Fouquet wish? Oh, that is serious. M. Fouquet wishes
precisely for all which the king wishes.”
This monologue ended, D’Artagnan began to laugh, whilst
making his whip whistle in the air. He was already on the
high road, frightening the birds in the hedges, listening to
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the livres chinking and dancing in his leather pocket, at
every step; and, let us confess it, every time that
D’Artagnan found himself in such conditions tenderness was
not his dominant vice. “Come,” said he, “I cannot think the
expedition a very dangerous one; and it will fall out with
my voyage as with that piece M. Monk took me to see in
London, which was called, I think, `Much Ado about
Nothing.'”
CHAPTER 66
The Journey
It was perhaps the fiftieth time since the day on which we
open this history, that this man. with a heart of bronze and
muscles of steel, had left house and friends, everything, in
short, to go in search of fortune and death. The one — that
is to say. death — had constantly retreated before him, as
if afraid of him; the other — that is to say, fortune —
for a month past only had really made an alliance with him.
Although he was not a great philosopher, after the fashion
of either Epicurus or Socrates, he was a powerful spirit,
having knowledge of life, and endowed with thought. No one
is as brave, as adventurous, or as skillful as D’Artagnan,
without being at the same time inclined to be a dreamer. He
had picked up, here and there, some scraps of M. de la
Rochefoucauld, worthy of being translated into Latin by MM.
de Port Royal, and he had made a collection, en passant, in
the society of Athos and Aramis, of many morsels of Seneca
and Cicero, translated by them, and applied to the uses of
common life. That contempt of riches which our Gascon had
observed as an article of faith during the thirty-five first
years of his life, had for a long time been considered by
him as the first article of the code of bravery. “Article
first,” said he, “A man is brave because he has nothing. A
man has nothing because he despises riches.” Therefore, with
these principles, which, as we have said had regulated the
thirty-five first years of his life, D’Artagnan was no
sooner possessed of riches, than he felt it necessary to ask
himself if, in spite of his riches, he were still brave. To
this, for any other but D’Artagnan, the events of the Place
de Greve might have served as a reply. Many consciences
would have been satisfied with them, but D’Artagnan was
brave enough to ask himself sincerely and conscientiously if
he were brave. Therefore to this: —
“But it appears to me that I drew promptly enough and cut
and thrust pretty freely on the Place de Greve to be
satisfied of my bravery,” D’Artagnan had himself replied.
“Gently, captain, that is not an answer. I was brave that
day, because they were burning my house, and there are a
hundred, and even a thousand, to speak against one, that if
those gentlemen of the riots had not formed that unlucky
idea, their plan of attack would have succeeded, or, at
least, it would not have been I who would have opposed
myself to it. Now, what will be brought against me? I have
no house to be burnt in Bretagne; I have no treasure there
that can be taken from me. — No; but I have my skin; that
precious skin of M. d’Artagnan, which to him is worth more
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than all the houses and all the treasures of the world. That
skin to which I cling above everything, because it is,
everything considered, the binding of a body which encloses
a heart very warm and ready to fight, and, consequently, to
live. Then, I do desire to live; and, in reality, I live
much better, more completely, since I have become rich. Who
the devil ever said that money spoiled life! Upon my soul,
it is no such thing; on the contrary, it seems as if I