Dumas, Alexandre - Ten Years Later

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Ten Years Later

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Ten Years Later

by Alexandre Dumas

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Ten Years Later

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The Vicomte de Bragelonne.

Volume I.

CHAPTER 1

The Letter.

Towards the middle of the month of May, in the year 1660, at

nine o'clock in the morning, when the sun, already high in

the heavens, was fast absorbing the dew from the ramparts of

the castle of Blois a little cavalcade, composed of three

men and two pages, re-entered the city by the bridge,

without producing any other effect upon the passengers of

the quay beyond a first movement of the hand to the head, as

a salute, and a second movement of the tongue to express, in

the purest French then spoken in France: "There is Monsieur

returning from hunting." And that was all.

Whilst, however, the horses were climbing the steep

acclivity which leads from the river to the castle, several

shop-boys approached the last horse, from whose saddle-bow a

number of birds were suspended by the beak.

On seeing this, the inquisitive youths manifested with

rustic freedom their contempt for such paltry sport, and,

after a dissertation among themselves upon the disadvantages

of hawking, they returned to their occupations; one only of

the curious party, a stout, stubby, cheerful lad, having

demanded how it was that Monsieur, who, from his great

revenues, had it in his power to amuse himself so much

better, could be satisfied with such mean diversions.

"Do you not know," one of the standers-by replied, "that

Monsieur's principal amusement is to weary himself?"

The light-hearted boy shrugged his shoulders with a gesture

which said as clear as day: "In that case I would rather be

plain Jack than a prince." And all resumed their labors.

In the meanwhile, Monsieur continued his route with an air

at once so melancholy and so majestic, that he certainly

would have attracted the attention of spectators, if

spectators there had been; but the good citizens of Blois

could not pardon Monsieur for having chosen their gay city

for an abode in which to indulge melancholy at his ease, and

as often as they caught a glimpse of the illustrious ennuye,

they stole away gaping, or drew back their heads into the

interior of their dwellings, to escape the soporific

influence of that long pale face, of those watery eyes, and

that languid address; so that the worthy prince was almost

certain to find the streets deserted whenever he chanced to

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pass through them.

Now, on the part of the citizens of Blois this was a

culpable piece of disrespect, for Monsieur was, after the

king -- nay, even, perhaps before the king -- the greatest

noble of the kingdom. In fact, God, who had granted to Louis

XIV., then reigning, the honor of being son of Louis XIII.,

had granted to Monsieur the honor of being son of Henry IV.

It was not then, or, at least it ought not to have been, a

trifling source of pride for the city of Blois, that Gaston

of Orleans had chosen it as his residence, and he his court

in the ancient castle of its states.

But it was the destiny of this great prince to excite the

attention and admiration of the public in a very modified

degree wherever he might be. Monsieur had fallen into this

situation by habit.

It was not, perhaps, this which gave him that air of

listlessness. Monsieur had been tolerably busy in the course

of his life. A man cannot allow the heads of a dozen of his

best friends to be cut off without feeling a little

excitement, and as, since the accession of Mazarin to power,

no heads had been cut off, Monsieur's occupation was gone,

and his morale suffered from it.

The life of the poor prince was, then, very dull. After his

little morning hawking-party on the banks of the Beuvion, or

in the woods of Chiverny, Monsieur crossed the Loire, went

to breakfast at Chambord, with or without an appetite and

the city of Blois heard no more of its sovereign lord and

master till the next hawking-day.

So much for the ennui extra muros; of the ennui of the

interior we will give the reader an idea if he will with us

follow the cavalcade to the majestic porch of the castle of

the states.

Monsieur rode a little steady-paced horse, equipped with a

large saddle of red Flemish velvet, with stirrups in the

shape of buskins; the horse was of a bay color; Monsieur's

pourpoint of crimson velvet corresponded with the cloak of

the same shade and the horse's equipment, and it was only by

this red appearance of the whole that the prince could be

known from his two companions, the one dressed in violet,

the other in green. He on the left, in violet, was his

equerry; he on the right, in green, was the grand veneur.

One of the pages carried two gerfalcons upon a perch, the

other a hunting-horn, which he blew with a careless note at

twenty paces from the castle. Every one about this listless

prince did what he had to do listlessly.

At this signal, eight guards, who were lounging in the sun

in the square court, ran to their halberts, and Monsieur

made his solemn entry into the castle.

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When he had disappeared under the shades of the porch, three

or four idlers, who had followed the cavalcade to the

castle, after pointing out the suspended birds to each

other, dispersed with comments upon what they saw: and, when

they were gone, the street, the place, and the court all

remained deserted alike.

Monsieur dismounted without speaking a word, went straight

to his apartments, where his valet changed his dress, and as

Madame had not yet sent orders respecting breakfast,

Monsieur stretched himself upon a chaise longue, and was

soon as fast asleep as if it had been eleven o'clock at

night.

The eight guards, who concluded their service for the day

was over, laid themselves down very comfortably in the sun

upon some stone benches; the grooms disappeared with their

horses into the stables, and, with the exception of a few

joyous birds, startling each other with their sharp chirping

in the tufted shrubberies, it might have been thought that

the whole castle was as soundly asleep as Monsieur was.

All at once, in the midst of this delicious silence, there

resounded a clear ringing laugh, which caused several of the

halberdiers in the enjoyment of their siesta to open at

least one eye.

This burst of laughter proceeded from a window of the

castle, visited at this moment by the sun, that embraced it

in one of those large angles which the profiles of the

chimneys mark out upon the walls before mid-day.

The little balcony of wrought iron which advanced in front

of this window was furnished with a pot of red gilliflowers,

another pot of primroses, and an early rose-tree, the

foliage of which, beautifully green, was variegated with

numerous red specks announcing future roses.

In the chamber lighted by this window was a square table,

covered with an old large-flowered Haarlem tapestry; in the

center of this table was a long-necked stone bottle, in

which were irises and lilies of the valley; at each end of

this table was a young girl.

The position of these two young people was singular; they

might have been taken for two boarders escaped from a

convent. One of them, with both elbows on the table, and a

pen in her hand, was tracing characters upon a sheet of fine

Dutch paper; the other, kneeling upon a chair, which allowed

her to advance her head and bust over the back of it to the

middle of the table, was watching her companion as she

wrote, or rather hesitated to write.

Thence the thousand cries, the thousand railleries, the

thousand laughs, one of which, more brilliant than the rest,

had startled the birds in the gardens, and disturbed the

slumbers of Monsieur's guards.

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We are taking portraits now; we shall be allowed, therefore,

we hope, to sketch the two last of this chapter.

The one who was leaning in the chair -- that is to say, the

joyous, the laughing one -- was a beautiful girl of from

eighteen to twenty, with brown complexion and brown hair,

splendid, from eyes which sparkled beneath strongly-marked

brows, and particularly from her teeth, which seemed to

shine like pearls between her red coral lips. Her every

movement seemed the accent of a sunny nature, she did not

walk -- she bounded.

The other, she who was writing, looked at her turbulent

companion with an eye as limpid, as pure, and as blue as the

azure of the day. Her hair, of a shaded fairness, arranged

with exquisite taste, fell in silky curls over her lovely

mantling cheeks; she passed across the paper a delicate

hand, whose thinness announced her extreme youth. At each

burst of laughter that proceeded from her friend, she

raised, as if annoyed, her white shoulders in a poetical and

mild manner, but they were wanting in that richfulness of

mold which was likewise to be wished in her arms and hands.

"Montalais! Montalais!" said she at length, in a voice soft

and caressing as a melody, "you laugh too loud -- you laugh

like a man! You will not only draw the attention of

messieurs the guards, but you will not hear Madame's bell

when Madame rings."

This admonition neither made the young girl called Montalais

cease to laugh and gesticulate. She only replied: "Louise,

you do not speak as you think, my dear; you know that

messieurs the guards, as you call them, have only just

commenced their sleep, and that a cannon would not waken

them; you know that Madame's bell can be heard at the bridge

of Blois, and that consequently I shall hear it when my

services are required by Madame. What annoys you, my child,

is that I laugh while you are writing; and what you are

afraid of is that Madame de Saint-Remy, your mother, should

come up here, as she does sometimes when we laugh too loud,

that she should surprise us, and that she should see that

enormous sheet of paper upon which, in a quarter of an hour,

you have only traced the words Monsieur Raoul. Now, you are

right, my dear Louise, because after these words, `Monsieur

Raoul,' others may be put so significant and so incendiary

as to cause Madame de Saint-Remy to burst out into fire and

flames! Hein! is not that true now? -- say."

And Montalais redoubled her laughter and noisy provocations.

The fair girl at length became quite angry; she tore the

sheet of paper on which, in fact, the words "Monsieur Raoul"

were written in good characters, and crushing the paper in

her trembling hands, she threw it out of the window.

"There! there!" said Mademoiselle de Montalais; "there is

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our little lamb, our gentle dove, angry! Don't be afraid,

Louise -- Madame de Saint-Remy will not come; and if she

should, you know I have a quick ear. Besides, what can be

more permissible than to write to an old friend of twelve

years' standing, particularly when the letter begins with

the words `Monsieur Raoul'?"

"It is all very well -- I will not write to him at all,"

said the young girl.

"Ah, ah! in good sooth, Montalais is properly punished,"

cried the jeering brunette, still laughing. "Come, come! let

us try another sheet of paper, and finish our dispatch

off-hand. Good! there is the bell ringing now. By my faith,

so much the worse! Madame must wait, or else do without her

first maid of honor this morning."

A bell, in fact, did ring; it announced that Madame had

finished her toilette, and waited for Monsieur to give her

his hand, and conduct her from the salon to the refectory.

This formality being accomplished with great ceremony, the

husband and wife breakfasted, and then separated till the

hour of dinner, invariably fixed at two o'clock.

The sound of this bell caused a door to be opened in the

offices on the left hand of the court, from which filed two

maitres d'hotel followed by eight scullions bearing a kind

of hand-barrow loaded with dishes under silver covers.

One of the maitres d'hotel, the first in rank, touched one

of the guards, who was snoring on his bench, slightly with

his wand; he even carried his kindness so far as to place

the halbert which stood against the wall in the hands of the

man stupid with sleep, after which the soldier, without

explanation, escorted the viande of Monsieur to the

refectory, preceded by a page and the two maitres d'hotel.

Wherever the viande passed, the soldiers ported arms.

Mademoiselle de Montalais and her companion had watched from

their window the details of this ceremony, to which, by the

bye, they must have been pretty well accustomed. But they

did not look so much from curiosity as to be assured they

should not be disturbed. So guards, scullions, maitres

d'hotel, and pages having passed, they resumed their places

at the table; and the sun, which, through the window-frame,

had for an instant fallen upon those two charming

countenances, now only shed its light upon the gilliflowers,

primroses, and rosetree.

"Bah!" said Mademoiselle de Montalais, taking her place

again; "Madame will breakfast very well without me!"

"Oh! Montalais, you will be punished!" replied the other

girl, sitting down quietly in hers.

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"Punished, indeed! -- that is to say, deprived of a ride!

That is just the way in which I wish to be punished. To go

out in the grand coach, perched upon a doorstep; to turn to

the left, twist round to the right, over roads full of ruts,

where we cannot exceed a league in two hours; and then to

come back straight towards the wing of the castle in which

is the window of Mary de Medici, so that Madame never fails

to say: `Could one believe it possible that Mary de Medici

should have escaped from that window -- forty-seven feet

high? The mother of two princes and three princesses!' If

you call that relaxation, Louise, all I ask is to be

punished every day; particularly when my punishment is to

remain with you and write such interesting letters as we

write!"

"Montalais! Montalais! there are duties to be performed."

"You talk of them very much at your ease, dear child! --

you, who are left quite free amidst this tedious court. You

are the only person that reaps the advantages of them

without incurring the trouble, -- you, who are really more

one of Madame's maids of honor than I am, because Madame

makes her affection for your father-in-law glance off upon

you; so that you enter this dull house as the birds fly into

yonder court, inhaling the air, pecking the flowers, picking

up the grain, without having the least service to perform,

or the least annoyance to undergo. And you talk to me of

duties to be performed! In sooth, my pretty idler, what are

your own proper duties, unless to write to the handsome

Raoul? And even that you don't do; so that it looks to me as

if you likewise were rather negligent of your duties!"

Louise assumed a serious air, leant her chin upon her hand,

and, in a tone full of candid remonstrance, "And do you

reproach me with my good fortune?" said she. "Can you have

the heart to do it? You have a future; you belong to the

court; the king, if he should marry, will require Monsieur

to be near his person; you will see splendid fetes; you will

see the king, who they say is so handsome, so agreeable!"

"Ay, and still more, I shall see Raoul, who attends upon M.

le Prince," added Montalais, maliciously.

"Poor Raoul!" sighed Louise.

"Now is the time to write to him, my pretty dear! Come,

begin again, with that famous `Monsieur Raoul' which figures

at the top of the poor torn sheet."

She then held the pen toward her, and with a charming smile

encouraged her hand, which quickly traced the words she

named.

"What next?" asked the younger of the two girls.

"Why, now write what you think, Louise," replied Montalais.

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"Are you quite sure I think of anything?"

"You think of somebody, and that amounts to the same thing,

or rather even more."

"Do you think so, Montalais?"

"Louise, Louise, your blue eyes are as deep as the sea I saw

at Boulogne last year! No, no, I mistake -- the sea is

perfidious: your eyes are as deep as the azure yonder --

look! -- over our heads!"

"Well, since you can read so well in my eyes, tell me what I

am thinking about, Montalais."

"In the first place, you don't think Monsieur Raoul; you

think My dear Raoul."

"Oh! ---- "

"Never blush for such a trifle as that! `My dear Raoul,' we

will say -- `You implore me to write to you at Paris, where

you are detained by your attendance on M. le Prince. As you

must be very dull there, to seek for amusement in the

remembrance of a provinciale ---- '"

Louise rose up suddenly. "No, Montalais," said she, with a

smile; "I don't think a word of that. Look, this is what I

think;" and she seized the pen boldly and traced, with a

firm hand, the following words: --

"I should have been very unhappy if your entreaties to

obtain a remembrance of me had been less warm. Everything

here reminds me of our early days, which so quickly passed

away, which so delightfully flew by, that no others will

ever replace the charm of them in my heart."

Montalais, who watched the flying pen, and read, the wrong

way upwards, as fast as her friend wrote, here interrupted

by clapping her hands. "Capital!" cried she; "there is

frankness -- there is heart -- there is style! Show these

Parisians, my dear, that Blois is the city for fine

language!"

"He knows very well that Blois was a Paradise to me,"

replied the girl.

"That is exactly what you mean to say; and you speak like an

angel."

"I will finish, Montalais," and she continued as follows:

"You often think of me, you say, Monsieur Raoul: I thank

you; but that does not surprise me, when I recollect how

often our hearts have beaten close to each other."

"Oh! oh!" said Montalais. "Beware; my lamb! You are

scattering your wool, and there are wolves about."

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Louise was about to reply, when the gallop of a horse

resounded under the porch of the castle.

"What is that?" said Montalais, approaching the window. "A

handsome cavalier, by my faith!"

"Oh! -- Raoul!" exclaimed Louise, who had made the same

movement as her friend, and, becoming pale as death, sunk

back beside her unfinished letter.

"Now, he is a clever lover, upon my word!" cried Montalais;

"he arrives just at the proper moment."

"Come in, come in, I implore you!" murmured Louise.

"Bah! he does not know me. Let me see what he has come here

for."

CHAPTER 2

The Messenger.

Mademoiselle de Montalais was right; the young cavalier was

goodly to look upon.

He was a young man of from twenty-four to twenty-five years

of age, tall and slender, wearing gracefully the picturesque

military costume of the period. His large boots contained a

foot which Mademoiselle de Montalais might not have disowned

if she had been transformed into a man. With one of his

delicate but nervous hands he checked his horse in the

middle of the court, and with the other raised his hat,

whose long plumes shaded his at once serious and ingenuous

countenance.

The guards, roused by the steps of the horse, awoke and were

on foot in a minute. The young man waited till one of them

was close to his saddle-bow: then stooping towards him, in a

clear, distinct voice, which was perfectly audible at the

window where the two girls were concealed, "A message for

his royal highness," he said.

"Ah, ah!" cried the soldier. "Officer, a messenger!"

But this brave guard knew very well that no officer would

appear, seeing that the only one who could have appeared

dwelt at the other side of the castle, in an apartment

looking into the gardens. So he hastened to add: "The

officer, monsieur, is on his rounds, but in his absence, M.

de Saint-Remy, the maitre d'hotel shall be informed."

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"M. de Saint-Remy?" repeated the cavalier, slightly

blushing.

"Do you know him?"

"Why, yes; but request him, if you please, that my visit be

announced to his royal highness as soon as possible."

"It appears to be pressing," said the guard, as if speaking

to himself, but really in the hope of obtaining an answer.

The messenger made an affirmative sign with his head.

"In that case," said the guard, "I will go and seek the

maitre d'hotel myself."

The young man, in the meantime, dismounted; and whilst the

others were making their remarks upon the fine horse the

cavalier rode, the soldier returned.

"Your pardon, young gentleman; but your name, if you

please?"

"The Vicomte de Bragelonne, on the part of his highness M.

le Prince de Conde."

The soldier made a profound bow, and, as if the name of the

conqueror of Rocroy and Sens had given him wings, he stepped

lightly up the steps leading to the ante-chamber.

M. de Bragelonne had not had time to fasten his horse to the

iron bars of the perron, when M. de Saint-Remy came running,

out of breath, supporting his capacious body with one hand,

whilst with the other he cut the air as a fisherman cleaves

the waves with his oar.

"Ah, Monsieur le Vicomte! You at Blois!" cried he. "Well,

that is a wonder. Good-day to you -- good-day, Monsieur

Raoul."

"I offer you a thousand respects, M. de Saint-Remy."

"How Madame de la Vall -- I mean, how delighted Madame de

Saint-Remy will be to see you! But come in. His royal

highness is at breakfast -- must he be interrupted? Is the

matter serious?"

"Yes, and no, Monsieur de Saint-Remy. A moment's delay,

however, would be disagreeable to his royal highness."

"If that is the case, we will force the consigne, Monsieur

le Vicomte. Come in. Besides, Monsieur is in an excellent

humor to-day. And then you bring news, do you not?"

"Great news, Monsieur de Saint-Remy."

"And good, I presume?"

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TenYearsLaterGetanybookforfreeon:www.Abika.com1TenYearsLaterbyAlexandreDumasGetanybookforfreeon:www.Abika.comTenYearsLaterGetanybookforfreeon:www.Abika.com2TheVicomtedeBragelonne.VolumeI.CHAPTER1TheLetter.TowardsthemiddleofthemonthofMay,intheyear1660,atnineo'clockinthemorning,whenthesun,alreadyhighi...

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