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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Three Musketeers 62 at Prostate Health
queen had at first positively refused;
but at length became afraid that the duke, if exasperated, would
commit some folly. She had already decided upon seeing him and
urging his immediate departure, when, on the very evening of
coming to this decision, Mme. Bonacieux, who was charged with
going to fetch the duke and conducting him to the Louvre, was
abducted. For two days no one knew what had become of her, and
everything remained in suspense; but once free, and placed in
communication with Laporte, matters resumed their course, and she
accomplished the perilous enterprise which, but for her arrest,
would have been executed three days earlier.
Buckingham, left alone, walked toward a mirror. His Musketeers
uniform became him marvelously.
At thirty-five, which was then his age, he passed, with just
title, for the handsomest gentleman and the most elegant cavalier
of France or England.
The favorite of two kings, immensely rich, all-powerful in a
kingdom which he disordered at his fancy and calmed again at his
caprice, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, had lived one of
those fabulous existences which survive, in the course of
centuries, to astonish posterity.
Sure of himself, convinced of his own power, certain that the
laws which rule other men could not reach him, he went straight
to the object he aimed at, even were this object were so elevated
and so dazzling that it would have been madness for any other
even to have contemplated it. It was thus he had succeeded in
approaching several times the beautiful and proud Anne of
Austria, and in making himself loved by dazzling her.
George Villiers placed himself before the glass, as we have said,
restored the undulations to his beautiful hair, which the weight
of his hat had disordered, twisted his mustache, and, his heart
swelling with joy, happy and proud at being near the moment he
had so long sighed for, he smiled upon himself with pride and
hope.
At this moment a door concealed in the tapestry opened, and a
woman appeared. Buckingham saw this apparition in the glass; he
uttered a cry. It was the queen!
Anne of Austria was then twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age;
that is to say, she was in the full splendor of her beauty.
Her carriage was that of a queen or a goddess; her eyes, which
cast the brilliancy of emeralds, were perfectly beautiful, and
yet were at the same time full of sweetness and majesty.
Her mouth was small and rosy; and although her underlip, like
that of all princes of the House of Austria, protruded slightly
beyond the other, it was eminently lovely in its smile, but as
profoundly disdainful in its contempt.
Her skin was admired for its velvety softness; her hands and arms
were of surpassing beauty, all the poets of the time singing them
as incomparable.
Lastly, her hair, which, from being light in her youth, had
become chestnut, and which she wore curled very plainly, and with
much powder, admirably set off her face, in which the most rigid
critic could only have desired a little less rouge, and the most
fastidious sculptor a little more fineness in the nose.
Buckingham remained for a moment dazzled. Never had Anne of
Austria appeared to him so beautiful, amid balls, fetes, or
carousals, as she appeared to him at this moment, dressed in a
simple robe of white satin, and accompanied by Donna Estafania--
the only one of her Spanish women who had not been driven from
her by the jealousy of the king or by the persecutions of
Richelieu.
Anne of Austria took two steps forward. Buckingham threw himself
at her feet, and before the queen could prevent him, kissed the
hem of her robe.
"Duke, you already know that it is not I who caused you to be
written to."
"Yes, yes, madame! Yes, your Majesty!" cried the duke. "I know
that I must have been mad, senseless, to believe that snow would
become animated or marble warm; but what then! They who love
believe easily in love. Besides, I have lost nothing by this
journey because I see you."
"Yes," replied Anne, "but you know why and how I see you;
because, insensible to all my sufferings, you persist in
remaining in a city where, by remaining, you run the risk of your
life, and make me run the risk of my honor. I see you to tell
you that everything separates us--the depths of the sea, the
enmity of kingdoms, the sanctity of vows. It is sacrilege to
struggle against
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