Author: Alexandre Dumas
Category: Adventure
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“Who?” asked the cardinal.
“The man who abducted my wife!”
The cardinal rang a second time. The officer reappeared. “Return this man to the custody of his guards. He’s to wait until I call for him.”
“No, Monseigneur, that’s not him!” cried Bonacieux. “I was deceived! It was another man who doesn’t resemble him at all! Monsieur here is a very respectable person!”
“Take that imbecile away!” said the cardinal.
The officer took Bonacieux by the arm and returned him to the antechamber, where his guards awaited him.
The new arrival gazed after Bonacieux impatiently until he was gone. When the door was firmly closed, he said, “They have seen each other.”
“Who?” asked His Eminence.
“She and he.”
“What? The queen and the duke?” said Richelieu.
“Yes.”
“And where was this?”
“At the Louvre.”
“You’re sure of this?”
“Perfectly sure.”
“Who told you of it?”
“Madame de Lannoy,54 who is devoted to Your Eminence, as you know.”
“Why didn’t she say so sooner?”
“By chance or by distrust, the queen had made Madame de Fargis55 sleep in her chamber, and she was under her eye all day.”
“Well, we’re beaten. Let us try to take our revenge.”
“I am yours, Monseigneur.”
“How did this happen?”
“At half past midnight, the queen was with her women, in her bedchamber, when someone came and brought her a handkerchief from her linen maid.”
“And then?”
“The queen immediately reacted with some strong emotion, becoming pale despite the rouge on her face.”
“And then? And then?”
“The queen rose, and in a strangely altered voice, said, ‘Mesdames, wait for me ten minutes, and I’ll return.’ Then she opened the door of her alcove and went out.”
“Why didn’t Madame de Lannoy come to inform you that instant?”
“Nothing was yet certain; besides, the queen had said, ‘Mesdames, wait for me,’ and she didn’t dare disobey the queen.”
“How long was the queen out of her chamber?”
“Three quarters of an hour.”
“Did none of her women accompany her?”
“Only Doña Estefania.”
“Did she return at all during this time?”
“Yes, once. She took a small rosewood coffer, with her cipher on it, then left immediately.”
“And when she returned later, did she have the coffer?”
“No.”
“Does Madame de Lannoy know what she kept in that coffer?”
“Yes: the twelve diamond studs that His Majesty gave to the queen.”
“And you say she returned without this coffer?”
“Yes.”
“Madame de Lannoy’s opinion, then, is that she gave them to Buckingham?”
“She is sure of it.”
“How so?”
“During the day, in her capacity as lady-in-waiting, Madame de Lannoy looked for the coffer, and appeared uneasy at not finding it. Finally she asked the queen if she knew where it was.”
“And the queen . . . ?”
“The queen flushed, and replied that having broken one of the studs the previous evening, she had sent it to her goldsmith for repair.”
“He must be interviewed to see whether or not this is true.”
“I have just come from there.”
“So—the goldsmith?”
“The goldsmith has heard nothing whatsoever of the matter.”
“Well, well! Rochefort, all is not lost, and perhaps . . . perhaps all is for the best!”
Rochefort frowned. “Of course, I don’t doubt that Your Eminence’s genius . . .”
“. . . Will repair the blunders of my agent. Is that it?”
“That’s just what I was going to say, if Your Eminence had let me finish my sentence.”
“Now, do you know the hiding places of the Duchesse de Chevreuse and the Duke of Buckingham?”
“No, Monseigneur, my people could tell me nothing positive on that.”
“But I know.”
“You, Monseigneur?”
“Yes, there’s not the least doubt. One stayed in the Rue de Vaugirard, at number 25,56 and the other in the Rue de la Harpe, number 75.”
“Does Your Eminence wish me to arrest them both?”
“It’s too late—they’ll be gone.”
“Nonetheless, we can make sure.”
“Take ten of my guards and search the two houses.”
“I go, Monseigneur.” With a bow, Rochefort hurried from the room.
The cardinal, left alone, reflected a moment, then rang a third time. The same officer appeared.
“Bring in the prisoner,” said the cardinal.
Master Bonacieux was introduced anew. At a gesture from the cardinal, the officer retired.
“You have deceived me,” said the cardinal sternly.
“Me?” cried Bonacieux. “Me, deceive Your Eminence!”
“Your wife, when going to the Rue de Vaugirard and the Rue de la Harpe, wasn’t going to the houses of linen merchants.”
“And where was she going, by the good God?”
“She was going to meet the Duchesse de Chevreuse and the Duke of Buckingham.”
“That’s right,” said Bonacieux, recalling the events in question. “Yes, that’s it, Your Eminence is right. I said to my wife many times that it was astonishing that linen merchants should live in such houses, houses that had no trade signs, and each time my wife laughed. Oh, Monseigneur!” Bonacieux threw himself at His Eminence’s feet. “Oh! How truly you are the cardinal, the great cardinal, the man of genius whom all the world reveres.”
To triumph over so lowly a creature as Bonacieux was no great victory, but the cardinal nonetheless took a moment to enjoy it. Then, as if a new thought had occurred to him, a smile creased his lips, and taking the hand of the mercer, he said to him, “Rise, my friend. You are a worthy man.”
“The cardinal has touched my hand! I have touched the hand of the great man!” said Bonacieux. “The great man has called me his friend!”
“Yes, my friend; yes!” said the cardinal, with that warm paternal tone that he knew how to assume sometimes, but which didn’t deceive those who knew him. “And since you have been unjustly suspected, well, you must be indemnified. Here: take this purse of a hundred pistoles, and be so kind as to pardon me.”
“I, pardon you, Monseigneur!” Bonacieux hesitated to take the purse, fearing no doubt this pretended gift was only a joke. “But you are the master, free to have me arrested, to have me tortured, even to have me hanged, and no one would make the least objection. Pardon you, Monseigneur! You can’t mean that!”
“Ah, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux! I see that you are generosity itself, and I thank you. So you’ll take this purse, and won’t go away too dissatisfied?”
“I shall go away enchanted, Monseigneur.”
“Adieu, then—or rather au revoir, for I hope that we shall meet again.”
“Whenever Monseigneur wishes! I am completely at the orders of Your Eminence.”
“It will be often, rest assured, for I’ve found your conversation extremely charming.”
“Oh, Monseigneur!”
“Au revoir, Monsieur Bonacieux, au revoir.”
And the cardinal dismissed him with a friendly gesture. Bonacieux replied by bowing to the ground, and backing out of the room. When he reached the antechamber, the cardinal heard him crying out enthusiastically, “Long live Monseigneur! Long live His Eminence! Long live the Great Cardinal!” The cardinal listened smiling as Bonacieux’s cries of praise dwindled into the distance. “Good,” he said. “Henceforth, that man would kill himself for me.” And the cardinal turned to examine with the greatest attention the map of La Rochelle that was
open on the table, tracing with a pencil the line of the famous dyke that, eighteen months later, would close the port of the besieged city.
As he was in the depths of his strategic meditations, the door reopened and Rochefort entered.
“Well?” said the cardinal, rising with an eagerness that showed how important he considered the task he’d given the count.
“Well!” said the latter. “A young woman, aged twenty-six to twenty-eight, and a man, aged thirty-five or forty, were lodged in the houses indicated by Your Eminence, the one for four days and the other for five; but the woman left last night, and the man this morning.”
“It was them!” cried the cardinal, looking at the clock. “By now it’s too late to pursue them: the duchess is at Tours, and the duke at Boulogne. It’s in London that we must catch up with them.”
“What are Your Eminence’s orders?”
“No one is to speak a word of what has passed. Let the queen remain perfectly secure, ignorant that we know her secret. Drop hints that will lead her to believe we’re searching for some conspiracy or other. I shall need to see the Keeper of the Seals, Monsieur Séguier.”
“And that man, what has Your Eminence done with him?”
“What man?” asked the cardinal.
“That Bonacieux.”
“I’ve done all that could be done with him: I’ve set him to spy on his own wife.”
The Comte de Rochefort bowed in tribute to the superiority of the master and retired.
Left alone, the cardinal seated himself anew, wrote a letter that he sealed with his personal signet, then rang the bell again. The officer entered for the fourth time.
“Have Vitray57 come to me,” he said, “and tell him to prepare for a long journey.”
Within minutes, the man he’d asked for was standing before him, booted and spurred. “Vitray,” said the cardinal, “you will leave immediately for London. Don’t pause for an instant on the way. In London you will deliver this letter to Milady. Here is a note for two hundred pistoles: call upon my treasurer and have him pay you. You shall have as much again if you return here within six days and if you’ve executed your commission well.”
Without a word, the messenger bowed, took the letter and the note for two hundred pistoles, and left.
The contents of the letter were as follows:
Milady,
Attend the first ball where you can meet the Duke of Buckingham. On his doublet will be a dozen diamond studs. Approach him and cut off two.
Once these studs are in your possession, inform me immediately.
XV
Men of the Robe and Men of the Sword
Athos’s imprisonment on d’Artagnan’s behalf weighed on the young man’s conscience. The day after Athos’s interview with the cardinal, d’Artagnan and Porthos informed Monsieur de Tréville of the circumstances of Athos’s disappearance. Aramis was absent: he’d asked for a five-day leave, and was at Rouen, it was said, on family business.
Monsieur de Tréville was like a father to his soldiers. No matter how lowborn or obscure a man might be, once he donned the uniform of the company he could count on Tréville’s aid and support as if the captain was his own brother. Tréville immediately went to call on the magistrate who oversaw the Paris police. The magistrate summoned the officer who commanded the Croix-Rouge precinct, and through his inquiries they determined that Athos was at that moment lodged at the prison of For-l’Évêque.
Athos had passed through the same interrogations that Bonacieux had suffered. He’d said nothing until his confrontation with the mercer, for fear that if d’Artagnan were hampered by the police, he might not have time to complete his mission. But after his interview with the commissioner Athos insisted his name was Athos and not d’Artagnan.
He added that he knew neither Monsieur nor Madame Bonacieux and had never spoken with either. He’d gone at ten in the evening to pay a visit to his friend Monsieur d’Artagnan, but before that hour he’d been dining at Monsieur de Tréville’s; twenty witnesses could attest to this fact, and he named several distinguished gentlemen, including the Duc de La Trémouille.
The Commissioner of the For-l’Évêque was as confounded by the musketeer’s simple and firm declaration as the Commissioner of the Bastille had been. He was eager to take that vengeance that the Men of the Robe love to win over the Men of the Sword, but the mighty names of Messieurs de Tréville and de La Trémouille inspired caution. The commissioner decided he was out of his depth and sent Athos back to the cardinal, but unfortunately the cardinal was at the Louvre, conferring with the king.
At precisely this moment Monsieur de Tréville himself arrived at the Louvre. After leaving the criminal lieutenant he’d called on the Governor of For-l’Évêque, but had been unable to find Athos. As Captain of the Musketeers, Monsieur de Tréville had entrée to the king at all hours and was taken directly to His Majesty.
It’s well-known how suspicious the king was of the queen, suspicions the cardinal continually encouraged, as in matters of intrigue he himself mistrusted women infinitely more than men. A principal cause of the king’s distrust was the friendship of Anne of Austria for Marie de Rohan, the Duchesse de Chevreuse. These two women worried him more than the wars with Spain, the disputes with England, and the chronic embarrassment of the finances. The king believed that Madame de Chevreuse served the queen not only in her political intrigues, but what was far worse, in her amorous affairs.
At the cardinal’s first mention of Madame de Chevreuse the king grimaced with anger. Exiled to Tours, she’d been believed to be in that city. Now the king learned that she’d been in Paris for five days, outmaneuvering the police, and this made Louis furious. Though himself capricious and unfaithful, this king wished to be known as “Louis the Just” and “Louis the Chaste.” Posterity has had difficulty awarding him these titles, as history concerns itself with facts rather than intentions.
The cardinal added that not only had Madame de Chevreuse been in Paris, but that the queen had renewed her correspondence with her through the aid of a mysterious cabal. Just as the cardinal had been on the verge of untangling this web of intrigue and arresting the queen’s emissary in flagrante delicto with all necessary proofs, a King’s Musketeer had dared to interfere, disrupting the course of justice by falling, sword in hand, on the honest lawmen charged with investigating the affair on the King’s behalf.
At these words, Louis XIII could no longer contain himself and made a threatening step toward the queen’s apartments, trembling with that pale and mute indignation that at times led this prince to commit acts of the coldest cruelty.
And the cardinal had not yet said a word about the Duke of Buckingham.
At this moment Monsieur de Tréville entered: cool, polite, and irreproachable in dress and demeanor. Warned of what had passed by the presence of the cardinal and by the look on the king’s face, Tréville felt very much like Samson before the Philistines.
Louis already had his hand on the doorknob; at the sound of Tréville’s entrance, he turned. “Your arrival is timely, Monsieur,” said the king, who could never dissemble when in a passion. “I’ve learned some pretty things about your musketeers.”
“And I,” said Monsieur de Tréville coolly, “have some pretty things to tell Your Majesty about your Men of the Robe.”
“Do you say so?” said the king, haughtily.
“I have the honor to inform Your Majesty,” continued Tréville in the same tone, “that a party of bailiffs, functionaries, and police, worthy men but inveterately biased against the uniform, have dared to arrest, lead away through the open street, and throw into the For-l’Évêque, one of my musketeers—or rather one of yours, Sire. They’ve done all this on an order they’ve refused to show me, imprisoning a man whose conduct is irreproachable, whose reputation is illustrious, and whom Your Majesty knows well: Monsieur Athos.”
“Athos,” said the King, mechanically. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do know that name.”
“You
r Majesty may recall,” said Tréville, “that Athos is the musketeer who had the bad luck to grievously wound Monsieur de Cahusac in that unfortunate duel at the Carmelite convent. Speaking of whom, Monseigneur,” continued Tréville, addressing the cardinal, “Monsieur de Cahusac is quite recovered, is he not?”
“He is, thank you!” said the cardinal, lips pinched with anger.
“The other evening” continued Tréville, “Monsieur Athos went to pay a visit to one of his friends, a young Béarnaise who is a cadet in des Essarts’s company of His Majesty’s Guards. This friend was absent, so Athos decided to wait, but scarcely had he sat and picked up a book, when a swarm of bailiffs and officers appeared. They laid siege to the house, forcing numerous doors . . .”
The cardinal made a gesture to the king that signified, This was the affair I spoke to you about.
“We know all about that,” interrupted the king, “because it was all done on our service.”
“Then,” said Tréville, “was it also on Your Majesty’s service that they seized one of my innocent musketeers, placed him between two guards like a malefactor and promenaded him before a jeering populace? This gallant man, who has ten times shed his blood in Your Majesty’s service, and would do so again?”
“Bah!” said the king, disturbed. “Is that how it was handled?”
“Monsieur de Tréville fails to mention,” said the cardinal phlegmatically, “that this innocent musketeer, this so-gallant man, had an hour before drawn his sword on four Commissioners of Inquiry, men delegated by me to investigate an affair of the highest importance.”
“I defy Your Eminence to prove it,” cried Monsieur de Tréville, with his Gascon verve and military brusqueness, “for, one hour before, after having dined with me, Monsieur Athos did me the honor to converse in the salon at my hôtel with Monsieur le Duc de La Trémouille and Monsieur le Comte de Charlus. Monsieur Athos, I must confide to Your Majesty, is under his real name a man of the highest quality.”
The king looked at the cardinal. Responding to this mute inquiry, the cardinal said, “A full process verbal supports the accusation, and the maltreated officers have drawn up the following indictment, which I have the honor to present to Your Majesty.”