yourself. I wish that this event, which on the day it is
known will completely change the aspect of affairs, should
be accomplished without the knowledge of any others but
yourself, myself, and a third person."
"And who is this third person?"
"Monsieur le Prince."
"He has come, then, as they told me?"
"Last evening."
"And you have seen him?"
"He has just left me."
"And will he aid this project?"
"The plan is his own."
"And Paris?"
"He will starve it out and force it to surrender at
discretion."
"The plan is not wanting in grandeur; I see but one
impediment."
"What is it?"
"Impossibility."
"A senseless word. Nothing is impossible."
"On paper."
"In execution. We have money?"
"A little," said Mazarin, trembling, lest Anne should ask to
draw upon his purse.
"Troops?"
"Five or six thousand men."
"Courage?"
"Plenty."
"Then the thing is easy. Oh! do think of it, Giulio! Paris,
this odious Paris, waking up one morning without queen or
king, surrounded, besieged, famished -- having for its sole
resource its stupid parliament and their coadjutor with
crooked limbs!"
"Charming! charming!" said Mazarin. "I can imagine the
effect, I do not see the means."
"I will find the means myself."
"You are aware it will be war, civil war, furious,
devouring, implacable?"
"Oh! yes, yes, war," said Anne of Austria. "Yes, I will
reduce this rebellious city to ashes. I will extinguish the
fire with blood! I will perpetuate the crime and punishment
by making a frightful example. Paris!; I -- I detest, I
loathe it!"
"Very fine, Anne. You are now sanguinary; but take care. We
are not in the time of Malatesta and Castruccio Castracani.
You will get yourself decapitated, my beautiful queen, and
that would be a pity."
"You laugh."
"Faintly. It is dangerous to go to war with a nation. Look
at your brother monarch, Charles I. He is badly off, very
badly."
"We are in France, and I am Spanish."
"So much the worse; I had much rather you were French and
myself also; they would hate us both less."
"Nevertheless, you consent?"
"Yes, if the thing be possible."
"It is; it is I who tell you so; make preparations for
departure."
"I! I am always prepared to go, only, as you know, I never
do go, and perhaps shall go this time as little as before."
"In short, if I go, will you go too?"
"I will try."
"You torment me, Giulio, with your fears; and what are you
afraid of, then?"
"Of many things."
"What are they?"
Mazarin's face, smiling as it was, became clouded.
"Anne," said he, "you are but a woman and as a woman you may
insult men at your ease, knowing that you can do it with
impunity. You accuse me of fear; I have not so much as you
have, since I do not fly as you do. Against whom do they cry
out? is it against you or against myself? Whom would they
hang, yourself or me? Well, I can weather the storm -- I,
whom, notwithstanding, you tax with fear -- not with
bravado, that is not my way; but I am firm. Imitate me. Make
less hubbub and think more deeply. You cry very loud, you
end by doing nothing; you talk of flying ---- "
Mazarin shrugged his shoulders and taking the queen's hand
led her to the window.
"Look!" he said.
"Well?" said the queen, blinded by her obstinacy.
"Well, what do you see from this window? If I am not
mistaken those are citizens, helmeted and mailed, armed with
good muskets, as in the time of the League, and whose eyes
are so intently fixed on this window that they will see you
if you raise that curtain much; and now come to the other
side -- what do you see? Creatures of the people, armed with
halberds, guarding your doors. You will see the same at
every opening from this palace to which I should lead you.
Your doors are guarded, the airholes of your cellars are
guarded, and I could say to you, as that good La Ramee said
to me of the Duc de Beaufort, you must be either bird or
mouse to get out."
"He did get out, nevertheless."
"Do you think of escaping in the same way?"
"I am a prisoner, then?"
"Parbleu!" said Mazarin, "I have been proving it to you this
last hour."
And he quietly resumed his dispatch at the place where he
had been interrupted.
Anne, trembling with anger and scarlet with humiliation,
left the room, shutting the door violently after her.
Mazarin did not even turn around. When once more in her own
apartment Anne fell into a chair and wept; then suddenly
struck with an idea:
"I am saved!" she exclaimed, rising; "oh, yes! yes! I know a
man who will find the means of taking me from Paris, a man I
have too long forgotten." Then falling into a reverie, she
added, however, with an expression of joy, "Ungrateful woman
that I am, for twenty years I have forgotten this man, whom
I ought to have made a marechal of France. My mother-in-law
expended gold, caresses, dignities on Concini, who ruined
her; the king made Vitry marechal of France for an
assassination: while I have left in obscurity, in poverty,
the noble D'Artagnan, who saved me!"
And running to a table, on which were paper, pens and ink,
she hastily began to write.
50
The Interview.
It had been D'Artagnan's practice, ever since the riots, to
sleep in the same room as Porthos, and on this eventful
morning he was still there, sleeping, and dreaming that a
yellow cloud had overspread the sky and was raining gold
pieces into his hat, which he held out till it was
overflowing with pistoles. As for Porthos, he dreamed that
the panels of his carriage were not capacious enough to
contain the armorial bearings he had ordered to be painted
on them. They were both aroused at seven o'clock by the
entrance of an unliveried servant, who brought a letter for
D'Artagnan.
"From whom?" asked the Gascon.
"From the queen," replied the servant.
"Ho!" said Porthos, raising himself in his bed; "what does
she say?"
D'Artagnan requested the servant to wait in the next room
and when the door was closed he sprang up from his bed and
read rapidly, whilst Porthos looked at him with starting
eyes, not daring to ask a single question.
"Friend Porthos," said D'Artagnan, handing the letter to
him, "this time, at least, you are sure of your title of
baron, and I of my captaincy. Read for yourself and judge."
Porthos took the letter and with a trembling voice read the
following words:
"The queen wishes to speak to Monsieur d'Artagnan, who must
follow the bearer."
"Well!" exclaimed Porthos; "I see nothing in that very
extraordinary."
"But I see much that is very extraordinary in it," replied
D'Artagnan. "It is evident, by their sending for me, that
matters are becoming complicated. Just reflect a little what
an agitation the queen's mind must be in for her to have
remembered me after twenty years."
"It is true," said Porthos.
"Sharpen your sword, baron, load your pistols, and give some
corn to the horses, for I will answer for it,
something lightning-like will happen ere to-morrow."
"But, stop; do you think it can be a trap that they are
laying for us?" suggested Porthos, incessantly thinking how
his greatness must be irksome to inferior people.
"If it is a snare," replied D'Artagnan, "I shall scent it
out, be assured. If Mazarin is an Italian, I am a Gascon."
And D'Artagnan dressed himself in an instant.
Whilst Porthos, still in bed, was hooking on his cloak for
him, a second knock at the door was heard.
"Come in," exclaimed D'Artagnan; and another servant
entered.
"From His Eminence, Cardinal Mazarin," presenting a letter.
D'Artagnan looked at Porthos.
"A complicated affair," said Porthos; "where will you
begin?"
"It is arranged capitally; his eminence expects me in half
an hour."
"Good."
"My friend," said D'Artagnan, turning to the servant, "tell
his eminence that in half an hour I shall be at his
command."
"It is very fortunate," resumed the Gascon, when the valet
had retired, "that he did not meet the other one."
"Do you not think that they have sent for you, both for the
same thing?"
"I do not think it, I am certain of it."
"Quick, quick, D'Artagnan. Remember that the queen awaits
you, and after the queen, the cardinal, and after the
cardinal, myself."
D'Artagnan summoned Anne of Austria's servant and signified
that he was ready to follow him into the queen's presence.
The servant conducted him by the Rue des Petits Champs and
turning to the left entered the little garden gate leading
into the Rue Richelieu; then they gained the private
staircase and D'Artagnan was ushered into the oratory. A
certain emotion, for which he could not account, made the
lieutenant's heart beat: he had no longer the assurance of
youth; experience had taught him the importance of past
events. Formerly he would have approached the queen as a
young man who bends before a woman; but now it was a
different thing; he answered her summons as an humble
soldier obeys an illustrious general.
The silence of the oratory was at last disturbed by the
slight rustling of silk, and D'Artagnan started when he
perceived the tapestry raised by a white hand, which, by its
form, its color and its beauty he recognized as that royal
hand which had one day been presented to him to kiss. The
queen entered.
"It is you, Monsieur d'Artagnan," she said, fixing a gaze
full of melancholy interest on the countenance of the
officer, "and I know you well. Look at me well in your turn.
I am the queen; do you recognize me?"
"No, madame," replied D'Artagnan.
"But are you no longer aware," continued Anne, giving that
sweet expression to her voice which she could do at will,
"that in former days the queen had once need of a young,
brave and devoted cavalier -- that she found this cavalier
-- and that, although he might have thought that she had
forgotten him, she had kept a place for him in the depths of
her heart?"
"No, madame, I was ignorant of that," said the musketeer.
"So much the worse, sir," said Anne of Austria; "so much the
worse, at least for the queen, for to-day she has need of
the same courage and the same devotion."
"What!" exclaimed D'Artagnan, "does the queen, surrounded as
she is by such devoted servants, such wise counselors, men,
in short, so great by merit or position -- does she deign to
cast her eyes on an obscure soldier?"
Anne understood this covert reproach and was more moved than
irritated by it. She had many a time felt humiliated by the
self-sacrifice and disinterestedness shown by the Gascon
gentleman. She had allowed herself to be exceeded in
generosity.
"All that you tell me of those by whom I am surrounded,
Monsieur d'Artagnan, is doubtless true," said the queen,
"but I have confidence in you alone. I know that you belong
to the cardinal, but belong to me as well, and I will take
upon myself the making of your fortune. Come, will you do
to-day what formerly the gentleman you do not know did for
the queen?"
"I will do everything your majesty commands," replied
D'Artagnan.
The queen reflected for a moment and then, seeing the
cautious demeanor of the musketeer:
"Perhaps you like repose?" she said.
"I do not know, for I have never had it, madame."
"Have you any friends?"
"I had three, two of whom have left Paris, to go I know not
where. One alone is left to me, but he is one of those
known, I believe, to the cavalier of whom your majesty did
me the honor to speak."
"Very good," said the queen; "you and your friend are worth
an army."
"What am I to do, madame?"
"Return at five o'clock and I will tell you; but do not
breathe to a living soul, sir, the rendezvous which I give
you."
"No, madame."
"Swear it upon the cross."
"Madame, I have never been false to my word; when I say I
will not do a thing, I mean it."
The queen, although astonished at this language, to which
she was not accustomed from her courtiers, argued from it a
happy omen of the zeal with which D'Artagnan would serve her
in the accomplishment of her project. It was one of the
Gascon's artifices to hide his deep cunning occasionally
under an appearance of rough loyalty.
"Has the queen any further commands for me now?" asked
D'Artagnan.
"No, sir," replied Anne of Austria, "and you may retire
until the time that I mentioned to you."
D'Artagnan bowed and went out.
"Diable!" he exclaimed when the door was shut, "they seem to
have the greatest need of me just now."
Then, as the half hour had already glided by, he crossed the
gallery and knocked at the cardinal's door.
Bernouin introduced him.
"I come for your commands, my lord," he said.
And according to his custom D'Artagnan glanced rapidly
around and remarked that Mazarin had a sealed letter before
