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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Vicomte De Bragelonne 669 at Prostate Health
one."
"Ah! bah!"
"I predict that something will happen to you to-day which will increase
your importance more than ever."
"Really?"
"You know that I know all the news?"
"Oh, yes!"
"Come, Porthos, are you ready? Let us go."
"I am quite ready, Aramis."
"Let us embrace DArtagnan first."
"Most certainly."
"But the horses?"
"Oh! there is no want of them here. Will you have mine?"
"No; Porthos has his own stud. So adieu! adieu!"
The two fugitives mounted their horses beneath the captain of the
musketeers eyes, who held Porthos stirrup for him, and gazed after
them until they were out of sight.
"On any other occasion," thought the Gascon, "I should say that those
gentlemen are making their escape; but in these days politics seem so
changed that that is what is termed going on a mission. I have no
objection; let me attend to my own affairs, that is quite enough;" and
he philosophically entered his apartments.
CHAPTER XCVI.
SHOWING HOW THE COUNTERSIGN WAS RESPECTED AT THE BASTILLE.
Fouquet tore along as fast as his horses could drag him. On the way he
trembled with horror at the idea of what had just been revealed to him.
"What must have been," he thought, "the youth of those extraordinary
men, who, even as age is stealing fast upon them, still are able to
conceive such plans and can carry them out without flinching?"
At one moment he could not resist the idea that all that Aramis had just
been recounting to him was nothing more than a dream, and whether the
fable itself was not the snare; so that when Fouquet arrived at the
Bastille, he might possibly find an order of arrest, which would send
him to join the dethroned king. Strongly impressed with this idea, he
gave certain sealed orders on his route, while fresh horses were being
harnessed to his carriage. These orders were addressed to M. dArtagnan,
and to certain others whose fidelity to the king was far above
suspicion.
"In this way," said Fouquet to himself, "prisoner or not, I shall have
performed the duty which I owe to my honor. The orders will not reach
them until after my return, if I should return free, and consequently
they will not have been unsealed. I shall take them back again. If I am
delayed, it will be because some misfortune will have befallen me; and
in that case assistance will be sent for me as well as for the king."
Prepared in this manner, the surintendant arrived at the Bastille; he
had traveled at the rate of five leagues and a half the hour. Every
circumstance of delay which Aramis had escaped in his visit to the
Bastille befell Fouquet. It was useless his giving his name, equally
useless his being recognized; he could not succeed in obtaining an
entrance. By dint of entreaties, threats, commands, he succeeded in
inducing a sentinel to speak to one of the subalterns, who went and told
the major. As for the governor, they did not even dare to disturb him.
Fouquet sat in his carriage, at the outer gate of the fortress, chafing
with rage and impatience, awaiting the return of the officers, who at
last reappeared with a sufficiently sulky air.
"Well," said Fouquet, impatiently, "what did the major say?"
"Well, monsieur," replied the soldier, "the major laughed in my face.
He told me that M. Fouquet was at Vaux, and that even were he at Paris,
M. Fouquet would not get up at so early an hour as the present."
"Mordieu! You are a perfect set of fools," cried the minister, darting
out of the carriage; and before the subaltern had had time to shut the
gate Fouquet sprang through it, and ran forward in spite of the soldier,
who cried out for assistance. Fouquet gained ground, regardless of the
cries of the man, who, however, having at last come up with Fouquet,
called out to the sentinel of the second gate, "Look out, look out,
sentinel!" The man crossed his pike before the minister; but the latter,
robust and active, and hurried away, too, by his passion, wrested the
pike from the soldier and struck him a violent blow on the shoulder with
it. The subaltern, who approached too closely, received his part of the
blows as well. Both of them uttered loud and furious cries, at the sound
of which the whole of the first body of the advanced guard poured out of
the guard-house. Among them there was one, however, who recognized the
surintendant, and who called out, "Monseigneur, ah! monseigneur. Stop,
stop, you
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