D’Artagnan set out on his journey, and at first he had the most beautiful weather possible, without a cloud in the sky and without a cloud on his spirit, joyful and strong, calm and resolved, and consequently brimming with that fluid energy that powers the human machine when shocks jolt it into action, something that future centuries will probably isolate and reproduce mechanically. As in previous adventures, he went back up the road to Boulogne, now for the fifth time. He could almost, on the way, pick out the footprints of his former travels and recognize the marks of his fist on the doors of roadside inns. His memory, sharp and ever present, brought back the days of his youth, which, thirty years later, hadn’t weakened his steel wrist nor discouraged his brave heart.
What a rich nature was that of this man! He had every passion, every fault, every weakness, and an intellectual spirit of contradiction that turned all these vices into virtues. D’Artagnan, thanks to his restless imagination, started at every shadow, and then, ashamed of that fear, marched bravely into the gloom and confronted it, if he found the danger was real. He reacted to everything with emotion, which brought him enjoyment. He delighted in the company of others but was never bored with his own, and if one could have eavesdropped on him when he was alone, he’d have been heard laughing at the jokes he made for himself, or the imaginary mind games he played where one would expect only boredom.
D’Artagnan was perhaps less cheerful than he would have been if he expected to find his good friends at Calais instead of his ten rogues, but melancholy didn’t afflict him more than once a day, so he had only five visits from that dark deity before sighting the sea at Boulogne, and those visits were brief. Then, once d’Artagnan was nearing the theater of action, every feeling but that of confidence disappeared, to be seen no more.
From Boulogne, he followed the coast to Calais. For Calais was the site of the rendezvous, and in Calais he’d told each of his recruits to await him at the Grand Monarch Inn, where prices were moderate, where sailors took their meals, and where men of the sword, if they kept the blades in their leather scabbards, would find lodging, food, wine, and the other sweet things of life for thirty sous a day.
He arrived at Calais at half past four in the evening. D’Artagnan intended to surprise his recruits in a relaxed state and take stock of them, to judge whether they’d be good and dependable companions.
XXII D’Artagnan Travels for the House of Planchet and Co.
The Grand Monarch Inn was located on a small street that ran parallel to the docks without overlooking the harbor itself; a few alleys, like rungs between the parallel sides of a ladder, connected the dockside to the parallel street. By these alleys, one could cut through quickly from the harbor to the street or from the street to the harbor.
D’Artagnan arrived at the harbor, turned up one of these alleys, and came out right in front of the Grand Monarch Inn. The moment was well chosen and reminiscent of his arrival at the Inn of the Jolly Miller in Meung.71 Some sailors who’d been playing at dice had quarreled and were exchanging furious threats. The host, the hostess, and two pot boys anxiously watched these angry gamblers and the circle of sailors surrounding them, bristling with knives and axes and seemingly ready for war.
However, though grumbling, the two quarrelers returned to their game.
Two other men were sitting on a stone bench near the door, while four tables placed near the far wall of the common room were occupied by eight more. The two men on the bench and the eight at the tables took no part in either the game or the quarrel. In these cold and indifferent spectators d’Artagnan recognized his ten recruits.
The quarrel revived and intensified. Like the sea, every passion has a tide that rises and falls. At the height of his fury one sailor turned over the table, scattering the money that had been on it. Instantly, the inn’s staff and guests all pounced on the rolling coins, gathering what they could and slipping away while all the sailors tore into each other.
Only the two men on the bench and the eight farther inside kept out of the fray, and though they didn’t seem to know each other or be coordinating their actions, all seemed determined to remain impassive despite the angry cries and clink of coins. The sole activity was from the two at the nearest table, who used their feet to firmly repel any fighters who rolled up to them. Two others, while staying out of the fracas, did draw their fists from their pockets, while another pair, to avoid a wave of combatants, took to their tabletop, like people surprised by a flood.
“Come, now,” said d’Artagnan to himself, who had missed nothing we’ve just recounted, “here’s a pretty troop: circumspect, calm, unruffled by noise, but with a ready defense—peste! I could hardly ask for better.”
Suddenly his attention was drawn to the middle of the common room. The two sailors who’d been pushed away by the feet of the men at the nearest table were reconciled by their shared outrage at this insult. One of them, half-drunk with anger and completely drunk on beer, started threatening the smaller of the two men at the table, asking him by what right he could put his feet on sailors, who were creatures of God and not dogs. And to make his inquiry more pointed, he shook his fist under the nose of d’Artagnan’s recruit. The recruit turned pale from what might have been either anger or fear, and the sailor, concluding it must be fear, raised his fist with the evident intention of bringing it down on the stranger’s head. However, though the threatened man scarcely seemed to move, he struck the sailor in the stomach so hard that the man reeled away across the room, crying out in pain.
Immediately, rallied by esprit de corps, the comrades of the injured man fell as one on his conqueror. This latter, maintaining the sangfroid he’d previously shown, and without making the mistake of drawing his weapons, picked up a heavy beer stein and knocked down his first two or three assailants. Then, as he was about to be overwhelmed by numbers, the seven other silent men within, who’d previously stood aside, suddenly decided that this was their battle and rushed to his aid.
Meanwhile, the two abstainers at the door turned toward the mêlée with frowns that seemed to indicate their intention to hit the sailors from behind if they didn’t stand down. The host, his potboys, and two bystanders had gotten embroiled in the fracas and were being soundly beaten. The Paris recruits, however, were striking like Cyclopes, placing their blows with a tactical skill it was a pleasure to behold. Finally, forced to retreat in the face of superior numbers, they entrenched themselves behind the largest table, which four of them upended. Then the two from the doorway finally waded in swinging wooden benches, which like the arms of siege engines laid out eight sailors in four blows.
The floor was strewn with fallen men and the dusty air resounded with cries of pain as d’Artagnan, satisfied with this demonstration, marched into the room naked sword in hand, striking down with the pommel on every sailor’s head that raised itself. Standing in the middle of the room, he shouted, “Holà!” which brought the fight to a sudden end. The wounded sailors surged away from the center of the room to its edges, leaving d’Artagnan alone on the field and in sole possession.
“What’s all this about?” he demanded of all and sundry in the majestic tone of Neptune pronouncing the Quos ego.72
Immediately, at the first sound of his voice (to continue the Virgilian metaphor), d’Artagnan’s recruits, who recognized their lord and master, dropped their aggressive attitudes and put down their tankards and trestles. The sailors, for their part, seeing the long sword, strong arm, and martial air of a man who appeared accustomed to command, picked up their wounded and their cracked mugs and went on their way.
The Parisians straightened themselves and saluted their leader while d’Artagnan was being regaled with thanks and congratulations by the Grand Monarch’s innkeeper. He accepted these plaudits like a man who knew he deserved them and announced that, while the host was preparing his supper, he would go for a walk along the harbor. Immediately each of the recruits, who understood the summons, took his hat, straightened his buffcoat, and followed d’Artagnan. B
ut d’Artagnan, strolling along like a tourist, never paused for a moment and made straight for the dunes. Meanwhile the ten men, surprised at finding themselves walking among a pack of strangers, all looked askance at one another.
It was only when they were among the deepest dunes that d’Artagnan, smiling at seeing them so worried, turned and said, with a reassuring gesture, “There, there, Messieurs! Don’t be so suspicious of each other, for you’re going to be comrades, and must get along together.”
Then their hesitation disappeared, the men breathed easily again, and began looking over their new companions with some satisfaction. After this mutual appraisal they turned back to their leader, who had long experience of dealing with men of this caliber and regaled them with the following improvised speech, delivered with typical Gascon energy: “Messieurs, you all know who I am. I’ve engaged you, knowing you to be brave and ready to join a glorious expedition. Regard working for me just as if you were working for the king—but I warn you now that if you behave like that in public, I’ll crack your heads with whatever happens to be convenient. You’re well aware, Messieurs, that state secrets are like lethal poison: as long as the poison is in its bottle and the bottle is corked, it’s harmless—but once it’s out of the bottle, it kills. Now, come closer, and I’ll share with you as much of the secret as I may.”
Curious, the men gathered around him. “Come near,” continued d’Artagnan, “so close that not the birds over our heads, the rabbits in the dunes, nor the fishes in the waves can hear us. We’re going to investigate and report to Monsieur le Surintendant des Finances as to how much English smuggling is harming French trade. I intend to go everywhere and see everything. We shall be poor Picard fishermen thrown up on the coast by a squall. It goes without saying that we’ll sell fish just as if we were real fishermen.
“Of course, someone might guess who we really are and confront us, in which case we must be able to defend ourselves. That’s why I chose you, men of spirit and courage. But we’ll keep our heads down and stay out of trouble, confident because we’re backed by a powerful patron who can protect us from anything. Only one thing worries me, but I’ll explain it in hopes you can put it to rest. I don’t want to have to bring along a stupid crew of actual fishermen, who’d be a real nuisance, but if there were, among you, some who’d followed the sea…”
“Oh, no problem there!” said one of d’Artagnan’s recruits. “I was a prisoner of the pirates of Tunis73 for three years and can navigate like an admiral.”
“See there?” said d’Artagnan. “Luck is on our side!”
The air of pleased surprise with which d’Artagnan said this was feigned, however, for he knew quite well that this “prisoner of the pirates” was himself an old corsair and had engaged him with that background in mind. But d’Artagnan never said more than he had to say, preferring to leave people in doubt. He therefore appeared to take the man’s explanation at face value, accepting the result without worrying about the cause.
“And I, as it happens,” said a second man, “have an uncle who’s a foreman in the port at La Rochelle. As a child, I played on boats every day, and can handle rowing and sailing as well as any sailor of the Ponant.”74
This man lied only a little more than his fellow, having spent six years rowing in His Majesty’s galleys at La Ciotat. Two others were more honest, confessing that they’d spent a couple of years as soldiers on prison ships. Thus, of the ten men of war in d’Artagnan’s troop, four also qualified as sailors, so he was armed for both land and sea, a detail that would have made Planchet swell with pride had he known of it.
Then it was just a matter of issuing the general orders, which d’Artagnan did with precision. He commanded his men to make for The Hague, half following the coast to Breskens, the others taking the road to Antwerp. The rendezvous was set for a fortnight hence by calculating travel time to the central square of The Hague. D’Artagnan advised his men to pair up however they liked and travel by twos. He himself chose two of the least disreputable figures, a couple of former guardsmen he’d known previously whose only faults were that they were gamblers and drunkards. These men weren’t entirely lost to civilization, and with clean clothes and good habits, their hearts would be steady again. D’Artagnan, to avoid jealousy among the men, made all the others go on ahead. He kept his two favorites back, gave them clothes from his own supply, and set off with them.
It was to this pair, whom he seemed to honor with his complete confidence, that d’Artagnan made a false confession intended to guarantee the success of the expedition. He explained to them that it wasn’t a question of how much English smuggling harmed French trade, but rather how much English trade could be harmed by French smuggling. The men appeared convinced by this, as indeed they were.
D’Artagnan was certain, of course, that at the first carousal with the others, these two, once drink had loosened their tongues, would divulge his false confession to the entire band. He thought this gambit couldn’t fail.
Two weeks after their meeting in Calais, the entire company was reassembled in The Hague. Then d’Artagnan saw that all of them, showing remarkable intelligence, had already assumed the guise of sailors who’d been recently washed up from the sea. D’Artagnan found them quarters in a dive on Newkerkestreet while he lodged comfortably on the Grand Canal.
He learned that the King of England had returned to his ally William II of Nassau, Stadtholder of Holland,75 and moreover that the rejection by King Louis XIV had put a chill on the welcome he’d felt before. Consequently, Charles had been lodged in a small house in the village of Scheveningen, in the dunes on the seaside, about a league outside The Hague. There, it was said, the unfortunate exile consoled himself for his banishment by gazing, with that melancholy particular to the princes of his race, out into the immensity of the North Sea, which separated him from England as it had formerly separated Mary Stuart from France. There, beyond the beautiful grove of Scheveningen, where golden heather grows on the dunes of fine sand, Charles II also vegetated, less happy than the heather because he, self-aware, lived a life of the mind, and went from despair to hope and back again.
D’Artagnan made the short trip to Scheveningen to confirm for himself what was reported about the prince. And in fact, he saw Charles II, pensive and alone, come out of a small door facing the woods and roam along the shore at sunset, without even attracting the notice of the fishermen who, returning in the evening, grounded their boats, like the Greeks of the islands, high on the sand of the beach.
D’Artagnan recognized the king, saw him staring somberly over the immense expanse of the waters, absorbing on his pale face the red rays of the sun already bisected by the horizon. Then Charles II returned to the house alone, slowly and sadly, amusing himself by making the sand creak beneath his footsteps.
That same evening, d’Artagnan rented for a thousand livres a fishing boat, a dogger worth four thousand. He paid the thousand down and left the other three thousand as a deposit with the harbor burgomaster. After that he secretly embarked his six soldiers, unseen in the dark, and at three in the morning, at high tide, he boarded openly with his four sailors and set out, relying on the skill of his former galley slave as if he were the foremost pilot of the port.
XXIII In Which the Author Is Forced, Despite Himself, to Recount a Little History
While kings and men were thus occupied with England, which thought to govern itself—and which, to be fair, had never been governed so poorly—a man upon whom God had rested his gaze and laid his finger, a man destined to write his name in glowing letters in the book of history, worked on while presenting to the world a face both bold and mysterious. He was headed somewhere but no one could guess his destination, though England, France, and all Europe watched him march with a firm step and head held high.
Monck had just declared his allegiance to the liberation of the Rump Parliament, that representative body that General Lambert,76 in imitation of Cromwell, whose lieutenant he’d been, had locked up so closely,
to force it to submit to his will, that no member had been able to break the blockade to escape, and only one, Peter Wentworth, had been able to get in.
Lambert and Monck: everything was summed up in these two men, one of whom represented military despotism and the other republicanism. These two men were the sole political survivors of the revolution in which Charles I had lost his crown and then his head. Lambert made no secret of his intentions: he sought to establish a military government and place himself at its head.
Monck, known to be a staunch republican, was said by some to be in favor of supporting and retaining the Rump Parliament, the visible (though degenerate) representation of the republic; others said that Monck, adroit and ambitious, merely wanted to use this parliament, which he seemed to protect, as a stepping-stone to the throne that Cromwell had made vacant but had never assumed himself.
Thus, Lambert, by persecuting the Parliament, and Monck, by declaring in favor of it, had declared themselves one another’s enemies. Monck and Lambert, therefore, had raised armies for themselves, Monck in Scotland, attracting the Presbyterians and the royalists, that is, the malcontents, and Lambert in London, which always strongly opposed the most visible power—in this case, the Parliament.
Monck had raised an army, pacified Scotland, and found there an asylum; from there he watched and was watched in turn. But Monck knew that the day had not yet come, that day marked by the Lord for a great change, and so his sword stayed in its sheath. Unassailable in his wild and mountainous Scotland, general and absolute king of an army of eleven thousand veterans whom he had more than once led to victory, informed of affairs in London as well as, or even better than Lambert, who was garrisoned in the city, this was the position of Monck when, a hundred leagues from London, he declared for the Parliament.
Between Two Kings Page 18
