The Three Musketeers

The second commissary was as much surprised as the first, at this simple but firm declaration of the musketeer, on whom he would gladly have taken that revenge which civilians so much love to take on soldiers; but the names of Treville and la Tremouille demanded consideration.

Athos was, therefore, sent to the cardinal; but his eminence was, unfortunately, at the Louvre with the king.

It was just at this time that M. de Treville, having in vain sought Athos from the lieutenant and the governor of Fort l’Eveque, came to make an application to his majesty; to whom he had, as captain of the musketeers, the right of immediate access upon all occasions.

The prejudices of the king against the queen are well known—prejudices which were skilfully fostered by the cardinal, who, in political intrigues, had much greater fear of women than of men. One of the chief causes of this prejudice was the friendship of the queen for Madame de Chevreuse. These two women gave his eminence more uneasiness than the Spanish war, the rupture with England, and the embarrassment of the finances, all combined. He was convinced that Madame de Chevreuse served the queen, not only in political intrigues, but—what was far more vexatious to him—in amorous intrigues as well.

At the first word which the cardinal had uttered, that Madame de Chevreuse, who was exiled to Tours, and had been supposed to be in that city, had come to Paris, and had stayed there five days, escaping the police, the king became furiously enraged. At once capricious, and a false husband, Louis still wished to be distinguished as the just and the chaste. Posterity will, with difficulty, understand this character, which history explains, not by reasoning, but by facts.

But when the cardinal added that not only had Madame de Chevreuse been to Paris, but that the queen had renewed her friendship with her by means of one of those mysterious correspondences which were then called cabals—when he affirmed that he, the cardinal, had all but unravelled the threads of this intrigue—when, at the moment that he was about to detect in the very fact, provided with the fullest proofs, an emissary of the queen, who was in communication with the exile, a musketeer, had dared violently to interrupt the course of justice, by falling, sword in hand, upon the honest officers of the law, who had been charged to examine the whole affair with impartiality, in order to lay it before the king—Louis was no longer able to restrain himself. He took a step towards the queen’s apartments, with that pale and speechless indignation, which, when it burst out, led that prince to acts of the most unfeeling cruelty.

And yet, in all this, the cardinal had not said one word concerning the Duke of Buckingham.

It was at that moment that M. de Treville entered, cool, polite, and with a manner perfectly unobjectionable.

Warned of what had taken place by the presence of the cardinal, and by the change in the king’s countenance, M. de Treville felt himself as strong as Samson in the presence of the Philistines.

The king had already placed his hand upon the handle of the door; but, at the noise of M. de Treville’s entrance, he turned round.

“You come in good time, sir,” said his majesty; who, when his passions were thoroughly excited, never dissembled, “for I hear fine things of your musketeers.”

“And I,” said Treville coolly, “have fine things to tell you of your civilians.”

“What is that you say?” said the king haughtily.

“I have the honour to inform your majesty,” said Treville in the same tone, “that a party of lawyers, commissaries, and police agents—people very respectable in their way, but very bitter, as it appears, against the military—have presumed to arrest in a house, to drag through the public streets, and to cast into Fort l’Eveque (and all this under an order which they refuse to show me), one of my musketeers, or rather of yours, sir, of irreproachable conduct, of an almost illustrious reputation, and favourably known to your majesty—M. Athos!”

“Athos,” said the king mechanically; “yes, I certainly do know that man!”

“Your majesty may remember,” said M. de Treville, “M. Athos is the musketeer who, in the vexatious duel that you heard of, had the misfortune to wound M. de Cahusac severely:—by the bye, my lord,” continued Treville, addressing the cardinal, “M. de Cahusac is entirely recovered, is he not?”

“Yes, thank you,” said the cardinal, biting his lips with anger.

“M. Athos,” continued Treville, “had gone to visit one of his friends who was from home, a young Bearnese, a cadet in his majesty’s guards, in the company of Essarts; but scarcely had he settled himself in his friend’s room, and taken up a book whilst waiting, when a cloud of bailiffs and soldiers, mingled together, laid siege to the house, and broke open several doors.”

The cardinal here made the king a sign, which signified, “It was on account of the business which I have been telling you.”

“We know all that,” said the king, “for it was all done in our service.”

“And was it,” asked Treville, “in your majesty’s service, also, that one of my musketeers, who was perfectly innocent, has been seized, placed between two guards like a criminal, and marched through the midst of an insolent crowd, although he is a gallant man, who has shed his blood for your majesty ten times, and is yet ready to shed it again?”

“Bah,” said the king, somewhat shaken; “and was that really the way of it?”

“M. de Treville does not say,” replied the cardinal with the greatest indifference, “that this innocent musketeer, this gallant man, had, only one hour before, attacked, sword in hand, four commissaries delegated by me to collect information concerning an affair of the greatest importance.”

“I defy your eminence to prove it,” cried Treville, with true Gascon frankness, and true military bluntness, “for, an hour before, M. Athos, who, I can assure you, is a man of the noble origin, did me the honour, after having dined with me, of conversing in my drawing-room with the Count de Chalons and the Duc de la Tremouille.”

The king looked at the cardinal.

“It is proved by a deposition,” said the cardinal, in answer to the mute interrogation of the king; “and the individuals who were ill-treated have prepared what I have now the honour to present to your majesty.”

“Is the affidavit of a civilian of equal value with the word of honour of a soldier?” demanded Treville fiercely.

“Come, come, Treville, be silent,” said the king.

“If his eminence has any suspicions against one of my musketeers,” replied Treville, “the justice of the cardinal is so well known, that I should myself demand an inquiry.”

“In the house in which this attack on justice has been made,” said the immovable cardinal, “there lodges, I believe, a Bearnese, a friend of the musketeer.”

“Your eminence probably alludes to M. d’Artagnan?”

“I allude to a protege of yours, M. de Treville.”

“Yes, your eminence; precisely so.”

“Do you not suspect this young man of having led M. Athos astray?”

“M. Athos—a man nearly double his own age,” broke in M. de Treville. “No, sir; besides, M. d’Artagnan passed the evening at my house!”

“Ah!” said the cardinal, “everybody seems to have passed the evening at your house.”

“Does his eminence doubt my word?” exclaimed Treville, his face flushed with anger.

“No, God forbid!” said the cardinal; “but, only, at what hour was he at your house?”

“Oh! as to that, I can speak with certainty to your eminence; for, as he entered, I remarked that it was half-past nine by the clock, although I had believed it to be later.”

“And at what hour did he leave your hotel?”

“At half-past ten—exactly one hour after this event happened.”

“But, at least, M. Athos was seized in that house, in the Rue des Fossoyeurs!” said the cardinal, who did not for a moment doubt the loyalty of M. de Treville, yet felt that victory was leaving him.

“Is it unlawful for a friend to visit a friend? or for a musketeer of my company to keep company with a guard of M. des Essarts?”

“Yes, when the house where he associates with his friend is suspected.”

“This house is suspected, Treville!” said the king: “perhaps you did not know that.”

“Indeed, sire, I did not know it. But, although it might be suspected, I deny that it was in that part which M. d’Artagnan inhabits; for I can assure you, sir, if I may believe what he has said, that there does not exist a more devoted servant of your majesty, or a more profound admirer of the cardinal.”

“Is it not this d’Artagnan who wounded Jussac in that unfortunate encounter which took place one day near the convent des Carmes Dechaux?” demanded the king, looking at the cardinal, who coloured with spite. “And wounded Bernajoux the next day.”

“Yes, sire, yes; it is the same. Your majesty has a good memory!”

“Come, what shall we decide upon?” said the king.

“That concerns your majesty more than me,” answered the cardinal. “I assert his guilt.”

“And I deny it,” said Treville. “But his majesty has judges—let them determine on the affair.”

“Exactly so,” said the king, “let us refer the matter to the judges: it is their business to judge, and they shall judge it.”

“Only,” said Treville, “it is a sad thing, in these unhappy times in which we live, that the purest life, the most indisputable virtue, cannot secure a man from disgrace and persecution. The army will be but little satisfied, I can answer for it, at being the object of such rigorous treatment at the hands of the police.”

The expression was imprudent, but Treville had thrown it out purposely. He wished for an explosion; because the mine flames out as it explodes, and the flame enlightens us.

“The police!” cried the king, taking up Treville’s words. “Affairs of the police! And what do you know about them, sir? Busy yourself with your musketeers, and don’t perplex my brain. It would seem, to hear you, that if a musketeer is arrested, France is imperilled. Ah! what a fuss about a musketeer! I will arrest ten, fifty, a hundred, ay, even the whole company, nor will any one utter a word!”

“The instant that they are suspected by your majesty,” said Treville, “the musketeers become guilty. I am ready, therefore, to surrender my sword; for, after having accused my soldiers, I do not doubt that the cardinal will conclude by accusing me; and it is unquestionably better that I should deliver myself up as a prisoner with M. Athos, who is already arrested, and with M. d’Artagnan, who will doubtless before long be so too.”

“Gascon head! will you have done?” said the king.

“Sire,” said Treville, without in the least lowering his voice, “give me up my musketeer, or let him be tried!”

“He shall be tried,” said the king.

“Well, so much the better: for then I shall demand your majesty’s permission to plead his cause.”

The king dreaded an outbreak.

“If his eminence,” said he, “had not any personal motives—.”

The cardinal saw which way the king was tending, and anticipated him.

“Pardon me,” said he, “but the moment that the king sees in me a prejudiced judge, I retire.”

“Come,” said the king to M. de Treville, “do you swear to me by my father, that M. Athos was at your house during this event, and that he had nothing to do with it?”

“By your glorious father, and by yourself, whom I love and venerate most in the world, I swear it!”

“You must reflect, sire,” said the cardinal, “that if we thus release this prisoner, the truth cannot be discovered.”

“M. Athos shall always be forthcoming,” said Treville, “when it may please the lawyers to interrogate him. He will not run away. I stand surety for him.”

“In reality he will not desert,” said the king; “he can always be found, as Treville says. Besides,” added he, lowering his voice, and regarding the cardinal with a supplicating air, “put them in security: it is politic.”

This policy of Louis XIII. made Richelieu smile.

“Give your order, sire,” said he, “for you have the privilege of pardon.”

“The privilege of pardon applies only to the guilty,” said Treville, who wished to have the last word, “and my musketeer is innocent. It is not a pardon, therefore, that your majesty is going to grant, but justice.”

“Is he at Fort l’Eveque?” asked the king.

“Yes, sire, and in a solitary dungeon, like the worst of criminals.”

“’Od’s blood!” said the king, “what is to be done?”

“Sign the order for his release,” said the cardinal, “and all will be ended. I believe, like your majesty, that M. de Treville’s security is more than sufficient.”

Treville bowed respectfully, with a joy not unmingled with fear. He would have preferred an obstinate resistance on the part of the cardinal, to this sudden concession.

The king signed the order of release, and Treville carried it away immediately.

At the moment he was going out, the cardinal gave him a friendly smile, and said to the king—

“Great harmony exists between the officers and the soldiers of your musketeers, sire; it must be very beneficial to the service, and reflects honour on them all.”

“He will play me some scurvy trick presently,” thought Treville; “one never has the last word with such a man. But let me hasten, for the king may change his mind soon; and, after all, it is more difficult to put a man back into the Bastile, or Fort l’Eveque, once he has got out of it, than to keep him prisoner there when they have already caught him.”

M. de Treville entered Fort l’Eveque triumphantly, and set at liberty his musketeer, who had not lost his calm indifference.

And the first time that he saw d’Artagnan, he said to him, “You have escaped well: your sword-thrust to Jussac is now paid for; that to Bernajoux still remains; but you must not be too confident.”

M. de Treville had reason to distrust the cardinal, and to think that all was not ended; for scarcely had the captain of musketeers closed the door behind him before his eminence said to the king—

“Now that we are alone together, we must have some serious conversation, if it please your majesty. Sire, the Duke of Buckingham has been in Paris for five days, and left it only this morning.”

CHAPTER 16 In which the Keeper of the Seals, Séguier, looked more than once after the bell, that he might ring it as he had been used to do

It is impossible to form an idea of the impression which these few words produced on the king. He grew red and pale by turns, and the cardinal saw immediately that he had regained, by a single stroke, all the ground that he had previously lost.

“The Duke of Buckingham at Paris!” said the king; “and what has he been doing there?”

“No doubt plotting with your enemies, the Huguenots and the Spaniards.”

“No, by God, no! Plotting, rather against my honour, with Madame de Chevreuse, Madame de Longueville, and the Conde.”

“Oh! sire, what an idea! The queen is too good, and, above all, loves your majesty too well.”

“Woman is feeble,” said the king: “and as for her loving me too well, I have my own opinion about that!”

“Nevertheless, I maintain that the Duke of Buckingham came to Paris for an entirely political object.”

“And I am just as sure that he came for other purposes; but, if the queen is guilty, let her tremble!”

“After all,” said the cardinal, “however unwilling I am to dwell upon a treason of this kind, your majesty, by your words, reminds me that Madame de Lannoy, whom, by your majesty’s order, I have several times questioned, told me this morning that, the night before last, the queen was up very late, that this morning she was weeping very much, and that she had been writing throughout the whole day.”

“That confirms it!” said the king: “writing to him, no doubt. Cardinal, I must have the queen’s papers!”

“But how are we to get them, sire? It appears to me that neither I nor your majesty ought to undertake such an office.”

“How did they proceed towards the Marechale d’Ancre,” said the king, in the most violent rage; “they first ransacked her chests, and at last searched her person.”

“The Marechale d’Ancre was only the Marechale d’Ancre, a Florentine adventuress: but the august spouse of your majesty is Anne of Austria, Queen of France; that is, one of the greatest princesses in the world.”

“That only makes her the more criminal! The more she has forgotten the high position in which she is placed, the lower she has fallen. For a long time, now, I have been determined to put an end to all these petty intrigues of politics and love. There is, also, one La Porte in her service.”

“Whom I believe to be the master-spirit in all this.”

“Then you think as I do—that she is deceiving me,” said the king.

“I believe, and I repeat it to your majesty, that the queen plots against the king’s power, but I have not said against his honour.”

“And I tell you, against both. I tell you that the queen does not love me; I tell you that she loves another; I tell you that she loves this infamous Duke of Buckingham! Why did not you arrest him, whilst he was in Paris?”

“Arrest the duke! arrest the prime minister of Charles I. Think, sire, what a commotion! And then, if the suspicions of your majesty had any foundation, which I much doubt, what a dreadful exposure—what horrible scandal.”

“But if he exposed himself to it, like a vagabond and a pilferer, he ought—”

Louis stopped, catching himself on the verge of a dreadful expression, whilst Richelieu, stretching out his neck, in vain expected the word which hung upon the king’s lips.

“He ought—”

“Nothing,” said the king, “nothing. But,” added he, “during all the time that he was in Paris, you did not ever lose sight of him?”

“Never, sire!”

“Where did he reside?”

“In the Rue de la Harpe, at No. 75.”

“Where is that?”

“Near the Luxembourg.”

“And you are certain that the queen and he did not see each other?”

“I believe that the queen is too much attached to her duty, sire!”

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