The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [94]
“Do that,” she cried, “and you will have saved my life, you will have saved my honor!”
“Oh, don’t exaggerate the service I have the honor of rendering you! I have nothing to save of Your Majesty’s, who is only the victim of perfidious plots.”
“That’s true, that’s true, my child,” said the queen, “you’re right.”
“Give me the letter then, Madame, time is short.”
The queen rushed to a little table where she found ink, paper, and pens. She wrote two lines, sealed the letter with her seal, and handed it to Mme Bonacieux.
“And now,” said the queen, “we’re forgetting one necessary thing.”
“What?”
“Money.”
Mme Bonacieux blushed.
“Yes, that’s true,” she said, “and I’ll confess to Your Majesty that my husband…”
“Your husband has none, that’s what you want to say.”
“No, he has, but he’s terribly stingy, that’s his failing. However, Your Majesty needn’t worry, we’ll find a way…”
“The thing is that I also have none,” said the queen (those who have read the memoirs of Mme de Motteville79 will not be surprised by that response). “But wait.”
Anne d’Autriche rushed behind her screen.
“Here,” she said, “I’m assured that this is a very valuable ring. It came from my brother, the king of Spain. It is mine and I can dispose of it. Take this ring and exchange it for money, and let your husband set off.”
“Within an hour you shall be obeyed.”
“You see the address,” added the queen, speaking so softly that what she said could barely be heard. “To Milord the duke of Buckingham, London.”
“The letter will be delivered to him in person.”
“Generous child!” cried Anne d’Autriche.
Mme Bonacieux kissed the queen’s hands, hid the paper in her bodice, and disappeared with the lightness of a bird.
Ten minutes later, she was at home. As she had told the queen, she had not seen her husband since he was set free; she was thus unaware of the change that had been made in him with regard to the cardinal, a change wrought by His Eminence’s flattery and money, corroborated afterwards by two or three visits from the comte de Rochefort, who had become Bonacieux’s best friend and had made him believe without much difficulty that no blameworthy feelings had led to his wife’s abduction, but that it was merely a political precaution.
She found M. Bonacieux alone. The poor man had with great difficulty restored order in the house, where he had found the furniture nearly all broken and the wardrobes nearly empty, the law not being one of the three things King Solomon mentioned as leaving no traces of their passage.80 As for the maid, she had fled at the time of her master’s arrest. Terror had taken such possession of the poor girl that she never stopped walking between Paris and Burgundy, her native province.
The worthy mercer had sent notice to his wife of his happy return as soon as he came back to the house, and his wife in her response had congratulated him and told him that the first moment she could steal from her duties would be devoted entirely to paying him a visit.
That first moment had been delayed for five days, which, in any other circumstances, would have seemed rather too long to Master Bonacieux; but in the visit he had paid to the cardinal, and the visits Rochefort had made to him, he had found ample food for reflection, and, as we know, nothing makes the time pass so quickly as reflection.
The more so in that Bonacieux’s reflections were all rose-colored. Rochefort called him his friend, his dear Bonacieux, and ceaselessly told him that the cardinal set the greatest store by him. The mercer already saw himself on the way to honor and fortune.
On her side, Mme Bonacieux had reflected, but, it must be said, on something quite other than ambition. Despite herself, her thoughts had for constant motive that handsome young man, so brave and seemingly so loving. Married at the age of eighteen to M. Bonacieux, living always in the midst of her husband’s friends, who were hardly likely to inspire any sort of feeling in a young woman whose heart was loftier than her