made a sergeant in Piedmont’s regiment?”
“Planchet!”
“The illustrious Planchet. What has become of him?”
“I shouldn’t wonder if he were at the head of the mob at
this very moment. He married a woman who keeps a
confectioner’s shop in the Rue des Lombards, for he’s a lad
who was always fond of sweetmeats; he’s now a citizen of
Paris. You’ll see that that queer fellow will be a sheriff
before I shall be a captain.”
“Come, dear D’Artagnan, look up a little! Courage! It is
when one is lowest on the wheel of fortune that the
merry-go-round wheels and rewards us. This evening your
destiny begins to change.”
“Amen!” exclaimed D’Artagnan, stopping the carriage.
“What are you doing?” asked Rochefort.
“We are almost there and I want no one to see me getting out
of your carriage; we are supposed not to know each other.”
“You are right. Adieu.”
“Au revoir. Remember your promise.”
In five minutes the party entered the courtyard and
D’Artagnan led the prisoner up the great staircase and
across the corridor and ante-chamber.
As they stopped at the door of the cardinal’s study,
D’Artagnan was about to be announced when Rochefort slapped
him on his shoulder.
“D’Artagnan, let me confess to you what I’ve been thinking
about during the whole of my drive, as I looked out upon the
parties of citizens who perpetually crossed our path and
looked at you and your four men with fiery eyes.”
Page 24
Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
“Speak out,” answered D’Artagnan.
“I had only to cry out `Help!’ for you and for your
companions to be cut to pieces, and then I should have been
free.”
“Why didn’t you do it?” asked the lieutenant.
“Come, come!” cried Rochefort. “Did we not swear friendship?
Ah! had any one but you been there, I don’t say —- ”
D’Artagnan bowed. “Is it possible that Rochefort has become
a better man than I am?” he said to himself. And he caused
himself to be announced to the minister.
“Let M. de Rochefort enter,” said Mazarin, eagerly, on
hearing their names pronounced; “and beg M. d’Artagnan to
wait; I shall have further need of him.”
These words gave great joy to D’Artagnan. As he had said, it
had been a long time since any one had needed him; and that
demand for his services on the part of Mazarin seemed to him
an auspicious sign.
Rochefort, rendered suspicious and cautious by these words,
entered the apartment, where he found Mazarin sitting at the
table, dressed in his ordinary garb and as one of the
prelates of the Church, his costume being similar to that of
the abbes in that day, excepting that his scarf and
stockings were violet.
As the door was closed Rochefort cast a glance toward
Mazarin, which was answered by one, equally furtive, from
the minister.
There was little change in the cardinal; still dressed with
sedulous care, his hair well arranged and curled, his person
perfumed, he looked, owing to his extreme taste in dress,
only half his age. But Rochefort, who had passed five years
in prison, had become old in the lapse of a few years; the
dark locks of this estimable friend of the defunct Cardinal
Richelieu were now white; the deep bronze of his complexion
had been succeeded by a mortal pallor which betokened
debility. As he gazed at him Mazarin shook his head
slightly, as much as to say, “This is a man who does not
appear to me fit for much.”
After a pause, which appeared an age to Rochefort, Mazarin
took from a bundle of papers a letter, and showing it to the
count, he said:
“I find here a letter in which you sue for liberty, Monsieur
de Rochefort. You are in prison, then?”
Rochefort trembled in every limb at this question. “But I
thought,” he said, “that your eminence knew that
circumstance better than any one —- ”
“I? Oh no! There is a congestion of prisoners in the
Bastile, who were cooped up in the time of Monsieur de
Richelieu; I don’t even know their names.”
“Yes, but in regard to myself, my lord, it cannot be so, for