• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

First there was Milady with a lust for vengeance that impelled her to destroy not only him, but all those who loved him. How well informed she was about matters at Court! How easily she had discovered everything! But how could she have done so except through the Cardinal?

But there was also cause for joy. The Queen, having finally discovered the prison in which poor Madame Bonacieux was expiating her loyalty, had set her free from that prison. The mysteries of Madame Bonacieux’s letter to D’Artagnan and of her passage along the Chaillot road—a passage more like an apparition—were now crystal clear. As Athos had predicted, there was hope of finding Madame Bonacieux. No convent was impregnable; he had but to discover to what convent the Queen had committed her.

Immensely cheered, D’Artagnan turned to the wounded man who was observing him anxiously. Holding out his arm:

“Come, lad,” D’Artagnan urged, “I’ll not leave you like this. Take my arm or lean on my shoulder. I’ll trundle you back to camp.”

“Ay, Monsieur, thank you kindly.” The ruffian found it difficult to credit such magnanimity. “Back to camp to have me hanged, eh?”

“No, I give you my word. For the second time, I prefer to save your life.”

The other fell to his knees, seeking to kiss the feet of his savior, but D’Artagnan cut short these tokens of gratitude. There was no point in remaining so close to the enemy bastion even in a trench surmounted by a healthy parapet.

As D’Artagnan and the ruffian hobbled into camp they were received with surprise and delight, for the guardsman who had returned safely reported his four comrades as dead.

D’Artagnan explained the ruffian’s swordthrust by a sortie, the details of which he improvised with gusto; the other soldier’s death he explained quite as glibly. His recital occasioned a veritable triumph for him. For a day the whole army spoke of nothing else and the Duc d’Orléans sent D’Artagnan his personal congratulations.

Any brave exploit bears its own private reward. D’Artagnan’s restored to him the peace of mind he had lost. Of the two ruffians sent to murder him, one was dead and the other was now devoted to his interests. D’Artagnan had ample cause to congratulate himself upon his tranquillity—a tranquillity which proved one thing, namely, that he did not yet know Milady.

XLII

OF ANJOU WINE AND ITS SALUBRIOUS VIRTUES

After the most disheartening news of the King’s health, reports of his convalescence reached the camp. As His Majesty was very eager to participate personally in the siege it was announced that he would set forth as soon as he could mount a horse. Meanwhile the Duc d’Orléans did very little. He knew he might be removed from his command any day and replaced by either the Duc d’Angoulême or by Bassompierre or Schomberg, rivals for his post. So he wasted day after day wavering and attempting to feel out the enemy. He dared attempt no large scale enterprise to drive the English from the Ile de Ré where they were still laying siege to the citadel of Saint Martin and to the Fort de La Prée just as the French were besieging La Rochelle.

(Speculation ran rife as to the three candidates for the supreme command. There was Charles de Valois, Duc d’Angoulême, the bastard son of King Charles IX of France and Marie Touchet, whom that monarch celebrated in verse. The Duc d’Angoulême was now fifty-two years old. At sixteen he had been named Grand Prior of France; shortly after he had inherited large estates left by Catherine de’ Medici and at the age of eighteen he was dispensed from his vows of the order of Malta and was allowed to marry. A Colonel of Horse under Henry IV, he had plotted against the King to force him to abjure the Queen and marry his mistress, the Marquise de Verneuil. Thirty years ago, he had plotted with Spain, been condemned to death, then to perpetual imprisonment in the Bastille where he had spent eleven years. Released in 1616, he had served the crown in various military and diplomatic capacities. Ten years later he was to serve as