and solitude. When once the doors were closed, there was no
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longer an appearance of royalty. All the servitors had by
degrees retired. Monsieur le Prince had sent to know if his
majesty required his attendance; and on the customary “No”
of the lieutenant of musketeers, who was habituated to the
question and the reply, all appeared to sink into the arms
of sleep, as if in the dwelling of a good citizen.
And yet it was possible to hear from the side of the house
occupied by the young king the music of the banquet, and to
see the windows of the great hall richly illuminated.
Ten minutes after his installation in his apartment, Louis
XIV. had been able to learn, by movement much more
distinguished than marked his own leaving, the departure of
the cardinal, who, in his turn, sought his bedroom,
accompanied by a large escort of ladies and gentlemen.
Besides, to perceive this movement, he had nothing to do but
to look out at his window, the shutters of which had not
been closed.
His eminence crossed the court, conducted by Monsieur, who
himself held a flambeau, then followed the queen-mother, to
whom Madame familiarly gave her arm; and both walked
chatting away, like two old friends.
Behind these two couples filed nobles, ladies, pages and
officers; the flambeaux gleamed over the whole court, like
the moving reflections of a conflagration. Then the noise of
steps and voices became lost in the upper floors of the
castle.
No one was then thinking of the king, who, leaning on his
elbow at his window, had sadly seen pass away all that
light, and heard that noise die off — no, not one, if it
was not that unknown of the hostelry des Medici, whom we
have seen go out, enveloped in his cloak.
He had come straight up to the castle, and had, with his
melancholy countenance, wandered round and round the palace,
from which the people had not yet departed; and finding that
no one guarded the great entrance, or the porch, seeing that
the soldiers of Monsieur were fraternizing with the royal
soldiers — that is to say swallowing Beaugency at
discretion, or rather indiscretion — the unknown penetrated
through the crowd, then ascended to the court, and came to
the landing of the staircase leading to the cardinal’s
apartment.
What, according to all probability, induced him to direct
his steps that way, was the splendor of the flambeaux, and
the busy air of the pages and domestics. But he was stopped
short by a presented musket and the cry of the sentinel.
“Where are you going, my friend?” asked the soldier.
“I am going to the king’s apartment,” replied the unknown,
haughtily, but tranquilly.
The soldier called one of his eminence’s officers, who, in
the tone in which a youth in office directs a solicitor to a
minister, let fall these words: “The other staircase, in
front.”
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Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
And the officer, without further notice of the unknown,
resumed his interrupted conversation.
The stranger, without reply, directed his steps towards the
staircase pointed out to him. On this side there was no
noise, there were no more flambeaux.
Obscurity, through which a sentinel glided like a shadow;
silence, which permitted him to hear the sound of his own
footsteps, accompanied with the jingling of his spurs upon
the stone slabs.
This guard was one of the twenty musketeers appointed for
attendance upon the king, and who mounted guard with the
stiffness and consciousness of a statue.
“Who goes there?” said the guard.
“A friend,” replied the unknown.
“What do you want?”
“To speak to the king.”
“Do you, my dear monsieur? That’s not very likely.”
“Why not?”
“Because the king has gone to bed.”
“Gone to bed already?”
“Yes.”
“No matter: I must speak to him.”
“And I tell you that is impossible.”
“And yet —- ”
“Go back!”
“Do you require the word?”
“I have no account to render to you. Stand back!”
And this time the soldier accompanied his word with a
threatening gesture; but the unknown stirred no more than if