Twenty Years Later by Dumas, Alexandre. Part two

doubtless, mourned by their families, who thought they were

at Charenton in the thickest of the fighting.

Athos and Aramis again questioned Planchet, but he had seen

nothing of D’Artagnan; they wished to take Planchet with

them, but he could not leave his troop, who at five o’clock

returned home, saying that they were returning from the

battle, whereas they had never lost sight of the bronze

equestrian statue of Louis XIII.

79

The Road to Picardy.

On leaving Paris, Athos and Aramis well knew that they would

be encountering great danger; but we know that for men like

these there could be no question of danger. Besides, they

felt that the denouement of this second Odyssey was at hand

and that there remained but a single effort to make.

Besides, there was no tranquillity in Paris itself.

Provisions began to fail, and whenever one of the Prince de

Conti’s generals wished to gain more influence he got up a

little popular tumult, which he put down again, and thus for

the moment gained a superiority over his colleagues.

In one of these risings. the Duc de Beaufort pillaged the

house and library of Mazarin, in order to give the populace,

as he put it, something to gnaw at. Athos and Aramis left

Paris after this coup-d’etat, which took place on the very

evening of the day in which the Parisians had been beaten at

Charenton.

They quitted Paris, beholding it abandoned to extreme want,

bordering on famine; agitated by fear, torn by faction.

Parisians and Frondeurs as they were, the two friends

expected to find the same misery, the same fears, the same

intrigue in the enemy’s camp; but what was their surprise,

after passing Saint Denis, to hear that at Saint Germain

people were singing and laughing, and leading generally

Page 539

Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After

cheerful lives. The two gentlemen traveled by byways in

order not to encounter the Mazarinists scattered about the

Isle of France, and also to escape the Frondeurs, who were

in possession of Normandy and who never failed to conduct

captives to the Duc de Longueville, in order that he might

ascertain whether they were friends or foes. Having escaped

these dangers, they returned by the main road to Boulogne,

at Abbeville, and followed it step by step, examining every

track.

Nevertheless, they were still in a state of uncertainty.

Several inns were visited by them, several innkeepers

questioned, without a single clew being given to guide their

inquiries, when at Montreuil Athos felt upon the table that

something rough was touching his delicate fingers. He turned

up the cloth and found these hieroglyphics carved upon the

wood with a knife:

“Port …. D’Art …. 2d February.”

“This is capital!” said Athos to Aramis, “we were to have

slept here, but we cannot — we must push on.” They rode

forward and reached Abbeville. There the great number of

inns puzzled them; they could not go to all; how could they

guess in which those whom they were seeking had stayed?

“Trust me,” said Aramis, “do not expect to find anything in

Abbeville. If we had only been looking for Porthos, Porthos

would have stationed himself in one of the finest hotels and

we could easily have traced him. But D’Artagnan is devoid of

such weaknesses. Porthos would have found it very difficult

even to make him see that he was dying of hunger; he has

gone on his road as inexorable as fate and we must seek him

somewhere else.”

They continued their route. It had now become a weary and

almost hopeless task, and had it not been for the threefold

motives of honor, friendship and gratitude, implanted in

their hearts, our two travelers would have given up many a

time their rides over the sand, their interrogatories of the

peasantry and their close inspection of faces.

They proceeded thus to Peronne.

Athos began to despair. His noble nature felt that their

ignorance was a sort of reflection upon them. They had not

looked carefully enough for their lost friends. They had not

shown sufficient pertinacity in their inquiries. They were

willing and ready to retrace their steps, when, in crossing

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *