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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Three Musketeers 82 at Prostate Health
the king make some attempts at reconciliation with her. Her
first movement was repellent. Her womanly pride and her queenly
dignity had both been so cruelly offended that she could not come
round at the first advance; but, overpersuaded by the advice of
her women, she at last had the appearance of beginning to forget.
The king took advantage of this favorable moment to tell her that
her had the intention of shortly giving a fete.
A fete was so rare a thing for poor Anne of Austria that at this
announcement, as the cardinal had predicted, the last trace of
her resentment disappeared, if not from her heart at least from
her countenance. She asked upon what day this fete would take
place, but the king replied that he must consult the cardinal
upon that head.
Indeed, every day the king asked the cardinal when this fete
should take place; and every day the cardinal, under some
pretext, deferred fixing it. Ten days passed away thus.
On the eighth day after the scene we have described, the cardinal
received a letter with the London stamp which only contained
these lines: "I have them; but I am unable to leave London for
want of money. Send me five hundred pistoles, and four or five
days after I have received them I shall be in Paris."
On the same day the cardinal received this letter the king put
his customary question to him.
Richelieu counted on his fingers, and said to himself, "She will
arrive, she says, four or five days after having received the
money. It will require four or five days for the transmission of
the money, four or five days for her to return; that makes ten
days. Now, allowing for contrary winds, accidents, and a womans
weakness, there are twelve days."
"Well, Monsieur Duke," said the king, "have you made your
calculations?"
"Yes, sire. Today is the twentieth of September. The aldermen
of the city give a fete on the third of October. That will fall
in wonderfully well; you will not appear to have gone out of your
way to please the queen."
Then the cardinal added, "A PROPOS, sire, do not forget to tell
her Majesty the evening before the fete that you should like to
see how her diamond studs become her."
17 BONACIEUX AT HOME
It was the second time the cardinal had mentioned these diamond
studs to the king. Louis XIII was struck with this insistence,
and began to fancy that this recommendation concealed some
mystery.
More than once the king had been humiliated by the cardinal,
whose police, without having yet attained the perfection of the
modern police, were excellent, being better informed than
himself, even upon what was going on in his own household. He
hoped, then, in a conversation with Anne of Austria, to obtain
some information from that conversation, and afterward to come
upon his Eminence with some secret which the cardinal either knew
or did not know, but which, in either case, would raise him
infinitely in the eyes of his minister.
He went then to the queen, and according to custom accosted her
with fresh menaces against those who surrounded her. Anne of
Austria lowered her head, allowed the torrent to flow on without
replying, hoping that it would cease of itself; but this was not
what Louis XIII meant. Louis XIII wanted a discussion from which
some light or other might break, convinced as he was that the
cardinal had some afterthought and was preparing for him one of
those terrible surprises which his Eminence was so skillful in
getting up. He arrived at this end by his persistence in
accusation.
"But," cried Anne of Austria, tired of these vague attacks, "but,
sire, you do not tell me all that you have in your heart. What
have I done, then? Let me know what crime I have committed. It
is impossible that your Majesty can make all this ado about a
letter written to my brother."
The king, attacked in a manner so direct, did not know what to
answer; and he thought that this was the moment for expressing
the desire which he was not going to have made until the evening
before the fete.
"Madame," said he, with dignity, "there will shortly be a ball at
the Hotel de Ville. I wish, in order to honor our worthy
aldermen, you should appear in ceremonial costume, and above all,
ornamented with the diamond studs which I gave
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