Kabanata Kabanata 10 · Chapter X.

. Chapter X.

A MOUSETRAP IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

The invention of the mousetrap does not date from our days; as soon as

societies, in forming, had invented any kind of police, that police

invented mousetraps.

As perhaps our readers are not familiar with the slang of the Rue de

Jerusalem, and as it is fifteen years since we applied this word for

the first time to this thing, allow us to explain to them what is a

mousetrap.

When in a house, of whatever kind it may be, an individual suspected of

any crime is arrested, the arrest is held secret. Four or five men are

placed in ambuscade in the first room. The door is opened to all who

knock. It is closed after them, and they are arrested; so that at the

end of two or three days they have in their power almost all the

_habitués_ of the establishment. And that is a mousetrap.

The apartment of M. Bonacieux, then, became a mousetrap; and whoever

appeared there was taken and interrogated by the cardinal’s people. It

must be observed that as a separate passage led to the first floor, in

which D’Artagnan lodged, those who called on him were exempted from

this detention.

Besides, nobody came thither but the three Musketeers; they had all

been engaged in earnest search and inquiries, but had discovered

nothing. Athos had even gone so far as to question M. de Tréville—a

thing which, considering the habitual reticence of the worthy

Musketeer, had very much astonished his captain. But M. de Tréville

knew nothing, except that the last time he had seen the cardinal, the

king, and the queen, the cardinal looked very thoughtful, the king

uneasy, and the redness of the queen’s eyes donated that she had been

sleepless or tearful. But this last circumstance was not striking, as

the queen since her marriage had slept badly and wept much.

M. de Tréville requested Athos, whatever might happen, to be observant

of his duty to the king, but particularly to the queen, begging him to

convey his desires to his comrades.

As to D’Artagnan, he did not budge from his apartment. He converted his

chamber into an observatory. From his windows he saw all the visitors

who were caught. Then, having removed a plank from his floor, and

nothing remaining but a simple ceiling between him and the room

beneath, in which the interrogatories were made, he heard all that

passed between the inquisitors and the accused.

The interrogatories, preceded by a minute search operated upon the

persons arrested, were almost always framed thus: “Has Madame Bonacieux

sent anything to you for her husband, or any other person? Has Monsieur

Bonacieux sent anything to you for his wife, or for any other person?

Has either of them confided anything to you by word of mouth?”

“If they knew anything, they would not question people in this manner,”

said D’Artagnan to himself. “Now, what is it they want to know? Why,

they want to know if the Duke of Buckingham is in Paris, and if he has

had, or is likely to have, an interview with the queen.”

D’Artagnan held onto this idea, which, from what he had heard, was not

wanting in probability.

In the meantime, the mousetrap continued in operation, and likewise

D’Artagnan’s vigilance.

On the evening of the day after the arrest of poor Bonacieux, as Athos

had just left D’Artagnan to report at M. de Tréville’s, as nine o’clock

had just struck, and as Planchet, who had not yet made the bed, was

beginning his task, a knocking was heard at the street door. The door

was instantly opened and shut; someone was taken in the mousetrap.

D’Artagnan flew to his hole, laid himself down on the floor at full

length, and listened.

Cries were soon heard, and then moans, which someone appeared to be

endeavoring to stifle. There were no questions.

“The devil!” said D’Artagnan to himself. “It seems like a woman! They

search her; she resists; they use force—the scoundrels!”

In spite of his prudence, D’Artagnan restrained himself with great

difficulty from taking a part in the scene that was going on below.

“But I tell you that I am the mistress of the house, gentlemen! I tell

you I am Madame Bonacieux; I tell you I belong to the queen!” cried the

unfortunate woman.

“Madame Bonacieux!” murmured D’Artagnan. “Can I be so lucky as to find

what everybody is seeking for?”

The voice became more and more indistinct; a tumultuous movement shook

the partition. The victim resisted as much as a woman could resist four

men.

“Pardon, gentlemen—par—” murmured the voice, which could now only be

heard in inarticulate sounds.

“They are binding her; they are going to drag her away,” cried

D’Artagnan to himself, springing up from the floor. “My sword! Good, it

is by my side! Planchet!”

“Monsieur.”

“Run and seek Athos, Porthos and Aramis. One of the three will

certainly be at home, perhaps all three. Tell them to take arms, to

come here, and to run! Ah, I remember, Athos is at Monsieur de

Tréville’s.”

“But where are you going, monsieur, where are you going?”

“I am going down by the window, in order to be there the sooner,” cried

D’Artagnan. “You put back the boards, sweep the floor, go out at the

door, and run as I told you.”

“Oh, monsieur! Monsieur! You will kill yourself,” cried Planchet.

“Hold your tongue, stupid fellow,” said D’Artagnan; and laying hold of

the casement, he let himself gently down from the first story, which

fortunately was not very elevated, without doing himself the slightest

injury.

He then went straight to the door and knocked, murmuring, “I will go

myself and be caught in the mousetrap, but woe be to the cats that

shall pounce upon such a mouse!”

The knocker had scarcely sounded under the hand of the young man before

the tumult ceased, steps approached, the door was opened, and

D’Artagnan, sword in hand, rushed into the rooms of M. Bonacieux, the

door of which, doubtless acted upon by a spring, closed after him.

Then those who dwelt in Bonacieux’s unfortunate house, together with

the nearest neighbors, heard loud cries, stamping of feet, clashing of

swords, and breaking of furniture. A moment after, those who, surprised

by this tumult, had gone to their windows to learn the cause of it, saw

the door open, and four men, clothed in black, not _come_ out of it,

but _fly_, like so many frightened crows, leaving on the ground and on

the corners of the furniture, feathers from their wings; that is to

say, patches of their clothes and fragments of their cloaks.

D’Artagnan was conqueror—without much effort, it must be confessed, for

only one of the officers was armed, and even he defended himself for

form’s sake. It is true that the three others had endeavored to knock

the young man down with chairs, stools, and crockery; but two or three

scratches made by the Gascon’s blade terrified them. Ten minutes

sufficed for their defeat, and D’Artagnan remained master of the field

of battle.

The neighbors who had opened their windows, with the coolness peculiar

to the inhabitants of Paris in these times of perpetual riots and

disturbances, closed them again as soon as they saw the four men in

black flee—their instinct telling them that for the time all was over.

Besides, it began to grow late, and then, as today, people went to bed

early in the quarter of the Luxembourg.

On being left alone with Mme. Bonacieux, D’Artagnan turned toward her;

the poor woman reclined where she had been left, half-fainting upon an

armchair. D’Artagnan examined her with a rapid glance.

She was a charming woman of twenty-five or twenty-six years, with dark

hair, blue eyes, and a nose slightly turned up, admirable teeth, and a

complexion marbled with rose and opal. There, however, ended the signs

which might have confounded her with a lady of rank. The hands were

white, but without delicacy; the feet did not bespeak the woman of

quality. Happily, D’Artagnan was not yet acquainted with such niceties.

While D’Artagnan was examining Mme. Bonacieux, and was, as we have

said, close to her, he saw on the ground a fine cambric handkerchief,

which he picked up, as was his habit, and at the corner of which he

recognized the same cipher he had seen on the handkerchief which had

nearly caused him and Aramis to cut each other’s throat.

From that time, D’Artagnan had been cautious with respect to

handkerchiefs with arms on them, and he therefore placed in the pocket

of Mme. Bonacieux the one he had just picked up.

At that moment Mme. Bonacieux recovered her senses. She opened her

eyes, looked around her with terror, saw that the apartment was empty

and that she was alone with her liberator. She extended her hands to

him with a smile. Mme. Bonacieux had the sweetest smile in the world.

“Ah, monsieur!” said she, “you have saved me; permit me to thank you.”

“Madame,” said D’Artagnan, “I have only done what every gentleman would

have done in my place; you owe me no thanks.”

“Oh, yes, monsieur, oh, yes; and I hope to prove to you that you have

not served an ingrate. But what could these men, whom I at first took

for robbers, want with me, and why is Monsieur Bonacieux not here?”

“Madame, those men were more dangerous than any robbers could have

been, for they are the agents of the cardinal; and as to your husband,

Monsieur Bonacieux, he is not here because he was yesterday evening

conducted to the Bastille.”

“My husband in the Bastille!” cried Mme. Bonacieux. “Oh, my God! What

has he done? Poor dear man, he is innocence itself!”

And something like a faint smile lighted the still-terrified features

of the young woman.

“What has he done, madame?” said D’Artagnan. “I believe that his only

crime is to have at the same time the good fortune and the misfortune

to be your husband.”

“But, monsieur, you know then—”

“I know that you have been abducted, madame.”

“And by whom? Do you know him? Oh, if you know him, tell me!”

“By a man of from forty to forty-five years, with black hair, a dark

complexion, and a scar on his left temple.”

“That is he, that is he; but his name?”

“Ah, his name? I do not know that.”

“And did my husband know I had been carried off?”

“He was informed of it by a letter, written to him by the abductor

himself.”

“And does he suspect,” said Mme. Bonacieux, with some embarrassment,

“the cause of this event?”

“He attributed it, I believe, to a political cause.”

“I doubted from the first; and now I think entirely as he does. Then my

dear Monsieur Bonacieux has not suspected me a single instant?”

“So far from it, madame, he was too proud of your prudence, and above

all, of your love.”

A second smile, almost imperceptible, stole over the rosy lips of the

pretty young woman.

“But,” continued D’Artagnan, “how did you escape?”

“I took advantage of a moment when they left me alone; and as I had

known since morning the reason of my abduction, with the help of the

sheets I let myself down from the window. Then, as I believed my

husband would be at home, I hastened hither.”

“To place yourself under his protection?”

“Oh, no, poor dear man! I knew very well that he was incapable of

defending me; but as he could serve us in other ways, I wished to

inform him.”

“Of what?”

“Oh, that is not my secret; I must not, therefore, tell you.”

“Besides,” said D’Artagnan, “pardon me, madame, if, guardsman as I am,

I remind you of prudence—besides, I believe we are not here in a very

proper place for imparting confidences. The men I have put to flight

will return reinforced; if they find us here, we are lost. I have sent

for three of my friends, but who knows whether they were at home?”

“Yes, yes! You are right,” cried the affrighted Mme. Bonacieux; “let us

fly! Let us save ourselves.”

At these words she passed her arm under that of D’Artagnan, and urged

him forward eagerly.

“But whither shall we fly—whither escape?”

“Let us first withdraw from this house; afterward we shall see.”

The young woman and the young man, without taking the trouble to shut

the door after them, descended the Rue des Fossoyeurs rapidly, turned

into the Rue des Fossés-Monsieur-le-Prince, and did not stop till they

came to the Place St. Sulpice.

“And now what are we to do, and where do you wish me to conduct you?”

asked D’Artagnan.

“I am at quite a loss how to answer you, I admit,” said Mme. Bonacieux.

“My intention was to inform Monsieur Laporte, through my husband, in

order that Monsieur Laporte might tell us precisely what had taken

place at the Louvre in the last three days, and whether there is any

danger in presenting myself there.”

“But I,” said D’Artagnan, “can go and inform Monsieur Laporte.”

“No doubt you could, only there is one misfortune, and that is that

Monsieur Bonacieux is known at the Louvre, and would be allowed to

pass; whereas you are not known there, and the gate would be closed

against you.”

“Ah, bah!” said D’Artagnan; “you have at some wicket of the Louvre a

_concierge_ who is devoted to you, and who, thanks to a password,

would—”

Mme. Bonacieux looked earnestly at the young man.

“And if I give you this password,” said she, “would you forget it as

soon as you used it?”

“By my honor, by the faith of a gentleman!” said D’Artagnan, with an

accent so truthful that no one could mistake it.

“Then I believe you. You appear to be a brave young man; besides, your

fortune may perhaps be the result of your devotedness.”

“I will do, without a promise and voluntarily, all that I can do to

serve the king and be agreeable to the queen. Dispose of me, then, as a

friend.”

“But I—where shall I go meanwhile?”

“Is there nobody from whose house Monsieur Laporte can come and fetch

you?”

“No, I can trust nobody.”

“Stop,” said D’Artagnan; “we are near Athos’s door. Yes, here it is.”

“Who is this Athos?”

“One of my friends.”

“But if he should be at home and see me?”

“He is not at home, and I will carry away the key, after having placed

you in his apartment.”

“But if he should return?”

“Oh, he won’t return; and if he should, he will be told that I have

brought a woman with me, and that woman is in his apartment.”

“But that will compromise me sadly, you know.”

“Of what consequence? Nobody knows you. Besides, we are in a situation

to overlook ceremony.”

“Come, then, let us go to your friend’s house. Where does he live?”

“Rue Férou, two steps from here.”

“Let us go!”

Both resumed their way. As D’Artagnan had foreseen, Athos was not

within. He took the key, which was customarily given him as one of the

family, ascended the stairs, and introduced Mme. Bonacieux into the

little apartment of which we have given a description.

“You are at home,” said he. “Remain here, fasten the door inside, and

open it to nobody unless you hear three taps like this;” and he tapped

thrice—two taps close together and pretty hard, the other after an

interval, and lighter.

“That is well,” said Mme. Bonacieux. “Now, in my turn, let me give you

my instructions.”

“I am all attention.”

“Present yourself at the wicket of the Louvre, on the side of the Rue

de l’Echelle, and ask for Germain.”

“Well, and then?”

“He will ask you what you want, and you will answer by these two words,

‘Tours’ and ‘Bruxelles.’ He will at once put himself at your orders.”

“And what shall I command him?”

“To go and fetch Monsieur Laporte, the queen’s _valet de chambre_.”

“And when he shall have informed him, and Monsieur Laporte is come?”

“You will send him to me.”

“That is well; but where and how shall I see you again?”

“Do you wish to see me again?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, let that care be mine, and be at ease.”

“I depend upon your word.”

“You may.”

D’Artagnan bowed to Mme. Bonacieux, darting at her the most loving

glance that he could possibly concentrate upon her charming little

person; and while he descended the stairs, he heard the door closed and

double-locked. In two bounds he was at the Louvre; as he entered the

wicket of L’Echelle, ten o’clock struck. All the events we have

described had taken place within a half hour.

Everything fell out as Mme. Bonacieux prophesied. On hearing the

password, Germain bowed. In a few minutes, Laporte was at the lodge; in

two words D’Artagnan informed him where Mme. Bonacieux was. Laporte

assured himself, by having it twice repeated, of the accurate address,

and set off at a run. Hardly, however, had he taken ten steps before he

returned.

“Young man,” said he to D’Artagnan, “a suggestion.”

“What?”

“You may get into trouble by what has taken place.”

“You believe so?”

“Yes. Have you any friend whose clock is too slow?”

“Well?”

“Go and call upon him, in order that he may give evidence of your

having been with him at half past nine. In a court of justice that is

called an alibi.”

D’Artagnan found his advice prudent. He took to his heels, and was soon

at M. de Tréville’s; but instead of going into the saloon with the rest

of the crowd, he asked to be introduced to M. de Tréville’s office. As

D’Artagnan so constantly frequented the hôtel, no difficulty was made

in complying with his request, and a servant went to inform M. de

Tréville that his young compatriot, having something important to

communicate, solicited a private audience. Five minutes after, M. de

Tréville was asking D’Artagnan what he could do to serve him, and what

caused his visit at so late an hour.

“Pardon me, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, who had profited by the moment

he had been left alone to put back M. de Tréville’s clock

three-quarters of an hour, “but I thought, as it was yet only

twenty-five minutes past nine, it was not too late to wait upon you.”

“Twenty-five minutes past nine!” cried M. de Tréville, looking at the

clock; “why, that’s impossible!”

“Look, rather, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, “the clock shows it.”

“That’s true,” said M. de Tréville; “I believed it later. But what can

I do for you?”

Then D’Artagnan told M. de Tréville a long history about the queen. He

expressed to him the fears he entertained with respect to her Majesty;

he related to him what he had heard of the projects of the cardinal

with regard to Buckingham, and all with a tranquillity and candor of

which M. de Tréville was the more the dupe, from having himself, as we

have said, observed something fresh between the cardinal, the king, and

the queen.

As ten o’clock was striking, D’Artagnan left M. de Tréville, who

thanked him for his information, recommended him to have the service of

the king and queen always at heart, and returned to the saloon; but at

the foot of the stairs, D’Artagnan remembered he had forgotten his

cane. He consequently sprang up again, re-entered the office, with a

turn of his finger set the clock right again, that it might not be

perceived the next day that it had been put wrong, and certain from

that time that he had a witness to prove his alibi, he ran downstairs

and soon found himself in the street.