This cry was generally heeded; for the Musketeers were known to be enemies of the cardinal, and were beloved on account of the hatred they bore to his Eminence. Thus the soldiers of other companies than those which belonged to the Red Duke, as Aramis had called him, often took part with the king’s Musketeers in these quarrels. Of three Guardsmen of the company of M. Dessessart who were passing, two came to the assistance of the four companions, while the other ran toward the hotel of M. de Tréville, crying, “To the rescue, Musketeers ! To the rescue!” As usual, this hotel was full of soldiers of this company, who hastened to the succor of their comrades. The
mêlée
became general, but strength was on the side of the Musketeers. The cardinal’s Guards and M. de la Trémouille’s people retreated into the hotel, the doors of which they closed just in time to prevent their enemies from entering with them. As to the wounded man, he had been taken in at once, and, as we have said, in a very bad state.
Excitement was at its height among the Musketeers and their allies, and they even began to deliberate whether they should not set fire to the hotel to punish the insolence of M. de la Trémouille’s domestics in daring to make a sortie upon the king’s Musketeers. The proposition had been made, and received with enthusiasm, when fortunately eleven o‘clock struck. D’Artagnan and his companions remembered their audience, and as they would very much have regretted that such an opportunity should be lost, they succeeded in calming their friends, who contented themselves with hurling some paving stones against the gates; but the gates were too strong. They soon tired of the sport. Besides, those who must be considered the leaders of the enterprise had quit the group and were making their way toward the hotel of M. de Tréville, who was waiting for them, already informed of this fresh disturbance.
“Quick, to the Louvre,” said he, “to the Louvre without losing an instant, and let us endeavor to see the king before he is prejudiced by the cardinal. We will describe the thing to him as a consequence of the affair of yesterday, and the two will pass off together.”
M. de Tréville, accompanied by the four young fellows, directed his course toward the Louvre; but to the great astonishment of the captain of the Musketeers, he was informed that the king had gone stag hunting in the forest of St. Germain. M. de Tréville required this intelligence to be repeated to him twice, and each time his companions saw his brow become darker.
“Had his Majesty,” asked he, “any intention of holding this hunting party yesterday?”
“No, your Excellency,” replied the valet de chambre, “the Master of the Hounds came this morning to inform him that he had marked down a stag. At first the king answered that he would not go; but he could not resist his love of sport, and set out after dinner.”
“And the king has seen the cardinal?” asked M. de Tréville.
“In all probability he has,” replied the valet, “for I saw the horses harnessed to his Eminence’s carriage this morning, and when I asked where he was going, they told me, ‘To St. Germain.’ ”
“He is beforehand with us,” said M. de Tréville. “Gentlemen, I will see the king this evening; but as to you, I do not advise you to risk doing so.”
This advice was too reasonable, and moreover came from a man who knew the king too well, to allow the four young men to dispute it. M. de Tréville recommended everyone to return home and wait for news.
On entering his hotel, M. de Tréville thought it best to be first in making the complaint. He sent one of his servants to M. de la Trémouille with a letter in which he begged of him to eject the cardinal’s Guardsmen from his house, and to reprimand his people for their audacity in making sortie against the king’s Musketeers. But M. de la Trémouille—already prejudiced by his esquire, whose relative, as we already know, Bernajoux was—replied that it was neither for M. de Tréville nor the Musketeers to complain, but, on the contrary, for him, whose people the Musketeers had assaulted and whose hotel they had endeavored to burn. Now, as the debate between these two nobles might last a long time, each becoming, naturally, more firm in his own opinion, M. de Tréville thought of an expedient which might terminate it quietly. This was to go himself to M. de la Trémouille.
He repaired, therefore, immediately to his hotel, and caused himself to be announced.
The two nobles saluted each other politely, for if no friendship existed between them, there was at least esteem. Both were men of courage and honor; and as M. de la Trémouille-a Protestant, and seeing the king seldom—was of no party, he did not in general, carry any bias into his social relations. This time, however, his address, although polite, was cooler than usual.
“Monsieur,” said M. de Tréville, “we fancy that we have each cause to complain of the other, and I am come to endeavor to clear up this affair.”
“I have no objection,” replied M. de la Trémouille, “but I warn you that I am well informed, and all the fault is with your Musketeers.”
“You are too just and reasonable a man, monsieur!” said Tréville, “not to accept the proposal I am about to make to you.”
“Make it, monsieur, I listen.”
“How is Monsieur Bernajoux, your esquire’s relative?”
“Why, monsieur, very ill indeed! In addition to the sword thrust in his arm, which is not dangerous, he has received another right through his lungs, of which the doctor says bad things.”
“But has the wounded man retained his senses?”
“Perfectly.”
“Does he talk?”
“With difficulty, but he can speak.”
“Well, monsieur, let us go to him. Let us adjure him, in the name of the God before whom he must perhaps appear, to speak the truth. I will take him for judge in his own cause, monsieur, and will believe what he will say.” M. de la Trémouille reflected for an instant; then as it was difficult to suggest a more reasonable proposal, he agreed to it.
Both descended to the chamber in which the wounded man lay. The latter, on seeing these two noble lords who came to visit him, endeavored to raise himself up in his bed; but he was too weak, and exhausted by the effort, he fell back again almost senseless.
M. de la Trémouille approached him, and made him inhale some salts, which recalled him to life. Then M. de Tréville, unwilling that it should be thought that he had influenced the wounded man, requested M. de la Trémouille to interrogate him himself.
That happened which M. de Tréville had foreseen. Placed between life and death, as Bernajoux was, he had no idea for a moment of concealing the truth; and he described to the two nobles the affair exactly as it had passed.
This was all that M. de Tréville wanted. He wished Bernajoux a speedy convalescence, took leave of M. de la Trémouille, returned to his hotel, and immediately sent word to the four friends that he awaited their company at dinner.
M. de Tréville entertained good company, wholly anticardinalist, though. It may easily be understood, therefore, that the conversation during the whole of dinner turned upon the two checks that his Eminence’s Guardsmen had received. Now, as D’Artagnan had been the hero of these two fights, it was upon him that all the felicitations fell, which Athos, Porthos, and Aramis abandoned to him, not only as good comrades, but as men who had so often had their turn that they could very well afford him his.
Toward six o’clock M. de Tréville announced that it was time to go to the Louvre; but as the hour of audience granted by his Majesty was past, instead of claiming the entrée by the back stairs, he placed himself with the four young men in the antechamber. The king had not yet returned from hunting. Our young men had been waiting about half an hour, amid a crowd of courtiers, when all the doors were thrown open, and his Majesty was announced.
At this announcement D’Artagnan felt himself tremble to the very marrow of his bones. The coming instant would in all probability decide the rest of his life. His eyes therefore were fixed in a sort of agony upon the door through which the king must enter.
Louis XIII appeared, walking fast. He was in hunting costume covered with dust, wearing large boots, and holding a whip in his hand. At the first glance D’Artagnan judged that the mind of the king was stormy.
This disposition, visible as it was in his Majesty, did not prevent the courtiers from ranging themselves along his pathway. In royal antechambers it is worth more to be viewed with an angry eye than not to be seen at all. The three Musketeers therefore did not hesitate to make a step forward. D’Artagnan on the contrary remained concealed behind them; but although the king knew Athos, Porthos, and Aramis personally, he passed before them without speaking or looking—indeed, as if he had never seen them before. As for M. de Tréville, when the eyes of the king fell upon him, he sustained the look with so much firmness that it was the king who dropped his eyes; after which his Majesty, grumbling, entered his apartment.
“Matters go but badly,” said Athos, smiling; “and we shall not be made Chevaliers of the Order
i
this time.”
“Wait here ten minutes,” said M. de Tréville; “and if at the expiration of ten minutes you do not see me come out, return to my hotel, for it will be useless for you to wait for me longer.”
The four young men waited ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes; and seeing that M. de Tréville did not return, went away very uneasy as to what was going to happen.
M. de Tréville entered the king’s cabinet boldly, and found his Majesty in a very ill humor, seated on an armchair, beating his boot with the handle of his whip. This, however, did not prevent his asking, with the greatest coolness, after his Majesty’s health.
“Bad, monsieur, bad!” replied the king; “I am bored.”
This was, in fact, the worst complaint of Louis XIII, who would sometimes take one of his courtiers to a window and say, “Monsieur So-and-so, let us weary ourselves together.”
“How! your Majesty is bored? Have you not enjoyed the pleasures of the chase today?”
“A fine pleasure, indeed, monsieur! Upon my soul, everything degenerates; and I don’t know whether it is the game which leaves no scent, or the dogs that have no noses. We started a stag of ten branches. We chased him for six hours, and when he was near being taken—when St.-Simon
14
was already putting his horn to his mouth to sound the
halali
—crack, all the pack takes the wrong scent and sets off after a two-year-older. I shall be obliged to give up hunting, as I have given up hawking. Ah, I am an unfortunate king, Monsieur de Tréville! I had but one gerfalcon, and he died day before yesterday.“
“Indeed, sire, I wholly comprehend your disappointment. The misfortune is great; but I think you have still a good number of falcons, sparrow hawks, and tiercets.”
“And not a man to instruct them. Falconers are declining. I know no one but myself who is acquainted with the noble art of venery. After me it will be all over, and people will hunt with gins, snares, and traps. If I had but the time to train pupils! But there is the cardinal always at hand, who does not leave me a moment’s repose; who talks to me about Spain, who talks to me about Austria, who talks to me about England! Ah!
à propos
of the cardinal, Monsieur de Tréville, I am vexed with you.”
This was the chance at which M. de Tréville waited for the king. He knew the king of old, and he knew that all these complaints were but a preface—a sort of excitation to encourage himself—and that he had now come to his point at last.
“And in what have I been so unfortunate as to displease your Majesty?” asked M. de Tréville, feigning the most profound astonishment.
“Is it thus you perform your charge, monsieur?” continued the king, without directly replying to De Tréville’s question. “Is it for this I name you captain of my Musketeers, that they should assassinate a man, disturb a whole quarter, and endeavor to set fire to Paris, without your saying a word? But yet,” continued the king, “undoubtedly my haste accuses you wrongfully; without doubt the rioters are in prison, and you come to tell me justice is done.”
“Sire,” replied M. de Tréville, calmly, “on the contrary, I come to demand it of you.”
“And against whom?” cried the king.
“Against calumniators,” said M. de Tréville.
“Ah! this is something new,” replied the king. “Will you tell me that your three damned Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and your youngster from Béarn, have not fallen, like so many furies, upon poor Bernajoux, and have not maltreated him in such a fashion that probably by this time he is dead? Will you tell me that they did not lay siege to the hotel of the Duc de la Trémouille, and that they did not endeavor to burn it?—which would not, perhaps, have been a great misfortune in time of war, seeing that it is nothing but a nest of Huguenots, but which is, in time of peace, a frightful example. Tell me, now, can you deny all this?”
“And who has told you this fine story, sire?” asked Tréville, quietly.
“Who has told me this fine story, monsieur? Who should it be but he who watches while I sleep, who labors while I amuse myself, who conducts everything at home and abroad—in France as in Europe?”
“Your Majesty probably refers to God,” said M. de Tréville; “for I know no one except God who can be so far above your Majesty.”
“No, monsieur; I speak of the prop of the state, of my only servant, of my only friend—of the cardinal.”
“His Eminence is not his Holiness, sire.”
“What do you mean by that, monsieur?”
“That it is only the Pope who is infallible,
15
and that this infallibility does not extend to cardinals.”
“You mean to say that he deceives me; you mean to say that he betrays me? You accuse him, then? Come, speak; avow freely that you accuse him!”
“No, sire; but I say that he deceives himself. I say that he is ill-informed. I say that he has hastily accused your Majesty’s Musketeers, toward whom he is unjust, and that he has not obtained his information from good sources.”