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Twenty Years After

Chapter I. The Shade of Cardinal Richelieu.

It was the year 1648.

Twenty years had passed since the famous siege of La Rochelle, that last great struggle between the King of France, Louis XIII., and the Huguenots, which had resulted in the triumph of the royal authority and the ruin of the Protestant cause.

Twenty years had passed since Cardinal Richelieu, that great and formidable priest, whose genius had been the main stay of France, had descended to his tomb.

Twenty years had passed since the companions of the Duke of Buckingham had disappeared from the soil of France; and twenty years since the four friends, D’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, after having shared in all the great events of the time, had separated, leaving behind them only the vague renown of their courage and their exploits.

The great events, in fact, had been numerous. The Thirty Years’ War had been raging in Germany, a terrible scourge which had decimated whole provinces. France had taken part in this war, less for religious motives, which were beginning to cool, than for political reasons, which were growing hotter every day. The ambition of the House of Austria was still the great object of the policy of the successors of Richelieu. France had fought at Rocroi, at Fribourg, at Nordlingen, at Jura, and at Lens. The victory of the young Duc d’Enghien at Rocroi, in 1643, had marked the triumph of the French arms, just as the fall of La Rochelle had marked the triumph of French unity.

The great queen, Anne of Austria, who had reigned in the name of her son, Louis XIV., then a child of ten years, governed France under the regency of Cardinal Mazarin, the heir, or rather the continuator, of Richelieu.

The Queen Regent was beautiful still, though the first blush of youth had fled; her dark hair, already slightly touched with gray, was confined in the austere bands of her widowhood; but her eyes still possessed the haughty, haughty fire that had once captivated the heart of the King of England and charmed a Duke of Buckingham. She was forty-six years old.

Mazarin, on the other hand, had grown fat and florid; he preserved his Italian accent, which was a source of constant derision to the court, and his avarice, which was a source of constant complaint to the people. He wore the purple, which he had coveted so long, but he wore it with the air of a man who never forgot that he was only a cardinal, and that the crown of France was not within his reach.

Louis XIV. was ten years old. He was a charming, handsome boy, but already imbued with that innate majesty which was to make him the great King of the Great Century. He still had a kind word for every one, and was fond of martial games, in which he invariably played the part of the victor.

The musketeers, under whose protection the friends had made their first renown, had been replaced by the gardes-du-corps, a more splendid, more disciplined, but perhaps less adventurous corps. The days of duels and private vengeance were over; the King’s authority was now absolute, and the slightest infraction of the law was punished with severe rigor.

It was in the midst of this France, outwardly tranquil but inwardly agitated by the ambitions which Mazarin’s weakness encouraged, that the four friends lived their solitary lives, separated by distance, professions, and ambitions, yet eternally united by the memory of their youth.

D’Artagnan, the Gascon, was still a captain of musketeers, but he had not taken the road to the Bastille for twenty years. He was in the service of the Queen, and he executed the orders of the Cardinal, whose confidence he had gained by his prudence and his fidelity. He was forty years old.

Athos, the noble, the mysterious, the man of lineage, had retired to his lands in the country, where he lived with a simple dignity, mourning the memory of Milady and contemplating the growth of his son, Raoul.

Porthos, the jovial, the vain, the epicurean, had married the rich widow of a wealthy goldsmith, and called himself the Baron du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds. He lived in his fine château, surrounded by gold plate and rare wines, playing the lord with an accent that betrayed his humble origins.

Aramis, the restless, the ambitious, the priest, had found in the Church a means of satisfying his double craving for power and intrigue. He was now the Abbé d’Herblay, and he mingled in the affairs of the Court and the state with the skill of a diplomatist and the assurance of a bishop.

These four men, once inseparable, now lived far apart, like four stars in different constellations, only occasionally meeting at the twilight of their lives, like meteors that cross the heavens at long intervals, leaving behind them a trail of glory and regret.

One evening, in the latter part of the year 1648, D’Artagnan was pacing his small apartment in the Louvre, thinking of the past and brooding over the present. A letter had just arrived from Athos, which confirmed his sad presentiments. The times were changing, and the spirit of revolt, though long dormant, was beginning to stir again in France. The parliamentary unrest, the ambitions of the great lords, the discontent of the people oppressed by the taxes necessary for the war, all pointed to a storm.

D’Artagnan sighed, and turned toward the window, which overlooked the courtyard of the Louvre.

“Ah, Richelieu!” he murmured, “you were a lion; Mazarin is but a fox. France will suffer for it.”

Suddenly, a sound of hoofs roused him from his reverie. He listened. A heavy carriage, escorted by four men on horseback, rattled across the stones of the courtyard.

“What is this?” D’Artagnan asked himself. “A late arrival for the Queen.”

He pulled on his coat and hastened down the staircase.

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