Ten Years Later

by Alexandre Dumas

  D'Artagnan reflected to such good purpose during the night that hisplan was settled by morning. "This is it," said he, sitting up in bed,supporting his elbow on his knee, and his chin in his hand;--"this isit. I shall seek out forty steady, firm men, recruited among people alittle compromised, but having habits of discipline. I shall promisethem five hundred livres for a month if they return, nothing if theydo not return, or half for their kindred. As to food and lodging, thatconcerns the English, who have cattle in their pastures, bacon in theirbacon-racks, fowls in their poultry-yards, and corn in their barns. Iwill present myself to General Monk with my little body of troops. Hewill receive me. I shall win his confidence, and take advantage of it,as soon as possible."

  But without going farther, D'Artagnan shook his head and interruptedhimself. "No," said he; "I should not dare to relate this to Athos;the way is therefore not honorable. I must use violence," continuedhe,--"very certainly I must, but without compromising my loyalty. Withforty men I will traverse the country as a partisan. But if I fallin with, not forty thousand English, as Planchet said, but purely andsimply with four hundred, I shall be beaten. Supposing that among myforty warriors there should be found at least ten stupid ones--ten whowill allow themselves to be killed one after the other, from merefolly? No; it is, in fact, impossible to find forty men to be dependedupon--they do not exist. I must learn how to be contented with thirty.With ten men less I should have the right of avoiding any armedencounter, on account of the small number of my people; and if theencounter should take place, my chance is better with thirty men thanforty. Besides, I should save five thousand francs; that is to say, theeighth of my capital; that is worth the trial. This being so, I shouldhave thirty men. I shall divide them into three bands,--we will spreadourselves about over the country, with an injunction to reunite ata given moment; in this fashion, ten by ten, we should excite nosuspicion--we should pass unperceived. Yes, yes, thirty--that is amagic number. There are three tens--three, that divine number! And then,truly, a company of thirty men, when all together, will look ratherimposing. Ah! stupid wretch that I am!" continued D'Artagnan, "I wantthirty horses. That is ruinous. Where the devil was my head when Iforgot the horses? We cannot, however, think of striking such a blowwithout horses. Well, so be it, that sacrifice must be made; we canget the horses in the country--they are not bad, besides. But Iforgot--peste! Three bands--that necessitates three leaders; there isthe difficulty. Of the three commanders I have already one--that ismyself;--yes, but the two others will of themselves cost almost as muchmoney as all the rest of the troop. No; positively I must have but onelieutenant. In that case, then, I should reduce my troop to twenty men.I know very well that twenty men is but very little; but since withthirty I was determined not to seek to come to blows, I should do somore carefully still with twenty. Twenty--that is a round number;that, besides, reduces the number of the horses by ten, which is aconsideration; and then, with a good lieutenant--Mordioux! what thingspatience and calculation are! Was I not going to embark with forty men,and I have now reduced them to twenty for an equal success? Ten thousandlivres saved at one stroke, and more safety; that is well! Now, then,let us see; we have nothing to do but to find this lieutenant--let himbe found, then; and after--That is not so easy; he must be brave andgood, a second myself. Yes, but a lieutenant must have my secret, and asthat secret is worth a million, and I shall only pay my man a thousandlivres, fifteen hundred at the most, my man will sell the secret toMonk. Mordioux! no lieutenant. Besides, this man, were he as mute asa disciple of Pythagoras,--this man would be sure to have in the troopsome favourite soldier, whom he would make his sergeant, the sergeantwould penetrate the secret of the lieutenant, in case the latter shouldbe honest and unwilling to sell it. Then the sergeant, less honest andless ambitious, will give up the whole for fifty thousand livres. Come,come! that is impossible. The lieutenant is impossible. But then I musthave no fractions; I cannot divide my troop into two, and act upontwo points, at once, without another self, who--But what is the use ofacting upon two points, as we have only one man to take? What can be thegood of weakening a corps by placing the right here, and the leftthere? A single corps--Mordioux! a single one, and that commanded byD'Artagnan. Very well. But twenty men marching in one band are suspectedby everybody; twenty horsemen must not be seen marching together, or acompany will be detached against them and the password will be required;the which company, upon seeing them embarrassed to give it, would shootM. d'Artagnan and his men like so many rabbits. I reduce myself then toten men; in this fashion I shall act simply and with unity; I shall beforced to be prudent, which is half the success in an affair of the kindI am undertaking; a greater number might, perhaps, have drawn me intosome folly. Ten horses are not many, either to buy or take. A capitalidea; what tranquillity it infuses into my mind! no more suspicions--nopasswords--no more dangers! Ten men, they are valets or clerks. Tenmen, leading ten horses laden with merchandise of whatever kind, aretolerated, well received everywhere. Ten men travel on account of thehouse of Planchet & Co., of France--nothing can be said against that.These ten men, clothed like manufacturers, have a good cutlass or a goodmusket at their saddle-bow, and a good pistol in the holster. They neverallow themselves to be uneasy, because they have no evil designs. Theyare, perhaps, in truth, a little disposed to be smugglers, but whatharm is in that? Smuggling is not, like polygamy, a hanging offense. Theworst that can happen to us is the confiscation of our merchandise. Ourmerchandise confiscated--fine affair that! Come, come! it is a superbplan. Ten men only--ten men, whom I will engage for my service; ten menwho shall be as resolute as forty, who would cost me four times as much,and to whom, for greater security, I will never open my mouth as to mydesigns, and to whom I shall only say, 'My friends, there is a blowto be struck.' Things being after this fashion, Satan will be verymalicious if he plays me one of his tricks. Fifteen thousand livressaved--that's superb--out of twenty!"

  Thus fortified by his laborious calculations, D'Artagnan stopped at thisplan, and determined to change nothing in it. He had already on a listfurnished by his inexhaustible memory, ten men illustrious amongst theseekers of adventures, ill-treated by fortune, and not on good termswith justice. Upon this D'Artagnan rose, and instantly set off on thesearch, telling Planchet not to expect him to breakfast, and perhaps notto dinner. A day and a half spent in rummaging amongst certain dens ofParis sufficed for his recruiting; and, without allowing his adventurersto communicate with each other, he had picked up and got together, inless than thirty hours, a charming collection of ill-looking faces,speaking a French less pure than the English they were about to attempt.These men were, for the most part, guards, whose merit D'Artagnanhad had an opportunity of appreciating in various encounters, whomdrunkenness, unlucky sword-thrusts, unexpected winnings at play, or theeconomical reforms of Mazarin, had forced to seek shade and solitude,those two great consolers of irritated and chafing spirits. Theybore upon their countenances and in their vestments the traces of theheartaches they had undergone. Some had their visages scarred,--allhad their clothes in rags. D'Artagnan comforted the most needy ofthese brotherly miseries by a prudent distribution of the crowns of thesociety; then, having taken care that these crowns should be employed inthe physical improvement of the troop, he appointed a trysting placein the north of France, between Berghes and Saint Omer. Six days wereallowed as the utmost term, and D'Artagnan was sufficiently acquaintedwith the good-will, the good-humor, and the relative probity of theseillustrious recruits, to be certain that not one of them would fail inhis appointment. These orders given, this rendezvous fixed, he went tobid farewell to Planchet, who asked news of his army. D'Artagnan didnot think proper to inform him of the reduction he had made in hispersonnel. He feared that the confidence of his associate would beabated by such an avowal. Planchet was delighted to learn that the armywas levied, and that he (Planchet) found himself a kind of half king,who from his throne-counter kept in pay a body of troops destinedto make war against perfidious Albion, that enemy of all true Fr
enchhearts. Planchet paid down in double louis, twenty thousand livresto D'Artagnan, on the part of himself (Planchet), and twenty thousandlivres, still in double louis, in account with D'Artagnan. D'Artagnanplaced each of the twenty thousand francs in a bag, and weighing a bagin each hand,--"This money is very embarrassing, my dear Planchet," saidhe. "Do you know this weighs thirty pounds?"

  "Bah! your horse will carry that like a feather."

  D'Artagnan shook his head. "Don't tell me such things, Planchet: ahorse overloaded with thirty pounds, in addition to the rider and hisportmanteau, cannot cross a river so easily--cannot leap over a wall orditch so lightly; and the horse failing, the horseman fails. It is truethat you, Planchet, who have served in the infantry, may not be aware ofall that."

  "Then what is to be done, monsieur?" said Planchet, greatly embarrassed.

  "Listen to me," said D'Artagnan. "I will pay my army on its return home.Keep my half of twenty thousand livres, which you can use during thattime."

  "And my half?" said Planchet.

  "I shall take that with me."

  "Your confidence does me honor," said Planchet: "but supposing youshould not return?"

  "That is possible, though not very probable. Then, Planchet, in case Ishould not return--give me a pen! I will make my will." D'Artagnan tooka pen and some paper, and wrote upon a plain sheet,--"I, D'Artagnan,possess twenty thousand livres, laid up cent by cent during thirty yearsthat I have been in the service of his majesty the king of France. Ileave five thousand to Athos, five thousand to Porthos and five thousandto Aramis, that they may give the said sums in my name and their own tomy young friend Raoul, Vicomte de Bragelonne. I give the remaining fivethousand to Planchet, that he may distribute the fifteen thousandwith less regret among my friends. With which purpose I sign thesepresents.--D'Artagnan.

  Planchet appeared very curious to know what D'Artagnan had written.

  "Here," said the musketeer, "read it"

  On reading the last lines the tears came into Planchet's eyes. "Youthink, then, that I would not have given the money without that? Then Iwill have none of your five thousand francs."

  D'Artagnan smiled. "Accept it, accept it, Planchet; and in that way youwill only lose fifteen thousand francs instead of twenty thousand, andyou will not be tempted to disregard the signature of your master andfriend, by losing nothing at all."

  How well that dear Monsieur d'Artagnan knew the hearts of men andgrocers! They who have pronounced Don Quixote mad because he rode out tothe conquest of an empire with nobody but Sancho, his squire, and theywho have pronounced Sancho mad because he accompanied his master inhis attempt to conquer the said empire,--they certainly will have nohesitation in extending the same judgment to D'Artagnan and Planchet.And yet the first passed for one of the most subtle spirits among theastute spirits of the court of France. As to the second, he had acquiredby good right the reputation of having one of the longest headsamong the grocers of the Rue des Lombards; consequently of Paris, andconsequently of France. Now, to consider these two men from the point ofview from which you would consider other men, and the means by the aidof which they contemplated to restore a monarch to his throne, comparedwith other means, the shallowest brains of the country where brains aremost shallow must have revolted against the presumptuous madness of thelieutenant and the stupidity of his associate. Fortunately, D'Artagnanwas not a man to listen to the idle talk of those around him, or to thecomments that were made on himself. He had adopted the motto, "Act well,and let people talk." Planchet on his part, had adopted this, "Act andsay nothing." It resulted from this, that, according to the custom ofall superior geniuses, these two men flattered themselves intra pectus,with being in the right against all who found fault with them.

  As a beginning, D'Artagnan set out in the finest of possible weather,without a cloud in the heavens--without a cloud on his mind, joyousand strong, calm and decided, great in his resolution, and consequentlycarrying with him a tenfold dose of that potent fluid which the shocksof mind cause to spring from the nerves, and which procure for thehuman machine a force and an influence of which future ages will render,according to all probability, a more arithmetical account than we canpossibly do at present. He was again, as in times past, on that sameroad of adventures which had led him to Boulogne, and which he was nowtraveling for the fourth time. It appeared to him that he could almostrecognize the trace of his own steps upon the road, and that of hisfirst upon the doors of the hostelries;--his memory, always active andpresent, brought back that youth which neither thirty years later hisgreat heart nor his wrist of steel would have belied. What a rich naturewas that of this man! He had all the passions, all the defects, allthe weaknesses, and the spirit of contradiction familiar to hisunderstanding changed all these imperfections into correspondingqualities. D'Artagnan, thanks to his ever active imagination, was afraidof a shadow; and ashamed of being afraid, he marched straight up to thatshadow, and then became extravagant in his bravery if the danger provedto be real. Thus everything in him was emotion, and therefore enjoyment.He loved the society of others, but never became tired of his own; andmore than once, if he could have been heard when he was alone, he mighthave been seen laughing at the jokes he related to himself or the trickshis imagination created just five minutes before ennui might have beenlooked for. D'Artagnan was not perhaps so gay this time as he would havebeen with the prospect of finding some good friends at Calais, insteadof joining the ten scamps there; melancholy, however, did not visit himmore than once a day, and it was about five visits that he received fromthat somber deity before he got sight of the sea at Boulogne, and thenthese visits were indeed but short. But when once D'Artagnan foundhimself near the field of action, all other feelings but that ofconfidence disappeared never to return. From Boulogne he followed thecoast to Calais. Calais was the place of general rendezvous, and atCalais he had named to each of his recruits the hostelry of "Le GrandMonarque," where living was not extravagant, where sailors messed, andwhere men of the sword, with sheath of leather, be it understood, foundlodging, table, food, and all the comforts of life, for thirty sousper diem. D'Artagnan proposed to himself to take them by surprisein flagrante delicto of wandering life, and to judge by the firstappearance if he could count on them as trusty companions.

  He arrived at Calais at half past four in the afternoon.

  CHAPTER 22. D'Artagnan travels for the House of Planchet and Company