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Chapter XIII
Chapter XIII
Monsieur Bonacieux
There was in all this, as may have been observed, one personage
concerned, of whom, notwithstanding his precarious position, we have appeared
to take but very little notice; this personage is M. Bonacieux, the
respectable martyr of the political and amorous intrigues which entangled
themselves so nicely together at this gallant and chivalric period.
Fortunately, the reader may remember, or may not remember, fortunately,
that we promised not to lose sight of him.
The officers who had arrested him conducted him straight to the
Bastille, where he passed tremblingly before a party of soldiers who were
loading their muskets.
Thence, introduced into a half-subterranean gallery, he became, on the
part of those who had brought him, the object of the grossest insults and the
harshest treatment. The sbirri perceived that they had not to deal with a
gentleman, and they treated him like a very beggar.
At the end of half an hour, or thereabouts, an officer came to put an
end to his tortures, but not to his inquietudes, by giving the order for M.
Bonacieux`s being led to the chamber of interrogatories.
Ordinarily, prisoners were interrogated in their own cells, but they did
not pay so much respect to M. Bonacieux.
Two guards attended the mercer who made him traverse a court, and enter
a corridor in which were three sentinels, opened a door and pushed him
unceremoniously into an apartment, the whole furniture of which consisted of
one table, one chair, and a commissary. The commissary was seated in the
chair, and was busily writing upon the table.
The two guards led the prisoner toward the table, and upon a sign from
the commissary, drew back so far as to be unable to hear the examination.
The commissary, who had till this time held his head down over his
papers, looked up to see what sort of person he had to do with. This
commissary was a man of very repulsive mien, with a pointed nose, yellow and
salient cheek-bones, small, but keen penetrating eyes, and an expression of
countenance partaking of the polecat and the fox. His head, supported by a
long and flexible neck, issued from his large black robe, balancing itself
with a motion very much like that of the tortoise when drawing his head out
of his shell.
He began by asking M. Bonacieux his name, prenames, age, condition, and
abode.
The accused replied that his name was Jacques Michel Bonacieux, that he
was fifty-one years old, was a retired mercer, and lived Rue des Fossoyeurs,
No. 14.
The commissary then, instead of continuing to interrogate him, made him
a long speech upon the danger there is for an obscure bourgeois to meddle
with public matters.
He complicated this exordium by an exposition in which he painted the
power and the acts of M. the Cardinal, that incomparable minister, that
conqueror of past ministers, that example for ministers to come - acts and
power which no one would thwart with impunity.
After this second part of his discourse, fixing his hawk`s-eyes upon
poor Bonacieux, he bade him reflect upon the seriousness of his situation.
The reflections of the mercer were already made; he had consigned to the
devil the instant at which M. Laporte had formed the idea of marrying him to
his goddaughter, but more particularly that instant in which that goddaughter
had been received lady of the lingerie to her majesty.
The character of M. Bonacieux was one of profound selfishness, mixed
with sordid avarice, the whole seasoned with extreme cowardice. The love
with which his young wife had inspired him was a secondary sentiment, and was
not strong enough to contend with the primitive feelings we have just
enumerated.
Bonacieux reflected, in fact, upon what had just been said to him.
"But, M. le Commissaire," said he timidly, "I beg you to believe that
I know and appreciate more than anybody the merit of the incomparable
eminence by whom we have the honor to be governed."
"Indeed?" asked the commissary, with an air of doubt, "indeed? if that
is really the case, how came you in the Bastille?"
"How I came there or rather why I came there," replied Bonacieux, "is
what it is impossible for me to tell you, because I don`t know myself; but
to a certainty it is not for having, knowingly at least, disobliged M. the
Cardinal."
"You must, nevertheless, have committed a crime, since you are here, and
are accused of high treason."
"Of high treason!" cried the terrified Bonacieux, "of high treason! How
is it possible for a poor mercer, who detests all Huguenots, and who abhors
all Spaniards, to be accused of high treason? Consider, monsieur, the thing
is materially impossible."
"Monsieur Bonacieux," said the commissary, looking at the accused, as
if his little eyes had the faculty of reading to the very depths of hearts,
"Monsieur Bonacieux, you have a wife?"
"Yes, monsieur," replied the mercer, in a tremble, feeling that was the
point at which affairs were likely to become perplexing, "that is to say, I
had one."
"What? you had one! what have you done with her then, if you have her
no longer?"
"She has been carried off from me, monsieur."
"Been carried off from you?" said the commissary. "Ah!"
Bonacieux felt, when he heard this "Ah," that matters were becoming more
and more perplexing.
"She has been carried off?" resumed the commissary, "and do you know who
the man is that has committed this outrage?"
"I think I know him."
"Who is he?"
"Remember that I affirm nothing, Monsieur le Commissaire, and that I
only suspect."
"Whom do you suspect? Come, answer freely."
M. Bonacieux was in the greatest perplexity possible: had he better deny
everything or tell everything? By denying all, it might be suspected that
he must know too much to be so ignorant; by confessing all, he should prove
his good will. He decided then upon telling all.
"I suspect," said he, "a tall, dark man, of lofty carriage, who has the
air of a great lord; he has followed us several times, as I think, when I
have waited for my wife at the wicket of the Louvre to fetch her home."
The commissary appeared to experience a little uneasiness.
"And his name?" said he.
"Oh! as to his name, I know nothing about it, but if I were ever to
meet him, I should know him in an instant, I will answer for it, even if he
were among a thousand persons."
The face of the commissary grew still darker.
"You should recognize him among a thousand, say you?" continued he.
"That is to say," cried Bonacieux, who saw he had gone wrong, "that is
to say - "
"You have answered that you should recognize him," said the commissary;
"that is all very well, and enough for today; before we proceed further, some
one must be informed that you know the ravisher of your wife."
"But I have not told you that I know him!" cried Bonacieux in despair,
"I told you, on the contrary - "
"Take away the prisoner," said the commissary to the two guards.
"Where must we place him?" demanded the officer.
"In a dungeon."
"Which?"
"Good Lord! in the first you come to, provided it be a safe one," said
the commissary, with an indifference which penetrated poor Bonacieux with
horror.
"Alas! alas!" said he to himself, "misfortune hangs over me; my wife
must have committed some frightful crime; they believe that I am her
accomplice, and will punish me with her! she must have spoken, she must have
confessed everything, a woman is so weak! A dungeon, the first he comes to!
that`s it! one night is soon passed over; and t
-morrow to the wheel, to the
gallows! Oh! my God! my God! have pity on me!"
Without listening the least in the world to the lamentations of Master
Bonacieux, lamentations to which, besides, they must have been pretty well
accustomed, the two guards took the prisoner, each by an arm, and led him
away, while the commissary wrote a letter in haste, and dispatched it by an
officer in waiting.
Bonacieux could not close his eyes; not because his dungeon was so very
disagreeable, but because his uneasiness was too great to allow him to sleep.
He sat up all night upon his stool, starting at the least noise; and when the
first rays of the sun penetrated into his chamber, the dawn itself appeared
to him to have taken a funereal tint.
All at once he heard his bolts drawn, and sprang up with a terrified
bound, believing that they were come to fetch him to the scaffold; so that
when he saw purely and simply that it was only his commissary of the
preceding evening, attended by his officer, he was ready to embrace them
both.
"Your affair has become more complicated since yesterday evening, my
good man, and I advise you to tell the whole truth; for your repentance alone
can remove the anger of the cardinal."
"Why, I am ready to tell everything," cried Bonacieux, "at least, all
that I know. Interrogate me, I entreat you!"
"Where is your wife, in the first place?"
"Why, did not I tell you she had been stolen away from me?"
"Yes, but yesterday, at five o`clock in the afternoon, thanks to you,
she escaped."
"My wife escaped!" cried Bonacieux. "Oh! unfortunate creature!
Monsieur, if she has escaped, it is no fault of mine, I will swear."
"What business had you then to go into the chamber of M. d`Artagnan,
your neighbor, with whom you had a long conference, in the course of the
day?"
"Ah! yes, Monsieur le Commissaire; yes, that is true, and I confess
that I was in the wrong. I did go to M. d`Artagnan`s apartment."
"What was the object of that visit?"
"To beg him to assist me in finding my wife. I believed I had a right
to endeavor to recover her; I was deceived, as it appears, and I ask your
pardon for doing so."
"And what did M. d`Artagnan reply?"
"M. d`Artagnan promised me his assistance; but I soon found out that he
was betraying me."
"You are imposing upon justice! M. d`Artagnan made an agreement with
you, and in virtue of that agreement put to flight the men of the police who
had arrested your wife, and has placed her out of reach of all inquiries."
"M. d`Artagnan has carried off my wife! What can that mean?"
"Fortunately M. d`Artagnan is in our hands, and you shall be confronted
with him."
"Ah! ma foi! I ask no better," cried Bonacieux; "I shall not be sorry
to see the face of an acquaintance."
"Bring in M. d`Artagnan," said the commissary to the guards.
The two guards led in Athos.
"Monsieur d`Artagnan," said the commissary, addressing Athos, "declare
all that passed yesterday between you and monsieur here."
"But!" cried Bonacieux, "this is not M. d`Artagnan that you have brought
before me!"
"What! not M. d`Artagnan!" exclaimed the commissary.
"Not the least in the world like him," replied Bonacieux.
"What is this gentleman`s name?" asked the commissary.
"I cannot tell you; I don`t know him."
"How! you don`t know him?"
"No."
"Did you never see him?"
"Yes, I have seen him, but I don`t know what his name is."
"Your name?" asked the commissary.
"Athos," replied the musketeer.
"But that is not a man`s name, that is the name of a mountain," cried
the poor commissary, who began to feel a little bewildered.
"That is my name," said Athos quietly.
"But you said that your name was D`Artagnan."
"Who, I?"
"Yes, you."
"My guards said to me: `You are Monsieur d`Artagnan?` I answered, `You
think so, do you?` My guards again exclaimed that they were sure I was. I
did not think it worth while to contradict them. Besides, I might myself be
deceived."
"Monsieur, you insult the majesty of justice."
"Not at all," said Athos calmly.
"You are Monsieur d`Artagnan."
"You see, monsieur, that you persist in saying that I am."
"But, I tell you, Monsieur le Commissaire," cried Bonacieux, in his
turn, "there is not the least doubt about the matter. M. d`Artagnan is my
tenant, although he does not pay me my rent, and even better on that account
ought I to know him. M. d`Artagnan is a young man, scarcely nineteen, and
this gentleman must be thirty at least. M. d`Artagnan is in M. Dessessart`s
guards, and monsieur is in the company of M. de Treville`s musketeers, look
at his uniform, Monsieur le Commissaire, look at his uniform!"
"That`s true," murmured the commissary; "pardieu! that`s true."
At this moment the door was opened quickly, and a messenger, introduced
by one of the gate-keepers of the Bastille, gave a letter to the commissary.
"Oh! unhappy woman!" cried the commissary.
"How! what do you say? of whom do you speak? It is not of my wife,
I hope!"
"On the contrary, it is of her. Your affair is becoming a pretty one."
"But," said the agitated mercer, "do me the pleasure, monsieur, to tell
me how my own proper affair can become the worse by anything my wife does
while I am in prison?"
"Because that which she does is part of a plan concerted between you,
of an infernal plan!"
"I swear to you, Monsieur le Commissaire, that you are in the
profoundest error, that I know nothing in the world about what my wife had
to do; that I am entirely a stranger to what she has done, and that if she
has committed any follies I renounce her, I abjure her, I curse her!"
"Bah!" said Athos to the commissary, "if you have no more need of me,
send me somewhere; your Monsieur Bonacieux is very unpleasant."
"Reconduct the prisoners to their dungeons," said the commissary,
designating, by the same gesture, Athos and Bonacieux, "and let them be
guarded more closely than ever."
"And yet," said Athos, with his habitual calmness, "if it be M.
d`Artagnan who is concerned in this matter, I do not perceive too clearly how
I can take his place."
"Do as I bade you," cried the commissary, "and preserve the profoundest
secrecy! You understand me!"
Athos shrugged his shoulders, and followed his guards silently, while
Monsieur Bonacieux uttered lamentations enough to break the heart of a tiger.
They led back the mercer to the same dungeon in which he had passed the
night, and left him to himself during the day. Bonacieux wept away the hours
like a true mercer, not being at all a man of the sword, as he himself
informed us. In the evening, at the moment he had made his mind up to lie
down upon the bed, he heard steps in his corridor. These steps drew nearer
to his dungeon, the door was thrown open, and the guards appeared.
"Follow me," said an exempt, who came behind the guards.
"Follow you!" cried Bonacieux, "follow you, at this hour! Where, in the
name of God?"
"Where we have orders to lead you."
"But that is not an answer, that."
"It is, nevertheless, the only one we can give you."
"Ah! my God! my God!" murmured the poor mercer, "now, indeed, I am
lost!" And he followed the guards who came for him mechanically and without
resistance.
He passed along the same corridor as before, crossed a first court, then
a second side of the building; at length at the gate of the entrance-court
he found a carriage surrounded by four guards on horseback. They made him
get into this carriage, the exempt placed himself by his side, the door was
locked, and they were left in a rolling prison. The carriage was put in
motion as slowly as a funeral car. Through the closely fastened windows the
prisoner could perceive the houses and the pavement, that was all; but, true
Parisian as he was, Bonacieux could recognize every street by the rails, the
signs, and the lamps. At the moment of arriving at Saint Paul, the spot
where such as were condemned at the Bastille were executed, he was near
fainting and crossed himself twice. He thought the carriage was about to
stop there. The carriage, however, passed on.
Further on, a still greater terror seized him on passing by the cemetery
of Saint Jean, where state criminals were buried. One thing, however,
reassured him: he remembered that before they were buried their heads were
generally cut off, and he felt that his head was still on his shoulders. But
when he saw the carriage take the way to La Greve, when he perceived the
pointed roof of the Hotel de Ville, and the carriage passed under the arcade,
he then thought all was over with him, wished to confess to the exempt, and
upon his refusal, uttered such pitiable cries that the exempt told him that
if he continued to deafen him in that manner, he should put a gag in his
mouth.
This measure somewhat reassured Bonacieux; if they meant to execute him
at La Greve, it could scarcely be worth while to gag him, as they had nearly
reached the place of execution. In fact, the carriage crossed the fatal spot
without stopping. There remained then no other place to fear but the
Croix-du-Trahoir; the carriage was taking exactly the road to it.
This time there was no longer any doubt: it was at the Croix-du-Trahoir
that obscure criminals were executed. Bonacieux had flattered himself in
believing himself worthy of Saint Paul or of the Place de Greve: it was the
Croix-du-Trahoir that his journey and his destiny were about to be ended!
He could not yet see that dreadful cross, but he felt as if it were in some
sort coming to meet him. When he was within twenty paces of it, he heard a
noise of people, and the carriage stopped. This was more than poor Bonacieux
could endure depressed as he was by the successive emotions which he had
experienced: he uttered a feeble groan which might have been taken for the
last sigh of a dying man, and fainted.
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