promised him your patronage.”
“You are right,” said the duke. “If I am to remain here
permanently, as Monsieur Mazarin has kindly given me to
understand, I must provide myself with a diversion for my
old age, I must turn gourmand.”
“My lord,” said La Ramee, “if you will take a bit of good
advice, don’t put that off till you are old.”
“Good!” said the Duc de Beaufort to himself, “every man in
order that he may lose his heart and soul, must receive from
celestial bounty one of the seven capital sins, perhaps two;
it seems that Master La Ramee’s is gluttony. Let us then
take advantage of it.” Then, aloud:
“Well, my dear La Ramee! the day after to-morrow is a
holiday.”
“Yes, my lord — Pentecost.”
“Will you give me a lesson the day after to-morrow?”
“In what?”
“In gastronomy?”
“Willingly, my lord.”
“But tete-a-tete. Send the guards to take their meal in the
canteen of Monsieur de Chavigny; we’ll have a supper here
under your direction.”
“Hum!” said La Ramee.
The proposal was seductive, but La Ramee was an old stager,
acquainted with all the traps a prisoner was likely to set.
Monsieur de Beaufort had said that he had forty ways of
getting out of prison. Did this proposed breakfast cover
some stratagem? He reflected, but he remembered that he
himself would have charge of the food and the wine and
therefore that no powder could be mixed with the food, no
drug with the wine. As to getting him drunk, the duke
couldn’t hope to do that, and he laughed at the mere thought
of it. Then an idea came to him which harmonized everything.
The duke had followed with anxiety La Ramee’s unspoken
soliloquy, reading it from point to point upon his face. But
presently the exempt’s face suddenly brightened.
“Well,” he asked, “that will do, will it not?”
“Yes, my lord, on one condition.”
“What?”
Page 135
Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
“That Grimaud shall wait on us at table.”
Nothing could be more agreeable to the duke, however, he had
presence of mind enough to exclaim:
“To the devil with your Grimaud! He will spoil the feast.”
“I will direct him to stand behind your chair, and since he
doesn’t speak, your highness will neither see nor hear him
and with a little effort can imagine him a hundred miles
away.”
“Do you know, my friend, I find one thing very evident in
all this, you distrust me.”
“My lord, the day after to-morrow is Pentecost.”
“Well, what is Pentecost to me? Are you afraid that the Holy
Spirit will come as a tongue of fire to open the doors of my
prison?”
“No, my lord; but I have already told you what that damned
magician predicted.”
“And what was it?”
“That the day of Pentecost would not pass without your
highness being out of Vincennes.”
“You believe in sorcerers, then, you fool?”
“I —I mind them no more than that —- ” and he snapped
his fingers; “but it is my Lord Giulio who cares about them;
as an Italian he is superstitious.”
The duke shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, then,” with well acted good-humor, “I allow Grimaud,
but no one else; you must manage it all. Order whatever you
like for supper — the only thing I specify is one of those
pies; and tell the confectioner that I will promise him my
custom if he excels this time in his pies — not only now,
but when I leave my prison.”
“Then you think you will some day leave it?” said La Ramee.
“The devil!” replied the prince; “surely, at the death of
Mazarin. I am fifteen years younger than he is. At
Vincennes, ’tis true, one lives faster —- ”
“My lord,” replied La Ramee, “my lord —- ”
“Or dies sooner, for it comes to the same thing.”
La Ramee was going out. He stopped, however, at the door for
an instant.
“Whom does your highness wish me to send to you?”
“Any one, except Grimaud.”
“The officer of the guard, then, with his chessboard?”
Page 136
Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
“Yes.”
Five minutes afterward the officer entered and the duke