Raoul did not meet with D'Artagnan the next day, as he had hoped. Heonly met with Planchet, whose joy was great at seeing the young managain, and who contrived to pay him two or three little soldierlycompliments, savoring very little of the grocer's shop. But as Raoulwas returning the next day from Vincennes, at the head of fifty dragoonsconfided to him by Monsieur le Prince, he perceived, in La PlaceBaudoyer, a man with his nose in the air, examining a house as weexamine a horse we have a fancy to buy. This man, dressed in citizencostume buttoned up like a military pourpoint, a very small hat on hishead, but a long shagreen-mounted sword by his side, turned his head assoon as he heard the steps of the horses, and left off looking at thehouse to look at the dragoons. It was simply M. d'Artagnan; D'Artagnanon foot; D'Artagnan with his hands behind him, passing a little reviewupon the dragoons, after having reviewed the buildings. Not a man, nota tag, not a horse's hoof escaped his inspection. Raoul rode at the sideof his troop; D'Artagnan perceived him the last. "Eh!" said he, "Eh!Mordioux!"
"I was not mistaken!" cried Raoul, turning his horse towards him.
"Mistaken--no! Good-day to you," replied the ex-musketeer; whilst Raouleagerly pressed the hand of his old friend. "Take care, Raoul," saidD'Artagnan, "the second horse of the fifth rank will lose a shoebefore he gets to the Pont Marie; he has only two nails left in his offfore-foot."
"Wait a minute, I will come back," said Raoul.
"Can you quit your detachment?"
"The cornet is there to take my place."
"Then you will come and dine with me?"
"Most willingly, Monsieur d'Artagnan."
"Be quick, then; leave your horse, or make them give me one."
"I prefer coming back on foot with you."
Raoul hastened to give notice to the cornet, who took his post; hethen dismounted, gave his horse to one of the dragoons, and with greatdelight seized the arm of M. d'Artagnan, who had watched him during allthese little evolutions with the satisfaction of a connoisseur.
"What, do you come from Vincennes?" said he.
"Yes, monsieur le chevalier."
"And the cardinal?"
"Is very ill, it is even reported he is dead.'
"Are you on good terms with M. Fouquet?" asked D'Artagnan, with adisdainful movement of the shoulders, proving that the death of Mazarindid not affect him beyond measure.
"With M. Fouquet?" said Raoul, "I do not know him."
"So much the worse! so much the worse! for a new king always seeks toget good men in his employment."
"Oh! the king means no harm," replied the young man.
"I say nothing about the crown," cried D'Artagnan; "I am speaking of theking--the king, that is M. Fouquet, if the cardinal is dead. You mustcontrive to stand well with M. Fouquet, if you do not wish to molderaway all your life as I have moldered. It is true you have, fortunately,other protectors."
"M. le Prince, for instance."
"Worn out! worn out!"
"M. le Comte de la Fere?"
"Athos! Oh! that's different; yes, Athos--and if you have any wish tomake your way in England, you cannot apply to a better person; I caneven say, without too much vanity, that I myself have some credit at thecourt of Charles II. There is a king--God speed him!"
"Ah!" cried Raoul, with the natural curiosity of well-born young people,while listening to experience and courage.
"Yes, a king who amuses himself, it is true, but who has had a swordin his hand, and can appreciate useful men. Athos is on good termswith Charles II. Take service there, and leave these scoundrels ofcontractors and farmers-general, who steal as well with French hands asothers have done with Italian hands; leave the little snivellingking, who is going to give us another reign of Francis II. Do you knowanything of history, Raoul?"
"Yes, monsieur le chevalier."
"Do you know, then, that Francis II. had always the earache?"
"No, I did not know that."
"That Charles IV. had always the headache?"
"Indeed!"
"And Henry III. always the stomach-ache?"
Raoul began to laugh.
"Well, my dear friend, Louis XIV. always has the heartache; it isdeplorable to see a king sighing from morning till night without sayingonce in course of the day, ventre-saint-gris! corboeuf! or anything torouse one."
"Was that the reason why you quitted the service, monsieur lechevalier?"
"Yes."
"But you yourself, M. d'Artagnan, are throwing the handle after the axe;you will not make a fortune."
"Who? I?" replied D'Artagnan, in a careless tone; "I am settled--I hadsome family property."
Raoul looked at him. The poverty of D'Artagnan was proverbial. A Gascon,he exceeded in ill-luck all the gasconnades of France and Navarre; Raoulhad a hundred times heard Job and D'Artagnan named together, as thetwins Romulus and Remus. D'Artagnan caught Raoul's look of astonishment.
"And has not your father told you I have been in England?"
"Yes, monsieur le chevalier."
"And that I there met with a very lucky chance?"
"No, monsieur, I did not know that."
"Yes, a very worthy friend of mine, a great nobleman, the viceroy ofScotland and Ireland, has endowed me with an inheritance."
"An inheritance?"
"And a good one, too."
"Then you are rich?"
"Bah!"
"Receive my sincere congratulation."
"Thank you! Look, that is my house."
"Place de Greve?"
"Yes, don't you like this quarter?"
"On the contrary, the look-out over the water is pleasant. Oh! what apretty old house!"
"The sign Notre Dame; it is an old cabaret, which I have transformedinto a private house in two days."
"But the cabaret is still open?"
"Pardieu!"
"And where do you lodge, then?
"I? I lodge with Planchet."
"You said, just now, 'This is my house.'"
"I said so, because, in fact, it is my house. I have bought it."
"Ah!" said Raoul.
"At ten years' purchase, my dear Raoul; a superb affair, I bought thehouse for thirty thousand livres; it has a garden which opens to theRue de la Mortillerie; the cabaret lets for a thousand livres, with thefirst story; the garret, or second floor, for five hundred livres."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, indeed."
"Five hundred livres for a garret? Why, it is not habitable."
"Therefore no one inhabits it, only, you see this garret has two windowswhich look out upon the Place."
"Yes, monsieur."
"Well, then, every time anybody is broken on the wheel or hung,quartered, or burnt, these two windows let for twenty pistoles."
"Oh!" said Raoul, with horror.
"It is disgusting, is it not?" said D'Artagnan.
"Oh!" repeated Raoul.
"It is disgusting, but so it is. These Parisian cockneys are sometimesreal anthropophagi. I cannot conceive how men, Christians, can make suchspeculations."
"That is true."
"As for myself," continued D'Artagnan, "if I inhabited that house, ondays of execution I would shut it up to the very keyholes; but I do notinhabit it."
"And you let the garret for five hundred livres?"
"To the ferocious cabaretier, who sub-lets it. I said, then, fifteenhundred livres."
"The natural interest of money," said Raoul,--"five per cent."
"Exactly so. I then have left the side of the house at the back,store-rooms, and cellars, inundated every winter, two hundred livres;and the garden, which is very fine, well planted, well shaded under thewalls and the portal of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais, thirteen hundredlivres."
"Thirteen hundred livres! why, that is royal!"
"This is the whole history. I strongly suspect some canon of the parish(these canons are all as rich as Croesus)--I suspect some canon ofhaving hired the garden to take his pleasure in. The tenant has giventhe name of M. Godard. That is eit
her a false name or a real name;if true, he is a canon; if false, he is some unknown; but of whatconsequence is it to me? he always pays in advance. I had also an ideajust now, when I met you, of buying a house in the Place Baudoyer, theback premises of which join my garden, and would make a magnificentproperty. Your dragoons interrupted my calculations. But come, letus take the Rue de la Vannerie: that will lead us straight to M.Planchet's." D'Artagnan mended his pace, and conducted Raoul toPlanchet's dwelling, a chamber of which the grocer had given up to hisold master. Planchet was out, but the dinner was ready. There was aremains of military regularity and punctuality preserved in the grocer'shousehold. D'Artagnan returned to the subject of Raoul's future.
"Your father brings you up rather strictly?" said he.
"Justly, monsieur le chevalier."
"Oh, yes, I know Athos is just, but close, perhaps?"
"A royal hand, Monsieur d'Artagnan."
"Well, never want, my boy! If ever you stand in need of a few pistoles,the old musketeer is at hand."
"My dear Monsieur d'Artagnan!"
"Do you play a little?"
"Never."
"Successful with the ladies, then?--Oh, my little Aramis! That, my dearfriend, costs even more than play. It is true we fight when we lose,that is a compensation. Bah! that little sniveller, the king, makeswinners give him his revenge. What a reign! my poor Raoul, what a reign!When we think that, in my time, the musketeers were besieged in theirhouses like Hector and Priam in the city of Troy, and the women wept,and then the walls laughed, and then five hundred beggarly fellowsclapped their hands, and cried, 'Kill! kill!' when not one musketeer washurt. Mordioux! you will never see anything like that."
"You are very hard upon the king, my dear Monsieur d'Artagnan; and yetyou scarcely know him."
"I! Listen, Raoul. Day by day, hour by hour,--take note of my words,--Iwill predict what he will do. The cardinal being dead, he will fret;very well, that is the least silly thing he will do, particularly if hedoes not shed a tear."
"And then?"
"Why then he will get M. Fouquet to allow him a pension, and will go andcompose verses at Fontainebleau, upon some Mancini or other, whose eyesthe queen will scratch out. She is a Spaniard, you see,--this queen ofours, and she has, for mother-in-law, Madame Anne of Austria. I knowsomething of the Spaniards of the house of Austria."
"And next?"
"Well, after having torn off the silver lace from the uniforms of hisSwiss, because lace is too expensive, he will dismount the musketeers,because the oats and hay of a horse cost five sols a day."
"Oh! do not say that."
"Of what consequence is it to me? I am no longer a musketeer, am I? Letthem be on horseback, let them be on foot, let them carry a larding-pin,a spit, a sword, or nothing--what is it to me?"
"My dear Monsieur d'Artagnan, I beseech you speak no more ill of theking. I am almost in his service, and my father would be very angrywith me for having heard, even from your mouth, words injurious to hismajesty."
"Your father, eh? He is a knight in every bad cause. Pardieu! yes,your father is a brave man, a Caesar, it is true--but a man withoutperception."
"Now, my dear chevalier," exclaimed Raoul, laughing, "are you going tospeak ill of my father, of him you call the great Athos. Truly you arein a bad vein to-day; riches render you as sour as poverty renders otherpeople."
"Pardieu! you are right. I am a rascal and in my dotage; I am an unhappywretch grown old; a tent-cord untwisted, a pierced cuirass, a bootwithout a sole, a spur without a rowel;--but do me the pleasure to addone thing."
"What is that, my dear Monsieur d'Artagnan?"
"Simply say: 'Mazarin was a pitiful wretch.'"
"Perhaps he is dead."
"More the reason--I say was; if I did not hope that he was dead, I wouldentreat you to say: 'Mazarin is a pitiful wretch.' Come, say so, say so,for love of me."
"Well, I will."
"Say it!"
"Mazarin was a pitiful wretch," said Raoul, smiling at the musketeer,who roared with laughter, as in his best days.
"A moment," said the latter; "you have spoken my first proposition,here is the conclusion of it,--repeat, Raoul, repeat: 'But I regretMazarin.'"
"Chevalier!"
"You will not say it? Well, then, I will say it twice for you."
"But you would regret Mazarin?"
And they were still laughing and discussing this profession ofprinciples, when one of the shop-boys entered. "A letter, monsieur,"said he, "for M. d'Artagnan."
"Thank you; give it me," cried the musketeer.
"The handwriting of monsieur le comte," said Raoul.
"Yes, yes." And D'Artagnan broke the seal.
"Dear friend," said Athos, "a person has just been here to beg me toseek for you, on the part of the king."
"Seek me!" said D'Artagnan, letting the paper fall upon the table. Raoulpicked it up, and continued to read aloud:--
"Make haste. His majesty is very anxious to speak to you, and expectsyou at the Louvre."
"Expects me?" again repeated the musketeer.
"He, he, he!" laughed Raoul.
"Oh, oh!" replied D'Artagnan. "What the devil can this mean?"
CHAPTER 53. The King
Ten Years Later Page 57