Kabanata Kabanata 2 · Chapter II. THE ANTECHAMBER OF M. DE TRÉVILLE

. Chapter II. THE ANTECHAMBER OF M. DE TRÉVILLE

M. de Troisville, as his family was still called in Gascony, or M. de

Tréville, as he has ended by styling himself in Paris, had really

commenced life as D’Artagnan now did; that is to say, without a sou in

his pocket, but with a fund of audacity, shrewdness, and intelligence

which makes the poorest Gascon gentleman often derive more in his hope

from the paternal inheritance than the richest Perigordian or Berrichan

gentleman derives in reality from his. His insolent bravery, his still

more insolent success at a time when blows poured down like hail, had

borne him to the top of that difficult ladder called Court Favor, which

he had climbed four steps at a time.

He was the friend of the king, who honored highly, as everyone knows,

the memory of his father, Henry IV. The father of M. de Tréville had

served him so faithfully in his wars against the league that in default

of money—a thing to which the Béarnais was accustomed all his life, and

who constantly paid his debts with that of which he never stood in need

of borrowing, that is to say, with ready wit—in default of money, we

repeat, he authorized him, after the reduction of Paris, to assume for

his arms a golden lion passant upon gules, with the motto _Fidelis et

fortis_. This was a great matter in the way of honor, but very little

in the way of wealth; so that when the illustrious companion of the

great Henry died, the only inheritance he was able to leave his son was

his sword and his motto. Thanks to this double gift and the spotless

name that accompanied it, M. de Tréville was admitted into the

household of the young prince where he made such good use of his sword,

and was so faithful to his motto, that Louis XIII., one of the good

blades of his kingdom, was accustomed to say that if he had a friend

who was about to fight, he would advise him to choose as a second,

himself first, and Tréville next—or even, perhaps, before himself.

Thus Louis XIII. had a real liking for Tréville—a royal liking, a

self-interested liking, it is true, but still a liking. At that unhappy

period it was an important consideration to be surrounded by such men

as Tréville. Many might take for their device the epithet _strong_,

which formed the second part of his motto, but very few gentlemen could

lay claim to the _faithful_, which constituted the first. Tréville was

one of these latter. His was one of those rare organizations, endowed

with an obedient intelligence like that of the dog; with a blind valor,

a quick eye, and a prompt hand; to whom sight appeared only to be given

to see if the king were dissatisfied with anyone, and the hand to

strike this displeasing personage, whether a Besme, a Maurevers, a

Poltiot de Méré, or a Vitry. In short, up to this period nothing had

been wanting to Tréville but opportunity; but he was ever on the watch

for it, and he faithfully promised himself that he would not fail to

seize it by its three hairs whenever it came within reach of his hand.

At last Louis XIII. made Tréville the captain of his Musketeers, who

were to Louis XIII. in devotedness, or rather in fanaticism, what his

Ordinaries had been to Henry III., and his Scotch Guard to Louis XI.

On his part, the cardinal was not behind the king in this respect. When

he saw the formidable and chosen body with which Louis XIII. had

surrounded himself, this second, or rather this first king of France,

became desirous that he, too, should have his guard. He had his

Musketeers therefore, as Louis XIII. had his, and these two powerful

rivals vied with each other in procuring, not only from all the

provinces of France, but even from all foreign states, the most

celebrated swordsmen. It was not uncommon for Richelieu and Louis XIII.

to dispute over their evening game of chess upon the merits of their

servants. Each boasted the bearing and the courage of his own people.

While exclaiming loudly against duels and brawls, they excited them

secretly to quarrel, deriving an immoderate satisfaction or genuine

regret from the success or defeat of their own combatants. We learn

this from the memoirs of a man who was concerned in some few of these

defeats and in many of these victories.

Tréville had grasped the weak side of his master; and it was to this

address that he owed the long and constant favor of a king who has not

left the reputation behind him of being very faithful in his

friendships. He paraded his Musketeers before the Cardinal Armand

Duplessis with an insolent air which made the gray moustache of his

Eminence curl with ire. Tréville understood admirably the war method of

that period, in which he who could not live at the expense of the enemy

must live at the expense of his compatriots. His soldiers formed a

legion of devil-may-care fellows, perfectly undisciplined toward all

but himself.

Loose, half-drunk, imposing, the king’s Musketeers, or rather M. de

Tréville’s, spread themselves about in the cabarets, in the public

walks, and the public sports, shouting, twisting their mustaches,

clanking their swords, and taking great pleasure in annoying the Guards

of the cardinal whenever they could fall in with them; then drawing in

the open streets, as if it were the best of all possible sports;

sometimes killed, but sure in that case to be both wept and avenged;

often killing others, but then certain of not rotting in prison, M. de

Tréville being there to claim them. Thus M. de Tréville was praised to

the highest note by these men, who adored him, and who, ruffians as

they were, trembled before him like scholars before their master,

obedient to his least word, and ready to sacrifice themselves to wash

out the smallest insult.

M. de Tréville employed this powerful weapon for the king, in the first

place, and the friends of the king—and then for himself and his own

friends. For the rest, in the memoirs of this period, which has left so

many memoirs, one does not find this worthy gentleman blamed even by

his enemies; and he had many such among men of the pen as well as among

men of the sword. In no instance, let us say, was this worthy gentleman

accused of deriving personal advantage from the cooperation of his

minions. Endowed with a rare genius for intrigue which rendered him the

equal of the ablest intriguers, he remained an honest man. Still

further, in spite of sword thrusts which weaken, and painful exercises

which fatigue, he had become one of the most gallant frequenters of

revels, one of the most insinuating lady’s men, one of the softest

whisperers of interesting nothings of his day; the _bonnes fortunes_ of

de Tréville were talked of as those of M. de Bassompierre had been

talked of twenty years before, and that was not saying a little. The

captain of the Musketeers was therefore admired, feared, and loved; and

this constitutes the zenith of human fortune.

Louis XIV. absorbed all the smaller stars of his court in his own vast

radiance; but his father, a sun _pluribus impar_, left his personal

splendor to each of his favorites, his individual value to each of his

courtiers. In addition to the levees of the king and the cardinal,

there might be reckoned in Paris at that time more than two hundred

smaller but still noteworthy levees. Among these two hundred levees,

that of Tréville was one of the most sought.

The court of his hôtel, situated in the Rue du Vieux-Colombier,

resembled a camp from by six o’clock in the morning in summer and eight

o’clock in winter. From fifty to sixty Musketeers, who appeared to

replace one another in order always to present an imposing number,

paraded constantly, armed to the teeth and ready for anything. On one

of those immense staircases, upon whose space modern civilization would

build a whole house, ascended and descended the office seekers of

Paris, who ran after any sort of favor—gentlemen from the provinces

anxious to be enrolled, and servants in all sorts of liveries, bringing

and carrying messages between their masters and M. de Tréville. In the

antechamber, upon long circular benches, reposed the elect; that is to

say, those who were called. In this apartment a continued buzzing

prevailed from morning till night, while M. de Tréville, in his office

contiguous to this antechamber, received visits, listened to

complaints, gave his orders, and like the king in his balcony at the

Louvre, had only to place himself at the window to review both his men

and arms.

The day on which D’Artagnan presented himself the assemblage was

imposing, particularly for a provincial just arriving from his

province. It is true that this provincial was a Gascon; and that,

particularly at this period, the compatriots of D’Artagnan had the

reputation of not being easily intimidated. When he had once passed the

massive door covered with long square-headed nails, he fell into the

midst of a troop of swordsmen, who crossed one another in their

passage, calling out, quarreling, and playing tricks one with another.

In order to make one’s way amid these turbulent and conflicting waves,

it was necessary to be an officer, a great noble, or a pretty woman.

It was, then, into the midst of this tumult and disorder that our young

man advanced with a beating heart, ranging his long rapier up his lanky

leg, and keeping one hand on the edge of his cap, with that half-smile

of the embarrassed provincial who wishes to put on a good face. When he

had passed one group he began to breathe more freely; but he could not

help observing that they turned round to look at him, and for the first

time in his life D’Artagnan, who had till that day entertained a very

good opinion of himself, felt ridiculous.

Arrived at the staircase, it was still worse. There were four

Musketeers on the bottom steps, amusing themselves with the following

exercise, while ten or twelve of their comrades waited upon the landing

place to take their turn in the sport.

One of them, stationed upon the top stair, naked sword in hand,

prevented, or at least endeavored to prevent, the three others from

ascending.

These three others fenced against him with their agile swords.

D’Artagnan at first took these weapons for foils, and believed them to

be buttoned; but he soon perceived by certain scratches that every

weapon was pointed and sharpened, and that at each of these scratches

not only the spectators, but even the actors themselves, laughed like

so many madmen.

He who at the moment occupied the upper step kept his adversaries

marvelously in check. A circle was formed around them. The conditions

required that at every hit the man touched should quit the game,

yielding his turn for the benefit of the adversary who had hit him. In

five minutes three were slightly wounded, one on the hand, another on

the ear, by the defender of the stair, who himself remained intact—a

piece of skill which was worth to him, according to the rules agreed

upon, three turns of favor.

However difficult it might be, or rather as he pretended it was, to

astonish our young traveler, this pastime really astonished him. He had

seen in his province—that land in which heads become so easily heated—a

few of the preliminaries of duels; but the daring of these four fencers

appeared to him the strongest he had ever heard of even in Gascony. He

believed himself transported into that famous country of giants into

which Gulliver afterward went and was so frightened; and yet he had not

gained the goal, for there were still the landing place and the

antechamber.

On the landing they were no longer fighting, but amused themselves with

stories about women, and in the antechamber, with stories about the

court. On the landing D’Artagnan blushed; in the antechamber he

trembled. His warm and fickle imagination, which in Gascony had

rendered him formidable to young chambermaids, and even sometimes their

mistresses, had never dreamed, even in moments of delirium, of half the

amorous wonders or a quarter of the feats of gallantry which were here

set forth in connection with names the best known and with details the

least concealed. But if his morals were shocked on the landing, his

respect for the cardinal was scandalized in the antechamber. There, to

his great astonishment, D’Artagnan heard the policy which made all

Europe tremble criticized aloud and openly, as well as the private life

of the cardinal, which so many great nobles had been punished for

trying to pry into. That great man who was so revered by D’Artagnan the

elder served as an object of ridicule to the Musketeers of Tréville,

who cracked their jokes upon his bandy legs and his crooked back. Some

sang ballads about Mme. d’Aguillon, his mistress, and Mme. Cambalet,

his niece; while others formed parties and plans to annoy the pages and

guards of the cardinal duke—all things which appeared to D’Artagnan

monstrous impossibilities.

Nevertheless, when the name of the king was now and then uttered

unthinkingly amid all these cardinal jests, a sort of gag seemed to

close for a moment on all these jeering mouths. They looked

hesitatingly around them, and appeared to doubt the thickness of the

partition between them and the office of M. de Tréville; but a fresh

allusion soon brought back the conversation to his Eminence, and then

the laughter recovered its loudness and the light was not withheld from

any of his actions.

“Certes, these fellows will all either be imprisoned or hanged,”

thought the terrified D’Artagnan, “and I, no doubt, with them; for from

the moment I have either listened to or heard them, I shall be held as

an accomplice. What would my good father say, who so strongly pointed

out to me the respect due to the cardinal, if he knew I was in the

society of such pagans?”

We have no need, therefore, to say that D’Artagnan dared not join in

the conversation, only he looked with all his eyes and listened with

all his ears, stretching his five senses so as to lose nothing; and

despite his confidence on the paternal admonitions, he felt himself

carried by his tastes and led by his instincts to praise rather than to

blame the unheard-of things which were taking place.

Although he was a perfect stranger in the court of M. de Tréville’s

courtiers, and this his first appearance in that place, he was at

length noticed, and somebody came and asked him what he wanted. At this

demand D’Artagnan gave his name very modestly, emphasized the title of

compatriot, and begged the servant who had put the question to him to

request a moment’s audience of M. de Tréville—a request which the

other, with an air of protection, promised to transmit in due season.

D’Artagnan, a little recovered from his first surprise, had now leisure

to study costumes and physiognomy.

The center of the most animated group was a Musketeer of great height

and haughty countenance, dressed in a costume so peculiar as to attract

general attention. He did not wear the uniform cloak—which was not

obligatory at that epoch of less liberty but more independence—but a

cerulean-blue doublet, a little faded and worn, and over this a

magnificent baldric, worked in gold, which shone like water ripples in

the sun. A long cloak of crimson velvet fell in graceful folds from his

shoulders, disclosing in front the splendid baldric, from which was

suspended a gigantic rapier. This Musketeer had just come off guard,

complained of having a cold, and coughed from time to time affectedly.

It was for this reason, as he said to those around him, that he had put

on his cloak; and while he spoke with a lofty air and twisted his

mustache disdainfully, all admired his embroidered baldric, and

D’Artagnan more than anyone.

“What would you have?” said the Musketeer. “This fashion is coming in.

It is a folly, I admit, but still it is the fashion. Besides, one must

lay out one’s inheritance somehow.”

“Ah, Porthos!” cried one of his companions, “don’t try to make us

believe you obtained that baldric by paternal generosity. It was given

to you by that veiled lady I met you with the other Sunday, near the

gate St. Honoré.”

“No, upon honor and by the faith of a gentleman, I bought it with the

contents of my own purse,” answered he whom they designated by the name

Porthos.

“Yes; about in the same manner,” said another Musketeer, “that I bought

this new purse with what my mistress put into the old one.”

“It’s true, though,” said Porthos; “and the proof is that I paid twelve

pistoles for it.”

The wonder was increased, though the doubt continued to exist.

“Is it not true, Aramis?” said Porthos, turning toward another

Musketeer.

This other Musketeer formed a perfect contrast to his interrogator, who

had just designated him by the name of Aramis. He was a stout man, of

about two- or three-and-twenty, with an open, ingenuous countenance, a

black, mild eye, and cheeks rosy and downy as an autumn peach. His

delicate mustache marked a perfectly straight line upon his upper lip;

he appeared to dread to lower his hands lest their veins should swell,

and he pinched the tips of his ears from time to time to preserve their

delicate pink transparency. Habitually he spoke little and slowly,

bowed frequently, laughed without noise, showing his teeth, which were

fine and of which, as the rest of his person, he appeared to take great

care. He answered the appeal of his friend by an affirmative nod of the

head.

This affirmation appeared to dispel all doubts with regard to the

baldric. They continued to admire it, but said no more about it; and

with a rapid change of thought, the conversation passed suddenly to

another subject.

“What do you think of the story Chalais’s esquire relates?” asked

another Musketeer, without addressing anyone in particular, but on the

contrary speaking to everybody.

“And what does he say?” asked Porthos, in a self-sufficient tone.

“He relates that he met at Brussels Rochefort, the _âme damnée_ of the

cardinal disguised as a Capuchin, and that this cursed Rochefort,

thanks to his disguise, had tricked Monsieur de Laigues, like a ninny

as he is.”

“A ninny, indeed!” said Porthos; “but is the matter certain?”

“I had it from Aramis,” replied the Musketeer.

“Indeed?”

“Why, you knew it, Porthos,” said Aramis. “I told you of it yesterday.

Let us say no more about it.”

“Say no more about it? That’s _your_ opinion!” replied Porthos.

“Say no more about it! _Peste!_ You come to your conclusions quickly.

What! The cardinal sets a spy upon a gentleman, has his letters stolen

from him by means of a traitor, a brigand, a rascal—has, with the help

of this spy and thanks to this correspondence, Chalais’s throat cut,

under the stupid pretext that he wanted to kill the king and marry

Monsieur to the queen! Nobody knew a word of this enigma. You unraveled

it yesterday to the great satisfaction of all; and while we are still

gaping with wonder at the news, you come and tell us today, ‘Let us say

no more about it.’”

“Well, then, let us talk about it, since you desire it,” replied

Aramis, patiently.

“This Rochefort,” cried Porthos, “if I were the esquire of poor

Chalais, should pass a minute or two very uncomfortably with me.”

“And you—you would pass rather a sad quarter-hour with the Red Duke,”

replied Aramis.

“Oh, the Red Duke! Bravo! Bravo! The Red Duke!” cried Porthos, clapping

his hands and nodding his head. “The Red Duke is capital. I’ll

circulate that saying, be assured, my dear fellow. Who says this Aramis

is not a wit? What a misfortune it is you did not follow your first

vocation; what a delicious abbé you would have made!”

“Oh, it’s only a temporary postponement,” replied Aramis; “I shall be

one someday. You very well know, Porthos, that I continue to study

theology for that purpose.”

“He will be one, as he says,” cried Porthos; “he will be one, sooner or

later.”

“Sooner,” said Aramis.

“He only waits for one thing to determine him to resume his cassock,

which hangs behind his uniform,” said another Musketeer.

“What is he waiting for?” asked another.

“Only till the queen has given an heir to the crown of France.”

“No jesting upon that subject, gentlemen,” said Porthos; “thank God the

queen is still of an age to give one!”

“They say that Monsieur de Buckingham is in France,” replied Aramis,

with a significant smile which gave to this sentence, apparently so

simple, a tolerably scandalous meaning.

“Aramis, my good friend, this time you are wrong,” interrupted Porthos.

“Your wit is always leading you beyond bounds; if Monsieur de Tréville

heard you, you would repent of speaking thus.”

“Are you going to give me a lesson, Porthos?” cried Aramis, from whose

usually mild eye a flash passed like lightning.

“My dear fellow, be a Musketeer or an abbé. Be one or the other, but

not both,” replied Porthos. “You know what Athos told you the other

day; you eat at everybody’s mess. Ah, don’t be angry, I beg of you,

that would be useless; you know what is agreed upon between you, Athos

and me. You go to Madame d’Aguillon’s, and you pay your court to her;

you go to Madame de Bois-Tracy’s, the cousin of Madame de Chevreuse,

and you pass for being far advanced in the good graces of that lady.

Oh, good Lord! Don’t trouble yourself to reveal your good luck; no one

asks for your secret—all the world knows your discretion. But since you

possess that virtue, why the devil don’t you make use of it with

respect to her Majesty? Let whoever likes talk of the king and the

cardinal, and how he likes; but the queen is sacred, and if anyone

speaks of her, let it be respectfully.”

“Porthos, you are as vain as Narcissus; I plainly tell you so,” replied

Aramis. “You know I hate moralizing, except when it is done by Athos.

As to you, good sir, you wear too magnificent a baldric to be strong on

that head. I will be an abbé if it suits me. In the meanwhile I am a

Musketeer; in that quality I say what I please, and at this moment it

pleases me to say that you weary me.”

“Aramis!”

“Porthos!”

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” cried the surrounding group.

“Monsieur de Tréville awaits Monsieur d’Artagnan,” cried a servant,

throwing open the door of the cabinet.

At this announcement, during which the door remained open, everyone

became mute, and amid the general silence the young man crossed part of

the length of the antechamber, and entered the apartment of the captain

of the Musketeers, congratulating himself with all his heart at having

so narrowly escaped the end of this strange quarrel.