“That’s right, that is the man. But his name, what is his name?”
“Alas, Madame, I do not know.”
“Was my husband aware that I had been abducted?”
“He received a letter telling him about it from the abductor himself.”
“Does he suspect the reason for my abduction?” Madame Bonacieux asked with some embarrassment.
“I believe he attributed it to political motives.”
“I myself did not think so at first but now I believe just as he does,” said the young woman. “Then my dear husband did not for a moment suspect me?”
“Never for a moment, Madame; he was too sure of your virtue and proud of the love you bear him.”
Again, an almost imperceptible smile stole over the roseate lips of the comely young woman.
“How did you escape?” D’Artagnan asked.
“I took advantage of a few minutes when they left me alone. As I had known since morning why I was abducted, I was determined to escape. I knotted my bedsheets together and let myself down through the window. Then, thinking my husband would be at home, I rushed here.”
“To put yourself under his protection?”
“No, no, poor dear man! I knew quite well that he was incapable of defending me. But he could serve us in another way, so I wished to talk to him.”
“About what?”
“I cannot tell you that because it is not my secret.”
“In any case, Madame (though I am a guardsman, let me recall you to prudence), in any case, this is scarcely a place for an exchange of confidences. The men I put to flight will soon return with reinforcements; if they find us here, we are ruined. To be sure, I sent word to three of my friends, but who knows whether they can be reached?”
“Yes, you are right! Let us fly, let us escape!” Considerably frightened, she slipped her arm through D’Artagnan’s and urged him forward.
“But where to?” D’Artagnan asked. “Where shall we fly to?”
“First let us get away from this house; afterwards we shall see.”
Without bothering to close the door behind them, the young couple walked quickly down the Rue des Fossoyeurs, turned into the Rue des Fossés Monsieur-le-Prince, and did not stop until they reached the Place Saint-Sulpice.
“Now what shall we do?” D’Artagnan asked. “To what address may I have the honor of accompanying you?”
“I must own I am at a loss how to answer,” she told him. “I intended to have my husband go to Monsieur de La Porte to ascertain what has been happening at the Louvre for the last three days and whether I could safely go back there.”
“Surely I can go to Monsieur de La Porte.”
“Perhaps so. Still there is one drawback. They know Monsieur Bonacieux at the Louvre so they would let him pass. They do not know you.”
“But surely there must be a concierge or doorman at some wicket of the Louvre who is devoted to you and thanks to a password—”
Madame Bonacieux looked earnestly at the young man:
“Suppose I give you this password, will you promise to forget it as soon as you have used it?”
“I promise on my word of honor and on my faith as a gentleman,” said D’Artagnan in accents too fervent to leave room for any doubt as to his sincerity.
“I believe you. You appear to be an honorable man. Besides, your services might well make your fortune.”
“Without thought of reward, I shall do all I can to serve the King and to be useful to the Queen. Pray believe me your friend.”
“But I—where shall I go meanwhile?”
“Is there nobody who can put you in touch with Monsieur de La Porte?”
“I dare not trust anyone.”
“Ah, I have it!.… we are but a few steps from where Athos lives … yes, that’s it!.…”
“Who is Athos?”
“One of my friends.”
“But what if he is at home? What if he should see me?”
“He is not at home. I shall lock you in and take the key away with me.”
“Suppose he returns?”
“He will not return. Even if he did, he would be told that I brought a lady there and that she was in his apartment.”
“Of course you realize how compromising that will be.”
“What matter? Nobody knows you. In a desperate situation like ours, we can afford to overlook a few social conventions.”
“Let us go to your friend’s house. Where does he live?”
“Rue Férou, just around the corner.”
As D’Artagnan had foreseen, Athos was out. D’Artagnan picked up the key, which was always given him, and introduced Madame Bonacieux into the little apartment.
“Make yourself at home,” he said. “Stay here, bolt the door and let no one in unless you hear three raps, so: two fairly hard raps, close together, and after an interval, a third rap, much lighter.”
“Good. Now may I give you your instructions.”
“I am all attention.”
“When you reach the Louvre, go in at the wicket by the Rue de l’Echelle and ask for Germain.”
“Yes?”
“When Germain asks you what you want, say two words: ‘Tours’ and ‘Brussels’. Immediately he will place himself at your orders.”
“What shall I tell him to do?”
“Tell him to fetch Monsieur de La Porte, valet to Her Majesty.”
“And when he has fetched him?”
“You will ask Monsieur de La Porte to come here to me.”
“That offers no difficulty. But—”
“But what?”
“But where and how shall I see you again?”
“Do you wish very much to see me again?”
“Certainly.”
“Then you may count on me. Meanwhile, do not fret.”
“I depend on your word.”
“You may do so unreservedly.”
D’Artagnan bowed to Madame Bonacieux, darting the most loving glance he could possibly concentrate upon her petite, slight person. As he was starting down the stairs he heard the door being closed, double-locked and bolted. In two bounds he reached the Louvre; as he entered the wicket at the Rue de l’Echelle, the clock struck ten. The whole drama we have described took place within just one half-hour.
Everything happened just as Madame Bonacieux had indicated. At the given password, Germain bowed; ten minutes later, Monsieur de La Porte was at the porter’s lodge; in two words D’Artagnan informed him of everything including the whereabouts of Madame Bonacieux. La Porte made sure of the address where his godchild waited. Then he left at a run, but he had not taken ten steps before he hastened back.
“Young man, let me give you a piece of advice!”
“What?”
“You may get into trouble because of what has just happened.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Have you by any chance some friend whose clock runs too slow?”
“Monsieur, I—”
“Go call on him. Let him testify that you were at his house at nine-thirty. In a court of justice that is what we call an alibi.”
D’Artagnan, finding this counsel prudent, hurried off to Monsieur de Tréville’s. But instead of going into the reception room with the rest of the crowd, he asked to be shown into the Captain’s study. As he frequented the Hôtel so assiduously, his request was granted; Monsieur de Tréville was informed that his young compatriot, having something important to communicate, solicited a private audience. Five minutes later, Monsieur de Tréville was asking D’Artagnan what he could do to be of service and what occasioned a visit at so late an hour.
“I beg your pardon, Monsieur, I did not think twenty-five minutes past nine was too late to wait upon you.”
(Left alone to wait for the Captain, he had of course turned back Monsieur de Tréville’s clock three quarters of an hour.)
“Twenty-five past nine!” cried Monsieur de Tréville, looking at his clock. “But that’s impossible.”
&
nbsp; “Clocks don’t lie, Monsieur.”
“That’s true. But I would have thought it was much later. Well, tell me what I can do for you?”
D’Artagnan proceeded to spin Monsieur de Tréville a long yarn about the Queen. He voiced the fears he entertained with respect to Her Majesty; he repeated what he had heard about the Cardinal’s plans with regard to Buckingham, carrying the whole thing off with such calm and such candor that Monsieur de Tréville was duped the more easily because he had himself noticed some fresh trouble brewing between Cardinal, King and Queen.
As Monsieur de Tréville’s clock struck ten D’Artagnan took his leave. Thanking him for the information he had brought, the Captain of Musketeers urged him always to keep the service of King and Queen at heart. At the foot of the staircase, D’Artagnan suddenly remembered that he had forgotten his cane. He therefore ran upstairs again, returned to Monsieur de Tréville’s office, and, with a turn of the finger, set the clock right again so that on the morrow no one would know it had been tampered with. Then, certain that he had secured a witness to prove his alibi, he sauntered downstairs and found himself in the street.
XI
IN WHICH THE PLOT THICKENS
Having paid his visit to Monsieur de Tréville, D’Artagnan, deep in thought, took the longest possible way homeward. And of what was he meditating as he strayed from his path, gazed at the stars, and found himself now sighing, now smiling?
He was thinking of Madame Bonacieux. To an apprentice musketeer, she represented virtually the ideal of love. Pretty, mysterious, privy to almost all the secrets of the Court, her delicate features reflecting such charming gravity, she might be supposed not entirely indifferent to him. So fond a hope acts like an irresistible magnet to novices in love. Moreover D’Artagnan had delivered her out of the hands of the demons who had sought to violate her privacy and do her bodily harm. Did not this important service establish a bond of gratitude which might well assume a more tender character?
How swiftly our dreams soar on the wings of imagination! Already D’Artagnan saw himself being accosted by a messenger from the young woman and receiving from his hands a note appointing a meeting or a gold chain or a diamond even. As we have seen, young cavaliers accepted presents from their King without shame; and in that period of easy morals, they were no more delicate with regard to their mistresses. Invariably the ladies left them some valuable and lasting token of their affection, as though they were attempting to conquer the fragility of masculine sentiments by the solidity of feminine gifts.
Men unblushingly made their way in the world thanks to the largesse of women. Those women whose sole assets consisted in their beauty made a glad gift of that, whence doubtless the proverb: “La plus belle fille du monde ne peut donner que ce qu’elle a, The fairest maid in the world can give no more than what she has!” But those who were rich gave a part of their money as well, and many a hero of that gallant period would neither have won his spurs in the first place nor his battles afterward were it not for the purse his mistress fastened to his saddle-bow.
D’Artagnan possessed nothing. The bashfulness of your provincial—that slight patina, that ephemeral blossom, that down on a peach—soon evaporated before the blasts of scarcely orthodox advice the three musketeers offered their friend. D’Artagnan, following the strange customs of the times, considered himself fighting the campaign of Paris, just as though he were on active service on the battlefield. On the Flanders front, the Spaniard; on the Paris front, woman—in either place an enemy to contend with and contributions to be levied!
In all justice to D’Artagnan it must be added that at this moment he was moved by nobler and more generous sentiments. When the haberdasher confessed to being a wealthy man, D’Artagnan concluded that, Bonacieux being the ninny he was, Madame probably held the pursestrings. But this in no wise influenced the feelings that swept over him the moment he saw her. Mercenary calculations entered almost not at all into his awakening love. We say “almost not at all” because the idea of a youthful, comely, graceful and intelligent woman being rich into the bargain, far from detracting from incipient love, serves on the contrary to intensify it.
Affluence provides a host of little amenities and frills which prove most becoming to a beauty. Shapely slippers on her feet, white stockings of sheer material, a silk dress, a lace guimpe and a dainty ribbon in her hair do not make an ugly woman pretty, but they do make a pretty woman beautiful. And a woman’s hands especially! What wonders money can do for women by sparing them from working! Truly, to be beautiful, a woman’s hands must be idle.
As we have not concealed the state of D’Artagnan’s fortune, the reader well knows that he was no millionaire. To be sure he hoped to become one some day but the date set in his own mind for this happy change was still far distant. Meanwhile, how painful to see the woman one loves longing for those myriad trifles that constitute feminine happiness and to be unable to satisfy her wants. When a woman is rich and her lover is not, she can at least buy what her lover cannot afford to give her; she usually gratifies these indulgences with her husband’s money and without thanks to him.
D’Artagnan, eager to become the most passionate of lovers, was already her devoted friend. Amid his amorous designs upon the haberdasher’s wife, he did not forget his comrades. The comely Madame Bonacieux was just the woman to stroll on his arm in the Plaine Saint-Denis or through the fair of Saint-Germain with Athos, Porthos and Aramis for company. How proud D’Artagnan would be to display such a conquest!
Now when people have walked any length of time, they get quite hungry, as D’Artagnan had himself noticed. So D’Artagnan, his inamorata and his comrades, their stroll done, would enjoy charming little dinners at which he visualized himself pressing the hand of a loyal friend on one side, and, on the other, the foot of an adoring mistress. And, were his friends out of funds, he saw himself as their financial savior.
What about Monsieur Bonacieux whom D’Artagnan had delivered into the hands of the officers, betraying him publicly after his private promises to save him? It must be confessed that D’Artagnan did not vouchsafe him a thought or, if he did, he decided that the haberdasher was in the proper place, wherever it was. Is not love the most selfish of all passions?
(Let our readers reassure themselves. If D’Artagnan forgot or feigned to forget his landlord, pretending not to know whither the wretched man had been carried away, we have not forgotten him and we know where he is. But for the moment let us do as the amorous Gascon did. Presently our worthy haberdasher will reappear.)
Dreaming of his future amours, apostrophizing the night and gazing at the stars, D’Artagnan was returning up the Rue du Cherche-Midi, or rather Chasse-Midi as it was then called. As Aramis lived in this quarter, he suddenly thought he would pay Aramis a visit to explain why he had dispatched Planchet to him with immediate orders to rush to the mousetrap.
“If Aramis was at home when Planchet arrived,” D’Artagnan said, “he must have gone straight to the Rue des Fossoyeurs. There he would have found no one or at best Athos and Porthos. So all three are in complete ignorance of what has happened. I owe them at least an explanation for having disturbed them.”
Thus he spoke aloud. But silently, to himself, he thought that a visit to Aramis offered him a chance of talking about pretty little Madame Bonacieux, who at this point filled his head if not his heart. To look for discretion in a first love is irrelevant. First loves are accompanied by a joy so excessive that it must be allowed to overflow or it will stifle a man.
For the past two hours Paris had been swathed in darkness and the streets were practically deserted. Eleven o’clock struck from all the clocks of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The night was mild. D’Artagnan passed down a lane which is now the Rue d’Assas. From the Rue de Vaugirard came the cool fragrance of the Luxembourg gardens, freshened by the dews of evening and the breeze of night. Gratefully D’Artagnan breathed in the redolence of flower and grass and tree. Afar, muffled by stout shutters, echoes of drink
ing songs floated out from taverns scattered across the plain. At the foot of the lane, D’Artagnan turned to the left, for Aramis lived between the Rue Cassette and the Rue Servandoni.
D’Artagnan had just passed the Rue Cassette and could see the door of his friend’s house, nestling under a clump of sycamores and clematis that formed a vast leafy arch above. Suddenly a shadowlike form issued from the Rue Servandoni. That form was wrapped up in a cloak, and D’Artagnan first thought it was a man but the slenderness of the figure, the hesitancy of the gait and the insecurity of the steps convinced him that it was a woman. As if uncertain of the house she sought, she kept looking up to get her bearings, stopped, retraced her steps, and once again approached. D’Artagnan was seized with curiosity.
“Shall I go offer my services?” he wondered. “Judging by her step, I would say she was young; perhaps she is pretty! Yes, but a woman scarcely ventures on the streets at this hour unless she is going to meet her lover. A pox on it! To disturb a lovers’ rendezvous is no way to begin an acquaintance!”
Meanwhile the young woman kept coming forward counting the houses and the windows. This was neither long nor difficult, for there were but three houses in that part of the street and only two windows looking out upon it: one in a pavilion parallel to that of Aramis, the other in the pavilion Aramis occupied.
“Pardieu!” said D’Artagnan to himself as he recalled the theologian’s niece, “Pardieu, how droll if this belated dove were bound for my friend’s house! Upon my soul, it looks very much like it. Ah, my dear Aramis, this time my curiosity shall be satisfied!”
And he drew back, making himself as thin as possible, as he took his stand on the darkest side of the street near a stone bench set in a niche. The young woman continued to advance, betraying herself not only by her light step but also by a soft cough—a signal, thought D’Artagnan—which suggested a sweet voice. Either a corresponding signal settled the doubts of the nocturnal adventuress or she needed no aid to recognize that she had reached the end of her journey; at all events, she stepped resolutely forward and, with finger crooked, rapped three times, at equal intervals, on the musketeer’s shutter.
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