Chapter XVI.
The Duc de Beaufort.
The circumstances that had hastened the return of D’Artagnan to Paris
were as follows:
One evening, when Mazarin, according to custom, went to visit the
queen, in passing the guard-chamber he heard loud voices; wishing to
know on what topic the soldiers were conversing, he approached with his
wonted wolf-like step, pushed open the door and put his head close to
the chink.
There was a dispute among the guards.
“I tell you,” one of them was saying, “that if Coysel predicted that,
’tis as good as true; I know nothing about it, but I have heard say
that he’s not only an astrologer, but a magician.”
“Deuce take it, friend, if he’s one of thy friends thou wilt ruin him
in saying so.”
“Why?”
“Because he may be tried for it.”
“Ah! absurd! they don’t burn sorcerers nowadays.”
“No? ’Tis not a long time since the late cardinal burnt Urban Grandier,
though.”
“My friend, Urban Grandier wasn’t a sorcerer, he was a learned man. He
didn’t predict the future, he knew the past—often a more dangerous
thing.”
Mazarin nodded an assent, but wishing to know what this prediction was,
about which they disputed, he remained in the same place.
“I don’t say,” resumed the guard, “that Coysel is not a sorcerer, but I
say that if his prophecy gets wind, it’s a sure way to prevent it’s
coming true.”
“How so?”
“Why, in this way: if Coysel says loud enough for the cardinal to hear
him, on such or such a day such a prisoner will escape, ’tis plain that
the cardinal will take measures of precaution and that the prisoner
will not escape.”
“Good Lord!” said another guard, who might have been thought asleep on
a bench, but who had lost not a syllable of the conversation, “do you
suppose that men can escape their destiny? If it is written yonder, in
Heaven, that the Duc de Beaufort is to escape, he will escape; and all
the precautions of the cardinal will not prevent it.”
Mazarin started. He was an Italian and therefore superstitious. He
walked straight into the midst of the guards, who on seeing him were
silent.
“What were you saying?” he asked with his flattering manner; “that
Monsieur de Beaufort had escaped, were you not?”
“Oh, no, my lord!” said the incredulous soldier. “He’s well guarded
now; we only said he would escape.”
“Who said so?”
“Repeat your story, Saint Laurent,” replied the man, turning to the
originator of the tale.
“My lord,” said the guard, “I have simply mentioned the prophecy I
heard from a man named Coysel, who believes that, be he ever so closely
watched and guarded, the Duke of Beaufort will escape before
Whitsuntide.”
“Coysel is a madman!” returned the cardinal.
“No,” replied the soldier, tenacious in his credulity; “he has foretold
many things which have come to pass; for instance, that the queen would
have a son; that Monsieur Coligny would be killed in a duel with the
Duc de Guise; and finally, that the coadjutor would be made cardinal.
Well! the queen has not only one son, but two; then, Monsieur de
Coligny was killed, and——”
“Yes,” said Mazarin, “but the coadjutor is not yet made cardinal!”
“No, my lord, but he will be,” answered the guard.
Mazarin made a grimace, as if he meant to say, “But he does not wear
the cardinal’s cap;” then he added:
“So, my friend, it’s your opinion that Monsieur de Beaufort will
escape?”
“That’s my idea, my lord; and if your eminence were to offer to make me
at this moment governor of the castle of Vincennes, I should refuse it.
After Whitsuntide it would be another thing.”
There is nothing so convincing as a firm conviction. It has its own
effect upon the most incredulous; and far from being incredulous,
Mazarin was superstitious. He went away thoughtful and anxious and
returned to his own room, where he summoned Bernouin and desired him to
fetch thither in the morning the special guard he had placed over
Monsieur de Beaufort and to awaken him whenever he should arrive.
The guard had, in fact, touched the cardinal in the tenderest point.
During the whole five years in which the Duc de Beaufort had been in
prison not a day had passed in which the cardinal had not felt a secret
dread of his escape. It was not possible, as he knew well, to confine
for the whole of his life the grandson of Henry IV., especially when
this young prince was scarcely thirty years of age. But however and
whensoever he did escape, what hatred he must cherish against him to
whom he owed his long imprisonment; who had taken him, rich, brave,
glorious, beloved by women, feared by men, to cut off his life’s best,
happiest years; for it is not life, it is merely existence, in prison!
Meantime, Mazarin redoubled his surveillance over the duke. But like
the miser in the fable, he could not sleep for thinking of his
treasure. Often he awoke in the night, suddenly, dreaming that he had
been robbed of Monsieur de Beaufort. Then he inquired about him and had
the vexation of hearing that the prisoner played, drank, sang, but that
whilst playing, drinking, singing, he often stopped short to vow that
Mazarin should pay dear for all the amusements he had forced him to
enter into at Vincennes.
So much did this one idea haunt the cardinal even in his sleep, that
when at seven in the morning Bernouin came to arouse him, his first
words were: “Well, what’s the matter? Has Monsieur de Beaufort escaped
from Vincennes?”
“I do not think so, my lord,” said Bernouin; “but you will hear about
him, for La Ramee is here and awaits the commands of your eminence.”
“Tell him to come in,” said Mazarin, arranging his pillows, so that he
might receive the visitor sitting up in bed.
The officer entered, a large fat man, with an open physiognomy. His air
of perfect serenity made Mazarin uneasy.
“Approach, sir,” said the cardinal.
The officer obeyed.
“Do you know what they are saying here?”
“No, your eminence.”
“Well, they say that Monsieur de Beaufort is going to escape from
Vincennes, if he has not done so already.”
The officer’s face expressed complete stupefaction. He opened at once
his little eyes and his great mouth, to inhale better the joke his
eminence deigned to address to him, and ended by a burst of laughter,
so violent that his great limbs shook in hilarity as they would have
done in an ague.
“Escape! my lord—escape! Your eminence does not then know where
Monsieur de Beaufort is?”
“Yes, I do, sir; in the donjon of Vincennes.”
“Yes, sir; in a room, the walls of which are seven feet thick, with
grated windows, each bar as thick as my arm.”
“Sir,” replied Mazarin, “with perseverance one may penetrate through a
wall; with a watch-spring one may saw through an iron bar.”
“Then my lord does not know that there are eight guards about him, four
in his chamber, four in the antechamber, and that they never leave
him.”
“But he leaves his room, he plays at tennis at the Mall?”
“Sir, those amusements are allowed; but if your eminence wishes it, we
will discontinue the permission.”
“No, no!” cried Mazarin, fearing that should his prisoner ever leave
his prison he would be the more exasperated against him if he thus
retrenched his amusement. He then asked with whom he played.
“My lord, either with the officers of the guard, with the other
prisoners, or with me.”
“But does he not approach the walls while playing?”
“Your eminence doesn’t know those walls; they are sixty feet high and I
doubt if Monsieur de Beaufort is sufficiently weary of life to risk his
neck by jumping off.”
“Hum!” said the cardinal, beginning to feel more comfortable. “You mean
to say, then, my dear Monsieur la Ramee——”
“That unless Monsieur de Beaufort can contrive to metamorphose himself
into a little bird, I will continue answerable for him.”
“Take care! you assert a great deal,” said Mazarin. “Monsieur de
Beaufort told the guards who took him to Vincennes that he had often
thought what he should do in case he were put into prison, and that he
had found out forty ways of escaping.”
“My lord, if among these forty there had been one good way he would
have been out long ago.”
“Come, come; not such a fool as I fancied!” thought Mazarin.
“Besides, my lord must remember that Monsieur de Chavigny is governor
of Vincennes,” continued La Ramee, “and that Monsieur de Chavigny is
not friendly to Monsieur de Beaufort.”
“Yes, but Monsieur de Chavigny is sometimes absent.”
“When he is absent I am there.”
“But when you leave him, for instance?”
“Oh! when I leave him, I place in my stead a bold fellow who aspires to
be his majesty’s special guard. I promise you he keeps a good watch
over the prisoner. During the three weeks that he has been with me, I
have only had to reproach him with one thing—being too severe with the
prisoners.”
“And who is this Cerberus?”
“A certain Monsieur Grimaud, my lord.”
“And what was he before he went to Vincennes?”
“He was in the country, as I was told by the person who recommended him
to me.”
“And who recommended this man to you?”
“The steward of the Duc de Grammont.”
“He is not a gossip, I hope?”
“Lord a mercy, my lord! I thought for a long time that he was dumb; he
answers only by signs. It seems his former master accustomed him to
that.”
“Well, dear Monsieur la Ramee,” replied the cardinal “let him prove a
true and thankful keeper and we will shut our eyes upon his rural
misdeeds and put on his back a uniform to make him respectable, and in
the pockets of that uniform some pistoles to drink to the king’s
health.”
Mazarin was large in promises,—quite unlike the virtuous Monsieur
Grimaud so bepraised by La Ramee; for he said nothing and did much.
It was now nine o’clock. The cardinal, therefore, got up, perfumed
himself, dressed, and went to the queen to tell her what had detained
him. The queen, who was scarcely less afraid of Monsieur de Beaufort
than the cardinal himself, and who was almost as superstitious as he
was, made him repeat word for word all La Ramee’s praises of his
deputy. Then, when the cardinal had ended:
“Alas, sir! why have we not a Grimaud near every prince?”
“Patience!” replied Mazarin, with his Italian smile; “that may happen
one day; but in the meantime——”
“Well, in the meantime?”
“I shall still take precautions.”
And he wrote to D’Artagnan to hasten his return.