The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [37]
“Listen to M. de Tréville,” said the king, “listen to him! You’d think he was talking about a religious community! Truly, my dear captain, I’d like to take your commission and give it to Mlle de Chemerault,32 to whom I’ve promised an abbey. But don’t think I’ll take you at your word. I’m known as Louis the Just, M. de Tréville, and we shall see, we shall soon see.”
“Ah! it’s because I trust in that justice, Sire, that I patiently and calmly await Your Majesty’s good pleasure.”
“Wait, then, Monsieur, wait,” said the king. “I won’t make you wait long.”
Indeed, the luck turned, and as the king began losing what he had won, he was not sorry to play—allow us this gambler’s expression, of which, we admit, we do not know the origin—he was not sorry to play Charlemagne.33 The king thus stood up after a moment, and pocketing the money that was in front of him, the major part of which represented his winnings, said:
“La Vieuville,34 take my place, I must speak with M. de Tréville about an important matter. Ah!…I had eighty louis in front of me; put down the same amount, so that those who have lost won’t have any reason to complain. Justice before all.”
Then, turning to M. de Tréville and walking with him toward the embrasure of a window, he went on:
“Well, Monsieur, so you say it was the guards of the Most Eminent who picked a quarrel with your musketeers?”
“Yes, Sire, as always.”
“And how did the thing come about, eh? For you know, my dear captain, a judge must hear both sides.”
“Ah, my God, in the simplest and most natural way possible! Three of my best soldiers, whom Your Majesty knows by name and whose devotion you have more than once appreciated, and who, I may affirm it to the king, take his service greatly to heart—three of my best soldiers, I say, MM. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, went for an outing with a young lad from Gascony whom I had introduced to them that same morning. The outing was to be in Saint-Germain,35 I believe, and they had agreed to meet at the Carmes-Deschaux, where they were disturbed by M. de Jussac, MM. Cahusac and Biscarat, and two other guards, who surely did not come there in so numerous a company without bad intentions against the edicts.”
“Aha! you’ve just made me think of it,” said the king. “No doubt they came to fight themselves.”
“I do not accuse them, Sire, but I let Your Majesty consider what five armed men could be up to in such a deserted place as the environs of the Carmelite convent.”
“Yes, you’re right, Tréville, you’re right.”
“So, when they saw my musketeers, they changed their minds and forgot their private hatred of the corps; for Your Majesty is not unaware that the musketeers, who are the king’s and only the king’s, are the natural enemies of the guards, who are M. le cardinal’s men.”
“Yes, Tréville, yes,” the king said melancholically, “and it’s very sad, believe me, to see two parties like this in France, two heads to the royalty; but that will all end, Tréville, that will all end. So you say the guards picked a quarrel with the musketeers?”
“I say it’s possible that things went that way, but I can’t swear to it, Sire. You know how difficult it is to learn the truth, and unless one is gifted with that admirable instinct which gave the name ‘Just’ to Louis XIII…”
“And right you are, Tréville; but they weren’t alone, your musketeers, didn’t they have a boy with them?”
“Yes, Sire, and a wounded man, so that three of the king’s musketeers, one of them wounded, and a boy not only held their own against five of M. le cardinal’s most terrible guards, but brought four of them down.”
“Why, that’s a victory!” the king cried, beaming. “A total victory!”
“Yes, Sire, as total as at the pont de Cé.”36
“Four men, one of them wounded, and one