his friends — poor atoms, lost in that raging whirlwind.
But Athos was a man of inflexible determination; he firmly
adhered to a purpose once formed, when it seemed to him to
spring from conscience and to be prompted by a sense of
duty. He insisted on being introduced, saying that although
he was not a deputy from Monsieur de Conti, or Monsieur de
Beaufort, or Monsieur de Bouillon, or Monsieur d’Elbeuf, or
the coadjutor, or Madame de Longueville, or Broussel, or the
Parliament, and although he had come on his own private
account, he nevertheless had things to say to her majesty of
the utmost importance.
The conference being finished, the queen summoned him to her
cabinet.
Athos was introduced and announced by name. It was a name
that too often resounded in her majesty’s ears and too often
vibrated in her heart for Anne of Austria not to recognize
it; yet she remained impassive, looking at him with that
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fixed stare which is tolerated only in women who are queens,
either by the power of beauty or by the right of birth.
“It is then a service which you propose to render us,
count?” asked Anne of Austria, after a moment’s silence.
“Yes, madame, another service,” said Athos, shocked that the
queen did not seem to recognize him.
Athos had a noble heart, and made, therefore, but a poor
courtier.
Anne frowned. Mazarin, who was sitting at a table folding up
papers, as if he had only been a secretary of state, looked
up.
“Speak,” said the queen.
Mazarin turned again to his papers.
“Madame,” resumed Athos, “two of my friends, named
D’Artagnan and Monsieur du Vallon, sent to England by the
cardinal, suddenly disappeared when they set foot on the
shores of France; no one knows what has become of them.”
“Well?” said the queen.
“I address myself, therefore, first to the benevolence of
your majesty, that I may know what has become of my friends,
reserving to myself, if necessary, the right of appealing
hereafter to your justice.”
“Sir,” replied Anne, with a degree of haughtiness which to
certain persons became impertinence, “this is the reason
that you trouble me in the midst of so many absorbing
concerns! an affair for the police! Well, sir, you ought to
know that we no longer have a police, since we are no longer
at Paris.”
“I think your majesty will have no need to apply to the
police to know where my friends are, but that if you will
deign to interrogate the cardinal he can reply without any
further inquiry than into his own recollections.”
“But, God forgive me!” cried Anne, with that disdainful curl
of the lips peculiar to her, “I believe that you are
yourself interrogating.”
“Yes, madame, here I have a right to do so, for it concerns
Monsieur d’Artagnan —d’Artagnan,” he repeated, in such a
manner as to bow the regal brow with recollections of the
weak and erring woman.
The cardinal saw that it was now high time to come to the
assistance of Anne.
“Sir,” he said, “I can tell you what is at present unknown
to her majesty. These individuals are under arrest. They
disobeyed orders.”
“I beg of your majesty, then,” said Athos, calmly and not
replying to Mazarin, “to quash these arrests of Messieurs
d’Artagnan and du Vallon.”
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“What you ask is merely an affair of discipline and does not
concern me,” said the queen.
“Monsieur d’Artagnan never made such an answer as that when
the service of your majesty was concerned,” said Athos,
bowing with great dignity. He was going toward the door when
Mazarin stopped him.
“You, too, have been in England, sir?” he said, making a
sign to the queen, who was evidently going to issue a severe
order.
“I was a witness of the last hours of Charles I. Poor king!
culpable, at the most, of weakness, how cruelly punished by
his subjects! Thrones are at this time shaken and it is to
little purpose for devoted hearts to serve the interests of
princes. This is the second time that Monsieur d’Artagnan