Henry IV, when besieging Paris, had loaves and provisions thrown over the walls. The cardinal had little notes thrown over in which he represented to the Rochellais how unjust, selfish, and barbarous was the conduct of their leaders. These leaders had corn in abundance, and would not let them partake of it; they adopted as a maxim—for they, too, had maxims—that it was of very little consequence that women, children, and old men should die, so long as the men who were to defend the walls remained strong and healthy. Up to that time, whether from devotedness or from want of power to act against it, this maxim, without being generally adopted, nevertheless passed from theory into practice; but the notes did it injury. The notes reminded the men that the children, women, and old men whom they allowed to die were their sons, their wives, and their fathers, and that it would be more just for everyone to be reduced to the common misery, in order that equal conditions should give birth to unanimous resolutions.
These notes had all the effect that he who wrote them could expect, in that they induced a great number of the inhabitants to open private negotiations with the royal army.
But at the moment when the cardinal saw his means already fructify, and applauded himself for having put it in action, an inhabitant of La Rochelle who had contrived to pass the royal lines—God knows how, such was the watchfulness of Bassompierre, Schomberg, and the Duc d’Angoulême, themselves watched over 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 sail within eight days. Still further, Buckingham announced to the mayor that at length the great league was about to declare itself against France, and that the kingdom would be at once invaded by the English, Imperial, and Spanish armies. This letter was read publicly in all parts of the city. Copies were put up at the corners of the streets; and even they who had begun to open negotiations interrupted them, being resolved to await the succor so pompously announced.
This unexpected circumstance brought back Richelieu’s former anxiety, and forced him in spite of himself once more to turn his eyes to the other side of the sea.
During this time, exempt from the anxiety of its only and true chief, the royal army led a joyous life, neither provisions nor money being wanting in the camp. All the corps rivaled one another in audacity and gaiety. To take spies and hang them, to make hazardous expeditions upon the dyke or the sea, to imagine wild plans, and to execute them coolly—such were the pastimes which made the army find these days short which were not only so long to the Rochellais, a prey to famine and anxiety, but even to the cardinal, who blockaded them so closely.
Sometimes when the cardinal, always on horseback, like the lowest gendarme of the army, cast a pensive glance over those works, so slowly keeping pace with his wishes, which the engineers, brought from all the corners of France, were executing under his orders, if he met a Musketeer of the company of Tréville, he drew near and looked at him in a peculiar manner, and not recognizing in him one of our four companions, he turned his penetrating look and profound thoughts in another direction.
One day when oppressed with a mortal weariness of mind, without hope in the negotiations with the city, without news from England, the cardinal went out, without any other aim than to be out of doors, and accompanied only by Cahusac and La Houdinière, strolled along the beach. Mingling the immensity of his dreams with the immensity of the ocean, he came, his horse going at a foot’s pace, to a hill from the top of which he perceived behind a hedge, reclining on the sand and catching in its passage one of those rays of the sun so rare at this period of the year, seven men surrounded by empty bottles. Four of these men were our Musketeers, preparing to listen to a letter one of them had just received. This letter was so important that it made them forsake their cards and their dice on the drumhead.
The other three were occupied in opening an enormous flagon of Collioure wine; these were the lackeys of these gentlemen.
The cardinal was, as we have said, in very low spirits; and nothing when he was in that state of mind increased his depression so much as gaiety in others. Besides, he had another strange fancy, which was always to believe that the causes of his sadness created the gaiety of others. Making a sign to La Houdinière and Cahusac to stop, he alighted from his horse, and went toward these suspected merry companions, hoping, by means of the sand which deadened the sound of his steps and of the hedge which concealed his approach, to catch some words of this conversation which appeared so interesting. At ten paces from the hedge he recognized the talkative Gascon; and as he had already perceived that these men were Musketeers, he did not doubt that the three others were those called the Inseparables; that is to say, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.
It may be supposed that his desire to hear the conversation was augmented by this discovery. His eyes took a strange expression, and with the step of a tiger-cat he advanced toward the hedge; but he had not been able to catch more than a few vague syllables without any positive sense, when a sonorous and short cry made him start, and attracted the attention of the Musketeers.
“Officer!” cried Grimaud.
“You are speaking, you scoundrel!” said Athos, rising upon his elbow, and transfixing Grimaud with his flaming look.
Grimaud therefore added nothing to his speech, but contented himself with pointing his index finger in the direction of the hedge, announcing by this gesture the cardinal and his escort.
With a single bound the Musketeers were on their feet, and saluted with respect.
The cardinal seemed furious.
“It appears that Messieurs the Musketeers keep guard,” said he. “Are the English expected by land, or do the Musketeers consider themselves superior officers?”
“Monseigneur,” replied Athos, for amid the general fright he alone had preserved the noble calmness and coolness that never forsook him, “monseigneur, the Musketeers, when they are not on duty or when their duty is over, drink and play at dice, and they are certainly superior officers to their lackeys.”
“Lackeys?” grumbled the cardinal. “Lackeys who have the order to warn their masters when anyone passes are not lackeys, they are sentinels.”
“Your Eminence may perceive that if we had not taken this precaution, we should have been exposed to allowing you to pass without presenting you our respects or offering you our thanks for the favor you have done us in uniting us. D’Artagnan,” continued Athos, “you, who but lately were so anxious for such an opportunity for expressing your gratitude to Monseigneur, here it is; avail yourself of it.”
These words were pronounced with that imperturbable phlegm which distinguished Athos in the hour of danger, and with that excessive politeness which made of him at certain moments a king more majestic than kings by birth.
D’Artagnan came forward and stammered out a few words of gratitude which soon expired under the gloomy looks of the cardinal.
“It does not signify, gentlemen,” continued the cardinal, without appearing to be in the least swerved from his first intention by the diversion which Athos had started, “it does not signify, gentlemen. I do not like to have simple soldiers, because they have the advantage of serving in a privileged corps, thus to play the great lords; discipline is the same for them as for everybody else.”
Athos allowed the cardinal to finish his sentence completely, and bowed in sign of assent. Then he resumed in his turn: “Discipline, monseigneur, has, I hope, in no way been forgotten by us. We are not on duty, and we believed that not being on duty we were at liberty to dispose of our time as we pleased. If we are so fortunate as to have some particular duty to perform for your Eminence, we are ready to obey you. Your Eminence may perceive,” continued Athos, knitting his brow, for this sort of investigation began to annoy him, “that we have not come out without our arms.”
And he showed the cardinal, with his finger, the four muskets piled near the drum, on which were the cards and dice.
“Your Eminence may believe,” added D’Artagnan, “that we would have come to meet you, if we could have supposed it was Monseigneur coming toward us with so few attendants.”
The cardinal bit his mustache, and even his lips a little.
“Do you know what you look like, all together, as you are armed and guarded by your lackeys?” said the cardinal. “You look like four conspirators.”
“Oh, as to that, monseigneur, it is true,” said Athos; “we do conspire, as your Eminence might have seen the other morning. Only we conspire against the Rochellais.”
“Ah, you gentlemen of policy!” replied the cardinal, knitting his brow in his turn, “the secret of many unknown things might perhaps be found in your brains, if we could read them as you read that letter which you concealed as soon as you saw me coming.”
The color mounted to the face of Athos, and he made a step toward his Eminence.
“One might think you really suspected us, monseigneur, and we were undergoing a real interrogatory. If it be so, we trust your Eminence will deign to explain yourself, and we should then at least be acquainted with our real position.”
“And if it were an interrogatory!” replied the cardinal. “Others besides you have undergone such, Monsieur Athos, and have replied thereto.”
“Thus I have told your Eminence that you had but to question us, and we are ready to reply.”
“What was that letter you were about to read, Monsieur Aramis, and which you so promptly concealed?”
“A woman’s letter, monseigneur.”
“Ah, yes, I see,” said the cardinal; “we must be discreet with this sort of letters; but nevertheless, we may show them to a confessor, and you know I have taken orders.”
“Monseigneur,” said Athos, with a calmness the more terrible because he risked his head in making this reply, “the letter is a woman’s letter, but it is neither signed Marion de Lorme nor Madame d’Aiguillon.”
av
The cardinal became as pale as death; lightning darted from his eyes. He turned round as if to give an order to Cahusac and Houdinière. Athos saw the movement; he made a step toward the muskets, upon which the other three friends had fixed their eyes, like men ill-disposed to allow themselves to be taken. The cardinalists were three; the Musketeers, lackeys included, were seven. He judged that the match would be so much the less equal, if Athos and his companions were really plotting; and by one of those rapid turns which he always had at command, all his anger faded away into a smile.
“Well, well!” said he, “you are brave young men, proud in daylight, faithful in darkness. We can find no fault with you for watching over yourselves, when you watch so carefully over others. Gentlemen, I have not forgotten the night in which you served me as an escort to the Red Dovecot. If there were any danger to be apprehended on the road I am going, I would request you to accompany me; but as there is none, remain where you are, finish your bottles, your game, and your letter. Adieu, gentlemen!”
And remounting his horse, which Cahusac led to him, he saluted them with his hand, and rode away.
The four young men, standing and motionless, followed him with their eyes without speaking a single word until he had disappeared. Then they looked at one another.
The countenances of all gave evidence of terror, for notwithstanding the friendly adieu of his Eminence, they plainly perceived that the cardinal went away with rage in his heart.
Athos alone smiled, with a self-possessed, disdainful smile.
When the cardinal was out of hearing and sight, “That Grimaud kept bad watch!” cried Porthos, who had a great inclination to vent his ill-humor on somebody.
Grimaud was about to reply to excuse himself. Athos lifted his finger, and Grimaud was silent.
“Would you have given up the letter, Aramis?” said D’Artagnan.
“I,” said Aramis, in his most flutelike tone, “I had made up my mind. If he had insisted upon the letter being given up to him, I would have presented the letter to him with one hand, and with the other I would have run my sword through his body.”
“I expected as much,” said Athos; “and that was why I threw myself between you and him. Indeed, this man is very much to blame for talking thus to other men; one would say he had never had to do with any but women and children.”
“My dear Athos, I admire you, but nevertheless we were in the wrong, after all.”
“How, in the wrong?” said Athos. “Whose, then, is the air we breathe? Whose is the ocean upon which we look? Whose is the sand upon which we were reclining? Whose is that letter of your mistress? Do these belong to the cardinal? Upon my honor, this man fancies the world belongs to him. There you stood, stammering, stupefied, annihilated. One might have supposed the Bastille appeared before you, and that the gigantic Medusa had converted you into stone. Is being in love conspiring? You are in love with a woman whom the cardinal has caused to be shut up, and you wish to get her out of the hands of the cardinal. That’s a match you are playing with his Eminence; this letter is your game. Why should you expose your game to your adversary? That is never done. Let him find it out if he can! We can find out his!”
“Well, that’s all very sensible, Athos,” said D’Artagnan.
“In that case, let there be no more question of what’s past, and let Aramis resume the letter from his cousin where the cardinal interrupted him.”
Aramis drew the letter from his pocket; the three friends surrounded him, and the three lackeys grouped themselves again near the wine jar.
“You had only read a line or two,” said D’Artagnan; “read the letter again from the commencement.”
“Willingly,” said Aramis.
“My dear Cousin, I think I shall make up my mind to set out for Béthune, where my sister has placed our little servant in the convent of the Carmelites; this poor child is quite resigned, as she knows she cannot live elsewhere without the salvation of her soul being in danger. Nevertheless, if the affairs of our family are arranged, as we hope they will be, I believe she will run the risk of being damned, and will return to those she regrets, particularly as she knows they are always thinking of her. Meanwhile, she is not very wretched; what she most desires is a letter from her intended. I know that such viands pass with difficulty through convent gratings; but after all, as I have given you proofs, my dear cousin, I am not unskilled in such affairs, and I will take charge of the commission. My sister thanks you for your good and eternal remembrance. She has experienced much anxiety; but she is now at length a little reassured, having sent her secretary away in order that nothing may happen unexpectedly.
“Adieu, my dear cousin. Tell us news of yourself as often as you can; that is to say, as often as you can with safety. I embrace you.
“Marie Michon”