Athos, standing, looked at them both with indescribable pleasure.
“Madame,” answered the youth in his sweet voice, “it seems to me that there is only one career for a gentleman—that of the army. I have been brought up by Monsieur le Comte with the intention, I believe, of making me a soldier; and he gave me reason to hope that at Paris he would present me to someone who would recommend me to the favor of the prince.”
“Yes, I understand it well. Personally, I am on bad terms with him, on account of the quarrels between Madame de Montbazon, my mother-in-law, and Madame de Longueville. But the Prince de Marsillac! Yes, indeed, that’s the right thing. The Prince de Marsillac—my old friend—will recommend our young friend to Madame de Longueville, who will give him a letter to her brother, the prince, who loves her too tenderly not to do what she wishes immediately.”
“Well, that will do charmingly,” said the count; “but may I beg that the greatest haste may be made, for I have reasons for wishing the vicomte not to sleep longer than tomorrow night in Paris!”
“Do you wish it known that you are interested about him, Monsieur le Comte?”
“Better for him in future that he should be supposed never to have seen me.”
“Oh, sir!” cried Raoul.
“You know, Bragelonne,” said Athos, “I never speak without reflection.”
“Well, comte, I am going instantly,” interrupted the duchess, “to send for the Prince de Marsillac, who is happily, in Paris just now. What are you going to do this evening?”
“We intend to visit the Abbé Scarron, for whom I have a letter of introduction and at whose house I expect to meet some of my friends.”
“ ’Tis well; I will go there also, for a few minutes,” said the duchess; “do not quit his salon until you have seen me.”
Athos bowed and prepared to leave.
“Well, Monsieur le Comte,” said the duchess, smiling, “does one leave so solemnly his old friends?”
“Ah,” murmured Athos, kissing her hand, “had I only sooner known that Marie Michon was so charming a creature!” And he withdrew, sighing.
XXI
The Abbé Scarron
There was once in the Rue des Tournelles a house known by all the sedan chairmen and footmen of Paris, and yet, nevertheless, this house was neither that of a great lord nor of a rich man. There was neither dining, nor playing at cards, nor dancing in that house. Nevertheless, it was the rendezvous of the great world and all Paris went there. It was the abode of the little Abbé Scarron.
In the home of the witty abbé dwelt incessant laughter; there all the items of the day had their source and were so quickly transformed, misrepresented, metamorphosed, some into epigrams, some into falsehoods, that everyone was anxious to pass an hour with little Scarron, listening to what he said, reporting it to others.
The diminutive Abbé Scarron, who, however, was an abbé only because he owned an abbey, and not because he was in orders, had formerly been one of the gayest prebendaries in the town of Mans, which he inhabited. On a day of the carnival he had taken a notion to provide an unusual entertainment for that good town, of which he was the life and soul. He had made his valet cover him with honey; then, opening a feather bed, he had rolled in it and had thus become the most grotesque fowl it is possible to imagine. He then began to visit his friends of both sexes, in that strange costume. At first he had been followed through astonishment, then with derisive shouts, then the porters had insulted him, then children had thrown stones at him, and finally he was obliged to run, to escape the missiles. As soon as he took to flight everyone pursued him, until, pressed on all sides, Scarron found no way of escaping his escort, except by throwing himself into the river; but the water was icy cold. Scarron was heated, the cold seized on him, and when he reached the farther bank he found himself crippled.
Every means had been employed in vain to restore the use of his limbs. He had been subjected to a severe disciplinary course of medicine: at length he sent away all his doctors, declaring that he preferred the disease to the treatment, and came to Paris, where the fame of his wit had preceded him. There he had a chair made on his own plan, and one day, visiting Anne of Austria in this chair, she asked him, charmed as she was with his wit, if he did not wish for a title.
“Yes, Your Majesty, there is a title which I covet much,” replied Scarron.
“And what is that?”
“That of being your invalid,” answered Scarron.
So he was called the queen’s invalid, with a pension of fifteen hundred francs.
From that lucky moment Scarron led a happy life, spending both income and principal. One day, however, an emissary of the cardinal’s gave him to understand that he was wrong in receiving the coadjutor so often.
“And why?” asked Scarron; “is he not a man of good birth?”
“Certainly.”
“Agreeable?”
“Undeniably.”
“Witty?”
“He has, unfortunately, too much wit.”
“Well, then, why do you wish me to give up seeing such a man?”
“Because he is an enemy.”
“Of whom?”
“Of the cardinal.”
“What?” answered Scarron, “I continue to receive Monsieur Gilles Despreaux, who thinks ill of me, and you wish me to give up seeing the coadjutor, because he thinks ill of another man. Impossible!”
The conversation had rested there and Scarron, through sheer obstinacy, had seen Monsieur de Gondy only the more frequently.
Now, the very morning of which we speak was that of his quarter-day payment, and Scarron, as usual, had sent his servant to get his money at the pension-office, but the man had returned and said that the government had no more money to give Monsieur Scarron.
It was on Thursday, the abbé’s reception day; people went there in crowds. The cardinal’s refusal
