“Monsieur,” said Raoul, “we have before us a beautiful spectacle! ”
“How good d’Artagnan is!” interrupted Athos suddenly, “and what a rare good fortune it is to be supported during a whole life by such a friend as he is! That is what you have lacked, Raoul.”
“A friend!” cried Raoul, “I have wanted a friend!”
“M. de Guiche is an agreeable companion,” resumed the Comte, coldly, “but I believe, in the times in which you live, men are more engaged in their own interests and their own pleasures than they were in our times. You have sought a secluded life; that is a great happiness, but you have lost your strength in it. We four, more weaned from these delicate abstractions which constitute your joy, we furnished much more resistance when misfortune presented itself.”
“I have not interrupted you, monsieur, to tell you that I had a friend, and that friend was M. Guiche. Certes, he is good and generous, and moreover he loves me. But I have lived under the guardianship of another friendship, monsieur, as precious and as strong as that of which you speak, since that is yours.”
“I have not been a friend for you, Raoul,” said Athos.
“Eh! monsieur, and in what respect not?”
“Because I have given you reason to think that life has but one face, because sad and severe, alas! I have always cut off for you, without, God knows, wishing to do so, the joyous buds which incessantly spring from the tree of youth; so that at this moment I repent of not having made of you a more expansive, dissipated, animated man.”
“I know why you say that, monsieur. No, it is not you who have made me what I am; it was love which took me at the time when children have only inclinations; it is the constancy natural to my character, which with other creatures is but a habit. I believed that I should always be as I was; I thought God had cast me in a path quite cleared, quite straight, bordered with fruits and flowers. I had watching over me your vigilance and your strength. I believed myself to be vigilant and strong. Nothing prepared me; I fell once, and that once deprived me of courage for the whole of my life. It is quite true that I wrecked myself. Oh, no, monsieur! you are nothing in my past but a happiness—you are nothing in my future but a hope! No, I have no reproach to make against life, such as you made it for me. I bless you, and I love you ardently.”
“My dear Raoul, your words do me good. They prove to me that you will act a little for me in the time to come.”
“I shall only act for you, monsieur.”
“Raoul, what I have never hitherto done with respect to you, I will henceforward do. I will be your friend, not your father. We will live in expanding ourselves, instead of living and holding ourselves prisoners, when you come back. And that will be soon, will it not?”
“Certainly, monsieur, for such an expedition cannot be long.”
“Soon, then, Raoul, soon, instead of living moderately upon my income, I will give you the capital of my estates. It will suffice for launching you into the world till my death; and you will give me, I hope, before that time, the consolation of not seeing my race extinct.”
“I will do all you shall command,” said Raoul, much agitated.
“It is not necessary, Raoul, that your duty as aide-de-camp should lead you into too hazardous enterprises. You have gone through your ordeal; you are known to be good under fire. Remember that war with the Arab is a war of snares, ambuscades, and assassinations.”
“So it is said, monsieur.”
“There is never much glory in falling in an ambuscade. It is a death which always implies a little rashness or want of foresight. Often, indeed, he who falls in it meets with but little pity. They who are not pitied, Raoul, have died uselessly. Still further, the conqueror laughs, and we Frenchmen ought not to allow stupid infidels to triumph over our faults. Do you clearly understand what I am saying to you, Raoul? God forbid I should encourage you to avoid encounters.”
“I am naturally prudent, monsieur, and I have very good fortune,” said Raoul, with a smile which chilled the heart of his poor father; “for,” the young man hastened to add, “in twenty combats in which I have been, I have only received one scratch.”
“There is in addition,” said Athos, “the climate to be dreaded; that is an ugly end, that fever! King Saint-Louis prayed God to send him an arrow or the plague, rather than the fever.”
“Oh, monsieur! with sobriety, with reasonable exercise—”
“I have already obtained from M. de Beaufort a promise that his despatches shall be sent off every fortnight to France. You, as his aide-de-camp, will be charged with expediting them, and will be sure not to forget me.”
“No, monsieur,” said Raoul, almost choked with emotion.
“Besides, Raoul, as you are a good Christian, and I am one also, we ought to reckon upon a more special protection of God and His guardian angels. Promise me, that if anything evil should happen to you, on any occasion, you will think of me at once.”
“First and at once! Oh! yes, monsieur.”
“And will call upon me?”
“Instantly.”
“You dream of me sometimes, do you not, Raoul?”
“Every night, monsieur. During my early youth I saw you in my dreams, calm and mild, with one hand stretched out over my head, and that it was that made me sleep so soundly—formerly. ”
“Since we two love one another so dearly,” said the Comte, “a portion of our two souls will always be together though we are separated the one from the other. Whenever you may be sad, Raoul, I feel that my heart will be drowned in sadness; and when you smile on thinking of me, be assured you will send me, from however remote a distance, a ray of your joy.”
“I will not promise you to be joyous,” replied the young man; “but you may be certain that I will never pass an hour without thinking of you; not one hour, I swear, unless I be dead.”
Athos could contain himself no longer; he threw his arms around the neck of his son, and held him embraced with all the powers of his heart. The moon began to be now eclipsed by twilight; a golden band surrounded the horizon, announcing the approach of day. Athos threw his cloak over the shoulders of Raoul, and led him back to the city, where burdens and porters were already in motion, like a vast ant-hill. At the extremity of the plateau, which Athos and Bragelonne were quitting, they saw a dark shadow moving uneasily backwards and forwards, as if in indecision or ashamed to be seen. It was Grimaud, who, in his anxiety, had tracked his master, and was waiting for him.
“Oh! my good Grimaud,” cried Raoul, “what do you want? You have come to tell us it is time to be gone, have you not?”
“Alone?” said Grimaud, addressing Athos, and pointing to Raoul in a tone of reproach, which showed to what an extent the old man was troubled.
“Oh! you are right!” cried the Comte. “No, Raoul, do not go alone; no, he shall not be left alone in a strange land, without some friendly hand to support him, some friendly heart to recall to him all he loved!”
“I?” said Grimaud.
“You, yes, you!” cried Raoul, touched to his inmost heart.
“Alas!” said Athos, “you are very old, my good Grimaud.”
“So much the better,” replied the latter, with an inexpressible depth of feeling and intelligence.
“But the embarkation is begun,” said Raoul, “and you are not prepared.”
“Yes,” said Grimaud, showing the keys of his trunks, mixed with those of his young master.
“But,” again objected Raoul, “you cannot leave Monsieur le Comte thus alone; Monsieur le Comte, whom you have never quitted.”
Grimaud turned his dimmed eyes upon Athos and Raoul, as if to measure the strength of both. The Comte uttered not a word.
“Monsieur le Comte will prefer my going,” said Grimaud.
“I should,” said Athos, by an inclination of the head.
At that moment the drums suddenly rolled, and the clarions filled the air with their inspiring notes. The regiments destined for the expedition began to debouch f
rom the city. They advanced to the number of five, each composed of forty companies. Royals marched first, distinguished by their white uniform, faced with blue. The regimental colours, quartered crosswise, violet and dead-leaf, with a sprinkling of golden fleurs-de-lis, left the white-coloured flag, with its fleur-de-lised cross, to dominate over the whole. Musketeers, at the wings, with their forked sticks and their muskets on their shoulders; pikemen in the centre, with their lances, fourteen feet in length, marched gaily towards the transports, which carried them in detail to the ships. The regiments of Picardy, Navarre, Normandy, and Royal Vaisseau, followed after. M. de Beaufort had known well how to select his troops. He himself was seen closing the march with his staff—it would take a full hour before he could reach the sea. Raoul with Athos turned his steps slowly towards the beach, in order to take his place when the Prince embarked. Grimaud, boiling with the ardour of a young man, superintended the embarkation of Raoul’s baggage in the admiral’s vessel. Athos, with his arm passed through that of the son he was about to lose, absorbed in melancholy meditation, was deaf to the noise around him. An officer came quickly towards them to inform Raoul that M. de Beaufort was anxious to have him by his side.
“Have the kindness to tell the Prince,” said Raoul, “that I request he will allow me this hour to enjoy the company of my father.”
“No, no,” said Athos, “an aide-de-camp ought not thus to quit his general. Please to tell the Prince, monsieur, that the Vicomte will join him immediately.” The officer set off at a gallop.
“Whether we part here or part there,” added the Comte, “it is no less a separation.” He carefully brushed the dust off his son’s coat, and passed his hand over his hair as they walked along. “But, Raoul,” said he, “you want money. M. de Beaufort’s train will be splendid, and I am certain it will be agreeable to you to purchase horses and arms, which are very dear things in Africa. Now, as you are not actually in the service of the King, or M. de Beaufort, and are simply a volunteer, you must not reckon upon either pay or largesses. But I should not like you to want for anything at Gigelli. Here are two hundred pistoles; if you would please me, Raoul, spend them.”
Raoul pressed the hand of his father, and, at the turning of a street, they saw M. de Beaufort, mounted upon a magnificent white horse, which replied by graceful curvets to the applauses of the women of the city. The Duc called Raoul, and held out his hand to the Comte. He spoke to him for some time, with such a kindly expression that the heart of the poor father even felt a little comforted. It was, however, evident to both father and son that their walk was directed to nothing less than a punishment. There was a terrible moment—that at which, on quitting the sands of the shore, the soldiers and sailors exchanged the last kisses with their families and friends; a supreme moment, in which, notwithstanding the clearness of the heavens, the warmth of the sun, the perfumes of the air, and the rich life that was circulating in their veins, everything appeared black, everything appeared bitter, everything created doubts of a God, whilst speaking by the mouth, even, of God. It was customary for the admiral and his suite to embark the last; the cannon waited to announce, with its formidable voice, that the leader had placed his foot on board his vessel. Athos, forgetful of both the admiral and the fleet, and of his own dignity as a strong man, opened his arms to his son, and pressed him, convulsively, to his heart.
“Accompany us on board,” said the Duc, very much affected; “you will gain a good half-hour.”
“No,” said Athos, “my farewell is spoken. I do not wish to speak a second.”
“Then, Vicomte, embark—embark quickly!” added the Prince, wishing to spare the tears of these two men, whose hearts were bursting. And paternally, tenderly, very much as Porthos might have done, he took Raoul in his arms and placed him in the boat; the oars of which at a signal immediately were dipped in the waves. Himself, forgetful of ceremony, he jumped into his boat, and pushed it off with a vigorous foot. “Adieu!” cried Raoul.
Athos replied only by a sign, but he felt something burning on his hand; it was the respectful kiss of Grimaud—the last farewell of the faithful dog. This kiss given, Grimaud jumped from the step of the sea wall upon the stem of a two-oared yawl, which had just been taken in tow by a barge served by twelve galley-oars. Athos seated himself on the mole, stunned, deaf, abandoned. Every instant took from him one of the features, one of the shades of the pale face of his son. With his arms hanging down, his eyes fixed, his mouth open, he remained confounded with Raoul—in one same look, in one same thought, in one same stupor. The sea, by degrees, carried away boats and faces, until at the distance at which men became nothing but points—loves, nothing but remembrances. Athos saw his son ascend the ladder of the admiral’s ship, he saw him lean upon the rail of the deck, and place himself in such a manner as to be always an object in the eye of his father. In vain the cannon thundered, in vain from the ship sounded a long and loud tumult, responded to by immense acclamations from the shore; in vain did the noise deafen the ear of the father, and the smoke obscure the cherished object of all his aspirations. Raoul appeared to him up to the last moment; and the imperceptible atom, passing from black to pale, from pale to white, from white to nothing, disappeared for Athos—disappeared very long after for all the eyes of the spectators, had disappeared both gallant ships and swelling sails. Towards midday, when the sun devoured space, and scarcely the tops of the masts dominated the incandescent line of the sea, Athos perceived a soft aerial shadow rise, and vanish as soon as seen. This was the smoke of a cannon, which M. de Beaufort ordered to be fired as a last salute to the coast of France. The point was buried in its turn beneath the sky, and Athos returned painfully and slowly to his hostelry.
62
Among Women
D’ARTAGNAN HAD NOT BEEN able to hide his feelings from his friends so much as he would have wished. The stoical soldier, the impassible man-at-arms, overcome by fear and presentiments, had yielded, for a few minutes, to human weakness. When, therefore, he had silenced his heart and calmed the agitation of his nerves, turning towards his lackey, a silent servant, always listening, in order to obey the more promptly:—
“Rabaud,” said he, “mind, we must travel thirty leagues a day. ”
“At your pleasure, captain,” replied Rabaud.
And from that moment, d‘Artagnan, accommodating his action to the pace of his horse, like a true centaur, employed his thoughts about nothing—that is to say, about everything. He asked himself why the King had sent for him back; why the Iron Mask had thrown the silver plate at the feet of Raoul? As to the first subject, the reply was negative; he knew right well that the King’s calling him was from necessity. He still further knew that Louis XIV must experience an imperious want of a private conversation with one whom the possession of such a secret placed on a level with the highest powers of the kingdom. But as to saying exactly what the King’s wish was, d’Artagnan found himself completely at a loss. The musketeer had no more doubts either upon the reason which had urged the unfortunate Philippe to reveal his character and his birth. Philippe, hidden for ever beneath a mask of iron, exiled to a country where the men seemed little more than slaves of the elements; Philippe, deprived even of the society of d‘Artagnan, who had loaded him with honours and delicate attentions, had nothing more to see than spectres and griefs in this world, and despair beginning to devour him,—he poured himself forth in complaints, in the belief that his revelations would raise an avenger for him. The manner in which the musketeer had been near killing his two best friends, the destiny which had so strangely brought Athos to participate in the great State secret, the farewell of Raoul, the obscurity of that future which threatened to end in a melancholy death; all this threw d’Artagnan incessantly back to lamentable predictions and forebodings, which the rapidity of his pace did not dissipate, as it used formerly to do. D‘Artagnan passed from these considerations to the remembrance of the proscribed Porthos and Aramis. He saw them both, fugitives, tracked, ruined—laborious archit
ects of a fortune they must lose; and, as the King called for his man of execution in hours of vengeance and malice, d’Artagnan trembled at the idea of receiving some commission that would make his very heart bleed. Sometimes, when ascending hills, when the winded horse breathed hard from his nostrils and heaved his flanks, the captain, left to more freedom of thought, reflected upon the prodigious genius of Aramis, a genius of astucity and intrigue, such as the Fronde and the civil war had produced but two. Soldier, priest, and diplomatist; gallant, avaricious, and cunning; Aramis had never taken the good things of this life but as stepping-stones to rise to bad ones. Generous in spirit, if not high in heart, he never did ill but for the sake of shining a little more brilliantly. Towards the end of his career, at the moment of reaching the goal, like the patrician Fuscus, he had made a false step upon a plank, and had fallen into the sea. But Porthos, the good, harmless Porthos! To see Porthos hungry, to see Mousqueton without gold lace, imprisoned perhaps; to see Pierrefonds, Bracieux, razed to the very stones, dishonoured even to the timber,—these were so many poignant griefs for d‘Artagnan, and every time that one of these griefs struck him, he bounded like a horse at the sting of the gadfly beneath the vaults of foliage where he had sought shade and shelter from the burning sun. Never was the man of spirit subjected to ennui, if his body was exposed to fatigue; never did the man healthy of body fail to find life light, if he had something to engage his mind. D’Artagnan, riding fast, thinking as constantly, alighted from his horse in Paris, fresh and tender in his muscles as the athlete preparing for the gymnasium. The King did not expect him so soon, and had just departed for the chase towards Meudon. D‘Artagnan, instead of riding after the King, as he would formerly have done, took off his boots, had a bath, and waited till His Majesty should return dusty and tired. He occupied the interval of five hours in taking, as people say, the air of the house, and in arming himself against all ill chances. He learned that the King, during the last fortnight, had been gloomy; that the Queen-Mother was ill and much depressed; that Monsieur, the King’s brother, was exhibiting a devotional turn; that Madame had the vapours; and that M. de Guiche was gone to one of his estates. He learned that M. Colbert was radiant ; that M. Fouquet consulted a fresh physician every day, who still did not cure him, and that his principal complaint was one which physicians do not usually cure, unless they are political physicians. The King, d’Artagnan was told, behaved in the kindest manner to M. Fouquet, and did not allow him ever to be out of his sight; but the Surintendant, touched to the heart, like one of those fine trees which a worm has punctured, was declining daily, in spite of the royal smile, that sun of court trees. D‘Artagnan learned that Mademoiselle de la Vallière had become indispensable to the King; that the King, during his sporting excursions, if he did not take her with him, wrote to her frequently—no longer verses, but, what was much worse, prose, and that whole pages at a time. Thus, as the poetical Pleiad of the day said, the first King in the world was seen descending from his horse with an ardour beyond compare, and on the crown of his hat scrawling bombastic phrases, which M. de Saint-Aignan, aide-de-camp in perpetuity, carried to La Vallière at the risk of foundering his horses. During this time, deer and pheasants were left to the free enjoyments of their nature, hunted so lazily, that, it was said, the art of venery ran great risk of degenerating at the court of France. D’Artagnan then thought of the wishes of poor Raoul, of that desponding letter destined for a woman who passed her life in hoping; and as d‘Artagnan loved to philosophise a little occasionally, he resolved to profit by the absence of the King to have a minute’s talk with Mademoiselle de La Vallière. This was a very easy af fair : while the King was hunting, Louise was walking with some other ladies in one of the galleries of the Palais-Royal, exactly where the captain of the musketeers had some guards to inspect. D’Artagnan did not doubt that, if he could but open the conversation upon Raoul, Louise might give him grounds for writing a consolatory letter to the poor exile; and hope, or at least consolation for Raoul, in the state of heart in which he had left him, was the sun, was life, to two men who were very dear to our captain. He directed his course, therefore, to the spot where he knew he should find Mademoiselle de la Vallière. D‘Artagnan found La Vallière the centre of a circle. In her apparent solitude, the King’s favourite received, like a queen, more perhaps than the Queen, a homage of which Madame had been so proud, when all the King’s looks were directed to her and commanded the looks of the courtiers. D’Artagnan, although no squire of dames, received, nevertheless, civilities and attentions from the ladies; he was polite, as a brave man always is, and his terrible reputation had conciliated as much friendship among the men as admiration among the women. On seeing him enter, therefore, they immediately accosted him; and, as is not infrequently the case with fair ladies, opened the attack by questions: Where had he been? What had become of him so long? Why had they not seen him as usual make his fine horse curvet in such beautiful style, to the delight and astonishment of the curious, from the King’s balcony?
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