Part 2 (1/2)
”May the devil annihilateas he pronounced the i five o to! I would rather die on straw than hoard up a thousand a year by being governor of the Bastile”
He had scarcely finished this soliloquy before the prisoner arrived On seeing hinan could hardly suppress an exclae without seenize the nan addressed the four reatest possible care in guarding the prisoner, and since there are no locks to the carriage, I shall sit beside him Monsieur de Lillebonne, lead my horse by the bridle, if you please” As he spoke he disave the bridle of his horse to thehimself by the side of the prisoner said, in a voice perfectly coe drove on and D'Artagnan, availing himself of the darkness in the archway under which they were passing, threw himself into the arms of the prisoner
”Rochefort!” he exclaimed; ”you! is it you, indeed? I anan!” cried Rochefort
”Ah!seen you for four or five years I concluded you were dead”
”I'faith,” said Rochefort, ”there's no great difference, I think, between a dead man and one who has been buried alive; now I have been buried alive, or very nearly so”
”And for what crime are you imprisoned in the Bastile”
”Do you wish me to speak the truth?”
”Yes”
”Well, then, I don't know”
”Have you any suspicion of entleed; it is inan
”For stealing”
”For stealing! you, Rochefort! you are laughing at me”
”I understand You mean that this demands explanation, do you not?”
”I admit it”
”Well, this is what actually took place: One evening after an orgy in Reinard's apartment at the Tuileries with the Duc d'Harcourt, Fontrailles, De Rieux and others, the Duc d'Harcourt proposed that we should go and pull cloaks on the Pont Neuf; that is, you know, a diversion which the Duc d'Orleans made quite the fashi+on”
”Were you crazy, Rochefort? at your age!”
”No, I was drunk And yet, since the amusement seemed to me rather tame, I proposed to Chevalier de Rieux that we should be spectators instead of actors, and, in order to see to advantage, that we should mount the bronze horse No sooner said than done Thanks to the spurs, which served as stirrups, in a moment ere perched upon the croupe; ell placed and saw everything Four or five cloaks had already been lifted, with a dexterity without parallel, and not one of the victims had dared to say a word, when some fool of a fellow, less patient than the others, took it into his head to cry out, 'Guard!' and drew upon us a patrol of archers Duc d'Harcourt, Fontrailles, and the others escaped; De Rieux was inclined to do likewise, but I told him they wouldn't look for us where ere He wouldn't listen, put his foot on the spur to get down, the spur broke, he fell with a broken leg, and, instead of keeping quiet, took to crying out like a gallows-bird I then was ready to dismount, but it was too late; I descended into the arms of the archers They conductedvery sure that on the next day I should go forth free The next day came and passed, the day after, a week; I then wrote to the cardinal The same day they cao Do you believe it was because I co en croupe behind Henry IV?”
”No; you are right, my dear Rochefort, it couldn't be for that; but you will probably learn the reason soon”
”Ah, indeed! I forgot to ask you--where are you taking me?”
”To the cardinal”
”What does he ith me?”
”I do not know I did not even know that you were the person I was sent to fetch”
”Impossible--you--a favorite of the nan ”Ah, my poor friend! I a, twenty-two years ago, you know; alas!” and he concluded his speech with a deep sigh
”Nevertheless, you come as one in authority”
”Because I happened to be in the ante-chamber when the cardinal called me, by the merest chance I am still a lieutenant in the musketeers and have been so these twenty years”
”Then no misfortune has happened to you?”
”And what misfortune could happen to otten, or rather, never kneell, 'the thunderbolt never falls on the valleys,' and I am a valley, dear Rochefort,--one of the lowliest of the low”
”Then Mazarin is still Mazarin?”
”The same as ever, my friend; it is said that he is married to the queen”
”Married?”
”If not her husband, he is unquestionably her lover”
”You surprise ham and consent to Mazarin!”
”Just like the wonan, coolly
”Like woad! queens are the weakest of their sex, when it cos as these”
”And M de Beaufort--is he still in prison?”
”Yes Why?”
”Oh, nothing, but that he et me out of this, if he were favorably inclined to me”
”You are probably nearer freedoet him out”
”And,” said the prisoner, ”what talk is there of ith Spain?”
”With Spain, no,” answered D'Artagnan; ”but Paris”
”What do you uns, pray? The citizens are a themselves in thecould be done with these bourgeois?”
”Yes, they ht do well if they had any leader to unite them in one body”