pretense, to make them otherwise. But points of view change
greatly in the course of a life. It is a magic lantern, of
which the eye of man every year changes the aspects. It
results that from the last day of a year on which we saw
white, to the first day of the year on which we shall see
black, there is but the interval of a single night.
Now, D’Artagnan, when he left Calais with his ten scamps,
would have hesitated as little in attacking a Goliath, a
Nebuchadnezzar, or a Holofernes as he would in crossing
swords with a recruit or caviling with a landlady. Then he
resembled the sparrow-hawk which, when fasting, will attack
a ram. Hunger is blind. But D’Artagnan satisfied —
D’Artagnan rich — D’Artagnan a conqueror — D’Artagnan
proud of so difficult a triumph — D’Artagnan had too much
to lose not to reckon, figure by figure, with probable
misfortune.
His thoughts were employed, therefore, all the way on the
road from his presentation, with one thing, and that was,
how he should conciliate a man like Monk, a man whom Charles
himself, kind as he was, conciliated with difficulty; for,
scarcely established, the protected might again stand in
need of the protector, and would, consequently, not refuse
him, such being the case, the petty satisfaction of
transporting M. d’Artagnan, or of confining him in one of
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the Middlesex prisons, or drowning him a little on his
passage from Dover to Boulogne. Such sorts of satisfaction
kings are accustomed to render to viceroys without
disagreeable consequences.
It would not be at all necessary for the king to be active
in that contrepartie of the play in which Monk should take
his revenge. The part of the king would be confined to
simply pardoning the viceroy of Ireland all he should
undertake against D’Artagnan. Nothing more was necessary to
place the conscience of the Duke of Albemarle at rest than a
te absolvo said with a laugh, or the scrawl of “Charles the
King,” traced at the foot of a parchment; and with these two
words pronounced, and these two words written, poor
D’Artagnan was forever crushed beneath the ruins of his
imagination.
And then, a thing sufficiently disquieting for a man with
such foresight as our musketeer, he found himself alone; and
even the friendship of Athos could not restore his
confidence. Certainly if the affair had only concerned a
free distribution of sword-thrusts, the musketeer would have
counted upon his companion; but in delicate dealings with a
king, when the perhaps of an unlucky chance should arise in
justification of Monk or of Charles of England, D’Artagnan
knew Athos well enough to be sure he would give the best
possible coloring to the loyalty of the survivor, and would
content himself with shedding floods of tears on the tomb of
the dead, supposing the dead to be his friend, and
afterwards composing his epitaph in the most pompous
superlatives.
“Decidedly,” thought the Gascon; and this thought was the
result of the reflections which he had just whispered to
himself and which we have repeated aloud — “decidedly, I
must be reconciled with M. Monk, and acquire a proof of his
perfect indifference for the past. If, and God forbid it
should be so! he is still sulky and reserved in the
expression of this sentiment, I shall give my money to Athos
to take away with him, and remain in England just long
enough to unmask him, then, as I have a quick eye and a
light foot, I shall notice the first hostile sign; to decamp
or conceal myself at the residence of my lord of Buckingham,
who seems a good sort of devil at the bottom, and to whom,
in return for his hospitality, I shall relate all that
history of the diamonds, which can now compromise nobody but
an old queen, who need not be ashamed, after being the wife
of a miserly creature like Mazarin, of having formerly been
the mistress of a handsome nobleman like Buckingham.
Mordioux! that is the thing, and this Monk shall not get the
better of me. Eh? and besides I have an idea!”