is a fine conversation with an officer of the king! I see,
my lord, I shall be obliged to fetch a second Grimaud!"
"Very well, let us say no more about it. So you and the
cardinal have been talking about me? La Ramee, some day when
he sends for you, you must let me put on your clothes; I
will go in your stead; I will strangle him, and upon my
honor, if that is made a condition I will return to prison."
"Monseigneur, I see well that I must call Grimaud."
"Well, I am wrong. And what did the cuistre [pettifogger]
say about me?"
"I admit the word, monseigneur, because it rhymes with
ministre [minister]. What did he say to me? He told me to
watch you."
"And why so? why watch me?" asked the duke uneasily.
"Because an astrologer had predicted that you would escape."
"Ah! an astrologer predicted that?" said the duke, starting
in spite of himself.
"Oh, mon Dieu! yes! those imbeciles of magicians can only
imagine things to torment honest people."
"And what did you reply to his most illustrious eminence?"
"That if the astrologer in question made almanacs I would
advise him not to buy one."
"Why not?"
"Because before you could escape you would have to be turned
into a bird."
"Unfortunately, that is true. Let us go and have a game at
tennis, La Ramee."
"My lord -- I beg your highness's pardon -- but I must beg
for half an hour's leave of absence."
"Why?"
"Because Monseigneur Mazarin is a prouder man than his
highness, though not of such high birth: he forgot to ask me
to breakfast."
"Well, shall I send for some breakfast here?"
"No, my lord; I must tell you that the confectioner who
lived opposite the castle -- Daddy Marteau, as they called
him ---- "
"Well?"
"Well, he sold his business a week ago to a confectioner
from Paris, an invalid, ordered country air for his health."
"Well, what have I to do with that?"
"Why, good Lord! this man, your highness, when he saw me
stop before his shop, where he has a display of things which
would make your mouth water, my lord, asked me to get him
the custom of the prisoners in the donjon. `I bought,' said
he, `the business of my predecessor on the strength of his
assurance that he supplied the castle; whereas, on my honor,
Monsieur de Chavigny, though I've been here a week, has not
ordered so much as a tartlet.' `But,' I then replied,
`probably Monsieur de Chavigny is afraid your pastry is not
good.' `My pastry not good! Well, Monsieur La Ramee, you
shall judge of it yourself and at once.' `I cannot,' I
replied; `it is absolutely necessary for me to return to the
chateau.' `Very well,' said he, `go and attend to your
affairs, since you seem to be in a hurry, but come back in
half an hour.' `In half an hour?' `Yes, have you
breakfasted?' `Faith, no.' `Well, here is a pate that will
be ready for you, with a bottle of old Burgundy.' So, you
see, my lord, since I am hungry, I would, with your
highness's leave ---- " And La Ramee bent low.
"Go, then, animal," said the duke; "but remember, I only
allow you half an hour."
"May I promise your custom to the successor of Father
Marteau, my lord?"
"Yes, if he does not put mushrooms in his pies; thou knowest
that mushrooms from the wood of Vincennes are fatal to my
family."
La Ramee went out, but in five minutes one of the officers
of the guard entered in compliance with the strict orders of
the cardinal that the prisoner should never be left alone a
moment.
But during these five minutes the duke had had time to read
again the note from Madame de Montbazon, which proved to the
prisoner that his friends were concerting plans for his
deliverance, but in what way he knew not.
But his confidence in Grimaud, whose petty persecutions he
now perceived were only a blind, increased, and he conceived
the highest opinion of his intellect and resolved to trust
entirely to his guidance.
19
In which the Contents of the Pates made by the Successor of
Father Marteau are described.
In half an hour La Ramee returned, full of glee, like most
men who have eaten, and more especially drank to their
heart's content. The pates were excellent, the wine
delicious.
The weather was fine and the game at tennis took place in
the open air.
At two o'clock the tennis balls began, according to
Grimaud's directions, to take the direction of the moat,
much to the joy of La Ramee, who marked fifteen whenever the
duke sent a ball into the moat; and very soon balls were
wanting, so many had gone over. La Ramee then proposed to
send some one to pick them up, but the duke remarked that it
would be losing time; and going near the rampart himself and
looking over, he saw a man working in one of the numerous
little gardens cleared out by the peasants on the opposite
side of the moat.
"Hey, friend!" cried the duke.
The man raised his head and the duke was about to utter a
cry of surprise. The peasant, the gardener, was Rochefort,
whom he believed to be in the Bastile.
"Well? Who's up there?" said the man.
"Be so good as to collect and throw us back our balls," said
the duke.
The gardener nodded and began to fling up the balls, which
were picked up by La Ramee and the guard. One, however, fell
at the duke's feet, and seeing that it was intended for him,
he put it into his pocket.
La Ramee was in ecstasies at having beaten a prince of the
blood.
The duke went indoors and retired to bed, where he spent,
indeed, the greater part of every day, as they had taken his
books away. La Ramee carried off all his clothes, in order
to be certain that the duke would not stir. However, the
duke contrived to hide the ball under his bolster and as
soon as the door was closed he tore off the cover of the
ball with his teeth and found underneath the following
letter:
My Lord, -- Your friends are watching over you and the hour
of your deliverance is at hand. Ask day after to-morrow to
have a pie supplied you by the new confectioner opposite the
castle, and who is no other than Noirmont, your former
maitre d'hotel. Do not open the pie till you are alone. I
hope you will be satisfied with its contents.
"Your highness's most devoted servant,
"In the Bastile, as elsewhere,
"Comte de Rochefort.
The duke, who had latterly been allowed a fire, burned the
letter, but kept the ball, and went to bed, hiding the ball
under his bolster. La Ramee entered; he smiled kindly on the
prisoner, for he was an excellent man and had taken a great
liking for the captive prince. He endeavored to cheer him up
in his solitude.
"Ah, my friend!" cried the duke, "you are so good; if I
could but do as you do, and eat pates and drink Burgundy at
the house of Father Marteau's successor."
"'Tis true, my lord," answered La Ramee, "that his pates are
famous and his wine magnificent."
"In any case," said the duke, "his cellar and kitchen might
easily excel those of Monsieur de Chavigny."
"Well, my lord," said La Ramee, falling into the trap, "what
is there to prevent your trying them? Besides, I have
promised him your patronage."
"You are right," said the duke. "If I am to remain here
permanently, as Monsieur Mazarin has kindly given me to
understand, I must provide myself with a diversion for my
old age, I must turn gourmand."
"My lord," said La Ramee, "if you will take a bit of good
advice, don't put that off till you are old."
"Good!" said the Duc de Beaufort to himself, "every man in
order that he may lose his heart and soul, must receive from
celestial bounty one of the seven capital sins, perhaps two;
it seems that Master La Ramee's is gluttony. Let us then
take advantage of it." Then, aloud:
"Well, my dear La Ramee! the day after to-morrow is a
holiday."
"Yes, my lord -- Pentecost."
"Will you give me a lesson the day after to-morrow?"
"In what?"
"In gastronomy?"
"Willingly, my lord."
"But tete-a-tete. Send the guards to take their meal in the
canteen of Monsieur de Chavigny; we'll have a supper here
under your direction."
"Hum!" said La Ramee.
The proposal was seductive, but La Ramee was an old stager,
acquainted with all the traps a prisoner was likely to set.
Monsieur de Beaufort had said that he had forty ways of
getting out of prison. Did this proposed breakfast cover
some stratagem? He reflected, but he remembered that he
himself would have charge of the food and the wine and
therefore that no powder could be mixed with the food, no
drug with the wine. As to getting him drunk, the duke
couldn't hope to do that, and he laughed at the mere thought
of it. Then an idea came to him which harmonized everything.
The duke had followed with anxiety La Ramee's unspoken
soliloquy, reading it from point to point upon his face. But
presently the exempt's face suddenly brightened.
"Well," he asked, "that will do, will it not?"
"Yes, my lord, on one condition."
"What?"
"That Grimaud shall wait on us at table."
Nothing could be more agreeable to the duke, however, he had
presence of mind enough to exclaim:
"To the devil with your Grimaud! He will spoil the feast."
"I will direct him to stand behind your chair, and since he
doesn't speak, your highness will neither see nor hear him
and with a little effort can imagine him a hundred miles
away."
"Do you know, my friend, I find one thing very evident in
all this, you distrust me."
"My lord, the day after to-morrow is Pentecost."
"Well, what is Pentecost to me? Are you afraid that the Holy
Spirit will come as a tongue of fire to open the doors of my
prison?"
"No, my lord; but I have already told you what that damned
magician predicted."
"And what was it?"
"That the day of Pentecost would not pass without your
highness being out of Vincennes."
"You believe in sorcerers, then, you fool?"
"I ---I mind them no more than that ---- " and he snapped
his fingers; "but it is my Lord Giulio who cares about them;
as an Italian he is superstitious."
The duke shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, then," with well acted good-humor, "I allow Grimaud,
but no one else; you must manage it all. Order whatever you
like for supper -- the only thing I specify is one of those
pies; and tell the confectioner that I will promise him my
custom if he excels this time in his pies -- not only now,
but when I leave my prison."
"Then you think you will some day leave it?" said La Ramee.
"The devil!" replied the prince; "surely, at the death of
Mazarin. I am fifteen years younger than he is. At
Vincennes, 'tis true, one lives faster ---- "
"My lord," replied La Ramee, "my lord ---- "
"Or dies sooner, for it comes to the same thing."
La Ramee was going out. He stopped, however, at the door for
an instant.
"Whom does your highness wish me to send to you?"
"Any one, except Grimaud."
"The officer of the guard, then, with his chessboard?"
"Yes."
Five minutes afterward the officer entered and the duke
seemed to be immersed in the sublime combinations of chess.
A strange thing is the mind, and it is wonderful what
revolutions may be wrought in it by a sign, a word, a hope.
The duke had been five years in prison, and now to him,
looking back upon them, those five years, which had passed
so slowly, seemed not so long a time as were the two days,
the forty-eight hours, which still parted him from the time
fixed for his escape. Besides, there was one thing that
engaged his most anxious thought -- in what way was the
escape to be effected? They had told him to hope for it, but
had not told him what was to be hidden in the mysterious
pate. And what friends awaited him without? He had friends,
then, after five years in prison? If that were so he was
indeed a highly favored prince. He forgot that besides his
friends of his own sex, a woman, strange to say, had
remembered him. It is true that she had not, perhaps, been
scupulously faithful to him, but she had remembered him;
that was something.
So the duke had more than enough to think about; accordingly
he fared at chess as he had fared at tennis; he made blunder
upon blunder and the officer with whom he played found him
easy game.
But his successive defeats did service to the duke in one
way -- they killed time for him till eight o'clock in the
evening; then would come night, and with night, sleep. So,
at least, the duke believed; but sleep is a capricious
fairy, and it is precisely when one invokes her presence
that she is most likely to keep him waiting. The duke waited
until midnight, turning on his mattress like St. Laurence on
his gridiron. Finally he slept.
But at daybreak he awoke. Wild dreams had disturbed his
repose. He dreamed that he was endowed with wings -- he
wished to fly away. For a time these wings supported him,
but when he reached a certain height this new aid failed
him. His wings were broken and he seemed to sink into a
bottomless abyss, whence he awoke, bathed in perspiration
and nearly as much overcome as if he had really fallen. He
fell asleep again and another vision appeared. He was in a
subterranean passage by which he was to leave Vincennes.
