Good!
said Malicorne to himself, recognizing him at the first glance; there’s my friend, who is come to take possession of his apartment, that is to say, of my room.
And he called to Manicamp, who looked up and immediately recognized Malicorne.
“Ah! by Jove!” said the former, his countenance clearing up, “glad to see you, Malicorne. I have been wandering about Fontainebleau, looking for three things I cannot find: De Guiche, a room, and a stable.”
“Of M. de Guiche I cannot give you either good or bad news, for I have not seen him; but as far as concerns your room and a stable, that’s another matter, for they have been retained here for you.”
“Retained—and by whom?”
“By yourself, I presume.”
“By me?”
“Do you mean to say you did not take lodgings here?”
“By no means,” said Manicamp.
At this moment the landlord appeared on the threshold of the door.
“I want a room,” said Manicamp.
“Did you engage one, Monsieur?”
“No.”
“Then I have no rooms to let.”
“In that case, I have engaged a room,” said Manicamp.
“A room simply, or lodgings?”
“Anything you please.”
“By letter?” inquired the landlord.
Malicorne nodded affirmatively to Manicamp.
“Of course by letter,” said Manicamp. “Did you not receive a letter from me?”
“What was the date of the letter?” inquired the host, in whom Manicamp’s hesitation had aroused some suspicion.
Manicamp rubbed his ear, and looked up at Malicorne’s window; but Malicorne had left his window and was coming down the stairs to his friend’s assistance. At the very same moment, a traveler, wrapped in a large Spanish cloak, appeared at the porch, near enough to hear the conversation.
“I ask you what was the date of the letter you wrote to me to retain apartments here?” repeated the landlord, pressing the question.
“Last Wednesday was the date,” said the mysterious stranger, in a soft and polished tone of voice, touching the landlord on the shoulder.
Manicamp drew back, and it was now Malicorne’s turn, who appeared on the threshold, to scratch his ear. The landlord saluted the new arrival as a man who recognizes his true guest.
“Monsieur,” he said to him, with civility, “your apartment is ready for you, and the stables too, only—” He looked round him and inquired, “Your horses?”
“My horses may or may not arrive. That, however, matters but little to you, provided you are paid for what has been engaged.” The landlord bowed lower still.
“You have,” continued the unknown traveler, “kept for me in addition, the small room I asked for?”
“Oh!” said Malicorne, endeavoring to hide himself.
“Your friend has occupied it during the last week,” said the landlord, pointing to Malicorne, who was trying to make himself as small as possible. The traveler, drawing his cloak round him so as to cover the lower part of his face, cast a rapid glance at Malicorne, and said, “This gentleman is no friend of mine.”
The landlord started violently.
“I am not acquainted with this gentleman,” continued the traveler.
“What!” exclaimed the host, turning to Malicorne, “are you not this gentleman’s friend, then?”
“What does it matter whether I am or not, provided you are paid?” said Malicorne, parodying the stranger’s remark in a very majestic manner.
“It matters so far as this,” said the landlord, who began to perceive that one person had been taken for another, “that I beg you, Monsieur, to leave the rooms, which had been engaged beforehand, and by someone else instead of you.”
“Still,” said Malicorne, “this gentleman cannot require at the same time a room on the first floor and an apartment on the second. If this gentleman will take the room, I will take the apartment: if he prefers the apartment, I will be satisfied with the room.”
“I am exceedingly distressed, Monsieur,” said the traveler in his soft voice, “but I need both the room and the apartment.”
“At least, tell me for whom?” inquired Malicorne.
“The apartment I require for myself.”
“Very well; but the room?”
“Look,” said the traveler, pointing towards a sort of procession which was approaching.
Malicorne looked in the direction indicated, and observed borne upon a litter, the arrival of the Franciscan, whose installation in his apartment he had, with a few details of his own, related to Montalais, and whom he had so uselessly endeavored to convert to humbler views. The result of the arrival of the stranger, and of the sick Franciscan, was Malicorne’s expulsion, without any consideration for his feelings, from the inn, by the landlord and the peasants who had carried the Franciscan. The details have already been given of what followed this expulsion; of Manicamp’s conversation with Montalais; how Manicamp, with greater cleverness than Malicorne had shown, had succeeded in obtaining news of de Guiche, of the subsequent conversation of Montalais with Malicorne, and, finally, of the billets with which the Comte de Saint-Aignan had furnished Manicamp and Malicorne. It remains for us to inform our readers who was the traveler in the cloak—the principal tenant of the double apartment, of which Malicorne had only occupied a portion—and the Franciscan, quite as mysterious a personage, whose arrival, together with that of the stranger, unfortunately upset the two friends’ plans.
127
A Jesuit of the Eleventh Year
In the first place, in order not to weary the reader’s patience, we will hasten to answer the first question. The traveler with the cloak held over his face was Aramis, who, after he had left Fouquet, and taken from a portmanteau, which his servant had opened, a cavalier’s complete costume, quitted the château, and went to the hotel of the Beau Paon, where, by letters, seven or eight days previously, he had, as the landlord had stated, directed a room and an apartment to be retained for him. Immediately after Malicorne and Manicamp had been turned out, Aramis approached the Franciscan, and asked him whether he would prefer the apartment or the room. The Franciscan inquired where they were both situated. He was told that the room was on the first, and the apartment on the second floor.
“The room, then,” he said.
Aramis
