The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [79]
“Yes, Monsieur l’officier,” stammered the mercer, more dead than alive, “at your service.”
“Come in,” said the officer.
And he stood aside so that the mercer could pass. The latter obeyed without replying and went into the room, where he seemed to be expected.
It was a large office, the walls hung with offensive and defensive weapons, close and stuffy, and in which a fire already burned, though it was barely the end of the month of September. A square table, covered with books and papers, over which an immense map of the town of La Rochelle had been unrolled, occupied the middle of the room.
Standing before the fireplace was a man of medium height, of haughty and proud bearing, with piercing eyes, a broad forehead, a gaunt face elongated still more by an imperial surmounted by a pair of mustaches. Though the man was barely thirty-six or thirty-seven, his hair, mustache, and imperial were all going gray. This man had all the look of a man of war, minus the sword, and his buff boots still lightly covered with dust indicated that he had ridden on horseback during the day.
This man was Armand-Jean Duplessis, cardinal de Richelieu, not as he is represented to us, bent like an old man, suffering like a martyr, body broken, voice extinct, buried in a great armchair as in a premature grave, living only by the strength of his genius, and sustaining the war with Europe only by the eternal application of this thought; but such as he really was at that time, that is, an adroit and gallant cavalier, already weak of body, but sustained by that moral force which had made of him one of the most extraordinary men who ever existed; preparing finally, after having supported the duc de Nevers in his duchy at Mantua, after having taken Nîmes, Castres, and Uzés, to drive the English from the Île de Ré and lay siege to La Rochelle.64
At first sight, then, nothing marked him as a cardinal, and it was impossible for those who did not know his face to guess before whom they found themselves.
The poor mercer remained standing at the door, while the eyes of the character we have just described fixed themselves on him and seemed to wish to penetrate to the bottom of the past.
“This is that Bonacieux?” he asked after a moment’s silence.
“Yes, Monseigneur,” replied the officer.
“Very well, give me those papers and leave us.”
The officer took the designated papers from the table, handed them to him who had asked for them, bowed to the ground, and went out.
Bonacieux recognized these papers from his interrogation in the Bastille. From time to time, the man at the fireplace raised his eyes above the writings and plunged them like daggers to the bottom of the poor mercer’s heart.
After ten minutes of reading and ten seconds of examination, the cardinal was decided.
“That head is no conspirator’s,” he murmured. “But never mind, let’s still see.”
“You are accused of high treason,” the cardinal said slowly.
“I have already been apprised of that, Monseigneur,” cried Bonacieux, giving his questioner the title he had heard the officer give him, “but I swear to you that I know nothing about it.”
The cardinal repressed a smile.
“You have conspired with your wife, with Mme de Chevreuse, and with Milord the duke of Buckingham.”
“Indeed, Monseigneur,” replied the mercer, “I’ve heard her mention all those names.”
“And on what occasion?”
“She said that Cardinal Richelieu had lured the duke of Buckingham to Paris in order to ruin him and to ruin the queen along with him.”
“She said that?” the cardinal shouted violently.
“Yes, Monseigneur. But I told her she was wrong to say such things, and that His Eminence was incapable…”
“Hold your tongue, imbecile,” replied the cardinal.
“That’s just what my wife said to me, Monseigneur.”
“Do you know who abducted your wife?”
“No, Monseigneur.”
“You have suspicions, however?”
“Yes, Monseigneur, but these suspicions seem to have displeased M. le commissaire, and I no longer have them.”
“Your wife has escaped, did you know that?”
“No, Monseigneur, I learned it since I came to prison, and again through