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Ten Years Later
66. The Journey
Alexandre Dumas
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       It was perhaps the fiftieth time since the day on which we open this history, that this man. with a heart of bronze and muscles of steel, had left house and friends, everything, in short, to go in search of fortune and death. The one -- that is to say. death -- had constantly retreated before him, as if afraid of him; the other -- that is to say, fortune -- for a month past only had really made an alliance with him. Although he was not a great philosopher, after the fashion of either Epicurus or Socrates, he was a powerful spirit, having knowledge of life, and endowed with thought. No one is as brave, as adventurous, or as skillful as D'Artagnan, without being at the same time inclined to be a dreamer. He had picked up, here and there, some scraps of M. de la Rochefoucauld, worthy of being translated into Latin by MM. de Port Royal, and he had made a collection, en passant, in the society of Athos and Aramis, of many morsels of Seneca and Cicero, translated by them, and applied to the uses of common life. That contempt of riches which our Gascon had observed as an article of faith during the thirty-five first years of his life, had for a long time been considered by him as the first article of the code of bravery. "Article first," said he, "A man is brave because he has nothing. A man has nothing because he despises riches." Therefore, with these principles, which, as we have said had regulated the thirty-five first years of his life, D'Artagnan was no sooner possessed of riches, than he felt it necessary to ask himself if, in spite of his riches, he were still brave. To this, for any other but D'Artagnan, the events of the Place de Greve might have served as a reply. Many consciences would have been satisfied with them, but D'Artagnan was brave enough to ask himself sincerely and conscientiously if he were brave. Therefore to this: --
       "But it appears to me that I drew promptly enough and cut and thrust pretty freely on the Place de Greve to be satisfied of my bravery," D'Artagnan had himself replied. "Gently, captain, that is not an answer. I was brave that day, because they were burning my house, and there are a hundred, and even a thousand, to speak against one, that if those gentlemen of the riots had not formed that unlucky idea, their plan of attack would have succeeded, or, at least, it would not have been I who would have opposed myself to it. Now, what will be brought against me? I have no house to be burnt in Bretagne; I have no treasure there that can be taken from me. -- No; but I have my skin; that precious skin of M. d'Artagnan, which to him is worth more than all the houses and all the treasures of the world. That skin to which I cling above everything, because it is, everything considered, the binding of a body which encloses a heart very warm and ready to fight, and, consequently, to live. Then, I do desire to live; and, in reality, I live much better, more completely, since I have become rich. Who the devil ever said that money spoiled life! Upon my soul, it is no such thing; on the contrary, it seems as if I absorbed a double quantity of air and sun. Mordioux! what will it be then, if I double that fortune, and if, instead of the switch I now hold in my hand, I should ever carry the baton of a marechal? Then I really don't know if there will be, from that moment enough of air and sun for me. In fact, this is not a dream, who the devil would oppose it, if the king made me a marechal, as his father, King Louis XIII., made a duke and constable of Albert de Luynes? Am I not as brave, and much more intelligent, than that imbecile De Vitry? Ah! that's exactly what will prevent my advancement: I have too much wit. Luckily, if there is any justice in this world, fortune owes me many compensations. She owes me certainly a recompense for all I did for Anne of Austria, and an indemnification for all she has not done for me. Then, at the present, I am very well with a king, and with a king who has the appearance of determining to reign. May God keep him in that illustrious road! For, if he is resolved to reign he will want me; and if he wants me, he will give me what he has promised me -- warmth and light; so that I march, comparatively, now, as I marched formerly, -- from nothing to everything. Only the nothing of to-day is the all of former days; there has only this little change taken place in my life. And now let us see! let us take the part of the heart, as I just now was speaking of it. But in truth, I only spoke of it from memory." And the Gascon applied his hand to his breast, as if he were actually seeking the place where his heart was.
       "Ah! wretch!" murmured he, smiling with bitterness. "Ah! poor mortal species! You hoped, for an instant, that you had not a heart, and now you find you have one -- bad courtier as thou art, -- and even one of the most seditious. You have a heart which speaks to you in favor of M. Fouquet. And what is M. Fouquet, when the king is in question? -- A conspirator, a real conspirator, who did not even give himself the trouble to conceal his being a conspirator; therefore, what a weapon would you not have against him, if his good grace and his intelligence had not made a scabbard for that weapon. An armed revolt! -- for, in fact, M. Fouquet has been guilty of an armed revolt. Thus, while the king vaguely suspects M. Fouquet of rebellion, I know it -- I could prove that M. Fouquet had caused the shedding of the blood of his majesty's subjects. Now, then, let us see? Knowing all that, and holding my tongue, what further would this heart wish in return for a kind action of M. Fouquet's, for an advance of fifteen thousand livres, for a diamond worth a thousand pistoles, for a smile in which there was as much bitterness as kindness? -- I save his life."
       "Now, then, I hope," continued the musketeer, "that this imbecile of a heart is going to preserve silence, and so be fairly quits with M. Fouquet. Now, then, the king becomes my sun, and as my heart is quits with M. Fouquet, let him beware who places himself between me and my sun! Forward, for his majesty Louis XIV.! -- Forward!"
       These reflections were the only impediments which were able to retard the progress of D'Artagnan. These reflections once made, he increased the speed of his horse. But, however perfect his horse Zephyr might be, it could not hold out at such a pace forever. The day after his departure from Paris, he was left at Chartres, at the house of an old friend D'Artagnan had met with in an hotelier of that city. From that moment the musketeer travelled on post-horses. Thanks to this mode of locomotion, he traversed the space separating Chartres from Chateaubriand. In the last of these two cities, far enough from the coast to prevent any one guessing that D'Artagnan wished to reach the sea -- far enough from Paris to prevent all suspicion of his being a messenger from Louis XIV., whom D'Artagnan had called his sun, without suspecting that he who was only at present a rather poor star in the heaven of royalty, would, one day, make that star his emblem; the messenger of Louis XIV., we say, quitted the post and purchased a bidet of the meanest appearance, -- one of those animals which an officer of cavalry would never choose, for fear of being disgraced. Excepting the color, this new acquisition recalled to the mind of D'Artagnan the famous orange-colored horse, with which, or rather upon which, he had made his first appearance in the world. Truth to say, from the moment he crossed this new steed, it was no longer D'Artagnan who was travelling, -- it was a good man clothed in an iron-gray justaucorps, brown haut-de-chausses, holding the medium between a priest and a layman; that which brought him nearest to the churchman was, that D'Artagnan had placed on his head a calotte of threadbare velvet, and over the calotte, a large black hat; no more sword, a stick, hung by a cord to his wrist, but to which, he promised himself, as an unexpected auxiliary, to join, upon occasion, a good dagger, ten inches long, concealed under his cloak. The bidet purchased at Chateaubriand completed the metamorphosis; it was called, or rather D'Artagnan called it, Furet (ferret).
       "If I have changed Zephyr into Furet," said D'Artagnan, "I must make some diminutive or other of my own name. So, instead of D'Artagnan, I will be Agnan, short; that is a concession which I naturally owe to my gray coat, my round hat, and my rusty calotte."
       Monsieur D'Artagnan traveled, then, pretty easily upon Furet, who ambled like a true butter-woman's pad, and who, with his amble, managed cheerfully about twelve leagues a day, upon four spindle-shanks, of which the practiced eye of D'Artagnan had appreciated the strength and safety beneath the thick mass of hair which covered them. Jogging along, the traveler took notes, studied the country, which he traversed reserved and silent, ever seeking the most plausible pretext for reaching Belle-Isle-en-Mer, and for seeing everything without arousing suspicion. In this manner, he was enabled to convince himself of the importance the event assumed in proportion as he drew near to it. In this remote country, in this ancient duchy of Bretagne, which was not France at that period, and is not so even now, the people knew nothing of the king of France. They not only did not know him, but were unwilling to know him. One face -- a single one -- floated visibly for them upon the political current. Their ancient dukes no longer ruled them; government was a void -- nothing more. In place of the sovereign duke, the seigneurs of parishes reigned without control; and, above these seigneurs, God, who has never been forgotten in Bretagne. Among these suzerains of chateaux and belfries, the most powerful, the richest, and the most popular, was M. Fouquet, seigneur of Belle-Isle. Even in the country, even within sight of that mysterious isle, legends and traditions consecrate its wonders. Every one might not penetrate it: the isle, of an extent of six leagues in length, and six in breadth, was a seignorial property, which the people had for a long time respected, covered as it was with the name of Retz, so redoubtable in the country. Shortly after the erection of this seignory into a marquisate, Belle-Isle passed to M. Fouquet. The celebrity of the isle did not date from yesterday; its name, or rather its qualification, is traced back to the remotest antiquity. The ancients called it Kalonese, from two Greek words, signifying beautiful isle. Thus at a distance of eighteen hundred years, it had borne, in another idiom, the same name it still bears. There was, then, something in itself in this property of M. Fouquet's, besides its position of six leagues off the coast of France; a position which makes it a sovereign in its maritime solitude, like a majestic ship which disdains roads, and proudly casts anchor in mid-ocean.
       D'Artagnan learnt all this without appearing the least in the world astonished. He also learnt that the best way to get intelligence was to go to La Roche-Bernard, a tolerably important city at the mouth of the Vilaine. Perhaps there he could embark; if not, crossing the salt marshes, he would repair to Guerande-en-Croisic, to wait for an opportunity to cross over to Belle-Isle. He had discovered, besides, since his departure from Chateaubriand, that nothing would be impossible for Furet under the impulsion of M. Agnan, and nothing to M. Agnan through the initiative of Furet. He prepared, then, to sup off a teal and a tourteau, in a hotel of La Roche-Bernard, and ordered to be brought from the cellar, to wash down these two Breton dishes, some cider, which, the moment it touched his lips, he perceived to be more Breton still.
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本书目录

1. The Letter.
2. The Messenger.
3. The Interview.
4. Father and Son.
5. In which Something will be said of Cropoli--of Cropoli and of a Great Unknown Painter.
6. The Unknown.
7. Parry.
8. What his Majesty King Louis XIV. was at the Age of Twenty-Two
9. In which the Unknown of the Hostelry of Les Medici loses his Incognito.
10. The Arithmetic of M. de Mazarin
11. Mazarin's Policy
12. The King and the Lieutenant
13. Mary de Mancini
14. In which the King and the Lieutenant each give Proofs of Memory
15. The Proscribed
16. "Remember!"
17. In which Aramis is sought and only Bazin is found
18. In which D'Artagnan seeks Porthos, and only finds Mousqueton
19. What D'Artagnan went to Paris for
20. Of the Society which was formed in the Rue des Lombards, at the Sign of the Pilon d'Or, to carry out M. d'Artagnan's Idea
21. In which D'Artagnan prepares to travel for the Firm of Planchet and Company
22. D'Artagnan travels for the House of Planchet and Company
23. In which the Author, very unwillingly, is forced to write a Little History
24. The Treasure
25. The March
26. Heart and Mind
27. The Next Day
28. Smuggling
29. In which D'Artagnan begins to fear he has placed his Money and that of Planchet in the Sinking Fund
30. The Shares of Planchet and Company rise again to Par
31. Monk reveals himself
32. Athos and D'Artagnan meet once more at the Hostelry of the Corne du Cerf
33. The Audience.
34. Of the Embarrassment of Riches
35. On the Canal
36. How D'Artagnan drew, as a Fairy would have done, a Country-seat from a Deal Box
37. How D'Artagnan regulated the "Assets" of the Company before he established its "Liabilities"
38. In which it is seen that the French Grocer had already been established in the Seventeenth Century
39. Mazarin's Gaming Party
40. An Affair of State
41. The Recital
42. In which Mazarin becomes Prodigal
43. Guenaud
44. Colbert
45. Confession of a Man of Wealth
46. The Donation
47. How Anne of Austria gave one Piece of Advice to Louis XIV., and how M. Fouquet gave him another
48. Agony
49. The First Appearance of Colbert
50. The First Day of the Royalty of Louis XIV
51. A Passion
52. D'Artagnan's Lesson
53. The King
54. The Houses of M. Fouquet
55. The Abbe Fouquet
56. M. de la Fontaine's Wine
57. The Gallery of Saint-Mande
58. Epicureans
59. A Quarter of an Hour's Delay
60. Plan of Battle
61. The Cabaret of the Image-de-Notre-Dame
62. Vive Colbert!
63. How M. d'Eymeris's Diamond passed into the Hands of M. D'Artagnan.
64. Of the Notable Difference D'Artagnan finds between Monsieur the Intendant and Monsieur the Superintendent
65. Philosophy of the Heart and Mind
66. The Journey
67. How D'Artagnan became acquainted with a Poet, who had turned Printer for the sake of printing his own Verses
68. D'Artagnan continues his Investigations
69. In which the Reader, no doubt, will be as astonished as D'Artagnan was to meet an Old Acquaintance
70. Wherein the Ideas of D'Artagnan, at first strangely clouded, begin to clear up a little
71. A Procession at Vannes
72. The Grandeur of the Bishop of Vannes
73. In which Porthos begins to be sorry for having come with D'Artagnan
74. In which D'Artagnan makes all Speed, Porthos snores, and Aramis counsels
75. In which Monsieur Fouquet acts
76. In which D'Artagnan finishes by at length placing his Hand upon his Captain's Commission
77. A Lover and his Mistress
78. In which we at length see the true Heroine of this History appear
79. Malicorne and Manicamp
80. Manicamp and Malicorne
81. The Courtyard of the Hotel Grammont
82. The Portrait of Madame
83. Havre
84. At Sea
85. The Tents
86. Night
87. From Havre to Paris
88. An Account of what the Chevalier de Lorraine thought of Madame
89. A Surprise for Madame de Montalais
90. The Consent of Athos
91. Monsieur becomes jealous of the Duke of Buckingha
92. Forever!
93. King Louis XIV. does not think Mademoiselle de la Valliere either rich enough or pretty enough for a Gentleman of the Rank of the Vicomte de Bragelonne
94. Sword-thrusts in the Water
95. Sword-thrusts in the Water (concluded)
96. Baisemeaux de Montlezun
97. The King's Card-table
98. M. Baisemeaux de Montlezun's Accounts
99. The Breakfast at Monsieur de Baisemeaux's
100. The Second Floor of la Bertaudiere
101. The Two Friends
102. Madame de Belliere's Plate
103. The Dowry
104. Le Terrain de Dieu