Twenty Years After

by Alexander Dumas

  “Not likely.”

  “Who knows? Chance is capricious.”

  “Adieu.”

  “Au revoir. And by the way, if Mazarin happens to mention me, tell him I said he’ll soon see if, as he says, I’m too old for action.”

  Then Rochefort went off with one of those diabolical smiles that, once upon a time, had made d’Artagnan shudder. But d’Artagnan watched him go without anxiety, smiling on his part with a touch of that melancholy peculiar to him. “Go, old demon,” he said to himself. “Do as you will, it doesn’t matter to me—for there’s no second Constance in the world!”

  Turning, d’Artagnan saw that Bazin, having removed his ecclesiastical garb, was talking with the sacristan d’Artagnan had spoken with upon entering the church. Bazin was waving his short little arms around in lively gestures, probably, thought d’Artagnan, warning the lad against him in future. He took advantage of the two churchmen’s preoccupation to slip out of the cathedral and take up a post on the corner of the Rue des Canettes from which he could watch the door unnoticed.

  Five minutes later d’Artagnan saw Bazin appear on the steps. He looked all around to make sure he wasn’t observed, but didn’t see our officer, hidden around the corner of a house fifty paces away. Reassured, he set off along Rue Notre Dame. D’Artagnan darted from his hiding place and caught up just in time to see him turn down Rue de la Juiverie and then, on Rue de la Calandre, enter a boarding house of honest appearance. Our officer had no doubt it was the home of the worthy beadle. D’Artagnan was careful to keep his distance; if the house didn’t have a concierge, there’d be no one to speak to, and if it did, she’d already have been warned. Instead he went into a small tavern on the corner of Rue Saint-Éloi and Rue de la Calandre, where he ordered a hippocras.42 That drink would take a good half hour to prepare, giving d’Artagnan plenty of time to watch Bazin’s house without arousing suspicion.

  In the tavern, he noticed a young lad, aged twelve or so, whom he thought he recognized from having seen him twenty minutes earlier dressed as a chorister. He spoke with him, and as the apprentice sub-deacon had nothing to hide, d’Artagnan learned that he served from six to nine in the morning as a choir boy, and then from nine till midnight as a tavern boy. As he was talking to the lad, a horse, saddled and bridled, was led up to Bazin’s front door, and a moment later, Bazin came down. “Look!” said the lad. “There goes our beadle, on his way again.”

  “And where is he off to?” asked d’Artagnan.

  “Dame—blessed if I know!”

  “There’s a half-pistole in it,” d’Artagnan said, “if you can find out.”

  “For me?” said the lad, eyes sparkling. “Oh, I’ll find out where he’s going. It won’t be hard. You’re not kidding?”

  “No, faith of an officer. Look—here’s the half-pistole.” And he displayed the corrupting coin but kept hold of it.

  “I’ll ask him.”

  “That’s the best way not to get the answer,” said d’Artagnan. “Wait till he’s gone, then ask around, see what people know. Until then, your half-

  pistole waits here.” And he put it back in his pocket.

  “I get it,” said the lad, with that smirk unique to the gamins of Paris. “We’ll wait, then.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. Five minutes later, Bazin set off at a trot, slapping the withers of his horse with an umbrella. Bazin had always had the habit of using an umbrella as a riding crop. He’d scarcely turned the corner of the Rue de la Juiverie before the tavern boy was off like a bloodhound on his trail.

  D’Artagnan sat back down at his table, certain that within ten minutes he’d know just what he wanted to know.

  Indeed, the boy returned in even less time than that. “Well?” asked d’Artagnan.

  “Well,” the young lad said, “I found out a thing or two.”

  “So, where’s he going?”

  “I still get the half-pistole?”

  “Oh, yes—but talk to me first.”

  “Let me see it again. I want to make sure it’s the real thing.”

  “Here it is.”

  “Master host!” the boy said. “Monsieur here wants some change.” The innkeeper took the half-pistole and gave the boy its change—which he put into his own pocket.

  D’Artagnan watched this little game, chuckling, then said, “So where did he go?”

  “He went to Noisy.”43

  “How do you know that?”

  “Ah, pardieu, it didn’t take long to figure that out. I recognized the horse as belonging to the butcher, who occasionally hires it out to Monsieur Bazin. I didn’t think the butcher would hire out his horse without asking where Monsieur Bazin would be going with it—not that he’d be likely to go far.”

  “And he told you Monsieur Bazin . . .”

  “Was going to Noisy. It’s the usual thing, he goes there two or three times a week.”

  “And do you know Noisy?”

  “I should, my nurse was from there.”

  “Is there a monastery in Noisy?”

  “A famous one, a Jesuit monastery.”

  “Well, that’s it, then,” said d’Artagnan.

  “So, you’re satisfied?”

  “Entirely. What do they call you?”

  “Friquet.”

  D’Artagnan took out his notebook and wrote down the lad’s name and the tavern’s address. “So, Monsieur Officer,” the tavern boy said, “might there be a way to earn more half-pistoles?”

  “Could be,” said d’Artagnan. And since he’d learned what he wanted to know, he paid for the hippocras, which he hadn’t drunk yet, and marched on back to Rue Tiquetonne.

  IX

  In Which d’Artagnan, Seeking Aramis, Finds Him on Planchet’s Crupper

  Returning home, d’Artagnan found a man standing by the fireplace; it was Planchet, but a Planchet so different, thanks to the old clothes left behind by the vanished husband, that he hardly recognized him. Madeleine had just presented him to all the houseboys. Planchet then addressed d’Artagnan in some lovely Flemish, the officer replied in some made-up gabble, and the bargain was concluded: Madeleine’s brother had entered d’Artagnan’s service.

  D’Artagnan’s course was clear: he didn’t want to arrive in Noisy during the day for fear of being recognized, but it was only three or four leagues from Paris, on the road to Meaux, so he had some time ahead of him. He spent the first part of it in taking a substantial lunch, which can be a liability for head work, but a useful precaution when one has work for the body. Then he changed his outfit, as he thought the uniform of a lieutenant of musketeers might inspire distrust. Finally, he got out the best and longest of his swords, one he’d relied upon back in the old days. About two o’clock he had a couple of horses saddled, and then, followed by Planchet, he rode toward the La Villette gate. The house next door to the Hôtel de La Chevrette was still undergoing an intensive search.

  A league and a half outside Paris, d’Artagnan, seeing that in his impatience he’d still left too soon, stopped at an inn to breathe the horses. The bar was full of suspicious characters who gave them ugly looks and seemed to be organizing some sort of nocturnal expedition. A man wrapped in a cloak appeared at the door, but seeing a stranger within, he just gestured to two of the drinkers, who got up and went out to talk with him.

  As for d’Artagnan, he approached the lady of the house, breezily praised her wine, some horrible swill from Montreuil, and plied her with questions about Noisy. He learned there were two buildings of note in the village, one belonging to the Archbishop of Paris, now in use by his niece, the Duchesse de Longueville,* the other a monastery managed by the worthy fathers of the Jesuits, and there was no way to mistake one for the other.

  At four o’clock, d’Artagnan resumed his journey, marching on foot because he didn’t want to arrive before nightfall. But walking while leading a horse, on a gray winter’s day, across a featureless landscape, one has nothing better to do, as La Fontaine says of the hare in his hole, than to
think. And so d’Artagnan thought. Planchet did too; but as we’ll see, their thoughts were not the same.

  A word from the inn’s hostess had steered d’Artagnan’s thoughts in a particular direction, and that word was the name of Madame de Longueville.

  Indeed, Madame de Longueville was a lot to think about, as she was among the greatest ladies of the kingdom, and one of the reigning beauties of the Court. Wedded young in a loveless marriage to the old Duc de Longueville, she’d had an affair with Coligny,44 who’d been killed on her account by the Duc de Guise in a duel on the Place Royale. Following that had been a spate of rumors that she was entirely too close to her brother, the Prince de Condé, talk that had scandalized the more timorous souls at Court, but their friendship had warped into a deep and abiding hatred. Now, it was said, she was involved in a political liaison with the Prince de Marcillac,* son of the old Duc de La Rochefoucauld, whom she was seducing into becoming an enemy of the Duc de Condé, her brother.

  D’Artagnan thought about all of this. He thought of how, at the Louvre, he’d often seen the radiant and dazzling Madame de Longueville passing before him. He thought about Aramis, who with no more virtues than d’Artagnan, had formerly been the lover of Madame de Chevreuse, who’d been to the previous reign what Madame de Longueville was to this one. And he asked himself why there were people in the world who could get what they wanted, could satisfy political ambition or desire, while there were others who, by random chance, or some flaw in their natures, never got more than halfway to their hopes.

  He was just facing up to the idea that, despite all his wits, finesse, and skill, he was probably one of these latter people, when Planchet caught up to him and said, “I’ll bet, Monsieur, that you’re thinking what I’m thinking.”

  “I doubt that, Planchet,” said d’Artagnan, smiling. “But what are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking, Monsieur, about those ugly customers we saw drinking at the inn where we stopped.”

  “Planchet the ever prudent!”

  “It’s my instinct, Monsieur.”

  “Well, then! What do your instincts tell you in this situation?”

  “Monsieur, my instincts told me those thugs were gathered at that inn for some sort of bad business. I was just thinking about that while I was back in a dark corner of the stable, and a man wrapped in a cloak came in, followed by two other men.”

  “Oh ho!” d’Artagnan said, as Planchet’s story matched what he’d seen himself. “And then?”

  “One of the men said, ‘He’s sure to be at Noisy, or be coming tonight, because I recognized his servant.’ ‘Are you sure?’ said the man in the cloak. ‘Yes, my Prince.’”

  “My Prince?” d’Artagnan interrupted.

  “Yes, ‘my Prince.’ But listen further: ‘If he’s really there, what should we do?’ asked the other man. ‘What should you do?’ said the prince. ‘Yes. He’s a swordsman and won’t be easily taken.’ ‘But you’ll take him, just the same—and make sure you take him alive. Do you have rope to bind him and a gag for his mouth?’ ‘We have all that.’ ‘Pay close attention, because he’ll probably be disguised as a cavalier.’ ‘Oh, yes, Monseigneur, never fear.’ ‘Besides, I’ll be there to make certain.’ ‘And you assure us that the law . . .’ ‘I’ll answer for everything,’ the prince said. ‘All right, we’ll do our best.’ And with that, they left the stable.”

  “Well,” said d’Artagnan, “what’s that matter to us? That nasty sort of affair happens every day.”

  “How do you know we’re not the targets of it?”

  “Us, the targets? Why?”

  “Dame! Think of what they said: ‘I recognized his servant,’ which could apply to me.”

  “Do you think?”

  “And the other one said, ‘He’s sure to be at Noisy, or be coming tonight.’ That could apply to you.”

  “And so?”

  “So, the prince said, ‘Pay close attention, because he’ll probably be disguised as a cavalier’—which is pretty clear, since you’re dressed as a cavalier rather than an officer of musketeers. What do you think of that?”

  “Alas, my dear Planchet!” sighed d’Artagnan. “It’s been some time since princes wanted to have me murdered. But those days are gone! Rest assured, these people aren’t after us.”

  “Monsieur is certain?”

  “Quite certain.”

  “All right, then—I won’t mention it again.” Planchet resumed his place in d’Artagnan’s wake, with that sublime confidence he’d always had in his master, and which fifteen years of separation had done nothing to diminish.

  They rode on for another league before Planchet approached d’Artagnan again. “Monsieur,” he said.

  “Well?”

  “Look, Monsieur, over that way,” said Planchet. “I think I can see shadows passing by in the twilight. Listen, isn’t that the sound of horses’ hooves?”

  “Not a chance,” said d’Artagnan, “the ground is soaked from the rain. But now that you mention it, I do seem to see something.” And he stopped to look and listen. “If their horses hear ours, they’ll neigh.”

  And just as he said it, the neighing of a horse came to their ears.

  “Those are our men, riding cross-country,” he said. “But it’s no business of ours; let’s continue.”

  And they went on their way.

  Half an hour later, around eight-thirty or nine o’clock, they reached the first houses of Noisy. As was usual in the country, everyone was already in bed, and not a light could be seen in the village. D’Artagnan and Planchet continued on their course.

  Now to their right and left the sharp silhouettes of roofs stood out against the dark gray sky. Occasionally an awakened dog barked from behind a door, or a startled cat darted from the middle of the street to hide in a woodpile, out of which its frightened eyes glinted like carbuncles. These were the only living creatures that seemed to inhabit the village.

  In the middle of the town, overlooking the main square, rose a dark mass between two streets, in front of which ancient lime trees spread their bony boughs. D’Artagnan carefully examined this building, which showed a light in only one window. “This,” he said to Planchet, “must be the château of the archbishop, current home of la belle Madame de Longueville. But where is the monastery?”

  “The monastery is at the far end of the village,” Planchet said. “I know it.”

  “Well,” d’Artagnan said, “trot over there, Planchet, while I tighten my horse’s girth, and tell me if there are any lighted windows at the Jesuits’ place.”

  Planchet obeyed, heading off into the darkness, while d’Artagnan dismounted to adjust his horse’s tack.

  After five minutes, Planchet returned. “Monsieur, there’s only one lighted window, on the side that faces the fields.”

  “Hmm!” said d’Artagnan. “If I were a Frondeur, I’d knock here at the palace if I were looking for a night’s lodging. If I were a monk, I’d knock over there to find myself a good dinner. But since we’re us, I think we might be stuck between the château and the monastery and have to sleep on the hard ground, dying of thirst and hunger.”

  “Yes,” said Planchet, “like Buridan’s ass. But instead, let’s pick one or the other.”

  “Hush!” d’Artagnan said. “The only window with a light in it just went out.”

  “Do you hear something, Monsieur?” said Planchet.

  In fact, there was a sudden noise, like the sound of an approaching hurricane, and then two troops of riders, a dozen men apiece, came racing up the two streets that bordered the château, surrounding d’Artagnan and Planchet.

  “Ouais!” said d’Artagnan, drawing his sword and stepping behind his horse, as Planchet did the same. “Were you right all the time? Is it really us they’re after?”

  “Here he is! We got him!” cried the horsemen closing in around d’Artagnan, waving their swords.

  “Don’t let him escape,” a voice called loudly.

  “Don’t worry, Monseign
eur!”

  D’Artagnan thought it was high time for him to join the discussion. “Holà, Messieurs!” he said in his Gascon accent. “What are you doing? What do you want?”

  “You’ll find out!” cried the horsemen.

  “Wait, stop!” shouted the one addressed as monseigneur. “Stop, or it’s your heads! That’s not his voice.”

  “Ah çà, Messieurs!” said d’Artagnan. “Has madness come to Noisy? Anyone who ventures too close had better watch out—my sword is long and will take you apart.”

  The leader approached. “What are you doing here?” he said, in a haughty voice accustomed to command.

  “What about yourself?” said d’Artagnan.

  “Mind your manners, or things won’t go well. My name is my secret, but I still insist on the respect due to my rank.”

  “I’m sure if I was leading an ambush, I’d want to keep my name a secret, too,” said d’Artagnan, “but I’m just traveling with my servant, so I’ve nothing to hide.”

  “Enough, enough! Who are you, then?”

  “I’ll tell you my name so you’ll know how to find me, whether Monsieur or Monseigneur, gentleman or prince,” said our Gascon, who didn’t wish to appear to give in to a threat. “Have you heard of Monsieur d’Artagnan?”

  “Lieutenant of the King’s Musketeers?” said the voice.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Of course.”

  “Well!” the Gascon continued. “Have you heard he has a firm wrist and a sharp blade?”

  “Are you Monsieur d’Artagnan?”

  “That’s me.”

  “So, are you here to defend . . . him?”

  “Him? Who?”

  “The one we seek.”

  “I thought I was in Noisy,” d’Artagnan said, “not the Land of Mysteries.”

  “Answer me!” said the same haughty voice. “Whom do you await beneath these windows? Did you come to Noisy to defend him?”

  “I’m not waiting for anyone,” said d’Artagnan, losing his patience. “I’m not here to defend anyone but myself—but that, I’m warning you, I’m more than ready to do.”

  “All right,” said the voice. “Be on your way, then.”