Three Musketeers (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 17

  Then those who dwelt in Bonacieux’s unfortunate house, together with the nearest neighbors, heard loud cries, stamping of feet, clashing of swords, and breaking of furniture. A moment after, those who, surprised by this tumult, had gone to their windows to learn the cause of it, saw the door open, and four men, clothed in black, not come out of it, but fly, like so many frightened crows, leaving on the ground and on the corners of the furniture, feathers from their wings; that is to say, patches of their clothes and fragments of their cloaks.

  D‘Artagnan was conqueror—without much effort, it must be confessed, for only one of the officers was armed, and even he defended himself for form’s sake. It is true that the three others had endeavored to knock the young man down with chairs, stools, and crockery; but two or three scratches made by the Gascon’s blade terrified them. Ten minutes sufficed for their defeat, and D’Artagnan remained master of the field of battle.

  The neighbors who had opened their windows, with the coolness peculiar to the inhabitants of Paris in these times of perpetual riots and disturbances, closed them again as soon as they saw the four men in black flee—their instinct telling them that for the time all was over. Besides, it began to grow late, and then, as today, people went to bed early in the quarter of the Luxembourg.

  On being left alone with Mme. Bonacieux, D‘Artagnan turned toward her; the poor woman reclined where she had been left, half-fainting upon an armchair. D’Artagnan examined her with a rapid glance.

  She was a charming woman of twenty-five or twenty-six years, with dark hair, blue eyes, and a nose slightly turned up, admirable teeth, and a complexion marbled with rose and opal. There, however, ended the signs which might have confounded her with a lady of rank. The hands were white, but without delicacy; the feet did not bespeak the woman of quality. Happily, D’Artagnan was not yet acquainted with such niceties.

  While D’Artagnan was examining Mme. Bonacieux, and was, as we have said, close to her, he saw on the ground a fine cambric handkerchief, which he picked up, as was his habit, and at the corner of which he recognized the same cipher he had seen on the handkerchief which had nearly caused him and Aramis to cut each other’s throat.

  From that time, D’Artagnan had been cautious with respect to handkerchiefs with arms on them, and he therefore placed in the pocket of Mme. Bonacieux the one he had just picked up.

  At that moment Mme. Bonacieux recovered her senses. She opened her eyes, looked around her with terror, saw that the apartment was empty and that she was alone with her liberator. She extended her hands to him with a smile. Mme. Bonacieux had the sweetest smile in the world.

  “Ah, monsieur! said she, ”you have saved me; permit me to thank you.”

  “Madame,” said D’Artagnan, “I have only done what every gentleman would have done in my place; you owe me no thanks.”

  “Oh, yes, monsieur, oh, yes; and I hope to prove to you that you have not served an ingrate. But what could these men, whom I at first took for robbers, want with me, and why is Monsieur Bonacieux not here?”

  Madame, those men were much more dangerous than any robbers could have been, for they are the agents of the cardinal; and as to your husband, Monsieur Bonacieux, he is not here because he was yesterday evening conducted to the Bastille.”

  “My husband in the Bastille!” cried Mme. Bonacieux. “Oh, my God! what has he done? Poor dear man, he is innocence itself!”

  And something like a faint smile lighted the still-terrified features of the young woman.

  “What has he done, madame?” said D’Artagnan. “I believe that his only crime is to have at the same time the good fortune and the misfortune to be your husband.”

  “But, monsieur, you know then—”

  “I know that you have been abducted, madame.”

  “And by whom? Do you know him? Oh, if you know him, tell me!”

  “By a man of from forty to forty-five years, with black hair, a dark complexion, and a scar on his left temple.”

  “That is he, that is he; but his name?”

  “Ah, his name? I do not know that.”

  “And did my husband know I had been carried off?”

  “He was informed of it by a letter, written to him by the abductor himself.”

  “And does he suspect,” said Mme. Bonacieux, with some embarrassment, “the cause of this event?”

  “He attributed it, I believe, to a political cause.”

  “I doubted from the first; and now I think entirely as he does. Then my dear Monsieur Bonacieux has not suspected me a single instant?”

  “So far from it, madame, he was too proud of your prudence, and above all, of your love.”

  A second smile, almost imperceptible, stole over the rosy lips of the pretty young woman.

  “But,” continued D’Artagnan, “how did you escape?”

  “I took advantage of a moment when they left me alone; and as I had known since morning the reason of my abduction, with the help of the sheets I let myself down from the window. Then, as I believed my husband would be at home, I hastened hither.”

  “To place yourself under his protection?”

  “Oh, no, poor dear man! I knew very well that he was incapable of defending me; but as he could serve us in other ways, I wished to inform him.”

  “Of what?”

  “Oh, that is not my secret; I must not, therefore, tell you.”

  “Besides,” said D’Artagnan, “pardon me, madame, if, guardsman as I am, I remind you of prudence—besides, I believe we are not here in a very proper place for imparting confidences. The men I have put to flight will return reinforced; if they find us here, we are lost. I have sent for three of my friends, but who knows whether they were at home?”

  “Yes, yes! you are right,” cried the affrighted Mme. Bonacieux; “let us fly! let us save ourselves.”

  At these words she passed her arm under that of D’Artagnan, and urged him forward eagerly.

  “But whither shall we fly—whither escape?”

  “Let us first withdraw from this house; afterward we shall see.”

  The young woman and the young man, without taking the trouble to shut the door after them, descended the Rue des Fossoyeurs rapidly, turned into the Rue des Fossés-Monsieur-le-Prince, and did not stop till they came to the Place St. Sulpice.

  “And now what are we to do, and where do you wish me to conduct you?” asked D’Artagnan.

  “I am quite at a loss how to answer you, I admit,” said Mme. Bonacieux. “My intention was to inform Monsieur Laporte, through my husband, in order that Monsieur Laporte might tell us precisely what has taken place at the Louvre in the last three days, and whether there is any danger in presenting myself there.”

  “But I,” said D’Artagnan, “can go and inform Monsieur Laporte.”

  “No doubt you could, only there is one misfortune, and that is that Monsieur Bonacieux is known at the Louvre, and would be allowed to pass; whereas you are not known there, and the gate would be closed against you.”

  “Ah, bah!” said D’Artagnan; “you have at some wicket of the Louvre a concierge who is devoted to you, and who, thanks to a password, would—”

  Mme. Bonacieux looked earnestly at the young man.

  “And if I give you this password,” said she, “would you forget it as soon as you had used it?”

  “By my honor, by the faith of a gentleman!” said D’Artagnan, with an accent so truthful that no one could mistake it.

  “Then I believe you. You appear to be a brave young man; besides, your fortune may perhaps be the result of your devotedness.”

  “I will do, without a promise and voluntarily, all that I can do to serve the king and be agreeable to the queen. Dispose of me, then, as a friend.”

  “But I—where shall I go meanwhile?”

  “Is there nobody from whose house Monsieur Laporte can come and fetch you?”

  “No, I can trust nobody.”

  “Stop,” said D’Artagnan; “we are near Athos’s door. Yes,
here it is.”

  “Who is this Athos?”

  “One of my friends.”

  “But if he should be at home, and see me?”

  “He is not at home, and I will carry away the key, after having placed you in his apartment.”

  “But if he should return?”

  “Oh, he won’t return; and if he should, he will be told that I have brought a woman with me, and that woman is in his apartment.”

  “But that will compromise me sadly, you know.”

  “Of what consequence? Nobody knows you. Besides, we are in a situation to overlook ceremony.”

  “Come, then, let us go to your friend’s house. Where does he live?”

  “Rue Férou, two steps from here.”

  “Let us go!”

  Both resumed their way. As D’Artagnan had foreseen, Athos was not within. He took the key, which was customarily given him as one of the family, ascended the stairs, and introduced Mme. Bonacieux into the little apartment of which we have given a description.

  “You are at home,” said he. “Remain here, fasten the door inside, and open it to nobody unless you hear three taps, like this;” and he tapped thrice—two taps close together and pretty hard, the other after an interval, and lighter.

  “That is well,” said Mme. Bonacieux. “Now, in my turn, let me give you my instructions.”

  “I am all attention.”

  “Present yourself at the wicket of the Louvre, on the side of the Rue de l’Echelle, and ask for Germain.”

  “Well, and then?”

  “He will ask you what you want, and you will answer by these two words, ‘Tours’ and ‘Bruxelles.’ He will at once put himself at your orders.”

  “And what shall I command him?”

  “To go and fetch Monsieur Laporte, the queen’s valet de chambre.”

  “And when he shall have informed him, and Monsieur Laporte is come?”

  “You will send him to me.”

  “That is well; but where and how shall I see you again?”

  “Do you much wish to see me again?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Well, let that care be mine, and be at ease.”

  “I depend upon your word.”

  “You may.”

  D‘Artagnan bowed to Mme. Bonacieux, darting at her the most loving glance that he could possibly concentrate upon her charming little person; and while he descended the stairs, he heard the door closed and double-locked. In two bounds he was at the Louvre; as he entered the wicket of L’Echelle, ten o’clock struck. All the events we have described had taken place within a half hour.

  Everything fell out as Mme. Bonacieux prophesied. On hearing the password, Germain bowed. In a few minutes Laporte was at the lodge; in two words D’Artagnan informed him where Mme. Bonacieux was. Laporte assured himself, by having it twice repeated, of the accurate address, and set off at a run. Hardly, however, had he taken ten steps before he returned.

  “Young man,” said he to D’Artagnan, “a suggestion.”

  “What?”

  “You may get into trouble by what has taken place.”

  “You believe so?”

  “Yes. Have you any friend whose clock is too slow?”

  “Well?”

  “Go and call upon him, in order that he may give evidence of your having been with him at half past nine. In a court of justice that is called an alibi.”

  D‘Artagnan found his advice prudent. He took to his heels, and was soon at M. de Tréville’s; but instead of going into the saloon with the rest of the crowd, he asked to be introduced to M. de Tréville’s office. As D’Artagnan so constantly frequented the hotel, no difficulty was made in complying with his request, and a servant went to inform M. de Tréville that his young compatriot, having something important to communicate, solicited a private audience. Five minutes after, M. de Tréville was asking D’Artagnan what he could do to serve him, and what caused his visit at so late an hour.

  “Pardon me, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, who had profited by the moment he had been left alone to put back M. de Tréville’s clock three-quarters of an hour, “but I thought, as it was yet only twenty-five minutes past nine, it was not too late to wait upon you.”

  “Twenty-five minutes past nine!” cried M. de Tréville, looking at the clock; “why, that’s impossible!”

  “Look, rather, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, “the clock shows it.”

  “That’s true,” said M. de Tréville; “I believed it later. But what can I do for you?”

  Then D’Artagnan told M. de Tréville a long history about the queen. He expressed to him the fears he entertained with respect to her Majesty; he related to him what he had heard of the projects of the cardinal with regard to Buckingham, and all with a tranquillity and candor of which M. de Tréville was the more the dupe, from having himself, as we have said, observed something fresh between the cardinal, the king, and the queen.

  As ten o‘clock was striking, D’Artagnan left M. de Tréville, who thanked him for his information, recommended him to have the service of the king and queen always at heart, and returned to the saloon; but at the foot of the stairs, D’Artagnan remembered he had forgotten his cane. He consequently sprang up again, re-entered the office, with a turn of his finger set the clock right again, that it might not be perceived the next day that it had been put wrong, and certain from that time that he had a witness to prove his alibi, he ran downstairs and soon found himself in the street.

  II

  IN WHICH THE PLOT THICKENS

  His visit to M. de Tréville being paid, the pensive D‘Artagnan took the longest way homeward. On what was D’Artagnan thinking, that he strayed thus from his path, gazing at the stars of heaven, and sometimes sighing, sometimes smiling?

  He was thinking of Mme. Bonacieux. For an apprentice Musketeer the young woman was almost an ideal of love. Pretty, mysterious, initiated in almost all the secrets of the court, which reflected such a charming gravity over her pleasing features, it might be surmised that she was not wholly unmoved; and this is an irresistible charm to novices in love. Moreover, D’Artagnan had delivered her from the hands of the demons who wished to search and ill treat her; and this important service had established between them one of those sentiments of gratitude which so easily assume a more tender character.

  D’Artagnan already fancied himself, so rapid is the flight of our dreams upon the wings of imagination, accosted by a messenger from the young woman, who brought him some billet appointing a meeting, a gold chain, or a diamond. We have observed that young cavaliers received presents from their king without shame. Let us add that in these times of lax morality they had no more delicacy with respect to their mistresses; and that the latter almost always left them valuable and durable remembrances, as if they essayed to conquer the fragility of their sentiments by the solidity of their gifts.

  Without a blush, men then made their way in the world by the means of women blushing. Such as were only beautiful gave their beauty, whence, without doubt, comes the proverb, “The most beautiful girl in the world can only give what she has.” Such as were rich gave in addition a part of their money; and a vast number of heroes of that gallant period may be cited who would neither have won their spurs in the first place, nor their battles afterward, without the purse, more or less furnished, which their mistress fastened to the saddle bow.

  D‘Artagnan owned nothing. Provincial diffidence, that slight varnish, the ephemeral flower, that down of the peach, had evaporated to the winds through the little orthodox counsels which the three Musketeers gave their friend. D’Artagnan, following the strange custom of the times, considered himself at Paris as on a campaign, neither more nor less than if he had been in Flanders—Spain yonder, woman here. In each there was an enemy to contend with, and contributions to be levied.

  But, we must say, at the present moment D’Artagnan was ruled by a feeling much more noble and disinterested. The mercer had said that he was rich; the young man might easi
ly guess that with so weak a man as M. Bonacieux it must be the wife who kept the purse key. But all this had no influence upon the feeling produced by the sight of Mme. Bonacieux; and interest was almost foreign to this commencement of love, which had been the consequence of it. We say almost, for the idea that a young, handsome, kind, and witty woman is at the same time rich, takes nothing from the beginning of love, but on the contrary strengthens it.

  There are in affluence a crowd of aristocratic cares and caprices which are highly becoming to beauty. A fine and white stocking, a silken robe, a lace kerchief, a pretty slipper on the foot, a tasty ribbon on the head, do not make an ugly woman pretty, but they make a pretty woman beautiful, without reckoning the hands, which gain by all this; the hands, among women particularly, to be beautiful must be idle.

  Then D‘Artagnan, as the reader, from whom we have not concealed the state of his fortune, very well knows—D’Artagnan was not a millionaire; he hoped to become one someday, but the time which in his own mind he fixed upon for this happy change was still far distant. In the meanwhile, how disheartening to see the woman one loves long for those thousands of nothings which constitute a woman’s happiness, and be unable to give her those thousands of nothings. At least, when the woman is rich and the lover is not, that which he cannot offer she offers to herself; and although it is generally with her husband’s money that she procures herself this indulgence, the gratitude for it seldom reverts to him.

  Then D‘Artagnan, disposed to become the most tender of lovers, was at the same time a very devoted friend. In the midst of his amorous projects for the mercer’s wife, he did not forget his friends. The pretty Mme. Bonacieux was just the woman to walk with in the Plaine St. Denis or in the fair of St. Germain, in company with Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, to whom D’Artagnan would be so proud to display such a conquest. Then, when people walk for any length of time they become hungry; D‘Artagnan had often remarked this. Then one could enjoy charming little dinners, where one touches on one side the hand of a friend, and on the other the foot of a mistress. Besides, on pressing occasions, in extreme difficulties, D’Artagnan would become the preserver of his friends.