Twenty Years After

by Alexander Dumas

  At that moment, Charlot came in bearing an urgent letter for d’Artagnan that had just come by messenger.

  Now it was Athos’s turn to watch from the corner of his eye as d’Artagnan read.

  The musketeer read the letter with no visible sign of emotion, other than a curt nod when he reached the end. “See here, my friend,” he said, “this is the service for you, and no wonder you’ve had enough of it. Monsieur de Tréville has fallen ill, and the company can’t do without me, so my leave is at its end.”

  “You’re returning to Paris?” asked Athos sharply.

  “Yes, by God!” said d’Artagnan. “Why don’t you come yourself?”

  Athos colored slightly and replied, “If I come to town, it will please me to look you up.”

  “Holà, Planchet!” cried d’Artagnan from the door. “We leave in ten minutes; make sure the horses get oats.” Then, turning to Athos: “My visit here just doesn’t feel complete. It seems a shame to leave without once greeting good old Grimaud.”

  “Grimaud?” said Athos. “I’m surprised it took you this long to ask me about him. I lent him to a friend of mine.”

  “Someone who will understand his signs and gestures?” said d’Artagnan.

  “I hope so,” said Athos.

  The two friends embraced warmly. D’Artagnan pressed Raoul’s hand, and made Athos promise to visit him if he came to Paris and write to him if he didn’t. He mounted his horse; Planchet, ever correct, was already in the saddle.

  D’Artagnan smiled at Raoul. “Why don’t you ride along with me? I’m going right past Blois.”

  Raoul glanced at Athos, who restrained him with a subtle gesture. “Sorry, Monsieur,” the young man replied, “I’ll stay here with Monsieur le Comte.”

  “In that case, farewell to both of you, my good friends,” said d’Artagnan, pressing their hands one last time, “and God guard you! . . . As we used to say when we took our leave in the time of the late cardinal.”

  Athos waved his hand, Raoul bowed, and d’Artagnan and Planchet rode off. The count followed them with his eyes, his hand resting on the shoulder of the young man, whose height almost equaled his own. But as soon as they were out of sight, he turned to Raoul and said, “We leave this evening for Paris.”

  “What! Why?” said the young man, turning pale.

  “You may go and tender my farewell, and yours, to Madame de Saint-Rémy. I’ll expect you back by seven.”

  The young man bowed, his expression a mixture of grief and gratitude, and went off to go saddle his horse.

  As for d’Artagnan, as soon as they were out of sight, he drew the letter from his pocket and reread it:

  Return with all speed to Paris.

  — J.M.

  “This letter is rather curt,” murmured d’Artagnan, “and if it didn’t have a postscript, I might pretend I’d never received it—but fortunately it does have a postscript.”

  And he reread the postscript that made up for the letter’s brevity:

  P.S.: Call on the royal treasurer in Blois, tell him your name and show him this letter, and he will issue you two hundred pistoles.

  “That changes things,” d’Artagnan said. “When the cardinal writes like that, then I like his style. Come, Planchet, we’ll pay a visit to the royal treasurer, and then spur on.”

  “To Paris, Monsieur?”

  “To Paris.”

  And they put their horses into a trot.

  XVIII

  Monsieur de Beaufort

  Here are the events that had necessitated d’Artagnan’s sudden return to Paris.

  One evening when Mazarin, as usual, was on his way to the queen’s suite after everyone else had retired, and was passing near the guardroom, one door of which opened onto his antechamber, he heard loud voices. Wishing to know what the soldiers were talking about, he approached in his usual stealthy manner, pushed the door open slightly, and peeked in.

  The guards were having a heated discussion. “Well, I assure you,” said one of them, “if Coysel predicted something, it’s as good as already happened. I’ve heard it said that he’s not just an astrologer, but an actual magician.”

  “If he’s one of your friends, then watch what you’re saying, plague take it! You’ll do him an injury.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re liable to get him arrested.”

  “Bah! Nobody burns witches anymore.”

  “No? It seems to me it hasn’t been that long since the late cardinal burned Urbain Grandier.66 I ought to know—I was on duty at the stake and saw him roasted.”

  “Oh, Grandier wasn’t a sorcerer, he was a scholar, which is another thing entirely. He didn’t predict the future, he studied the lessons of the past—which can be much worse, if you learn the wrong things.”

  Mazarin nodded in agreement—but he wanted to know what prediction they were talking about, so he continued to eavesdrop.

  “I don’t say Coysel isn’t a wizard,” the second guard replied, “but I do say that if you announce your prediction in advance, that’s a sure way to see it thwarted.”

  “Why?”

  “Listen, if we’re fencing, and I tell you, ‘I’m going to give you a straight thrust, then a thrust en seconde,’ then naturally you’ll parry. Well, if Coysel said loud enough for the cardinal to hear, ‘Before a certain date, a certain prisoner will escape,’ it’s obvious the cardinal will then take precautions to make sure the prisoner does not escape.”

  “Eh? Mon Dieu,” said a third guard, who’d appeared to be asleep on a bench, but who’d actually not missed a word of the conversation, “mon Dieu, do you think a man can escape his destiny? If it’s written in the stars that the Duc de Beaufort will escape, then Beaufort will escape, and all the cardinal’s precautions won’t stop him.”

  Mazarin started. He was Italian—in other words, superstitious. He went in, and the guards, seeing him, halted their conversation. “What did you say, Messieurs?” he said in a silky voice. “You said Monsieur de Beaufort had escaped, I think?”

  “Oh, no, Monseigneur!” said the second soldier, surprised. “He’s still under guard. It’s just said that he will escape.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Come, repeat your story, Saint-Laurent,” said the soldier, turning toward the tale-teller.

  “Monseigneur,” said the first guard, “I merely told these gentlemen what I’ve heard of the prediction of a man named Coysel67 who claims that, no matter how well he’s guarded, Monsieur de Beaufort will escape by Pentecost.”

  “And this Coysel, is he a dreamer, a fool?” asked the cardinal, still smiling.

  “Not at all,” said the guard, sticking to his story. “He’s predicted many things that have come to pass, such as that the queen would give birth to a son, that Coligny would be killed in his duel with the Duc de Guise, and that the coadjutor will be made a cardinal. Well, Coligny was killed, and the queen not only had a son, but two years later she had another.”

  “Yes,” said Mazarin, “but the coadjutor is not yet a cardinal.”

  “No, Monseigneur,” said the guard, “but he will be.”

  Mazarin made a face that said, He doesn’t have that cardinal’s hat yet. Then he added, “So you think, mon ami, that Monsieur de Beaufort will escape?”

  “No doubt about it, Monseigneur,” said the soldier. “If Your Eminence offered to give me Monsieur de Chavigny’s* job as warden of the Château de Vincennes,68 I wouldn’t take it. Now, the day after Pentecost, that would be another story.”

  There is nothing more convincing than conviction; it’s persuasive even to skeptics, and far from being a skeptic, Mazarin, as we’ve said, was superstitious. He turned and went thoughtfully on his way.

  “The tightwad!” said the guard on the bench. “He pretended not to believe in your magician, Saint-Laurent, so he wouldn’t have to tip you for the warning. But as soon as he’s back in his study he’ll be profiting from your prediction.”

  In fact, instead of c
ontinuing on to the queen’s chambers, Mazarin did return to his study, where, summoning Bernouin, he gave orders that on the morrow, at dawn, he should send for the officer in charge of Monsieur de Beaufort, and that Mazarin should be awakened as soon as the officer arrived.

  Without knowing it, the guard had touched the cardinal in a sore spot. For five years Beaufort had been in prison, but not a day passed that the cardinal didn’t think that he might escape. One couldn’t expect to keep the grandson of Henri IV in prison all his life, especially when that grandson of Henri IV was scarcely thirty years old. But if he did escape, what hatred, forged in captivity, would he bear for his captor, the man who had taken the rich, brave, and splendid Beaufort—loved by women, feared by men—and stolen the best years of his life by clapping him in prison?

  Already, Mazarin had doubled the watch around Beaufort—but he was like the miser in the fable who could sleep only with his treasure in sight. Often, he awoke in the night with a start, dreaming of Beaufort’s escape. Then he would send to inquire after him, and each time was pained to hear that the prisoner still gamed, drank, and sang cheerfully—but while gaming, drinking, and singing, he would pause now and then to vow that Mazarin would pay dearly for all the pleasures he was forced to take in Vincennes instead of in freedom.

  Such thoughts haunted the minister during his sleep that night, and when Bernouin entered his room to wake him at seven the next morning, his first words were, “Eh? What is it? Has Monsieur de Beaufort escaped from Vincennes?”

  “I think not, Monseigneur,” said Bernouin, whose professional calm never left him, “but in any case, we’ll soon know all the latest, because the officer you sent for, La Ramée,* has arrived from Vincennes and is awaiting Your Eminence’s orders.”

  “Bring him in,” said Mazarin, arranging his pillows so as to receive him sitting in bed.

  The officer entered. He was a large, portly man, good-looking, with an air of ease that worried Mazarin. “This buffoon seems less than clever,” he murmured.

  La Ramée stood silently in the doorway. “Come in, Monsieur!” said Mazarin.

  The officer obeyed. “Do you know what they’re saying here?” continued the cardinal.

  “No, Your Eminence.”

  “Well! They’re saying that Monsieur de Beaufort is going to escape from Vincennes—in fact, it’s as good as done.”

  The officer gaped in surprise. He squinted and wrinkled his nose, as if trying to scent the joke in what His Eminence was telling him, then opened his eyes wide and burst out laughing, the flesh all over his large figure shaking with hilarity.

  Mazarin was secretly delighted by this disrespectful display but maintained his grave expression. When La Ramée had had a good laugh and was wiping his eyes, the officer thought it was time to explain his inappropriate mirth. “Escape, Monseigneur!” he said. “Escape! Is Your Eminence not aware of Monsieur de Beaufort’s situation?”

  “I know he’s in the dungeon at Vincennes.”

  “Yes, Monseigneur, in a room with walls seven feet thick, and iron crossbars on the windows as thick as my arm.”

  “Monsieur,” said Mazarin, “with patience one can bore through walls, and a watch spring can saw through a bar.”

  “But Monseigneur should know that he has eight guards at all times, four in the antechamber and four in his room, and these guards never leave him.”

  “But he leaves his room to go out and play tennis!”

  “Well, yes, Monseigneur, for the prisoners must exercise. However, if Your Eminence commands, exercise will be forbidden.”

  “No need of that,” said Mazarin, who didn’t want to be too hard on the prisoner for fear of how vindictive he’d be if he ever did escape. “But I must ask with whom he plays tennis.”

  “Monsieur, he plays with the officer of the guards, or with me, or with the other prisoners.”

  “But doesn’t that sometimes take him near the walls?”

  “Has Your Eminence seen our walls? There’s a sixty-foot drop from the parapet, and I doubt whether Monsieur de Beaufort is so weary of life that he’s willing to risk breaking his neck by jumping down.”

  “Hmm!” said the cardinal, who began to be reassured. “So, you think, then, my dear Monsieur La Ramée . . . ?”

  “I think that unless Monsieur de Beaufort finds a way to change into a bird, I can answer for him.”

  “Beware of overconfidence!” Mazarin replied. “Monsieur de Beaufort told the guards who escorted him to Vincennes that he’d often thought he might be imprisoned and had devised forty methods of escaping from it.”

  “Monseigneur, if even one of those forty methods had been any good, he’d have been gone a long time ago.”

  “Come now,” muttered Mazarin, “he’s not as stupid as I thought.”

  “Besides, Monseigneur forgets that Monsieur de Chavigny is the governor of Vincennes,” continued La Ramée, “and Monsieur de Chavigny is no friend to the Duc de Beaufort.”

  “Yes, but Monsieur de Chavigny is away.”

  “He may be away, but I’m still there.”

  “And when you’re away as well?”

  “Oh, when I’m away, I have an assistant who hopes to become a royal officer, and who, I assure you, is a most vigilant guard. He’s been with me for three weeks now, and my only complaint is that he’s too hard on the prisoner.”

  “And who is this Cerberus?” asked the cardinal.

  “A certain Monsieur Grimaud, Monseigneur.”

  “And what did he do before he came to Vincennes?”

  “The one who recommended him said he was a country man who’d gotten into some kind of terrible trouble and hoped to find safety inside a royal uniform.”

  “And who recommended him?”

  “The Duc de Grammont’s steward.”

  “So, you think he’s reliable?”

  “As reliable as I am, Monseigneur.”

  “Is he a chatterer, this fellow?”

  “Lord, no! At first, I thought he must be a mute, as he spoke and answered only with signs, but it seems that’s just how his former master trained him.”

  “Well, then, my dear Monsieur La Ramée, tell him that if he makes a good and faithful guard, we’ll overlook his problems in the provinces—we’ll put a proper uniform on him, and put a few pistoles in its pockets so he can drink to the health of the king.” Mazarin was big on promises—quite the opposite of Monsieur Grimaud, who spoke little but did much, as La Ramée had boasted.

  The cardinal peppered La Ramée with a shower of further questions about the prisoner, how he was fed, lodged, and furnished, but the latter’s answers were so satisfactory that by the time he was dismissed, the cardinal was almost reassured.

  By then it was nine in the morning, so the cardinal got up, perfumed and dressed himself, and went to the queen to tell her what had kept him. The queen, who feared Monsieur de Beaufort no less than the cardinal, and was nearly as superstitious as he was, made him repeat word for word all La Ramée’s promises and the praise he’d heaped on his assistant. When he was finished, she said, “If only we had such a Grimaud shadowing every prince!”

  “Patience,” said Mazarin, with his Italian smile, “that may come in time. Meanwhile . . .”

  “Meanwhile? What?”

  “I’ll take certain precautions.”

  And with that, he went off to write the order commanding d’Artagnan’s return.

  XIX

  How the Duc de Beaufort Amused Himself in the Dungeon of Vincennes

  That prisoner so feared by the cardinal, whose potential escape preoccupied the entire Court, had no idea how often they thought about him at the Palais Royal.

  He recognized the futility of trying to escape, so he kept himself busy by devising new ways to outrage or insult Mazarin. He had even tried writing satirical verses, but had soon given up, as heaven hadn’t granted him the gift of poetry—in fact he had a great deal of difficulty expressing himself in simple prose. As Baron de Blot,69 the great satir
ist of the age, had said about Beaufort:

  In a fight he shines, he thunders!

  A cannon on the loose!

  But when he thinks, he blunders

  And we take him for a goose

  Even Gaston, when he talks

  Can manage how to speak

  Beaufort’s tongue just balks

  Much as Gaston’s arm is weak!

  So this prisoner confined himself to insults and curses.

  The Duc de Beaufort was the grandson of Henri IV and his mistress Gabrielle d’Estrées—as strong, as brave, as proud, and above all, as Gascon as his grandfather, though far less literate. For a while, after the death of King Louis XIII, he’d been the queen’s confidant, the leading favorite at Court—until he’d had to give way to Mazarin and found himself reduced to second place. He’d had the bad judgment to be angry at this demotion, and even worse to complain loudly about it, so the queen—and by the queen, we mean Mazarin—had had him arrested and taken to Vincennes by that same Guitaut we met at the beginning of our story, and whom we’ll meet again later. Thereafter the queen and Mazarin were freed from his person and his pretensions, and he troubled them no more, popular prince though he was.

  For five years he’d lived in a small chamber in the dungeon of the royal castle of Vincennes. This period of incarceration, which might have taught wisdom to someone other than Beaufort, had passed over his head without making any impression on him. It might have occurred to someone else that if he hadn’t offended the cardinal, insulted the other princes, and made no effort to create a following, except, as the Cardinal de Retz said, for a few sad and sorry dreamers, he might have been at liberty for the last five years, or at least had some defenders. But such thoughts never even occurred to the duke, whose long imprisonment had only served to make him more petulant, and every report about him that reached His Eminence just reaffirmed the cardinal’s decision to imprison him.

  After failing at poetry, Beaufort decided to try painting. He made sketches of the cardinal with charcoal, but as his artistic talent was mediocre and the likenesses didn’t much resemble their subject, to make it clear who they were supposed to represent, he titled them all, “Ritratto dell’Illustrissimo Facchino Mazarini.” Chavigny, warned about this, visited the duke and begged him to take up another hobby, or at least to leave his portraits untitled. But Monsieur de Beaufort, like many prisoners, took great pleasure in juvenile acts of defiance, and the next day, the walls of Beaufort’s room were covered in portraits with prominent titles.