plenary indulgences; we will recommend you to him.”
“Consider, Maillard,” said the curate, “that I have
recommended you to this gentleman, who is a powerful lord,
and that I have made myself responsible for you.”
“I know, monsieur le cure,” said the beggar, “that you have
always been very kind to me, and therefore I, in my turn,
will be serviceable to you.”
“And do you think your power as great with the fraternity as
monsieur le cure told me it was just now?”
“I think they have some esteem for me,” said the mendicant
with pride, “and that not only will they obey me, but
wherever I go they will follow me.”
“And could you count on fifty resolute men, good,
unemployed, but active souls, brawlers, capable of bringing
down the walls of the Palais Royal by crying, `Down with
Mazarin,’ as fell those at Jericho?”
“I think,” said the beggar, “I can undertake things more
difficult and more important than that.”
“Ah, ah,” said Gondy, “you will undertake, then, some night,
to throw up some ten barricades?”
“I will undertake to throw up fifty, and when the day comes,
to defend them.”
“I’faith!” exclaimed Gondy, “you speak with a certainty that
gives me pleasure; and since monsieur le cure can answer for
you —- ”
“I answer for him,” said the curate.
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“Here is a bag containing five hundred pistoles in gold;
make all your arrangements, and tell me where I shall be
able to find you this evening at ten o’clock.”
“It must be on some elevated place, whence a given signal
may be seen in every part of Paris.”
“Shall I give you a line for the vicar of St. Jacques de la
Boucherie? he will let you into the rooms in his tower,”
said the curate.
“Capital,” answered the mendicant.
“Then,” said the coadjutor, “this evening, at ten o’clock,
and if I am pleased with you another bag of five hundred
pistoles will be at your disposal.”
The eyes of the mendicant dashed with cupidity, but he
quickly suppressed his emotion.
“This evening, sir,” he replied, “all will be ready.”
46
The Tower of St. Jacques de la Boucherie.
At a quarter to six o’clock, Monsieur de Gondy, having
finished his business, returned to the archiepiscopal
palace.
At six o’clock the curate of St. Merri was announced.
The coadjutor glanced rapidly behind and saw that he was
followed by another man. The curate then entered, followed
by Planchet.
“Your holiness,” said the curate, “here is the person of
whom I had the honor to speak to you.”
Planchet saluted in the manner of one accustomed to fine
houses.
“And you are disposed to serve the cause of the people?”
asked Gondy.
“Most undoubtedly,” said Planchet. “I am a Frondist from my
heart. You see in me, such as I am, a person sentenced to be
hung.”
“And on what account?”
“I rescued from the hands of Mazarin’s police a noble lord
whom they were conducting back to the Bastile, where he had
been for five years.”
“Will you name him?”
“Oh, you know him well, my lord — it is Count de
Rochefort.”
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Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
“Ah! really, yes,” said the coadjutor, “I have heard this
affair mentioned. You raised the whole district, so they
told me!”
“Very nearly,” replied Planchet, with a self-satisfied air.
“And your business is —- ”
“That of a confectioner, in the Rue des Lombards.”
“Explain to me how it happens that, following so peaceful a
business, you had such warlike inclinations.”
“Why does my lord, belonging to the church, now receive me
in the dress of an officer, with a sword at his side and
spurs to his boots?”
“Not badly answered, i’faith,” said Gondy, laughing; “but I
have, you must know, always had, in spite of my bands,
warlike inclinations.”
“Well, my lord, before I became a confectioner I myself was
three years sergeant in the Piedmontese regiment, and before
I became sergeant I was for eighteen months the servant of
Monsieur d’Artagnan.”
“The lieutenant of musketeers?” asked Gondy.
“Himself, my lord.”
“But he is said to be a furious Mazarinist.”