THE THREE MUSKETEERS - Complete Series: The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, The Vicomte of Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, Louise da la Valliere & The Man in the Iron Mask. Alexandre Dumas
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for ever since you were deputed by me to arrest the Duc de Beaufort, this officer and I have been on bad terms. He laid claim to that honor as captain of the royal guards.”
“I am aware of that, and I have told him a hundred times that he was wrong. The king could not give that order, since at that time he was hardly four years old.”
“Yes, but I could give him the order—I, Guitant—and I preferred to give it to you.”
Guitant, without reply, rode forward and desired the sentinel to call Monsieur de Villequier.
“Ah! so you are here!” cried the officer, in the tone of ill-humor habitual to him; “what the devil are you doing here?”
“I wish to know—can you tell me, pray—is anything fresh occurring in this part of the town?”
“What do you mean? People cry out, ‘Long live the king! down with Mazarin!’ That’s nothing new; no, we’ve been used to those acclamations for some time.”
“And you sing chorus,” replied Guitant, laughing.
“Faith, I’ve half a mind to do it. In my opinion the people are right; and cheerfully would I give up five years of my pay—which I am never paid, by the way—to make the king five years older.”
“Really! And pray what would come to pass, supposing the king were five years older than he is?”
“As soon as ever the king comes of age he will issue his commands himself, and ‘tis far pleasanter to obey the grandson of Henry IV. than the son of Peter Mazarin. ‘Sdeath! I would die willingly for the king, but supposing I happened to be killed on account of Mazarin, as your nephew came near being to-day, there could be nothing in Paradise, however well placed I might be there, that could console me for it.”
“Well, well, Monsieur de Villequier,” Mazarin interposed, “I shall make it my care the king hears of your loyalty. Come, gentlemen,” addressing the troop, “let us return.”
“Stop,” exclaimed Villequier, “so Mazarin was here! so much the better. I have been waiting for a long time to tell him what I think of him. I am obliged to you Guitant, although your intention was perhaps not very favorable to me, for such an opportunity.”
He turned away and went off to his post, whistling a tune then popular among the party called the “Fronde,” whilst Mazarin returned, in a pensive mood, toward the Palais Royal. All that he had heard from these three different men, Comminges, Guitant and Villequier, confirmed him in his conviction that in case of serious tumults there would be no one on his side except the queen; and then Anne of Austria had so often deserted her friends that her support seemed most precarious. During the whole of this nocturnal ride, during the whole time that he was endeavoring to understand the various characters of Comminges, Guitant and Villequier, Mazarin was, in truth, studying more especially one man. This man, who had remained immovable as bronze when menaced by the mob—not a muscle of whose face was stirred, either at Mazarin’s witticisms or by the jests of the multitude—seemed to the cardinal a peculiar being, who, having participated in past events similar to those now occurring, was calculated to cope with those now on the eve of taking place.
The name of D’Artagnan was not altogether new to Mazarin, who, although he did not arrive in France before the year 1634 or 1635, that is to say, about eight or nine years after the events which we have related in a preceding narrative, fancied he had heard it pronounced as that of one who was said to be a model of courage, address and loyalty.
Possessed by this idea, the cardinal resolved to know all about D’Artagnan immediately; of course he could not inquire from D’Artagnan himself who he was and what had been his career; he remarked, however, in the course of conversation that the lieutenant of musketeers spoke with a Gascon accent. Now the Italians and the Gascons are too much alike and know each other too well ever to trust what any one of them may say of himself; so in reaching the walls which surrounded the Palais Royal, the cardinal knocked at a little door, and after thanking D’Artagnan and requesting him to wait in the court of the Palais Royal, he made a sign to Guitant to follow him.
They both dismounted, consigned their horses to the lackey who had opened the door, and disappeared in the garden.
“My dear friend,” said the cardinal, leaning, as they walked through the garden, on his friend’s arm, “you told me just now that you had been twenty years in the queen’s service.”
“Yes, it’s true. I have,” returned Guitant.
“Now, my dear Guitant, I have often remarked that in addition to your courage, which is indisputable, and your fidelity, which is invincible, you possess an admirable memory.”
“You have found that out, have you, my lord? Deuce take it—all the worse for me!”
“How?”
“There is no doubt but that one of the chief accomplishments of a courtier is to know when to forget.”
“But you, Guitant, are not a courtier. You are a brave soldier, one of the few remaining veterans of the days of Henry IV. Alas! how few to-day exist!”
“Plague on’t, my lord, have you brought me here to get my horoscope out of me?”
“No; I only brought you here to ask you,” returned Mazarin, smiling, “if you have taken any particular notice of our lieutenant of musketeers?”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan? I have had no occasion to notice him particularly; he’s an old acquaintance. He’s a Gascon. De Treville knows him and esteems him very highly, and De Treville, as you know, is one of the queen’s greatest friends. As a soldier the man ranks well; he did his whole duty and even more, at the siege of Rochelle—as at Suze and Perpignan.”
“But you know, Guitant, we poor ministers often want men with other qualities besides courage; we want men of talent. Pray, was not Monsieur d’Artagnan, in the time of the cardinal, mixed up in some intrigue from which he came out, according to report, quite cleverly?”
“My lord, as to the report you allude to”—Guitant perceived that the cardinal wished to make him speak out—“I know nothing but what the public knows. I never meddle in intrigues, and if I occasionally become a confidant of the intrigues of others I am sure your eminence will approve of my keeping them secret.”
Mazarin shook his head.
“Ah!” he said; “some ministers are fortunate and find out all that they wish to know.”
“My lord,” replied Guitant, “such ministers do not weigh men in the same balance; they get their information on war from warriors; on intrigues, from intriguers. Consult some politician of the period of which you speak, and if you pay well for it you will certainly get to know all you want.”
“Eh, pardieu!” said Mazarin, with a grimace which he always made when spoken to about money. “They will be paid, if there is no way of getting out of it.”
“Does my lord seriously wish me to name any one who was mixed up in the cabals of that day?”
“By Bacchus!” rejoined Mazarin, impatiently, “it’s about an hour since I asked you for that very thing, wooden-head that you are.”
“There is one man for whom I can answer, if he will speak out.”
“That’s my concern; I will make him speak.”
“Ah, my lord, ‘tis not easy to make people say what they don’t wish to let out.”
“Pooh! with patience one must succeed. Well, this man. Who is he?”
“The Comte de Rochefort.”
“The Comte de Rochefort!”
“Unfortunately he has disappeared these four or five years and I don’t know where he is.”
“I know, Guitant,” said Mazarin.
“Well, then, how is it that your eminence complained just