See, it is on fire yet with his hot blood, for it is not
thirty hours since it was drawn from the wound.”
And Grimaud threw the dagger on the table.
D’Artagnan, Porthos and Aramis rose and in one spontaneous
motion rushed to their swords. Athos alone remained seated,
calm and thoughtful.
“And you say he is dressed as a monk, Grimaud?”
“Yes, as an Augustine monk.”
“What sized man is he?”
“About my height; thin, pale, with light blue eyes and tawny
flaxen hair.”
“And he did not see Raoul?” asked Athos.
“Yes, on the contrary, they met, and it was the viscount
himself who conducted him to the bed of the dying man.”
Athos, in his turn, rising without speaking, went and
unhooked his sword.
“Heigh, sir,” said D’Artagnan, trying to laugh, “do you know
we look very much like a flock of silly, mouse-evading
women! How is it that we, four men who have faced armies
without blinking, begin to tremble at the mention of a
child?”
“It is true,” said Athos, “but this child comes in the name
of Heaven.”
And very soon they left the inn.
36
A Letter from Charles the First.
The reader must now cross the Seine with us and follow us to
the door of the Carmelite Convent in the Rue Saint Jacques.
It is eleven o’clock in the morning and the pious sisters
have just finished saying mass for the success of the armies
of King Charles I. Leaving the church, a woman and a young
girl dressed in black, the one as a widow and the other as
an orphan, have re-entered their cell.
The woman kneels on a prie-dieu of painted wood and at a
short distance from her stands the young girl, leaning
against a chair, weeping.
The woman must have once been handsome, but traces of sorrow
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have aged her. The young girl is lovely and her tears only
embellish her; the lady appears to be about forty years of
age, the girl about fourteen.
“Oh, God!” prayed the kneeling suppliant, “protect my
husband, guard my son, and take my wretched life instead!”
“Oh, God!” murmured the girl, “leave me my mother!”
“Your mother can be of no use to you in this world,
Henrietta,” said the lady, turning around. “Your mother has
no longer either throne or husband; she has neither son,
money nor friends; the whole world, my poor child, has
abandoned your mother!” And she fell back, weeping, into her
daughter’s arms.
“Courage, take courage, my dear mother!” said the girl.
“Ah! ’tis an unfortunate year for kings,” said the mother.
“And no one thinks of us in this country, for each must
think about his own affairs. As long as your brother was
with me he kept me up; but he is gone and can no longer send
us news of himself, either to me or to your father. I have
pledged my last jewels, sold your clothes and my own to pay
his servants, who refused to accompany him unless I made
this sacrifice. We are now reduced to live at the expense of
these daughters of Heaven; we are the poor, succored by
God.”
“But why not address yourself to your sister, the queen?”
asked the girl.
“Alas! the queen, my sister, is no longer queen, my child.
Another reigns in her name. One day you will be able to
understand how all this is.”
“Well, then, to the king, your nephew. Shall I speak to him?
You know how much he loves me, my mother.
“Alas! my nephew is not yet king, and you know Laporte has
told us twenty times that he himself is in need of almost
everything.”
“Then let us pray to Heaven,” said the girl.
The two women who thus knelt in united prayer were the
daughter and grand-daughter of Henry IV., the wife and
daughter of Charles I.
They had just finished their double prayer, when a nun
softly tapped at the door of the cell.
“Enter, my sister,” said the queen.
“I trust your majesty will pardon this intrusion on her
meditations, but a foreign lord has arrived from England and