style="font-size:15px;"> “My intention,” said Mazarin, “is not that you go with a great following; my plans require secrecy, and would be jeopardized by a too extravagant equipment.”
“Still, my lord, I can’t travel on my pay, for it is now three months behind; and I can’t travel on my savings, for in my twenty-two years of service I have accumulated nothing but debts.”
Mazarin remained some moments in deep thought, as if he were fighting with himself; then, going to a large cupboard closed with a triple lock, he took from it a bag of silver, and weighing it twice in his hands before he gave it to D’Artagnan:
“Take this,” he said with a sigh, “‘tis merely for your journey.”
“If these are Spanish doubloons, or even gold crowns,” thought D’Artagnan, “we shall yet be able to do business together.” He saluted the cardinal and plunged the bag into the depths of an immense pocket.
“Well, then, all is settled; you are to set off,” said the cardinal.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Apropos, what are the names of your friends?”
“The Count de la Fere, formerly styled Athos; Monsieur du Vallon, whom we used to call Porthos; the Chevalier d’Herblay, now the Abbe d’Herblay, whom we styled Aramis-”
The cardinal smiled.
“Younger sons,” he said, “who enlisted in the musketeers under feigned names in order not to lower their family names. Long swords but light purses. Was that it?”
“If, God willing, these swords should be devoted to the service of your eminence,” said D’Artagnan, “I shall venture to express a wish, which is, that in its turn the purse of your eminence may become light and theirs heavy-for with these three men your eminence may rouse all Europe if you like.”
“These Gascons,” said the cardinal, laughing, “almost beat the Italians in effrontery.”
“At all events,” answered D’Artagnan, with a smile almost as crafty as the cardinal’s, “they beat them when they draw their swords.”
He then withdrew, and as he passed into the courtyard he stopped near a lamp and dived eagerly into the bag of money.
“Crown pieces only-silver pieces! I suspected it. Ah! Mazarin! Mazarin! thou hast no confidence in me! so much the worse for thee, for harm may come of it!”
Meanwhile the cardinal was rubbing his hands in great satisfaction.
“A hundred pistoles! a hundred pistoles! for a hundred pistoles I have discovered a secret for which Richelieu would have paid twenty thousand crowns; without reckoning the value of that diamond”-he cast a complacent look at the ring, which he had kept, instead of restoring to D’Artagnan-“which is worth, at least, ten thousand francs.”
He returned to his room, and after depositing the ring in a casket filled with brilliants of every sort, for the cardinal was a connoisseur in precious stones, he called to Bernouin to undress him, regardless of the noises of gun-fire that, though it was now near midnight, continued to resound through Paris.
In the meantime D’Artagnan took his way toward the Rue Tiquetonne, where he lived at the Hotel de la Chevrette.
We will explain in a few words how D’Artagnan had been led to choose that place of residence.
6. D’Artagnan in his Fortieth Year
Years have elapsed, many events have happened, alas! since, in our romance of “The Three Musketeers,” we took leave of D’Artagnan at No. 12 Rue des Fossoyeurs. D’Artagnan had not failed in his career, but circumstances had been adverse to him. So long as he was surrounded by his friends he retained his youth and the poetry of his character. He was one of those fine, ingenuous natures which assimilate themselves easily to the dispositions of others. Athos imparted to him his greatness of soul, Porthos his enthusiasm, Aramis his elegance. Had D’Artagnan continued his intimacy with these three men he would have become a superior character. Athos was the first to leave him, in order that he might retire to a little property he had inherited near Blois; Porthos, the second, to marry an attorney’s wife; and lastly, Aramis, the third, to take orders and become an abbe. From that day D’Artagnan felt lonely and powerless, without courage to pursue a career in which he could only distinguish himself on condition that each of his three companions should endow him with one of the gifts each had received from Heaven.
Notwithstanding his commission in the musketeers, D’Artagnan felt completely solitary. For a time the delightful remembrance of Madame Bonancieux left on his character a certain poetic tinge, perishable indeed; for like all other recollections in this world, these impressions were, by degrees, effaced. A garrison life is fatal even to the most aristocratic organization; and imperceptibly, D’Artagnan, always in the camp, always on horseback, always in garrison, became (I know not how in the present age one would express it) a typical trooper. His early refinement of character was not only not lost, it grew even greater than ever; but it was now applied to the little, instead of to the great things of life-to the martial condition of the soldier-comprised under the head of a good lodging, a rich table, a congenial hostess. These important advantages D’Artagnan found to his own taste in the Rue Tiquetonne at the sign of the Roe.
From the time D’Artagnan took quarters in that hotel, the mistress of the house, a pretty and fresh looking Flemish woman, twenty-five or twenty-six years old, had been singularly interested in him; and after certain love passages, much obstructed by an inconvenient husband to whom a dozen times D’Artagnan had made a pretence of passing a sword through his body, that husband had disappeared one fine morning, after furtively selling certain choice lots of wine, carrying away with him money and jewels. He was thought to be dead; his wife, especially, who cherished the pleasing idea that she was a widow, stoutly maintained that death had taken him. Therefore, after the connection had continued three years, carefully fostered by D’Artagnan, who found his bed and his mistress more agreeable every year, each doing credit to the other, the mistress conceived the extraordinary desire of becoming a wife and proposed to D’Artagnan that he should marry her.
“Ah, fie!” D’Artagnan replied. “Bigamy, my dear! Come now, you don’t really wish it?”
“But he is dead; I am sure of it.”
“He was a very contrary fellow and might come back on purpose to have us hanged.”
“All right; if he comes back you will kill him, you are so skillful and so brave.”
“Peste! my darling! another way of getting hanged.”
“So you refuse my request?”
“To be sure I do-furiously!”
The pretty landlady was desolate. She would have taken D’Artagnan not only as her husband, but as her God, he was so handsome and had so fierce a mustache.
Then along toward the fourth year came the expedition of Franche-Comte. D’Artagnan was assigned to it and made his preparations to depart. There were then great griefs, tears without end and solemn promises to remain faithful-all of course on the part of the hostess. D’Artagnan was too grand to promise anything; he purposed only to do all that he could to increase the glory of his name.
As to that, we know D’Artagnan’s courage; he exposed himself freely to danger and while charging at the head of his company he received a ball through the chest which laid him prostrate
