Between Two Kings

by Lawrence Ellsworth

  “No, let me keep my wits about me,” said d’Artagnan.

  “What, you, to lose your head, Monsieur…?”

  “Well, now that my head is my own, I intend to take good care of it. First, let’s talk about finances; how are we doing for money?”

  “Quite well, Monsieur. The twenty thousand livres I had from you are invested in my business, which earns nine percent; I give you seven, with two remaining for me.”

  “And you’re happy with that?”

  “Delighted. Are you bringing me more?”

  “Better than that… but do you need more?”

  “Oh, not at all. I can get credit from anyone now. I’m expanding my business.”

  “That was your plan.”

  “I play the banker a bit. I buy the goods of my peers when they’re overextended and lend money to those who are struggling to pay debts.”

  “Without usury?”64

  “Oh, Monsieur! In just the last week I’ve had two encounters on the boulevard65 over the word you just pronounced.”

  “What!”

  “It was a straight loan, you understand—the borrower gave me a deposit of brown sugar as security on condition I could sell it if he didn’t repay me by a certain date. I lent him a thousand livres; when he didn’t repay me, I sold the sugar for thirteen hundred livres. When he heard that, he demanded three hundred livres. I refused, pretending I’d sold the sugar for only nine hundred. He called me a usurer. I asked him to repeat that word at night on the boulevard. He’s a former guardsman, so he came, and I passed your old sword through his left thigh.”

  “Tudieu! You’re some kind of a banker, you are!” said d’Artagnan.

  “Above thirteen percent, I fight,” replied Planchet. “Those are my principles.”

  “Take only twelve,” said d’Artagnan, “and call the rest premium and brokerage fees.”

  “That’s good advice, Monsieur. Now, your business?”

  “Ah, Planchet! It’s a long story, and hard to explain.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  D’Artagnan scratched at his mustache like a man unsure of where to start and how much he dared say.

  “Is it an investment?” asked Planchet.

  “In a way.”

  “With a decent return?”

  “A beautiful return: four hundred percent, Planchet.”

  Planchet smacked the table so hard the bottles jumped and clattered. “Good God! Is it possible?”

  “It will probably be higher,” said d’Artagnan coolly, “but I’d rather be conservative.”

  “The devil!” said Planchet, leaning closer. “That… Monsieur, that’s incredible. How much can we put in?”

  “Twenty thousand livres each, Planchet.”

  “That’s your entire stake, Monsieur. For how long?”

  “For one month.”

  “And that gets us?”

  “A profit of fifty thousand livres each.”

  “It’s monstrous…! To win a pot like that, there must be fighting involved.”

  “I do believe there will be a fair amount of fighting,” said d’Artagnan, just as coolly. “But this time, Planchet, it’s just the two of us, and I’ll risk the fighting.”

  “Monsieur, I won’t let you risk it alone.”

  “Planchet, it’s out of the question. You’d have to leave your business.”

  “The affair isn’t in Paris, then?”

  “No.”

  “Ah! Abroad?”

  “In England.”

  “A country wide open for trade, indeed,” said Planchet. “A country I know well. Just out of curiosity, Monsieur, what sort of affair is this?”

  “Planchet, it’s a restoration.”

  “Of monuments?”

  “Yes, or a monument. We’re going to restore Whitehall.”

  “That does sound important. And you think in a month…?”

  “I can manage it.”

  “That’s your specialty, Monsieur, and once you get going…”

  “Yes, I know my business—but I’ll consult with you and listen to what you have to say.”

  “That’s quite an honor… but I don’t know much about these monuments.”

  “Planchet, you’re quite wrong, and are as able an architect as I am.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I had, I confess, been tempted to offer the partnership to my old comrades, but none of them were home. Which is a shame, because I know no one more daring or skillful.”

  “Ah ça! So, you think there will be opposition and the business will have competition?”

  “Oh, yes, Planchet, I do.”

  “I’m keen to hear the details, Monsieur.”

  “Very well, then, Planchet: lock all the doors.”

  “Yes, Monsieur.” And Planchet locked them up tight.

  “Good. Now, come over here.”

  Planchet obeyed.

  “And open the window, so the sound of passersby and wagons will drown out what we have to say.”

  Planchet opened the window as he’d been ordered, and the clamor of the street engulfed the room: voices calling, wheels clattering, dogs barking, it was just as deafening as d’Artagnan had hoped. He took a sip of the white wine, leaned forward and said, “Planchet, I have a plan.”

  “Ah, Monsieur! That’s just like you,” replied the grocer, trembling in anticipation.

  XX Of the Company Formed in the Rue des Lombards under the Sign of the Golden Pestle to Execute d’Artagnan’s Plan

  After a moment of silence, during which d’Artagnan seemed to gather a great many thoughts, he said, “Of course, you know all about His Majesty Charles I, King of England?”

  “Alas, yes, Monsieur! You left France to go help him, and despite that help he fell and almost took you down with him.”

  “Exactly. I see you still have a good memory, Planchet.”

  “Peste, Monsieur! What would be astounding is if I’d forgotten any part of that story. When you’ve heard Grimaud, who, as you know, speaks but rarely, tell the tale of the beheading of King Charles, of how you sailed through the night in a gunpowder-mined sloop, and beheld that awful Monsieur Mordaunt tossing in the sea with a golden-handled dagger buried in his chest, you’re not likely to forget it.”

  “But there are people who forget such things, Planchet.”

  “Yes, those who never saw them, or heard Grimaud tell of them.”

  “Well! Since you remember all that, I need remind you of only one thing, that King Charles had a son.”

  “Not to correct you, Monsieur, but he had two,” said Planchet. “I saw the second, the Duke of York, here in Paris one day when he was on his way to the Palais Royal, and was told he was the second son of King Charles I. As to the eldest, I have the honor to know his name, but I’ve never seen him.”

  “Quite so, Planchet, and it’s him we must speak of, that eldest son once known as the Prince of Wales, and now called Charles II, King of England.”

  “A king without a kingdom, Monsieur,” replied Planchet sententiously.

  “Yes, Planchet, a most unfortunate prince, less happy than the lowest beggar in the most miserable quarter of Paris.”

  Planchet made a gesture full of that bland compassion accorded to distant strangers one never expects to meet. Besides, he didn’t hear anything in this sentimental eulogy that seemed to bear on his main interest, Monsieur d’Artagnan’s plan of business.

  D’Artagnan, from his habit of observing humanity, understood Planchet’s thoughts. “We’re coming to it,” he said. “This former Prince of Wales, a king without a kingdom, as you so aptly put it, Planchet, caught my attention. I watched him beg the assistance of Mazarin, who is a low skinflint, and the help of King Louis, who is a child, and it seemed to me, who knows a thing or two, that in the intelligent gaze of this exiled king, in his essential nobility, a nobility that rises above all his suffering, I saw the stuff that makes a man, and the heart that makes a king.”

  Planchet tacitly approved of
all this, but in his eyes at least, it didn’t cast any light on d’Artagnan’s plan. The latter continued, “That’s what I told myself, and it started me thinking. Now listen closely, Planchet, because we’re coming to the point.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Kings are not so thick on the ground that you can easily find one when you need one. Now, this king without a kingdom is in my opinion a rare resource, a precious seed that might burgeon and bloom if a capable hand, discreet and vigorous, sowed it well and truly, in the right soil, climate, and time.”

  Planchet nodded mechanically, showing that he didn’t yet understand.

  “Poor little king seed! That’s what I said to myself, and I was actually moved, Planchet, which makes me think that perhaps I’m being moved to folly. That’s why I wanted to consult with you, my friend.”

  Planchet blushed with pleasure and pride.

  “Poor little king seed, I said! I’ll be the one who picks you up and plants you in good soil.”

  “Good God!” said Planchet, looking searchingly at his old master, as if beginning to doubt his reason.

  “What’s that?” asked d’Artagnan. “Are you all right?”

  “Me? Fine, Monsieur.”

  “You said, ‘Good God!’ ”

  “I did?”

  “I’m sure of it. Are you starting to understand?”

  “I confess, Monsieur d’Artagnan, that I’m a little afraid…”

  “To understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “To understand that I want to restore his throne to King Charles II, who has no throne? Is that it?”

  Planchet almost leapt from his chair. “Ohé!” he cried, frightened. “So that’s what you mean by a restoration!”

  “Yes, Planchet. Isn’t that the right word for it?”

  “No doubt, no doubt. But have you thought about this?”

  “About what?”

  “About what’s going on over there?”

  “Where?”

  “In England.”

  “And what’s going on there, Planchet?”

  “First of all, Monsieur, I beg your pardon for presuming to worry about these things, which are not my concern, but since you’re proposing a business venture to me… you are proposing I join a venture, aren’t you?”

  “A superb one, Planchet.”

  “Then since you’re proposing a joint venture, I have the right to discuss it.”

  “Discuss away, Planchet; from discourse comes wisdom.”

  “Well! Since I have Monsieur’s permission, I’ll tell him that in the first place, there’s the Parliament.”

  “Very well. And after that?”

  “After that, the army.”

  “Good. And then?”

  “And then, the entire nation!”

  “Is that everything?”

  “… The entire nation, which consented to the fall and execution of the last king, father of this one, and stands by that consent.”

  “Planchet, my friend,” said d’Artagnan, “your reasons stink like old cheese. The nation? That nation is fed up with these trumped-up gentlemen who grant themselves barbaric titles while singing psalms. When it comes to singing, my dear Planchet, I’ve noticed that nations prefer drinking songs to plainchant. Remember the Fronde, and the songs we sang in those days? Say hey! Good times, eh?”

  “Not so much; I was nearly hanged.”

  “But were you hanged?”

  “No.”

  “And didn’t you found your fortune while singing those songs?”

  “Well… yes.”

  “So, you can have nothing to say against them.”

  “All right! Then I return to the Parliament and the army.”

  “And I say that I’ll borrow twenty thousand livres from Monsieur Planchet, and put in twenty thousand livres of my own, and with this forty thousand I’ll raise my own army.”

  Planchet clasped his hands in woe, for he really thought d’Artagnan had lost his mind. “An army! Oh, Monsieur,” he said, with a gentle smile, for fear of pushing the madman into a rage. “A… large army?”

  “About forty men,” said d’Artagnan.

  “Forty men against forty thousand isn’t going to do it. Now, you alone are worth a thousand men, Monsieur d’Artagnan, I know that well, but how will you find thirty-nine others who are worth as much as you? Even if you find them, how would you pay them?”

  “Not bad, Planchet. Diable, you speak like a courtier.”

  “No, Monsieur, I say what I think, and what I think is that at the first pitched battle you fight with your forty men, I’m afraid…”

  “So, I won’t fight any pitched battles,” said the Gascon, laughing. “From Antiquity on, we have plenty of examples of tactical retreats and strategic marches that achieve their goals by avoiding the enemy rather than meeting him. You should know that, Planchet, you who commanded Parisians on the day they were to fight musketeers, and maneuvered to avoid them so skillfully that you never left the Place Royale.”66

  Planchet laughed. “For a fact,” he replied, “if your forty men stay hidden with any skill, they may hope never to have to fight. But then, how do you propose to achieve your goal?”

  “I’ll tell you. Here, then, is how I propose to speedily restore His Majesty Charles II to his throne.”

  “Great!” said Planchet, all attention. “But first, it seems to me we’re forgetting something.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve dismissed the nation, because they prefer drinking songs to psalms, and the army, because we won’t fight them. But there’s still the Parliament, which doesn’t sing at all.”

  “And which also doesn’t fight. How you, Planchet, an intelligent man, can worry about a bunch of debaters who call themselves Rumps and Barebones is beyond me! I’m not worried about the Parliament, Planchet.”

  “All right, since Monsieur isn’t worried about them, we’ll move on.”

  “Yes, and now we’re coming to the crux. Do you remember Cromwell, Planchet?”

  “I certainly heard a lot about him, Monsieur.”

  “He was a tough old soldier.”

  “With a big appetite on top of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He swallowed England at a single gulp.”

  “Well, Planchet! What if, the day after he swallowed England, someone had swallowed Monsieur Cromwell?”

  “Oh, Monsieur! It’s one of the first axioms of mathematics that the container must be larger than the contained.”

  “Quite so! And that, right there, is our venture.”

  “But Monsieur Cromwell is dead, and his container is the tomb.”

  “My dear Planchet, I’m pleased to see that you’ve become not only a mathematician, but also a philosopher.”

  “Monsieur, in my grocery, I use a lot of newspaper as wrapping, and I learn from it.”

  “Bravo! Then you’re aware, since you learned not only mathematics and philosophy but also a little history, that the previous Cromwell, who was so great, was followed by another who was much smaller.”

  “Yes, the one called Richard—who did as you did, Monsieur d’Artagnan, and resigned his position.”

  “Good, very good! After the great one, who died, and the small one, who resigned, there has come a third. This one is called Monsieur Monck: he’s a skillful general in that he’s never fought a battle, a capable diplomat because he never says anything, and before greeting someone in the morning, he thinks about it for twelve hours and then says good evening, which people call miraculous, saying he’s always right.”

  “Indeed, that’s impressive,” said Planchet, “but I know of another politician quite like him.”

  “Monsieur de Mazarin, am I right?”

  “Himself.”

  “You’re right, Planchet; except Monsieur de Mazarin doesn’t aspire to the Throne of France, and that changes everything, you see. Well! This Monsieur Monck, who already has England roasted on a plate and opens his mouth to
swallow it, this Monsieur Monck, who tells the envoys of Charles II and Charles II himself, ‘Nescio vos…’ ”

  “I don’t speak English,” said Planchet.

  “Yes, leave that to me,” said d’Artagnan. “ ‘Nescio vos’ means ‘I know you not.’ This Monsieur Monck, the most important man in England, once he’s swallowed her…”

  “Well?” asked Planchet.

  “Well, my friend! I go over there with my forty men, and I’ll pack him up, carry him off, and bring him to France, where I see two bright possibilities.”

  “Ooh, I see one!” cried Planchet, carried away by enthusiasm. “We’ll put him in a cage and folks will pay money to see him.”

  “Well, Planchet, that’s a third possibility that hadn’t occurred to me, I must say.”

  “Do you think it’s a good one?”

  “Yes, certainly—but I think mine are better.”

  “Let’s hear yours, then.”

  “Number one is to hold him for ransom.”

  “For how much?”

  “Peste! A fellow like that must be worth a hundred thousand crowns.”

  “Oh, yes!”

  “So, my first idea is to ransom him for a hundred thousand crowns.”

  “And the other…?”

  “The other, which is even better, is to give him to King Charles, who, no longer having a general of the army to fear, and a diplomat to argue with, will restore himself, and once restored, will pay me the hundred thousand crowns in question. That’s the venture I propose; what do you say to that, Planchet?”

  “It’s magnificent, Monsieur!” said Planchet, trembling with emotion. “And how did this wonderful idea come to you?”

  “It came to me one morning on the banks of the Loire, when King Louis XIV, our beloved monarch, wept over the hand of Mademoiselle de Mancini.”

  “Monsieur, I grant you that your idea is sublime. But…”

  “Ah! There’s always a but.”

  “Permit me! But it’s a bit like the skin of the bear the fools tried to sell, you know, before they’d caught the bear. Now, taking Monsieur Monck means a fight.”

  “No doubt; that’s why I’m raising my army.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand that, parbleu! A surprise attack. Oh, you’ll succeed at that, Monsieur, because no one’s your equal at that sort of thing.”