Ten Years Later
Page 34
D'Artagnan, although he flattered himself with better success, had,nevertheless, not too well comprehended his situation. It was a strangeand grave subject for him to reflect upon--this voyage of Athos intoEngland; this league of the king with Athos, and that extraordinarycombination of his design with that of the Comte de la Fere. The bestway was to let things follow their own train. An imprudence had beencommitted, and, whilst having succeeded, as he had promised, D'Artagnanfound that he had gained no advantage by his success. Since everythingwas lost, he could risk no more.
D'Artagnan followed Monk through his camp. The return of the general hadproduced a marvelous effect, for his people had thought him lost. ButMonk, with his austere look and icy demeanor, appeared to ask of hiseager lieutenants and delighted soldiers the cause of all this joy.Therefore, to the lieutenants who had come to meet him, and whoexpressed the uneasiness with which they had learnt his departure,--
"Why is all this?" said he; "am I obliged to give you an account ofmyself?"
"But, your honor, the sheep may well tremble without the shepherd."
"Tremble!" replied Monk, in his calm and powerful voice; "ah, monsieur,what a word! Curse me, if my sheep have not both teeth and claws; Irenounce being their shepherd. Ah, you tremble, gentlemen, do you?"
"Yes, general, for you."
"Oh! pray meddle with your own concerns. If I have not the wit God gaveto Oliver Cromwell, I have that which He has sent to me: I am satisfiedwith it, however little it may be."
The officer made no reply; and Monk, having imposed silence on hispeople, all remained persuaded that he had accomplished some importantwork or made some important trial. This was forming a very poorconception of his patience and scrupulous genius. Monk, if he had thegood faith of the Puritans, his allies, must have returned ferventthanks to the patron saint who had taken him from the box of M.d'Artagnan. Whilst these things were going on, our musketeer could nothelp constantly repeating,--
"God grant that M. Monk may not have as much pride as I have; for Ideclare if any one had put me into a coffer with that grating over mymouth, and carried me packed up, like a calf, across the seas, I shouldcherish such a memory of my piteous looks in that coffer, and such anugly animosity against him who had inclosed me in it, I should dread sogreatly to see a sarcastic smile blooming upon the face of the maliciouswretch, or in his attitude any grotesque imitation of my position in thebox, that, Mordioux! I should plunge a good dagger into his throat incompensation for the grating, and would nail him down in a veritablebier, in remembrance of the false coffin in which I had been left togrow moldy for two days."
And D'Artagnan spoke honestly when he spoke thus; for the skin of ourGascon was a very thin one. Monk, fortunately, entertained other ideas.He never opened his mouth to his timid conqueror concerning the past;but he admitted him very near to his person in his labors, took him withhim to several reconnoiterings, in such a way as to obtain that which heevidently warmly desired,--a rehabilitation in the mind of D'Artagnan.The latter conducted himself like a past-master in the art of flattery:he admired all Monk's tactics, and the ordering of his camp, he jokedvery pleasantly upon the circumvallations of Lambert's camp, who had,he said, very uselessly given himself the trouble to inclose a campfor twenty thousand men, whilst an acre of ground would have been quitesufficient for the corporal and fifty guards who would perhaps remainfaithful to him.
Monk, immediately after his arrival, had accepted the propositionmade by Lambert the evening before, for an interview, and whichMonk's lieutenants had refused under the pretext that the general wasindisposed. This interview was neither long nor interesting: Lambertdemanded a profession of faith from his rival. The latter declared hehad no other opinion than that of the majority. Lambert asked if itwould not be more expedient to terminate the quarrel by an alliancethan by a battle. Monk hereupon demanded a week for consideration. Now,Lambert could not refuse this: and Lambert, nevertheless, had come,saying that he should devour Monk's army. Therefore, at the end of theinterview, which Lambert's party watched with impatience, nothing wasdecided--neither treaty nor battle--the rebel army, as M. d'Artagnanhad foreseen, began to prefer the good cause to the bad one, and theparliament, rumpish as it was, to the pompous nothings of Lambert'sdesigns.
They remembered, likewise, the good feasts of London---the profusion ofale and sherry with which the citizens of London paid their friendsthe soldiers;--they looked with terror at the black war bread, at thetroubled waters of the Tweed,--too salt for the glass, not enough so forthe pot; and they said to themselves, "Are not the roast meats kept warmfor Monk in London?" From that time nothing was heard of but desertionin Lambert's army. The soldiers allowed themselves to be drawn away bythe force of principles, which are, like discipline, the obligatorytie in everybody constituted for any purpose. Monk defended theparliament--Lambert attacked it. Monk had no more inclination to supportparliament than Lambert, but he had it inscribed on his standards, sothat all those of the contrary party were reduced to write upon theirs"Rebellion," which sounded ill to puritan ears. They flocked, then, fromLambert to Monk, as sinners flock from Baal to God.
Monk made his calculations, at a thousand desertions a day Lambert hadmen enough to last twenty days; but there is in sinking things such agrowth of weight and swiftness, which combine with each other, thata hundred left the first day, five hundred the second, a thousand thethird. Monk thought he had obtained his rate. But from one thousand thedeserters increased to two thousand, then to four thousand, and, a weekafter, Lambert, perceiving that he had no longer the possibility ofaccepting battle, if it were offered to him, took the wise resolutionof decamping during the night, returning to London, and being beforehandwith Monk in constructing a power with the wreck of the military party.
But Monk, free and without uneasiness, marched towards London as aconqueror, augmenting his army with all the floating parties on hisway. He encamped at Barnet, that is to say, within four leagues of thecapital, cherished by the parliament, which thought it beheld in him aprotector, and awaited by the people, who were anxious to see him revealhimself, that they might judge him. D'Artagnan himself had not been ableto fathom his tactics; he observed--he admired. Monk could not enterLondon with a settled determination without bringing about civil war. Hetemporized for a short time.
Suddenly, when least expected, Monk drove the military party out ofLondon, and installed himself in the city amidst the citizens, by orderof the parliament; then, at the moment when the citizens were crying outagainst Monk--at the moment when the soldiers themselves were accusingtheir leader--Monk, finding himself certain of a majority, declared tothe Rump Parliament that it must abdicate--be dissolved--and yield itsplace to a government which would not be a joke. Monk pronounced thisdeclaration, supported by fifty thousand swords, to which, that sameevening, were united, with shouts of delirious joy, the five hundredthousand inhabitants of the good city of London. At length, at themoment when the people, after their triumphs and festive repasts in theopen streets, were looking about for a master, it was affirmed that avessel had left the Hague, bearing Charles II. and his fortunes.
"Gentlemen," said Monk to his officers, "I am going to meet thelegitimate king. He who loves me will follow me." A burst ofacclamations welcomed these words, which D'Artagnan did not hear withoutthe greatest delight.
"Mordioux!" said he to Monk, "that is bold, monsieur."
"You will accompany me, will you not?" said Monk.
"Pardieu! general. But tell me, I beg, what you wrote by Athos, that isto say, the Comte de la Fere--you know--the day of our arrival?"
"I have no secrets from you now," replied Monk. "I wrote these words:'Sire, I expect your majesty in six weeks at Dover.'"
"Ah!" said D'Artagnan, "I no longer say it is bold; I say it is wellplayed; it is a fine stroke!"
"You are something of a judge in such matters," replied Monk.
And this was the only time the general had ever made an allusion to hisvoyage to Holland.
C
HAPTER 32. Athos and D'Artagnan meet once more at the Hostelry of theCorne du Cerf