Man in the Iron Mask (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Alexandre Dumas

  “A prime minister, sire?” said Monsieur in a fright.

  “I will tell you all about that, brother; but it is strange that M. d’Herblay is not here!” He called out:—

  “Let M. Fouquet be informed that I wish to speak to him—oh! before you, before you; do not retire!”

  M. de Saint-Aignan returned, bringing satisfactory news of the Queen, who only kept her bed from precaution, and to have strength to carry out all the King’s wishes. Whilst everybody was seeking M. Fouquet and Aramis, the new King quietly continued his experiments, and everybody, family, officers, servants, had not the least suspicion, his air, voice, and manners, were so like the King’s. On his side, Philippe, applying to all countenances the faithful notice and design furnished by his accomplice Aramis, conducted himself so as not to give birth to a doubt in the minds of those who surrounded him. Nothing from that time could disturb the usurper. With what strange facility had Providence just reversed the most elevated fortune of the world to substitute the most humble in his stead! Philippe admired the goodness of God with regard to himself, and seconded it with all the resources of his admirable nature. But he felt, at times, something like a shadow gliding between him and the rays of his new glory. Aramis did not appear. The conversation had languished in the royal family; Philippe, preoccupied, forgot to dismiss his brother and Madame Henrietta. The latter were astonished, and began, by degrees, to lose all patience. Anne of Austria stooped towards her son’s ear, and addressed some words to him in Spanish. Philippe was completely ignorant of that language; and grew pale at this unexpected obstacle. But, as if the spirit of the imperturbable Aramis had covered him with his infallibility, instead of appearing disconcerted, Philippe rose. “Well! what?” said Anne of Austria.

  “What is all that noise?” said Philippe, turning round towards the door of the second staircase.

  And a voice was heard, saying: “This way! this way! A few steps more, sire!”

  “The voice of M. Fouquet,” said d’Artagnan, who was standing close to the Queen-Mother.

  “Then M. d’Herblay cannot be far off,” added Philippe.

  But he then saw what he little thought to see so near to him. All eyes were turned towards the door at which M. Fouquet was expected to enter; but it was not M. Fouquet who entered. A terrible cry resounded from all corners of the chamber, a painful cry uttered by the King and all present. It is not given to men, even to those whose destiny contains the strangest elements, and accidents the most wonderful, to contemplate a spectacle similar to that which presented itself in the royal chamber at that moment. The half-closed shutters only admitted the entrance of an uncertain light passing through large velvet curtains lined with silk. In this soft shade, the eyes were by degrees dilated, and every one present saw others rather with trust than with positive sight. There could not, however, escape, in these circumstances, one of the surrounding details; and the new object which presented itself appeared as luminous as if it had been enlightened by the sun. So it happened with Louis XIV, when he showed himself pale and frowning in the doorway of the secret stairs. The face of Fouquet appeared behind him, impressed with sorrow and sternness. The Queen-Mother, who perceived Louis XIV, and who held the hand of Philippe, uttered the cry of which we have spoken, as if she had beheld a phantom. Monsieur was bewildered, and kept turning his head in astonishment from one to the other. Madame made a step forward, thinking she saw the form of her brother-in-law reflected in a glass. And, in fact, the illusion was possible. The two princes, both pale as death—for we renounce the hope of being able to describe the fearful state of Philippe—both trembling, and clenching their hands convulsively, measured each other with their looks, and darted their eyes like poniards, into each other. Mute, panting, bending forward, they appeared as if about to spring upon an enemy. The unheard of resemblance of countenance, gesture, shape, height, even to the resemblance of costume, produced by chance—for Louis XIV had been to the Louvre and put on a violet-coloured dress—the perfect analogy of the two princes, completed the consternation of Anne of Austria. And yet she did not at once guess the truth. There are misfortunes in life that no one will accept; people would rather believe in the supernatural and the impossible. Louis had not reckoned upon these obstacles. He expected he had only to appear and be acknowledged. A living sun, he could not endure the suspicion of parity with any one. He did not admit that every torch should not become darkness at the instant he shone out with his conquering ray. At the aspect of Philippe, then, he was, perhaps, more terrified than any one round him, and his silence, his immobility were, this time, a concentration and a calm which precede violent explosions of passion.

  But Fouquet! who could paint his emotion and stupor in presence of this living portrait of his master! Fouquet thought Aramis was right, that this newly-arrived was a king as pure in his race as the other, and that, for having repudiated all participation in this coup d‘état, so skilfully got up by the General of the Jesuits, he must be a mad enthusiast unworthy of ever again dipping his hands in a political work. And then it was the blood of Louis XIII which Fouquet was sacrificing to the blood of Louis XIII; it was to a selfish ambition he was sacrificing a noble ambition; it was to the right of keeping he sacrificed the right of having. The whole extent of his fault was revealed to him by the simple sight of the pretender. All which passed in the mind of Fouquet was lost upon the persons present. He had five minutes to concentrate his meditations upon this point of the case of conscience; five minutes, that is to say five ages, during which the two kings and their family scarcely found time to breathe after so terrible a shock. D’Artagnan, leaning against the wall, in front of Fouquet, with his hand to his brow, asked himself the cause of such a wonderful prodigy. He could not have said at once why he doubted, but he knew assuredly that he had reason to doubt, and that in this meeting of the two Louis XIVs lay all the difficulty which during late days had rendered the conduct of Aramis so suspicious to the musketeer. These ideas were, however, enveloped in thick veils. The actors in this assembly seemed to swim in the vapours of a confused waking. Suddenly Louis XIV, more impatient and more accustomed to command, ran to one of the shutters, which he opened, tearing the curtains in his eagerness. A flood of living light entered the chamber, and made Philippe draw back to the alcove. Louis seized upon this movement with eagerness, and addressing himself to the Queen,—

  “My mother,” said he, “do you not acknowledge your son, since every one here has forgotten his King! Anne of Austria started, and raised her arms towards Heaven, without being able to articulate a single word.

  “My mother,” said Philippe, with a calm voice, “do you not acknowledge your son?” And this time, in his turn, Louis drew back.

  As to Anne of Austria, struck in both head and heart with remorse, she lost her equilibrium. No one aiding her, for all were petrified, she sank back in her chair, breathing a weak, trembling sigh. Louis could not endure this spectacle and this affront. He bounded towards d’Artagnan, upon whom the vertigo was beginning to gain, and who staggered as he caught at the door, for support.

  “Captain!” said he, “look us in the face and say which is the paler, he or I!”

  This cry roused d’Artagnan, and stirred in his heart the fibre of obedience. He shook his head, and, without more hesitation, he walked straight up to Philippe, upon whose shoulder he laid his hand, saying, “Monsieur, you are my prisoner!”

  Philippe did not raise his eyes towards Heaven, nor stir from the spot, where he seemed nailed to the floor, his eye intensely fixed upon the King his brother. He reproached him by a sublime silence with all his misfortunes past, with all his tortures to come. Against this language of the soul the King felt he had no power; he cast down his eyes, dragging away precipitately his brother and sister, forgetting his mother, sitting motionless within three paces of the son whom she left a second time to be condemned to death. Philippe approached Anne of Austria, and said to her, in a soft and nobly agitated voice,—

  “If I
were not your son, I should curse you, my mother, for having rendered me so unhappy.”

  D’Artagnan felt a shudder pass through the marrow of his bones. He bowed respectfully to the young Prince, and said, as he bent, “Excuse me, monseigneur, I am but a soldier, and my oaths are his who has just left the chamber.”

  “Thank you, M. d‘Artagnan. But what is become of M. d’Herblay?”

  “M. d’Herblay is in safety, monseigneur,” said a voice behind them; “and no one, while I live and am free, shall cause a hair to fall from his head.”

  “Monsieur Fouquet!” said the Prince, smiling sadly.

  “Pardon me, monseigneur,” said Fouquet, kneeling, “but he who is just gone out from hence was my guest.”

  “Here are,” murmured Philippe, with a sigh, “brave friends and good hearts. They make me regret the world. On, M. d’Artagnan, I follow you.”

  At the moment the captain of the musketeers was about to leave the room with his prisoner, Colbert appeared, and, after remitting an order from the King to d‘Artagnan, retired. D’Artagnan read the paper, and then crushed it in his hand with rage.

  “What is it?” asked the Prince.

  “Read, monseigneur,” replied the musketeer.

  Philippe read the following words, hastily traced by the hand of the King:—“M. d’Artagnan will conduct the prisoner to the Ile Sainte-Marguerite. He will cover his face with an iron visor, which the prisoner cannot raise without peril of his life.”

  “That is just,” said Philippe, with resignation, “I am ready.”

  “Aramis was right,” said Fouquet, in a low voice to the musketeer; “this one is quite as much of a king as the other.”

  “More!” replied d’Artagnan. “He only wants you and me.”

  53

  In Which Porthos Thinks He Is Pursuing a Duchy

  ARAMIS AND PORTHOS, HAVING profited by the time granted them by Fouquet, did honour to the French cavalry by their speed. Porthos did not clearly understand for what kind of mission he was forced to display so much velocity; but as he saw Aramis spurring on furiously, he, Porthos, spurred on in the same manner. They had soon, in this manner, placed twelve leagues between them and Vaux; they were then obliged to change horses and organise a sort of post arrangement. It was during a relay that Porthos ventured to interrogate Aramis discreetly.

  “Hush!” replied the latter; “know only that our fortune depends upon our speed.”

  As if Porthos had still been the musketeer, without a sou or a maille,ah of 1626, he pushed forward. That magic word “fortune” always means something in the human ear. It means enough for those who have nothing; it means too much for those who have enough.

  “I shall be made a duke!” said Porthos aloud. He was speaking to himself.

  “That is possible,” replied Aramis, smiling after his own fashion, as the horse of Porthos passed him. The head of Aramis was, notwithstanding, on fire; the activity of the body had not yet succeeded in subduing that of the mind. All that there is in raging passions, in severe toothaches, or mortal threats twisted, gnawed, and grumbled in the thoughts of the vanquished prelate. His countenance exhibited very visible traces of this rude combat. Free upon the highway to abandon himself to every impression of the moment, Aramis did not fail to swear at every start of his horse, at every inequality in the road. Pale, at times inundated with boiling sweats, then again dry and icy, he beat his horses and made the blood stream from their sides. Porthos, whose dominant fault was not sensibility, groaned at this. Thus travelled they on for eight long hours, and then arrived at Orleans. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Aramis, on observing this, judged that nothing demonstrated pursuit to be possible. It would be without example that a troop capable of taking him and Porthos should be furnished with relays sufficient to perform forty leagues in eight hours. Thus, admitting pursuit, which was not at all manifest, the fugitives were five hours in advance of their pursuers.

  Aramis thought that there might be no imprudence in taking a little rest, but that to continue would make the matter more certain. Twenty leagues more, performed with the same rapidity, twenty more leagues devoured, and no one, not even d‘Artagnan, could overtake the enemies of the King. Aramis felt obliged, therefore, to inflict upon Porthos the pain of mounting on horseback again. They rode on till seven o’clock in the evening, and had only one post more between them and Blois. But here a diabolical accident alarmed Aramis greatly. There were no horses at the post. The prelate asked himself by what infernal machination his enemies had succeeded in depriving him of the means of going farther,—he who never recognised chance as a deity, he who found a cause for every result, he preferred believing that the refusal of the postmaster, at such an hour in such a country, was the consequence of an order emanating from above; an order given with a view to stopping short the king-maker in the midst of his flight. But at the moment he was about to fly into a passion, so as to procure either a horse or an explanation, he was struck with the recollection that the Comte de la Fère lived in the neighbourhood.

  “I am not travelling,” said he; “I do not want horses for a whole stage. Find me two horses to go and pay a visit to a nobleman of my acquaintance who resides near this place.”

  “What nobleman?” asked the postmaster.

  “M. le Comte de la Fère.”

  “Oh!” replied the postmaster, uncovering with respect, “a very worthy nobleman, But, whatever may be my desire to make myself agreeable to him, I cannot furnish you with horses, for all mine are engaged by M. le Duc de Beaufort.”

  “Indeed!” said Aramis, much disappointed.

  “Only,” continued the postmaster, “if you will put up with a little carriage I have, I will harness an old blind horse, who has still his legs left, and will draw you to the house of M. le Comte de la Fère.”

  “That is worth a louis,” said Aramis.

  “No, monsieur, that is never worth more than a crown; that is what M. Grimaud, the Comte’s intendant, always pays me when he makes use of that carriage; and I should not wish the Comte de la Fère to have to reproach me with having imposed on one of his friends.”

  “As you please,” said Aramis, “particularly as regards disobliging the Comte de la Fère; only I think I have a right to give you a louis for your idea.”

  “Oh! doubtless!” replied the postmaster, with delight. And he himself harnessed the old horse to the creaking carriage. In the meanwhile Porthos was curious to behold. He imagined he had discovered the secret, and he felt pleased, because a visit to Athos, in the first place, promised him much satisfaction, and, in the next, gave him the hopes of finding at the same time a good bed and a good supper. The master, having got the carriage ready, ordered one of his men to drive the strangers to La Fère. Porthos took his seat by the side of Aramis, whispering in his ear, “I understand.”

  “Ah! ah!” said Aramis, “and what do you understand, my friend?”

  “We are going, on the part of the King, to make some great proposal to Athos.”

  “Pooh!” said Aramis.

  “You need tell me nothing about it,” added the worthy Porthos, endeavouring to place himself so as to avoid the jolting, “you need tell me nothing, I shall guess.”

  “Well! do, my friend; guess away.”

  They arrived at Athos’s dwelling about nine o’clock in the evening, favoured by a splendid moon. This cheerful light rejoiced Porthos beyond expression; but Aramis appeared annoyed by it in an equal degree. He could not help showing something of this to Porthos, who replied, “Ay, ay! I guess how it is! the mission is a secret one.”

  These were his last words in the carriage. The driver interrupted him by saying, “Gentlemen, you are arrived.”

  Porthos and his companion alighted before the gate of the little chateau, where we are about to meet again with Athos and Bragelonne, the latter of whom had disappeared since the discovery of the infidelity of La Vallière. If there be one saying more true than another, it is this: great griefs contain with
in themselves the germ of their consolation. This painful wound, inflicted upon Raoul, had drawn him nearer to his father again; and God knows how sweet were the consolations which flowed from the eloquent mouth and generous heart of Athos. The wound was not cicatrised, but Athos, by dint of conversing with his son, and mixing a little more of his life with that of the young man, had brought him to understand that this pang of a first infidelity is necessary to every human existence; and that no one has loved without meeting with it. Raoul listened often, but never understood. Nothing replaces in the deeply-afflicted heart the remembrance and thought of the beloved object. Raoul then replied to the reasonings of his father:—

  “Monsieur, all that you tell me is true; I believe that no one has suffered in the affections of the heart so much as you have; but you are a man too great from intelligence, and too severely tried by misfortunes, not to allow for the weakness of the soldier who suffers for the first time. I am paying a tribute which I shall not pay a second time; permit me to plunge myself so deeply in my grief that I may forget myself in it, that I may drown even my reason in it.”

  “Raoul! Raoul!”

  “Listen, monsieur. Never shall I accustom myself to the idea that Louise, the most chaste and the most innocent of women, has been able so basely to deceive a man so honest and so true a lover as I am. Never can I persuade myself that I see that sweet and good mask change into a hypocritical and lascivious face. Louise lost! Louise infamous! Ah! monseigneur, that idea is much more cruel to me than Raoul abandoned—Raoul unhappy! ”

  Athos then employed the heroic remedy. He defended Louise against Raoul, and justified her perfidy by her love. “A woman who would have yielded to a king because he is a king,” said he, “would deserve to be styled infamous; but Louise loves Louis. Both young, they have forgotten, he his rank, and she her vows. Love absolves everything, Raoul. The two young people loved each other with sincerity.”

  And when he had dealt this severe poniard-thrust, Athos, with a sigh, saw Raoul bound away under the cruel wound, and fly to the thickest recesses of the wood, or the solitude of his chamber, whence, an hour after, he would return, pale, trembling, but subdued. Then, coming up to Athos with a smile, he would kiss his hand, like the dog, who, having been beaten, caresses a good master, to redeem his fault. Raoul redeemed nothing but his weakness, and only confessed his grief. Thus passed away the days that followed that scene in which Athos had so violently shaken the indomitable pride of the King. Never, when conversing with his son, did he make any allusion to that scene; never did he give him the details of that vigorous lecture which might, perhaps, have consoled the young man, by showing him his rival humbled. Athos did not wish that the offended lover should forget the respect due to the King. And when Bragelonne, ardent, furious, and melancholy, spoke with contempt of royal words, of the equivocal faith which certain madmen draw from promises falling from thrones, when, passing over two centuries, with the rapidity of a bird which traverses a narrow strait, to go from one world to the other, Raoul ventured to predict the time when kings would become less than other men, Athos said to him, in his serene persuasive voice, “You are right, Raoul; all that you say will happen; kings will lose their privileges, as stars which have completed their time lose their splendour. But when that moment shall come, Raoul, we shall be dead. And remember well what I say to you. In this world, all—men, women, and kings—must live for the present. We can only live for the future for God.”