at Montlezun, which brings me in twelve thousand francs a
year, I could not have met my engagements.”
“Well, then, how about the fifty thousand francs from the
Bastile? There, I trust, you are boarded and lodged, and get
your six thousand francs salary besides.”
“Admitted!”
“Whether the year be good or bad, there are fifty prisoners,
who, on an average, bring you in a thousand francs a year
each.”
“I don’t deny it.”
“Well, there is at once an income of fifty thousand francs;
you have held the post three years, and must have received
in that time one hundred and fifty thousand francs.”
“You forget one circumstance, dear M. d’Artagnan.”
“What is that?”
“That while you received your appointment as captain from
the king himself, I received mine as governor from Messieurs
Tremblay and Louviere.”
“Quite right, and Tremblay was not a man to let you have the
post for nothing.”
“Nor Louviere either: the result was, that I gave
seventy-five thousand francs to Tremblay as his share.”
“Very agreeable that! and to Louviere?”
“The very same.”
“Money down?”
“No: that would have been impossible. The king did not wish,
or rather M. Mazarin did not wish, to have the appearance of
removing those two gentlemen, who had sprung from the
barricades; he permitted them therefore, to make certain
extravagant conditions for their retirement.”
“What were those conditions?”
“Tremble…three years’ income for the good-will.”
“The deuce! so that the one hundred and fifty thousand
francs have passed into their hands.”
“Precisely so.”
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Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
“And beyond that?”
“A sum of one hundred and fifty thousand francs, or fifteen
thousand pistoles, whichever you please, in three payments.”
“Exorbitant.”
“Yes, but that is not all.”
“What besides?”
“In default of the fulfillment by me of any one of those
conditions, those gentlemen enter upon their functions
again. The king has been induced to sign that.”
“It is monstrous, incredible!”
“Such is the fact, however.”
“I do indeed pity you, Baisemeaux. But why, in the name of
fortune, did M. Mazarin grant you this pretended favor? It
would have been far better to have refused you altogether.”
“Certainly, but he was strongly persuaded to do so by my
protector.”
“Who is he?”
“One of your own friends, indeed; M. d’Herblay.”
“M. d’Herblay! Aramis!”
“Just so; he has been very kind towards me.”
“Kind! to make you enter into such a bargain!”
“Listen! I wished to leave the cardinal’s service. M.
d’Herblay spoke on my behalf to Louviere and Tremblay —
they objected; I wished to have the appointment very much,
for I knew what it could be made to produce; in my distress
I confided in M. d’Herblay, and he offered to become my
surety for the different payments.”
“You astound me! Aramis become your surety?”
“Like a man of honor; he procured the signature; Tremblay
and Louviere resigned their appointments, I have paid every
year twenty-five thousand francs to these two gentlemen; on
the thirty-first of May every year, M. d’Herblay himself
comes to the Bastile, and brings me five thousand pistoles
to distribute between my crocodiles.”
“You owe Aramis one hundred and fifty thousand francs,
then?”
“That is the very thing which is the cause of my despair,
for I only owe him one hundred thousand.”
“I don’t quite understand you.”
“He came and settled with the vampires only two years.
To-day, however, is the thirty-first of May, and he has not
been yet, and to-morrow, at midday, the payment falls due;
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Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
if, therefore, I don’t pay to-morrow, those gentlemen can,
by the terms of the contract, break off the bargain; I shall
be stripped of everything; I shall have worked for three
years, and given two hundred and fifty thousand francs for
nothing, absolutely for nothing at all, dear M. d’Artagnan.”
“This is very strange,” murmured D’Artagnan.
“You can now imagine that I may well have wrinkles on my
forehead, can you not?”
“Yes, indeed!”
“And you can imagine, too, that notwithstanding I may be as
round as a cheese, with a complexion like an apple, and my
eyes like coals on fire, I may almost be afraid that I shall