The Man in the Iron Mask

“Your majesty has kept more than your word, for your majesty has had me arrested,” said D’Artagnan, with his cold, bantering air; “you did not promise me that, sire.”

The king would not condescend to perceive the pleasantry, and continued, seriously, “You see, monsieur, to what grave steps your disobedience forces me.”

“My disobedience!” cried D’Artagnan, red with anger.

“It is the mildest term that I can find,” pursued the king. “My idea was to take and punish rebels; was I bound to inquire whether these rebels were your friends or not?”

“But I was,” replied D’Artagnan. “It was a cruelty on your majesty’s part to send me to capture my friends and lead them to your gibbets.”

“It was a trial I had to make, monsieur, of pretended servants, who eat my bread and should defend my person. The trial has succeeded ill, Monsieur d’Artagnan.”

“For one bad servant your majesty loses,” said the musketeer, with bitterness, “there are ten who, on that same day, go through a like ordeal. Listen to me, sire; I am not accustomed to that service. Mine is a rebel sword when I am required to do ill. It was ill to send me in pursuit of two men whose lives M. Fouquet, your majesty’s preserver, implored you to save. Still further, these men were my friends. They did not attack your majesty, they succumbed to your blind anger. Besides, why were they not allowed to escape? What crime had they committed? I admit you may contest with me the right of judging their conduct. But why suspect me before the action? Why surround me with spies? Why disgrace me before the army? Why me, in whom till now you showed the most entire confidence – who for thirty years have been attached to your person, and have given you a thousand proofs of my devotion – for it must be said, now that I am accused – why reduce me to see three thousand of the king’s soldiers march in battle against two men?”

“One would say you have forgotten what these men have done to me!” said the king, in a hollow voice, “and that it was no merit of theirs I was not lost.”

“Sire, one would imagine you forget that I was there.”

“Enough, Monsieur d’Artagnan, enough of these dominating interests which arise to keep the sun itself from my interests. I am founding a state in which there shall be but one master, as I promised you; the moment is at hand for me to keep my promise. You wish to be, according to your tastes or private friendships, free to destroy my plans and save my enemies? I will thwart you or will drop you – seek a more compliant master. I know full well that another king would not conduct himself as I do, and would allow himself to be dominated by you, at the risk of sending you some day to keep company with M. Fouquet and the rest; but I have an excellent memory, and for me, services are sacred titles to gratitude, to impunity. You shall only have this lesson, Monsieur d’Artagnan, as the punishment of your want of discipline, and I will not imitate my predecessors in anger, not having imitated them in favor. And, then, other reasons make me act mildly towards you; in the first place, because you are a man of sense, a man of excellent sense, a man of heart, and that you will be a capital servant to him who shall have mastered you; secondly, because you will cease to have any motives for insubordination. Your friends are now destroyed or ruined by me. These supports on which your capricious mind instinctively relied I have caused to disappear. At this moment, my soldiers have taken or killed the rebels of Belle-Isle.”

D’Artagnan became pale. “Taken or killed!” cried he. “Oh! sire, if you thought what you tell, if you were sure you were telling me the truth, I should forget all that is just, all that is magnanimous in your words, to call you a barbarous king, and an unnatural man. But I pardon you these words,” said he, smiling with pride; “I pardon them to a young prince who does not know, who cannot comprehend what such men as M. d’Herblay, M. du Vallon, and myself are. Taken or killed! Ah! Ah! sire! tell me, if the news is true, how much has it cost you in men and money. We will then reckon if the game has been worth the stakes.”

As he spoke thus, the king went up to him in great anger, and said, “Monsieur d’Artagnan, your replies are those of a rebel! Tell me, if you please, who is king of France? Do you know any other?”

“Sire,” replied the captain of the musketeers, coldly, “I very well remember that one morning at Vaux you addressed that question to many people who did not answer to it, whilst I, on my part, did answer to it. If I recognized my king on that day, when the thing was not easy, I think it would be useless to ask the question of me now, when your majesty and I are alone.”

At these words Louis cast down his eyes. It appeared to him that the shade of the unfortunate Philippe passed between D’Artagnan and himself, to evoke the remembrance of that terrible adventure. Almost at the same moment an officer entered and placed a dispatch in the hands of the king, who, in his turn, changed color, while reading it.

“Monsieur,” said he, “what I learn here you would know later; it is better I should tell you, and that you should learn it from the mouth of your king. A battle has taken place at Belle-Isle.”

“Is it possible?” said D’Artagnan, with a calm air, though his heart was beating fast enough to choke him. “Well, sire?”

“Well, monsieur – and I have lost a hundred and ten men.”

A beam of joy and pride shone in the eyes of D’Artagnan. “And the rebels?” said he.

“The rebels have fled,” said the king.

D’Artagnan could not restrain a cry of triumph. “Only,” added the king, “I have a fleet which closely blockades Belle-Isle, and I am certain not a bark can escape.”

“So that,” said the musketeer, brought back to his dismal idea, “if these two gentlemen are taken – ”

“They will be hanged,” said the king, quietly.

“And do they know it?” replied D’Artagnan, repressing his trembling.

“They know it, because you must have told them yourself; and all the country knows it.”

“Then, sire, they will never be taken alive, I will answer for that.”

“Ah!” said the king, negligently, and taking up his letter again. “Very well, they will be dead, then, Monsieur d’Artagnan, and that will come to the same thing, since I should only take them to have them hanged.”

D’Artagnan wiped the sweat which flowed from his brow.

“I have told you,” pursued Louis XIV., “that I would one day be an affectionate, generous, and constant master. You are now the only man of former times worthy of my anger or my friendship. I will not spare you either sentiment, according to your conduct. Could you serve a king, Monsieur d’Artagnan, who should have a hundred kings, his equals, in the kingdom? Could I, tell me, do with such weak instruments the great things I meditate? Did you ever see an artist effect great works with an unworthy tool? Far from us, monsieur, the old leaven of feudal abuse! The Fronde, which threatened to ruin monarchy, has emancipated it. I am master at home, Captain d’Artagnan, and I shall have servants who, lacking, perhaps, your genius, will carry devotion and obedience to the verge of heroism. Of what consequence, I ask you, of what consequence is it that God has given no sense to arms and legs? It is to the head he has given genius, and the head, you know, the rest obey. I am the head.”

D’Artagnan started. Louis XIV. continued as if he had seen nothing, although this emotion had not by any means escaped him. “Now, let us conclude between us two the bargain I promised to make with you one day when you found me in a very strange predicament at Blois. Do me justice, monsieur, when you admit I do not make any one pay for the tears of shame that I then shed. Look around you; lofty heads have bowed. Bow yours, or choose such exile as will suit you. Perhaps, when reflecting upon it, you will find your king has a generous heart, who reckons sufficiently upon your loyalty to allow you to leave him dissatisfied, when you possess a great state secret. You are a brave man; I know you to be so. Why have you judged me prematurely? Judge me from this day forward, D’Artagnan, and be as severe as you please.”

D’Artagnan remained bewildered, mute, undecided for the first time in his life. At last he had found an adversary worthy of him. This was no longer trick, it was calculation; no longer violence, but strength; no longer passion, but will; no longer boasting, but council. This young man who had brought down a Fouquet, and could do without a D’Artagnan, deranged the somewhat headstrong calculations of the musketeer.

“Come, let us see what stops you?” said the king, kindly. “You have given in your resignation; shall I refuse to accept it? I admit that it may be hard for such an old captain to recover lost good-humor.”

“Oh!” replied D’Artagnan, in a melancholy tone, “that is not my most serious care. I hesitate to take back my resignation because I am old in comparison with you, and have habits difficult to abandon. Henceforward, you must have courtiers who know how to amuse you – madmen who will get themselves killed to carry out what you call your great works. Great they will be, I feel – but, if by chance I should not think them so? I have seen war, sire, I have seen peace; I have served Richelieu and Mazarin; I have been scorched with your father, at the fire of Rochelle; riddled with sword-thrusts like a sieve, having grown a new skin ten times, as serpents do. After affronts and injustices, I have a command which was formerly something, because it gave the bearer the right of speaking as he liked to his king. But your captain of the musketeers will henceforward be an officer guarding the outer doors. Truly, sire, if that is to be my employment from this time, seize the opportunity of our being on good terms, to take it from me. Do not imagine that I bear malice; no, you have tamed me, as you say; but it must be confessed that in taming me you have lowered me; by bowing me you have convicted me of weakness. If you knew how well it suits me to carry my head high, and what a pitiful mien I shall have while scenting the dust of your carpets! Oh! sire, I regret sincerely, and you will regret as I do, the old days when the king of France saw in every vestibule those insolent gentlemen, lean, always swearing – cross-grained mastiffs, who could bite mortally in the hour of danger or of battle. These men were the best of courtiers to the hand which fed them – they would lick it; but for the hand that struck them, oh! the bite that followed! A little gold on the lace of their cloaks, a slender stomach in their hauts-de-chausses, a little sparkling of gray in their dry hair, and you will behold the handsome dukes and peers, the haughty marechaux of France. But why should I tell you all this? The king is master; he wills that I should make verses, he wills that I should polish the mosaics of his ante-chambers with satin shoes. Mordioux! that is difficult, but I have got over greater difficulties. I will do it. Why should I do it? Because I love money? – I have enough. Because I am ambitious? – my career is almost at an end. Because I love the court? No. I will remain here because I have been accustomed for thirty years to go and take the orderly word of the king, and to have said to me ‘Good evening, D’Artagnan,’ with a smile I did not beg for. That smile I will beg for! Are you content, sire?” And D’Artagnan bowed his silver head, upon which the smiling king placed his white hand with pride.

“Thanks, my old servant, my faithful friend,” said he. “As, reckoning from this day, I have no longer any enemies in France, it remains with me to send you to a foreign field to gather your marshal’s baton. Depend upon me for finding you an opportunity. In the meanwhile, eat of my very best bread, and sleep in absolute tranquillity.”

“That is all kind and well!” said D’Artagnan, much agitated. “But those poor men at Belle-Isle? One of them, in particular – so good! so brave! so true!”

“Do you ask their pardon of me?”

“Upon my knees, sire!”

“Well! then, go and take it to them, if it be still in time. But do you answer for them?”

“With my life, sire.”

“Go, then. To-morrow I set out for Paris. Return by that time, for I do not wish you to leave me in the future.”

“Be assured of that, sire,” said D’Artagnan, kissing the royal hand.

And with a heart swelling with joy, he rushed out of the castle on his way to Belle-Isle.

Chapter LIV. M. Fouquet’s Friends

The king had returned to Paris, and with him D’Artagnan, who, in twenty-four hours, having made with greatest care all possible inquiries at Belle-Isle, succeeded in learning nothing of the secret so well kept by the heavy rock of Locmaria, which had fallen on the heroic Porthos. The captain of the musketeers only knew what those two valiant men – these two friends, whose defense he had so nobly taken up, whose lives he had so earnestly endeavored to save – aided by three faithful Bretons, had accomplished against a whole army. He had seen, spread on the neighboring heath, the human remains which had stained with clouted blood the scattered stones among the flowering broom. He learned also that a bark had been seen far out at sea, and that, like a bird of prey, a royal vessel had pursued, overtaken, and devoured the poor little bird that was flying with such palpitating wings. But there D’Artagnan’s certainties ended. The field of supposition was thrown open. Now, what could he conjecture? The vessel had not returned. It is true that a brisk wind had prevailed for three days; but the corvette was known to be a good sailer and solid in its timbers; it had no need to fear a gale of wind, and it ought, according to the calculation of D’Artagnan, to have either returned to Brest, or come back to the mouth of the Loire. Such was the news, ambiguous, it is true, but in some degree reassuring to him personally, which D’Artagnan brought to Louis XIV., when the king, followed by all the court, returned to Paris.

Louis, satisfied with his success – Louis, more mild and affable as he felt himself more powerful – had not ceased for an instant to ride beside the carriage door of Mademoiselle de la Valliere. Everybody was anxious to amuse the two queens, so as to make them forget this abandonment by son and husband. Everything breathed the future, the past was nothing to anybody. Only that past was like a painful bleeding wound to the hearts of certain tender and devoted spirits. Scarcely was the king reinstalled in Paris, when he received a touching proof of this. Louis XIV. had just risen and taken his first repast when his captain of the musketeers presented himself before him. D’Artagnan was pale and looked unhappy. The king, at the first glance, perceived the change in a countenance generally so unconcerned. “What is the matter, D’Artagnan?” said he.

“Sire, a great misfortune has happened to me.”

“Good heavens! what is that?”

“Sire, I have lost one of my friends, M. du Vallon, in the affair of Belle-Isle.”

And, while speaking these words, D’Artagnan fixed his falcon eye upon Louis XIV., to catch the first feeling that would show itself.

“I knew it,” replied the king, quietly.

“You knew it, and did not tell me!” cried the musketeer.