“Simply say: ‘Mazarin was a pitiful wretch.’ ”
“Perhaps he is dead.”
“More the reason—I say was; if I did not hope that he was dead, I would entreat you to say: ‘Mazarin is a pitiful wretch.’ Come, say so, say so, for love of me.”
“Well, I will.”
“Say it!”
“Mazarin was a pitiful wretch,” said Raoul, smiling at the musketeer, who roared with laughter, as in his best days.
“A moment,” said the latter; “you have spoken my first proposition, here is the conclusion of it—repeat, Raoul, repeat: ‘But I regret Mazarin.’ ”
“Chevalier!”
“You will not say it? Well, then, I will say it twice for you.”
“But you would regret Mazarin?”
And they were still laughing and discussing this profession of principles, when one of the shop-boys entered. “A letter, Monsieur,” said he, “for M. d’Artagnan.”
“Thank you; give it me,” cried the musketeer.
“The handwriting of Monsieur le Comte,” said Raoul.
“Yes, yes.” And d’Artagnan broke the seal.
“Dear friend,” said Athos, “a person has just been here to beg me to seek for you, on the part of the king.”
“Seek me!” said d’Artagnan, letting the paper fall upon the table. Raoul picked it up, and continued to read aloud:—
“Make haste. His Majesty is very anxious to speak to you, and expects you at the Louvre.”
“Expects me?” again repeated the musketeer.
“Hé, hé, hé!” laughed Raoul.
“Oh, oh!” replied d’Artagnan. “What the devil can this mean?”
53
The King
The first moment of surprise over, d’Artagnan reperused Athos’s note. “It is strange,” said he, “that the king should send for me.”
“Why so?” said Raoul; “do you not think, Monsieur, that the king must regret such a servant as you?”
“Oh, oh!” cried the officer, laughing with all his might; “you are poking fun at me, Master Raoul. If the king had regretted me, he would not have let me leave him. No, no; I see in it something better, or worse, if you like.”
“Worse! What can that be, Monsieur le Chevalier?”
“You are young, you are a boy, you are admirable. Oh, how I should like to be as you are! To be but twenty-four, with an unfortunate brow, under which the brain is void of everything but women, love, and good intentions. Oh, Raoul, as long as you have not received the smiles of kings, the confidence of queens; as long as you have not had two cardinals killed under you, the one a tiger, the other a fox; as long as you have not—But what is the good of all this trifling? We must part, Raoul.”
“How you say the word! What a serious face!”
“Eh! but the occasion is worthy of it. Listen to me. I have a very good recommendation to tender you.”
“I am all attention, Monsieur d’Artagnan.”
“You will go and inform your father of my departure.”
“Your departure?”
“Pardieu! You will tell him I am gone into England; and that I am living in my little country-house.”
“In England, you!—And the king’s orders?”
“You get more and more silly: do you imagine that I am going to the Louvre, to place myself at the disposal of that little crowned wolf-cub?”
“The king a wolf-cub? Why, Monsieur le Chevalier, you are mad!”
“On the contrary, I never was so sane. You do not know what he wants to do with me, this worthy son of Louis le Juste!—But, mordioux! that is policy. He wishes to ensconce me snugly in the Bastille—purely and simply, look you!”
“What for?” cried Raoul, terrified at what he heard.
“On account of what I told him one day at Blois. I was warm; he remembers it.”
“You told him what?”
“That he was mean, cowardly, and silly.”
“Good God!” cried Raoul, “is it possible that such words should have issued from your mouth?”
“Perhaps I don’t give the letter of my speech, but I give the sense of it.”
“But did not the king have you arrested immediately?”
“By whom? It was I who commanded the musketeers; he must have commanded me to convey myself to prison; I would never have consented: I would have resisted myself. And then I went into England—no more d’Artagnan. Now, the cardinal is dead, or nearly so, they learn that I am in Paris, and they lay their hands on me.”
“The cardinal was your protector?”
“The cardinal knew me; he knew certain particularities of me; I also knew some of his; we appreciated each other mutually. And then, on rendering his soul to the devil, he would recommend Anne of Austria to make me the inhabitant of a safe place. Go, then, and find your father, relate the fact to him—and adieu!”
“My dear Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Raoul, very much agitated, after having looked out the window, “you cannot even fly!”
“Why not?”
“Because there is below an officer of the Swiss guards waiting for you.”
“Well?”
“Well, he will arrest you.”
D’Artagnan broke into a Homeric laugh.
“Oh! I know very well that you will resist, that you will fight, even; I know very well that you will prove the conqueror; but that amounts to rebellion, and you are an officer yourself, knowing what discipline is.”
“Devil of a boy, how logical that is!” grumbled d’Artagnan.
“You approve of it, do you not?”
“Yes, instead of passing into the street, where that idiot is waiting for me, I will slip quietly out at the back. I have a horse in the stable, and a good one. I will ride him to death; my means permit me to do so, and by killing one horse after another, I shall arrive at Boulogne in eleven hours; I know the road. Only tell your father one thing.”
“What is that?”
“That is—that the thing he knows about is placed at Planchet’s house, except a fifth, and that—”
“But, my dear d’Artagnan, rest assured that if you fly, two things will be said of you.”
“What are they, my dear friend?”
“The first, that you have been afraid.”
“Ah! and who will dare to say that?”
“The king first.”
“Well! but he will tell the truth—I am afraid.”
“The second, that you knew yourself guilty.”
“Guilty of what?”
“Why, of the crimes they wish to impute to you.”
“That is true again. So,
