“Captain, Monsieur?” said the king. “Surely you mean lieutenant.”
“Not at all, Sire, I make no such mistake; Your Majesty may rely on me in that regard. Monsieur de Mazarin gave me the promotion.”
“Well, then?”
“Well, Monsieur de Mazarin, as you know better than anyone, rarely gives anything away, and what he gives he sometimes takes back. He revoked the rank once peace was made and he no longer needed me. I don’t say I was worthy to fill the shoes of Monsieur de Tréville,56 of illustrious memory, but still, they promised it to me, they’d given it to me, and they should have left it with me.”
“Is that why you’re dissatisfied, Monsieur? Well, I’ll look into it! I love justice, and your claim, though made with military brusqueness, doesn’t displease me.”
“No, Sire!” said the officer. “Your Majesty has misunderstood me; I no longer press any such claim.”
“Don’t overdo the modesty, Monsieur. I will look into your affair, and later…”
“Oh, Sire, Sire! That word, later. For thirty years I’ve been dining on the bounty of that word, which I’ve heard spoken by all the high and mighty, and which now I hear from your mouth. Later! Meanwhile, I’ve taken twenty wounds and have reached the age of fifty-four without a louis in my pocket and without ever having found a master who would protect me—me, who has protected so many masters! As of today, that’s changed, Sire, and when I’m told later, my reply is now. That’s the change I ask for, Sire. And it might as well be granted me, as it will cost no one anything.”
“I didn’t expect to hear such language, Monsieur, especially from one who is accustomed to dealing with the grands. You forget you’re speaking to a king, to a gentleman whose word, I should think, must be accounted as good as your own. When I say later, I’m speaking of a certainty.”
“I don’t doubt it, Sire, but here is the gist of the terrible truth I have to tell you: even if I saw on the table in front of me the baton of a marshal, the Sword of the Constable, and the Crown of Poland, instead of later, I swear to you, Sire, I would still say now. Please excuse me, Sire—I’m from the country of your grandfather, Henri IV, and there we don’t say much, but when we do, we say it all.”
“I am just coming into my reign. That future doesn’t appeal to you, Monsieur?” said Louis haughtily.
“It seems everything is forgotten,” the officer said with nobility. “The master has forgotten the servant, and now the servant is accused of forgetting the master. I live in unhappy times, Sire! I see youth ruled by discouragement and fear, timid and exploited, when it ought to be rich and powerful. Last night, for example, I opened the door of the King of France to admit the King of England, whose father, humble though I am, I very nearly saved, if God hadn’t been against me, for the Lord had inspired his enemy Cromwell. I opened, as I said, that door, to the palace of one brother to another, and I see—alas, Sire, this is a blow to my heart! I see the king’s minister turn away the exile and humiliate his master into condemning to misery another king, his equal. I witness my prince, who is young, handsome, and brave, who has courage in his heart and fire in his eyes, I see him tremble before a priest who laughs from behind the curtain of his ministry, where he lies on his bed counting all the gold in France, which he then hides away in secret vaults.
“Yes, I can see it in your expression, Sire: I’m bold to the point of madness. But what would you have? I’m an old soldier, and I say here, to you, my King, things I would cram down the throat of anyone else who dared to say them in front of me. But you commanded me to open the depths of my heart to you, Sire, and I place at Your Majesty’s feet all the bitter gall I’ve amassed over thirty years of service, just as I would spill every drop of my blood for Your Majesty if you ordered me to do so.”
The king, without saying a word, wiped away the drops of cold sweat trickling from his temples. The moments of silence that followed this vehement outburst seemed like centuries of suffering to both of them.
“Monsieur,” the king said at last, “you spoke the word forgotten, the only word I will admit to hearing, and the one to which I’ll reply. Others may have been forgetful, but not me, and the proof is that I remember one day during the riots, when the people were furious, and like an angry and roaring sea, they invaded the Palais Royal. On that day, while I pretended to be sleeping, one man, with a naked sword, hid behind my curtained bed to watch over my life, ready to risk his own for me, as he’d already twenty times risked it for my family. Was not this gentleman, whose name I asked—was he not called Monsieur d’Artagnan?* Tell me, Monsieur.”
“Your Majesty has a good memory,” replied the officer coldly.
“You see, then, Monsieur,” continued the king, “if I have such a good memory of my childhood, how much better it must be since I’ve reached the age of reason.”
“Your Majesty has been richly endowed by God,” said the officer in the same tone.
“Come, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” continued Louis in desperate appeal, “can’t you be as patient as I am? Can’t you do as I do? Come, now.”
“And what is it you’re doing, Sire?”
“I’m waiting.”
“Your Majesty can wait because he’s young, but I, Sire, have no more time to wait. Old age knocks at my door, and death is beyond him, peering into the depths of my house. Your Majesty is at the beginning of life, and full of hope for fortune to come, but I’m at the other end of the horizon, Sire, so far from Your Majesty that I don’t have time enough to wait for him to reach me.”
Louis took a turn around the room, continually wiping away that cold sweat that would have put his doctors into a fright. “Very well, Monsieur,” said Louis XIV curtly. “You desire your discharge? You shall have it. You offer me your resignation from the rank of Lieutenant of the King’s Musketeers?”
“I place it humbly at Your Majesty’s feet, Sire.”
“Fine. I will arrange your pension.”
“I shall have a thousand obligations to Your Majesty.”
“Monsieur,” said the king, making an effort at self-control, “I think you’ll be losing a good master.”
“I am sure of that, Sire.”
“And where will you find another like him?”
“Oh, Sire! I know well that Your Majesty is one of a kind, so I am resolved to never serve another king on this earth and will have no master other than myself.”
“You mean it?”
“Your Majesty, I swear it.”
“I’ll hold you to your word, Monsieur.”
D’Artagnan bowed.
“And you know I have a good memory,” continued the king.
“Yes, Sire, and yet I wish Your Majesty’s memory of this last hour should dim and forget the miseries that I brought before his eyes. His Majesty is so far above the poor and the lowly, that I hope…”
“My Majesty, Monsieur, will shine like the sun, which sees everyone, great and small, rich and poor, giving luster to some, warmth to others, and life to all. Adieu, Monsieur d’Artagnan, adieu. You are free.”
And the king, choking off a hoarse sob, hurried away into the next chamber.
D’Artagnan took his hat from the table where he’d tossed it and went out.
XV The Exile
D’Artagnan had scarcely gone down the stairs before the king called in his gentleman of the day. “I have a task for you, Monsieur,” he said.
“I am at Your Majesty’s command.”
“Wait, then.”
And the young king wrote the following letter, which cost him more than one sigh, though at times his eyes flashed with triumph.
Monsieur le Cardinal,
Thanks to your wise counsel, and most particularly to your firm persistence, I’ve been able to conquer a weakness unworthy of a king. You have too skillfully arranged my future for me to allow an ungrateful impulse to destroy all your work. I have come to understand that I was wrong to want to deviate from the road you’ve paved for my life. Beyond doubt, it would ha
ve been a tragedy for France and for my family for me to allow a misunderstanding between me and my minister.
That is certainly what would have happened if I’d made your niece my wife. I understand that now, and henceforth will do nothing to oppose the achievement of my destiny. I’m ready to marry the Infanta Marie-Thérèse.* You can proceed with arranging the conference of negotiation.
Your affectionate,
LOUIS
The king read over his letter, and then sealed it himself. “Take this letter to Monsieur le Cardinal,” he said.
The gentleman went out. At the door of Mazarin’s suite, he met Bernouin, who was awaiting him anxiously.
“Well?” asked the minister’s confidential valet.
“A letter for His Eminence, Monsieur,” said the gentleman.
“A letter! Ah! We’ve been expecting one, after that little trip this morning.”
“Oh? You knew that His Majesty…”
“In our capacity as prime minister, it’s the duty of our office to know everything. His Majesty begs and pleads, I presume?”
“I don’t know about that, but he sighed quite a bit while writing it.”
“Yes, yes, we know what that means. We sigh from happiness as well as from sorrow, Monsieur.”
“Maybe so, but the king didn’t look very happy when he came back, Monsieur.”
“You must not have looked closely. Besides, you saw only His Majesty when he returned, with just his guard lieutenant. But I held His Eminence’s telescope for him and looked through it once he got tired. The lovers both cried, I’m sure of it.”
“And you think they cried from happiness?”
“No, from love, and they swore a thousand tender oaths that the king intends to fulfill. This letter is the beginning of that fulfillment.”
“And what does His Eminence think of this love, which, by the way, is no secret to anyone?”
Climbing the stairs, Bernouin took the arm of Louis’s messenger and said, in an undertone, “Confidentially, His Eminence is counting on its success. I know it means we’ll have war with Spain, but bah! The nobility love a good war. The cardinal, moreover, will dower his niece royally, and more than royally. Money will flow, there will be festivals and fireworks, and everyone will be satisfied.”
“Well,” replied the gentleman, “it seems to me this is a pretty light letter to contain all that.”
“Friend,” said Bernouin, “I’m sure of what I say; Monsieur d’Artagnan told me everything.”
“Really! And what did he say?”
“I approached him to ask if he had any news for the cardinal, without showing our hand, of course, for Monsieur d’Artagnan is a very sharp player. ‘My dear Monsieur Bernouin,’ he replied, ‘the king is madly in love with Mademoiselle de Mancini, and that’s all I have to say.’ ‘Indeed,’ I said, ‘do you think he’s reached the point of opposing His Eminence’s plans for him?’ ‘Ah, don’t ask me that; I think the king is capable of anything. He has a soul of iron, and when he wants something, he wants it. If he’s resolved in his mind to marry Mademoiselle de Mancini, he’ll marry her.’ And with that he left me, went to the stables, took a horse that he’d saddled himself, jumped astride and rode off as if the devil were after him.”
“What do you think?”
“I think Monsieur Lieutenant knew more than he wanted to say.”
“Then, in your opinion, Monsieur d’Artagnan…”
“Has gone, in all probability, after the exiles, to do whatever he can to help the king’s love affair to success.”
And speaking thus, the two confidants arrived at the door to His Eminence’s study. His Eminence had shaken the gout and was pacing anxiously in his chamber, listening at the doors and peering out the windows.
Bernouin came in, followed by the gentleman whom the king had ordered to deliver his letter into His Eminence’s hands. Mazarin took the letter, but before opening it he composed his features into a bland smile, a useful mask to conceal his emotions, whatever they might be. That way, no matter what impression the letter made upon him, that impression couldn’t be read on his face.
“Very good!” he said, after reading the letter over twice. “Excellent, Monsieur. Inform the king that I thank him for his obedience to the queen mother’s wishes, and that I will do everything I can to enact his will.”
The gentleman went out. As soon as the door closed behind him, the cardinal, who wore no masks for Bernouin, dropped the expression that had cloaked his countenance and said, in his darkest tone, “Call Monsieur de Brienne.”
The secretary arrived five minutes later. “Monsieur,” Mazarin told him, “I’ve just done a great service for the monarchy, the greatest I’ve ever rendered. You will bear this letter, which is proof of it, to Her Majesty the queen mother, and when she’s returned it to you, you will file it in Box B, which contains similar documents related to my service.”
Brienne went out, and as this momentous letter had already been opened, he didn’t fail to read it on his way. It goes without saying that Bernouin, who followed at his elbow, also read it over his shoulder. Thereafter the news spread through the château so quickly that Mazarin had reason to fear it might reach the queen’s ears before Monsieur de Brienne handed her Louis’s letter. Shortly thereafter all the orders were given for departure, and Monsieur de Condé, after attending the king’s pretense of a morning lever,57 inscribed on his tablets the city of Poitiers as the next destination of Their Majesties.
And thus was unraveled in a few minutes an intrigue that had been the secret fascination of half the diplomats of Europe. It had, however, nothing very clear as an immediate result other than the poor Lieutenant of Musketeers’ loss of his post and his income—though it’s true that in exchange he had won his freedom.
We shall soon see how Monsieur d’Artagnan took advantage of this. For the moment, we hope the reader will be so kind as to allow us to return to the Inn of The Médicis, and a window that had just opened there at the very moment when the orders were given up at the château for the king’s departure. This window opened out from one of the rooms of Charles II. The unhappy prince had spent the night in bitter musing, his head in his hands and his elbows on a table, while Parry, old and weary, slept slumped in a corner, exhausted in mind and body.
It was a strange destiny for that faithful servant, now witnessing a second generation suffering a frightful series of misfortunes like those that had burdened the first. When Charles II considered this new defeat he’d just suffered, when he fully comprehended the dreadful isolation that awaited him now that this last hope had failed him, he was seized by a sort of dizziness and had fallen back into an armchair. Then God took pity on the unfortunate prince and sent to him sleep, the innocent brother of death.
He didn’t awaken until half past six, when the sun was already shining into his room, and Parry, afraid to move lest he wake the prince, was looking with profound sadness at the young man, whose eyes were still red from the day before, and whose cheeks were pale from suffering and privation. Finally, the sound of some heavy wagons rumbling down toward the Loire had awakened Charles. He rose, looked around like a man at a loss for where he was, saw Parry, took his hand between his own, and told him to go and settle their account with Master Cropole.
Master Cropole, when totaling the bill with Parry, acquitted himself, it must be said, like an honest man. He made only his usual complaint, that the two travelers had eaten nothing, which was doubly embarrassing for his kitchen and because he had to charge them for something they hadn’t consumed but was nonetheless wasted. Parry couldn’t argue with this, and paid.
“I hope,” said the king, “that it wasn’t the same with our horses. I didn’t see their food listed on the bill, and it would be a shame for travelers like us to get down the road and find our horses collapsing from hunger.”
Master Cropole, hearing this, assumed an air of majesty and replied that the feeding troughs of The Médicis were no less hospitable than its kitchen.<
br />
The king mounted his horse, as did his servant, and the two took the road to Paris, encountering almost no one on the way, in the streets or outskirts of the town. The blow was most severe for the prince, as this was a new exile. Unfortunate people cling to their slightest hopes, as the fortunate do to their bounties, and when forced to leave the places where hope has tempted their hearts, they feel the deadly grief of the banished when they embark on their ships of deportation. A heart already wounded many times over suffers at every new sting, and good becomes no more than the brief absence of ill, a mere cessation of pain. In such misfortunes God seems to offer hope as a torment, like the drop of water the rich sinners in Hell asked of Lazarus.
For a moment, when he’d been welcomed by his brother Louis, hope for Charles II had been more than just a fleeting joy. Then reality had intervened, and the blow of Mazarin’s refusal had revealed that hope to be nothing more than a dream. Louis XIV’s promise had been nothing more than a mockery, a farce—like Charles’s crown, like his scepter, like his so-called friends, like everything promised in his royal infancy and lost in his proscribed youth. Mockery! All promises were mockery for Charles II, all but the cold, dark repose promised by death.
Such were the thoughts of this unhappy prince as, slumped in the saddle, almost dropping the reins, he rode into the gentle warm sunlight of May, which in his somber misanthropy the exile saw only as the final insult to his grief.
XVI “Remember!”
About half an hour after the two travelers left Blois, a rider rapidly approached them, raising his hat as he hurried past. The king paid little attention to the young man, who was in his early twenties, and who turned in the saddle to give a friendly wave back along the road toward a man standing in front of a gate, beyond which was a handsome house of red brick and white stone with a slate roof, off to the left of the road the prince was following.
The man by the gate was tall and spare, with the white hair of the elderly, and responded to the young man’s wave with gestures of farewell as tender as that of a father toward a son. The young man finally disappeared around a turn behind the tall trees that lined the road, and the old man was turning toward the house, when the two travelers, arriving in front of the gate, attracted his attention. The king, as we said, was riding with head bowed, arms loose, almost allowing the horse to choose his own way, while Parry, just behind him, had removed his hat to enjoy the warmth of the sun, and was looking left and right as they rode along. His eyes met those of the old man leaning against the gate, who suddenly gasped and took a step toward the two travelers, as if struck by an unexpected sight. From Parry, his eyes turned to the king, where his gaze paused for a moment. This scrutiny, brief though it was, caused an immediate change to come over the old man, for scarcely had he recognized the youngest of the two travelers—we say recognized, for only positive recognition could explain his behavior—scarcely had he recognized the youngest of the two travelers when he clasped his hands together in surprise, then raised his hat and bowed so low he was almost kneeling.
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