Twenty Years After
The duke thanked Monsieur de Chavigny for having, as he said, cleaned his drawing-paper for him; he then divided the walls of his room into compartments and dedicated each of these compartments to some incident in Mazarin’s life. In one was depicted the “Illustrious Coxcomb” receiving a shower of blows from Cardinal Bentivoglio, whose servant he had been; another, the “Illustrious Mazarin” acting the part of Ignatius Loyola in a tragedy of that name; a third, the “Illustrious Mazarin” stealing the portfolio of prime minister from Monsieur de Chavigny, who had expected to have it; a fourth, the “Illustrious Coxcomb Mazarin” refusing to give Laporte, the young king’s valet, clean sheets, and saving that “it was quite enough for the king of France to have clean sheets every three months.”
The governor, of course, thought proper to threaten his prisoner that if he did not give up drawing such pictures he should be obliged to deprive him of all the means of amusing himself in that manner. To this Monsieur de Beaufort replied that since every opportunity of distinguishing himself in arms was taken from him, he wished to make himself celebrated in the arts; since he could not be a Bayard, he would become a Raphael or a Michael Angelo. Nevertheless, one day when Monsieur de Beaufort was walking in the meadow his fire was put out, his charcoal all removed, taken away; and thus his means of drawing utterly destroyed.
The poor duke swore, fell into a rage, yelled, and declared that they wished to starve him to death as they had starved the Marechal Ornano and the Grand Prior of Vendome; but he refused to promise that he would not make any more drawings and remained without any fire in the room all the winter.
His next act was to purchase a dog from one of his keepers. With this animal, which he called Pistache, he was often shut up for hours alone, superintending, as every one supposed, its education. At last, when Pistache was sufficiently well trained, Monsieur de Beaufort invited the governor and officers of Vincennes to attend a representation which he was going to have in his apartment.
The party assembled, the room was lighted with waxlights, and the prisoner, with a bit of plaster he had taken out of the wall of his room, had traced a long white line, representing a cord, on the floor. Pistache, on a signal from his master, placed himself on this line, raised himself on his hind paws, and holding in his front paws a wand with which clothes used to be beaten, he began to dance upon the line with as many contortions as a rope-dancer. Having been several times up and down it, he gave the wand back to his master and began without hesitation to perform the same evolutions over again.
The intelligent creature was received with loud applause.
The first part of the entertainment being concluded Pistache was desired to say what o’clock it was; he was shown Monsieur de Chavigny’s watch; it was then half-past six; the dog raised and dropped his paw six times; the seventh he let it remain upraised. Nothing could be better done; a sun-dial could not have shown the hour with greater precision.
Then the question was put to him who was the best jailer in all the prisons in France.
The dog performed three evolutions around the circle and laid himself, with the deepest respect, at the feet of Monsieur de Chavigny, who at first seemed inclined to like the joke and laughed long and loud, but a frown succeeded, and he bit his lips with vexation.
Then the duke put to Pistache this difficult question, who was the greatest thief in the world?
Pistache went again around the circle, but stopped at no one, and at last went to the door and began to scratch and bark.
“See, gentlemen,” said M. de Beaufort, “this wonderful animal, not finding here what I ask for, seeks it out of doors; you shall, however, have his answer. Pistache, my friend, come here. Is not the greatest thief in the world, Monsieur (the king’s secretary) Le Camus, who came to Paris with twenty francs in his pocket and who now possesses ten millions?”
The dog shook his head.
“Then is it not,” resumed the duke, “the Superintendent Emery, who gave his son, when he was married, three hundred thousand francs and a house, compared to which the Tuileries are a heap of ruins and the Louvre a paltry building?”
The dog again shook his head as if to say “no.”
“Then,” said the prisoner, “let’s think who it can be. Can it be, can it possibly be, the ‘Illustrious Coxcomb, Mazarin de Piscina,’ hey?”
Pistache made violent signs that it was, by raising and lowering his head eight or ten times successively.
“Gentlemen, you see,” said the duke to those present, who dared not even smile, “that it is the ‘Illustrious Coxcomb’ who is the greatest thief in the world; at least, according to Pistache.”
“Let us go on to another of his exercises.”
“Gentlemen!”-there was a profound silence in the room when the duke again addressed them-“do you not remember that the Duc de Guise taught all the dogs in Paris to jump for Mademoiselle de Pons, whom he styled ‘the fairest of the fair?’ Pistache is going to show you how superior he is to all other dogs. Monsieur de Chavigny, be so good as to lend me your cane.”
Monsieur de Chavigny handed his cane to Monsieur de Beaufort. Monsieur de Beaufort placed it horizontally at the height of one foot.
“Now, Pistache, my good dog, jump the height of this cane for Madame de Montbazon.”
“But,” interposed Monsieur de Chavigny, “it seems to me that Pistache is only doing what other dogs have done when they jumped for Mademoiselle de Pons.”
“Stop,” said the duke, “Pistache, jump for the queen.” And he raised his cane six inches higher.
The dog sprang, and in spite of the height jumped lightly over it.
“And now,” said the duke, raising it still six inches higher, “jump for the king.”
The dog obeyed and jumped quickly over the cane.
“Now, then,” said the duke, and as he spoke, lowered the cane almost level with the ground; “Pistache, my friend, jump for the ‘Illustrious Coxcomb, Mazarin de Piscina.’”
The dog turned his back to the cane.
“What,” asked the duke, “what do you mean?” and he gave him the cane again, first making a semicircle from the head to the tail of Pistache. “Jump then, Monsieur Pistache.”
But Pistache, as at first, turned round on his legs and stood with his back to the cane.
Monsieur de Beaufort made the experiment a third time, but by this time Pistache’s patience was exhausted; he threw himself furiously upon the cane, wrested it from the hands of the prince and broke it with his teeth.
Monsieur de Beaufort took the pieces out of his mouth and presented them with great formality to Monsieur de Chavigny, saying that for that evening the entertainment was ended, but in three months it should be repeated, when Pistache would have learned a few new tricks.
Three days afterward Pistache was found dead-poisoned.
Then the duke said openly that his dog had been killed by a drug with which they meant to poison him; and one day after dinner he went to bed, calling out that he had pains in his stomach and that Mazarin had poisoned him.
This fresh impertinence reached the ears of the cardinal and alarmed him greatly. The donjon of Vincennes was considered very unhealthy and Madame de Rambouillet had said that the room in which the Marechal Ornano and the Grand Prior de Vendome had died was worth its weight in arsenic-a bon mot which had great success. So it was ordered the prisoner was henceforth to eat nothing that had not previously been tasted, and La Ramee was in consequence placed near him as taster.
Every kind of revenge was practiced upon the duke by the governor in return for the insults of the innocent Pistache. De Chavigny, who, according to report, was a son of Richelieu’s, and had been a creature of the late cardinal’s, understood tyranny. He took from the duke all the steel knives and silver forks and replaced them with silver knives and wooden forks, pretending that as he had been informed that the duke was to pass all his life at Vincennes, he was afraid of his prisoner attempting suicide. A fortnight afterward the duke, going to the tennis court, found two rows of trees about the size of his little finger planted by the roadside; he asked what they were for and was told that they were to shade him from the sun on some future day. One morning the gardener went to him and told him, as if to please him, that he was going to plant a bed of asparagus for his especial use. Now, since, as every one knows, asparagus takes four years in coming to perfection, this civility infuriated Monsieur de Beaufort.
At last his patience was exhausted. He assembled his keepers, and notwithstanding his well-known difficulty of utterance, addressed them as follows:
“Gentlemen! will you permit a grandson of Henry IV. to be overwhelmed with insults and ignominy?
“Odds fish! as my grandfather used to say, I once reigned in Paris! do you know that? I had the king and Monsieur the whole of one day in my care. The queen at that time liked me and called me the most honest man in the kingdom. Gentlemen and citizens, set me free; I shall go to the Louvre and strangle Mazarin. You shall be my body-guard. I will make you all captains, with good pensions! Odds fish! On! march forward!”
But eloquent as he might be, the eloquence of the grandson of Henry IV. did not touch those hearts of stone; not one man stirred, so Monsieur de Beaufort was obliged to be satisfied with calling them all kinds of rascals underneath the sun.
Sometimes, when Monsieur de Chavigny paid him a visit, the duke used to ask him what he should think if he saw an army of Parisians, all fully armed, appear at Vincennes to deliver him from prison.
“My lord,” answered De Chavigny, with a low bow, “I have on the ramparts twenty pieces of artillery and in my casemates thirty thousand guns. I should bombard the troops till not one grain of gunpowder was unexploded.”
“Yes, but after you had fired off your thirty thousand guns they would take the donjon; the donjon being taken, I should be obliged to let them hang you-at which I should be most unhappy, certainly.”
And in his turn the duke bowed low to Monsieur de Chavigny.
“For myself, on the other hand, my lord,” returned the governor, “when the first rebel should pass the threshold of my postern doors I should be obliged to kill you with my own hand, since you were confided peculiarly to my care and as I am obliged to give you up, dead or alive.”
And once more he bowed low before his highness.
These bitter-sweet pleasantries lasted ten minutes, sometimes longer, but always finished thus:
Monsieur de Chavigny, turning toward the door, used to call out: “Halloo! La Ramee!”
La Ramee came into the room.
“La Ramee, I recommend Monsieur le Duc to you, particularly; treat him as a man of his rank and family ought to be treated; that is, never leave him alone an instant.”
La Ramee became, therefore, the duke’s dinner guest by compulsion-an eternal keeper, the shadow of his person; but La Ramee-gay, frank, convivial, fond of play, a great hand at tennis, had one defect in the duke’s eyes-his incorruptibility.
Now, although La Ramee appreciated, as of a certain value, the honor of being shut up with a prisoner of so great importance, still the pleasure of living in intimacy with the grandson of Henry IV. hardly compensated for the loss of that which he had experienced in going from time to time to visit his family.
One may be a jailer or a keeper and at the same time a good father and husband. La Ramee adored his wife and children, whom now he could only catch a glimpse of from the top of the wall, when in order to please him they used to walk on the opposite side of the moat. ‘Twas too brief an enjoyment, and La Ramee felt that the gayety of heart he had regarded as the cause of health (of which it was perhaps rather the result) would not long survive such a mode of life.
He accepted, therefore, with delight, an offer made to him by his friend the steward of the Duc de Grammont, to give him a substitute; he also spoke of it to Monsieur de Chavigny, who promised that he would not oppose it in any way-that is, if he approved of the person proposed.
We consider it useless to draw a physical or moral portrait of Grimaud; if, as we hope, our readers have not wholly forgotten the first part of this work, they must have preserved a clear idea of that estimable individual, who is wholly unchanged, except that he is twenty years older, an advance in life that has made him only more silent; although, since the change that had been working in himself, Athos had given Grimaud permission to speak.
But Grimaud had for twelve or fifteen years preserved habitual silence, and a habit of fifteen or twenty years’ duration becomes second nature.
18. Grimaud begins his Functions
Grimaud thereupon presented himself with his smooth exterior at the donjon of Vincennes. Now Monsieur de Chavigny piqued himself on his infallible penetration; for that which almost proved that he was the son of Richelieu was his everlasting pretension; he examined attentively the countenance of the applicant for place and fancied that the contracted eyebrows, thin lips, hooked nose, and prominent cheek-bones of Grimaud were favorable signs. He addressed about twelve words to him; Grimaud answered in four.
“Here’s a promising fellow and it is I who have found out his merits,” said Monsieur de Chavigny. “Go,” he added, “and make yourself agreeable to Monsieur la Ramee, and tell him that you suit me in all respects.”
Grimaud had every quality that could attract a man on duty who wishes to have a deputy. So, after a thousand questions which met with only a word in reply, La Ramee, fascinated by this sobriety in speech, rubbed his hands and engaged Grimaud.
“My orders?” asked Grimaud.
“They are these; never to leave the prisoner alone; to keep away from him every pointed or cutting instrument, and to prevent his conversing any length of time with the keepers.”
“Those are all?” asked Grimaud.
“All now,” replied La Ramee.
“Good,” answered Grimaud; and he went right to the prisoner.
The duke was in the act of combing his beard, which he had allowed to grow, as well as his hair, in order to reproach Mazarin with his wretched appearance and condition. But having some days previously seen from the top of the donjon Madame de Montbazon pass in her carriage, and still cherishing an affection for that beautiful woman, he did not wish to be to her what he wished to be to Mazarin, and in the hope of seeing her again, had asked for a leaden comb, which was allowed him. The comb was to be a leaden one, because his beard, like that of most fair people, was rather red; he therefore dyed it thus whilst combing it.
As Grimaud entered he saw this comb on the tea-table; he took it up, and as he took it he made a low bow.
The duke looked at this strange figure with surprise. The figure put the comb in its pocket.
“Ho! hey! what’s that?” cried the duke. “Who is this creature?”
Grimaud did not answer, but bowed a second time.
“Art thou dumb?” cried the duke.
Grimaud made a sign that he was not.
“What art thou, then? Answer! I command thee!” said the duke.
“A keeper,” replied Grimaud.
“A keeper!” reiterated the duke; “there was nothing wanting in my collection, except this gallows-bird. Halloo! La Ramee! some one!”
La Ramee ran in haste to obey the call.
“Who is this wretch who takes my comb and puts it in his pocket?” asked the duke.
“One of your guards, my prince; a man of talent and merit, whom you will like, as I and Monsieur de Chavigny do, I am sure.”
“Why does he take my comb?”
“Why do you take my lord’s comb?” asked La Ramee.
Grimaud drew the comb from his pocket and passing his fingers over the largest teeth, pronounced this one word, “Pointed.”
“True,” said La Ramee.
“What does the animal say?” asked the duke.
“That the king has forbidden your lordship to have any pointed instrument.”
“Are you mad, La Ramee? You yourself gave me this comb.”
“I was very wrong, my lord, for in giving it to you I acted in opposition to my orders.”
The duke looked furiously at Grimaud.
“I perceive that this creature will be my particular aversion,” he muttered.
Grimaud, nevertheless, was resolved for certain reasons not at once to come to a full rupture with the prisoner; he wanted to inspire, not a sudden repugnance, but a good, sound, steady hatred; he retired, therefore, and gave place to four guards, who, having breakfasted, could attend on the prisoner.
A fresh practical joke now occurred to the duke. He had asked for crawfish for his breakfast on the following morning; he intended to pass the day in making a small gallows and hang one of the finest of these fish in the middle of his room-the red color evidently conveying an allusion to the cardinal-so that he might have the pleasure of hanging Mazarin in effigy without being accused of having hung anything more significant than a crawfish.
The day was employed in preparations for the execution. Every one grows childish in prison, but the character of Monsieur de Beaufort was particularly disposed to become so. In the course of his morning’s walk he collected two or three small branches from a tree and found a small piece of broken glass, a discovery that quite delighted him. When he came home he formed his handkerchief into a loop.
Nothing of all this escaped Grimaud, but La Ramee looked on with the curiosity of a father who thinks that he may perhaps get a cheap idea concerning a new toy for his children. The guards looked on it with indifference. When everything was ready, the gallows hung in the middle of the room, the loop made, and when the duke had cast a glance upon the plate of crawfish, in order to select the finest specimen among them, he looked around for his piece of glass; it had disappeared.
“Who has taken my piece of glass?” asked the duke, frowning. Grimaud made a sign to denote that he had done so.
“What! thou again! Why didst thou take it?”
“Yes-why?” asked La Ramee.
Grimaud, who held the piece of glass in his hand, said: “Sharp.”
“True, my lord!” exclaimed La Ramee. “Ah! deuce take it! we have a precious fellow here!”
“Monsieur Grimaud!” said the duke, “for your sake I beg of you, never come within the reach of my fist!”
“Hush! hush!” cried La Ramee, “give me your gibbet, my lord. I will shape it out for you with my knife.”
And he took the gibbet and shaped it out as neatly as possible.
“That’s it,” said the duke, “now make me a little hole in the floor whilst I go and fetch the culprit.”
La Ramee knelt down and made a hole in the floor; meanwhile the duke hung the crawfish up by a thread. Then he placed the gibbet in the middle of the room, bursting with laughter.
La Ramee laughed also and the guards laughed in chorus; Grimaud, however, did not even smile. He approached La Ramee and showing him the crawfish hung up by the thread:
“Cardinal,” he said.
“Hung by order of his Highness the Duc de Beaufort!” cried the prisoner, laughing violently, “and by Master Jacques Chrysostom La Ramee, the king’s commissioner.”
La Ramee uttered a cry of horror and rushed toward the gibbet, which he broke at once and threw the pieces out of the window. He was going to throw the crawfish out also, when Grimaud snatched it from his hands.
“Good to eat!” he said, and put it in his pocket.
This scene so enchanted the duke that at the moment he forgave Grimaud for his part in it; but on reflection he hated him more and more, being convinced he had some evil motive for his conduct.
But the story of the crab made a great noise through the interior of the donjon and even outside. Monsieur de Chavigny, who at heart detested the cardinal, took pains to tell the story to two or three friends, who put it into immediate circulation.
The prisoner happened to remark among the guards one man with a very good countenance; and he favored this man the more as Grimaud became the more and more odious to him. One morning he took this man on one side and had succeeded in speaking to him, when Grimaud entered and seeing what was going on approached the duke respectfully, but took the guard by the arm.
“Go away,” he said.
The guard obeyed.
“You are insupportable!” cried the duke; “I shall beat you.”
Grimaud bowed.
“I will break every bone in your body!” cried the duke.
Grimaud bowed, but stepped back.
“Mr. Spy,” cried the duke, more and more enraged, “I will strangle you with my own hands.”
And he extended his hands toward Grimaud, who merely thrust the guard out and shut the door behind him. At the same time he felt the duke’s arms on his shoulders like two iron claws; but instead either of calling out or defending himself, he placed his forefinger on his lips and said in a low tone:
“Hush!” smiling as he uttered the word.
A gesture, a smile and a word from Grimaud, all at once, were so unusual that his highness stopped short, astounded.
Grimaud took advantage of that instant to draw from his vest a charming little note with an aristocratic seal, and presented it to the duke without a word.
The duke, more and more bewildered, let Grimaud loose and took the note.
“From Madame de Montbazon?” he cried.
Grimaud nodded assent.
The duke tore open the note, passed his hands over his eyes, for he was dazzled and confused, and read:
“My Dear Duke, – You may entirely confide in the brave lad who will give you this note; he has consented to enter the service of your keeper and to shut himself up at Vincennes with you, in order to prepare and assist your escape, which we are contriving. The moment of your deliverance is at hand; have patience and courage and remember that in spite of time and absence all your friends continue to cherish for you the sentiments they have so long professed and truly entertained.
“Yours wholly and most affectionately
“Marie de Montbazon.
“P.S. – I sign my full name, for I should be vain if I could suppose that after five years of absence you would remember my initials.”
The poor duke became perfectly giddy. What for five years he had been wanting-a faithful servant, a friend, a helping hand-seemed to have fallen from Heaven just when he expected it the least.
“Oh, dearest Marie! she thinks of me, then, after five years of separation! Heavens! there is constancy!” Then turning to Grimaud, he said:
“And thou, my brave fellow, thou consentest thus to aid me?”
Grimaud signified his assent.
“And you have come here with that purpose?”
Grimaud repeated the sign.
“And I was ready to strangle you!” cried the duke.
Grimaud smiled.
“Wait, then,” said the duke, fumbling in his pocket. “Wait,” he continued, renewing his fruitless search; “it shall not be said that such devotion to a grandson of Henry IV. went without recompense.”
The duke’s endeavors evinced the best intention in the world, but one of the precautions taken at Vincennes was that of allowing prisoners to keep no money. Whereupon Grimaud, observing the duke’s disappointment, drew from his pocket a purse filled with gold and handed it to him.
“Here is what you are looking for,” he said.
The duke opened the purse and wanted to empty it into Grimaud’s hands, but Grimaud shook his head.
“Thank you, monseigneur,” he said, drawing back; “I am paid.”
The duke went from one surprise to another. He held out his hand. Grimaud drew near and kissed it respectfully. The grand manner of Athos had left its mark on Grimaud.
“What shall we do? and when? and how proceed?”
“It is now eleven,” answered Grimaud. “Let my lord at two o’clock ask leave to make up a game at tennis with La Ramee and let him send two or three balls over the ramparts.”
“And then?”
“Your highness will approach the walls and call out to a man who works in the moat to send them back again.”
“I understand,” said the duke.
Grimaud made a sign that he was going away.
“Ah!” cried the duke, “will you not accept any money from me?”
“I wish my lord would make me one promise.”
“What! speak!”
“‘Tis this: when we escape together, that I shall go everywhere and be always first; for if my lord should be overtaken and caught, there’s every chance of his being brought back to prison, whereas if I am caught the least that can befall me is to be-hung.”