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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Three Musketeers 74 at Prostate Health
king.
It was precisely at this moment that M. de Treville, on leaving
the residence of the LIEUTENANT-CRIMINEL and the governor of the
Fort lEveque without being able to find Athos, arrived at the
palace.
As captain of the Musketeers, M. de Treville had the right of
entry at all times.
It is well known how violent the kings prejudices were against
the queen, and how carefully these prejudices were kept up by the
cardinal, who in affairs of intrigue mistrusted women infinitely
more than men. One of the grand causes of this prejudice was the
friendship of Anne of Austria for Mme. de Chevreuse. These two
women gave him more uneasiness than the war with Spain, the
quarrel with England, or the embarrassment of the finances. In
his eyes and to his conviction, Mme. de Chevreuse not only served
the queen in her political intrigues, but, what tormented him
still more, in her amorous intrigues.
At the first word the cardinal spoke of Mme. de Chevreuse--who,
though exiled to Tours and believed to be in that city, had come
to Paris, remained there five days, and outwitted the police--the
king flew into a furious passion. Capricious and unfaithful, the
king wished to be called Louis the Just and Louis the Chaste.
Posterity will find a difficulty in understanding this character,
which history explains only by facts and never by reason.
But when the cardinal added that not only Mme. de Chevreuse had
been in Paris, but still further, that the queen had renewed with
her one of those mysterious correspondences which at that time
was named a CABAL; when he affirmed that he, the cardinal, was
about to unravel the most closely twisted thread of this
intrigue; that at the moment of arresting in the very act, with
all the proofs about her, the queens emissary to the exiled
duchess, a Musketeer had dared to interrupt the course of justice
violently, by falling sword in hand upon the honest men of the
law, charged with investigating impartially the whole affair in
order to place it before the eyes of the king--Louis XIII could
not contain himself, and he made a step toward the queens
apartment with that pale and mute indignation which, when in
broke out, led this prince to the commission of the most pitiless
cruelty. And yet, in all this, the cardinal had not yet said a
word about the Duke of Buckingham.
At this instant M. de Treville entered, cool, polite, and in
irreproachable costume.
Informed of what had passed by the presence of the cardinal and
the alteration in the kings countenance, M. de Treville felt
himself something like Samson before the Philistines.
Louis XIII had already placed his hand on the knob of the door;
at the noise of M. de Trevilles entrance he turned round. "You
arrive in good time, monsieur," said the king, who, when his
passions were raised to a certain point, could not dissemble; "I
have learned some fine things concerning your Musketeers."
"And I," said Treville, coldly, "I have some pretty things
to tell your Majesty concerning these gownsmen."
"What?" said the king, with hauteur.
"I have the honor to inform your Majesty," continued M. de
Treville, in the same tone, "that a party of PROCUREURS,
commissaries, and men of the police--very estimable people, but
very inveterate, as it appears, against the uniform--have taken
upon themselves to arrest in a house, to lead away through the
open street, and throw into the Fort lEveque, all upon an order
which they have refused to show me, one of my, or rather your
Musketeers, sire, of irreproachable conduct, of an almost
illustrious reputation, and whom your Majesty knows favorably,
Monsieur Athos."
"Athos," said the king, mechanically; "yes, certainly I know that
name."
"Let your Majesty remember," said Treville, "that Monsieur Athos
is the Musketeer who, in the annoying duel which you are
acquainted with, had the misfortune to wound Monsieur de Cahusac
so seriously. A PROPOS, monseigneur," continued Treville.
Addressing the cardinal, "Monsieur de Cahusac is quite recovered,
is he not?"
"Thank you," said the cardinal, biting his lips with anger.
"Athos, then, went to pay a visit to one of his friends absent at
the time," continued Treville, "to a young Bearnais, a cadet in
his Majestys Guards, the company of Monsieur Dessessart, but
scarcely had he arrived at his friends and taken up a book,
while waiting his return, when a mixed crowd of bailiffs and
soldiers came and laid siege to the house, broke open several
doors--"
The cardinal made the king a sign, which signified, "That was on
account of
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