Twenty Years After. Dumas Alexandre

nobles.

      The cardinal looked at him with a cunning rather than serious glance, yet he examined his countenance with attention and after a momentary silence said:

      “You are Monsieur d’Artagnan?”

      “I am that individual,” replied the officer.

      Mazarin gazed once more at a countenance full of intelligence, the play of which had been, nevertheless, subdued by age and experience; and D’Artagnan received the penetrating glance like one who had formerly sustained many a searching look, very different, indeed, from those which were inquiringly directed on him at that instant.

      “Sir,” resumed the cardinal, “you are to come with me, or rather, I am to go with you.”

      “I am at your command, my lord,” returned D’Artagnan.

      “I wish to visit in person the outposts which surround the Palais Royal; do you suppose that there is any danger in so doing?”

      “Danger, my lord!” exclaimed D’Artagnan with a look of astonishment, “what danger?”

      “I am told that there is a general insurrection.”

      “The uniform of the king’s musketeers carries a certain respect with it, and even if that were not the case I would engage with four of my men to put to flight a hundred of these clowns.”

      “Did you witness the injury sustained by Comminges?”

      “Monsieur de Comminges is in the guards and not in the musketeers-”

      “Which means, I suppose, that the musketeers are better soldiers than the guards.” The cardinal smiled as he spoke.

      “Every one likes his own uniform best, my lord.”

      “Myself excepted,” and again Mazarin smiled; “for you perceive that I have left off mine and put on yours.”

      “Lord bless us! this is modesty indeed!” cried D’Artagnan. “Had I such a uniform as your eminence possesses, I protest I should be mightily content, and I would take an oath never to wear any other costume-”

      “Yes, but for to-night’s adventure I don’t suppose my dress would have been a very safe one. Give me my felt hat, Bernouin.”

      The valet instantly brought to his master a regimental hat with a wide brim. The cardinal put it on in military style.

      “Your horses are ready saddled in their stables, are they not?” he said, turning to D’Artagnan.

      “Yes, my lord.”

      “Well, let us set out.”

      “How many men does your eminence wish to escort you?”

      “You say that with four men you will undertake to disperse a hundred low fellows; as it may happen that we shall have to encounter two hundred, take eight-”

      “As many as my lord wishes.”

      “I will follow you. This way-light us downstairs Bernouin.”

      The valet held a wax-light; the cardinal took a key from his bureau and opening the door of a secret stair descended into the court of the Palais Royal.

      2. A Nightly Patrol

      In ten minutes Mazarin and his party were traversing the street “Les Bons Enfants” behind the theatre built by Richelieu expressly for the play of “Mirame,” and in which Mazarin, who was an amateur of music, but not of literature, had introduced into France the first opera that was ever acted in that country.

      The appearance of the town denoted the greatest agitation. Numberless groups paraded the streets and, whatever D’Artagnan might think of it, it was obvious that the citizens had for the night laid aside their usual forbearance, in order to assume a warlike aspect. From time to time noises came in the direction of the public markets. The report of firearms was heard near the Rue Saint Denis and occasionally church bells began to ring indiscriminately and at the caprice of the populace. D’Artagnan, meantime, pursued his way with the indifference of a man upon whom such acts of folly made no impression. When he approached a group in the middle of the street he urged his horse upon it without a word of warning; and the members of the group, whether rebels or not, as if they knew with what sort of a man they had to deal, at once gave place to the patrol. The cardinal envied that composure, which he attributed to the habit of meeting danger; but none the less he conceived for the officer under whose orders he had for the moment placed himself, that consideration which even prudence pays to careless courage. On approaching an outpost near the Barriere des Sergens, the sentinel cried out, “Who’s there?” and D’Artagnan answered-having first asked the word of the cardinal-“Louis and Rocroy.” After which he inquired if Lieutenant Comminges were not the commanding officer at the outpost. The soldier replied by pointing out to him an officer who was conversing, on foot, his hand upon the neck of a horse on which the individual to whom he was talking sat. Here was the officer D’Artagnan was seeking.

      “Here is Monsieur Comminges,” said D’Artagnan, returning to the cardinal. He instantly retired, from a feeling of respectful delicacy; it was, however, evident that the cardinal was recognized by both Comminges and the other officers on horseback.

      “Well done, Guitant,” cried the cardinal to the equestrian; “I see plainly that, notwithstanding the sixty-four years that have passed over your head, you are still the same man, active and zealous. What were you saying to this youngster?”

      “My lord,” replied Guitant, “I was observing that we live in troublous times and that to-day’s events are very like those in the days of the Ligue, of which I heard so much in my youth. Are you aware that the mob have even suggested throwing up barricades in the Rue Saint Denis and the Rue Saint Antoine?”

      “And what was Comminges saying to you in reply, my good Guitant?”

      “My lord,” said Comminges, “I answered that to compose a Ligue only one ingredient was wanting-in my opinion an essential one-a Duc de Guise; moreover, no generation ever does the same thing twice.”

      “No, but they mean to make a Fronde, as they call it,” said Guitant.

      “And what is a Fronde?” inquired Mazarin.

      “My lord, Fronde is the name the discontented give to their party.”

      “And what is the origin of this name?”

      “It seems that some days since Councillor Bachaumont remarked at the palace that rebels and agitators reminded him of schoolboys slinging-qui frondent-stones from the moats round Paris, young urchins who run off the moment the constable appears, only to return to their diversion the instant his back is turned. So they have picked up the word and the insurrectionists are called ‘Frondeurs,’ and yesterday every article sold was ‘a la Fronde;’ bread ‘a la Fronde,’ hats ‘a la Fronde,’ to say nothing of gloves, pocket-handkerchiefs, and fans; but listen-”

      At that moment a window opened and a man began to sing:

      | “A tempest from the Fronde

      | Did blow to-day:

      | I think ‘twill blow

      | Sieur Mazarin away.”

      “Insolent wretch!” cried Guitant.

      “My lord,” said Comminges, who, irritated by his wounds, wished for revenge and longed to give back blow for blow, “shall I fire off a ball to punish that jester, and to warn him not to sing so much out of tune in the future?”

      And as he spoke he put his hand on the holster of his uncle’s saddle-bow.

      “Certainly not! certainly not,” exclaimed Mazarin. “Diavolo! my dear friend, you are going to spoil everything-everything is going on famously. I know the French as well as if I had made them myself. They sing-let them pay the piper. During the Ligue, about which Guitant was speaking just now, the people chanted nothing except the mass, so everything went to destruction. Come, Guitant, come along, and let’s see if they keep watch at the Quinze-Vingts as at the Barriere des Sergens.”

      And waving his hand