Twenty Years After

The valet went out of the room, this time by the centre door, but still as silently as before; one might have fancied him an apparition.

When he was left alone the cardinal looked at himself in the glass with a feeling of self-satisfaction. Still young-for he was scarcely forty-six years of age-he possessed great elegance of form and was above the middle height; his complexion was brilliant and beautiful; his glance full of expression; his nose, though large, was well proportioned; his forehead broad and majestic; his hair, of a chestnut color, was curled slightly; his beard, which was darker than his hair, was turned carefully with a curling iron, a practice that greatly improved it. After a short time the cardinal arranged his shoulder belt, then looked with great complacency at his hands, which were most elegant and of which he took the greatest care; and throwing on one side the large kid gloves tried on at first, as belonging to the uniform, he put on others of silk only. At this instant the door opened.

“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the valet-de-chambre.

An officer, as he spoke, entered the apartment. He was a man between thirty-nine and forty years of age, of medium height but a very well proportioned figure; with an intellectual and animated physiognomy; his beard black, and his hair turning gray, as often happens when people have found life either too gay or too sad, more especially when they happen to be of swart complexion.

D’Artagnan advanced a few steps into the apartment.

How perfectly he remembered his former entrance into that very room! Seeing, however, no one there except a musketeer of his own troop, he fixed his eyes upon the supposed soldier, in whose dress, nevertheless, he recognized at the first glance the cardinal.

The lieutenant remained standing in a dignified but respectful posture, such as became a man of good birth, who had in the course of his life been frequently in the society of the highest nobles.

The cardinal looked at him with a cunning rather than serious glance, yet he examined his countenance with attention and after a momentary silence said:

“You are Monsieur d’Artagnan?”

“I am that individual,” replied the officer.

Mazarin gazed once more at a countenance full of intelligence, the play of which had been, nevertheless, subdued by age and experience; and D’Artagnan received the penetrating glance like one who had formerly sustained many a searching look, very different, indeed, from those which were inquiringly directed on him at that instant.

“Sir,” resumed the cardinal, “you are to come with me, or rather, I am to go with you.”

“I am at your command, my lord,” returned D’Artagnan.

“I wish to visit in person the outposts which surround the Palais Royal; do you suppose that there is any danger in so doing?”

“Danger, my lord!” exclaimed D’Artagnan with a look of astonishment, “what danger?”

“I am told that there is a general insurrection.”

“The uniform of the king’s musketeers carries a certain respect with it, and even if that were not the case I would engage with four of my men to put to flight a hundred of these clowns.”

“Did you witness the injury sustained by Comminges?”

“Monsieur de Comminges is in the guards and not in the musketeers-”

“Which means, I suppose, that the musketeers are better soldiers than the guards.” The cardinal smiled as he spoke.

“Every one likes his own uniform best, my lord.”

“Myself excepted,” and again Mazarin smiled; “for you perceive that I have left off mine and put on yours.”

“Lord bless us! this is modesty indeed!” cried D’Artagnan. “Had I such a uniform as your eminence possesses, I protest I should be mightily content, and I would take an oath never to wear any other costume-”

“Yes, but for to-night’s adventure I don’t suppose my dress would have been a very safe one. Give me my felt hat, Bernouin.”

The valet instantly brought to his master a regimental hat with a wide brim. The cardinal put it on in military style.

“Your horses are ready saddled in their stables, are they not?” he said, turning to D’Artagnan.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Well, let us set out.”

“How many men does your eminence wish to escort you?”

“You say that with four men you will undertake to disperse a hundred low fellows; as it may happen that we shall have to encounter two hundred, take eight-”

“As many as my lord wishes.”

“I will follow you. This way-light us downstairs Bernouin.”

The valet held a wax-light; the cardinal took a key from his bureau and opening the door of a secret stair descended into the court of the Palais Royal.

2. A Nightly Patrol

In ten minutes Mazarin and his party were traversing the street “Les Bons Enfants” behind the theatre built by Richelieu expressly for the play of “Mirame,” and in which Mazarin, who was an amateur of music, but not of literature, had introduced into France the first opera that was ever acted in that country.

The appearance of the town denoted the greatest agitation. Numberless groups paraded the streets and, whatever D’Artagnan might think of it, it was obvious that the citizens had for the night laid aside their usual forbearance, in order to assume a warlike aspect. From time to time noises came in the direction of the public markets. The report of firearms was heard near the Rue Saint Denis and occasionally church bells began to ring indiscriminately and at the caprice of the populace. D’Artagnan, meantime, pursued his way with the indifference of a man upon whom such acts of folly made no impression. When he approached a group in the middle of the street he urged his horse upon it without a word of warning; and the members of the group, whether rebels or not, as if they knew with what sort of a man they had to deal, at once gave place to the patrol. The cardinal envied that composure, which he attributed to the habit of meeting danger; but none the less he conceived for the officer under whose orders he had for the moment placed himself, that consideration which even prudence pays to careless courage. On approaching an outpost near the Barriere des Sergens, the sentinel cried out, “Who’s there?” and D’Artagnan answered-having first asked the word of the cardinal-“Louis and Rocroy.” After which he inquired if Lieutenant Comminges were not the commanding officer at the outpost. The soldier replied by pointing out to him an officer who was conversing, on foot, his hand upon the neck of a horse on which the individual to whom he was talking sat. Here was the officer D’Artagnan was seeking.

“Here is Monsieur Comminges,” said D’Artagnan, returning to the cardinal. He instantly retired, from a feeling of respectful delicacy; it was, however, evident that the cardinal was recognized by both Comminges and the other officers on horseback.

“Well done, Guitant,” cried the cardinal to the equestrian; “I see plainly that, notwithstanding the sixty-four years that have passed over your head, you are still the same man, active and zealous. What were you saying to this youngster?”

“My lord,” replied Guitant, “I was observing that we live in troublous times and that to-day’s events are very like those in the days of the Ligue, of which I heard so much in my youth. Are you aware that the mob have even suggested throwing up barricades in the Rue Saint Denis and the Rue Saint Antoine?”

“And what was Comminges saying to you in reply, my good Guitant?”

“My lord,” said Comminges, “I answered that to compose a Ligue only one ingredient was wanting-in my opinion an essential one-a Duc de Guise; moreover, no generation ever does the same thing twice.”

“No, but they mean to make a Fronde, as they call it,” said Guitant.

“And what is a Fronde?” inquired Mazarin.

“My lord, Fronde is the name the discontented give to their party.”

“And what is the origin of this name?”

“It seems that some days since Councillor Bachaumont remarked at the palace that rebels and agitators reminded him of schoolboys slinging-qui frondent-stones from the moats round Paris, young urchins who run off the moment the constable appears, only to return to their diversion the instant his back is turned. So they have picked up the word and the insurrectionists are called ‘Frondeurs,’ and yesterday every article sold was ‘a la Fronde;’ bread ‘a la Fronde,’ hats ‘a la Fronde,’ to say nothing of gloves, pocket-handkerchiefs, and fans; but listen-”

At that moment a window opened and a man began to sing:

| “A tempest from the Fronde

| Did blow to-day:

| I think ‘twill blow