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Chapter XLI
Chapter XLI
The Siege Of La Rochelle
The siege of La Rochelle was one of the great political events of the
reign of Louis XIII., and one of the great military enterprises of the
cardinal. It is then interesting, and even necessary, that we should say a
few words about it, particularly as many details of this siege are connected
in too important a manner with the history we have undertaken to relate, to
allow us to pass it over in silence.
The political views of the cardinal, when he undertook this siege, were
considerable. Let us expose them first, and then pass on to the private
ones, which, perhaps, had not less influence upon his eminence than the
former.
Of the important cities given up by Henry IV. to the Huguenots as places
of safety, there only remained La Rochelle. It became necessary, therefore,
to destroy this last bulwark of Calvinism, a dangerous leaven, with which the
ferments of civil revolt and foreign war were constantly mingling.
Spaniards, English and Italian malcontents, adventurers of all nations,
and soldiers of fortune of every or of no sect, flocked at the first summons
to the standards of the Protestants, and organized themselves like a vast
association, whose branches diverged at leisure over all parts of Europe.
La Rochelle, which had derived a new importance from the ruin of the
other Calvinist cities, was then the focus of dissentious and ambitious
views. Moreover, its port was the last port in the kingdom of France open
to the English, and by closing it against England, our eternal enemy, the
cardinal completed the work of Joan of Arc and the Duke of Guise.
Thus Bassompierre, who was at once a Protestant and a Catholic - a
Protestant by conviction and a Catholic as commander of the order of the Holy
Ghost; Bassompierre, who was a German by birth, and a Frenchman at heart; in
short, Bassompierre, who had a distinguished command at the siege of La
Rochelle, said, on charging at the head of several other Protestant nobles
like himself:
"You will see, gentlemen, that we shall be fools enough to take La
Rochelle."
And Bassompierre was right: the cannonade of the Isle of Re presaged to
him the dragonades of the Cevennes; the taking of La Rochelle was the preface
to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
But, we have hinted, that by the side of these views of the leveling and
simplifying minister, and which belong to history, the chronicler is forced
to recognize the little aims of the lover and the jealous rival.
Richelieu, as every one knows, had been in love with the queen: was this
love a simple political affair, or was it naturally one of those profound
passions which Anne of Austria inspired in those who approached her? That
we are not able to say; but, at all events, we have seen, by the anterior
developments of this history, that Buckingham had had the advantage over him,
and in two or three circumstances, particularly that of the diamond studs,
had, thanks to the devotedness of the three musketeers, and the courage and
conduct of D`Artagnan, cruelly mystified him.
It was, then, Richelieu`s object, not only to get rid of an enemy of
France, but to avenge himself on a rival; but this vengeance ought to be
great and striking, and worthy in every way of a man who held in his hand,
as his weapon for combat, the forces of a whole kingdom.
Richelieu knew that while combating England he was combating Buckingham
- that when triumphing over England, he triumphed over Buckingham; in short,
that in humiliating England in the eyes of Europe, he humiliated Buckingham
in the eyes of the queen.
On his side, Buckingham, while pretending to maintain the honor of
England, was moved by interests exactly similar to those of the cardinal.
Buckingham, also, was pursuing a private vengeance. Buckingham could not,
under any pretense, be admitted into France as an ambassador: he wished to
enter it as a conqueror.
It resulted from this, that the veritable stake of this game, which two
of the most powerful kingdoms played for the good pleasure of two men in
love, was simply - a kind look from Anne of Austria.
The first advantage had been gained by Buckingham. Arriving
unexpectedly in sight of the Isle of Re, with ninety vessels, and nearly
twenty thousand men, he had surprised the Count de Toirac, who commanded for
the king in the Isle; he had, after a sanguinary conflict, effected his
landing.
Allow us to observe, in passing, that in this fight perished the Baron
de Chantal; that the Baron de Chantal left a little orphan girl of eighteen
months old, and that this little girl was afterward Madame de Sevigne.
The Count de Toirac entered into the citadel St. Martin with his
garrison, and threw a hundred men into a little fort, called the fort of La
Pree.
This event had hastened the resolutions of the cardinal; and till the
king and he could take the command of the siege of La Rochelle, which was
determined on, he had sent monsieur to direct the first operations, and had
ordered all the troops he could dispose of to march toward the theater of
war. It was of this detachment, sent as vanguard, that our friend D`Artagnan
formed a part.
The king, as we have said, was to follow as soon as his bed of justice
had been held; but on rising from his bed of justice on the 28th of June, he
felt himself attacked by fever. He was, notwithstanding, anxious to set out;
but his illness becoming more serious, he was forced to stop at Villeroi.
Now, whenever the king stopped, the musketeers stopped. It resulted
that D`Artagnan, who was as yet purely and simply in the guards, found
himself, for the time at least, separated from his good friends, Athos,
Aramis, and Porthos. This separation, which was no more than an unpleasant
circumstance, would have certainly become a cause of serious uneasiness, if
he had been able to guess by what unknown dangers he was surrounded.
He, however, arrived without accident in the camp established before La
Rochelle, on the 10th of the month of September of the year 1627.
Everything was in the same state; the Duke of Buckingham and his
English, masters of the Isle of Re, continued to besiege, but without
success, the citadel of St. Martin and the fort of La Pree; and hostilities
with La Rochelle had commenced, two or three days before, about a fort which
the Duke d`Angouleme had caused to be constructed near the city.
The guards, under the command of M. Dessessarts, took up their quarters
at the Minimes; but, as we know, D`Artagnan, preoccupied by the ambition of
passing into the musketeers, had formed but few friendships among his
comrades, and he felt himself isolated, and given up to his own reflections.
His reflections were not very cheerful. From the time of his arrival
in Paris, he had been mixed up with public affairs; but his own private
affairs had not made any great progress, as regarded either love or fortune.
As to love, the only woman he could have loved was Madame Bonacieux; and
Madame Bonacieux had disappeared, without his being able to discover what had
become of her. With respect to fortune, he had made himself - he, humble as
he was - an enemy of the cardinal, that is to say, of a man before whom
trembled the greatest men of the kingdom, beginning with the king.
That man had the power to crush him, and yet he had not done it. For
a mind so perspicuous as that of D`Artagnan, this indulgence was a light by
which he caught a glimpse of a better future.
And then he had made himself another enemy; not so much to be feared,
he thought, but, nevertheless, he instinctively felt not to be despised; the
enemy was milady.
In exchange for all this, he had acquired the protection and good-will
of the queen; but the favor of the queen was, at the present time, an
additional cause of persecution; and her protection, it was pretty well
known, protected the objects of it very badly - as instanced in Chalais and
Madame Bonacieux.
What he had clearly gained in all this was the diamond, worth five or
six thousand livres, which he wore on his finger; and even this diamond,
supposing that D`Artagnan, in his projects of ambition, wished to keep it,
to make it some day a pledge for the gratitude of the queen, had not, in the
meanwhile, since he could not part with it, more value than the stones he
trod under his feet.
We say than the stones he trod under his feet, for D`Artagnan made these
reflections while walking solitarily along a pretty little road which led
from the camp to the village of Angoutin. Now, these reflections had led him
further than he intended, and the day was beginning to decline, when, by the
last ray of the setting sun, he thought he saw the barrel of a musket glitter
from behind a hedge.
D`Artagnan had a quick eye, and a prompt understanding. He naturally
supposed that that musket had not come there of itself, and that he who bore
it had not concealed himself behind a hedge with any friendly intentions.
He determined, therefore, to direct his course as clear from it as he could,
when, on the opposite side of the road, from behind a rock, he perceived the
extremity of another musket-barrel.
This was evidently an ambuscade.
The young man cast a glance at the first musket, and saw, with a certain
degree of inquietude, that it was leveled in his direction; but as soon as
he perceived that the orifice of the barrel was motionless, he threw himself
upon the ground: at the same instant the gun was fired, and he heard the
whistling of a ball pass over his head.
No time was to be lost. D`Artagnan sprang up with a bound, and at the
same instant the ball from the other musket tore up the stones on the very
place of the road where he had thrown himself with his face to the ground.
D`Artagnan was not one of those uselessly brave men who seek a
ridiculous death, in order that it may be said of them that they did not give
way a single step; besides, courage was out of the question here, D`Artagnan
had fallen into a premeditated ambuscade.
"If there should be a third shot," said he, "I am a lost man."
He immediately, therefore, took to his heels, and ran toward the camp,
with the swiftness of the young men of his country, so renowned for their
agility; but whatever might be his speed, the first that fired, having had
time to reload, fired a second shot, and this time so well aimed, that it
struck his hat, and carried it ten paces from him.
As he, however, had no other hat, he picked up this as he ran, and
arrived at his quarters, very pale and quite out of breath. He sat down
without saying a word to anybody, and began to reflect.
This event might have three causes:
The first and the most natural was, that it might be an ambuscade of the
Rochellais who might not have been sorry to kill one of his majesty`s guards;
in the first place, because it would be an enemy the less, and that this
enemy might have a well-furnished purse in his pocket.
D`Artagnan took his hat, examined the hole made by the ball, and shook
his head. The ball was not a musket-ball - it was an arquebus-ball. The
justness of the aim had first given him the idea that a particular kind of
weapon had been employed. This could not then, be a military ambuscade, as
the ball was not of the regular caliber.
This might be a kind remembrance of Monsieur le Cardinal. It may be
observed that at the very moment when, thanks to the ray of the sun, he
perceived the gun-barrel, he was thinking with astonishment on the
forbearance of his eminence with respect to him.
But D`Artagnan again shook his head. For people toward whom he had but
to put forth his hand, his eminence had rarely recourse to such means.
It might be a vengeance of milady`s - that was the most probable!
He endeavored in vain to remember the faces or dress of the assassins;
he had escaped so rapidly, that he had not had leisure to remark anything.
"Ah! my poor friends!" murmured D`Artagnan; "where are you? How sadly
I want you!"
D`Artagnan passed a very restless night. Three or four times he started
up, imagining that a man was approaching his bed for the purpose of
poniarding him. Nevertheless, day dawned without darkness having brought any
accident.
But D`Artagnan justly suspected that that which was deferred was not
lost.
D`Artagnan remained all day in his quarters, assigning as a reason to
himself that the weather was bad.
At nine o`clock next morning, the drums beat to arms. The Duke of
Orleans visited the posts. The guards were under arms, and D`Artagnan took
his place in the midst of his comrades.
Monsieur passed along the front of the line; then all the superior
officers approached him to pay their compliments, M. Dessessarts, captain of
the guards, as well as the others.
At the expiration of a minute or two, it appeared to D`Artagnan that M.
Dessessarts made him a sign to come to him; he waited for a fresh gesture on
the part of his superior, for fear he might be mistaken; but this gesture
being repeated, he left the ranks, and advanced to receive his orders.
"Monsieur is about to ask for some men of good courage for a dangerous
mission, but which will do honor to those who shall accomplish it, and I made
you a sign in order that you might hold yourself in readiness."
"Thanks! captain!" replied D`Artagnan, who wished for nothing better
than an opportunity for distinguishing himself under the eye of the
lieutenant-general.
In fact, the Rochellais had made a sortie during the night, and had
retaken a bastion of which the royal army had gained possession two days
before; the matter was to ascertain, by reconnoitering, how the enemy guarded
this bastion.
At the end of a few minutes, monsieur raised his voice, and said:
"I want, for this mission, three or four volunteers, led by a man who
can be depended upon."
"As to the man to be depended upon, I have him under my hand,
monseigneur," said M. Dessessarts, pointing to D`Artagnan; "and as to the
four or five volunteers, monseigneur has but to make his intentions known,
and the men will not be wanting."
"Four men of good will who will risk being killed with me!" said
D`Artagnan, raising his sword.
Two of his comrades of the guards immediately sprang forward, and two
other soldiers having joined them, the number was deemed sufficient;
D`Artagnan declined all others, being unwilling to injure the chance of honor
of those who came forward first.
It was not known whether, after the taking of the bastion, the
Rochellais had evacuated it or left a garrison in it; the object then was to
examine the place near enough to ascertain the thing.
D`Artagnan set out with his four companions, and followed the trench:
the two guards marched abreast with him, and the two soldiers followed
behind.
They arrived thus, screened by the lining of the trench, till they came
within a hundred paces of the bastion! There, on turning round, D`Artagnan
perceived that the two soldiers had disappeared.
He thought that, beginning to be afraid, they had stayed behind.
At the turning of the counterscarp they found themselves within about
sixty paces of the bastion. The saw no one, and the bastion seemed
abandoned.
The three composing our forlorn hope were deliberating whether they
should proceed any further, when all at once a circle of smoke enveloped the
giant of stone, and a dozen balls came whistling round D`Artagnan and his
companions.
They knew all they wished to know; the bastion was guarded. A longer
stay in this dangerous spot would have been useless imprudence: D`Artagnan
and his two companions turned their backs, and commenced a retreat which
looked very much like a flight.
On arriving at the angle of the trench which was to serve them as a
rampart, one of the guards fell; a ball passed through his breast. The
other, who was safe and sound, continued his way toward the camp.
D`Artagnan was not willing to abandon his companion thus, and stooped
down to raise him and assist him in regaining the lines; but at this moment
two shots were fired; one ball hit the head of the already wounded guard, and
the other was flattened against a rock, after having passed within two inches
of D`Artagnan.
The young man turned quickly round, for this attack could not come from
the bastion, which was masked by the angle of the trench; the idea of the two
soldiers who had abandoned him occurred to his mind, and with them that of
the assassins of two evenings before; he resolved then, this time, to know
what he had to trust to, and fell upon the body of his comrade as if he had
been dead.
He quickly saw two heads appear above an abandoned work, within thirty
paces of him; they were the heads of the two soldiers. D`Artagnan had not
been deceived, these two men had only followed him for the purpose of
assassinating him, hoping that the young man`s death would be placed to the
account of the enemy.
Only, as he might be wounded and might denounce their crime, they came
up to him with the purpose of making sure of him; fortunately, deceived by
D`Artagnan`s trick, they neglected to reload their guns.
When they were within ten paces of him, D`Artagnan, who, in falling had
taken care not to leave hold of his sword, sprang up close to them.
The assassins comprehended that if they fled toward the camp without
having killed their man, they would be accused by him; therefore, their first
idea was to pass over to the enemy. One of them took his gun by the barrel,
and used it as he would a club; he aimed a terrible blow at D`Artagnan, who
avoided it by springing on one side; but by this movement he left a passage
free to the bandit, who darted off toward the bastion. As tho the Rochellais
who guarded the bastion were ignorant of the intentions of the man they saw
coming toward them, they fired upon him, and he fell, struck by a ball, which
broke his shoulder.
In the meantime, D`Artagnan had thrown himself upon the other soldier,
attacking him with his sword; the conflict was not long; the wretch had
nothing to defend himself with but his discharged arquebus; the sword of the
guard slipped down the barrel of the now useless weapon, and passed through
the thigh of the assassin, who fell.
D`Artagnan immediately placed the point of his sword at his throat.
"Oh, do not kill me!" cried the bandit. "Pardon, pardon! my officer!
and I will tell you all."
"Is your secret of enough importance for me to spare your life for it?"
asked the young man, withholding his arm.
"Yes! if you think existence worth anything to a man of twenty as you
are, and who may hope for everything, being handsome and brave, as you are."
"Wretch!" cried D`Artagnan, "speak, and speak quickly! who employed you
to assassinate me?"
"A woman whom I don`t know; but who is called milady."
"But if you don`t know this woman, how do you know her name?"
"My comrade knows her, and called her so; it was with him she agreed,
and not with me; he even has in his pocket a letter from that person, who
attaches great importance to you, as I have heard him say."
"But how did you become concerned in this villainous affair?"
"He proposed to me to undertake it with him, and I agreed."
"And how much did she give you for this fine enterprise?"
"A hundred louis."
"Well, come!" said the young man, laughing, "she thinks I am worth
something! A hundred louis! Well, that was a temptation for two miserable
creatures like you; so I understand you accepted it, and I grant you my
pardon; but upon one condition!"
"What is that?" said the soldier, uneasy at perceiving that all was not
over.
"That you will go and fetch me the letter your comrade has in his
pocket."
"Why," cried the bandit, "that is only another way of killing me, how
can I go and fetch that letter under the fire of the bastion?"
"You must, however, make up your mind to go and fetch it, or you shall
die by my hand."
"Pardon! Monsieur, have pity on me! In the name of that young lady you
love, and whom you perhaps think is dead, but is not!" cried the bandit,
throwing himself upon his knees, and leaning upon his hand, for he began to
lose his strength with his blood.
"And how do you know there is a young woman that I love, or that I
thought that woman dead?" asked D`Artagnan.
"By that letter which my comrade had in his pocket."
"You see, then," said D`Artagnan, "that I must have that letter; so no
more delay, no more hesitation; or else, whatever may be my repugnance to
soiling my sword a second time with the blood of a wretch like you, I swear
by the word of a gentleman - "
And at these words D`Artagnan made so menacing a gesture that the
wounded man sprang up.
"Stop, stop!" cried he, regaining strength from terror, "I will go - I
will go!"
D`Artagnan took the soldier`s arquebus, made him go on before him, and
urged him toward his companion by pricking him behind with his sword.
It was a frightful thing to see this unfortunate being, leaving a long
track of blood upon the ground he passed over, pale with approaching death,
endeavoring to drag himself along without being seen, to the body of his
accomplice, which lay at twenty paces from him.
Terror was so strongly painted on his face, covered with a cold sweat,
that D`Artagnan took pity on him, and casting upon him a look of contempt:
"Stop!" said he, "I will show you the difference between a man of true
courage and such a base creature as you; stay where you are, I will go
myself."
And, with a light step, an eye on the watch, observing the movements of
the enemy, and taking advantage of the accidents of the ground, D`Artagnan
succeeded in reaching the second soldier.
There were two means of gaining his object; to search him on the spot,
or to carry him away, making a buckler of his body, and searching him in the
trench.
D`Artagnan preferred the second means, and lifted the assassin on to his
shoulders at the moment the enemy fired.
A slight shock, the dull noise of three balls which penetrated the
flesh, a last cry, a convulsion of agony, proved to D`Artagnan that he who
had endeavored to assassinate him had saved his life.
D`Artagnan regained the trench, and threw the body down by the wounded
man, who was as pale as death.
The search cas instantly commenced; a leather pocketbook, a purse, in
which was evidently a part of the sum which the bandit had received, with a
dice-box and dice, formed the heritage of the dead man.
He threw the purse to the wounded man, and eagerly opened the
pocket-book.
Among some unimportant papers he found the following letter.
"Since you have lost sight of that woman, and she is now in safety in
the convent, at which you should never have allowed her to arrive, try, at
least, not to miss the man; if you do, you know that my hand reaches far, and
that you shall repay me very dearly the hundred louis you have had of me."
No signature. Nevertheless it was plain the letter came from milady.
He consequently kept it as a piece of evidence, and, being in safety behind
the angle of the trench, he began to interrogate the wounded man. He
confessed that he had undertaken, with his comrade, the same that was killed,
to carry off a young woman, who was to leave Paris by the barrier of La
Villette; but having stopped to drink at a cabaret, they had missed the
carriage by ten minutes.
"But what were you to have done with that woman?" asked D`Artagnan, with
great agitation.
"We were to have conveyed her to an hotel in the Place Royale," said the
wounded man.
"Yes! yes!" murmured D`Artagnan; "that`s the place; milady`s own
residence!"
The young man tremblingly felt what a terrible thirst of vengeance urged
this woman on to destroy him, as well as all who loved him, and how well she
must be acquainted with the affairs of the court, since she had discovered
everything. There could be no doubt she owed this information to the
cardinal.
But amid all this he perceived, with a feeling of real joy, that the
queen must have discovered the prison in which poor Madame Bonacieux expiated
her devotedness, and that she had freed her from that prison. And the letter
he had received from the young woman, with her passing along the road of
Chaillot like an apparition, were now explained.
From that time, also, as Athos had predicted, it became possible to find
Madame Bonacieux, and a convent was not impregnable.
This idea completely restored clemency to his heart. He turned toward
the wounded man, who had watched with intense anxiety all the various
expressions of his countenance, and holding out his arm to him:
"Come," said he, "I will not abandon you thus. Lean upon me, and let
us return to the camp."
"Yes," said the man, who could scarcely believe in such magnanimity,
"but is not that to have me hanged?"
"You have my word," said he; "for the second time I give you your life."
The wounded man sank upon his knees, to again kiss the feet of his
preserver; but D`Artagnan, who had no longer a motive for staying so near the
enemy, cut short the evidences of his gratitude.
The guard who had returned at the first discharge had announced the
death of his four companions. They were therefore much astonished and
delighted in the regiment, when they saw the young man come back safe and
sound.
D`Artagnan explained the sword-wound of his companion by a sortie which
he improvised. He described the death of the other soldier, and the perils
they had encountered. This recital was for him the occasion of a veritable
triumph. The whole army talked of this expedition for a day, and monsieur
paid him his compliments upon it. Besides this, as every great action bears
its own recompense with it, the great action of D`Artagnan had for result
the restoration of the tranquillity he had lost. In fact, D`Artagnan
believed that he might indulge in a little tranquillity, as of his two
enemies, one was killed, and the other devoted to his interests.
This tranquillity proved one thing, which was, that D`Artagnan was not
yet perfectly acquainted with milady
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