“That is apparent in your surroundings; you have rapiers here of every form and to suit the most exacting taste. Do you still fence well?”
“I—I fence as well as you did in the old time—better still, perhaps; I do nothing else all day.”
“And with whom?”
“With an excellent master-at-arms that we have here.”
“What! here?”
“Yes, here, in this convent, my dear fellow. There is everything in a Jesuit convent.”
“Then you would have killed Monsieur de Marsillac if he had come alone to attack you, instead of at the head of twenty men?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Aramis, “and even at the head of his twenty men, if I could have drawn without being recognized.”
“God pardon me!” said D’Artagnan to himself, “I believe he has become more Gascon than I am!” Then aloud: “Well, my dear Aramis, do you ask me why I came to seek you?”
“No, I have not asked you that,” said Aramis, with his subtle manner; “but I have expected you to tell me.”
“Well, I sought you for the single purpose of offering you a chance to kill Monsieur de Marsillac whenever you please, prince though he is.”
“Hold on! wait!” said Aramis; “that is an idea!”
“Of which I invite you to take advantage, my friend. Let us see; with your thousand crowns from the abbey and the twelve thousand francs you make by selling sermons, are you rich? Answer frankly.”
“I? I am as poor as Job, and were you to search my pockets and my boxes I don’t believe you would find a hundred pistoles.”
“Peste! a hundred pistoles!” said D’Artagnan to himself; “he calls that being as poor as Job! If I had them I should think myself as rich as Croesus.” Then aloud: “Are you ambitious?”
“As Enceladus.”
“Well, my friend, I bring you the means of becoming rich, powerful, and free to do whatever you wish.”
The shadow of a cloud passed over Aramis’s face as quickly as that which in August passes over the field of grain; but quick as it was, it did not escape D’Artagnan’s observation.
“Speak on,” said Aramis.
“One question first. Do you take any interest in politics?”
A gleam of light shone in Aramis’s eyes, as brief as the shadow that had passed over his face, but not so brief but that it was seen by D’Artagnan.
“No,” Aramis replied.
“Then proposals from any quarter will be agreeable to you, since for the moment you have no master but God?”
“It is possible.”
“Have you, my dear Aramis, thought sometimes of those happy, happy, happy days of youth we passed laughing, drinking, and fighting each other for play?”
“Certainly, and more than once regretted them; it was indeed a glorious time.”
“Well, those splendidly wild days may chance to come again; I am commissioned to find out my companions and I began by you, who were the very soul of our society.”
Aramis bowed, rather with respect than pleasure at the compliment.
“To meddle in politics,” he exclaimed, in a languid voice, leaning back in his easy-chair. “Ah! dear D’Artagnan! see how regularly I live and how easy I am here. We have experienced the ingratitude of ‘the great,’ as you well know.”
“‘Tis true,” replied D’Artagnan. “Yet the great sometimes repent of their ingratitude.”
“In that case it would be quite another thing. Come! let’s be merciful to every sinner! Besides, you are right in another respect, which is in thinking that if we were to meddle in politics there could not be a better time than the present.”
“How can you know that? You who never interest yourself in politics?”
“Ah! without caring about them myself, I live among those who are much occupied in them. Poet as I am, I am intimate with Sarazin, who is devoted to the Prince de Conti, and with Monsieur de Bois-Robert, who, since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, is of all parties or any party; so that political discussions have not altogether been uninteresting to me.”
“I have no doubt of it,” said D’Artagnan.
“Now, my dear friend, look upon all I tell you as merely the statement of a monk—of a man who resembles an echo—repeating simply what he hears. I understand that Mazarin is at this very moment extremely uneasy as to the state of affairs; that his orders are not respected like those of our former bugbear, the deceased cardinal, whose portrait as you see hangs yonder—for whatever may be thought of him, it must be allowed that Richelieu was great.”
“I will not contradict you there,” said D’Artagnan.
“My first impressions were favorable to the minister; I said to myself that a minister is never loved, but that with the genius this one was said to have he would eventually triumph over his enemies and would make himself feared, which in my opinion is much more to be desired than to be loved——”
D’Artagnan made a sign with his head which indicated that he entirely approved that doubtful maxim.
“This, then,” continued Aramis, “was my first opinion; but as I am very ignorant in matters of this kind and as the humility which I profess obliges me not to rest on my own judgment, but to ask the opinion of others, I have inquired—Eh!—my friend——”
Aramis paused.
“Well? what?” asked his friend.
“Well, I must mortify myself. I must confess that I was mistaken. Monsieur de Mazarin is not a man of genius, as I thought, he is a man of no origin—once a servant of Cardinal Bentivoglio, and he got on by intrigue. He is an upstart, a man of no name, who will only be the tool of a party in France. He will amass wealth, he will injure the king’s revenue and pay to himself the pensions which Richelieu paid to others. He is neither a gentleman in manner nor in feeling, but a sort of buffoon, a punchinello, a pantaloon. Do you know him? I do not.”
“Hem!” said D’Artagnan, “there is some truth in what you say.”
“Ah! it fills me with pride to find that, thanks to a common sort of penetration with which I am endowed, I am approved by a man like you, fresh from the court.”
“But you speak of him, not of his party, his resources.”
“It is true—the queen is for him.”
“Something in his favor.”
“But he will never have the king.”
“A mere child.”
“A child who will be of age in four years. Then he has neither the parliament nor the people with him—they represent the wealth of the country; nor the nobles nor the princes, who are the military power of France.”
D’Artagnan scratched his ear. He was forced to confess to himself that this reasoning was not only comprehensive, but just.
“You see, my poor friend, that I am sometimes bereft of my ordinary thoughtfulness; perhaps I am wrong in speaking thus to you, who have evidently a leaning to Mazarin.”
“I!” cried D’Artagnan, “not in the least.”
“You spoke of a mission.”
“Did I? I was wrong then, no, I said what you say—there is a crisis at hand. Well!