The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [13]
This sleep, the sleep of one who was still a provincial, occupied him till morning. At nine o’clock he rose, dressed and set out for the mansion of the illustrious Monsieur de Tréville, the third personage in the kingdom, according to Monsieur d’Artagnan the elder.
II
THE ANTECHAMBER OF MONSIEUR DE TRÉVILLE
Monsieur de Troisville, as his family was still called in Gascony, or Monsieur de Tréville, as he had ended by styling himself in Paris, had begun life exactly as D’Artagnan. He had marched on the capital without a sou to his name; but he possessed that wealth of audacity, shrewdness and intelligence whereby the poorest and humblest Gascon gentleman often derives brighter hopes from his paternal heritage than the richest and loftiest nobleman from Périgord or Berry realizes materially from his. His insolent bravery, his still more insolent success at a time when blows were thick as hops, sped him to the top of that difficult ladder called Court favor. He had scaled it four steps at a time.
Monsieur de Tréville was a friend of the reigning King, Louis XIII, who, as is well known, venerated the memory of his father, Henry IV. Now Monsieur de Tréville’s father had served Henry IV with unfailing loyalty during the Wars of Religion. The monarch could not reward him in coin of the realm, for he was short of that commodity all his life long and he used to pay his debts with the only staple he never had cause to borrow—a ready wit! So Henry of Navarre, having captured Paris and become King of France, being short of money, as we have said, authorized the late Monsieur de Tréville to assume for arms a lion or passant upon gules—in non-heraldic terms a golden lion walking and looking towards the right, with right forepaw raised, with the motto of Fidelis et fortis, loyal and brave.
This was of course a very great honor but it scarcely made for creature comfort, so that when the illustrious comrade of Henry IV died, he left his son his sword and his motto for only inheritance. Thanks to this double gift and the spotless name that accompanied it, Monsieur de Tréville was admitted into the household of the young prince. There he made such good use of his sword and proved so faithful to his motto that King Louis XIII, one of the good swordsmen of his kingdom, was wont to exclaim:
“Had I a friend about to fight, I would advise him to choose me in the first place to support him, then Tréville—or no, perhaps Tréville in the first place, then myself!”
Thus Louis XIII had a genuine liking for Tréville—a royal and selfish liking, true, but a liking nevertheless. At that unhappy period, it was important for the great to be surrounded by men made of such stuff as Tréville. Many might take for a motto the epithet of brave, which formed the second part of Tréville’s motto, but few gentlemen could boast that of loyal, which constituted the first. Tréville was of this small group, and high among them for the rare combination of virtues that were his. He was intelligent, obedient and tenacious as a bulldog and blindly passionate in his valor. Quick of eye and prompt of hand, he seemed to have been endowed with sight only to discern who displeased the King and with an arm only to strike down the culprit, whether a Besme, a Maurevers, a Poltrot, a Méré or a Vitry. In short, until now, Tréville had lacked nothing save the golden opportunity; but he had lain in wait for it and vowed to seize it by its three hairs if ever it came within reach. It did, and the sovereign appointed Tréville Captain of his Musketeers, who in devotion or rather in fanaticism were to Louis XIII what his Ordinaries had been to Henry III and his Scots Guards to Louis XI.
Monseigneur Cardinal, Duc de Richelieu, did not lag behind the King in this respect. Seeing the impressive élite Louis XIII had recruited, this second—or shall we say this first?—the Cardinal, as actual ruler of France, determined to have his own private guard too. Thus there were two corps of guards, the King’s and the Cardinal’s, and these two powerful rivals vied with each other in