long to know to whom I am talking. You belong to the court,
doubtless, yet I have never seen you at court. Have you, by
any chance, been in the Bastile?”
“No, madame, I have not; but very likely I am on the road to
it.”
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“Ah! then tell me who you are, and get along with you upon
your journey,” replied the duchess, with the gayety which
made her so charming, “for I am sufficiently in bad odor
already, without compromising myself still more.”
“Who I am, madame? My name has been mentioned to you — the
Comte de la Fere; you do not know that name. I once bore
another, which you knew, but you have certainly forgotten
it.”
“Tell it me, sir.”
“Formerly,” said the count, “I was Athos.”
Madame de Chevreuse looked astonished. The name was not
wholly forgotten, but mixed up and confused with ancient
recollections.
“Athos?” said she; “wait a moment.”
And she placed her hands on her brow, as if to force the
fugitive ideas it contained to concentration in a moment.
“Shall I help you, madame?” asked Athos.
“Yes, do,” said the duchess.
“This Athos was connected with three young musketeers, named
Porthos, D’Artagnan, and —- ”
He stopped short.
“And Aramis,” said the duchess, quickly.
“And Aramis; I see you have not forgotten the name.”
“No,” she said; “poor Aramis; a charming man, elegant,
discreet, and a writer of poetical verses. I am afraid he
has turned out ill,” she added.
“He has; he is an abbe.”
“Ah, what a misfortune!” exclaimed the duchess, playing
carelessly with her fan. “Indeed, sir, I thank you; you have
recalled one of the most agreeable recollections of my
youth.”
“Will you permit me, then, to recall another to you?”
“Relating to him?”
“Yes and no.”
“Faith!” said Madame de Chevreuse, “say on. With a man like
you I fear nothing.”
Athos bowed. “Aramis,” he continued, “was intimate with a
young needlewoman from Tours, a cousin of his, named Marie
Michon.”
“Ah, I knew her!” cried the duchess. “It was to her he wrote
from the siege of Rochelle, to warn her of a plot against
the Duke of Buckingham.”
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“Exactly so; will you allow me to speak to you of her?”
“If,” replied the duchess, with a meaning look, “you do not
say too much against her.”
“I should be ungrateful,” said Athos, “and I regard
ingratitude, not as a fault or a crime, but as a vice, which
is much worse.”
“You ungrateful to Marie Michon, monsieur?” said Madame de
Chevreuse, trying to read in Athos’s eyes. “But how can that
be? You never knew her.”
“Eh, madame, who knows?” said Athos. “There is a popular
proverb to the effect that it is only mountains that never
meet; and popular proverbs contain sometimes a wonderful
amount of truth.”
“Oh, go on, monsieur, go on!” said Madame de Chevreuse
eagerly; “you can’t imagine how much this conversation
interests me.”
“You encourage me,” said Athos, “I will continue, then. That
cousin of Aramis, that Marie Michon, that needlewoman,
notwithstanding her low condition, had acquaintances in the
highest rank; she called the grandest ladies of the court
her friend, and the queen — proud as she is, in her double
character as Austrian and as Spaniard — called her her
sister.”
“Alas!” said Madame de Chevreuse, with a slight sigh and a
little movement of her eyebrows that was peculiarly her own,
“since that time everything has changed.”
“And the queen had reason for her affection, for Marie was
devoted to her — devoted to that degree that she served her
as medium of intercourse with her brother, the king of
Spain.”
“Which,” interrupted the duchess, “is now brought up against
her as a great crime.”
“And therefore,” continued Athos, “the cardinal — the true
cardinal, the other one — determined one fine morning to
arrest poor Marie Michon and send her to the Chateau de
Loches. Fortunately the affair was not managed so secretly
but that it became known to the queen. The case had been
provided for: if Marie Michon should be threatened with any