THE THREE MUSKETEERS - Complete Series: The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, The Vicomte of Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, Louise da la Valliere & The Man in the Iron Mask. Alexandre Dumas

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      The cardinal saw what the king was about to say and interrupted him:

      “Pardon me,” said he; “but the instant your Majesty considers me a prejudiced judge, I withdraw.”

      “Come,” said the king, “will you swear, by my father, that Athos was at your residence during the event and that he took no part in it?”

      “By your glorious father, and by yourself, whom I love and venerate above all the world, I swear it.”

      “Be so kind as to reflect, sire,” said the cardinal. “If we release the prisoner thus, we shall never know the truth.”

      “Athos may always be found,” replied Treville, “ready to answer, when it shall please the gownsmen to interrogate him. He will not desert, Monsieur the Cardinal, be assured of that; I will answer for him.”

      “No, he will not desert,” said the king; “he can always be found, as Treville says. Besides,” added he, lowering his voice and looking with a suppliant air at the cardinal, “let us give them apparent security; that is policy.”

      This policy of Louis XIII made Richelieu smile.

      “Order it as you please, sire; you possess the right of pardon.”

      “The right of pardoning only applies to the guilty,” said Treville, who was determined to have the last word, “and my Musketeer is innocent. It is not mercy, then, that you are about to accord, sire, it is justice.”

      “And he is in the Fort l’Eveque?” said the king.

      “Yes, sire, in solitary confinement, in a dungeon, like the lowest criminal.”

      “The devil!” murmured the king; “what must be done?”

      “Sign an order for his release, and all will be said,” replied the cardinal. “I believe with your Majesty that Monsieur de Treville’s guarantee is more than sufficient.”

      Treville bowed very respectfully, with a joy that was not unmixed with fear; he would have preferred an obstinate resistance on the part of the cardinal to this sudden yielding.

      The king signed the order for release, and Treville carried it away without delay. As he was about to leave the presence, the cardinal gave him a friendly smile, and said, “A perfect harmony reigns, sire, between the leaders and the soldiers of your Musketeers, which must be profitable for the service and honorable to all.”

      “He will play me some dog’s trick or other, and that immediately,” said Treville. “One has never the last word with such a man. But let us be quick—the king may change his mind in an hour; and at all events it is more difficult to replace a man in the Fort l’Eveque or the Bastille who has got out, than to keep a prisoner there who is in.”

      M. de Treville made his entrance triumphantly into the Fort l’Eveque, whence he delivered the Musketeer, whose peaceful indifference had not for a moment abandoned him.

      The first time he saw d’Artagnan, “You have come off well,” said he to him; “there is your Jussac thrust paid for. There still remains that of Bernajoux, but you must not be too confident.”

      As to the rest, M. de Treville had good reason to mistrust the cardinal and to think that all was not over, for scarcely had the captain of the Musketeers closed the door after him, than his Eminence said to the king, “Now that we are at length by ourselves, we will, if your Majesty pleases, converse seriously. Sire, Buckingham has been in Paris five days, and only left this morning.”

      Chapter 16

       M. Seguier, Keeper of the Seals, Looks More Than Once for the Bell, in Order to Ring it, as He Did Before

       Table of Contents

      It is impossible to form an idea of the impression these few words made upon Louis XIII. He grew pale and red alternately; and the cardinal saw at once that he had recovered by a single blow all the ground he had lost.

      “Buckingham in Paris!” cried he, “and why does he come?”

      “To conspire, no doubt, with your enemies, the Huguenots and the Spaniards.”

      “No, PARDIEU, no! To conspire against my honor with Madame de Chevreuse, Madame de Longueville, and the Condes.”

      “Oh, sire, what an idea! The queen is too virtuous; and besides, loves your Majesty too well.”

      “Woman is weak, Monsieur Cardinal,” said the king; “and as to loving me much, I have my own opinion as to that love.”

      “I not the less maintain,” said the cardinal, “that the Duke of Buckingham came to Paris for a project wholly political.”

      “And I am sure that he came for quite another purpose, Monsieur Cardinal; but if the queen be guilty, let her tremble!”

      “Indeed,” said the cardinal, “whatever repugnance I may have to directing my mind to such a treason, your Majesty compels me to think of it. Madame de Lannoy, whom, according to your Majesty’s command, I have frequently interrogated, told me this morning that the night before last her Majesty sat up very late, that this morning she wept much, and that she was writing all day.”

      “That’s it!” cried the king; “to him, no doubt. Cardinal, I must have the queen’s papers.”

      “But how to take them, sire? It seems to me that it is neither your Majesty nor myself who can charge himself with such a mission.”

      “How did they act with regard to the Marechale d’Ancre?” cried the king, in the highest state of choler; “first her closets were thoroughly searched, and then she herself.”

      “The Marechale d’Ancre was no more than the Marechale d’Ancre. A Florentine adventurer, sire, and that was all; while the august spouse of your Majesty is Anne of Austria, Queen of France—that is to say, one of the greatest princesses in the world.”

      “She is not the less guilty, Monsieur Duke! The more she has forgotten the high position in which she was placed, the more degrading is her fall. Besides, I long ago determined to put an end to all these petty intrigues of policy and love. She has near her a certain Laporte.”

      “Who, I believe, is the mainspring of all this, I confess,” said the cardinal.

      “You think then, as I do, that she deceives me?” said the king.

      “I believe, and I repeat it to your Majesty, that the queen conspires against the power of the king, but I have not said against his honor.”

      “And I—I tell you against both. I tell you the queen does not love me; I tell you she loves another; I tell you she loves that infamous Buckingham! Why did you not have him arrested while in Paris?”

      “Arrest the Duke! Arrest the prime minister of King Charles I! Think of it, sire! What a scandal! And if the suspicions of your Majesty, which I still continue to doubt, should prove to have any foundation, what a terrible disclosure, what a fearful scandal!”

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