Twenty Years After

by Alexander Dumas

  “And, really,” said Aramis, with that casually philosophical tone he’d assumed since joining the Church, a calculating philosophy in which there was more atheistic logic than trust in God, “why think of all this now? What’s done is done. We’ll confess this act in our final hour, and God will decide whether it was a crime, a minor misdeed, or a meritorious service. You ask, do I repent of it? Ma foi, no. On my honor and on the cross, I only regret the fact that she was a woman.”

  “The one good point of it all,” said d’Artagnan, “is that there’s no trace of the deed.”

  “She had a son,” said Athos.

  “Yes, I know—so you told me,” said d’Artagnan, “but who knows what’s become of him? Dead the serpent, and dead her brood? Do you think de Winter, his uncle, would raise such a son of a serpent? De Winter will have rejected the son as he condemned the mother.”

  “If so,” said Athos, “then woe to de Winter, for the child had done nothing to him.”

  “The child is dead, or the Devil take me!” said Porthos. “There’s too much fog and damp in that country, or so d’Artagnan says.” And Porthos’s conclusion might have restored the gaiety to their more-or-less worried faces, but there came the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and a knock on the door.

  “Enter,” said Athos.

  “Messieurs,” said the host, “there’s a fellow below who’s arrived in a great hurry to speak to one of you.”

  “Which one?” asked the four friends.

  “The one who is called the Comte de La Fère.”

  “I am he,” said Athos. “And what’s this fellow’s name?”

  “Grimaud.”

  “Oh?” Athos turned pale. “Back already? What has become of Bragelonne?”

  “Show him in!” said d’Artagnan. “Show him in!”

  But Grimaud was already waiting on the landing. He rushed into the room and dismissed the host with a gesture.

  The host went out and shut the door while the four friends turned expectantly to Grimaud. His agitation, his pallor, the sweat that bedewed his face, the dust that soiled his clothing, all declared him a messenger of important and terrible news. “Messieurs,” he said, “that woman had a child, and the child has become a man. The tigress bore a tiger, and beware! For that tiger is stalking you.”

  Athos looked at his friends with a shrug and a rueful smile. Porthos reached to his side for his sword, which was hanging on the wall; from somewhere, Aramis had drawn a dagger. D’Artagnan arose. “Tell us what you mean, Grimaud,” he said.

  “I mean that the son of Milady has left England and is in France, on his way to Paris—if he’s not here already.”

  “The devil!” said Porthos. “Are you sure of this?”

  “I’m sure,” said Grimaud.

  A long silence followed this statement. Grimaud was so exhausted that he collapsed onto a chair. Athos poured a glass of champagne and gave it to him.

  “Well, after all,” said d’Artagnan, “so what if he lives, and so what if he comes to Paris? We’ve had enemies before, and he’s just one more. Let him come!”

  “Yes,” said Porthos, looking longingly toward where his sword hung on the wall, “we’ll be ready for him.”

  “Besides, he’s just a boy,” said Aramis.

  Grimaud rose. “A boy!” he said. “Do you know what he did, this boy? Disguised as a monk, he discovered the whole story of Milady’s death while confessing the executioner of Béthune, and after having learned everything he could from him, as absolution he planted his dagger in the dying man’s heart. Here it is, still red and dripping, because it’s no more than thirty hours since I took it from the wound.”

  And Grimaud threw on the table the dagger left by the monk in the executioner’s chest.

  In a spontaneous movement, d’Artagnan, Porthos, and Aramis arose and grabbed their swords.

  Athos alone remained in his chair, calm and almost spellbound. “And you say he was dressed as a monk, Grimaud?” he asked.

  “Yes, an Augustinian monk.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “He’s about my height, or so the innkeeper told me; slim, pale, with light blue eyes, and blond hair.”

  “And . . . he didn’t see Raoul?” said Athos.

  “On the contrary, they met. It was the viscount himself who brought him to the bed of the dying man.”

  Athos rose without a word and reached for his sword.

  “Look at us, Messieurs,” said d’Artagnan, trying to laugh, “acting like a pack of silly women! Us, four men who have stood before armies, trembling in the face of a child!”

  “Yes,” said Athos, “but this child comes in the name of God.”

  And they hurriedly left the hôtel.

  XXXIX

  The Letter from Charles I

  Now we must ask the reader to follow us across the Seine, to the door of the Carmelite Convent on the Rue Saint-Jacques.103 It was eleven in the morning, and the pious sisters were returning from a mass for the success of the arms of Charles I. Also leaving the church were a woman and a young girl wearing black, one dressed as a widow and the other as an orphan, on the way back to their cell. There, the woman knelt on a prie-dieu of painted wood, while near her the girl, leaning on a chair, stood and cried quietly.

  The woman would have been beautiful, had she not been aged by sorrow. The girl was charming, and her tears made her even more so. The woman looked to be aged forty, the girl about fourteen.

  “Mon Dieu,” said the kneeling supplicant, “protect my husband, watch over my son, and take from me this life so sad and miserable!”

  “Mon Dieu,” said the girl, “preserve my mother for me!”

  “Your mother is of no use to you in this world, Henrietta,” replied the mournful woman. “Your mother has no throne, no husband or son, no money, no friends. Your mother, my poor child, has been abandoned by all the world.”

  And the mother, falling into the arms of the daughter who rushed to support her, burst into tears. “Have courage, Mother!” said the girl.

  “Ahh! Kings are down on their luck this year,” said the mother, resting her head on her child’s shoulder. “No one spares a thought for us in this country, where everyone is caught up in their own affairs. So long as your brother was with us he sustained me, but now your brother is gone, and can’t send news of himself to either me or his father. I’ve pawned my last jewels, sold all our clothes to pay the wages of your brother’s servants, who refused to go with him until I made that sacrifice. Now we’re reduced to living on the charity of these holy sisters—we are the poor, Henrietta, succored only by God.”

  “But why don’t you address yourself to the queen, your sister?” asked the girl.

  “Hélas!” said the weeper. “The queen my sister is no longer queen, my child, and another reigns in her name. One day you’ll understand.”

  “Well, then, what about your nephew the king? Why not speak to him? You know how he loves me, mother.”

  “But my nephew the king isn’t old enough to be king, and he himself, as La Porte has told us twenty times, has nothing of his own.”

  “Then let us turn to God,” said the girl. And she knelt beside her mother.

  These two women who prayed at the same prie-dieu were the daughter and granddaughter of Henri IV—Queen Henriette* and Henrietta, the wife and daughter of Charles I.

  Just as they were finishing their double prayer, there came a gentle scratching at the door of their cell. “Come in, Sister,” said the elder of the two women, drying her tears and standing up.

  A nun respectfully opened the door. “Your Majesty will excuse me if I disturb her meditations,” she said, “but in the parlor there’s a foreign lord who’s arrived from England, and who requests the honor to present a letter to Your Majesty.”

  “Oh, a letter! Did you hear that, Henrietta? Maybe it’s a letter from the king with news from your father!”

  “Yes, Madame, I heard, and I hope so too.”

  �
��And who is this lord, tell me.”

  “A gentleman of around forty-five or fifty.”

  “His name? Did he say his name?”

  “Milord de Winter.”

  “Lord Winter!” cried the queen. “My husband’s friend! Oh, let him come, let him come.”

  As he entered, the queen ran to meet the messenger and seized his hand eagerly. Lord Winter knelt and presented the queen a letter rolled up in a golden scroll case.

  “Ah, Milord,” said the queen, “you bring us three things we haven’t seen in a long while: gold, a devoted friend, and a letter from the king, our husband and master.”

  Winter bowed again, but he couldn’t answer, he was so deeply moved. “Milord,” the queen said, taking the case, “you understand that I’m eager to know the contents of this letter.”

  “I will withdraw, Madame,” said Winter.

  “No, stay,” said the queen, “and we’ll read it to you. You must realize that I have a thousand questions for you.”

  Winter stepped back and remained, standing in silence. The mother and the daughter retreated to a window embrasure, where the girl leaned on her mother’s arm as they avidly read the following letter:

  Madame, My Dear Wife,

  We are at the end. All the resources God has seen fit to leave me are concentrated in our camp at Naseby,104 from which I am writing in haste. Here I await the army of my rebellious subjects, and here I will fight them one last time. If the victor, I’ll continue the struggle; if the vanquished, I’ll have lost for the last time. I hope, in the latter case (alas, we must prepare for every outcome), to cross to the coast of France. But even if I can, will they welcome such an unlucky king to a country already in the throes of civil discord? Your affection and your wisdom must guide me. The bearer of this letter will inform you, Madame, what I dare not risk putting on paper. He will explain what action I expect from you. I also ask you to give my love to my children, and accept all my heart’s affection for you, Madame and dear wife.

  The letter was signed, not “Charles, King,” but “Charles, still King.”

  This sad reading, which Winter followed by watching the expressions on the queen’s face, nonetheless brought some hope to her eyes.

  “If he is no longer king,” she cried, “defeated, exiled, proscribed, at least he still lives! Alas! The throne is too perilous a place nowadays for me to wish he were on it. But tell me, Milord,” the queen continued, “and keep nothing from me: How do things stand? Is his position really as hopeless as he thinks?”

  “Alas, Madame—even more hopeless than he thinks himself. His Majesty’s heart is so good, he doesn’t understand hatred; so loyal, he can’t comprehend treason. England is caught in a kind of delirium, a fever that I fear can be quenched only in blood.”

  “But what of Lord Montrose?” asked the queen. “I’ve heard talk of great and rapid success, of a string of victories at Inverlochy, at Auldearn, Alford, and Kilsyth. I’d heard he was marching to the border to join his king.”

  “Yes, Madame—but at the border he encountered Lesley. He’d won victory by superhuman effort, until victory abandoned him: Montrose was beaten at Philiphaugh, had to dismiss what remained of his army, and flee disguised as a lackey. He’s at Bergen, in Norway.”

  “God preserve him!” said the queen. “It’s at least some consolation to know that a few of those who risked so much for us have reached safety. And now, Milord, since I see the king’s position for what it is—that is to say, desperate—tell me what my royal husband asked you to say to me.”

  “Well, Madame,” said Winter, “the king wants you to try to ascertain the feelings of the king and the queen toward him.”

  “Alas, as you know,” the queen replied, “the king is still a child, and the queen, though a woman, is a weak woman—it’s Mazarin who rules.”

  “Does he plan to play the same role in France that Cromwell plays in England?”

  “Oh, no! He’s a subtle and cunning Italian who might dream of a crime but would never dare commit it, the opposite of Cromwell, who does as he likes with the Houses of Parliament. In his battles with the French Parliament, Mazarin must stand at the side of the queen.”

  “All the more reason, then, why he should protect a king whom a parliament persecutes.”

  The queen shook her head bitterly. “From my experience, Milord,” she said, “the cardinal will do nothing, or perhaps even oppose us. The presence of myself and my daughter in France already embarrasses him—imagine how he’d feel if we were joined by the king. Milord,” Queen Henriette added with a melancholy smile, “I am sad and ashamed to say that we spent the winter in the Louvre without money, without linen, and almost without bread, often not getting up for lack of firewood.”

  “Horrible!” exclaimed Winter. “The daughter of Henri IV, the wife of King Charles! Why didn’t you tell us, Madame, what had happened, what to expect?”

  “You see the hospitality afforded a queen by this minister the king wishes to address.”

  “But I’ve heard talk of a marriage between His Highness the Prince of Wales105 and Mademoiselle d’Orléans,” Winter said.

  “Yes, I had a brief moment of hope. The children loved each other—but the queen, who had at first approved of their love, changed her mind, and now the Duc d’Orléans, who had encouraged the beginning of their familiarity, has forbidden his daughter to think about such a union. Ah, Milord,” continued the queen, without even bothering to wipe her tears, “better to fight, as the king did, and perhaps to die, than to live as a beggar as I have.”

  “Courage, Madame, courage,” said Winter. “Don’t despair. The interests of the Crown of France, even when preoccupied, must be opposed to the rebellion of the people in a neighboring realm. Mazarin is a statesman and will understand that.”

  “But are you sure,” said the queen doubtfully, “that you haven’t been preempted?”

  “By who?” asked Winter.

  “By Joyce, by Pride, or by Cromwell.”

  “By a tailor! By a carter, or a brewer! I should hope, Madame, that the cardinal would not enter into an alliance with such men as those.”

  “Well, what is he but such a man?” asked Madame Henriette.

  “But for the king’s honor, and that of the queen . . .”

  “We’ll have to hope he’ll do something in their honor,” said Madame Henriette. “With so eloquent a friend as you, Milord, I’m somewhat reassured. Give me your hand and let’s go see the minister.”

  “Madame,” said Winter, bowing, “you overwhelm me with honor.”

  “But if he refuses,” said Madame Henriette, pausing, “and the king loses his battle—what then?”

  “His Majesty might take refuge in Holland, where I’ve heard His Highness the Prince of Wales is.”

  “And can His Majesty, in flight, count on many such servants as yourself?”

  “Alas, no, Madame!” said Winter. “But plans have been laid; I plan to search for allies in France.”

  “Allies!” said the queen, shaking her head.

  “Madame,” Winter replied, “if I can find the old friends I once had, I can answer for anything.”

  “Find them, then, Milord,” said the queen, with that poignant doubt that afflicts the long-suffering, “find them—and may God hear our pleas!”

  The queen went down to her carriage, where Winter, on horseback and followed by two lackeys, rode beside her window.

  XL

  The Letter from Cromwell

  Just as Queen Henriette was leaving the Carmelite convent for the Palais Royal, a cavalier dismounted at the door of that royal residence and announced to the guards that he had something important to convey to Cardinal Mazarin.

  Though the cardinal feared assassins, he nonetheless needed a great deal of information and advice, so he was relatively accessible. It wasn’t the first door that was hard to pass, nor the second, but rather the third, where, besides guards and footmen, there stood the loyal Bernouin, that Cerberus whom no
words could beguile and no golden bribe could subvert. It was at this third door that anyone who sought an audience would undergo a formal interrogation.

  The cavalier, having tied his horse at the courtyard gate, climbed the grand stairway, and addressing the guards in the first chamber, asked, “Monsieur le Cardinal de Mazarin?”

  “Go on in,” the guards replied without even looking up from their dice and cards, as if to show they didn’t consider it their job to act as ushers.

  The cavalier entered the second chamber, which was guarded by musketeers and footmen, and repeated his question. “Do you have a Letter of Audience?” asked an usher, advancing to meet the visitor.

  “I have one, but not from Cardinal Mazarin.”

  “Enter and ask for Monsieur Bernouin,” said the usher. And he opened the door to the third chamber.

  Either by chance or because it was his usual post, Bernouin had been standing behind the door and had heard everything. “I’m the one you’re looking for, Monsieur,” he said. “From whom is the letter you bear for His Eminence?”

  “From General Oliver Cromwell,” said the newcomer. “Please announce this name to His Eminence, and then let me know if he’ll receive me.” And he stood in that proud and somber pose favored by Puritans.

  Bernouin, after taking a long look at the young man, went into the cardinal’s study, where he repeated the messenger’s words. “A man bearing a letter from Oliver Cromwell?” said Mazarin. “What sort of man is he?”

  “A real Englishman, Monseigneur: blond hair, or rather red-blond, gray-blue eyes, more gray than blue, and puffed up with pride.”

  “See if he’ll give you the letter.”

  Bernouin returned to the antechamber and said, “Monseigneur asks for the letter.”

  “Monseigneur must see the bearer to see the letter,” replied the young man, “but to convince you of its bona fides, look here.”

  Bernouin looked at the letter’s seal, and seeing that the letter really came from General Oliver Cromwell, turned to go back to Mazarin. “You may add,” said the young man, “that I am not just a messenger, but an envoy extraordinaire.”