The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [200]
“Luckily,” he added, “my good friends are down there, and they won’t let me be taken away without defending me. However, M. de Tréville’s company of musketeers can’t make war alone against the cardinal, who disposes of forces from all over France, and before whom the queen is without power and the king without will. D’Artagnan, my friend, you’re brave, you have excellent qualities, but women will be the ruin of you!”
He reached that sad conclusion just as he was entering the antechamber. He handed his letter to the usher on duty, who let him into the waiting room and disappeared into the interior of the palace.
In the waiting room there were five or six of M. le cardinal’s guards, who, recognizing d’Artagnan and knowing that it was he who had wounded Jussac, looked at him with odd smiles.
These smiles seemed to d’Artagnan to augur ill; only, as our Gascon was not easily intimidated, or rather, thanks to the great pride natural to people from his province, he did not let what was happening in his soul be easily seen, when what was happening was something like fear, he planted himself proudly before the guards and waited, hand on hip, in an attitude not lacking in majesty.
The usher came back and made a sign for d’Artagnan to follow him. It seemed to the young man that the guards whispered among themselves as they watched him walk away.
He followed a corridor, passed through a large salon, went into a library, and found himself facing a man sitting at a desk and writing.
The usher showed him in and withdrew without saying a word. D’Artagnan thought at first that he was dealing with some judge who was examining his case, but he noticed that the man at the desk was writing, or rather correcting, lines of unequal length, scanning the words on his fingers. He saw that he was facing a poet. After a moment, the poet closed his manuscript, on the cover of which was written: Mirame, a Tragedy in Five Acts,145 and raised his head.
D’Artagnan recognized the cardinal.
XL
THE CARDINAL
The cardinal rested his elbow on his manuscript, cheek in hand, and looked at the young man for a moment. No one had a more deeply searching eye than Cardinal Richelieu, and d’Artagnan felt that gaze running through his veins like a fever.
However, he stood up to it well, holding his hat in his hand, and awaiting His Eminence’s good pleasure, without too much pride, but also without too much humility.
“Monsieur,” the cardinal said to him, “you are a certain d’Artagnan from Béarn?”
“Yes, Monseigneur,” replied the young man.
“There are several branches of the d’Artagnans in Tarbes and its environs,” said the cardinal. “To which do you belong?”
“I am the son of the man who fought in the wars of religion on the side of the great King Henri, father of His Gracious Majesty.”
“Just so. It is you who, some seven or eight months ago, set out from your province to seek your fortune in the capital?”
“Yes, Monseigneur.”
“You came via Meung, where something happened to you, I do not quite know what, but something.”
“Monseigneur,” said d’Artagnan, “here is what happened to me…”
“Never mind, never mind,” the cardinal picked up, with a smile which indicated that he knew the story as well as the one who wanted to tell it to him. “You were recommended to M. de Tréville, were you not?”
“Yes, Monseigneur. But, as a matter of fact, in that unfortunate business in Meung…”
“The letter got lost,” His Eminence interrupted. “Yes, I know that. But M. de Tréville is a skillful physiognomist, who can judge men at first sight, and he placed you in the company of his brother-in-law, M. des Essarts, while letting you hope that one day or another you would enter the musketeers.”
“Monseigneur is