“Low-born fellows!” ejaculated Porthos.
D’Artagnan said nothing, but twirled his mustache with a
peculiar gesture which showed that his fine Gascon humor was
awake.
Anne of Austria bent down and whispered in the young king’s
ear:
“Say something gracious to Monsieur d’Artagnan, my son.”
The young king leaned toward the door.
“I have not said good-morning to you, Monsieur d’Artagnan,”
he said; “nevertheless, I have remarked you. It was you who
were behind my bed-curtains that night the Parisians wished
to see me asleep.”
“And if the king permits me,” returned the Gascon, “I shall
be near him always when there is danger to be encountered.”
“Sir,” said Mazarin to Porthos, “what would you do if the
crowd fell upon us?”
“Kill as many as I could, my lord.”
“Hem! brave as you are and strong as you are, you could not
kill them all.”
“‘Tis true,” answered Porthos, rising on his saddle, in
Page 601
Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
order that he might appraise the immense crowd, “there are a
lot of them.”
“I think I should like the other fellow better than this
one,” said Mazarin to himself, and he threw himself back in
his carriage.
The queen and her minister, more especially the latter, had
reason to feel anxious. The crowd, whilst preserving an
appearance of respect and even of affection for the king and
queen regent, began to be tumultuous. Reports were whispered
about, like certain sounds which announce, as they whistle
from wave to wave, the coming storm — and when they pass
athwart a multitude, presage an emeute.
D’Artagnan turned toward the musketeers and made a sign
imperceptible to the crowd, but very easily understood by
that chosen regiment, the flower of the army.
The ranks closed firmly in and a kind of majestic tremor ran
from man to man.
At the Barriere des Sergents the procession was obliged to
stop. Comminges left the head of the escort and went to the
queen’s carriage. Anne questioned D’Artagnan by a look. He
answered in the same language.
“Proceed,” she said.
Comminges returned to his post. An effort was made and the
living barrier was violently broken through.
Some complaints arose from the crowd and were addressed this
time to the king as well as the minister.
“Onward!” cried D’Artagnan, in a loud voice.
“Onward!” cried Porthos.
But as if the multitude had waited only for this
demonstration to burst out, all the sentiments of hostility
that possessed it exploded simultaneously. Cries of “Down
with Mazarin!” “Death to the cardinal!” resounded on all
sides.
At the same time through the streets of Grenelle, Saint
Honore, and Du Coq, a double stream of people broke the
feeble hedge of Swiss guards and came like a whirlwind even
to the very legs of Porthos’s horse and that of D’Artagnan.
This new eruption was more dangerous than the others, being
composed of armed men. It was plain that it was not the
chance combination of those who had collected a number of
the malcontents at the same spot, but a concerted organized
attack.
Each of these mobs was led by a chief, one of whom appeared
to belong, not to the people, but to the honorable
corporation of mendicants, and the other, notwithstanding
his affected imitation of the people, might easily be
discerned to be a gentleman. Both were evidently stimulated
by the same impulse.
There was a shock which was perceived even in the royal
Page 602
Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
carriage. Myriads of hoarse cries, forming one vast uproar,
were heard, mingled with guns firing.
“Ho! Musketeers!” cried D’Artagnan.
The escort divided into two files. One of them passed around
to the right of the carriage, the other to the left. One
went to support D’Artagnan, the other Porthos. Then came a
skirmish, the more terrible because it had no definite
object; the more melancholy, because those engaged in it
knew not for whom they were fighting. Like all popular
movements, the shock given by the rush of this mob was
formidable. The musketeers, few in number, not being able,
in the midst of this crowd, to make their horses wheel
around, began to give way. D’Artagnan offered to lower the