The Three Musketeers

by Alexandre Dumas

  Athos saw he was recognized and struck the window with his hand and knee. The window gave way and crashed into the house.

  And Athos, like a specter of vengeance, sprang into the room.

  Milady ran to the door and opened it; but, even paler and more menacing than Athos, d’Artagnan stood in the doorway.

  Milady recoiled with a gasp. D’Artagnan, thinking she might yet have a way to flee and afraid she might escape, drew his pistol from his belt; but Athos raised his hand.

  “Return that weapon to its place, d’Artagnan,” Athos said. “It’s important that this woman be judged, not assassinated. Wait a bit longer, d’Artagnan, and you will be satisfied. Enter, Messieurs.”

  D’Artagnan obeyed, for Athos had the solemn voice and grave demeanor of a judge sent by the Lord himself. Behind d’Artagnan came Porthos, Aramis, Lord Winter, and the man in the red cloak.

  The four lackeys guarded the door and the window.

  Milady had fallen back into a chair, arms extended as if to banish this terrible apparition. When she saw her brother-in-law, she screamed.

  “What do you want?” she cried.

  “We want,” said Athos, “one Charlotte Backson, also known, first as the Comtesse de La Fère, then as Lady de Winter, Baronne de Sheffield.”

  “That’s me, that’s me!” murmured Milady, at the height of terror. “What do you want of me?”

  “We want to judge you according to your crimes,” said Athos. “You are free to defend yourself; justify yourself if you can. Monsieur d’Artagnan, it falls to you to accuse her first.”

  D’Artagnan advanced.

  “Before God and before men,” he said, “I accuse this woman of having poisoned Constance Bonacieux, who died yesterday evening.”

  He turned toward Porthos and Aramis.

  “We so witness,” said the musketeers together.

  D’Artagnan continued: “Before God and before men, I accuse this woman of attempting to poison me, in wine that she sent me from Villeroi, with a forged letter representing the wine as having come from my friends. God preserved me, but a man named Brisemont died in my place.”

  “We so witness,” said Porthos and Aramis, in the same voice.

  “Before God and before men, I accuse this woman of attempting to induce me to murder the Comte de Wardes—and, as no one can attest to the verity of that accusation, I attest to it myself.”

  And d’Artagnan withdrew to the other side of the room, near Porthos and Aramis.

  “And now you, Milord,” said Athos.

  The baron approached in his turn.

  “Before God and before men,” he said, “I accuse this woman of having contrived the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham.”

  “The Duke of Buckingham, assassinated?” everyone cried.

  “Yes,” said the baron, “assassinated! After receiving the letter of warning you wrote to me, I had this woman arrested and placed under guard of a loyal servant. She corrupted this man; she placed the dagger in his hand; she made him kill the duke; and at this moment, perhaps, Felton is paying with his head for this Fury’s crime.”

  A shudder ran through the other judges at the revelation of these unknown offenses.

  “Nor is that all,” resumed Lord Winter. “My brother, who had made you his heir, died in less than three hours from a strange illness that left livid marks all over his body. My sister, how did your husband die?”

  “Horrible!” cried Porthos and Aramis.

  “Assassin of Buckingham, assassin of Felton, assassin of my brother, I demand justice upon you, and declare that if it is not given, I will give it.”

  And Lord Winter ranged himself beside d’Artagnan, ceding his place to the next accuser.

  Milady let her head sink into her hands and tried to gather her wits, which spun with a fatal vertigo.

  “It is my turn,” said Athos, trembling as the lion trembles at the sight of the serpent. “It is my turn. I married this woman when she was a young girl, married her in defiance of my whole family. I gave her my wealth, I gave her my name—and one day I discovered that this woman was branded, marked with a fleur-de-lys on her left shoulder.”

  “Oh!” said Milady, rising. “I defy you to find the tribunal who pronounced such an infamous sentence on me. I defy you to find him who executed it.”

  “Silence,” said a voice. “It is for me to reply to that!”

  And the man in the red cloak came forward in his turn.

  “Who is that man? Who is that man?” cried Milady, suffocated by terror, her hair unbraiding itself and rising over her livid face as if alive.

  All eyes turned toward this man, for to everyone, except Athos, he was unknown.

  And even Athos regarded him with as much stupefaction as the others, for he had no idea how he could be involved in this horrific drama.

  Having approached Milady with a slow and solemn step, so that only the table separated them, the stranger removed his mask.

  For some moments Milady examined, with increasing terror, that pale face in its frame of black hair and whiskers, whose only expression was an icy impassivity. Then, all at once, “Oh, no, no!” she cried, rising and retreating to the wall. “No, no, it’s an infernal vision! It can’t be him! Help! Help!” she shrieked, and turned and raked the wall, as if she would tear open a passage with her hands.

  “Who are you, then?” cried all the witnesses of this scene.

  “Ask that woman,” said the man in the red cloak, “for you can clearly see she recognizes me.”

  “The Executioner of Lille! The Executioner of Lille!” cried Milady, in the grip of a mad terror, clinging to the wall with her hands to keep from falling to the floor.

  Everyone drew back, and the man in the red cloak stood alone in the center of the room.

  “Oh, forgive me! Forgive me!” cried the miserable woman, falling to her knees.

  The stranger waited for silence before resuming. “As I said, I was sure she would recognize me! Yes, I am the executioner of the city of Lille, and here is my story.”

  All eyes were fixed on this man, whose words they awaited with avid attention.

  “That young woman was once a young girl, as beautiful as she is today. She was a novice in the Benedictine convent of Templemar. A young priest, with a trusting and simple heart, performed the church services at that convent. She undertook to seduce him, and succeeded. She could have seduced a saint.

  “The vows they took were sacred and irrevocable—but their liaison couldn’t be maintained long before it would result in the ruin of them both. She persuaded him to leave the province—but to flee together to another part of France, where they were unknown and could live in peace, required money, and neither of them had any. The priest stole the sacred vases, and sold them; but as they were preparing to leave together, they were both arrested.

  “Within a week she had seduced the son of the jailer and escaped. The young priest was condemned to ten years in irons, and to be branded. I was the executioner of the city of Lille, as this woman has said. I was obliged to brand the convict—and that convict, Messieurs, was my brother!

  “I swore then that the woman who had ruined him, who was more than his accomplice, as she had driven him to crime, should suffer the same punishment. I thought I knew where she had gone to hide—I pursued her, caught her, bound her, and burned into her the same brand I had burned into my brother.

  “The day after my return to Lille, my brother succeeded in escaping. I was accused of complicity and condemned to take his place in prison until he should once again be captured. My poor brother was ignorant of this sentence; he rejoined this woman, and they fled together into Berry. There, they obtained a little curacy; this woman passed for his sister.

  “The lord of the domain where this curate’s church was located saw this false sister, and fell in love with her—so much so, that he proposed to marry her. Then she left the man she’d ruined for the man she would ruin next, and became the Comtesse de La Fère . .
.”

  All eyes turned to Athos, for that was his true name, and he nodded to indicate that everything the executioner said was true.

  “Then,” the man resumed, “mad, desperate, determined to escape an existence from which she’d taken everything, both honor and happiness, my poor brother returned to Lille. There he learned of the sentence that had condemned me in his place, turned himself in, and hung himself that same night from the bars in the window of his cell.

  “In justice to those who had condemned me, they kept their word. As soon as the cadaver was positively identified as that of my brother, I was set free.

  “That is the crime of which I accuse her; that is the reason she is branded.”

  “Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Athos, “what is the penalty you demand for this woman?”

  “The penalty of death,” replied d’Artagnan.

  “Milord de Winter,” continued Athos, “what is the penalty you demand for this woman?”

  “The penalty of death,” replied Lord Winter.

  “Messieurs Porthos and Aramis,” said Athos, “you who are her judges: what is the sentence you pronounce on this woman?”

  “The sentence of death,” replied the two musketeers, in hollow voices.

  Milady uttered a frightful howl and dragged herself on her knees toward her judges.

  Athos extended his hand and pointed at her.

  “Anne de Breuil, Comtesse de La Fère, Milady de Winter,” he said, “your crimes are an abomination before men on earth and God in heaven. If you know a prayer, say it—for you are condemned, and must die.”

  At these words, which left no hope, Milady raised herself to her full height and tried to speak, but her strength failed her. She felt as if a powerful and implacable hand had seized her by the hair and was dragging her to her doom as inevitably as destiny drives man, so she put up no resistance as the executioner led her from the cottage.

  Lord Winter, d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis followed closely behind. The lackeys followed their masters, and the chamber was left empty, with its window broken, its door open, and its smoky lamp burning on the table, shining its light for no one.

  LXVI

  Execution

  It was midnight, or very nearly. The waning crescent moon, bloodied by the last traces of the storm, rose behind the little village of Armentières, its wan light making dark silhouettes of the town’s houses and a skeleton of its ornamental steeple. Before them the waters of the Lys rolled like a flow of molten pewter. On the opposite bank a shadowy mass of trees was outlined against the unsettled sky, where dark umber clouds shuddered and shed a sort of twilight in the midst of the blackness. To the left arose an old abandoned windmill with its broken vanes, whence came the regular, monotonous, and shrill cry of an owl. Here and there in the fields, to the right and left of the road along which the funereal procession marched, appeared a few low, stunted trees, looking like deformed dwarfs craning for a view of the men who were abroad at this sinister hour.

  From time to time a broad sheet of lightning split the entire width of the horizon, writhed above the black mass of trees, and, like a fearful scimitar, sliced the water and sky into two parts. No whisper of wind now ruffled the heavy air. A deathlike silence had fallen across all of nature; the damp soil glistened with the recently-fallen rain, and the vegetation, revivified, filled the air with its scents.

  Two of the lackeys led Milady, one holding each of her arms. The executioner marched behind, followed by Lord Winter, d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Planchet and Bazin brought up the rear.

  Grimaud and Mousqueton conducted Milady toward the riverbank. Her voice was mute, but her eyes spoke with their inexpressible eloquence, pleading with each of them in turn.

  When she found herself a few paces ahead of the others, she said to the lackeys, “A thousand pistoles to each of you, if you’ll cover my escape—but if you deliver me to your masters, I have avengers nearby who will make you pay dearly for my death.”

  Grimaud hesitated. Mousqueton trembled.

  Athos heard Milady’s voice and hurried forward, Lord Winter right behind him. “Replace these lackeys,” Athos said. “She has spoken to them—they are no longer reliable.”

  They called for Planchet and Bazin, who took the places of Grimaud and Mousqueton.

  When they arrived at the edge of the water, the executioner approached Milady and began to bind her feet and hands.

  Then she broke the silence to cry out, “You are all cowards, nothing but miserable assassins! Does it take ten of you to cut one woman’s throat? I say, beware: if I’m not saved, I will be avenged!”

  “You are not a woman,” said Athos coldly, “no part of the human race. You are a demon escaped from hell, which is where we are going to return you.”

  “Ah! Such virtuous gentlemen!” said Milady. “Be warned that whoever touches a hair of my head is himself an assassin.”

  “But an executioner may kill, Madame, and not be an assassin,” said the man in the red cloak. He tapped his gigantic sword. “This is the final judge, that’s all. The Nachrichter, as our German neighbors say.”

  With these words he finished tying her bonds, while Milady uttered two or three savage cries, which seemed like strange and melancholy things that winged away into the night and lost themselves in the depths of the wood.

  “If I’m guilty, if I’ve committed the crimes you’ve accused me of,” howled Milady, “take me before a tribunal! You are no judges! You can’t condemn me!”

  “I offered you Tyburn,” said Lord Winter. “Why didn’t you take it?”

  “Because I don’t want to die!” cried Milady, struggling. “Because I’m too young to die!”

  “The woman you poisoned at Béthune was younger than you are, Madame—but she is dead,” said d’Artagnan.

  “I’ll enter a cloister!” said Milady. “I’ll become a nun!”

  “You were in a cloister,” said the executioner, “and you left it to destroy my brother.”

  Milady squealed in terror and fell to her knees.

  The executioner lifted her in his arms and carried her toward the ferryboat.

  “Oh, my God!” she cried. “My God! You’re going to drown me!”

  These cries were so heartrending that d’Artagnan, who had been the most fervent of Milady’s pursuers, sank onto a tree stump, lowered his head, and covered his ears with the palms of his hands. But despite this he could still hear her cries and threats.

  D’Artagnan was the youngest of all these men, and his heart failed him.

  “No!” he cried. “I can’t stand by and watch such an awful spectacle! I can’t let that woman be murdered this way!”

  Milady heard these words and grasped at this shadow of hope. “D’Artagnan! D’Artagnan!” she screamed. “Remember that I loved you!”

  The young man rose and took a step toward her.

  But Athos, brusquely, drew his sword and stood in his path.

  “If you take one more step, d’Artagnan,” he said, “we cross swords.”

  D’Artagnan fell to his knees and prayed.

  “Come,” continued Athos, “Executioner, do your duty.”

  “Willingly, Monseigneur,” said the executioner, “for, as a good Catholic, I firmly believe it is just for me to perform my function on this woman.”

  “Good.”

  Athos took a step toward Milady. “I forgive you,” he said, “for the evil you’ve done me. I forgive you for my blasted future, my lost honor, my defiled love, and my hope of salvation forever compromised by the despair you’ve cast me into. Die in peace.”

  Lord Winter advanced in his turn. “I forgive you,” he said, “the poisoning of my brother, and the assassination of His Grace the Duke of Buckingham. I forgive you for the death of my poor Felton, and I forgive you for the attempts on my own life. Die in peace.”

  “And I,” said d’Artagnan, “forgive me, Madame, for having provoked your anger by a trick unworthy of a gentleman. In exch
ange, I forgive you for the murder of my poor love, and your cruel revenge against me. I forgive you, and I weep for you. Die in peace.”

  “I am lost,” murmured Milady, in English. “I must die.”

  Then she staggered to her feet and cast around her one of those blazing looks that seemed to flash from eyes of flame.

  She saw . . . nothing.

  She listened, and heard . . . nothing.

  She had around her nothing but enemies.

  “Where am I to die?” she said.

  “On the other bank,” replied the executioner.

  Then he put her into the boat. As he was about to step in himself, Athos gave him a handful of silver.

  “Here is the price of the execution,” he said, “so it is clear that we act as judges.”

  “As is proper,” said the executioner. “And now, so it is clear to this woman that I am not doing a job, but performing a duty . . .” He threw the money into the river.

  The boat made its way across to the right bank of the Lys, carrying the condemned and the executioner. The others remained on the left bank, where they fell to their knees.

  The boat glided slowly along the ferry-rope, under the dim reflection of a pale cloud that hung over the water.

  It approached the other shore, where the pair made black silhouettes against the ruddy horizon.

  Milady, during the crossing, had managed to untie the cord that bound her feet. On reaching the shore, she jumped lightly to the bank and took flight.

  But the soil was wet; when she reached the top of the bluff, she slipped and fell to her knees.

  No doubt she was overcome by the superstitious idea that heaven had denied her escape. She remained where she’d fallen, head bowed and hands clasped.

  Then they saw, from the other bank, the headsman slowly raise his arms. A ray of moonlight reflected from the blade of his huge sword, and then his arms swung down. They heard the hiss of the broadsword and the cry of the victim, and a truncated mass crumpled beneath the blow.

  Then the executioner removed his red cloak and spread it on the ground. He laid the body on it, threw in the head, tied the four corners together, lifted it to his shoulder, and got back into the boat.