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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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Twenty Years Later 3 at Prostate Health
of francs among his children
and to keep an income of forty thousand for himself.
The fact was that Emerys son had run a great chance of
being suffocated, one of the rioters having proposed to
squeeze him until he gave up all the gold he had swallowed.
Nothing, therefore, was settled that day, as Emerys head
was not steady enough for business after such an occurrence.
On the next day Mathieu Mole, the chief president, whose
courage at this crisis, says the Cardinal de Retz, was equal
to that of the Duc de Beaufort and the Prince de Conde -- in
other words, of the two men who were considered the bravest
in France -- had been attacked in his turn. The people
threatened to hold him responsible for the evils that hung
over them. But the chief president had replied with his
habitual coolness, without betraying either disturbance or
surprise, that should the agitators refuse obedience to the
kings wishes he would have gallows erected in the public
squares and proceed at once to hang the most active among
them. To which the others had responded that they would be
glad to see the gallows erected; they would serve for the
hanging of those detestable judges who purchased favor at
court at the price of the peoples misery.
Nor was this all. On the eleventh the queen in going to mass
at Notre Dame, as she always did on Saturdays, was followed
by more than two hundred women demanding justice. These poor
creatures had no bad intentions. They wished only to be
allowed to fall on their knees before their sovereign, and
that they might move her to compassion; but they were
prevented by the royal guard and the queen proceeded on her
way, haughtily disdainful of their entreaties.
At length parliament was convoked; the authority of the king
was to be maintained.
One day -- it was the morning of the day my story begins --
the king, Louis XIV., then ten years of age, went in state,
under pretext of returning thanks for his recovery from the
small-pox, to Notre Dame. He took the opportunity of calling
out his guard, the Swiss troops and the musketeers, and he
had planted them round the Palais Royal, on the quays, and
on the Pont Neuf. After mass the young monarch drove to the
Parliament House, where, upon the throne, he hastily
confirmed not only such edicts as he had already passed, but
issued new ones, each one, according to Cardinal de Retz,
more ruinous than the others -- a proceeding which drew
forth a strong remonstrance from the chief president, Mole
-- whilst President Blancmesnil and Councillor Broussel
raised their voices in indignation against fresh taxes.
The king returned amidst the silence of a vast multitude to
the Palais Royal. All minds were uneasy, most were
foreboding, many of the people used threatening language.
At first, indeed, they were doubtful whether the kings
visit to the parliament had been in order to lighten or
increase their burdens; but scarcely was it known that the
taxes were to be still further increased, when cries of
"Down with Mazarin!" "Long live Broussel!" "Long live
Blancmesnil!" resounded through the city. For the people had
learned that Broussel and Blancmesnil had made speeches in
their behalf, and, although the eloquence of these deputies
had been without avail, it had none the less won for them
the peoples good-will. All attempts to disperse the groups
collected in the streets, or silence their exclamations,
were in vain. Orders had just been given to the royal guards
and the Swiss guards, not only to stand firm, but to send
out patrols to the streets of Saint Denis and Saint Martin,
where the people thronged and where they were the most
vociferous, when the mayor of Paris was announced at the
Palais Royal.
He was shown in directly; he came to say that if these
offensive precautions were not discontinued, in two hours
Paris would be under arms.
Deliberations were being held when a lieutenant in the
guards, named Comminges, made his appearance, with his
clothes all torn, his face streaming with blood. The queen
on seeing him uttered a cry of surprise and asked him what
was going on.
As the mayor had foreseen, the sight of the guards had
exasperated the mob. The tocsin was sounded. Comminges had
arrested one of the ringleaders and had ordered him to be
hanged near the cross of Du Trahoir; but in attempting to
execute this command the soldiery were attacked in the
market-place with stones and halberds; the delinquent had
escaped to the Rue des Lombards and
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