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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Three Musketeers 80 at Prostate Health
asked the queen, who did not understand, or
rather was not willing to understand.
"His majesty is certain that a letter has been written by you
during the day; he knows that it has not yet been sent to its
address. This letter is not in your table nor in your secretary;
and yet this letter must be somewhere."
"Would you dare to lift your hand to your queen?" said Anne of
Austria, drawing herself up to her full height, and fixing her
eyes upon the chancellor with an expression almost threatening.
"I am a faithful subject of the king, madame, and all that his
Majesty commands I shall do."
"Well, it is true!" said Anne of Austria; "and the spies of the
cardinal have served him faithfully. I have written a letter
today; that letter is not yet gone. The letter is here." And
the queen laid her beautiful hand on her bosom.
"Then give me that letter, madame," said the chancellor.
"I will give it to none but the king monsieur," said Anne.
"If the king had desired that the letter should be given to him,
madame, he would have demanded it of you himself. But I repeat
to you, I am charged with reclaiming it; and if you do not give
it up--"
"Well?"
"He has, then, charged me to take it from you."
"How! What do you say?"
"That my orders go far, madame; and that I am authorized to seek
for the suspected paper, even on the person of your Majesty."
"What horror!" cried the queen.
"Be kind enough, then, madame, to act more compliantly."
"The conduct is infamously violent! Do you know that, monsieur?"
"The king commands it, madame; excuse me."
"I will not suffer it! No, no, I would rather die!" cried the
queen, in whom the imperious blood of Spain and Austria began to
rise.
The chancellor made a profound reverence. Then, with the
intention quite patent of not drawing back a foot from the
accomplishment of the commission with which he was charged, and
as the attendant of an executioner might have done in the chamber
of torture, he approached Anne of Austria, for whose eyes at the
same instant sprang tears of rage.
The queen was, as we have said, of great beauty. The commission
might well be called delicate; and the king had reached, in his
jealousy of Buckingham, the point of not being jealous of anyone
else.
Without doubt the chancellor, Seguier looked about at that moment
for the rope of the famous bell; but not finding it he summoned
his resolution, and stretched forth his hands toward the place
where the queen had acknowledged the paper was to be found.
Anne of Austria took one step backward, became so pale that it
might be said she was dying, and leaning with her left hand upon
a table behind her to keep herself from falling, she with her
right hand drew the paper from her bosom and held it out to the
keeper of the seals.
"There, monsieur, there is that letter!" cried the queen, with a
broken and trembling voice; "take it, and deliver me from your
odious presence."
The chancellor, who, on his part, trembled with an emotion easily
to be conceived, took the letter, bowed to the ground, and
retired. The door was scarcely closed upon him, when the queen
sank, half fainting, into the arms of her women.
The chancellor carried the letter to the king without having read
a single word of it. The king took it with a trembling hand,
looked for the address, which was wanting, became very pale,
opened it slowly, then seeing by the first words that it was
addressed to the King of Spain, he read it rapidly.
It was nothing but a plan of attack against the cardinal. The
queen pressed her brother and the Emperor of Austria to appear to
be wounded, as they really were, by the policy of Richelieu--the
eternal object of which was the abasement of the house of
Austria--to declare war against France, and as a condition of
peace, to insist upon the dismissal of the cardinal; but as to
love, there was not a single word about it in all the letter.
The king, quite delighted, inquired if the cardinal was still at
the Louvre; he was told that his Eminence awaited the orders of
his Majesty in the business cabinet.
The king went straight to him.
"There, Duke," said he, "you were right and I was wrong. The
whole intrigue is political,
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