Just then, the steward came in to consult his master on the matter of the next day’s menu, and the planning for a hunt. “Tell me, Mouston,” said Porthos, “are my weapons in good order?”
D’Artagnan began drumming his fingers on the table to hide his embarrassment.
“Your . . . weapons, Monseigneur?” asked Mousqueton. “What weapons?”
“Eh, pardieu! My equipment!”
“Which equipment?”
“My wartime equipment.”
“Of course, Monseigneur. At least, I think so.”
“Well, make sure of it, and do whatever’s necessary. Which is my fastest horse in a sprint?”
“Vulcan.”
“And for stamina?”
“Bayard.”
“Which horse do you prefer?”
“I like Rustaud, Monseigneur—she’s a good animal, and we get along well.”
“She’s strong, isn’t she?”
“A Normand crossed with a Mecklenburg who can go all day and all night.”
“That’s settled, then. Get those three animals ready, tend to my arms, and see to your own—you’ll need a brace of pistols and a hunting knife.”
“Are we traveling then, Monseigneur?” asked Mousqueton anxiously.
D’Artagnan, who’d been drumming his fingers at random, began to beat out a quick march.
“Better than that, Mouston!” replied Porthos.
“We’re going on an expedition, Monsieur?” said the steward, whose cheeks of rose paled into lilies.
“We’re rejoining the service, Mouston!” replied Porthos, trying once more to give his mustache its old military curl.
These words were scarcely spoken before Mousqueton was stricken with a tremor that set his fat cheeks atremble. He looked at d’Artagnan with such an indescribable air of tender reproach the officer could hardly bear it. He reeled, and said, in a choked voice, “Rejoining the service? The service of the king?”
“More or less. We’re going on campaign and can expect all kinds of adventures.”
This last word struck Mousqueton like a thunderbolt. It was the terrible days of the past that made the days of the present so sweet. “Oh, mon Dieu! What’s this I hear?” said Mousqueton, with a look of desperate appeal aimed at d’Artagnan.
“What would you have, Mouston?” said d’Artagnan. “A man’s destiny . . .”
Despite the care d’Artagnan had taken to use the right name, for Mousqueton it was a blow to the heart, and he was so dismayed he fled from the room, forgetting to close the door.
“Ah, good Mousqueton, your joy is at an end,” said Porthos, in the same tone that Don Quixote used when asking Sancho Panza to saddle his pony for one last campaign.
Left thus alone, the two friends talked about the future and built castles in the air. The fine wine Mousqueton had served them went to their heads, showing d’Artagnan a rosy prospect of doubloons and pistoles, and Porthos a ducal title and the cordon bleu of the Order of Saint-Esprit. When the servants came in to show them to bed, they were both asleep with their heads on the table.
Morning came, and Mousqueton was somewhat consoled to hear from d’Artagnan that their campaign would likely be on the battlefield of Paris, well within reach of the Château du Vallon, which was near Corbeil; of Bracieux, which was near Melun; and of Pierrefonds, which was between Compiègne and Villers-Cotterêts. “But it seems to me,” Mousqueton said shyly, “in the old days . . .”
“Oh, nowadays we don’t make war the old-fashioned way,” said d’Artagnan. “Today it’s all a political affair. Ask Planchet.”
Mousqueton went to pump his old friend for information, who confirmed what d’Artagnan had told him—though he added that, in this war, those taken prisoner risked being hanged. “Plague take it,” said Mousqueton. “I think I preferred the Siege of La Rochelle.”
As to Porthos, after helping his guest hunt down a buck, visit his woods, hills, and ponds, admire his pack of greyhounds, the faithful Gredinet, and all else he possessed, and after three more sumptuous meals, he asked for final instructions from d’Artagnan, who had to be on his way.
“Let’s see,” said the musketeer, “I need four days to get from here to Blois, a day or so there, then three or four more to get back to Paris. You should gather your equipment and leave here a week from today; meet me in Rue Tiquetonne, at the Hôtel de la Chevrette, or wait there for me until I return.”
“Excellent!” said Porthos.
“I’m off on my errand to see Athos,” said d’Artagnan, “hopeless though it may be. I imagine he’s pretty far gone by this time, but we must be loyal to our friends.”
“It might distract me from my boredom if I went with you,” said Porthos.
“It might,” said d’Artagnan, “and you’d be welcome, but then you wouldn’t have time to make your preparations.”
“That’s true,” said Porthos. “Go, then, and good luck to you. As for me, I’m eager to get to it.”
“Marvelous!” said d’Artagnan.
Porthos escorted him to the farthest limit of the domain of Pierrefonds, where they said goodbye. “Well,” d’Artagnan said, as he took the road to Villers-Cotterêts, “at least I won’t be alone. Porthos is as mighty as ever. If Athos joins us, well then! The three of us will laugh at Friar Aramis and his little dalliances.”
At Villers-Cotterêts he wrote to the cardinal:
Monseigneur, I already have one recruit to offer to Your Eminence, and this one is worth twenty other men. I’m off to Blois to see the Comte de La Fère, at his estate of Bragelonne near that city.
And with that, he took the road to Blois, chatting along the way with Planchet, who was a fine companion for a long journey.
XV
Angelic Youth
They had a long way to go, but d’Artagnan wasn’t concerned: his horses were rested and well fed from their stay in the lavish stables of the Seigneur de Bracieux. He therefore set out with confidence on his four or five days’ journey, accompanied by the faithful Planchet.
As we said, to ease the tedium of the journey, the two men rode side by side, talking away the miles. D’Artagnan had gradually lost the air of a master, and Planchet had long left that of a servant. He was a shrewd fellow, and since reinventing himself as a bourgeois, he’d missed the freedom of the highway as well as the conversation and company of gentlemen. He knew he had a measure of both courage and wit, and rubbing elbows all day with dull common folk didn’t satisfy him.
Thus, with the man he still called master, he soon rose to the role of confidant. D’Artagnan hadn’t opened his heart to anyone for years, and the two found that they got along very well indeed. For Planchet was no vulgar clod: he was a man of good judgment who, without looking for trouble, wasn’t afraid of hard knocks, as d’Artagnan had had the opportunity to see for himself. He’d been a soldier, and a career under arms brings out the best in a man. Moreover, though d’Artagnan had helped Planchet, Planchet was more than a little useful to d’Artagnan. So they were on a friendly and nearly equal footing by the time they arrived in the region of Blois.
Along the way, d’Artagnan, shaking his head, repeatedly went back to the idea that obsessed him: “I know this errand to recruit Athos is useless, but I owe it to my old friend to try, for he once had the stuff in him to be the most generous and noble of men.”
“Yes, Monsieur Athos was a true, proud gentleman!” said Planchet.
“Wasn’t he, though?” replied d’Artagnan.
“Strewing coins as the sky rained hail,” continued Planchet, “and handling his sword with a royal air. Do you remember, Monsieur, that duel with the English at the Luxembourg55 paddock? Ah, how noble and magnificent Monsieur Athos was that day, when he told his opponent, ‘You demanded I reveal my name to you, Monsieur—which is too bad for you, for now I must kill you!’ I was nearby and I heard him. Those were his words, verbatim. And just as he said, Monsieur, he touched his opponent only once, and he fell dead without so much as a gasp.
Yes, Monsieur, I repeat—there was a true gentleman.”
“Yes,” said d’Artagnan, “that’s true as the gospel, but all those qualities were overshadowed by a single fault.”
“Oh, I remember how well he liked to drink,” said Planchet, “or rather, that he just drank. But he didn’t drink like others do. His eyes revealed nothing as he brought the glass to his lips. Truly, never was silence so eloquent. To me, it seemed he was saying to himself, ‘Come, liquor, and wash away my sorrows.’ And how he could crack the stem of a glass or knock the neck off a bottle! No one could do it like he could.”
“Well, that’s the sad reality we’re facing today,” continued d’Artagnan. “That noble gentleman with the proud gaze, that handsome cavalier so brilliant under arms that one was amazed he bore a simple sword rather than a marshal’s baton—ah! He’ll have decayed into a bent old man with watering eyes and a red nose. We’ll find him lying in the yard, watching us approach with dull eyes, maybe not even recognizing us. As God is my witness, Planchet, I’d turn tail rather than face such a sorry spectacle if I weren’t bound to pay my respects to the shade of the glorious Comte de La Fère that was, whom we all loved so well.”
Planchet hung his head and didn’t say a word; it was plain to see he shared his master’s fears.
“And then,” resumed d’Artagnan, “to see him in infirmity, for Athos is old now, and in misery, because he’s probably neglected what little property he had, and his wretched lackey Grimaud,56 more mute and drunken even than his master . . . ah, Planchet, it rends my heart.”
“I can almost see them before me, staggering and stammering,” said Planchet in a piteous tone.
“I must confess, my greatest fear,” said d’Artagnan, “is that Athos will accept my proposition in a moment of drunken belligerence. That would be bad luck for me and Porthos, and a real embarrassment—but the first time he goes on a drunken binge, we’ll just leave him behind. When he comes around later, he’ll understand.”
“In any event, Monsieur,” said Planchet, “we’ll soon know the truth, because I think those high walls ahead, dyed red in the sunset, are the walls of Blois.”57
“Probably,” replied d’Artagnan, “and those crenellations and sharply turned turrets I see off to the left resemble what I’ve heard about Chambord.”58
“Shall we go into the town?”
“Yes, to get information.”
“Monsieur, as a confectioner, let me advise you that we must try some of those tasty little Blaisois pots de crème I’ve heard so much about, but have never been able to find in Paris.”
“Then try them we shall, never fear!” said d’Artagnan.
Just then a heavy oxcart, laden with lumber from the nearby woods for the docks on the Loire, turned out of a rutted path onto the travelers’ road. A drover walked alongside, waving a long pole with a nail in its end with which he spurred his slow team. “Hey, there, friend!” cried Planchet to the drover.
“What can I do for you, Messieurs?” said the peasant, in that pure accent of the lands of the Loire that would shame the proudest scholars of the Place de la Sorbonne or the Rue de l’Université.
“We’re looking for the house of Monsieur le Comte de La Fère,” said d’Artagnan. “Do you know anyone of that name among the local gentry?”
Upon hearing this name, the peasant removed his hat and replied, “Messieurs, this timber I’m carting is from his woods; I fell it in his grove and carry it to his château.”
D’Artagnan asked no further questions of this man, reluctant to hear another confirm the fears he’d shared with Planchet.
“His château,” he said to himself, “his château. Ah, I get it! Athos may be failing, but he’s still proud, so like Porthos, he’s forcing his peasants to title him monseigneur, and to call this shack ‘the château.’ Athos always had a heavy hand with the servants, especially when he was drunk.”
The oxen were slow; d’Artagnan and Planchet, following the cart from behind, began to get impatient. “Does this path go anywhere else?” d’Artagnan asked the drover. “Can we follow it without taking a wrong turn?”
“Mon Dieu, yes, Monsieur! Don’t tire yourself by following beasts as slow as mine. Go ahead half a league and you’ll see a château on the right—you can’t see it from here because of that row of poplars. But that’s not Bragelonne, that’s La Vallière. Go three musket-shots beyond and you’ll see a large white house with slate roofs, built on a knoll and shaded by some big sycamores. That’s the château of Monsieur le Comte de La Fère.”
“And is this half-a-league very long?” asked d’Artagnan, as in our beautiful country of France, there are leagues and there are leagues.
“Ten minutes’ ride and no longer, Monsieur, with a horse like yours.”
D’Artagnan thanked the drover and spurred ahead, but then, still troubled by what he expected to find of the man he’d once so loved, who had contributed so much to his manhood by his advice and aristocratic example, he gradually dropped to a walk and rode onward slowly, head sunk on his chest.
Planchet was also giving some thought to their encounter with the peasant. Never, not in Normandy, nor in Franche-Comté, nor in Artois, nor in his own Picardy, had he ever encountered villagers with such self-possession, easy manners, and refined speech. He was tempted to take the drover for some gentleman in disguise, perhaps a rebel who for political reasons had disguised himself.
Soon they turned a corner and beheld the Château de La Vallière, just as the drover had told the travelers. A quarter mile beyond that they found the white house framed in sycamores, massive old trees that spring had frosted with a flurry of flowers.
At this sight, the usually unemotional d’Artagnan felt a strange lurch in the bottom of his heart, so strong are the currents that flow from the memories of youth. Planchet, not subject to the same feelings, was surprised to see his master so agitated, and glanced back and forth from d’Artagnan to the house.
The musketeer rode a few steps forward and then stopped before a gate, wrought in iron in the elegance that marked the restrained taste of the time. Beyond the gate were some neatly kept vegetable gardens, and a spacious courtyard where servants in various liveries stood holding several fine riding mounts, as well as two country horses hitched to a carriage.
“There must be some mistake, or that peasant misled us,” said d’Artagnan. “This can’t be where Athos lives. Mon Dieu! Has he died, and his property been inherited by what’s-his-name? Dismount, Planchet, and go inquire; I confess I don’t have the courage to do it myself.”
Planchet got down. “You can add,” said d’Artagnan, “that a passing gentleman wishes to have the honor of paying his respects to the Comte de La Fère—and if you’re happy with their answer, you can say it’s me.”
Planchet, leading his horse by the bridle, approached the gate and rang the bell. Immediately a servant, white-haired but erect despite his age, came forward to receive Planchet.
“Is this the home of the Comte de La Fère?” asked Planchet.
“Yes, Monsieur, that it is,” said the servant, who wore no livery.
“A nobleman retired from the service, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And who had a lackey named Grimaud?” asked Planchet, who, with his usual caution, didn’t think one could have too much information.
“Monsieur Grimaud is away from the château at the moment,” said the servant, suspiciously giving Planchet the once-over, as he wasn’t used to such interrogation.
“Then,” Planchet cried happily, “that’s the same Comte de La Fère we’re looking for. Please admit me so I can announce my master, one of his old friends, who has come to pay his respects to Monsieur le Comte.”
“Why didn’t you say so before?” said the servant, unlocking the gate. “But your master, where is he?”
“He’s coming; he’s right behind me.”
The servant swung open the gate and led in Planchet, who beckoned to d’Artagnan.
The musketeer, heart pounding harder than ever, rode into the courtyard.
As Planchet stepped onto the porch, he heard a voice from within the parlor that said, “Well, where is this gentleman, and why haven’t you brought him in?”
This voice, when it reached d’Artagnan, awoke in his heart a thousand feelings, a thousand memories he’d forgotten. He jumped from his horse and ran to catch up with Planchet, who, smiling, advanced toward the master of the house.
“But I know this fellow,” said Athos, appearing in the doorway.
“Yes, indeed, Monsieur le Comte, you know me, and I know you as well. It’s Planchet, Monsieur, Planchet, you know . . .” But he choked up and could say no more.
“What! Planchet!” cried Athos. “Is Monsieur d’Artagnan with you?”
“I’m here, my friend!” said d’Artagnan, nearly overcome. “Athos—I’m here.”
At these words a visible emotion flushed the handsome visage and calm features of Athos. He took two quick steps toward d’Artagnan, looked in his face with eyes filled with feeling, and then hugged him tenderly. D’Artagnan, all his fears banished, embraced him in his turn with tears in his eyes.
Athos then took him by the hand, pressed it between his own, and led him into the salon, where several people were gathered. Everyone stood.
“I have the honor to present,” said Athos, “the Chevalier d’Artagnan, Lieutenant of the King’s Musketeers, a very devoted friend, and one of the bravest and most congenial gentlemen I’ve ever known.”
D’Artagnan, according to custom, received the compliments of those present, gave them his best in return, and then joined their circle. As the conversation was resumed, he began to examine Athos.
Strange thing! Athos had scarcely aged at all. His wondrous eyes, freed from redness and no longer buried in dark circles, seemed larger and more liquid than ever; his face, a trifle elongated, had gained in majesty what it had lost in feverish intensity; his hands, long, fine, and strong, were set like gemstones in lace cuffs, like hands by Titian or Van Dyck. He was less heavy than formerly, though his shoulders told of uncommon strength; his long black hair, just sprinkled with gray, fell elegantly to his shoulders in a natural wave. His voice was as strong and precise as it had been at twenty-five, and his beautiful teeth, white and sound, gave an inexpressible charm to his smile.
Twenty Years After Page 14