The Modern Library Children's Classics

by Kenneth Grahame

  This impatience to return to the capital was of course dictated by thoughts of the danger Madame Bonacieux would run in meeting Milady, her mortal enemy, at the Convent of Béthune. Plans to avert this danger had long since been made and partially carried out. First Aramis had written to Madame Michon, the beautiful seamstress of Tours who had acquaintances in such high circles. Aramis asked that she obtain from the Queen authority for Madame Bonacieux to leave the convent and to retire either to Lorraine or to Belgium. The reply was very prompt; within ten days, Aramis received the following letter:

  My dear Cousin:

  Herewith is the authorization from my sister enabling our little servant to withdraw from the Convent of Béthune. I am sorry the air there, as you wrote, is so bad for her. My sister takes great pleasure in sending you this authorization, for she is very fond of the girl, whom she expects further to befriend hereafter.

  My fondest love to you.

  Marie Michon

  The paper enclosed read as follows:

  The Mother Superior of the Convent of Béthune is instructed to deliver into the hands of the bearer of this note, the novice who entered the convent on my recommendation and under my patronage.

  Done by my hand at the Palace of the Louvre this tenth day of August in the year of Our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-eight.

  Anne

  Naturally the family ties between Aramis and a seamstress who called the Queen her sister amused the young men no end and aroused their barbed, their sharpest witticisms. But Aramis, having blushed several times to the roots of his hair at the ribald jests of Porthos, begged his friends to drop the subject. If he heard another word of this, he threatened, he would never again implore his cousin to intervene in an affair of this sort.

  Marie Michon therefore ceased to be a theme of conversation between them. They had obtained what they wanted, namely, the order to remove Madame Bonacieux from the Carmelite Convent of Béthune. This order was of no great use to them so long as they were in camp near La Rochelle, with half of France between them and Madame Bonacieux. D’Artagnan was on the point of taking Monsieur de Tréville fully into his confidence, stressing the urgency of the affair and requesting a leave of absence, when suddenly they learned from the Captain of musketeers that they were among the twenty musketeers detailed to accompany the King to Paris. Their joy at these tidings knew no bounds; the lackeys were sent on beforehand with the baggage and the expedition set out on the morning of September sixteenth. The Cardinal accompanied His Majesty from Surgères to Mauzé, where they parted with great demonstrations of friendship.

  The King traveled as fast as possible, for he was determined to reach Paris by September twenty-third. But on the road, now and then, the expedition would stop to fly the King’s falcons and hawks at magpies, larks and quails. Falconry was a favorite sport of the King’s; years ago, when Louis was still Dauphin, the Duc de Luynes had initiated him in the technique of this form of hunting and he had always retained a great predilection for it. Whenever the expedition paused for this hunting, sixteen of the twenty musketeers were jubilant, our friends alone cursing the delay roundly. D’Artagnan in particular felt a perpetual buzzing in his ears, a phenomenon Porthos readily diagnosed.

  “A very great lady once told me,” he explained, “that when you experience a ringing in the auditory center, it is caused by the fact that somebody somewhere is talking about you!”

  The escort finally crossed Paris on the night of the twenty-third; His Majesty thanked Monsieur de Tréville and permitted him to grant a four-day furlough to his men on condition that none thus favored should appear in a public place under penalty of immediate incarceration in the Bastille.

  As may readily be imagined, the first four leaves granted went to our friends. Even better, Athos obtained six days instead of four, adding two nights as well, by prevailing upon Monsieur de Tréville to let them leave on the twenty-fourth at five o’clock in the evening and in his kindness, to postdate their orders to the morning of the twenty-fifth.

  D’Artagnan, sanguine as only a Gascon and confidently making molehills of mountains, grumbled to his friends.

  “I think we are making a great to do about something very simple,” he observed. “I can reach Béthune in forty-eight hours by riding three horses to the death, but that matters little for I have plenty of money. At Béthune, I merely hand the Queen’s letter to the Mother Superior and I convey my beloved Constance not to Lorraine nor to Belgium but back here to Paris. Don’t you agree that she can hide much more safely here, particularly so long as the Cardinal remains in La Rochelle? Then, when we return from the campaign, partly through the protection of her cousin, partly through what we have personally done for her, we can obtain what we wish from the Queen. I therefore suggest that you stay here, my friends, and take things easy. There is no point in tiring yourselves out needlessly. An errand as simple as this calls for only myself and Planchet to bestir ourselves.”

  To which Athos countered very evenly:

  “We too have plenty of money left. I have not yet drunk up all my share of the diamond; and Porthos and Aramis have not taken out all theirs in gourmandizing and gluttony. Thus we can each afford to wear out three horses apiece just as easily as you can.” His face clouded, and he resumed in a voice so gloomy that D’Artagnan shuddered: “Remember that Béthune is the town where the Cardinal has made an appointment with a woman who brings misery in her wake wherever she sets foot. If you had but to overcome four men, D’Artagnan, I would cheerfully allow you to go alone. But you have to face that woman. So the four of us shall go together and, with our four lackeys, pray God we shall prove numerous enough.”

  “You terrify me, Athos. What in God’s name do you fear?”

  “I fear the worst,” Athos replied. “To horse, then, gentlemen!”

  As they rode out silently, D’Artagnan glanced at his comrades frequently; like Athos, the two others betrayed signs of deep anxiety. All pressed forward at top speed in complete silence.

  On the evening of September twenty-fifth, they entered Arras. D’Artagnan had just alighted before the inn called the Herse d’Or, At the Sign of the Golden Harrow, and was slaking his thirst, when a horseman, emerging from the posting yard where he had just changed horses, galloped off toward Paris. As he was passing through the gateway into the street, a gust of wind blew open the cloak in which he was muffled and unsettled his hat. Hastily the stranger caught it and crammed it down over his eyes. D’Artagnan, who had recognized him, turned deathly pale and let his glass clatter to the pavement.

  “What is the matter, Monsieur?” Planchet inquired. “Help, gentlemen,” he called to the others. “Please come here, my master is ill!”

  The three friends rushed to D’artagnan’s assistance, but far from being ill he waved them away and sprang for his horse. They stood fast and held him at the door.

  “What the devil are you up to now?” Athos demanded.

  “Where on earth are you going?” Aramis asked.

  “The fellow is mad!” Porthos commented.

  Trembling with anger, white as a sheet, a cold sweat pouring in beads over his forehead:

  “That’s the man!” D’Artagnan cried, “my enemy! Let me catch up with him!”

  “What man?” Athos inquired; and Aramis: “Please explain what all this is about?”

  “That man who just rode by—”

  “What about him?”

  “He is my evil genius, the curse upon my life, the bane of my existence. Always I have met him when threatened with some terrible misfortune. He was with that horrible woman when I met her for the first time … I was after him when I offended Athos … I saw him the very morning of the day when Madame Bonacieux was carried off … and now I see him again.… I recognized him clearly when the wind blew his cloak open.”

  “Devil take it,” Athos murmured, lost in thought.

  “To horse, gentlemen, to horse; let us pursue and overtake him.”

  Aramis offered
sager advice.

  “My dear fellow,” he remarked, “remember that he is going in an opposite direction from ours … that he has a fresh horse and ours are tired … that we would only disable ours to no effect … and that you should let the man go and save the woman.…”

  Suddenly a stable boy came running out of the posting yard in search of the stranger.

  “Ho, Monsieur, ho!” he called, “here is a paper that fell out of your hat!” And he looked vainly about him.

  “My friend,” said D’Artagnan, “a half-pistole for that paper.”

  “With pleasure, Monsieur, here it is.”

  Enchanted with his financial coup, the stable boy returned to the yard, bowing.

  “Well?”—“What is it?”—“Read it?” asked the friends.

  “Nothing. Just one word!”

  “Yes, but that word is the name of some town or village,” Aramis pointed out.

  “Armentières,” Porthos read, “Armentières! I never heard of it.”

  “The name of that town or village is in her handwriting,” Athos reported.

  “Come, let us preserve this piece of paper carefully,” D’Artagnan suggested. “Perhaps I have not wasted my last pistole. To horse, my friends, to horse!”

  And they galloped off toward Béthune.

  LXI

  OF WHAT OCCURRED AT THE CONVENT OF THE CARMELITE NUNS IN BETHUNE

  Great criminals bear a kind of predestination which enables them to overcome all obstacles and to escape all perils until a wearied Providence sets up a pitfall to mark the end of their impious fortunes.

  So it was with Milady. She had the good luck to sail blithely through the fleets of two enemy nations without mishap until Fate was presently to catch up with her.

  Landing at Portsmouth, Milady was an Englishwoman driven from La Rochelle by the persecutions of the French; landing at Boulogne after a two days’ crossing, she was a Frenchwoman driven from Portsmouth by the persecution of the English.

  Milady also possessed the most efficient of passports: her beauty, her noble manner and the generosity with which she distributed her pistoles. Freed from the usual formalities by the affable smile and gallant manners of the aged Governor of the Port, who kissed her hand and conducted her unexamined through the police and customs offices, she stayed in Boulogne only long enough to dash off the following note:

  To His Eminence Monseigneur Cardinal de Richelieu at his camp before La Rochelle:

  Monseigneur:

  Your Eminence need have no cause for alarm. His Grace the Duke of Buckingham cannot possibly set out for France. Boulogne, the evening of the 25th.

  Lady Clark

  P.S. In accordance with the wishes of Your Eminence, I am leaving for the Convent of the Carmelites at Béthune where I await further orders.

  Traveling rapidly that day, Milady spent one night at an inn on the road, and after a journey of three hours next morning, reached Béthune at eight o’clock. At the Carmelite convent, she was received by the Mother Superior, produced her order from the Cardinal, was immediately assigned to a chamber and given a hearty breakfast. As she partook of it cheerfully, every detail of her past faded into oblivion; the roseate perspective of the future beckoned as she basked in the aura of favors to come from the Cardinal she had served so well. Best of all, the name of Richelieu had not been mentioned in the whole murderous affair. Surely then her discretion merited the highest recompense in His Eminence’s gift? In her body and her heart, passion succeeded passion, consuming her ever anew; her life took on the color and movement of clouds that float across the firmament, tinged now with azure, now with fire, and now with the blackness of a tempest which leaves in its wake no trace of aught but devastation and death.

  After breakfast the Mother Superior paid Milady a visit. In general there are few distractions in a convent and a new arrival, particularly one as attractive as Milady, provides considerable entertainment. The good nun sought her out with anticipatory relish. Milady, on her part, used all her wiles in order to please the Mother Superior; this was not difficult, what with the grace of her person and the variety and ease of her conversation.

  The Mother Superior was of noble birth … she welcomed all manner of Court gossip which so rarely travels to the confines of the realm … she was awed by the type of tidings which infrequently scale the walls of convents … and she was dazzled by these secular rumors which burst upon the godly silence of her little world.…

  Milady, on the contrary, was thoroughly conversant with all the aristocratic intrigues amid which she had constantly lived for the past few years. She therefore made it her business to amuse the worthy nun with an abundance of anecdotes about the French Court. Discreetly she unfolded the mundane practices of the great lords and ladies whom the Mother Superior knew perfectly well by name … skilfully she retailed the exaggerated devoutness and eccentric devotions of the King … lightly she exposed the scandals of this or that amour between this or that noble … airily she told of the love affair between Her Majesty and Buckingham.… In brief she spoke a great deal with assumed candor in order to move her auditor to speak ever so little.

  But the Mother Superior simply sat back listening avidly, vouchsafing no word and smiling encouragement. Milady, aware that this type of conversation pleased the nun, developed various themes of Court chatter, endeavoring slowly and warily, to bring the Cardinal into the discussion.

  Her problem was a thorny one, for she did not know whether the Mother Superior was a royalist or a cardinalist. Accordingly she steered a safe middle-course. Meanwhile the nun maintained an even more cautious reserve, nodding her head gravely whenever Milady chanced to mention the Cardinal by name.

  As the conversation continued, Milady, beginning to feel that conventual life promised to prove extremely tedious, resolved to take a risk in order to ascertain how matters stood. To test the discretion of the nun, she related an ugly rumor about the Cardinal, circumspectly at first, then thoroughly circumstantiated. It concerned Monseigneur’s reputed liaison with Madame d’Aiguillon, his niece, which afforded the fillip of incest to her tale … of Monseigneur’s reputed liaison with Marion de Lorme, the versatile courtesan whom des Barreaux, the rake and poet, initiated into the ways of carnality and who bedded with Saint Evremond, the wit and littérateur and with the great Condé among others … and finally of Monseigneur’s reputed liaison with a good many other ladies of light virtue.…

  Out of the corner of her eye, Milady noticed gratefully that the Mother Superior appeared to listen more attentively, to grow more animated and here and there even to smile. Encouraged, Milady mused:

  “Good, the woman is interested in what I am telling her. If she is a cardinalist, at least she is no fanatic!”

  And she went on to describe the persecution His Eminence exercised upon his enemies, while, at each instance cited, the Mother Superior made a sign of the cross, registering neither approval nor disapproval. The nun’s attitude confirmed Milady’s suspicion that she was dealing with a royalist. Presently the Mother Superior ventured:

  “I am little acquainted in all such matters. We are far removed from Court life, as you know. Yet remote as we are from the world and its turmoil, occasionally we find tragic examples of what you tell me.”

  Milady glanced questioningly at the nun. “Yes,” the nun went on, “we happen to have a young woman staying here at this very moment who has had much to suffer from the vengeance and persecution of the Cardinal.”

  “A guest of yours, here in this convent, Reverend Mother!” Milady exclaimed. “Poor woman, how I pity her!”

  “You have good reason to do so, my daughter. She has suffered imprisonment, menaces, abuse, ill-treatment, in a word, everything. But after all,” the nun sighed, “perhaps the Cardinal has sound reasons for acting thus. Though this young woman looks like an angel, who can tell? Appearances are so often deceptive.”

  Milady, suspecting she was in luck and might discover something of interest, assumed an expressi
on of utmost candor.

  “Alas!” she sighed. “I know! Some say that we are wrong to trust in appearances and that the most beautiful face may conceal the most evil of hearts. But how else should we judge? Surely the human countenance is the most beautiful work Our Lord created? I may well be mistaken all my life long, but I vow I shall always have faith in anyone whose looks please me.”

  “You think this young woman innocent, then?

  “The Cardinal does not pursue criminals exclusively,” Milady said. “He has been known to harass the most virtuous of women—”

  “Your pardon, Madame, I do not follow you—”

  “What do you mean, Reverend Mother?” Milady countered with extreme ingenuousness.

  “I mean I do not understand your language—”

  Milady smiled.

  “What is so strange about my language?”

  “Well, Madame, you are a friend of the Cardinal’s. It was he sent you here. And yet—”

  “And yet I speak ill of him?”

  “You say no good of him, my daughter.”

  “That is because I am his victim,” said Milady, heaving a sigh, “his victim, Reverend Mother, and not his friend.”

  “What of your letter of recommendation? It is signed by the Cardinal.”

  “It is merely an order for my temporary confinement, Reverend Mother. I expect some satellite of His Eminence’s to arrive here at any moment and to spirit me away.”

  “Why did you not run away?” the nun asked pertinently.

  “Where to, Madame? Could I flee to any place on earth the Cardinal cannot reach? Were I a man, I might stand a chance; but what can a poor helpless woman do?” Milady paused dramatically. “What of your guest, Madame? Has she attempted to run away?”