The Vicomte De Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas (each kindness read aloud TXT) π
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- Author: Alexandre Dumas
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"Your father brings you up rather strictly?" said he.
"Justly, monsieur le chevalier."
"Oh, yes, I know Athos is just; but close, perhaps?"
"A royal hand, Monsieur d'Artagnan."
"Well, never want, my boy! If ever you stand in need of a few pistoles, the old musketeer is at hand."
"My dear Monsieur d'Artagnan!"
"Do you play a little?"
"Never."
"Successful with the ladies, then?--Oh! my little Aramis! That, my dear friend, costs even more than play. It is true we fight when we lose; that is a compensation. Bah! that little sniveller, the king, makes winners give him his revenge. What a reign! my poor Raoul, what a reign! When we think that, in my time, the musketeers were besieged in their houses like Hector and Priam in the city of Troy; and the women wept, and then the walls laughed, and then five hundred beggarly fellows clapped their hands and cried, 'Kill! kill!' when not one musketeer was hurt. Mordioux! you will never see anything like that."
"You are very hard upon the king, my dear Monsieur d'Artagnan and yet you scarcely know him."
"I! Listen, Raoul. Day by day, hour by hour,--take note of my words,--I will predict what he will do. The cardinal being dead, he will fret; very well, that is the least silly thing he will do, particularly if he does not shed a tear."
"And then?"
"Why, then he will get M. Fouquet to allow him a pension, and will go and compose verses at Fontainebleau, upon some Mancini or other, whose eyes the queen will scratch out. She is a Spaniard, you see,--this queen of ours; and she has, for mother-in-law, Madame Anne of Austria. I know something of the Spaniards of the house of Austria."
"And next?"
"Well, after having torn the silver lace from the uniforms of his Swiss, because lace is too expensive, he will dismount his musketeers, because oats and hay of a horse cost five sols a day."
"Oh! do not say that."
"Of what consequence is it to me? I am no longer a musketeer, am I? Let them be on horseback, let them be on foot, let them carry a larding-pin, a spit, a sword, or nothing--what is it to me?"
"My dear Monsieur d'Artagnan, I beseech you speak no more ill of the king. I am almost in his service, and my father would be very angry with me for having heard, even from your mouth, words injurious to his majesty."
"Your father, eh! He is a knight in every bad cause. Pardieu! yes, your father is a brave man, a Caesar, it is true--but a man without perception."
"Now, my dear chevalier," exclaimed Raoul, laughing, "are you going to speak ill of my father, of him you call the great Athos? Truly you are in a bad vein to-day; riches render you as sour as poverty renders other people."
"Pardieu! you are right. I am a rascal and in my dotage; I am an unhappy wretch grown old; a tent-cord untwisted, a pierced cuirass, a boot without a sole, a spur without a rowel;--but do me the pleasure to add one thing."
"What is that, my dear Monsieur d'Artagnan?"
"Simply say: 'Mazarin was a pitiful wretch.'"
"Perhaps he is dead."
"More the reason--I say was; if I did not hope that he was dead, I would entreat you to say: 'Mazarin is a pitiful wretch.' Come, say so, say so, for love of me."
"Well, I will."
"Say it!"
"Mazarin was a pitiful wretch," said Raoul, smiling at the musketeer, who roared with laughter, as in his best days.
"A moment," said the latter; "you have spoken my first proposition, here is the conclusion of it,--repeat, Raoul, repeat: 'But I regret Mazarin.'"
"Chevalier!"
"You will not say it? Well, then, I will say it twice for you."
"But you would regret Mazarin?"
And they were still laughing and discussing this profession of principles, when one of the shop-boys entered. "A letter, monsieur," said he, "for M. d'Artagnan."
"Thank you; give it me," cried the musketeer.
"The handwriting of monsieur le comte," said Raoul.
"Yes, yes." And D'Artagnan broke the seal.
"Dear friend," said Athos, "a person has just been here to beg me to seek for you, on the part of the king."
"Seek me!" said D'Artagnan, letting the paper fall upon the table. Raoul picked it up, and continued to read aloud:--
"Make haste. His majesty is very anxious to speak to you, and expects you at the Louvre."
"Expects me?" again repeated the musketeer.
"He, he, he!" laughed Raoul.
"Oh, oh!" replied D'Artagnan. "What the devil can this mean?"
The first moment of surprise over, D'Artagnan reperused Athos's note. "It is strange," said he, "that the king should send for me."
"Why so?" said Raoul; "do you not think, monsieur, that the king must regret such a servant as you?"
"Oh, oh!" cried the officer, laughing with all his might; "you are poking fun at me, Master Raoul. If the king had regretted me, he would not have let me leave him. No, no; I see in it something better, or worse, if you like."
"Worse! What can that be, monsieur le chevalier?"
"You are young, you are a boy, you are admirable. Oh, how I should like to be as you are! To be but twenty-four, with an unfortunate brow, under which the brain is void of everything but women, love, and good intentions. Oh, Raoul, as long as you have not received the smiles of kings, the confidence of queens; as long as you have not had two cardinals killed under you, the one a tiger, the other a fox; as long as you have not--But what is the good of all this trifling? We must part, Raoul."
"How you say the word! What a serious face!"
"Eh! but the occasion is worthy of it. Listen to me. I have a very good recommendation to tender you."
"I am all attention, Monsieur d'Artagnan."
"You will go and inform your father of my departure."
"Your departure?"
"Pardieu! You will tell him I am gone into England; and that I am living in my little country-house."
"In England, you!--And the king's orders?"
"You get more and more silly: do you imagine that I am going to the Louvre, to place myself at the disposal of that little crowned wolf-cub?"
"The king a wolf-cub? Why, monsieur le chevalier, you are mad!"
"On the contrary, I never was so sane. You do not know what he wants to do with me, this worthy son of Louis le Juste!--But, mordioux! that is policy. He wishes to ensconce me snugly in the Bastile--purely and simply, look you!"
"What for?" cried Raoul, terrified at what he heard.
"On account of what I told him one day at Blois. I was warm; he remembers it."
"You told him what?"
"That he was mean, cowardly, and silly."
"Good God!" cried Raoul, "is it possible that such words should have issued from your mouth?"
"Perhaps I don't give the letter of my speech, but I give the sense of it."
"But did not the king have you arrested immediately?"
"By whom? It was I who commanded the musketeers; he must have commanded me to convey myself to prison; I would never have consented: I would have resisted myself. And then I went into England--no more D'Artagnan. Now, the cardinal is dead, or nearly so, they learn that I am in Paris, and they lay their hands on me."
"The cardinal was your protector?"
"The cardinal knew me; he knew certain particularities of me; I also knew some of his; we appreciated each other mutually. And then, on rendering his soul to the devil, he would recommend Anne of Austria to make me the inhabitant of a safe place. Go, then, and find your father, relate the fact to him--and adieu!"
"My dear Monsieur d'Artagnan," said Raoul, very much agitated, after having looked out the window, "you cannot even fly!"
"Why not?"
"Because there is below an officer of the Swiss guards waiting for you."
"Well?"
"Well, he will arrest you."
D'Artagnan broke into a Homeric laugh.
"Oh! I know very well that you will resist, that you will fight, even; I know very well that you will prove the conqueror; but that amounts to rebellion, and you are an officer yourself, knowing what discipline is."
"Devil of a boy, how logical that is!" grumbled D'Artagnan.
"You approve of it, do you not?"
"Yes, instead of passing into the street, where that idiot is waiting for me, I will slip quietly out at the back. I have a horse in the stable, and a good one. I will ride him to death; my means permit me to do so, and by killing one horse after another, I shall arrive at Boulogne in eleven hours; I know the road. Only tell your father one thing."
"What is that?"
"That is--that the thing he knows about is placed at Planchet's house, except a fifth, and that--"
"But, my dear D'Artagnan, rest assured that if you fly, two things will be said of you."
"What are they, my dear friend?"
"The first, that you have been afraid."
"Ah! and who will dare to say that?"
"The king first."
"Well! but he will tell the truth,--I am afraid."
"The second, that you knew yourself guilty."
"Guilty of what?"
"Why, of the crimes they wish to impute to you."
"That is true again. So, then, you advise me to go and get myself made a prisoner in the Bastile?"
"M. le Comte de la Fere would advise you just as I do."
"Pardieu! I know he would," said D'Artagnan thoughtfully. "You are right, I shall not escape. But if they cast me into the Bastile?"
"We will get you out again," said Raoul, with a quiet, calm air.
"Mordioux! You said that after a brave fashion, Raoul," said D'Artagnan, seizing his hand; "that savors of Athos, distinctly. Well, I will go, then. Do not forget my last word."
"Except a fifth," said Raoul.
"Yes, you are a fine boy! and I wish you to add one thing to that last word."
"Speak, chevalier!"
"It is that if you cannot get me out of the Bastile, and I remain there--Oh! that will be so, and I shall be a detestable prisoner; I, who have been a passable man,--in that case, I give three-fifths to you, and the fourth to your father."
"Chevalier!"
"Mordioux! If you will have some masses said for me, you are welcome."
That being said, D'Artagnan took his belt from the hook, girded on his sword, took a hat the feather of which was fresh, and held his hand out to Raoul, who threw himself into his arms. When in the shop, he cast a quick glance at the shop-lads, who looked upon the scene with a pride mingled with some inquietude; then plunging his hands into a chest of currants, he went straight to the officer who was waiting for him at the door.
"Those features! Can it be you, Monsieur de Friedisch?" cried D'Artagnan, gayly. "Eh! eh! what, do we arrest our friends?"
"Arrest!" whispered the lads among themselves.
"Ja, it is I,
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