faith! I desire nothing better,” cried M. Bonancieux. “I shall not be sorry to see the face of an acquaintance.”
“Bring in M. d’Artagnan,” said the commissary to the two guards.
The guards brought in Athos.
“M. d’Artagnan,” said the commissary, addressing Athos, “declare what passed between you and that other gentleman.”
“But,” cried M. Bonancieux, “that is not M. d’Artagnan that you show me there.”
“What! not M. d’Artagnan?” cried the commissary.
“By no means,” answered Bonancieux.
“What is the gentleman’s name?” demanded the commissary.
“I cannot tell you; I don’t know him!” replied Bonancieux.
“What! you do not know him?”
“No.”
“You have never set eyes on him?”
“Yes; but I do not know his name.”
“Your name?” demanded the commissary of Athos.
“Athos!” answered the musketeer.
“But that is not the name of a man; it is the name of a mountain!” cried the unfortunate commissary, who began to get confused.
“It is my name,” calmly replied Athos.
“But you said your name was d’Artagnan.”
“I said so?”
“Yes, you!”
“The fact is, that they said to me—you are M. d’Artagnan. I replied—do you think so? My guards said they were sure of it. I did not wish to contradict them; besides, I might be mistaken.”
“Sir! you mock the majesty of justice.”
“Not at all,” calmly replied Athos.
“You are M. d’Artagnan?”
“You see that you still tell me so.”
“But,” cried M. Bonancieux, “I tell you, Mr. Commissary, that there is not the smallest doubt. M. d’Artagnan is my lodger, and, consequently, as he does not pay his rent, I know him only too well. M. d’Artagnan is a young man of nineteen or twenty years of age, at most, and this gentleman is at least thirty. M. d’Artagnan is in the guards of M. des Essarts, and this gentleman is in the company of M. de Treville’s musketeers: observe the uniform.”
“By heavens! it is true!” muttered the commissary. “It is true, by God!”
At this instant the door was quickly opened, and one of the turnkeys of the Bastile introduced a messenger, who gave the commissary a letter.
“Oh! the wretch!” exclaimed the commissary.
“What? of whom do you speak? It is not of my wife, I hope.”
“On the contrary, it is of her. Your affairs are in a nice state.”
“Do me the pleasure,” said the exasperated mercer, “to tell me, sir, how my affairs can be made worse by what my wife does whilst I am in prison?”
“Because what she does is the consequence of an infernal plan arranged between you!”
“I swear to you, Mr. Commissary, that you are in the most profound error; that I know nothing in the world of my wife’s actions; that I am completely ignorant of what she has done; and that, if she has committed follies, I renounce her, I give her the lie, and I curse her.”
“And now,” said Athos, “if you have no further business with me, dismiss me. Your M. Bonancieux is very tiresome.”
“Take the prisoners back to their dungeons,” said the commissary, pointing to Athos and Bonancieux, “and guard them more strictly than ever.”
“Nevertheless,” said Athos, with his usual tranquillity, “your business is with M. d’Artagnan; I do not well see how I can supply his place!”
“Do what I have ordered,” cried the commissary; “and the most solitary confinement—do you hear?”
The two followed the guards, Athos shrugging his shoulders, and M. Bonancieux uttering lamentations which might have softened the heart of a tiger.
They took the mercer into the same dungeon where he had passed the night, and left him there throughout the whole day. Hour after hour did poor Bonancieux weep like a very mercer; he was not at all a man of warlike soul, as he himself told us.
About nine o’clock in the evening, just as he had made up his mind to go to bed, he heard steps in his corridor. These steps approached his dungeon, the door opened, and the guards appeared.
“Follow me,” said a sergeant who commanded the guards.
“Follow you!” cried Bonancieux, “follow you at this time of night! And where? my God!”
“Where we have orders to conduct you.”
“But that is no answer.”
“It is, nevertheless, the only answer you will get.”
“O Lord! O Lord!” muttered the poor mercer, “now I am lost!”
He followed, mechanically, and without resistance.
He went down the same corridor as before, crossed a first court, then a second floor; and then, at the entrance gate, he found a carriage surrounded by four horse guards. They made him enter this carriage; the sergeant placed himself at his side; the door was locked, and they both found themselves in a moving prison.
The carriage proceeded slowly, like a funeral coach. Through the padlocked bars the prisoner could only see the horses and the pavement. But, like a true Parisian as he was, Bonancieux recognised each street by its corners, its lamps, and its signs. At the moment they reached St. Paul, where the criminals of the Bastile were executed, he nearly fainted, and crossed himself twice. He thought the carriage would have stopped there; but it went on, nevertheless. Farther on, he was seized with great fear: it was in skirting the cemetery of St. Jean, where the state criminals were buried. One thing alone encouraged him, which was, that before burying them, one generally cut off their heads; and his head was yet upon his shoulders. But when the carriage took the road to La Greve, and he perceived the painted roof of the Hotel de Ville, and saw that the carriage went under its colonnade, he thought it was all over with him, and wished to confess himself to the sergeant; and, on the refusal of the latter, uttered such piteous cries, that the sergeant declared that if he continued to deafen him so, he would put a gag on him. This threat reassured him a little: if they meant to execute him at the Greve, it was scarcely worth while to gag him, as they had nearly reached the place of execution. In fact, the carriage crossed this fatal place without stopping. There was only the Croix du Trahoir, then, to fear; and the carriage took the exact road to it.
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