D’Artagnan, who assumed he was now in for it, approached despondently.
“What, did you tell me there was a young man involved? This is a boy, Tréville, a mere boy! And he’s the one who gave that nasty sword-thrust to Jussac?”
“And two fine wounds to Bernajoux.”
“Indeed!”
“Without taking into account,” said Athos, “that if he hadn’t saved me from the hands of Cahusac, I shouldn’t be here to have the honor of making my most humble reverence to Your Majesty.”
“Why, Monsieur de Tréville, we have in this Béarnaise a veritable demon! Ventre-saint-gris,32 as the king my father used to say! But I repeat, this sort of thing results in too many punctured doublets and broken swords. Now, the Gascons are always poor, aren’t they?”
“Sire, as yet they’ve discovered no gold mines in their mountains, although the Lord owes them such a miracle as compensation for the way they supported the ambitions of the king your father.”
“In other words, it was the Gascons who made me king, since I’m the son of my father? Well, I wouldn’t disagree. La Chesnaye, go rummage through my pockets and see if you can find forty pistoles. And now, young man, on your word of honor, how did all this come to pass?”
D’Artagnan related the adventure of the day before in all its details: how, unable to sleep for joy at the chance to see His Majesty, he’d gone to see his three friends the morning before the audience; how they’d met at the tennis courts, and how, when he showed his fear of taking a ball in the face, he’d been mocked by Bernajoux, who had nearly paid for his mockery with his life—and Monsieur de La Trémouille, who had nothing to do with it, with the loss of his hôtel.
“Good, very good,” said the king. “This matches the account the duke gave me. Poor cardinal! Seven men in two days, and among them some of his best! But that’s quite enough, Messieurs, quite enough. You’ve had your revenge for the incident in the Rue Férou, and more. You should be quite satisfied.”
“If Your Majesty is,” said Tréville, “then so are we.”
“Oh, I am,” added the king, and taking a handful of gold from La Chesnaye, he gave it to d’Artagnan. “You see,” he said, “here’s proof of my satisfaction.”
At this period, a gentleman’s pride didn’t prevent him from receiving money directly from the hand of the king, and such a gift was not the least bit humiliating or improper. D’Artagnan put his forty pistoles into his pocket without a second thought and thanked His Majesty very sincerely.
“Là!” said the King, looking at a clock. “There, it’s now half-past eight, so you must go, as I’m expecting someone at nine. Thank you for your devotion, Messieurs. I can count on it, no?”
“Oh, Sire!” d’Artagnan cried, speaking for all four companions. “We’d let ourselves be cut to pieces if it would serve Your Majesty!”
“Fine, fine—but it’s better to stay whole. You’re more useful to me that way. Ah, Tréville,” the king added in a low voice, “since we’ve decided that an apprenticeship is necessary before entering the musketeers, and since right now there’s no room in the company anyway, place this young man in the guards company of your brother-in-law, Monsieur des Essarts.” He chuckled. “By God! I can already see the cardinal’s scowl. He’ll be furious—but I’m in the right, so this time I don’t care.” And the king saluted Tréville, who left to rejoin his musketeers, whom he found dividing up d’Artagnan’s forty pistoles.
As His Majesty had predicted, the cardinal was furious, so furious that he kept away from the king’s card table for eight days. Meanwhile the king was as pleasant as could be, even smug, and when he met the cardinal he’d ask, “Well, Monsieur le Cardinal, how goes it with your poor Bernajoux and your poor Jussac? Hmm?”
VII
The Domestic Life of the Musketeers
Once d’Artagnan was outside the Louvre he consulted his friends as to how best to use his share of the forty pistoles. Athos advised him to order a fine dinner at the Pomme-de-Pin tavern,33 Porthos to hire a lackey, and Aramis to find himself a suitable mistress.
They had the dinner that evening, and the newly hired lackey waited on the table. Athos ordered the food and drink while Porthos had provided the lackey. He was a Picard whom the splendid musketeer had engaged that same day when he saw him on the Pont de La Tournelle, loitering and spitting into the water. Porthos said that this occupation indicated a reflective and thoughtful personality, and he’d hired him on the spot without any other recommendation.
Planchet34—that was the name of the Picard—was delighted by the grand appearance of Porthos, whom he thought was his new employer. When they reached Porthos’s lodgings he was disappointed to find the position of lackey already filled by a fellow named Mousqueton.35 Porthos informed Planchet that the state of his household, while grand, would not support two domestics, and he must enter the service of d’Artagnan. Planchet grumbled at this— but when he waited at his new master’s sumptuous dinner, and saw him pay for it with a handful of gold from his pocket, he thought his fortune was made, and thanked heaven for landing him in the service of such a Croesus.
He continued to feel this way even after the feast, when the leftovers compensated for many days on short rations. But that evening, when he made his master’s bed, Planchet’s golden hopes suddenly vanished. D’Artagnan’s bed was the only one in the apartment, which consisted of just one bedroom and one antechamber. Planchet had to sleep on the floor in the antechamber, under a thin coverlet taken from d’Artagnan’s bed, and which d’Artagnan from then on did without.
Athos had a valet he called Grimaud36 whom he’d trained to serve him in a most unusual fashion. The worthy Athos was taciturn to a fault. In the years he’d lived cheek-by-jowl with Porthos and Aramis, his friends had seen him smile often but had never heard him laugh. His speech was concise but expressive, saying exactly what he wanted to say and nothing more: no embellishments, no embroidery, no flourishes. His conversation was all fact and no fancy.
Although Athos was scarcely thirty years old, handsome, intelligent, and well-mannered, no one had ever heard of his having a mistress. He never spoke of women, and while he didn’t discourage others from doing so, it was clear he found it a very disagreeable topic. He never added anything to such discussions but bitter words and sour opinions.
His reserve, his gruffness, and his reticence made him almost an old man, and he was certainly very set in his ways. In order to ensure that his needs were attended to precisely and with a minimum of disturbance, he’d trained his lackey Grimaud to obey him at a gesture, or even a simple movement of his lips. He never spoke to Grimaud unless he had to.
Grimaud, who feared his master like fire, was at the same time very attached to him, and held him in a respect that approached worship. Sometimes he thought he understood perfectly what Athos wanted, leaped to fulfill the command, and did the exact opposite of what Athos had in mind. Then his master would shrug his shoulders and quite calmly proceed to give Grimaud a sound thrashing. On these occasions, he spoke a little.
As should be apparent, Porthos’s character was the complete opposite of that of Athos. Not only did he speak a great deal, he was very loud about it. To be fair, he didn’t really care whether anyone listened or not; he spoke for the pleasure of speaking and for the pleasure of hearing himself speak. He delivered loud opinions on every subject except the sciences, begging in that case to be excused because ever since his childhood he’d always hated scholars.
Porthos knew he lacked Athos’s air of natural nobility, and this had so irked him early in their acquaintance that he’d frequently been short with Athos, almost rude, and sought to outdo him through the splendor of his wardrobe. But with his simple musketeer’s tabard, and nothing more than the way he held his head and advanced his foot, Athos demonstrated his innate nobility and relegated the pompous Porthos to the second rank.
Porthos consoled himself by making the antechamber of Monsieur de Tréville and the guardroom of the Louvre
echo with tales of his bonnes fortunes with the ladies, a subject of which Athos, of course, never spoke. Porthos had claimed to have enjoyed the favors of a lawyer’s lady, and later those of a baroness—rising from the noblesse of the robe to the noblesse of the sword—and recently Porthos had implied that he’d dazzled the eyes of no less than a foreign princess.
An old proverb says, “Like master, like manservant.” Let us pass then from Athos’s lackey to Porthos’s lackey, from Grimaud to Mousqueton.
Porthos’s lackey was a Norman whose name his master had changed from Boniface to the more sonorous and warlike Mousqueton. He had entered the service of Porthos in exchange for no pay other than clothing and lodging, so long as those were magnificent; he kept two hours a day to himself to find such work as would provide for his other needs. Porthos had accepted the bargain, and it suited him very well. He had his old doublets and cast-off cloaks recut for Mousqueton, and thanks to a clever tailor who restored the old to new by turning them inside out (and whose wife was suspected of wanting to persuade Porthos to cast his eyes on one below his station), Mousqueton served his master looking very fine indeed.
As for Aramis, his lackey was called Bazin.37 Reflecting his master’s hopes of one day entering into orders, he always dressed in black, as became the servant of a man of the Church. He was from Berry, aged between thirty-five or forty, mild, peaceable, plump, and occupied what leisure time his master left him in reading pious works. He was skilled at concocting a dinner for two even when short of provisions—the courses might be few, but what was there was always excellent. Otherwise, as regarded his master’s business he was deaf, dumb, blind, and of totally proven fidelity.
Having met, superficially at least, the masters and their lackeys, let us pass on to their dwellings.
Athos lived in the Rue Férou,38 a few paces from the Luxembourg; his apartment consisted of two small, well-appointed chambers in a furnished house. (The landlady, young and still quite pretty, cast amorous looks at him daily, to no avail.) Here and there in this modest lodging were displayed remnants of past splendor. There was a richly damascened sword in the style of the time of François I,39 the hilt of which alone, encrusted as it was with precious stones, might be worth two hundred pistoles—and which, even in his moments of greatest poverty, Athos had never pawned nor sold.
Porthos would have given ten years of his life for this sword, and owning it had long been one of his ambitions. One day, when he had a rendezvous with a duchess, he tried to borrow it from his friend. Athos, without saying a word, had emptied his pockets, gathered all his jewelry, coins, aiguillettes, and chains of gold into a pile, and offered it to Porthos; but as for the sword, he said, it was fixed in its place, and would go nowhere until he himself moved away.
Besides the sword, Athos also had a portrait on the wall representing a noble lord dressed as in the reign of Henri III, attired in the greatest elegance, and wearing the Order of Saint-Esprit.40 The family resemblance to Athos indicated that this grand seigneur, Knight of the Orders of the King, was his ancestor. In addition, a magnificent gilded coffer, displaying the same coat of arms as the sword and the portrait, stood in the middle of the mantelpiece, clashing frightfully with the rest of the interior decoration. Athos always carried the key to this coffer on him, but one day he’d opened it in front of Porthos, and Porthos had noted (to his disappointment) that the coffer contained nothing but letters and papers: love letters and family documents, he supposed.
Porthos lived in a very large and very sumptuous apartment on the Rue du Vieux-Colombier. Every time he passed by this apartment with one of his friends, Mousqueton would be standing at one of the windows in full livery. Porthos would raise his hand, cock his head proudly, and say, “There you see my home!” But he was never found to be at home, never invited anyone inside, and no one had ever seen this opulent apartment to report on what luxurious appointments it really contained.
Aramis lived in a small ground floor apartment composed of a dressing room, a dining room, and a bedroom, the last of which opened onto a fresh little garden, green, shady, and completely hidden from the eyes of the neighborhood.
As for d’Artagnan, we know how he was lodged, and have already met his lackey, Master Planchet. D’Artagnan was by nature very curious, as people who have a genius for intrigue generally are, and he made every effort to learn who Athos, Porthos, and Aramis really were. He knew that each of these young men hid the name of a nobleman under his nom de guerre—Athos in particular, who savored of the Grand a league off—but only Monsieur de Tréville knew their true names and qualities. D’Artagnan tried pumping Porthos for information about Athos and Aramis, and Aramis to learn about Porthos.
Unfortunately, Porthos knew nothing of the former life of his silent comrade Athos except for what he’d seen personally. It was rumored that he’d suffered some great romantic misfortune, some horrible treachery that had forever poisoned the life of this gallant man. What was this treachery? No one knew.
As to Porthos, his life was easy to know. Vain and indiscreet, one could see through him as easily as through crystal. The only way one could be misled about him would be to believe what he said of himself.
Aramis, on the other hand, while claiming to have no secrets, was a young man completely made of mysteries. He answered few questions and evaded any that pertained to himself. One day d’Artagnan, after interrogating him for a long time about Porthos and his supposed bonne fortune with a princess, asked about Aramis’s own amorous adventures. “And you, my dear Aramis,” he said to him, “what of you, who speak so freely of the baronesses, countesses, and princesses of others?”
“Your pardon,” interrupted Aramis, “I spoke of them only because Porthos did so himself. Rest assured, my dear d’Artagnan, that if I had such stories from another source, or if they’d been told to me in confidence, there is no confessor more discreet than I.”
“I don’t doubt it,” replied d’Artagnan. “But it seems to me that you yourself are tolerably familiar with coats of arms—witness a certain embroidered handkerchief, to which I owe the honor of your acquaintance.”
This time, Aramis wasn’t offended. He assumed a modest air and said, “Mon cher, don’t forget that I intend to join the Church, and thus abstain from all such worldly complications. That handkerchief wasn’t mine, it had merely been forgotten at my house by one of my friends. I had to recover it to prevent him, and the lady he loves, from being compromised. As for me, I have no mistress, nor do I want one. In that regard I follow the very judicious example of Athos.”
“But, what the devil! You’re not an abbot yet, you’re a musketeer!”
“A musketeer only for the interim, mon cher—as the cardinal says about being a minister, I’m a musketeer against my inclination, but a man of the Church in my heart. Athos and Porthos are the ones who dragged me into this when I needed something to occupy my time. You see, just before I was to be ordained, I had a little difficulty with . . . but that wouldn’t interest you, and I’m taking up your precious time.”
“By no means, that interests me a great deal,” cried d’Artagnan, “and at the moment I have absolutely nothing to do.”
“Perhaps so, but I have my breviary to say,” answered Aramis, “then some verses to compose that Madame de Combalet asked for, and after that I must go to the Rue Saint-Honoré to buy some rouge for Madame de Chevreuse. So you see, my friend, that if you have nothing pressing, I do.” And Aramis offered his hand to his companion and took his leave.
Despite all his efforts, d’Artagnan was unable to learn anything more about his three new friends. He decided he’d just have to believe everything that was said of their pasts and hope for more certain revelations in the future. In the meantime, he considered Athos an Achilles, Porthos an Ajax, and Aramis a Joseph.
For the four friends, it was a good time to be alive. Athos spent a great deal of time gambling, always unluckily. Nonetheless, he never borrowed a sou41 from his friends, though his purse was alwa
ys at their services. When he had gambled using his word as credit, he always awakened his creditor at six o’clock the next morning to pay him his debt of the night before.
Porthos gambled only occasionally, but when he did, he went all in. When he won, he was smug, arrogant, but generous with his winnings; when he lost, he disappeared completely for several days, reappearing pale-faced and worn, but with money jingling in his purse.
As for Aramis, he never gambled. In fact, he was the most unsocial, least fun-loving musketeer one could ever hope to see. There was always some task he had to go attend to. Sometimes, in the middle of dinner, when conversation and wine were flowing freely, and everyone believed they still had two or three hours at the table ahead of them, Aramis would look his watch, rise with a gracious smile and bid them adieu—going, he might say, to consult a theologian with whom he had a rendezvous. Or he might return to his lodging to write a thesis, begging his friends not to disturb him.
Athos would just smile that charming, melancholy smile, which so became his noble appearance, while Porthos drained his glass, and swore that Aramis would never be anything but a village curate.
Planchet, d’Artagnan’s valet, seemed quite satisfied with his lot. His pay was thirty sous per day, and during that first month he was gay as a chaffinch and always affable toward his master. But when the winds of adversity began to blow on the household in the Rue des Fossoyeurs—in other words, when King Louis’s forty pistoles were finally spent—he began to make whining complaints that Athos found nauseating, Porthos indecent, and Aramis ridiculous. Athos advised d’Artagnan to dismiss the rogue, Porthos wanted to pummel him first, while Aramis stated that a master should simply ignore everything from a servant but compliments.
“That’s easy for you to say,” replied d’Artagnan. “You, Athos, who live like a mute with Grimaud, who forbid him to speak, and therefore never have cross words with him; you, Porthos, who lead such a magnificent life that you’re a virtual god to your valet Mousqueton; and finally you, Aramis, who, thanks to your theological studies, inspire a profound respect in the mild and religious Bazin. I, who have neither credit nor resources, who am not yet a musketeer—let alone a guard!—what am I supposed to do to inspire affection, terror, or respect in Planchet?”