“Porthos,” said Aramis, “Athos has already told you you are a simpleton, and I am quite of his opinion.—D’Artagnan, you are a great man, and when you occupy M. de Tréville’s place, I will come and ask your influence to secure me an abbey.”
“Well, I am quite lost!” said Porthos. “Do you approve of what D’Artagnan has just done?”
“Zounds! indeed I do!” said Athos. “I not only approve of what he has done, but I congratulate him upon it.”
“And now, gentlemen,” said D’Artagnan, without stopping to explain his conduct to Porthos, “all for one, one for all; that is our motto, is it not?”
“And yet—” said Porthos.
“Hold out your hand and swear!” cried Athos and Aramis at the same time.
Overcome by example, grumbling to himself, Porthos stretched out his hand, and the four friends repeated with one voice the formula dictated by D’Artagnan.
“All for one, one for all.”
“That’s well! Now let every one retire to his own house,” said D’Artagnan, as if he had done nothing but command all his life; “and attention! for from this moment we are at war with the cardinal.”
Chapter 10 - A Seventeenth-Century Mouse-Trap
The invention of the mouse-trap does not date from our day: as soon as society, in developing, had invented any kind of police, that police in its turn invented mouse-traps.
As perhaps our readers are not familiar with the slang of the Rue de Jérusalem, and as, in all the fifteen years we have been writing, we now for the first time apply this word to the thing, let us explain to them what a mouse-trap is.
When in a house, of whatever kind it may be, an individual suspected of any crime is arrested, the arrest is kept secret. Four or five men are placed in an ambuscade in the first apartment; the door is opened to all who knock; it is closed after them, and they are arrested; so that at the end of two or three days they have in their power almost all the frequenters of the establishment. And this is a mouse-trap.
The apartment of M. Bonacieux, then, became a mouse-trap, and whoever appeared there was taken and examined by the cardinal’s people. It goes without saying that as a private passage led to the first floor, on which D’Artagnan lodged, those who called to see him were exempt from all search.
As to D’Artagnan, he did not stir from his apartment. He had converted his chamber into an observatory. From his windows he saw all who came and were caught; then, having removed some of the tiles of his floor and dug into the planking, and nothing remaining but a simple ceiling between him and the room beneath, in which the examinations were made, he heard all that passed between the inquisitors and the accused.
The examinations, preceded by a minute search of the persons arrested, were almost all conceived in this manner:
“Has Madame Bonacieux given anything to you for her husband, or any other person?
“Has Monsieur Bonacieux given anything to you for his wife, or for any other person?
“Has either the one or the other confided anything to you by word of mouth?”
On the evening of the day after the arrest of poor Bonacieux, as Athos had just left D’Artagnan to go to M. de Tréville, as nine o’clock had just struck, and as Planchet, who had not yet made the bed, was beginning his task, a knocking was heard at the street door. The door was instantly opened and shut: some one was caught in the mouse-trap.
D’Artagnan flew to his peek-hole, and laid himself down on the floor at full length to listen.
Cries were soon heard, and then moans, which some one was endeavouring to stifle. There were no questionings.
“The devil!” said D’Artagnan to himself; “it’s a woman—they are searching her—she resists—they use force—the scoundrels!”
In spite of all his prudence, D’Artagnan had as much as he could do not to take part in the scene that was going on below.
“But I tell you that I am the mistress of the house, gentlemen! I tell you I am Madame Bonacieux! I tell you I belong to the queen!” cried the unfortunate woman.
“Madame Bonacieux!” murmured D’Artagnan. “Can I have been so lucky as to have found what everybody is looking for?”
“You are the very one we were waiting for,” replied the examiners.
The voice became more and more indistinct; a tumultuous movement shook the wainscoting. The victim was resisting as much as one woman can resist four men.
“Pardon, gentlemen, par—” murmured the voice, which could now be heard only in inarticulate sounds.
“They are gagging her, they are going to drag her away,” cried D’Artagnan to himself, springing from the floor. “My sword! Good! it is by my side. Planchet!”
“Sir.”
“Run and get Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. One of the three will certainly be at home—perhaps all three are. Tell them to arm, to come here, and be quick about it! Ah, I remember; Athos is at M. de Tréville’s.”
“But where are you going, sir, where are you going?”
“I am going down by the window, in order to be there the sooner,” cried D’Artagnan. “Do you put back the tiles, sweep the floor, go out at the door, and run where I bid you.”
“O sir, sir, you will kill yourself!” cried Planchet.
“Hold your tongue, you stupid fellow,” said D’Artagnan; and laying hold of the window-ledge, he let himself fall from the first story, which luckily was not far, without even scratching himself.
He then went straight to the door and knocked, murmuring,
“I will go and be caught in the mouse-trap in my turn, but woe be to the cats that shall pounce upon such a mouse!”
The knocker had scarcely sounded under the hand of the young man than the tumult ceased, steps approached, the door opened, and D’Artagnan, sword in hand, rushed into M. Bonacieux’s apartment, the door of which, doubtless moved by a spring, closed after him of itself.
Then those who were still living in Bonacieux’s unfortunate house, together with the nearest neighbours, heard loud cries, stamping of feet, clashing of swords, and much breaking of furniture. Then a moment after those who, surprised by this tumult, had gone to their windows to learn the cause of it, could see the door open, and four men, clothed in black, not come out of it, but fly, like so many frightened crows, leaving on the ground, and on the corners of the furniture, feathers from their wings—that is to say, portions of their clothes and fragments of their cloaks.
D’Artagnan was conqueror, without much trouble, it must be confessed, for only one of the bailiffs was armed, and he defended himself only for form’s sake. It is true that the three others had endeavoured to knock the young man down with chairs, stools, and crockery; but two or three scratches made by the Gascon’s blade terrified them. Ten minutes had sufficed for their defeat, and D’Artagnan remained master of the field of battle.
The neighbours who had opened their windows, with the indifference peculiar to the inhabitants of Paris in those times of perpetual riots and disturbances, closed them again as soon as they saw the four men in black fly away, their instinct telling them that for the moment all was over.
Besides, it began to grow late, and in those days, as at the present, people went to bed early in the Luxembourg quarter.
On being left alone with Madame Bonacieux, D’Artagnan turned towards her. The poor woman had fallen back upon an armchair in a half-fainting state. D’Artagnan examined her with a rapid glance.
She was a charming woman, of twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, with dark hair, blue eyes, a slightly turned-up nose, admirable teeth, and a pink and opal complexion. There, however, the signs stopped which might have confounded her with a lady of rank. Her hands were white, but pudgy; her feet did not bespeak the woman of quality. Fortunately, D’Artagnan had not yet reached the point of minding these details.
While D’Artagnan was examining Madame Bonacieux, and was, as we have said, close to her, he saw on the ground a fine cambric handkerchief, which he naturally picked up, and on the corner of which he recognized the same cipher that he had seen on the handkerchief which had nearly caused him and Aramis to cut each other’s throats.
From that time D’Artagnan had been cautious with respect to handkerchiefs having arms on them, and he therefore, without a remark, placed the one he had just picked up in Madame Bonacieux’s pocket.
At that moment Madame Bonacieux recovered her senses. She opened her eyes, looked around her with terror, saw that the apartment was empty, and that she was alone with her liberator. She immediately held out her hands to him with a smile. Madame Bonacieux had the sweetest smile in the world.
“Ah, sir!” said she, “you have saved me. Allow me to thank you.”
“Madame,” said D’Artagnan, “I have only done what every gentleman would have done in my place. You owe me, then, no thanks.”
“Yes I do, sir, yes I do; and I hope to prove to you that you have not aided an ungrateful person. But what could these men, whom I at first took for robbers, want of me, and why is M. Bonacieux not here?”
“Madame, those men were much more dangerous than any robbers could have been, for they are the agents of the cardinal; and as to your husband, M. Bonacieux, he is not here, because he was yesterday evening taken away to the Bastille.”
“My husband in the Bastille!” cried Madame Bonacieux. “Oh, my God, what can he have done? Poor, dear man—he is innocence itself!”
And something like a faint smile glided over the still terrified features of the young woman.
“What has he done, madame?” said D’Artagnan. “I believe that his only crime is to have at the same time the good fortune and the misfortune to be your husband.”
“But, sir, you know then—”
“I know that you have been carried off, madame. But how did you escape?”
“I took advantage of a moment when they left me alone; and as I had known since morning what to think of my abduction, with the help of my sheets I let myself down from the window; then, as I thought my husband would be at home, I hastened here.”
“To place yourself under his protection?”
“Oh no, poor, dear man! I knew very well that he was incapable of defending me; but as he could be otherwise useful to us, I wished to inform him.”
“Of what?”
“Oh, that is not my secret; I therefore cannot tell you.”
“Besides,” said D’Artagnan—“pardon me, madame, if, guard as I am, I remind you of prudence—besides, I believe we are not here in a very proper place for imparting confidences. The men I have put to flight will return reinforced; if they find us here, we are lost. I have sent, to be sure, for three of my friends, but who knows whether they are at home?”
“Yes, yes; you are right,” cried the terrified Madame Bonacieux; “let us fly, let us escape!”
At these words she passed her arm under that of D’Artagnan, and pulled him forward eagerly.
“But whither shall we fly—where escape to?”
“Let us in the first place get away from this house; when clear of it we shall see.”
And the young woman and the young man, without taking the trouble to shut the door after them, descended the Rue des Fossoyeurs rapidly, turned into the Rue des Fossés-Monsieur-le-Prince, and did not stop till they came to the Place Saint-Sulpice.
“And now what are we to do, and where do you wish me to take you?” asked D’Artagnan.
“I am quite at a loss how to answer you, I confess,” said Madame Bonacieux. “My intention was to inform M. de la Porte, by means of my husband, in order that M. de la Porte might tell us exactly what has taken place at the Louvre in the course of the last three days, and whether there were any danger in presenting myself there.”
“But I,” said D’Artagnan, “can go and inform M. de la Porte.”
“No doubt you could; only there is one drawback in it, and this is that M. Bonacieux is known at the Louvre, and would be allowed to pass; whereas you are not known there, and the gate would be closed against you.”
“Ah, bah!” said D’Artagnan; “there is no doubt you have at some wicket of the Louvre a porter who is devoted to you, and who, thanks to a password, would—”
Madame Bonacieux looked earnestly at the young man.
“And if I give you this password,” said she, “would you forget it as soon as you had made use of it?”
“By my honour, by the faith of a gentleman!” said D’Artagnan, with an accent so truthful no one could mistake it.
“Then I believe you. You appear to be a brave young man; besides, your fortune, perhaps, will be the result of your devotion.”
“I will do, without a promise, and conscientiously, all that I can do to serve the king and be agreeable to the queen. Use me, then, as a friend.”
“But I—where shall I go in the meanwhile?”
“Do you know no one to whose house M. de la Porte can go to get you?”
“No, I will trust nobody.”
“Stop,” said D’Artagnan; “we are near Athos’s door. “Yes, here it is.”
“Who is this Athos?”
“One of my friends.”
“But if he should be at home and see me?”
“He is not at home; and I will carry away the key, after having placed you in his apartment.”
“But if he should return?”
“Oh, he won’t return; and if he should, he will be told that I have brought a lady with me, and that lady is in his apartment.”
“But that will compromise me sadly, you know.”
“Of what consequence can it be to you? Nobody knows you. Besides, we are in a situation in which we must not be too particular.”
“Come, then, let us go to your friend’s house. Where does he live?”
“Rue Férou, two steps from here.”
“Come, then.”
And both resumed their way. As D’Artagnan had foreseen, Athos was not at home. He took the key, which was usually given him as one of the family, ascended the stairs, and introduced Madame Bonacieux into the little apartment.
“Make yourself at home,” said he. “Wait here, fasten the door inside, and open it to nobody unless you hear three taps like these.” And he tapped thrice—two taps close together and pretty hard, the other after an interval, lighter.
“That is all right,” said Madame Bonacieux. “Now it is my turn to give you my orders.”
“I am all attention.”
“Present yourself at the wicket of the Louvre, towards the Rue de l’Echelle, and ask for Germain.”
“Well, and then?”
“He will ask you what you want, and you will answer by these two words—‘Tours’ and ‘Brussels.’ He will immediately put himself under your orders.”
“And what shall I order him to do?”
“To go and fetch M. de la Porte, the queen’s valet.”
“And when he shall have found him, and M. de la Porte has come?”
“You will send him to me.”
“Very well; but where and how shall I see you again?”
“Do you, then, wish very much to see me again?”
“Certainly I do.”
“Well, let that care be mine, and do not worry.”
“I depend upon your word.”
“Certainly.”
“Very well. Count on me for bringing this about, and have no fear.”
“I may depend on your word?”
“You may.”
D’Artagnan bowed to Madame Bonacieux, darting at her the most loving glance that he could possibly concentrate upon her charming little person; and while he descended the stairs he heard the door closed behind him and double-locked. In two bounds he was at the Louvre. As he entered the wicket of L’Echelle ten o’clock struck. All the events we have just described had taken place within half an hour.
