The king was seated in his cabinet, with his back turned toward the door of entrance. In front of him was a mirror, in which, while turning over his papers, he could see with a glance those who came in. He did not take any notice of the entrance of D'Artagnan, but laid over his letters and plans the large silk cloth which he made use of to conceal his secrets from the importunate. D'Artagnan understood his play, and kept in the background; so that, at the end of a minute, the king, who heard nothing, and saw nothing but with the corner of his eye, was obliged to cry, "Is not M. D'Artagnan there?"
"I am here, sire," replied the musketeer, advancing.
"Well, monsieur," said the king, fixing his clear eye upon D'Artagnan, "what have you to say to me?"
"I, sire!" replied the latter, who watched the first blow of his adversary to make a good retort; "I have nothing to say to your majesty, unless it be that you have caused me to be arrested, and here I am."
The king was going to reply that he had not had D'Artagnan arrested, but the sentence appeared too much like an excuse, and he was silent. D'Artagnan likewise preserved an obstinate silence.
"Monsieur," at length resumed the king, "what did I charge you to go and do at Belle-Isle? Tell me, if you please."
The king, while speaking these words, looked fixedly at his captain. Here D'Artagnan was too fortunate; the king seemed to place the game in his hands.
"I believe," replied he, "that your majesty does me the honor to ask what I went to Belle-Isle to do?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"Well! sire, I know nothing about it; it is not of me that question should be asked, but of that infinite number of officers of all kinds to whom have been given an infinite number of orders of all kinds, while to me, head of the expedition, nothing precise was ordered."
The king was wounded; he showed it by his reply. "Monsieur," said he, "orders have only been given to such as were judged faithful."
"And, therefore, I have been astonished, sire," retorted the musketeer, "that a captain like myself, who rank with a maréchal of France, should have found himself under the orders of five or six lieutenants or majors, good to make spies of, possibly, but not at all fit to conduct warlike expeditions. It was upon this subject I came to demand an explanation of your majesty, when I found the door closed against me, which, the last insult offered to a brave man, has led me to quit your majesty's service."
"Monsieur," replied the king, "you still believe you are living in an age when kings were, as you complain of having been, under the orders and at the discretion of their inferiors. You appear too much to forget that a king owes an account of his actions to none but God."
"I forget nothing at all, sire," said the musketeer, wounded by this lesson. "Besides, I do not see in what an honest man, when he asks of his king how he has ill served him, offends him."
"You have ill served me, monsieur, by taking part with my enemies against me."
"Who are your enemies, sire?"
"The men I sent you to fight with."
"Two men the enemies of the whole of your majesty's army! That is incredible."
"You have no power to judge of my will."
"But I have to judge of my own friendships, sire."
"He who serves his friends does not serve his master."
"I have so well understood that, sire,that I have respectfully offered your majesty my resignation."
"And I have accepted it, monsieur," said the king. "Before being separated from you I was willing to prove to you that I know how to keep my word."
"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," said he, "to what your disobedience has forced me."
"My disobedience!" cried D'Artagnan, red with anger.
"That is the mildest name 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 take 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 ought to defend my person. The trial has succeeded ill, M. d'Artagnan."
"For one bad servant your majesty loses," said the musketeer, with bitterness, "there are ten who have, on that same day, gone through their 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, had implored you to save. Still further, these men were my friends. They did not attack your majesty, they succumbed to a blind anger. Besides, why were they not allowed to escape? What crime had they committed? I admit that you may contest with me the right of judging of their conduct. But why suspect me before the action? Why surround me with spies? Why disgrace me before the army? Why me, in whom you have to this time showed the most entire confidence—mewho for thirty years have been attached to your person, and have given you a thousand proofs of devotedness—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, that I was not lost."
"Sire, one would say that you forget I was there."
"Enough, M. d'Artagnan, enough of these dominating interests which arise to keep the sun from my interests. I am founding a state in which there shall be but one master, as I promised you formerly; the moment is come for keeping my promise. You wish to be, according to your tastes or your friendships, free to destroy my plans and save my enemies? I will thwart you or will leave 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 over by you, at the risk of sending you some day to keep company with M. Fouquet and the others; but I have a good 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 their anger, not having imitated them in their favor. And, then, other reasons make me act mildly toward you; in the first place, because you are a man of sense, a man of great sense, a man of heart, and that you will be a good servant for him who shall have mastered you; secondly, because you will cease to have any motives for insubordination. Your friends are destroyed or ruined by me. These supports upon which your capricious mind instinctively relied I have made 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 me, 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. de Valon, and myself are. Taken or killed! Ah! ah! sire! tell me, if the news is true, how much it has 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, while 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 it of me now, when your majesty is alone with me."
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."
"Oh! ah!" said D'Artagnan, with a calm air, though his heart beat enough to break through his chest. "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 no bark can escape."
"So that," said the musketeer, brought back to his dismal ideas, "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 be sparing of either to you, 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 weakness, the great things I meditate? Have you ever seen an artist effect solid works with a rebellious instrument? Far from us, monsieur, those old leavens of feudal abuses! The Fronde, which threatened to ruin the monarchy, has emancipated it. I am master at home, Captain d'Artagnan, and I shall have servants who, wanting, perhaps, your genius, will carry devotedness and obedience up to heroism. Of what consequence, I ask you, of what consequence is it that God has given no genius to arms and legs? It is to the head he has given it, and the head, you know, all the rest obey. I am the head."
D'Artagnan started. Louis XIV. continued as if he had seen nothing, although this emotion had not at all escaped him."Now, let us conclude between us two that bargain which I promised to make with you one day when you found me very little at Blois. Do me justice, monsieur, when you think that I do not make any one pay for the tears of shame I then shed. Look around you; lofty heads have bowed; bow yours, or choose the exile that will best suit you. Perhaps, when reflecting upon it, you will find that this king is 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 knew you to be so. Why have you judged me before term? 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. He had just found an adversary worthy of him. This was no longer trick, it was calculation; it was no longer violence, it was strength; it was no longer passion, it was will; it was no longer boasting, it was council. This young man who had brought down Fouquet, and could do without D'Artagnan, deranged all 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 an old captain to recover his 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 that I 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 thrusts like a sieve, having made a new skin ten times, as serpents do. After affronts andinjustices, 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 lower doors. Truly, sire, if that is to be the 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 lessened 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, those times when the king of France saw in his vestibules all those insolent gentlemen, lean, always swearing—cross-grained mastiffs, who could bite mortally in days of battle. Those men were the best of courtiers for 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 theirhauts-de-chausses, a little sprinkling of gray in their dry hair, and you will behold the handsome dukes and peers, the haughtymaréchauxof France. But why should I tell you all this? The king is my master; he wills that I should make verses, he wills that I should polish the mosaics of his antechambers with satin shoes. Mordioux! that is difficult, but I have got over greater difficulties than that. I will do it. Why should I do it? Because I love money?—I have enough. Because I am ambitious?—my career is bounded. Because I love the court? No. I will remain 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 silvered 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 yourmaréchal'sbâton. Depend upon me for finding you an opportunity. In the meanwhile, eat of my best bread and sleep tranquilly."
"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 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 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.
The king had returned to Paris, and with him D'Artagnan, who, in twenty-four hours, having made with the greatest care all possible inquiries at Belle-Isle, had learned 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—what 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 been able to see, launched on to the neighboring heath, the human remains which had stained with blood the stones scattered 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 this poor little bird which was flying with rapid wings. But there D'Artagnan's certainties ended. The field of conjectures was thrown open at this boundary. 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 could not fear gales 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 were 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 more affable since he felt himself more powerful—had not ceased for an instant to ride close to the carriage door of Mademoiselle de la Valliere. Everybody had been anxious to amuse the two queens, so as to make them forget this abandonment of the son and the husband. Everything breathed of the future; the past was nothing to anybody. Only that past came like a painful and bleeding wound to the hearts of some tender and devoted spirits. Scarcely was the king re-installed 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. de Valon, 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.
"To what good? Your grief, my friend, is so respectable! It was my duty to treat it kindly. To have informed you of this misfortune, which I knew would pain you so greatly, D'Artagnan, would have been, in your eyes, to have triumphed over you. Yes, I knew that M. de Valon had buried himself beneath the rocks of Locmaria; I knew that M. d'Herblay had taken one of my vessels with its crew, and had compelled it to convey him to Bayonne. But, I was willing you should learn these matters in a direct manner, in order that you might be convinced my friends are with me respected and sacred; that always in me the man will immolate himself to men, while the king is so often found to sacrifice men to his majesty and power."
"But, sire, how could you know?"
"How do you yourself know, D'Artagnan?"
"By this letter, sire, which M. d'Herblay, free and out of danger, writes me from Bayonne."
"Look here," said the king, drawing from a casket placed upon the table close to the seat upon which D'Artagnan was leaning, "here is a letter copied exactly from that of M. d'Herblay. Here is the very letter, which Colbert placed in my hands a week before you received yours. I am well served, you may perceive."
"Yes, sire," murmured the musketeer, "you were the only man whose fortune was capable of dominating the fortunes and strength of my two friends. You have used it, sire, but you will not abuse it, will you?"
"D'Artagnan," said the king, with a smile beaming with kindness. "I could have M. d'Herblay carried off from the territories of the king of Spain, and brought here alive to inflict justice upon him. But, D'Artagnan, be assured I will not yield to this first and natural impulse. He is free, let him continue free."
"Oh, sire! you will not always remain so clement, so noble, so generous as you have shown yourself with respect to me and M. d'Herblay; you will have about you counselors who will cure you of that weakness."
"No, D'Artagnan, you are mistaken when you accuse my council of urging me to pursue rigorous measures. The advice to spare M. d'Herblay comes from Colbert himself."
"Oh, sire!" said D'Artagnan, extremely surprised.
"As for you," continued the king, with a kindness very uncommon with him, "I have several pieces of good news to announce to you; but you shall know them, my dear captain, the moment I have made my accounts all straight. I have said that I wish to make, and would make, your fortune: that promise will soon be a reality."
"A thousand times thanks, sire! I can wait. But I implore you, while I go and practice patience, that your majesty will deign to notice those poor people who have for so long a time besieged your ante-chamber, and come humbly to lay a petition at your feet."
"Who are they?"
"Enemies of your majesty."
The king raised his head.
"Friends of M. Fouquet," added D'Artagnan.
"Their names?"
"M. Gourville, M. Pellisson, and a poet, M. Jean de la Fontaine."
The king took a moment to reflect. "What do they want?"
"I do not know."
"How do they appear?"
"In great affliction."
"What do they say?"
"Nothing."
"What do they do?"
"They weep."
"Let them come in," said the king, with a serious brow.
D'Artagnan turned rapidly on his heel, raised the tapestry which closed the entrance to the royal chamber, and directing his voice to the adjoining room, cried, "Introduce!"
The three men D'Artagnan had named soon appeared at the door of the cabinet in which were the king and his captain. A profound silence prevailed in their passage. The courtiers, at the approach of the friends of the unfortunate surintendant of the finances, the courtiers, we say, drew back, as if fearful of being infected by contagion with disgrace and misfortune. D'Artagnan, with a quick step, came forward to take by the hand the unhappy men who stood trembling at the door of the cabinet; he led them to the front of the fauteuil of the king who, having placed himself in the embrasure of a window, awaited the moment of presentation, and was preparing himself to give the supplicants a rigorously diplomatic reception.
The first of the friends of Fouquet that advanced was Pellisson. He did not weep, but his tears were only restrained that the king might the better hear his voice and his prayer. Gourville bit his lips to check his tears, out of respect for the king. La Fontaine buried his face in his handkerchief, and the only signs of life he gave were the convulsive motions of his shoulders, raised by his sobs.
The king had preserved all his dignity. His countenance was impassible. He had even maintained the frown which had appeared when D'Artagnan had announced his enemies to him. He made a gesture which signified, "Speak:" and he remained standing, with his eyes searchingly fixed upon these desponding men. Pellisson bowed down to the ground, and La Fontaine knelt as people do in churches. This obstinate silence, disturbed only by such dismal sighs and groans, began to excite in the king, not compassion, but impatience.
"Monsieur Pellisson," said he, in a sharp dry tone, "Monsieur Gourville, and you, Monsieur—" and he did not name La Fontaine, "I cannot, without sensible displeasure, see you come to plead for one of the greatest criminals that it is the duty of my justice to punish. A king does not allow himself to be softened but by tears and remorse; the tears of the innocent, the remorse of guilty. I have no faith either in the remorse of M. Fouquet or the tears of his friends, because the one is tainted to the very heart, and the others ought to dread coming to offend me in my own palace. For these reasons, I beg you, Monsieur Pellisson, Monsieur Gourville, and you, Monsieur—to say nothing that will not plainly proclaim the respect you have for my will."
"Sire," replied Pellisson, trembling at these terrible words, "we are come to say nothing to your majesty that is not the most profound expression of the most sincere respect and love which are due to a king from all his subjects. Your majesty's justice is redoubtable, every one must yield to the sentences it pronounces. We respectfully bow before it. Far from us be the idea of coming to defend him who has had the misfortune to offend your majesty. He who has incurred your displeasure may be a friend of ours, but he is an enemy to the state. We abandon him, but with tears, to the severity of the king."
"Besides," interrupted the king, calmed by that supplicating voice, and those persuasive words, "my parliament will decide. I do not strike without having weighed a crime; my justice does not wield the sword without having employed the scales."
"Therefore have we every confidence in that impartiality of the king, and hope to make our feeble voices heard, with the consent of your majesty, when the hour for defending an accused friend shall strike for us."
"In that case, messieurs, what do you ask of me?" said the king, with his most imposing air.
"Sire," continued Pellisson, "the accused leaves a wife and a family. The little property he had was scarcely sufficient to pay his debts, and Madame Fouquet, since the captivity of her husband, is abandoned by everybody. The hand of your majesty strikes like the hand of God. When the Lord sends the curse of leprosy or pestilence into a family, every one flies and shuns the abode of the leprous or the plague-stricken. Sometimes, but very rarely, a generous physician alone ventures to approach the accursed threshold, passes it with courage, and exposes his life to combat death. He is the last resource of the dying, he is the instrument of heavenly mercy. Sire, we supplicate you, with clasped hands and bendedknees, as a divinity is supplicated! Madame Fouquet has no longer any friends, no longer any support; she weeps in her poor deserted house, abandoned by all those who besieged its doors in the hour of prosperity; she has neither credit nor hope left. At least, the unhappy wretch upon whom your anger falls, receives from you, however culpable he may be, the daily bread which is moistened by his tears. As much afflicted, more destitute than her husband, Madame Fouquet—she who had the honor to receive your majesty at her table—Madame Fouquet, the wife of the ancient surintendant of your majesty's finances, Madame Fouquet has no longer bread."
Here the mortal silence which enchained the breath of Pellisson's two friends was broken by an outburst of sobs: and D'Artagnan, whose chest heaved at hearing this humble prayer, turned round toward the angle of the cabinet to bite his mustache and conceal his sighs.
The king had preserved his eye dry and his countenance severe; but the color had mounted to his cheeks, and the firmness of his look was visibly diminished.
"What do you wish?" said he, in an agitated voice.
"We come humbly to ask your majesty," replied Pellisson, upon whom emotion was fast gaining, "to permit us, without incurring the displeasure of your majesty, to lend to Madame Fouquet two thousand pistoles collected among the old friends of her husband, in order that the widow may not stand in need of the necessaries of life."
At the wordwidow, pronounced by Pellisson while Fouquet was still alive, the king turned very pale—his pride fell; pity rose from his heart to his lips; he cast a softened look upon the men who knelt sobbing at his feet.
"God forbid!" said he, "that I should confound the innocent with the guilty. They know me but ill who doubt my mercy toward the weak. I strike none but the arrogant. Do, messieurs, do all that your hearts counsel you to assuage the grief of Madame Fouquet. Go, messieurs—go!"
The three men arose in silence withdried eyes. The tears had been dried up by contact with their burning cheeks and eyelids. They had not the strength to address their thanks to the king, who himself cut short their solemn reverences by entrenching himself suddenly behind the fauteuil.
D'Artagnan remained alone with the king. "Well!" said he, approaching the young prince, who interrogated him with his look. "Well, my master! If you had not the device which belongs to your sun, I would recommend you one which M. Conrart should translate into Latin, 'Mild with the lowly; rough with the strong.'"
The king smiled, and passed into the next apartment after having said to D'Artagnan, "I give you the leave of absence you must want to put the affairs of your friend the late M. de Valon in order."
At Pierrefonds everything was in mourning. The courts were deserted—the stables closed—the parterres neglected. In the basins, the fountains, formerly so spreading, noisy, and sparkling, had stopped of themselves. Along the roads around the chateau came a few grave personages mounted upon mules or farm nags. These were country neighbors, curés, and bailiffs of adjacent estates. All these people entered the chateau silently, gave their nags to a melancholy-looking groom, and directed their steps, conducted by a huntsman in black, to the great dining-room, where Mousqueton received them at the door. Mousqueton had become so thin in two days that his clothes moved upon him like sheaths which are too large, and in which the blades of swords dance about at each motion. His face, composed of red and white, like that of the Madonna of Vandyke, was furrowed by two silver rivulets which had dug their beds in his cheeks, as full formerly as they had become flabby since his grief began. At each fresh arrival, Mousqueton found fresh tears, and it was pitiful to see him press his throat with his fat hand to keep from bursting into sobs and lamentations. All these visits were for the purpose of hearing the reading of Porthos' will, announced for that day, and at which all the covetousness and all the friendships connected with the defunct were anxious to be present, as he had left no relation behind him.
The visitors took their places as they arrived; and the great room had just been closed when the clock struck twelve, the hour fixed for the reading of the important document. Porthos' procureur—and that was naturally the successor of Master Coquenard—commenced by slowly unfolding the vast parchment upon which the powerful hand of Porthos had traced his sovereign will. The seal broken—the spectacles put on—the preliminary cough having sounded—every one opened his ears. Mousqueton had squatted himself in a corner, the better to weep and the better to hear. All at once the folding-doors of the great room, which had been shut, were thrown open as if by a prodigy, and a manly figure appeared upon the threshold, resplendent in the full light of the sun. This was D'Artagnan, who had come alone to the gate, and finding nobody to hold his stirrup, he had tied his horse to a knocker and announced himself. The splendor of the daylight invading the room, the murmur of all present, and, more than all that, the instinct of the faithful dog, drew Mousqueton from his reverie; he raised his head, recognized the old friend of his master, and, howling with grief, he embraced his knees, watering the floor with his tears. D'Artagnan raised up the poor intendant, embraced him as if he had been a brother, and, having nobly saluted the assembly, who all bowed as they whispered to each other his name, he went and took his seat at the extremity of the great carved oak hall, still holding by the hand poor Mousqueton, who was suffocating, and sunk down upon the steps. Then the procureur, who, like the rest, was considerably agitated, commenced the reading.
Porthos, after a profession of faith of the most Christian character, asked pardon of his enemies for all the injuries he might have done them. At this paragraph, a ray of inexpressible pride beamed from the eyes of D'Artagnan. He recalled to his mind the old soldier; all those enemies of Porthos brought to the earth by his valiant hand, he reckoned up the numbers of them, and said to himself that Porthos had acted wisely not to detail his enemies or the injuries done to them, or the task would have been too much for the reader. Then came the following enumeration:—
"I possess at this present time, by the grace of God:
"1. The domain of Pierrefonds, lands, woods, meadows, waters, and forests, surrounded by good walls.
"2. The domain of Bracieux, chateau, forests, plowed lands, forming three farms.
"3. The little estate, De Valon, so named because it is in the valley." (Brave Porthos!)
"4. Fifty farms in Touraine, amounting to five hundred acres.
"5. Three mills upon the Cher, bringing in six hundred livres each.
"6. Three fish-pools in Bern, producing two hundred livres a year.
"As to my personal or movable property, so called because it can be moved, as is so well explained by my learned friend the bishop of Vannes—" (D'Artagnan shuddered at the dismal remembrance attached to that name)—the procureur continued imperturbably—"they consist—
"1. In goods which I cannot detail here for want of room, and which furnish all my chateaux or houses, but of which the list is drawn up by my intendant."
Every one turned his eyes toward Mousqueton, who was absorbed in his grief.
"2. In twenty horses for saddle and draught, which I have particularly at my chateau of Pierrefonds, and which are called—Bayard, Roland, Charlemagne,Pepin, Dunois, La Hire, Ogier, Samson, Milo, Nimrod, Urganda, Armida, Falstrade, Dalilah, Rebecca, Yolande, Finette, Grisette, Lisette, and Musette.
"3. In sixty dogs, forming six packs, divided as follows: the first, for the stag: the second, for the wolf; the third, for the wild boar; the fourth, for the hare; and the two others, for setters and protection.
"4. In arms for war and the chase contained in my gallery of arms.
"5. My wines of Anjou, selected for Athos, who liked them formerly; my wines of Burgundy, Champagne, Bordeaux, and Spain, stocking eight cellars and twelve vaults, in my various houses.
"6. My pictures and statues, which are said to be of great value, and which are sufficiently numerous to fatigue the sight.
"7. My library, consisting of six thousand volumes, quite new, and have never been opened.
"8. My silver plate, which is perhaps a little worn, but which ought to weigh from a thousand to twelve hundred pounds, for I had great trouble in lifting the coffer that contained it, and could not carry it more than six times round my chamber.
"9. All these objects, in addition to the table and house linen, are divided in the residences I liked the best."
Here the reader stopped to take breath. Every one sighed, coughed, and redoubled his attention. The procureur resumed:
"I have lived without having any children, and it is probable I never shall have any, which to me is a cutting grief. And yet I am mistaken, for I have a son, in common with my other friends: that is M. Raoul Auguste Jules de Bragelonne, the true son of M. le Comte de la Fere.
"This young nobleman has appeared to me worthy to succeed to the three valiant gentlemen, of whom I am the friend and the very humble servant."
Here a sharp sound interrupted the reader. It was D'Artagnan's sword, which, slipping from his baldrick, had fallen on the sonorous flooring. Every one turned his eyes that way, and saw that a large tear had rolled from thethick lid of D'Artagnan on to his aquiline nose, the luminous edge of which shone like a crescent enlightened by the sun.
"This is why," continued the procureur, "I have left all my property, movable or immovable, comprised in the above enumerations, to M. le Vicomte Raoul Auguste Jules de Bragelonne, son of M. le Comte de la Fere, to console him for the grief he seems to suffer, and enable him to support his name gloriously." A long murmur ran through the auditory. The procureur continued, seconded by the flashing eye of D'Artagnan, which, glancing over the assembly, quickly restored the interrupted silence:
"On condition that M. le Vicomte de Bragelonne do give to M. le Chevalier d'Artagnan, captain of the king's musketeers, whatever the said Chevalier d'Artagnan may demand of my property. On condition that M. le Vicomte de Bragelonne do pay a good pension to M. le Chevalier d'Herblay, my friend, if he should need it in exile. I leave to my intendant Mousqueton all my clothes, of city, war, or chase, to the number of forty-seven suits, with the assurance that he will wear them till they are worn out, for the love of, and in remembrance of, his master. Moreover, I bequeath to M. le Vicomte de Bragelonne my old servant and faithful friend Mousqueton, already named, providing that the said vicomte shall so act that Mousqueton shall declare when dying he has never ceased to be happy."
On hearing these words, Mousqueton bowed, pale and trembling; his large shoulders shook convulsively; his countenance, impressed by a frightful grief, appeared from between his icy hands, and the spectators saw him stagger, and hesitate, as if, though wishing to leave the hall, he did not know the way.
"Mousqueton, my good friend," said D'Artagnan, "go and make your preparations. I will take you with me to Athos' house, whither I shall go on leaving Pierrefonds."
Mousqueton made no reply. He scarcely breathed, as if everything in that hall would from that time be foreign. He opened the door, and disappeared slowly. The procureur finished his reading, after which the greater part of those who had come to hear the last will of Porthos dispersed by degrees, many disappointed, but all penetrated with respect. As to D'Artagnan, left alone, after having received the formal compliments of the procureur, he was lost in admiration of the wisdom of the testator, who had so judiciously bestowed his wealth upon the most necessitous and the most worthy, with a delicacy that none among the most refined courtiers and the most noble hearts could have displayed more becomingly. When Porthos enjoined Raoul de Bragelonne to give to D'Artagnan all he would ask, he knew well, did that worthy Porthos, that D'Artagnan would ask or take nothing; and in case he did demand anything, none but himself could say what. Porthos left a pension to Aramis, who, if he should be inclined to ask too much, was checked by the example of D'Artagnan; and that wordexile, thrown out by the testator, without apparent intention, was it not the most mild, the most exquisite criticism upon that conduct of Aramis which had brought about the death of Porthos. But there was no mention of Athos in the testament of the dead. Could the latter for a moment suppose that the son would not offer the best part to the father? The rough mind of Porthos had judged all these causes, seized all these shades, better than the law, better than custom, better than taste.
"Porthos was a heart," said D'Artagnan to himself, with a sigh. As he made this reflection, he fancied he heard a groan in the room above him; and he thought immediately of poor Mousqueton, whom he felt it was a pleasing duty to divert from his grief. For this purpose he left the hall hastily to seek the worthy intendant, as he had not returned. He ascended the staircase leading to the first story, and perceived, in Porthos' own chamber, a heap of clothes of all colors and all materials, upon which Mousqueton had laid himself down after heaping them together. It was the legacy of the faithful friend. These clothes were truly his own; they had been given to him; the hand of Mousqueton was stretched over these relics, which he kissed with all his lips, with all his face, which he covered with his whole body. D'Artagnan approached to console the poor fellow.
"My God!" said he, "he does not stir—he has fainted!"
But D'Artagnan was mistaken—Mousqueton was dead! Dead, like the dog who, having lost his master, comes back to die upon his cloak.
While all these affairs were separating forever the four musketeers, formerly bound together in a manner that seemed indissoluble, Athos, left alone after the departure of Raoul, began to pay his tribute to that anticipated death which is called the absence of those we love. Returned to his house at Blois, no longer having even Grimaud to receive a poor smile when he passed through the parterre, Athos daily felt the decline of the vigor of a nature which for so long a time had appeared infallible. Age, which had been kept back by the presence of the beloved object, arrived with that cortege of pains and inconveniences, which increases in proportion as it makes itself looked for. Athos had no longer his son to induce him to walk firmly, with his head erect, as a good example; he had no longer, in those brilliant eyes of the young man, an ever-ardent focus at which to regenerate the fire of his looks. And then, must it be said, that nature, exquisite in its tenderness and its reserve, no longer finding anything that comprehended its feelings, gave itself up to grief with all the warmth of vulgar natures when they give themselves up to joy. The Comte de la Fere, who had remained a young man up to his sixty-second year; the warrior, who had preserved his strength in spite of fatigues, his freshness of mind in spite of misfortunes, hismild serenity of soul and body in spite of Milady, in spite of Mazarin, in spite of La Valliere; Athos had become an old man in a week, from the moment at which he had lost the support of his latter youth. Still handsome, though bent; noble, but sad; gently, and tottering under his gray hairs, he sought, since his solitude, the glades where the rays of the sun penetrated through the foliage of the walks. He discontinued all the strong exercises he had enjoyed through life, when Raoul was no longer with him. The servants, accustomed to see him stirring with the dawn at all seasons, were astonished to hear seven o'clock strike before their master had quitted his bed. Athos remained in bed with a book under his pillow, but he did not sleep, neither did he read. Remaining in bed that he might no longer have to carry his body, he allowed his soul and spirit to wander from their envelope, and return to his son, or to God.
His people were sometimes terrified to see him, for hours together, absorbed in a silent reverie, mute and insensible; he no longer heard the timid step of the servant who came to the door of his chamber to watch the sleeping or waking of his master. It often occurred that he forgot that the day had half passed away, that the hours for the two first meals were gone by. Then he was awakened. He rose, descended to his shady walk, then came out a little into the sun, as if to partake its warmth for a minute with his absent child. And then the dismal, monotonous walk recommenced, until, quite exhausted, he regained the chamber and the bed, his domicile by choice. For several days the comte did not speak a single word. He refused to receive the visits that were paid him, and, during the night, he was seen to relight his lamp and pass long hours in writing, or examining parchments.
Athos wrote one of these letters to Vannes, another to Fontainebleau; they remained without answers. We know why: Aramis had quitted France, and D'Artagnan was traveling from Nantes to Paris, from Paris to Pierrefonds. Hisvalet-de-chambre observed that he shortened his walk every day by several turns. The great alley of limes soon became too long for feet that used to traverse it formerly a hundred times in a day. The comte walked feebly as far as the middle trees, seated himself upon a mossy bank which sloped toward a lateral walk, and there waited the return of his strength, or rather the return of night. Very shortly, a hundred steps exhausted him. At length Athos refused to rise at all; he declined all nourishment, and his terrified people, although he did not complain, although he had a smile on his lips, although he continued to speak with his sweet voice—his people went to Blois in search of the ancient physician of the late Monsieur, and brought him to the Comte de la Fere in such a fashion that he could see the comte without being himself seen. For this purpose, they placed him in a closet adjoining the chamber of the patient, and implored him not to show himself, in the fear of displeasing their master, who had not asked for a physician. The doctor obeyed; Athos was a sort of model for the gentlemen of the country; the Blaisois boasted of possessing this sacred relic of the old French glories. Athos was a great seigneur compared with such nobles as the king improvised by touching with his yellow fecundating scepter the dry trunks of the heraldic trees of the province.
People respected, we say, if they did not love Athos. The physician could not bear to see his people weep, and to see flock round him the poor of the canton, to whom Athos gave life and consolation by his kind words and his charities. He examined, therefore, from the depths of his hiding-place, the nature of that mysterious malady which bent down and devoured more mortally every day a man but lately so full of life, and of a desire to live. He remarked upon the cheeks of Athos the purple of fever, which fires itself and feeds itself; slow fever, pitiless, born in a fold of the heart, sheltering itself behind that rampart, growing from the suffering it engenders, at once cause and effect of a perilous situation. The comte spoke to nobody, we say; he did not even talk to himself. His thought feared noise; it approached to that degree of over-excitement which borders upon ecstasy. Man thus absorbed, though he does not yet belong to God, already belongs no longer to earth. The doctor remained for several hours studying this painful struggle of the will against a superior power; he was terrified at seeing those eyes always fixed, always directed toward an invisible object; he was terrified at seeing beat with the same movement that heart from which never a sigh arose to vary the melancholy state; sometimes the acuteness of pain creates the hope of the physician. Half a day passed away thus. The doctor formed his resolution like a brave man, like a man of firm mind; he issued suddenly from his place of retreat, and went straight up to Athos, who saw him without evincing more surprise than if he had understood nothing of the apparition.
"Monsieur le Comte, I crave your pardon," said the doctor, coming up to the patient with open arms; "but I have a reproach to make you—you shall hear me." And he seated himself by the pillow of Athos, who had great trouble in rousing himself from his preoccupation.
"What is the matter, doctor?" asked the comte, after a silence.
"Why, the matter is, you are ill, monsieur, and have had no advice."
"I! ill!" said Athos, smiling.
"Fever, consumption, weakness, decay, Monsieur le Comte."
"Weakness!" replied Athos; "is that possible? I do not get up."
"Come, come, M. le Comte, no subterfuges; you are a good Christian?"
"I hope so," said Athos.
"Would you kill yourself?"
"Never, doctor."
"Well, monsieur, you are in a fair way of doing so; to remain thus is suicide; get well! M. le Comte, get well!"
"Of what? Find the disease first. For my part, I never knew myself better; never did the sky appear more blue to me; never did I take more care of my flowers."
"You have a concealed grief."
"Concealed!—not at all; I have the absence of my son, doctor; that is my malady, and I do not conceal it."
"M. le Comte, your son lives, he is strong, he has all the future before him of men of his merit, and of his race; live for him—"
"But I do live, doctor; oh! be satisfied of that," added he, with a melancholy smile; "as long as Raoul lives, it will be plainly known, for as long as he lives, I shall live."
"What do you say?"
"A very simple thing. At this moment, doctor, I leave life suspended in me. A forgetful, dissipated, indifferent life would be above my strength now I have no longer Raoul with me. You do not ask the lamp to burn when the spark has not enlightened the flame; do not ask me to live amid noise and light. I vegetate, I prepare myself, I wait. Look, doctor; remember those soldiers we have so often seen together at the ports, where they were waiting to embark; lying down, indifferent, half upon one element, half upon the other; they were neither at the place where the sea was going to carry them, nor at the place where the earth was going to lose them; baggages prepared, minds upon the stretch, looks fixed—they waited. I repeat it, that word is the one which paints my present life. Lying down, like the soldiers, my ear on the stretch for the reports that may reach me, I wish to be ready to set out at the first summons. Who will make me that summons? life or death? God or Raoul? My baggage is packed, my soul is prepared, I await the signal—I wait, doctor, I wait!"
The doctor knew the temper of that mind; he appreciated the strength of that body; he reflected for a moment, told himself that words were useless, remedies absurd, and he left the chateau, exhorting Athos' servants not to leave him for a moment.
The doctor being gone, Athos evinced neither anger nor vexation at having been disturbed. He did not even desire that all letters that came should be broughtto him directly. He knew very well that every distraction which should arrive would be a joy, a hope, which his servants would have paid with their blood to procure him. Sleep had become rare. By intense thinking, Athos forgot himself, for a few hours at most, in a reverie more profound, more obscure than other people would have called a dream. This momentary repose which this forgetfulness afforded the body, fatigued the soul, for Athos lived a double life during these wanderings of his understanding. One night, he dreamed that Raoul was dressing himself in a tent, to go upon an expedition commanded by M. de Beaufort in person. The young man was sad; he clasped his cuirass slowly, and slowly he girded on his sword.
"What is the matter?" asked his father, tenderly.
"What afflicts me is the death of Porthos, ever so dear a friend," replied Raoul. "I suffer here of the grief you will feel at home."
And the vision disappeared with the slumber of Athos. At daybreak one of his servants entered his master's apartments, and gave him a letter which came from Spain.
"The writing of Aramis," thought the comte; and he read.
"Porthos is dead!" cried he, after the first lines. "Oh! Raoul, Raoul! thanks! thou keepest thy promise, thou warnest me!"
And Athos, seized with a mortal sweat, fainted in his bed, without any other cause than his weakness.
When this fainting of Athos had ceased, the comte, almost ashamed of having given way before this supernatural event, dressed himself and ordered his horse, determined to ride to Blois, to open more certain correspondence with either Africa, D'Artagnan, or Aramis. In fact, thisletter from Aramis informed the Comte de la Fere of the bad success of the expedition of Belle-Isle. It gave him sufficient details of the death of Porthos, to move the tender and devoted heart of Athos to its last fibers. Athos wished to go and pay his friend Porthos a last visit. To render this honor to his companion in arms, he meant to send to D'Artagnan, to prevail upon him to recommence the painful voyage to Belle-Isle, to accomplish in his company that sad pilgrimage to the tomb of the giant he had so much loved, then to return to his dwelling to obey that secret influence which was conducting him to eternity by a mysterious road. But scarcely had his joyous servants dressed their master, whom they saw with pleasure preparing himself for a journey which might dissipate his melancholy; scarcely had the comte's gentlest horse been saddled and brought to the door, than the father of Raoul felt his head become confused, his legs give way, and he clearly perceived the impossibility of going one step farther. He ordered himself to be carried into the sun; they laid him upon his bed of moss, where he passed a full hour before he could recover his spirits. Nothing could be more natural than this weakness after the inert repose of the latter days. Athos took a bouillon, to give him strength, and bathed his dried lips in a glassful of the wine he loved the best—that old Anjou wine mentioned by Porthos in his admirable will. Then, refreshed, free in mind, he had his horse brought again; but it required the aid of his servants to mount painfully into the saddle. He did not go a hundred paces; a shivering seized him again at the turning of the road. "This is very strange!" said he to his valet-de-chambre, who accompanied him.
"Let us stop, monsieur—I conjure you!" replied the faithful servant; "how pale you are getting!"
"That will not prevent my pursuing my route, now I have once started," replied the comte. And he gave his horse his head again. But suddenly, the animal, instead of obeying the thought of his master, stopped. A movement, of which Athos was unconscious, had checked the bit.
"Something," said Athos, "wills that I should go no further. Support me," added he, stretching out his arms; "quick! come closer! I feel all my muscles relax, and I shall fall from my horse."
The valet had seen the movement made by his master at the moment he received the order. He went up to him quickly, received the comte in his arms, and as they were not yet sufficiently distant from the house for the servants, who had remained at the door to watch their master's departure, not to perceive the disorder in the usually regular proceeding of the comte, the valet called his comrades by gestures and voice, and all hastened to his assistance. Athos had gone but a few steps on his return, when he felt himself better again. His strength seemed to revive, and with it the desire to go to Blois. He made his horse turn round, but, at the animal's first steps, he sunk again into a state of torpor and anguish.
"Well! decidedly," said he, "it iswilledthat I should stay at home." His people flocked around him; they lifted him from his horse and carried him as quickly as possible into the house. Everything was soon prepared in his chamber, and they put him to bed.
"You will be sure to remember," said he, disposing himself to sleep, "that I expect letters from Africa this very day."
"Monsieur will no doubt hear with pleasure that Blaisois' son is gone on horseback, to gain an hour over the courier of Blois," replied his valet-de-chambre.
"Thank you," replied Athos, with his bland smile.
The comte fell asleep, but his disturbed slumber resembled suffering more than repose. The servant who watched him saw several times the expression of interior torture thrown out upon his features. Perhaps Athos was dreaming. The day passed away. Blaisois' son returned: the courier had brought no news. The comte reckoned the minutes with despair; he shuddered when those minutes had formed an hour. The idea that he was forgotten seized him once, and brought on a fearful pang of the heart. Everybody in the house had given up all hopes of the courier—his hour had long passed. Four times the express sent to Blois had reiterated his journey, and there was nothing to the address of the comte. Athos knew that the courier only arrived once a week. Here, then, was a delay of eight mortal days to be endured. He recommenced the night in this painful persuasion. All that a sick man, irritated by suffering, can add of melancholy suppositions to probabilities always sad, Athos heaped up during the early hours of this dismal night. The fever rose; it invaded the chest, where the fire soon caught, according to the expression of the physician, who had been brought back from Blois by Blaisois at his last journey. It soon gained the head. The physician made two successive bleedings, which unlodged it, but left the patient very weak, and without power of action in anything but his brain. And yet this redoubtable fever had ceased. It besieged with its last palpitations the stiffened extremities; it ended by yielding as midnight struck.
The physician, seeing the incontestable improvement, returned to Blois, after having ordered some prescriptions, and declared that the comte was saved. Then commenced for Athos a strange, indefinable state. Free to think, his mind turned toward Raoul, that beloved son. His imagination painted the fields of Africa in the environs of Gigelli, where M. de Beaufort must have landed his army. There were gray rocks, rendered green in certain parts by the waters of the sea, when it lashed the shore in storms and tempests. Beyond the shore, strewed over with these rocks like tombs, ascended, in form of an amphitheater, among mastick-trees and cactus, a sort of small town, full of smoke, confused noises and terrified movements. All on a sudden, from the bosom of this smoke arose a flame, which succeeded, by creeping alongthe houses, in covering the whole surface of this town, and which increased by degrees, uniting in its red vortices tears, cries, arms extended toward heaven.
There was for a moment, a frightfulpêle-mêleofmadriersfalling to pieces, of swords broken, of stones calcined, of trees burned and disappearing. It was a strange thing that in this chaos, in which Athos distinguished raised arms, in which he heard cries, sobs and groans, he did not see one human figure. The cannon thundered at a distance, musketry cracked, the sea moaned, flocks made their escape, bounding over the verdant slope. But not a soldier to apply the match to the batteries of cannon, not a sailor to assist in maneuvering the fleet, not a shepherd for the flocks. After the ruin of the village, and the destruction of the forts which dominated it, a ruin and a destruction operated magically without the co-operation of a single human being, the flame was extinguished, the smoke began to descend, then diminished in intensity, paled, and disappeared entirely. Night then came over the scene; a night dark upon the earth, brilliant in the firmament. The large blazing stars which sparkled in the African sky shone without lighting anything even around them.
A long silence ensued, which gave, for a moment, repose to the troubled imagination of Athos; and, as he felt that that which he saw was not terminated, he applied more attentively the looks of his understanding upon the strange spectacle which his imagination had presented. This spectacle was soon continued for him. A mild and pale moon arose behind the declivities of the coast, and streaking at first the undulating ripples of the sea, which appeared to have calmed after the roarings it had sent forth during the vision of Athos—the moon, say we, shed its diamonds and opals upon the briars and bushes of the hills. The gray rocks, like so many silent and attentive phantoms, appeared to raise their verdant heads to examine likewise the field of battle by the light of the moon, and Athos perceived that that field, entirelyvoid during the combat, was now strewed over with fallen bodies.
An inexpressible shudder of fear and horror seized his soul when he recognized the white and blue uniform of the soldiers of Picardy, with their long pikes and blue handles, and their muskets marked with the fleur-de-lis on the butts. When he saw all the gaping, cold wounds, looking up to the azure heavens as if to demand back of them the souls to which they had opened a passage—when he saw the slaughtered horses, stiff, with their tongues hanging out at one side of their mouths, sleeping in the icy blood pooled around them, staining their furniture and their manes—when he saw the white horse of M. de Beaufort, with his head beaten to pieces, in the first ranks of the dead, Athos passed a cold hand over his brow, which he was astonished not to find burning. He was convinced by this touch that he was present, as a spectator, without fever, at the day after a battle fought upon the shores of Gigelli by the army of the expedition, which he had seen leave the coasts of France and disappear in the horizon, and of which he had saluted with thought and gesture the last cannon-shot fired by the duke as a signal of farewell to his country.
Who can paint the mortal agony with which his soul followed, like a vigilant eye, the trace of those dead bodies, and examined them, one after the other, to see if Raoul slept among them? Who can express the intoxication of joy with which Athos bowed before God, and thanked him for not having seen him he sought with so much fear among the dead? In fact, fallen dead in their ranks, stiff, icy, all these dead, easy to be recognized, seemed to turn with complacency toward the Comte de la Fere, to be the better seen by him during his funereal inspection. But yet, he was astonished, while viewing all these bodies, not to perceive the survivors. To such a point did the illusion extend, that this vision was for him a real voyage made by the father into Africa, to obtain more exact information respecting his son.
Fatigued, therefore, with having traversed seas and continents, he sought repose under one of the tents sheltered behind a rock, on the top of which floated the white fleur-de-lised pennon. He looked for a soldier to conduct him to the tent of M. de Beaufort. Then, while his eye was wandering over the plain, turning on all sides, he saw a white form appear behind the resinous myrtles. This figure was clothed in the costume of an officer: it held in its hand a broken sword: it advanced slowly toward Athos, who, stopping short and fixing his eyes upon it, neither spoke nor moved, but wished to open his arms, because, in this silent and pale officer, he had just recognized Raoul. The comte attempted to utter a cry, but it remained stifled in his throat. Raoul, with a gesture, directed him to be silent, placing his finger on his lips and drawing back by degrees, without Athos being able to see his legs move. The comte, more pale than Raoul, more trembling, followed his son, traversing painfully briars and bushes, stones and ditches, Raoul not appearing to touch the earth, and no obstacle impeding the lightness of his march. The comte, whom the inequalities of the path fatigued, soon stopped exhausted. Raoul still continued to beckon him to follow him. The tender father, to whom love restored strength, made a last effort, and climbed the mountain after the young man, who attracted him by his gesture and his smile.
At length he gained the crest of the hill, and saw, thrown out in black, upon the horizon whitened by the moon, the elongated aërial form of Raoul. Athos stretched out his hand to get closer to his beloved son upon the plateau, and the latter also stretched out his; but suddenly, as if the young man had been drawn away in spite of himself, still retreating, he left the earth, and Athos saw the clear blue sky shine between the feet of his child and the ground of the hill. Raoul rose insensibly into the void, still smiling, still calling with a gesture:—he departed toward heaven. Athos uttered a cry of terrified tenderness. He looked below again. He saw a camp destroyed, and all those white bodies of the royal army, like so many motionless atoms. And, then, when raising his head, he saw still, still, his son beckoning him to ascend with him.