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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Three Musketeers 50 at Prostate Health
day after the arrest of poor Bonacieux, as
Athos had just left dArtagnan to report at M. de Trevilles, as
nine oclock had just struck, and as Planchet, who had not yet
made the bed, was beginning his task, a knocking was heard at the
street door. The door was instantly opened and shut; someone was
taken in the mousetrap.
DArtagnan flew to his hole, laid himself down on the floor at
full length, and listened.
Cries were soon heard, and then moans, which someone appeared to
be endeavoring to stifle. There were no questions.
"The devil!" said dArtagnan to himself. "It seems like a woman!
They search her; she resists; they use force--the scoundrels!"
In spite of his prudence, dArtagnan restrained himself with
great difficulty from taking a part in the scene that was going
on below.
"But I tell you that I am the mistress of the house, gentlemen!
I tell you I am Madame Bonacieux; I tell you I belong to the
queen!" cried the unfortunate woman.
"Madame Bonacieux!" murmured dArtagnan. "Can I be so lucky as
to find what everybody is seeking for?"
The voice became more and more indistinct; a tumultuous movement
shook the partition. The victim resisted as much as a woman
could resist four men.
"Pardon, gentlemen--par--" murmured the voice, which could now
only be heard in inarticulate sounds.
"They are binding her; they are going to drag her away," cried
dArtagnan to himself, springing up from the floor. "My sword!
Good, it is by my side! Planchet!"
"Monsieur."
"Run and seek Athos, Porthos and Aramis. One of the three will
certainly be at home, perhaps all three. Tell them to take arms,
to come here, and to run! Ah, I remember, Athos is at Monsieur
de Trevilles."
"But where are you going, monsieur, where are you going?"
"I am going down by the window, in order to be there the sooner,"
cried dArtagnan. "You put back the boards, sweep the floor, go
out at the door, and run as I told you."
"Oh, monsieur! Monsieur! You will kill yourself," cried
Planchet.
"Hold your tongue, stupid fellow," said dArtagnan; and laying
hold of the casement, he let himself gently down from the first
story, which fortunately was not very elevated, without doing
himself the slightest injury.
He then went straight to the door and knocked, murmuring, "I will
go myself and be caught in the mousetrap, but woe be to the cats
that shall pounce upon such a mouse!"
The knocker had scarcely sounded under the hand of the young man
before the tumult ceased, steps approached, the door was opened,
and dArtagnan, sword in hand, rushed into the rooms of M.
Bonacieux, the door of which doubtless acted upon by a spring,
closed after him.
Then those who dwelt in Bonacieuxs unfortunate house, together
with the nearest neighbors, heard loud cries, stamping of feet,
clashing of swords, and breaking of furniture. A moment after,
those who, surprised by this tumult, had gone to their windows to
learn the cause of it, saw the door open, and four men, clothed
in black, not COME out of it, but FLY, like so many frightened
crows, leaving on the ground and on the corners of the furniture,
feathers from their wings; that is to say, patches of their
clothes and fragments of their cloaks.
DArtagnan was conqueror--without much effort, it must be
confessed, for only one of the officers was armed, and even he
defended himself for forms sake. It is true that the three
others had endeavored to knock the young man down with chairs,
stools, and crockery; but two or three scratches made by the
Gascons blade terrified them. Ten minutes sufficed for their
defeat, and dArtagnan remained master of the field of battle.
The neighbors who had opened their windows, with the coolness
peculiar to the inhabitants of Paris in these times of perpetual
riots and disturbances, closed them again as soon as they saw the
four men in black flee--their instinct telling them that for the
time all was over. Besides, it began to grow late, and then, as
today, people went to bed early in the quarter of the Luxembourg.
On being left alone with Mme. Bonacieux, dArtagnan turned toward
her; the poor woman reclined where she had been left,
half-fainting upon an armchair. DArtagnan examined her with a
rapid glance.
She was a charming woman of twenty-five or twenty-six years, with
dark hair, blue eyes, and a nose slightly turned up, admirable
teeth, and a complexion marbled with rose
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