“Oh, yes, I think so.”
“Well, I must confess, that sad idea occurred to me
likewise.”
“Do not blind yourself, monsieur, in the name of Heaven!
Listen attentively to me, — I return to D’Artagnan.”
“I am all attention.”
“Under what circumstances did you see him?”
“He came here for money.”
“With what kind of order?”
“With an order from the king.”
“Direct?”
“Signed by his majesty.”
“There, then! Well, D’Artagnan has been to Belle-Isle; he
was disguised; he came in the character of some sort of an
intendant, charged by his master to purchase salt-mines.
Now, D’Artagnan has no other master but the king: he came,
then, sent by the king. He saw Porthos.”
“Who is Porthos?”
“I beg your pardon, I made a mistake. He saw M. du Vallon at
Belle-Isle; and he knows, as well as you and I do, that
Belle-Isle is fortified.”
“And you think that the king sent him there?” said Fouquet,
pensively.
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Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
“I certainly do.”
“And D’Artagnan, in the hands of the king, is a dangerous
instrument?”
“The most dangerous imaginable.”
“Then I formed a correct opinion of him at the first
glance.”
“How so?”
“I wished to attach him to myself.”
“If you judged him to be the bravest, the most acute, and
the most adroit man in France, you judged correctly.”
“He must be had then, at any price.”
“D’Artagnan?”
“Is not that your opinion?”
“It may be my opinion, but you will never get him.”
“Why?”
“Because we have allowed the time to go by. He was
dissatisfied with the court, we should have profited by
that; since that, he has passed into England; there he
powerfully assisted in the restoration, there he gained a
fortune, and, after all, he returned to the service of the
king. Well, if he has returned to the service of the king,
it is because he is well paid in that service.”
“We will pay him even better, that is all.”
“Oh! monsieur, excuse me; D’Artagnan has a high respect for
his word, and where that is once engaged he keeps it.”
“What do you conclude, then?” said Fouquet, with great
inquietude.
“At present, the principal thing is to parry a dangerous
blow.”
“And how is it to be parried?”
“Listen.”
“But D’Artagnan will come and render an account to the king
of his mission.”
“Oh, we have time enough to think about that.”
“How so? You are much in advance of him, I presume?”
“Nearly ten hours.”
“Well, in ten hours —- ”
Aramis shook his pale head. “Look at these clouds which flit
across the heavens; at these swallows which cut the air.
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D’Artagnan moves more quickly than the clouds or the birds;
D’Artagnan is the wind which carries them.”
“A strange man!”
“I tell you, he is superhuman, monsieur. He is of my own
age, and I have known him these five-and-thirty years.”
“Well?”
“Well, listen to my calculation, monsieur. I sent M. du
Vallon off to you two hours after midnight. M. du Vallon was
eight hours in advance of me, when did M. du Vallon arrive?”
“About four hours ago.”
“You see, then, that I gained four upon him; and yet Porthos
is a staunch horseman, and he has left on the road eight
dead horses, whose bodies I came to successively. I rode
post fifty leagues; but I have the gout, the gravel, and
what else I know not; so that fatigue kills me. I was
obliged to dismount at Tours; since that, rolling along in a
carriage, half dead, sometimes overturned, drawn upon the
sides, and sometimes on the back of the carriage, always
with four spirited horses at full gallop, I have arrived —
arrived, gaining four hours upon Porthos; but, see you,
D’Artagnan does not weigh three hundred-weight, as Porthos
does; D’Artagnan has not the gout and gravel, as I have; he
is not a horseman, he is a centaur. D’Artagnan, look you,
set out for Belle-Isle when I set out for Paris; and
D’Artagnan, notwithstanding my ten hours, advance,
D’Artagnan will arrive within two hours after me.”
“But, then, accidents?”