The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [220]
“He will be found.”
“Well,” said the duke, “then will be the time to demand the order you have just asked for.”
“Your Eminence is right,” said Milady, “and it is I who was wrong to see in the mission with which you have honored me anything other than what it really is, that is, to announce to His Grace, on behalf of His Eminence, that you know the different disguises by means of which he managed to approach the queen during the fête given by Mme le connétable; that you have proofs of the interview in the Louvre granted by the queen to a certain Italian astrologer, who was none other than the duke of Buckingham; that you have commissioned a most witty little novel on the adventure in Amiens, with a plan of the garden where this adventure took place, and portraits of the actors who figured in it; that Montaigu is in the Bastille, and that torture may make him say things he remembers, and even things he may have forgotten; finally, that you are in possession of a certain letter from Mme de Chevreuse, found in His Grace’s quarters, which singularly compromises not only her who wrote it, but also her in whose name it was written. Then, if he persists despite all that, since my mission is limited to what I have just told you, all I will be able to do is pray that God perform a miracle to save France. That is so, is it not, Monseigneur, and there is nothing more for me to do?”
“That is quite so,” the cardinal replied drily.
“And now,” said Milady, without seeming to notice the change in the duke’s tone with her, “now that I have received Your Eminence’s instructions concerning his enemies, will Monseigneur allow me to say two words about my own?”
“So you have enemies?” asked Richelieu.
“Yes, Monseigneur, enemies against whom you owe me all your support, for I made them in Your Eminence’s service.”
“And who are they?” asked the duke.
“First of all, a little intriguer by the name of Bonacieux.”
“She is in the prison of Mantes.”
“That is to say, she was,” picked up Milady, “but the queen intercepted an order from the king, by means of which she had her transferred to a convent.”
“A convent?” asked the duke.
“Yes, a convent.”
“And which one?”
“I don’t know, the secret has been well kept.”
“I will find out!”
“And Your Eminence will tell me which convent this woman is in?”
“I see no objection to that,” said the cardinal.
“Good. Now, I have another enemy whom I find much more to be feared than this little Mme Bonacieux.”
“Who is it?”
“Her lover.”
“What is his name?”
“Oh, Your Eminence knows him well!” cried Milady, carried away by wrath. “He is the evil genius of us both. It was he who, in an encounter with Your Eminence’s guards, decided the victory in favor of the musketeers; it was he who gave three sword strokes to de Wardes, your emissary, and who thwarted the affair of the diamond pendants; it was he, finally, who, knowing it was I who had Mme Bonacieux abducted from him, swore my death.”
“Aha!” said the cardinal. “I know who you mean.”
“I mean that scoundrel d’Artagnan.”
“He’s a bold fellow,” said the cardinal.
“And it is just because he’s a bold fellow that he’s the more to be feared.”
“We must have some proof of his dealings with Buckingham,” said the cardinal.
“Some proof!” cried Milady. “I can give you ten!”
“Well, then, it’s the simplest thing in the world! Furnish me with this proof, and I will send him to the Bastille.”
“Very well, Monseigneur, but what then?”
“When one is in the Bastille, there is no what then,” said the cardinal in a hollow voice. “Ah, pardieu!” he went on, “if it was as easy for me to get rid of my enemy as it is for me to get rid of yours, and if it was against such men that you were asking me for impunity!…”
“Monseigneur,” picked up Milady, “tit for tat, life for life, man for man: give me this one, I’ll give you the other.”
“I don’t know what you mean to say,” replied the cardinal, “and I don’t even want to know; but I have a wish to be nice to you, and I see no objection to giving you what