Twenty Years After - The Original Classic Edition. Dumas d.Ä. Alexandre

making, with his spare little short arms, ridiculous gestures. D'Artagnan perceived that he was enforcing prudence with respect to himself.

       D'Artagnan slipped out of the cathedral and placed himself in ambuscade at the corner of the Rue des Canettes; it was impossible

       that Bazin should go out of the cathedral without his seeing him.

       In five minutes Bazin made his appearance, looking in every direction to see if he were observed, but he saw no one. Calmed by appearances he ventured to walk on through the Rue Notre Dame. Then D'Artagnan rushed out of his hiding place and arrived in time to see Bazin turn down the Rue de la Juiverie and enter, in the Rue de la Calandre, a respectable looking house; and this D'Artagnan felt no doubt was the habitation of the worthy beadle. Afraid of making any inquiries at this house, D'Artagnan entered a small tav-ern at the corner of the street and asked for a cup of hypocras. This beverage required a good half-hour to prepare. And D'Artagnan had time, therefore, to watch Bazin unsuspected.

       He perceived in the tavern a pert boy between twelve and fifteen years of age whom he fancied he had seen not twenty minutes before under the guise of a chorister. He questioned him, and as the boy had no interest in deceiving, D'Artagnan learned that he exercised, from six o'clock in the morning until nine, the office of chorister, and from nine o'clock till midnight that of a waiter in the tavern.

       Whilst he was talking to this lad a horse was brought to the door of Bazin's house. It was saddled and bridled. Almost immediately

       Bazin came downstairs.

       "Look!" said the boy, "there's our beadle, who is going a journey." "And where is he going?" asked D'Artagnan.

       "Forsooth, I don't know."

       "Half a pistole if you can find out," said D'Artagnan.

       "For me?" cried the boy, his eyes sparkling with joy, "if I can find out where Bazin is going? That is not difficult. You are not joking,

       are you?"

       "No, on the honor of an officer; there is the half-pistole;" and he showed him the seductive coin, but did not give it him.

       "I shall ask him."

       "Just the very way not to know. Wait till he is set out and then, marry, come up, ask, and find out. The half-pistole is ready," and he

       put it back again into his pocket.

       "I understand," said the child, with that jeering smile which marks especially the "gamin de Paris." "Well, we must wait."

       They had not long to wait. Five minutes afterward Bazin set off on a full trot, urging on his horse by the blows of a parapluie, which he was in the habit of using instead of a riding whip.

       Scarcely had he turned the corner of the Rue de la Juiverie when the boy rushed after him like a bloodhound on full scent. Before ten minutes had elapsed the child returned.

       "Well!" said D'Artagnan.

       "Well!" answered the boy, "the thing is done." "Where is he gone?"

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       "The half-pistole is for me?" "Doubtless, answer me."

       "I want to see it. Give it me, that I may see it is not false." "There it is."

       The child put the piece of money into his pocket. "And now, where is he gone?" inquired D'Artagnan. "He is gone to Noisy."

       "How dost thou know?"

       "Ah, faith! there was no great cunning necessary. I knew the horse he rode; it belonged to the butcher, who lets it out now and then to M. Bazin. Now I thought that the butcher would not let his horse out like that without knowing where it was going. And he answered 'that Monsieur Bazin went to Noisy.' 'Tis his custom. He goes two or three times a week."

       "Dost thou know Noisy well?"

       "I think so, truly; my nurse lives there."

       "Is there a convent at Noisy?"

       "Isn't there a great and grand one--the convent of Jesuits?" "What is thy name?"

       "Friquet."

       D'Artagnan wrote the child's name in his tablets.

       "Please, sir," said the boy, "do you think I can gain any more half-pistoles in any way?" "Perhaps," replied D'Artagnan.

       And having got out all he wanted, he paid for the hypocras, which he did not drink, and went quickly back to the Rue Tiquetonne.

       8. How D'Artagnan, on going to a Distance to discover Aramis, discovers his old Friend on Horseback behind his own Planchet.

       On entering the hotel D'Artagnan saw a man sitting in a corner by the fire. It was Planchet, but so completely transformed, thanks

       to the old clothes that the departing husband had left behind, that D'Artagnan himself could hardly recognize him. Madeleine introduced him in presence of all the servants. Planchet addressed the officer with a fine Flemish phrase; the officer replied in words that belonged to no language at all, and the bargain was concluded; Madeleine's brother entered D'Artagnan's service.

       The plan adopted by D'Artagnan was soon perfected. He resolved not to reach Noisy in the day, for fear of being recognized; he had

       therefore plenty of time before him, for Noisy is only three or four leagues from Paris, on the road to Meaux.

       He began his day by breakfasting substantially--a bad beginning when one wants to employ the head, but an excellent precaution when one wants to work the body; and about two o'clock he had his two horses saddled, and followed by Planchet he quitted Paris by the Barriere de la Villete. A most active search was still prosecuted in the house near the Hotel de la Chevrette for the discovery of Planchet.

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       At about a league and a half from the city, D'Artagnan, finding that in his impatience he had set out too soon, stopped to give the horses breathing time. The inn was full of disreputable looking people, who seemed as if they were on the point of commencing some nightly expedition. A man, wrapped in a cloak, appeared at the door, but seeing a stranger he beckoned to his companions, and two men who were drinking in the inn went out to speak to him.

       D'Artagnan, on his side, went up to the landlady, praised her wine--which was a horrible production from the country of Montreuil--and heard from her that there were only two houses of importance in the village; one of these belonged to the Archbishop of Paris, and was at that time the abode of his niece the Duchess of Longueville; the other was a convent of Jesuits and was the property--a by no means unusual circumstance--of these worthy fathers.

       At four o'clock D'Artagnan recommenced his journey. He proceeded slowly and in deep reverie. Planchet also was lost in thought,

       but the subject of their reflections was not the same.

       One word which their landlady had pronounced had given a particular turn to D'Artagnan's deliberations; this was the name of

       Madame de Longueville.

       That name was indeed one to inspire imagination and produce thought. Madame de Longueville was one of the highest ladies in

       the realm; she was also one of the greatest beauties at court. She had formerly been suspected of an intimacy of too tender a nature with Coligny, who, for her sake, had been killed in a duel, in the Place Royale, by the Duc de Guise. She was now connected by bonds of a political nature with the Prince de Marsillac, the eldest son of the old Duc de Rochefoucauld, whom she was trying to inspire with an enmity toward the Duc de Conde, her brother-in-law, whom she now hated mortally.

       D'Artagnan thought of all these matters. He remembered how at the Louvre he had often seen, as she passed by him in the full radiance of her dazzling charms, the beautiful Madame de Longueville. He thought of Aramis, who, without possessing any greater advantages than himself, had formerly been the lover of Madame de Chevreuse, who had been to a former court what Madame de Longueville was in that day; and he wondered how it was that there should be in the world people who succeed in every wish, some in ambition, others in love, whilst others, either from chance, or from ill-luck, or from some natural defect or impediment, remain half-way upon the road toward fulfilment of their hopes and expectations.

       He was