“Certainly.”
“Can it be you, Monsieur Grimaud?” asked Parry.
“Yes, it is I,” replied the tall old man, drawing himself up, but without losing his respectful demeanor.
“Sire,” then said Parry, “I was not deceived. This good man is the servant of the Comte de la Fère, and the Comte de la Fère, if you remember, is the worthy gentleman of whom I have so often spoken to Your Majesty that the remembrance of him must remain, not only in your mind, but in your heart.”
“He who assisted my father at his last moments?” asked Charles, evidently affected at the remembrance.
“The same, sire.”
“Alas!” said Charles; and then addressing Grimaud, whose penetrating and intelligent eyes seemed to search and divine his thoughts.—“My friend,” said he, “does your master, Monsieur le Comte de la Fère, live in this neighborhood?”
“There,” replied Grimaud, pointing with his outstretched arm to the white-and-red house behind the gate.
“And is Monsieur le Comte de la Fère at home at present?”
“At the back, under the chestnut trees.”
“Parry,” said the king, “I will not miss this opportunity, so precious for me, to thank the gentleman to whom our house is indebted for such a noble example of devotedness and generosity. Hold my horse, my friend, if you please.” And, throwing the bridle to Grimaud, the king entered the abode of Athos, quite alone, as one equal enters the dwelling of another. Charles had been informed by the concise explanation of Grimaud—“At the back, under the chestnut trees”; he left, therefore, the house on the left, and went straight down the path indicated. The thing was easy; the tops of those noble trees, already covered with leaves and flowers, rose above all the rest.
On arriving under the lozenges, by turns luminous and dark, which checkered the ground of this path according as the trees were more or less in leaf, the young prince perceived a gentleman walking with his arms behind him, apparently plunged in a deep meditation. Without doubt he had often had this gentleman described to him, for, without hesitating, Charles II walked straight up to him. At the sound of his footsteps, the Comte de la Fère raised his head, and seeing an unknown man of noble and elegant carriage coming towards him, he raised his hat and waited. At some paces from him, Charles II likewise took off his hat. Then, as if in reply to the comte’s mute interrogation—
“Monsieur le Comte,” said he, “I come to discharge a debt towards you. I have, for a long time, had the expression of a profound gratitude to bring you. I am Charles II, son of Charles Stuart, who reigned in England, and died on the scaffold.”
On hearing this illustrious name, Athos felt a kind of shudder creep through his veins, but at the sight of the young prince standing uncovered before him, and stretching out his hand towards him, two tears, for an instant, dimmed his brilliant eyes. He bent respectfully, but the prince took him by the hand.
“See how unfortunate I am, my lord count; it is only due to chance that I have met with you. Alas! I ought to have people around me whom I love and honor, whereas I am reduced to preserve their services in my heart, and their names in my memory: so that if your servant had not recognized mine, I should have passed by your door as by that of a stranger.”
“It is but too true,” said Athos, replying with his voice to the first part of the king’s speech, and with a bow to the second; “it is but too true, indeed, that Your Majesty has seen many evil days.”
“And the worst, alas!” replied Charles, “are perhaps still to come.”
“Sire, let us hope.”
“Count, count,” continued Charles, shaking his head, “I entertained hope till last night, and that of a good Christian, I swear.”
Athos looked at the king as if to interrogate him.
“Oh, the history is soon related,” said Charles. “Proscribed, despoiled, disdained, I resolved, in spite of all my repugnance, to tempt fortune one last time. Is it not written above, that, for our family, all good fortune and all bad fortune shall eternally come from France? You know something of that, Monsieur—you, who are one of the Frenchmen whom my unfortunate father found at the foot of his scaffold, on the day of his death, after having found them at his right hand on the day of battle.”
“Sire,” said Athos modestly, “I was not alone. My companions and I did, under the circumstances, our duty as gentlemen, and that was all. Your Majesty was about to do me the honor to relate—”
“That is true, I had the protection—pardon my hesitation, count, but, for a Stuart, you, who understand everything, you will comprehend that the word is hard to pronounce;—I had, I say, the protection of my cousin the stadtholder of Holland; but without the intervention, or at least without the authorization of France, the stadtholder would not take the initiative. I came, then, to ask this authorization of the king of France, who has refused me.”
“The king has refused you, sire!”
“Oh, not he; all justice must be rendered to my younger brother Louis; but Monsieur de Mazarin—”
Athos bit his lips.
“You perhaps think I should have expected this refusal?” said the king, who had noticed the movement.
“That was, in truth, my thought, sire,” replied Athos, respectfully; “I know that Italian of old.”
“Then I determined to come to the test, and know at once the last word of my destiny. I told my brother Louis, that, not to compromise either France or Holland, I would tempt fortune myself in person, as I had already done, with two hundred gentlemen, if he would give them to me; and a million, if
