The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [84]
Louis XIII already had his hand on the doorknob; at the sound of M. de Tréville’s entrance, he turned.
“You’ve come in good time, Monsieur,” said the king, who, when his passions had risen to a certain point, was incapable of dissembling. “I’ve been learning some fine things on your musketeers’ account.”
“And as for me,” M. de Tréville said coldly, “I have some fine things to teach Your Majesty about his men of the robe.”
“If you please?” the king said haughtily.
“I have the honor to inform Your Majesty,” M. de Tréville went on in the same tone, “that a party of prosecutors, commissaries, and policemen, quite estimable men but, as it seems, quite set against the uniform, has allowed itself to arrest in a house, to lead through the open streets, and to throw into the Fort-l’Évêque, all on an order that they have refused to present to me, one of my musketeers, or rather of yours, Sire, a man of irreproachable conduct, of almost illustrious reputation, and favorably known to Your Majesty—M. Athos.”
“Athos,” the king said mechanically. “Yes, in fact, I know that name.”
“If Your Majesty will recall,” said M. de Tréville, “M. Athos is the musketeer who, in the regrettable duel known to you, had the misfortune of grievously wounding M. de Cahusac. By the way, Monseigneur,” Tréville went on, turning to the cardinal, “M. de Cahusac is fully recovered, is he not?”
“Thank you!” said the cardinal, compressing his lips with anger.
“M. Athos had gone to visit one of his friends, who happened to be out,” M. de Tréville went on, “a young Béarnais, a cadet in His Majesty’s guards, M. des Essarts’s company; but he had hardly settled himself in his friend’s place and picked up a book while he waited, when a swarm of combined writ servers and soldiers came to lay siege to the house, broke down several doors…”
The cardinal made a sign to the king which meant: “This was on that business I mentioned to you.”
“We know all that,” replied the king, “for it was all done in our service.”
“Then,” said Tréville, “it was also in Your Majesty’s service that they seized one of my innocent musketeers, placed him between two guards like a malefactor, and promenaded this gallant man through the midst of the insolent populace, though he has ten times spilt his blood in Your Majesty’s service and is ready to shed more.”
“Hah!” the king said, shaken, “so that’s how things went?”
“M. de Tréville does not mention,” the cardinal picked up with the greatest phlegm, “that an hour earlier this innocent musketeer, this gallant man, had turned his sword against four investigators I had delegated to prepare an affair of the highest importance.”
“I defy Your Eminence to prove it,” cried M. de Tréville, with all his Gascon frankness and all his military gruffness, “for an hour earlier M. Athos, who, I confide it to Your Majesty, is a man of the highest quality, did me the honor, after dining with me, of conversing in my hôtel drawing room with M. le duc de La Trémouille and M. le comte de Châlus,71 who happened to be there.”
The king looked at the cardinal.
“Official reports are to be trusted,” the cardinal replied aloud to His Majesty’s mute interrogation, “and the ill-treated men have drawn up the following one, which I have the honor of presenting to Your Majesty.”
“Is an official report from men of the robe worth the word of honor,” Tréville replied proudly, “of a man of the sword?”
“Come, come, Tréville, be quiet,” said the king.
“If His Eminence has some suspicion against one of my musketeers,” said Tréville, “the justice of M. le cardinal is known well enough for me to demand an investigation myself.”
“The house where this police raid was carried out,” the cardinal went on impassibly, “is, I believe, the lodging of a Béarnais who is the musketeer’s friend.”
“Your Eminence is referring to d’Artagnan?”
“I am referring to a young man who is your protégé, M. de Tréville.”
“Yes, Your Eminence, that is exactly so.”
“Do you not suspect this young man of having