punishment she has deserved. John Felton, I trust your word; John Felton, I believe in your loyalty."

"My lord," said the young officer, charging his pure gaze with all the hatred he could find in his heart, "My lord, I swear to you that it shall be done as you desire."

Milady received this look like a resigned victim: it was impossible to see a more submissive and gentle expression than that which then reigned on her beautiful face. Hardly even Lord de Winter himself recognized the tigress he had prepared to fight an instant before.

"She shall never leave this room, do you hear, John," continued the baron; "she shall correspond with no one, she shall speak only to you, if you deign to address her."

"That is enough, my lord, I have sworn."

"And now, madame, try to make your peace with God, for you are judged by men."

Milady let her head fall as if she felt crushed by this judgment. Lord de Winter went out, making a gesture to Felton, who went out behind him and closed the door.

An instant later, the heavy tread of a marine soldier doing sentry duty was heard in the corridor, his axe at his belt and his musket in his hand.

Milady remained for some minutes in the same position, for she thought she might be observed through the keyhole; then slowly she raised her head, which had resumed a formidable expression of menace and defiance, ran to listen at the door, looked out the window, and returning to bury herself in a vast armchair, she reflected.

CHAPTER 51. THE OFFICER

Meanwhile, the cardinal was waiting for news from England, but no news arrived, except what was vexatious and threatening.

Though La Rochelle was invested, though the success might seem certain, thanks to the precautions taken and especially to the dyke which no longer allowed any boat to penetrate the besieged city, nevertheless the blockade could last a long time yet; and it was a great affront to the king's arms and a great inconvenience for the cardinal, who, it is true, no longer had to set Louis XIII against Anne of Austria—that was done—but to reconcile Monsieur de Bassompierre, who had quarreled with the Duc d'Angoulême.

As for Monsieur, who had begun the siege, he left the cardinal the trouble of finishing it.

The city, despite the incredible perseverance of its mayor, had attempted a kind of mutiny to surrender; the mayor had hanged the rioters. This execution calmed the worst heads, who then decided to let themselves die of hunger. This death always seemed slower and less certain than death by strangulation.

For their part, from time to time, the besiegers captured messengers that the Rochelais sent to Buckingham, or spies that Buckingham sent to the Rochelais. In either case, the trial was quickly done. The cardinal said only this one word: Hanged! The king was invited to come see the hanging. The king came languidly, placed himself in a good spot to see the operation in all its details: it always diverted him a little and made him bear the siege with patience, but it did not prevent him from being very bored, from talking at every moment about returning to Paris; so that if the messengers and spies had failed, His Eminence, despite all his imagination, would have found himself greatly embarrassed.

Nevertheless, time passed, the Rochelais did not surrender: the last spy taken was the bearer of a letter. This letter told Buckingham that the city was at its last extremity; but instead of adding: "If your help does not arrive within fifteen days, we will surrender," it simply added: "If your help does not arrive within fifteen days, we will all be dead of hunger when it arrives."

The Rochelais therefore had hope only in Buckingham. Buckingham was their Messiah. It was evident that if one day they learned for certain that they could no longer count on Buckingham, with hope their courage would fall.

The cardinal therefore awaited with great impatience news from England which was to announce that Buckingham would not come.

The question of taking the city by force of arms, often debated in the king's council, had always been set aside; first, La Rochelle seemed impregnable, then the cardinal, whatever he might have said, knew well that the horror of blood spilled in this encounter, where Frenchmen were to fight against Frenchmen, was a retrograde movement of sixty years imprinted on politics, and the cardinal was, at that time, what is today called a man of progress. Indeed, the sacking of La Rochelle, the murder of three or four thousand Huguenots who would have let themselves be killed, resembled too much, in 1628, the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day in 1572; and then, above all this, this extreme means, to which the king, a good Catholic, was not at all averse, always failed against this argument of the besieging generals: La Rochelle is impregnable except by famine.

The cardinal could not banish from his mind the fear into which his terrible emissary had thrown him, for he too had understood the strange proportions of this woman, sometimes serpent, sometimes lion. Had she betrayed him? Was she dead? He knew her well enough, in any case, to know that in acting for him or against him, friend or enemy, she did not remain motionless without great hindrances. That was what he could not know.

Moreover, he counted, and rightly, on Milady: he had guessed in the past of this woman terrible things that only his red mantle could cover; and he felt that, for one reason or another, this woman was acquired to him, finding only in him a support superior to the danger that threatened her.

He resolved therefore to wage war alone and to expect all foreign success only as one expects a lucky chance. He continued to have the famous dyke built which was to starve La Rochelle; in the meantime, he cast his eyes upon this unfortunate city, which contained so much profound misery and so many heroic virtues, and, recalling the saying of Louis XI, his political predecessor, as he himself was the predecessor of Robespierre, he murmured this maxim of Tristan's accomplice: "Divide to reign."

Henry IV, besieging Paris, had bread and provisions thrown over the walls; the cardinal had little notes thrown, by which he represented to the Rochelais how unjust, selfish, and barbarous the conduct of their leaders was; these leaders had wheat in abundance, and did not share it; they adopted this maxim, for they too had maxims, that it mattered little if women, children, and old people died, provided that the men who were to defend their walls remained strong and healthy. Until then, whether through devotion or inability to react against it, this maxim, without being generally adopted, had nevertheless passed from theory to practice; but the notes came to undermine it. The notes reminded the men that these children, these women, these old people whom they let die were their sons, their wives, and their fathers; that it would be more just for everyone to be reduced to common misery, so that a same situation would lead to unanimous resolutions.

These notes produced all the effect that he who had written them could expect, in that they determined a great number of inhabitants to open individual negotiations with the royal army.

But at the moment when the cardinal already saw his method bearing fruit and congratulated himself on having used it, an inhabitant of La Rochelle, who had managed to pass through the royal lines, God knows how, so great was the vigilance of Bassompierre, Schomberg, and the Duc d'Angoulême, themselves watched by the cardinal, an inhabitant of La Rochelle, we say, entered the city, coming from Portsmouth and saying that he had seen a magnificent fleet ready to set sail within eight days. Moreover, Buckingham announced to the mayor that finally the great league against France was going to declare itself, and that the kingdom was about to be invaded at once by the English, Imperial, and Spanish armies. This letter was read publicly in all the squares, copies were posted at street corners, and even those who had begun to open negotiations interrupted them, resolved to await this help so pompously announced.

This unexpected circumstance restored Richelieu's first anxieties, and forced him, despite himself, to turn his eyes once more to the other side of the sea.

During this time, free from the anxieties of its sole and true chief, the royal army led a joyous life; provisions did not lack in the camp, nor money either; all the corps vied in audacity and gaiety. Taking spies and hanging them, making hazardous expeditions on the dyke or on the sea, devising follies, executing them coolly, such was the pastime that made the army find short those days so long, not only for the Rochelais, gnawed by famine and anxiety, but also for the cardinal who was blockading them so vigorously.

Sometimes, when the cardinal, always riding like the last soldier of the army, cast his pensive gaze upon these works, so slow according to his desire, that the engineers he had brought from all corners of the kingdom of France were raising under his orders, if he met a musketeer of Tréville's company, he would approach him, look at him in a singular way, and not recognizing him as one of our four companions, he would let his deep gaze and vast thought wander elsewhere.

One day when, gnawed by mortal ennui, without hope in the negotiations with the city, without news from England, the cardinal had gone out with no other purpose than to go out, accompanied only by Cahusac and La Houdinière, walking along the shores and mingling the immensity of his dreams with the immensity of the ocean, he came at a slow pace on his horse to a hill from the top of which he saw, behind a hedge, lying on the sand and catching one of those rays of sun so rare at that time of year, seven men surrounded by empty bottles. Four of these men were our musketeers, preparing to listen to the reading of a letter that one of them had just received. This letter was so important that it had made them abandon cards and dice on a drum.

The other three were busy uncorking a huge demijohn of Collioure wine; these were the lackeys of these gentlemen.

The cardinal, as we have said, was of somber humor, and nothing, when he was in this state of mind, redoubled his sullenness like the gaiety of others. Moreover, he had a strange preoccupation, that of always believing that the very causes of his sadness excited the gaiety of strangers. Making a sign to La Houdinière and Cahusac to stop, he dismounted and approached these suspect laughers, hoping that, with the help of the sand which muffled his steps, and the hedge which veiled his approach, he might hear some words of this conversation which seemed to him so interesting; only ten paces from the hedge he recognized the Gascon chatter of d'Artagnan, and as he already knew that these men were musketeers, he did not doubt that the other three were those called the inseparables, that is to say, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

One can judge if his desire to hear the conversation increased with this discovery; his eyes took on a strange expression, and with a tiger-cat's step he advanced toward the hedge; but he had only been able to catch vague syllables without any positive meaning, when a sharp and brief cry made him start and attracted the attention of the musketeers.

"Officer!" cried Grimaud.

"You speak, I believe, rascal," said Athos, raising himself on one elbow and fixing Grimaud with his flaming gaze.

So Grimaud added not a word, contenting himself with pointing his index finger in the direction of the hedge and denouncing by this gesture the cardinal and his escort.

In a single bound the four musketeers were on their feet and saluted respectfully.

The cardinal seemed furious.

"It appears that one has oneself guarded among the musketeers!" he said. "Is the Englishman coming by land, or do the musketeers consider themselves superior officers?"

"Monseigneur," replied Athos, for in the midst of the general fright he alone had preserved that calm and coolness of the great nobleman which never left him, "Monseigneur, the musketeers, when they are not on duty, or when their service is finished, drink and play dice, and they are very superior officers for their lackeys."

"Lackeys!" grumbled the cardinal, "lackeys who have orders to warn their masters when someone passes, these are not lackeys, these are sentinels."

"His Eminence sees well, however, that if we had not taken this precaution, we were exposed to letting her pass without presenting our respects and offering our thanks for the grace she has done us in reuniting us. D'Artagnan," continued Athos, "you who just now were asking for this opportunity to express your gratitude to Monseigneur, here it is, take advantage of it."

These words were pronounced with that imperturbable phlegm which distinguished Athos in hours of danger, and that excessive politeness which made him at certain moments a king more majestic than kings by birth.

D'Artagnan approached and stammered a few words of thanks, which soon died under the dark look of the cardinal.

"No matter, gentlemen," continued the cardinal, without appearing in the least diverted from his original intention by the incident that Athos had raised; "no matter, gentlemen, I do not like that simple soldiers, because they have the advantage of serving in a privileged corps, play the great lord like this, and discipline is the same for them as for everyone else."

Athos let the cardinal finish his sentence completely and, bowing in sign of assent, he took up again in turn:

"Discipline, Monseigneur, has in no way, I hope, been forgotten by us. We are not on duty, and we believed that, not being on duty, we could dispose of our time as we saw fit. If we are fortunate enough that His Eminence has some particular order to give us, we are ready to obey. Monseigneur sees," continued Athos, frowning, for this kind of interrogation was beginning to irritate him, "that, to be ready for the slightest alarm, we have come out with our arms."

And he pointed with his finger to the cardinal the four muskets stacked near the drum on which were the cards and dice.

"Let Your Eminence believe," added d'Artagnan, "that we would have gone forward to meet her if we could have supposed that it was she who was coming towards us in such small company."

The cardinal bit his mustaches and a little his lips.

"Do you know what you look like, always together, as you are there, armed as you are, and guarded by your lackeys?" said the cardinal. "You look like four conspirators."

"Oh! as for this, Monseigneur, it is true," said Athos, "and we are conspiring, as Your Eminence could see the other morning, only it is against the Rochelais."

"Eh! you political gentlemen," resumed the cardinal, frowning in his turn, "one might perhaps find in your brains the secret of many things that are unknown, if one could read in them as you were reading in that letter which you hid when you saw me coming."

Red mounted to Athos's face, he took a step toward His Eminence.

"One would say that you really suspect us, Monseigneur, and that we are undergoing a real interrogation; if it is so, may Your Eminence deign to explain herself, and we shall at least know where we stand."

"And if it were an interrogation," resumed the cardinal, "others than you have undergone one, Monsieur Athos, and have answered."

"So, Monseigneur, I have told Your Eminence that she had only to question, and that we were ready to answer."

"What was that letter you were about to read, Monsieur Aramis, and which you hid?"

"A woman's letter, Monseigneur."

"Oh! I understand," said the cardinal, "one must be discreet about such letters; but nevertheless one can show them to a confessor, and, you know, I have received orders."

"Monseigneur," said Athos, with a calm all the more terrible because he was risking his head in making this reply, "the letter is from a woman, but it is signed neither Marion de Lorme nor Madame d'Aiguillon."

The cardinal became pale as death, a feral flash darted from his eyes; he turned around as if to give an order to Cahusac and La Houdinière. Athos saw the movement; he took a step toward the muskets, on which the three friends had their eyes fixed like men ill-disposed to let themselves be arrested. The cardinal was, with them, three; the musketeers, including the lackeys, were seven: he judged that the contest would be all the more unequal, since Athos and his companions were really conspiring; and, by one of those rapid turns that he always held at his disposal, all his rage melted into a smile.

"Come, come!" he said, "you are brave young men, proud in the sun, faithful in the dark; there is no harm in watching over oneself when one watches so well over others; gentlemen, I have not forgotten the night when you served as my escort to go to the Red Dovecot; if there were any danger to fear on the road I am about to follow, I would ask you to accompany me; but, as there is none, stay where you are, finish your bottles, your game, and your letter. Farewell, gentlemen."

And, remounting his horse, which Cahusac had brought to him, he saluted them with his hand and rode away.

The four young men, standing and motionless, followed him with their eyes without saying a single word until he had disappeared.

Then they looked at each other.

All had consternation on their faces, for despite the friendly farewell of His Eminence, they understood that the cardinal was going away with rage in his heart.

Athos alone smiled with a powerful and disdainful smile. When the cardinal was out of earshot and sight:

"This Grimaud cried out too late!" said Porthos, who had a great desire to vent his bad humor on someone.

Grimaud was about to reply to excuse himself. Athos raised his finger and Grimaud fell silent.

"Would you have given up the letter, Aramis?" said d'Artagnan.

"I," said Aramis in his most fluting voice, "I was determined: if he had insisted that the letter be handed over to him, I would have presented the letter with one hand, and with the other I would have run my sword through his body."

"I expected that," said Athos; "that is why I threw myself between you and him. Truly, this man is very imprudent to speak thus to other men; one would say he has never had to deal with women and children."

"My dear Athos," said d'Artagnan, "I admire you, but nevertheless we were in the wrong, after all."

“Stories of the world, in your language.”