“No, Monseigneur. The queen charged me to warn you to take special care of your life, as she’d been informed there would be an attempted assassination.”
“And that’s all? That’s all?” Buckingham said impatiently.
“She also told me to tell you . . . that she has always loved you.”
“Ah!” said Buckingham. “God be praised! So she won’t take my death like the death of a stranger . . . !”
La Porte broke down and wept.
“Patrick,” said the duke, “bring me the coffer that contained the diamond studs.”
Patrick brought the coffer, which La Porte recognized as having belonged to the queen.
“Now the white satin packet that has her initials embroidered in pearls.”
Patrick obeyed.
“Here, La Porte,” said Buckingham. “These are the only souvenirs I have from her, this rosewood coffer and this packet of letters. Restore them to Her Majesty, and as a final memento, you will add . . .”
He looked around for some precious object, but his vision was clouded by approaching death, and he could find nothing but the knife that had fallen from Felton’s hands, his blood still steaming from its blade.
“And you will add this knife,” the duke said, clutching at La Porte’s hand. He was just able to get the satin packet into the coffer and drop the knife on top of it. He made a sign to La Porte that he could no longer talk, and then, with a final, irresistible convulsion, he slid from the sofa onto the floor.
Patrick cried out.
Buckingham tried to smile one last time, but death cut it short. It remained impressed on his face like a last kiss of love.
At that moment the doctor arrived, quite distraught. They’d had to bring him from the admiral’s ship, which he’d already been aboard.
He approached the duke, took his hand, held it for an instant in his own, and let it fall. “Nothing can be done,” he said. “He is dead.”
“Dead! Dead!” cried Patrick.
At this cry the whole crowd came back into the chamber, and everywhere there was nothing but consternation and turmoil.
As soon as Lord Winter saw that Buckingham was dead, he ran to Felton, who was still being held by the soldiers on the terrace.
“Miserable wretch!” he said to the young man, who, since the death of Buckingham, had regained that calm, cool demeanor that never again left him. “Miserable wretch! What have you done?”
“I have avenged myself,” he said.
“Yourself!” said the baron. “Say instead you were the tool of that damnable woman! But I swear to you, this crime will be her last.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Felton replied coolly. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, Milord. I killed the Duke of Buckingham because he twice refused your request to promote me to captain.112 I’ve punished him for his injustice, that’s all.”
Winter, stupefied, looked on as the soldiers manacled Felton, as if he didn’t know what to make of such nonsense.
Only one thing darkened Felton’s pale brow: at every noise, the naïve Puritan thought he heard the arrival of Milady, come to throw herself into his arms and die by his side.
All at once he started, his eyes fixed on a point out to sea, which the terrace overlooked. With the eagle eyes of a sailor he recognized, where another would have seen only a gull gliding over the waves, the sail of the sloop setting course for the coast of France.
He paled, and put a hand to his breaking heart. At once, he understood the extent of his betrayal.
“One last favor, Milord!” he said to the baron.
“What’s that?”
“The time—what time is it?”
The baron pulled out his watch. “It’s ten minutes to nine,” he said.
Milady had moved up her departure by an hour and a half. As soon as she’d heard the cannon announce the fatal event, she’d ordered the ship to weigh anchor.
The sloop was making good headway under a blue sky and was already well out from the coast.
“Thus God wills it,” Felton said, with the resignation of a fanatic. But he still couldn’t take his eyes from that ship, on which he might have thought he could make out the white phantom of her for whom he’d sacrificed his life.
Winter followed his look, saw his pain, and guessed everything. “You may be going to your punishment alone, wretch,” he said to Felton, who still gazed out to sea as he was being dragged off, “but I swear to you, on the memory of my beloved brother, that your accomplice will not escape.”
Felton hung his head and said nothing.
As for Lord Winter, he hurried down the stairs and went directly to the port.
LX
In France
Upon learning of the death of the duke, the first fear of the King of England, Charles I, was that such terrible news would dishearten the Rochelois. He tried, says Richelieu in his Memoirs, to conceal it from them for as long as possible, closing all the ports of his realm, and taking care that no vessel should sail before Buckingham’s army could depart, an effort he undertook to manage personally after the loss of Buckingham.
He enforced this order so strictly that it detained in England the Danish ambassador, who had already officially taken his leave, and the Ambassadeur Ordinaire of Holland, who was to sail back to the port of Flushing in the captured India merchantmen that Charles I was returning to the United Provinces.
But it didn’t occur to the king to give this order until five hours after the event—in other words, not until two in the afternoon, by which time two ships had already left the port. The first, of course, was the one carrying Milady. The success of her plot had been confirmed by sight of the black flag that had been run up the mast of the admiral’s ship.
As to the second vessel, who it contained, and how it departed— that will be dealt with later.
Meanwhile, nothing new occurred in the camp before La Rochelle, except that the king, as ever subject to ennui, perhaps even more so in camp than elsewhere, resolved to travel incognito to Saint-Germain for the Festival of Saint Louis, and asked the cardinal to order up a small escort of no more than twenty musketeers. The cardinal, who sometimes wearied of the presence of the king, was more than happy to grant this leave of absence to his royal lieutenant, who promised to return in mid-September.
Monsieur de Tréville, informed by His Eminence, packed up his portmanteau. As he was aware of the urgent desire, even desperate need of his four friends to return to Paris—though without knowing the cause—he naturally named them as part of the escort.
The four young men heard the news a quarter of an hour after Monsieur de Tréville, as they were the first ones he told. It was then that d’Artagnan fully appreciated the favor the cardinal had done him by finally ordering his admission into the musketeers, as otherwise he would have had to remain behind in camp.
Their impatience to return toward Paris was mainly due to the danger to Madame Bonacieux of being found at the Béthune convent by Milady, her mortal enemy. As previously related, Aramis had written to Marie Michon, the lingerie maid at Tours who had such high connections, to obtain authority from the queen for Madame Bonacieux to leave the convent and take refuge in either Lorraine or Belgium. They didn’t have to wait long for a response, for within a week, Aramis had received the following letter:
My Dear Cousin,
Enclosed with this is the authorization from my sister for our little servant to leave the convent at Béthune, where you think the air may not agree with her. My sister is very pleased to send you this order, as she dearly loves the little girl, and intends to do better by her in the future.
I embrace you, Marie MICHON
Folded inside this letter was the following order:
The Superior of the Convent at Béthune will remit into the charge of the person who presents this letter the novice who entered the convent on my recommendation and under my patronage.
At the Louvre, August 10, 1628
ANNE
&
nbsp; One can easily imagine how amused the young men were by this relationship between Aramis and a lingerie maid who called the queen “her sister.” But Aramis, after flushing two or three times at Porthos’s crude jokes, told his friends to drop the subject, declaring that if he heard another word about it, he would never again ask his cousin to act as an intermediary in such affairs.
So there was no further mention of the name of Marie Michon among the four musketeers, who in any event had what they wanted: an order to remove Madame Bonacieux from the Carmelite convent at Béthune. It’s true that this order wasn’t much use while they were stuck in the camp at La Rochelle, halfway across France. D’Artagnan had been planning to ask for a leave of absence from Monsieur de Tréville, intending to confide to him the critical importance of his departure, when he and his three comrades received the news that the king was about to leave for Paris with twenty musketeers and they were to form part of his escort.
Joy was the order of the day. They sent their lackeys on ahead with their baggage, and set out on the morning of August 16th.
The cardinal accompanied His Majesty from Surgères to Mauzé, where the king and his minister took their leave of each other with effusive declarations of mutual regard.
However, the king, though he said he desired to travel as rapidly as possible, since he wanted to be in Paris by the 23rd, at the same time craved distraction. He stopped from time to time to fly his falcon, a pastime he was very fond of, having acquired the taste for it from de Luynes. When this happened, sixteen of his twenty musketeers were delighted with the time off, but the other four cursed the delay. D’Artagnan in particular suffered from a constant buzzing in his ears, which Porthos explained by saying, “A very great lady told me it means someone is talking about you somewhere.”
The escort finally reached Paris on the evening of the 23rd. The king thanked Monsieur de Tréville and allowed him to give out leaves of absence for four days, on condition that the lucky recipients stay out of the public eye, under penalty of the Bastille.
The first four leaves granted, as may be imagined, were to the four friends. Furthermore, Athos persuaded Monsieur de Tréville to give them six days instead of four, plus two extra nights, as they set out on the evening of the 24th, and Tréville had kindly postdated the beginning of their leave to the morning of the 25th.
“Mon Dieu, it seems to me we’re making a big deal out of a simple thing,” said d’Artagnan, the eternal optimist. “In two days, by using up two or three horses—which I can afford to do, as I have plenty of money—I’ll be in Béthune. I present the queen’s letter to the superior, collect the dear treasure I’ve gone for, and head, not to Lorraine or Belgium, but back to Paris. It’ll be much easier to hide her there, especially since the cardinal is at La Rochelle. Then, once we’ve returned to the campaign, we can get what we need to protect her from the queen, relying on the influence of Aramis’s cousin, as well as what we’ve personally done for her. The rest of you might as well stay behind—there’s no point in wearing yourselves out. A simple expedition like this doesn’t call for anyone more than myself and Planchet.”
To this, Athos calmly replied, “We, too, have some money, for I haven’t yet drunk my whole share of the diamond, and Porthos and Aramis haven’t eaten theirs. We can just as easily wear out four horses as one. And consider, d’Artagnan,” he added, in a voice so somber that it gave the young man shivers, “Béthune is a town where the cardinal has set a rendezvous with a woman who creates misery wherever she goes. If it was only four men you had to deal with, d’Artagnan, I’d let you go by yourself—but as you have to deal with that woman, we will all go, and I hope to God that the four of us, plus our lackeys, are enough to handle her.”
“You’re scaring me, Athos,” d’Artagnan said. “Dear God, what are you afraid of?”
“Everything!” replied Athos.
D’Artagnan examined the expressions of his comrades, who seemed just as anxious as Athos. So they continued on their way as fast as their horses could go without saying another word.
On the evening of the 25th, as they were entering Arras, and d’Artagnan was just alighting at the Golden Harrow Inn in hopes of drinking a glass of wine, a cavalier emerged from the post-stable, where he’d just transferred to a fresh horse, and set off at a gallop down the road to Paris. As he passed through the gateway into the street, the wind blew back the cloak in which he was enveloped, though it was the month of August, and lifted his hat, which the traveler clapped back onto his head and quickly pulled down over his eyes.
D’Artagnan, who’d had his eyes fixed on this man, grew very pale and dropped his glass.
“What’s wrong, Monsieur?” said Planchet. “Oh! Quick, Messieurs, my master is sick!”
The three friends came running, and found d’Artagnan, far from seeming ill, racing for his horse. They stopped him at the gateway.
“Where the devil do you think you’re going?” Athos said to him.
“It’s him!” cried d’Artagnan, pale with anger. “It’s him! Let me go after him!”
“Him! What him?” demanded Athos.
“That man is him!”
“What man?”
“That cursed man, my archenemy, who always appears when I’m threatened by something terrible; the one who was with that awful woman the first time I met her; the one I was chasing when I provoked Athos; the one I saw the morning Madame Bonacieux was abducted! The man of Meung! He just went past! I recognized him when the wind blew his cloak open.”
“The devil you say,” said Athos thoughtfully.
“Saddle up, Messieurs, saddle up! After him, before he gets away.”
“D’Artagnan,” said Aramis, “allow me to observe that he’s going in a direction opposite to ours, and he has a fresh horse where ours are tired, so we’ll kill our horses before we ever have a chance to catch him. Let’s save the woman and let the man go.”
“Hey, Monsieur!” shouted the stable boy, who came running out after the stranger. “Monsieur! Hey! This paper fell out of your hat!”
“Mon ami,” said d’Artagnan, “a half-pistole for that paper!”
“My faith, Monsieur, with pleasure! Here.”
The stable boy, congratulating himself on his luck, went back into the courtyard. D’Artagnan unfolded the paper.
“Well?” demanded his friends, surrounding him.
“Only a single word!” d’Artagnan said.
“Yes,” said Aramis, “but that word is the name of a town or village.”
“Armentières,” said Porthos. “Never heard of it.”
“But this name of a town or village is in her handwriting!” cried Athos.
“I think we’d better take good care of this paper,” said d’Artagnan. “Maybe I haven’t thrown away my half-pistole. To horse, my friends, to horse!”
And the four friends left at a gallop on the road to Béthune.
LXI
The Carmelite Convent at Béthune
Great criminals seem to have made a sort of infernal bargain that enables them to surmount all obstacles and escape all dangers, until that moment when Providence, weary of the game, places before them the rocks that wreck their impious careers.
So it was with Milady. She passed between the cruisers of two warring nations and arrived at Boulogne without incident.
When landing at Portsmouth, Milady had been an Englishwoman whom the persecutions of France had driven from La Rochelle; upon landing at Boulogne, after a two-day passage, she passed herself off as a Frenchwoman whom the English had harassed at Portsmouth out of their hatred for France.
Milady had, besides, the best of all passports: her beauty, her grand manner, and the generosity with which she spread around her pistoles. Relieved of the usual formalities by the affable smile and gallant manners of the old Governor of the Port, who kissed her hand, she remained at Boulogne only long enough to post the following letter:
To His Eminence Monseigneur le Cardinal de Richelieu, At his Camp b
efore La Rochelle:
Monseigneur,
Your Eminence may be assured that His Grace the Duke of Buckingham will not set out for France.
Boulogne, evening of the 25th.
MILADY DE—
P.S.: In accordance with Your Eminence’s desires, I proceed to the Carmelite convent at Béthune, where I will await your orders.
That same evening, Milady took to the road. Night overtook her, and she stopped at an inn to sleep. She left at five o’clock the next morning, and three hours later she entered Béthune.
She asked directions to the Carmelite convent and went there immediately.
The superior came out to meet her. Milady showed her the cardinal’s order; the abbess found a chamber for her and had breakfast served.
In Milady’s eyes, the shadows of the past were entirely gone; with her vision fixed on times to come, she saw only the bright future the cardinal would bestow on her—the cardinal, whom she’d served so well in this bloody affair, without ever involving his name. The ever-changing passions that drove and consumed her made her life resemble those clouds that tumble across the sky, sometimes tinted with azure, sometimes with flame, and sometimes with the opaque darkness of the tempest that leaves nothing in its wake but devastation and death.
After breakfast, the abbess came to pay her a visit. There are few diversions in the cloister, and the good superior was eager to make the acquaintance of her new pensioner.
Milady wanted to please the abbess, an easy thing for a woman as genuinely accomplished as she was. She was amiable and charming, and won over the good superior with her clever conversation and her considerable social graces.
The abbess, who was a daughter of the nobility, loved nothing more than Court gossip, which travels slowly to the far corners of the realm, and even then rarely makes it through a convent’s walls, before which all such worldly noises seem to die away.
Milady, of course, was au courant with all the intrigues of the aristocracy, her milieu for the last five or six years, so she undertook to entertain the good abbess with a description of the daily life of the French Court. She told of the king’s exaggerated religious devotions, gave her a rundown of the current scandals involving the lords and ladies at Court, all of whom the abbess knew by name, and touched lightly on the affair between the queen and the Duke of Buckingham, talking a great deal in order to induce the superior to talk a little.
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