Between Two Kings

by Lawrence Ellsworth

  “Lord, yes, General! But, tell me, if you would, what was in the letter you wrote for Athos—I mean, the Comte de La Fère—on the day we arrived?”

  “I have no more secrets from you,” replied Monck. “I wrote these words: ‘Sire, I expect Your Majesty at Dover in six weeks.’ ”

  “Ah!” said d’Artagnan. “Rather than bold, instead I say ‘well played.’ It was a fine stroke!”

  “You know something of such matters,” Monck replied. It was the only reference he ever made to his trip to Holland.

  XXXII How Athos and d’Artagnan Met Once More at the Hartshorn Inn

  The King of England made his entrance with great pomp at Dover, and then again at London. He had brought his mother and sister and summoned his brothers. England had for so long been left to herself, that is, to tyranny, anarchy, and unreason, that the return of King Charles II, whom the English knew only as the son of a man they’d beheaded, was celebrated throughout the three kingdoms. The warm reception and general acclamation that welcomed his return struck the young king so strongly that he said into the ear of James of York, his younger brother, “In truth, James, it seems we were mistaken to be so long absent from a country where we’re so well loved.”

  The royal procession was magnificent. Beautiful weather framed the solemnities. Charles had regained all his youth, all his good humor, and seemed transfigured; all hearts seemed to smile on him like the sun. Among this noisy crowd of courtiers and admirers, who didn’t seem to remember that they’d conducted the new king’s father to his scaffold at Whitehall, was a man in the uniform of a Lieutenant of Musketeers, looking on with a smile on his thin, clever lips, sometimes at the people shouting their blessings, sometimes on the prince borne on this tide of emotion and who saluted above all the women who tossed bouquets beneath his horse’s feet.

  “It’s a fine thing to be a king!” said this man, lost in his contemplation, so absorbed that he stopped in the middle of the street, letting the crowd and procession pass by and around him. “Here indeed is a prince bedecked with gold and diamonds like a Solomon, covered with flowers like a spring meadow, on his way to plunge his hands into the immense treasury that his faithful subjects, formerly so unfaithful, have filled with cartloads of gold, in coins and ingots. They’ve thrown enough flowers at him to bury him twice, though if he’d appeared here less than two months ago, they’d have thrown bullets and musket balls rather than bouquets. Decidedly, it’s something to be born of a certain rank, no offense to the lowborn who say they’re not worse for being born low.”

  The procession went marching on, with the king and his adulation beginning to move off toward the palace, though this didn’t mean our officer wasn’t being considerably jostled. “Mordioux!” continued the philosopher. “So many people treading on my feet with so little regard, or rather none at all, since they’re English and I’m French. If one asked these people, ‘Who is Monsieur d’Artagnan?’ they’d reply, ‘Nescio vos’—I don’t know you. But tell them, ‘There goes the king, and there goes General Monck,’ and they’d shout, ‘Vive le roi! Vive General Monck!’ until their lungs wore out. However,” he continued, regarding the crowd with that look so keen and so proud, “consider, good people, what your King Charles has done, and what General Monck has done, and then think of what that wretched foreigner called Monsieur d’Artagnan has done. Of course, you can’t think about it because it’s unknown, but what does that matter? That doesn’t keep Charles II from being a great king, though he was exiled for twelve years, nor Mister Monck from being a great general, though he took a trip to Holland in a box. So, since one must acknowledge that one is a great king and the other is a great commander, I say Hurrah for King Charles II! Hurrah for General Monck!”

  And his voice mingled with the voices of thousands of spectators, rising above them for a moment, and to show his true devotion, he even waved his hat in the air. But he was stopped by a hand on his arm in the middle of this show of loyalism (which is what in 1660 they called what we now call royalism).

  “Athos!” d’Artagnan cried. “You, here?” And the two friends embraced.

  “You are here! And being here,” continued the musketeer, “why aren’t you in the midst of that crowd of courtiers, my dear Count? What! You, the hero of the day, not riding at the left side of His restored Majesty, as General Monck rides on his right? Really, I can understand the character of neither you nor of the prince who owes you so much.”

  “Always mocking, my dear d’Artagnan,” said Athos. “Will you never correct this unseemly fault?”

  “But seriously, why aren’t you part of the procession?”

  “I’m not part of the procession because I don’t wish to be.”

  “And why don’t you wish to be?”

  “Because I’m neither envoy, ambassador, nor representative of the King of France, and it doesn’t suit me to associate myself so closely with another king whom God didn’t make my master.”

  “Mordioux! You were pretty close to the king his father.”

  “That’s another thing, my friend; he was on his way to death.”

  “And yet what you did for this one…”

  “I did because it was what I had to do. But I deplore all ostentation, as you know. May King Charles II, who no longer needs me, leave me to retire back into the shadows. That’s all I ask of him.”

  D’Artagnan sighed.

  “What would you have?” Athos said to him. “Anyway, my friend, it looks to me like this joyous return of the king to London saddens you, though you did at least as much for His Majesty as I did.”

  “Could it be,” replied d’Artagnan, with his Gascon laugh, “that I did a great deal for His Majesty without his being aware of it?”

  “Oh, but the king knows it well, my friend!” said Athos.

  “He knows it!” said the musketeer bitterly. “By my faith! You’d never suspect it, and up to a moment ago I almost forgot it myself.”

  “But he, my friend, will not forget—I’ll answer for it.”

  “You tell me that to console me a little, Athos.”

  “For what?”

  “Mordioux! For all the expenses I’ve had. I’ve ruined myself, friend, for the restoration of this young prince who just cantered by, riding on his bay horse.”

  “The king doesn’t know you’ve ruined yourself, mon ami, but he’s aware that he owes you a great deal.”

  “Does that get me anywhere, Athos? Tell me! To be fair, I must say you performed your mission nobly and well. But I, who seemingly almost wrecked it, was the one who really made it succeed. Follow my thinking on this: you might not have been able to convince General Monck by persuasion or diplomacy, but my rude means of conducting the dear general to our prince gave Charles the opportunity to be generous, a generosity inspired solely by my blessed blunder, and Charles sees himself repaid for it by this restoration engineered by Monck.”

  “All that, dear friend, is undeniably true,” Athos replied.

  “Well! As undeniably true as that is, it’s just as true that I, though beloved of General Monck, who calls me his dear captain all day long, though I’m neither his dear nor his captain, and though appreciated by the king, though he’s already forgotten my name—it’s just as true, I say, that when I return to my native country, I’ll be cursed by the soldiers whom I’d led to hope for a big payoff, and cursed by my brave Planchet, from whom I borrowed much of his fortune.”

  “How’s that? What the devil does Planchet have to do with all this?”

  “Why, everything, old friend! Here’s the king, splendid, smiling, and adored, there’s General Monck who thinks he’s brought him back, you who believe you supported him, I who think I nudged them all together, the citizens who feel they’ve reconquered him, the king himself who thinks he’s negotiated his restoration, but none of this is true: in reality, Charles II, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was replaced on his throne by a French grocer of the Rue des Lombards named Planchet. And such is grandeur!
‘Vanity,’ says Scripture, ‘all is vanity!’ ”

  Athos couldn’t help but laugh at his friend’s joke. “Dear d’Artagnan!” he said, taking his hand affectionately. “Have you turned philosopher? Wasn’t it enough for you to have saved my life by your timely arrival with Monck when those damned parliamentarians wanted to broil me alive?”

  “Well, you know,” said d’Artagnan, “you just about deserved to be broiled, my dear Count.”

  “What? For protecting King Charles’s million?”

  “What million?”

  “Ah, right! You never knew about that. But you mustn’t be angry with me about it, my friend, for it wasn’t my secret. That word Remember that King Charles pronounced on the scaffold…”

  “The word that means Souviens-toi?”

  “Exactly. That word meant remember that I have a million in gold buried in the vaults of Newcastle Abbey, and that million belongs to my son.”

  “Ah, very nice! Now I understand. But what I also understand, and it’s frightful, is that every time he thinks of me, His Majesty Charles II will say, ‘There was a certain man who nearly made me lose my crown. Fortunately, I was generous, noble, and clever enough to save the day.’ That’s what he’ll say of me, that young gentleman who came to the Château de Blois in a shabby black doublet, hat in his hand, to ask me if I’d admit him to see the King of France.”

  “D’Artagnan, d’Artagnan, you’re wrong,” said Athos, placing a hand on the musketeer’s shoulder.

  “I’m in the right.”

  “No, because you don’t know the future.”

  D’Artagnan looked his friend right between the eyes and began to laugh. “In truth, my dear Athos, you talk just like Cardinal Mazarin.”

  Athos flinched.

  “Sorry!” continued d’Artagnan, laughing. “Pardon me if I offended you. But the future! Ha ha ha! Such pretty words that promise so much, words spoken from lips that have nothing else to offer! Mordioux! After having met so many who promise, when will I meet someone who delivers? But never mind that,” continued d’Artagnan. “What are you doing here, dear Athos? Are you the king’s treasurer?”

  “What! The king’s treasurer?”

  “Yes, if the king has a million, he must need a treasurer. The King of France, who hasn’t a copper, has a Surintendant des Finances, Monsieur Fouquet. Though it’s true that there it’s Fouquet who has the millions.”

  “Oh, that million is long spent,” laughed Athos in his turn.

  “I see, it’s become satin, gemstones, velvet, and plumes of all kinds and of every color. All these princes and princesses were in urgent need of tailors and couturiers. Do you remember, Athos, what we spent to equip ourselves for the La Rochelle campaign, for clothes and horses? Two or three thousand livres each, by my faith! But a king is greater than we are and needs a million to outfit himself. But Athos, if you’re not treasurer, at least tell me you’re in well at Court?”

  “Faith of a gentleman, I wouldn’t know,” replied Athos simply.

  “Come now! You don’t know?”

  “No, I haven’t seen the king since Dover.”

  “So, he’s forgotten you as well. God’s death! That’s appalling.”

  “His Majesty has had many affairs to attend to!”

  “Oh, right!” said d’Artagnan, with one of those sarcastic expressions unique to him. “It’s almost enough to make me admire Monsignor Mazarini. Really, Athos? The king hasn’t seen you?”

  “No.”

  “And you’re not furious?”

  “Me? Why? Do you imagine, old friend, that I did what I did for the king? That young man, I scarcely know him. I defended his father, who represented a sacred principle to me, and I allowed myself to be drawn to the son out of sympathy for that same principle. Besides, he’s a worthy knight and a noble individual, like his father, whom you remember.”

  “That’s true, he was a fine, brave man, who had a sad life but made a good death.”

  “Well, then, my dear d’Artagnan, understand this: to that king, that man of heart, that noble soul-mate, if I dare call him so, I swore at the supreme hour to faithfully preserve the secret of the fortune that was to help his son when the time was right; and that young man came to me, he told me of his misfortune, not knowing me for anything but a living memory of his father. And I accomplished for Charles II what I had promised to Charles I, that’s all. What matter to me whether he’s grateful or not? I did this service for myself, to fulfill my obligation and responsibility, not for him.”

  “I’ve always said,” replied d’Artagnan with a sigh, “that selflessness is the finest thing in the world.”

  “As to that, dear friend,” said Athos, “aren’t you in the same position I am? As I understood it, you allowed yourself to be moved by that young man’s misfortunes; you were more selfless than I, for I had a duty to fulfill, while you owed absolutely nothing to the martyr’s son. You didn’t have to repay the price of that precious drop of blood that fell on my brow beneath the scaffold. You acted solely from the heart, that noble and good heart you hide under your apparent skepticism and sarcastic irony. Perhaps it did cost a servant’s fortune, and your own, you benevolent miser, and maybe no one knows of that sacrifice. No matter! Of course, you want to return Planchet’s money, I understand that, for it isn’t proper for a gentleman to borrow from his inferior without repaying him capital and interest. Well, then! If necessary, I’ll sell La Fère or a small farm or two. You’ll pay Planchet, and I’ll still have enough grain in my barns for the two of us and Raoul. That way, my friend, you’ll have no debts to anyone but yourself, and if I know you, it will be more than a little to be able to tell yourself, ‘I made a king.’ Am I right?”

  “Ah, Athos!” murmured d’Artagnan thoughtfully. “I’ve told you more than once, on the day you take up preaching, I’ll go to the sermon—and the day you tell me there really is a hell, mordioux! I’ll fear the inferno and the pitchforks. You’re better than I am, or rather better than anyone is, while I have only one virtue, that of not being jealous. But as to faults, damn-me, as the English say, if I don’t have all the rest.”

  “I know of no one the equal of d’Artagnan,” Athos replied, “but though we went slowly, we’ve still arrived at where I’ve taken lodgings. Won’t you come in, my friend?”

  “Eh? But isn’t this the Hartshorn Inn?” said d’Artagnan.

  “I confess, old friend, that I chose it deliberately. I like old acquaintances, and I like returning to the place where you found me collapsed from fatigue, in the depths of despair, on that night of January 30th.”

  “After I’d discovered the lair of that masked executioner? Yes, that was a terrible day!”

  “Come in, then,” said Athos, interrupting him.

  They entered the former common room. The inn in general, and its common room in particular, had undergone great changes; the musketeers’ former host,79 who had become wealthy, at least for an innkeeper, had closed up the tavern and turned this chamber into a warehouse of colonial merchandise. As for the rest of the house, he rented the rooms out to foreigners.

  It was with an indescribable emotion that d’Artagnan recognized all the furnishings in Athos’s room on the first floor: the woodwork, the tapestries, and even the framed map that Porthos had studied so lovingly in his spare time. “Eleven years ago!” he said. “Mordioux! It seems like a century.”

  “And to me but a day,” said Athos. “Imagine the joy I feel, my friend, in seeing you here, pressing your hand, tossing aside my sword and dagger, knowing I won’t need them, and pouring us glasses of sherry without fearing poison. Oh, this joy could only be greater if our two friends were here, sitting at the corners of the table, with Raoul, my beloved Raoul, on the threshold regarding us with his eyes, so brilliant and so sweet!”

  “Yes, it’s true,” said d’Artagnan, moved, “especially the first part of your thought. It’s sweet to smile where we so legitimately shivered, thinking from one moment to the next that Monsie
ur Mordaunt might appear on the landing.”

  At that moment the door opened, and d’Artagnan, brave as he was, made a frightened start. But Athos understood and said, smiling, “It’s our host, come to bring me some correspondence.”

  “Yes, Milord,” said the hotelier, “I do have a letter for Your Honor.”

  “Thank you,” said Athos, taking the letter without looking at it. “Tell me, my dear host, do you recognize monsieur, here?”

  The old man raised his head and looked attentively at d’Artagnan. “No,” he said.

  “He’s one of those friends of mine I mentioned to you,” said Athos, “who stayed with me here eleven years ago.”

  “Oh!” said the old man. “I’ve had so many strangers lodge with me!”

  “But we were here on the date of January 30th, 1649,” added Athos, hoping to jog the host’s memory.

  “It’s possible,” he replied, smiling blandly, “but that was long ago!” He bowed and went out.

  “Oh, thanks,” said d’Artagnan. “Perform brilliant exploits, instigate revolutions, inscribe your name in brass and stone with the point of your sword, but you’ll find nothing harder and less penetrable than the skull of an old landlord—he doesn’t recognize me! Well, I’d certainly have recognized him.”

  Athos, smiling, opened the letter. “Ah!” he said. “It’s from Parry.”

  “Oh ho!” said d’Artagnan. “Read it, my friend, it must be news.”

  Athos shook his head, and read:

  Monsieur le Comte,

  The king much regretted not seeing you beside him today at his entrance; His Majesty commands me to say so, and to recall him to your memory. His Majesty expects you this evening at the palace of Saint James between nine and eleven o’clock.

  I am, with respect, Your Honor’s most humble and obedient servant,

  Parry

  “You see, my dear d’Artagnan,” said Athos, “we mustn’t despair of the hearts of kings.”

  “You’re right, and I shall despair no more,” said d’Artagnan.