Twenty Years After

by Alexander Dumas

  “No, you’re right, my dear Rochefort, it can’t be for that. But you’re probably about to learn what it was for.”

  “Ah, yes, I forgot to ask—where are you taking me?”

  “To the cardinal.”

  “What does he want?”

  “I don’t know, since I didn’t even know it was you I was going to get.”

  “Impossible. A favorite like you?”

  “Me, a favorite?” d’Artagnan cried. “My dear Count! I was a cadet from Gascony when I met you at Meung22 twenty-two years ago, and I’m still not much more than that!” He finished with a deep sigh.

  “But you’re leading a command, aren’t you?”

  “Because I happened to be the one in the antechamber when the cardinal called. But I’m still just a lieutenant of musketeers, as I’ve been for the last twenty years.”

  “Well, at least nothing bad has happened to you.”

  “What could happen to me? To quote some Latin verse I’ve mostly forgotten, or rather never knew, ‘Lightning doesn’t strike the valley’—and I’m a valley, my dear Rochefort, the deepest around.”

  “And Mazarin is still Mazarin?”

  “More than ever! They say he’s secretly married to the queen.”

  “Married!”

  “If he’s not her husband, he’s certainly her lover.”

  “So, she resisted Buckingham but gave in to Mazarin!”

  “Women!” said d’Artagnan, philosophically.

  “Not just a woman, but a queen!”

  “Mon Dieu, queens are just women twice over.”

  “And Monsieur de Beaufort, is he still in prison?”

  “Indeed. Why?”

  “It’s just that he thinks well of me and might get me out of this.”

  “You’re probably closer to being free than he is, and will have to get him out of it.”

  “Then, the war . . .”

  “Oh, we’ll have a war.”

  “With the Spanish?”

  “No, with Paris.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you hear that gunfire?”

  “Yes. What is it?”

  “That’s the citizens getting warmed up before the game!”

  “And you think these civilians mean business?”

  “Mais oui, if they can find a good leader to pull them together.”

  “What a rotten time to get out of prison.”

  “Good God, cheer up! If Mazarin sent for you, it’s because he needs you, and if he needs you—well, my compliments! He hasn’t needed me in years, and you see where I am.”

  “Then speak up about it! That’s my advice.”

  “Listen, Rochefort—let’s make a deal.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’ve been good friends to each other.”

  “Pardieu! I’ve got three sword wounds to prove it.”

  “Well, if you get back in favor, don’t forget about me.”

  “On the honor of a Rochefort—but you must do the same for me.”

  “Deal! Here’s my hand. So, the first chance you get to put in a word for me . . .”

  “I’ll speak up. And you?”

  “I’ll do the same.”

  “And what about your old friends? Are they included?”

  “Which friends?”

  “Athos,* Porthos,* and Aramis*—have you forgotten?”

  “Just about.”

  “What’s become of them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Really?”

  “Good Lord, yes! We parted, as you know; I sometimes hear indirect news, so I know they’re still alive, but that’s all. But where in the world they might be, devil take me if I know. Upon my honor, the only friend I have is you, Rochefort.”

  “And your illustrious . . . what did you call that lad who made sergeant in the Piedmont Regiment?”

  “Planchet?”

  “Yes, that’s it. And the illustrious Planchet,23 what happened to him?”

  “He married the owner of a confectioner’s shop in the Rue des Lombards . . . he always did have a sweet tooth. So, he’s a merchant of Paris, and probably leading the riots. It’s funny, but he’ll probably make alderman before I make captain.”

  “Come, my dear d’Artagnan, buck up! It’s when you’re at the bottom of the wheel that it turns you back to the top. Your fate may change this very evening.”

  “Amen to that!” said d’Artagnan, halting the carriage.

  “What are you doing?” asked Rochefort.

  “We’re nearly there, so I’m getting out. It shouldn’t look like we know each other.”

  “Quite right. Adieu!”

  “Au revoir; remember your promise.” And d’Artagnan mounted his horse and took over lead of the escort.

  Five minutes later they entered the courtyard of the Palais Royal.

  D’Artagnan led the prisoner up the grand stair, across the antechamber, and along a corridor. At the door of Mazarin’s study, he was about to have himself announced when Rochefort laid his hand on his shoulder. “D’Artagnan,” said Rochefort with a smile, “do you want to know what I was thinking as we rode along that route, passing those angry mobs that watched you and your four men with flaming eyes?”

  “What?” said d’Artagnan.

  “Just that all I had to do was shout for help and they’d have torn you to pieces, you and your escort—and I’d have been free.”

  “Why didn’t you do it, then?” said d’Artagnan.

  “Come now!” Rochefort replied. “What of our sworn friendship? Now, if it had been someone other than you who was taking me, I don’t

  say . . .”

  D’Artagnan saluted him—and said to himself, “Has Rochefort become a better man than I?”

  And he had himself announced to the minister.

  “Bring in Monsieur de Rochefort,” came Mazarin’s impatient voice, as soon as he heard the names, “but ask Monsieur d’Artagnan to wait—I’ve not yet finished with him.”

  At these words d’Artagnan withdrew happily. As he’d said, it was a long time since anyone had needed him, and this directive from Mazarin seemed a good omen.

  As for Rochefort, the summons had no effect on him other than to put him on his guard. He entered the study and found Mazarin seated at his desk in his usual attire, that of a prelate of the Church—similar to the robes of an abbot of the period, but with stockings and mantle of purple.

  As the doors closed, Rochefort glanced at Mazarin from the side of his eye, and saw the minister sizing him up from the side of his own.

  The minister was the same as always: curled, primped, perfumed, and thanks to this grooming, looking less than his age. As for Rochefort, that was something else; five years in prison had aged Richelieu’s worthy aide, turning his black hair white and changing his healthy complexion to a wan pallor. Seeing him, Mazarin shook his head slightly with a look that said, “Here’s a man without much use left in him.”

  After a silence that stretched out for what seemed to Rochefort an age, Mazarin took a letter from a pile of papers, showed it to him, and said, “I see here a letter in which you request your freedom, Monsieur de Rochefort. Are you in prison, then?”

  Rochefort trembled at this question. “But,” he said, “it seems to me Your Eminence ought to know that better than anyone.”

  “Me? Not at all! There’s still a crowd of prisoners in the Bastille who’ve been there since Monsieur de Richelieu’s time, and I don’t know all their names.”

  “Oh, but me, Monseigneur, that’s another thing entirely! You knew my name, since it was by Your Eminence’s order that I was taken from the Châtelet to the Bastille.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “Yes—I think I do remember it. Didn’t you, at the time, refuse a mission to Brussels on the queen’s behalf?”

  “Ah,” said Rochefort, “so that’s the real reason? I’ve been wondering for five years. Fool that I am, n
ot to have seen it!”

  “I don’t say that’s the cause of your arrest, I’m just asking a question, that’s all. So, listen: did you not refuse to go to Brussels on the queen’s service, after you’d gone there on the service of the old cardinal?”

  “It’s precisely because I’d gone there in service to the cardinal that I couldn’t go back in service to the queen. I’d left Brussels in terrible danger. I’d gone during the Chalais conspiracy to intercept the correspondence between Chalais and the archduke, and when I was recognized, I was nearly torn to pieces. How was I supposed to go back after that? Instead of serving the queen, I’d have been lost to her.”

  “Well, here we see, my dear Monsieur de Rochefort, how even the best of intentions can be misconstrued. When you declined to go, the queen saw it as insubordination. Her Majesty still bore a grudge about some of your services to the late cardinal!”

  Rochefort smiled sourly. “Now that he’s dead, the fact that I served Cardinal Richelieu against the queen is exactly why I would serve you, Monseigneur, against all the world.”

  “Unlike Cardinal Richelieu, Monsieur de Rochefort,” said Mazarin, “I am far from all-powerful. I’m just a minister who, as servant to the queen, needs no servants of his own. But Her Majesty is very sensitive; having heard of your refusal, she took it as a declaration of war, and since you were a capable man and therefore dangerous, Monsieur de Rochefort, she ordered me to . . . attend to you. Which is how you found yourself in the Bastille.”

  “Well, Monseigneur,” said Rochefort, “it seems to me that if I was in the Bastille by mistake . . .”

  “Yes, yes,” Mazarin replied, “I’m sure this can all be worked out. You’re a man who understands how tangled affairs can become, and how to untangle them—by whatever means.”

  “That was what Cardinal Richelieu thought, and I’ll admire that great man all the more if you tell me you share his opinion.”

  “It’s true,” said Mazarin, “Monsieur de Richelieu was a great politician, a much greater man than I, who am simple and straightforward. That’s what holds me back, that frankness so entirely French.”

  Rochefort had to bite his lips to suppress a smile.

  “So, I’ll come to the point. I need good friends and faithful servants—when I say I need, of course I mean the queen needs. I do nothing except at the orders of the queen, is that clear? I’m not like Cardinal Richelieu, who followed his own whims. No, I’ll never be a great man like him; but at least I can be a good man, Monsieur de Rochefort, and I hope to prove it to you.”

  Rochefort remembered well that silky voice, which sometimes slipped into sibilants like the hiss of a viper. “I’m quite prepared to believe that, Monseigneur,” he said, “though for my part, I’ve seen little proof till now of that good nature Your Eminence speaks of. Remember, Monseigneur,” he continued quickly, seeing the minister’s expression, “remember that I spent the last five years in the Bastille, and nothing darkens a man’s vision like seeing things through prison bars.”

  “Ah, but Monsieur de Rochefort, I already told you it wasn’t my idea to put you in prison. The queen . . . well, the anger of a woman, and moreover a princess, what would you have? But it goes as quickly as it comes and is soon forgotten.”

  “I understand, Monseigneur, how five years at the Palais Royal, amid gallants and gaiety, might make one forget—but I, who passed them in the Bastille . . .”

  “My God, Monsieur, do you think life at the Palais Royal is all parties and fun? Not at all! We have here, too, our trials and troubles. But let’s say no more about it. I’ll lay my cards on the table, Monsieur de Rochefort. Now tell me, are you with us?”

  “Please understand, Monseigneur, I ask nothing better—but I have no idea of the state of affairs. At the Bastille, one talks politics only with soldiers and jailers, and you have no idea how little such people know about what’s really going on. I’ve always been a partisan of Monsieur de Bassompierre myself—is he still one of the Seventeen Seigneurs?”24

  “He is dead, Monsieur, and it’s a great loss. He was a man devoted to the queen, and men so loyal are rare these days.”

  “Parbleu! Quite so,” said Rochefort, “especially once you’ve sent them to the Bastille.”

  “Very well, then,” said Mazarin, “how would you measure devotion?”

  “By action,” said Rochefort.

  “Indeed—by action,” said the minister thoughtfully. “But where does one find men of action?”

  Rochefort shook his head. “There’s no shortage of them, Monseigneur—if you know how to look for them.”

  “I don’t know how to look for them? What are you saying, Monsieur de Rochefort? Kindly instruct me. You were close to Monseigneur le Cardinal and must have learned a lot. Ah! What a great man he was!”

  “Monseigneur won’t take offense if I lecture a bit?”

  “Me? Never! As you know, I listen to everyone. I want to be loved, not feared.”

  “Well, Monseigneur, on the wall of my prison cell, scratched in with a nail, is a proverb.”

  “And what is this proverb?” asked Mazarin.

  “Just this, Monseigneur: Like master . . .”

  “. . . Like manservant. I know it.”

  “No: like retainer. It’s a minor change made by those devoted followers I was speaking of.”

  “Eh bien. So, what does this proverb mean?”

  “It means Monsieur de Richelieu knew how to attract loyal retainers by the dozen.”

  “He, the target of every assassin! He, who spent his life warding off attack after attack!”

  “But he did ward them off, despite their number. Because though he had many enemies, he had just as many friends.”

  “But that’s all I ask!”

  “I’ve known people,” continued Rochefort, thinking it was time to put in a word for d’Artagnan, “people so capable they were even able to foil the cardinal, with all his guards and his spies—people without rank, without money, and without support who nonetheless saved a crowned head her crown, and made the cardinal cry mercy.”

  “But these people you speak of,” said Mazarin, smiling to himself at maneuvering Rochefort into bringing up the very subject he wished to discuss, “these people weren’t devoted to the cardinal, since they fought against him.”

  “No, though they would have been better off if they had been. But they had the bad luck to be devoted to this same queen for whom you were just now trying to find servants.”

  “But how is it you know all this?”

  “I know this because, at the time, these people were my enemies; because they were pitted against me, and though I did them all the harm I could, they got the better of me; because one of them, my particular nemesis, gave me three sword wounds, the last one seven years ago . . . and that settled our old account.”

  “Ah!” said Mazarin, with good-natured longing. “If only I knew such men.”

  “Well, Monseigneur, you’ve had one of them standing outside your door for the last six years, and you haven’t seen fit to do anything with him.”

  “But who?”

  “Monsieur d’Artagnan.”

  “That Gascon?” cried Mazarin, in a perfect imitation of surprise.

  “That Gascon saved a queen, and in skill, courage, and wit made Monsieur de Richelieu look like a schoolboy in comparison.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s exactly as I have the honor to tell Your Eminence.”

  “Tell me the whole story, my dear Monsieur de Rochefort.”

  “That’s rather difficult, Monseigneur,” said the count, smiling.

  “He’ll tell me himself, then.”

  “I doubt it, Monseigneur.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because the secret is not his to tell—because, as I’ve said, it’s the secret of a great queen.”

  “And he alone accomplished such a feat?”

  “No, Monseigneur, he had three friends, three brave men who backed him up, jus
t the sort of loyal companions you said you were looking for.”

  “And these four men worked together, you say?”

  “As if they weren’t four men but one; as if four hearts beat in one chest. What they’ve done together, those four!”

  “My dear Monsieur de Rochefort, you pique my curiosity, truly you do. Are you sure you can’t share their story?”

  “No, but I can tell you a tale—a true fairy tale, as it were, Monseigneur.”

  “Then tell me, Monsieur de Rochefort! I do so love a good story.”

  “You’re sure that’s what you want, Monseigneur?” said Rochefort, trying to understand the cardinal’s motive in all this.

  “Yes.”

  “Well then, listen! Once upon a time there was a queen . . . not just any queen, but the queen of one of the greatest kingdoms of the world, a queen whom a great minister wished to harm because once he’d loved her too well. No point in trying to guess who I mean, Monseigneur, as all this took place long before you came into the queen’s kingdom.

  “Now there came to Court a brave ambassador, so rich and so elegant, that all the women lost their hearts to him. Even the queen was taken with him, and doubtless because of how diplomatically he conducted himself, she had the imprudence to present him with some royal ornaments so remarkable and unique that they were irreplaceable. Now as these ornaments had been given to her by the king, the minister persuaded His Majesty that she should wear them at an upcoming ball. Needless to say, Monseigneur, the minister was well aware that these ornaments had left with the ambassador and were now far across the sea. Alas, the great queen was lost—doomed to fall from her high estate to below the lowest of her subjects!”

  “Really!” said Mazarin.

  “Yes, Monseigneur! But four men resolved to save her. Now these four men were not princes, nor dukes, nor peers, nor even men of wealth—they were just four soldiers with bold spirits, strong arms, and quick swords. So, they went to recover the necklace. But the minister knew of their departure and had placed men along their road to prevent them from reaching their goal. Waylaid by numerous assailants, three of them were brought low, but one fought through to the port, killed or wounded those who tried to stop him, crossed the sea, and returned the ornaments to the great queen. She wore them proudly to the ball on the appointed day, and the minister was nearly ruined as a result. And what do you say to that deed, Monseigneur?”