royal troops, who were entering, pele-mele, the
intrenchments with the fugitives. Athos and Aramis charged
at the head of their squadrons; Aramis with sword and pistol
in his hands, Athos with his sword in his scabbard, his
pistol in his saddle-bags; calm and cool as if on the
parade, except that his noble and beautiful countenance
became sad as he saw slaughtered so many men who were
sacrificed on the one side to the obstinacy of royalty and
on the other to the personal rancor of the princes. Aramis,
on the contrary, struck right and left and was almost
delirious with excitement. His bright eyes kindled, and his
mouth, so finely formed, assumed a wicked smile; every blow
he aimed was sure, and his pistol finished the deed --
annihilated the wounded wretch who tried to rise again.
On the opposite side two cavaliers, one covered with a gilt
cuirass, the other wearing simply a buff doublet, from which
fell the sleeves of a vest of blue velvet, charged in front.
The cavalier in the gilt cuirass fell upon Aramis and struck
a blow that Aramis parried with his wonted skill.
"Ah! 'tis you, Monsieur de Chatillon," cried the chevalier;
"welcome to you -- I expected you."
"I hope I have not made you wait too long, sir," said the
duke; "at all events, here I am."
"Monsieur de Chatillon," cried Aramis, taking from his
saddle-bags a second pistol, "I think if your pistols have
been discharged you are a dead man."
"Thank God, sir, they are not!"
And the duke, pointing his pistol at Aramis, fired. But
Aramis bent his head the instant he saw the duke's finger
press the trigger and the ball passed without touching him.
"Oh! you've missed me," cried Aramis, "but I swear to
Heaven! I will not miss you."
"If I give you time!" cried the duke, spurring on his horse
and rushing upon him with his drawn sword.
Aramis awaited him with that terrible smile which was
peculiar to him on such occasions, and Athos, who saw the
duke advancing toward Aramis with the rapidity of lightning,
was just going to cry out, "Fire! fire, then!" when the shot
was fired. De Chatillon opened his arms and fell back on the
crupper of his horse.
The ball had entered his breast through a notch in the
cuirass.
"I am a dead man," he said, and fell from his horse to the
ground.
"I told you this, I am now grieved I have kept my word. Can
I be of any use to you?"
Chatillon made a sign with his hand and Aramis was about to
dismount when he received a violent shock; 'twas a thrust
from a sword, but his cuirass turned aside the blow.
He turned around and seized his new antagonist by the wrist,
when he started back, exclaiming, "Raoul!"
"Raoul?" cried Athos.
The young man recognized at the same instant the voices of
his father and the Chevalier d'Herblay; two officers in the
Parisian forces rushed at that instant on Raoul, but Aramis
protected him with his sword.
"My prisoner!" he cried.
Athos took his son's horse by the bridle and led him forth
out of the melee.
At this crisis of the battle, the prince, who had been
seconding De Chatillon in the second line, appeared in the
midst of the fight; his eagle eye made him known and his
blows proclaimed the hero.
On seeing him, the regiment of Corinth, which the coadjutor
had not been able to reorganize in spite of all his efforts,
threw itself into the midst of the Parisian forces, put them
into confusion and re-entered Charenton flying. The
coadjutor, dragged along with his fugitive forces, passed
near the group formed by Athos, Raoul and Aramis. Aramis
could not in his jealousy avoid being pleased at the
coadjutor's misfortune, and was about to utter some bon mot
more witty than correct, when Athos stopped him.
"On, on!" he cried, "this is no moment for compliments; or
rather, back, for the battle seems to be lost by the
Frondeurs."
"It is a matter of indifference to me," said Aramis; "I came
here only to meet De Chatillon; I have met him, I am
contented; 'tis something to have met De Chatillon in a
duel!"
"And besides, we have a prisoner," said Athos, pointing to
Raoul.
The three cavaliers continued their road on full gallop.
"What were you doing in the battle, my friend?" inquired
Athos of the youth; "'twas not your right place, I think, as
you were not equipped for an engagement!"
"I had no intention of fighting to-day, sir; I was charged,
indeed, with a mission to the cardinal and had set out for
Rueil, when, seeing Monsieur de Chatillon charge, an
invincible desire possessed me to charge at his side. It was
then that he told me two cavaliers of the Parisian army were
seeking me and named the Comte de la Fere."
"What! you knew we were there and yet wished to kill your
friend the chevalier?"
"I did not recognize the chevalier in armor, sir!" said
Raoul, blushing; "though I might have known him by his skill
and coolness in danger."
"Thank you for the compliment, my young friend," replied
Aramis, "we can see from whom you learned courtesy. Then you
were going to Rueil?"
"Yes! I have a despatch from the prince to his eminence."
"You must still deliver it," said Athos.
"No false generosity, count! the fate of our friends, to say
nothing of our own, is perhaps in that very despatch."
"This young man must not, however, fail in his duty," said
Athos.
"In the first place, count, this youth is our prisoner; you
seem to forget that. What I propose to do is fair in war;
the vanquished must not be dainty in the choice of means.
Give me the despatch, Raoul."
The young man hesitated and looked at Athos as if seeking to
read in his eyes a rule of conduct.
"Give him the despatch, Raoul! you are the chevalier's
prisoner."
Raoul gave it up reluctantly; Aramis instantly seized and
read it.
"You," he said, "you, who are so trusting, read and reflect
that there is something in this letter important for us to
see."
Athos took the letter, frowning, but an idea that he should
find something in this letter about D'Artagnan conquered his
unwillingness to read it.
"My lord, I shall send this evening to your eminence in
order to reinforce the troop of Monsieur de Comminges, the
ten men you demand. They are good soldiers, fit to confront
the two violent adversaries whose address and resolution
your eminence is fearful of."
"Oh!" cried Athos.
"Well," said Aramis, "what think you about these two enemies
whom it requires, besides Comminges's troop, ten good
soldiers to confront; are they not as like as two drops of
water to D'Artagnan and Porthos?"
"We'll search Paris all day long," said Athos, "and if we
have no news this evening we will return to the road to
Picardy; and I feel no doubt that, thanks to D'Artagnan's
ready invention, we shall then find some clew which will
solve our doubts."
"Yes, let us search Paris and especially inquire of Planchet
if he has yet heard from his former master."
"That poor Planchet! You speak of him very much at your
ease, Aramis; he has probably been killed. All those
fighting citizens went out to battle and they have been
massacred."
It was, then, with a sentiment of uneasiness whether
Planchet, who alone could give them information, was alive
or dead, that the friends returned to the Place Royale; to
their great surprise they found the citizens still encamped
there, drinking and bantering each other, although,
doubtless, mourned by their families, who thought they were
at Charenton in the thickest of the fighting.
Athos and Aramis again questioned Planchet, but he had seen
nothing of D'Artagnan; they wished to take Planchet with
them, but he could not leave his troop, who at five o'clock
returned home, saying that they were returning from the
battle, whereas they had never lost sight of the bronze
equestrian statue of Louis XIII.
79
The Road to Picardy.
On leaving Paris, Athos and Aramis well knew that they would
be encountering great danger; but we know that for men like
these there could be no question of danger. Besides, they
felt that the denouement of this second Odyssey was at hand
and that there remained but a single effort to make.
Besides, there was no tranquillity in Paris itself.
Provisions began to fail, and whenever one of the Prince de
Conti's generals wished to gain more influence he got up a
little popular tumult, which he put down again, and thus for
the moment gained a superiority over his colleagues.
In one of these risings. the Duc de Beaufort pillaged the
house and library of Mazarin, in order to give the populace,
as he put it, something to gnaw at. Athos and Aramis left
Paris after this coup-d'etat, which took place on the very
evening of the day in which the Parisians had been beaten at
Charenton.
They quitted Paris, beholding it abandoned to extreme want,
bordering on famine; agitated by fear, torn by faction.
Parisians and Frondeurs as they were, the two friends
expected to find the same misery, the same fears, the same
intrigue in the enemy's camp; but what was their surprise,
after passing Saint Denis, to hear that at Saint Germain
people were singing and laughing, and leading generally
cheerful lives. The two gentlemen traveled by byways in
order not to encounter the Mazarinists scattered about the
Isle of France, and also to escape the Frondeurs, who were
in possession of Normandy and who never failed to conduct
captives to the Duc de Longueville, in order that he might
ascertain whether they were friends or foes. Having escaped
these dangers, they returned by the main road to Boulogne,
at Abbeville, and followed it step by step, examining every
track.
Nevertheless, they were still in a state of uncertainty.
Several inns were visited by them, several innkeepers
questioned, without a single clew being given to guide their
inquiries, when at Montreuil Athos felt upon the table that
something rough was touching his delicate fingers. He turned
up the cloth and found these hieroglyphics carved upon the
wood with a knife:
"Port .... D'Art .... 2d February."
"This is capital!" said Athos to Aramis, "we were to have
slept here, but we cannot -- we must push on." They rode
forward and reached Abbeville. There the great number of
inns puzzled them; they could not go to all; how could they
guess in which those whom they were seeking had stayed?
"Trust me," said Aramis, "do not expect to find anything in
Abbeville. If we had only been looking for Porthos, Porthos
would have stationed himself in one of the finest hotels and
we could easily have traced him. But D'Artagnan is devoid of
such weaknesses. Porthos would have found it very difficult
even to make him see that he was dying of hunger; he has
gone on his road as inexorable as fate and we must seek him
somewhere else."
They continued their route. It had now become a weary and
almost hopeless task, and had it not been for the threefold
motives of honor, friendship and gratitude, implanted in
their hearts, our two travelers would have given up many a
time their rides over the sand, their interrogatories of the
peasantry and their close inspection of faces.
They proceeded thus to Peronne.
Athos began to despair. His noble nature felt that their
ignorance was a sort of reflection upon them. They had not
looked carefully enough for their lost friends. They had not
shown sufficient pertinacity in their inquiries. They were
willing and ready to retrace their steps, when, in crossing
the suburb which leads to the gates of the town, upon a
white wall which was at the corner of a street turning
around the rampart, Athos cast his eyes upon a drawing in
black chalk, which represented, with the awkwardness of a
first attempt, two cavaliers riding furiously; one of them
carried a roll of paper on which were written these words:
"They are following us."
"Oh!" exclaimed Athos, "here it is, as clear as day; pursued
as he was, D'Artagnan would not have tarried here five
minutes had he been pressed very closely, which gives us
hopes that he may have succeeded in escaping."
Aramis shook his head.
"Had he escaped we should either have seen him or have heard
him spoken of."
"You are right, Aramis, let us travel on."
To describe the impatience and anxiety of these two friends
would be impossible. Uneasiness took possession of the
tender, constant heart of Athos, and fearful forecasts were
the torment of the impulsive Aramis. They galloped on for
two or three hours as furiously as the cavaliers on the
wall. All at once, in a narrow pass, they perceived that the
road was partially barricaded by an enormous stone. It had
evidently been rolled across the pass by some arm of giant
strength.
Aramis stopped.
"Oh!" he said, looking at the stone, "this is the work of
either Hercules or Porthos. Let us get down, count, and
examine this rock."
They both alighted. The stone had been brought with the
evident intention of barricading the road, but some one
having perceived the obstacle had partially turned it aside.
With the assistance of Blaisois and Grimaud the friends
succeeded in turning the stone over. Upon the side next the
ground were scratched the following words:
"Eight of the light dragoons are pursuing us. If we reach
Compiegne we shall stop at the Peacock. It is kept by a
friend of ours."
"At last we have something definite," said Athos; "let us go
