The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [67]
D’Artagnan immediately repaired to the Sign of the Fir Cone where he found Porthos and Aramis waiting for him. As for the evening’s adventures, he gave his friends no explanation other than that he had himself managed the affair for which he had summoned them.
And now, carried away as we are by our narrative, we must leave our three friends to themselves and follow the Duke of Buckingham and his guide through the labyrinths of the Louvre.
XII
GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
Madame Bonacieux and the Duke entered the Louvre without difficulty, for she was known to be a servant of the Queen’s household and he wore the uniform of Monsieur de Tréville’s Musketeers, who were on guard that evening. Moreover Germain, the porter, was devoted to Her Majesty’s interests. Were anything to go wrong, Madame Bonacieux would have to take the blame for introducing her lover into the Louvre. That was all: she assumed every risk, her reputation would be ruined of course, but what does the reputation of a haberdasher’s wife amount to in a world inhabited by great personages?
Once inside the courtyard, they followed the wall for about twenty-five paces until they came to a small door in the servants’ quarters, open by day but usually closed at night. It yielded to Madame Bonacieux’s pressure and they passed into utter darkness; fortunately the Ariadne of the moment knew all the turnings and windings of this part of the Louvre, assigned to servants of Her Majesty’s Household. Her hand in the Duke’s hand, she tiptoed down passages, closed door after door behind her, groped her way through the dark, grasped a banister, felt with her foot for the bottom step and began to walk up a staircase. The Duke counted two stories, then Madame Bonacieux turned to the right, followed a long corridor, descended a flight of stairs, went a few steps farther, introduced a key into a lock, opened a door, and pushed His Grace into an apartment lighted only by a nightlight.
“You must wait here, My Lord Duke,” she whispered.
Then she went out by the same door which she locked from the outside, leaving her companion literally a prisoner.
Alone as he was, Buckingham did not experience an instant of fear; indeed one of his most salient characteristics was his search for adventure, his love of romance. A brave, rash, enterprising man, he was not risking his life in this sort of affair for the first time. He had learned that the message from Anne of Austria, on the strength of which he had come to Paris, was a snare; but instead of returning to England, he had, abusing his present plight, warned the Queen that he refused to depart without seeing her. At first the Queen would have none of it; presently, fearing that the Duke, exasperated, might commit some folly, she had consented reluctantly. In fact she had planned to meet him and to urge his immediate departure on the evening of Madame Bonacieux’s abduction; but since Madame Bonacieux was to fetch the Duke and lead him into the royal presence, the interview had perforce to be postponed.
For two days, as nobody knew what had become of the haberdasher’s wife, everything remained in suspense; but once free again and in touch with La Porte, Madame Bonacieux was available to serve her royal mistress.
Left alone in the small boudoir, Buckingham walked toward a mirror; his musketeer’s uniform, fitting him perfectly, was most becoming to him. Now thirty-five years old, he passed rightfully for the handsomest gentleman and most gallant cavalier in France or England. The favorite of two kings, immensely rich, all-powerful in a realm with which he played merry havoc to gratify a whim and then pacified to indulge a fancy, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, led one of those fabulous existences which have remained through the centuries to astound posterity.
Self-confident, convinced of his own power, certain that the laws