“Count,” said the duchess, “upon my word, you frighten me.”
“Alas!” continued Athos, “the poor abbé was not a St. Ambroise, and I repeat, Marie Michon was an adorable creature.”
“Monsieur!” cried the duchess, seizing Athos’s hands, “tell me this moment how you know all these details, or I will send to the convent of the Vieux Augustins for a monk to come and exorcise you.”
Athos laughed. “Nothing is easier, Madame. A cavalier, charged with an important mission, had come an hour before your arrival, seeking hospitality, at the very moment that the curé, summoned to the bedside of a dying person, left not only his house but the village, for the entire night. The priest having all confidence in his guest, who, besides, was a nobleman, had left to him his house, his supper and his chamber. And therefore Marie came seeking hospitality from the guest of the good abbé and not from the good abbé himself.”
“And that cavalier, that guest, that nobleman who arrived before she came?”
“It was I, the Comte de la Fère,” said Athos, rising and bowing respectfully to the Duchess de Chevreuse.
The duchess remained a moment stupefied; then, suddenly bursting into laughter:
“Ah! upon my word,” said she, “it is very droll, and that mad Marie Michon fared better than she expected. Sit down, dear count, and go on with your story.”
“At this point I have to accuse myself of a fault, Madame. I have told you that I was traveling on an important mission. At daybreak I left the chamber without noise, leaving my charming companion asleep. In the front room the follower was also still asleep, her head leaning back on the chair, in all respects worthy of her mistress. Her pretty face arrested my attention; I approached and recognized that little Kitty whom our friend Aramis had placed with her. In that way I discovered that the charming traveler was—”
“Marie Michon!” said Madame de Chevreuse, hastily.
“Marie Michon,” continued Athos. “Then I went out of the house; I proceeded to the stable and found my horse saddled and my lackey ready. We set forth on our journey.”
“And have you never revisited that village?” eagerly asked Madame de Chevreuse.
“A year after, Madame.”
“Well?”
“I wanted to see the good curé again. I found him much preoccupied with an event that he could not at all comprehend. A week before he had received, in a cradle, a beautiful little boy three months old, with a purse filled with gold and a note containing these simple words: ’11 October, 1633.’ ”
“It was the date of that strange adventure,” interrupted Madame de Chevreuse.
“Yes, but he couldn’t understand what it meant, for he had spent that night with a dying person and Marie Michon had left his house before his return.”
“You must know, Monsieur, that Marie Michon, when she returned to France in 1643, immediately sought for information about that child; as a fugitive she could not take care of it, but on her return she wished to have it near her.”
“And what said the abbé?” asked Athos.
“That a nobleman whom he did not know had wished to take charge of it, had answered for its future, and had taken it away.”
“That was true.”
“Ah! I see! That nobleman was you; it was his father!”
“Hush! do not speak so loud, Madame; he is there.”
“He is there! my son! the son of Marie Michon! But I must see him instantly.”
“Take care, Madame,” said Athos, “for he knows neither his father nor his mother.”
“You have kept the secret! you have brought him to see me, thinking to make me happy. Oh, thanks! sir, thanks!” cried Madame de Chevreuse, seizing his hand and trying to put it to her lips; “you have a noble heart.”
“I bring him to you, Madame,” said Athos, withdrawing his hand, “hoping that in your turn you will do something for him; till now I have watched over his education and I have made him, I hope, an accomplished gentleman; but I am now obliged to return to the dangerous and wandering life of party faction. Tomorrow I plunge into an adventurous affair in which I may be killed. Then it will devolve on you to push him on in that world where he is called on to occupy a place.”
“Rest assured,” cried the duchess, “I shall do what I can. I have but little influence now, but all that I have shall most assuredly be his. As to his title and fortune—”
“As to that, Madame, I have made over to him the estate of Bragelonne, my inheritance, which will give him ten thousand francs a year and the title of vicomte.”
“Upon my soul, Monsieur,” said the duchess, “you are a true nobleman! But I am eager to see our young vicomte. Where is he?”
“There, in the salon. I will have him come in, if you really wish it.”
Athos moved toward the door; the duchess held him back.
“Is he handsome?” she asked.
Athos smiled.
“He resembles his mother.”
So he opened the door and beckoned the young man in.
The duchess could not restrain a cry of joy on seeing so handsome a young cavalier, so far surpassing all that her maternal pride had been able to conceive.
“Vicomte, come here,” said Athos; “the duchess permits you to kiss her hand.”
The youth approached with his charming smile and his head bare, and kneeling down, kissed the hand of the Duchess de Chevreuse.
“Sir,” he said, turning to Athos, “was it not in compassion to my timidity that you told me that this lady was the Duchess de Chevreuse, and is she not the queen?”
“No, vicomte,” said Madame de Chevreuse, taking his hand and making him sit near her, while she looked at him with eyes sparkling with pleasure; “no, unhappily, I am not the queen. If I were I should do for you at once the most that you deserve. But let us see; whatever I may be,” she added, hardly restraining herself from kissing that
