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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Three Musketeers 72 at Prostate Health
Rochefort, all is not lost; and perhaps--perhaps
everything is for the best."
"The fact is that I do not doubt your Eminences genius--"
"Will repair the blunders of his agent--is that it?"
"That is exactly what I was going to say, if your Eminence had
let me finish my sentence."
"Meanwhile, do you know where the Duchesse de Chevreuse and the
Duke of Buckingham are now concealed?"
"No, monseigneur; my people could tell me nothing on that head."
"But I know."
"You, monseigneur?"
"Yes; or at least I guess. They were, one in the Rue de
Vaugirard, No. 25; the other in the Rue de la Harpe, No. 75."
"Does your Eminence command that they both be instantly
arrested?"
"It will be too late; they will be gone."
"But still, we can make sure that they are so."
"Take ten men of my Guardsmen, and search the two houses
thoroughly."
"Instantly, monseigneur." And Rochefort went hastily out of the
apartment.
The cardinal being left alone, reflected for an instant and then
rang the bell a third time. The same officer appeared.
"Bring the prisoner in again," said the cardinal.
M. Bonacieux was introduced afresh, and upon a sign from the
cardinal, the officer retired.
"You have deceived me!" said the cardinal, sternly.
"I," cried Bonacieux, "I deceive your Eminence!"
"Your wife, in going to Rue de Vaugirard and Rue de la Harpe, did
not go to find linen drapers."
"Then why did she go, just God?"
"She went to meet the Duchesse de Chevreuse and the Duke of Buckingham."
"Yes," cried Bonacieux, recalling all his remembrances of the
circumstances, "yes, thats it. Your Eminence is right. I told
my wife several times that it was surprising that linen drapers
should live in such houses as those, in houses that had no signs;
but she always laughed at me. Ah, monseigneur!" continued
Bonacieux, throwing himself at his Eminences feet, "ah, how
truly you are the cardinal, the great cardinal, the man of genius
whom all the world reveres!"
The cardinal, however contemptible might be the triumph gained
over so vulgar a being as Bonacieux, did not the less enjoy it
for an instant; then, almost immediately, as if a fresh thought
has occurred, a smile played upon his lips, and he said, offering
his hand to the mercer, "Rise, my friend, you are a worthy man."
"The cardinal has touched me with his hand! I have touched the
hand of the great man!" cried Bonacieux. "The great man has
called me his friend!"
"Yes, my friend, yes," said the cardinal, with that paternal tone
which he sometimes knew how to assume, but which deceived none
who knew him; "and as you have been unjustly suspected, well, you
must be indemnified. Here, take this purse of a hundred
pistoles, and pardon me."
"I pardon you, monseigneur!" said Bonacieux, hesitating to take
the purse, fearing, doubtless, that this pretended gift was but a
pleasantry. "But you are able to have me arrested, you are able
to have me tortured, you are able to have me hanged; you are the
master, and I could not have the least word to say. Pardon you,
monseigneur! You cannot mean that!"
"Ah, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux, you are generous in this matter.
I see it and I thank you for it. Thus, then, you will take this
bag, and you will go away without being too malcontent."
"I go away enchanted."
"Farewell, then, or rather, AU REVOIR!"
And the cardinal made him a sign with his hand, to which
Bonacieux replied by bowing to the ground. He then went out
backward, and when he was in the antechamber the cardinal heard
him, in his enthusiasm, crying aloud, "Long life to the
Monseigneur! Long life to his Eminence! Long life to the great
cardinal!" The cardinal listened with a smile to this vociferous
manifestation of the feelings of M. Bonacieux; and then, when
Bonacieuxs cries were no longer audible, "Good!" said he, "that
man would henceforward lay down his life for me." And the
cardinal began to examine with the greatest attention the map of
La Rochelle, which, as we have said, lay open on the desk,
tracing with a pencil the line in which the famous dyke was to
pass which, eighteen months later, shut up the port of the
besieged city. As he was in the deepest of his strategic
meditations, the door opened, and Rochefort returned.
"Well?" said the cardinal, eagerly, rising with a promptitude
which proved the degree of importance he attached to the
commission with
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