Alexandre Dumas

“ The Goddess of Night?"
"Is your neighbor."
"Bathilde!" cried D'Harmental. "Then I was not deceived; I recognized her. But it is impossible! How could she have been there?"
"First of all," said the abbe, "nothing is impossible; remember that, before you deny or undertake anything. Believe that everything is possible; it is the way to succeed in everything."
"But Bathilde?"
"Yes, does it not appear strange at first? Well, nothing is more simple. But it does not interest you, chevalier; let us talk of something else."
"Yes, yes, abbe; you are strangely mistaken—I am deeply interested." ”

“ Now mind governs matter so much that men dare not avow that they are happy.
After the long and somber winter of Louis XIV.'s old age appeared all at once the joyous and brilliant spring of a young royalty. Every one basked in this new sun, radiant and benevolent, and went about buzzing and careless, like the bees and butterflies on the first fine day. The Chevalier d'Harmental had retained his sadness for a week; then he mixed again in the crowd, and was drawn in by the whirlpool which threw him at the feet of a pretty woman.
For three months he had been the happiest man in the world. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIII. THE DUC DE RICHELIEU.
"At last!" cried the duchess, seeing Richelieu enter. "Are you, then, always the same? Your friends cannot count on you any more than your mistresses."
"On the contrary, madame," said Richelieu, approaching the duchess, "for to-day, more than ever, I prove to your highness that I can reconcile everything."
"Then you have made a sacrifice for us, duke," said Madame de Maine, laughing.
"Ten thousand times greater than you can imagine. Who do you think I have left?"
"Madame de Villars?" asked the duchess. ”

“ On leaving the church, monseigneur, I will walk to the scaffold. This is my last wish, my sole desire. Do not refuse the prayer of a dying man.
"'Raoul d'Harmental.'
"Oh, monseigneur," said Bathilde, sobbing, "you see that while I thought of him, he thought of me. Am I not right to love him, when he loves me so much?"
"Yes," said the regent, "and I grant his request, it is just; may it, as he says, sweeten his last moments."
"Monseigneur," cried the young girl, "is that all you grant him?"
"You see," said the regent, "he is just; he asks nothing else." ”

“ Still D'Harmental remained on guard, with his eyes fixed on the captain, only lowering his sword as the dead man let his slip. Finally, he found himself face to face with a corpse, but this corpse had its eyes open, and continued to look at him. Leaning against the door, the chevalier remained an instant thunderstruck; his hair bristled, his forehead became covered with perspiration, he did not dare to move, he did not dare to speak, his victory seemed to him a dream. Suddenly the mouth of the dying man set in a last convulsion—the partisan was dead, and his secret had died with him. ”

“ It was a court sword, a thin ribbon of steel, set in a gold handle. Roquefinette began to laugh.
"With what shall I defend myself, chevalier? Do you happen to have one of your mistress's knitting needles here?"
"Defend yourself with your own sword, monsieur; long as it is, you see that I am placed so that I cannot make a step to avoid it."
"What do you think of that, my dear?" said the captain, addressing his blade.
"It thinks that you are a coward, captain," cried D'Harmental, "since it is necessary to strike you in the face to make you fight." ”

“ Neither France nor I can give you back your husband, but remember that if ever you are in want of anything, we are both your debtors.
"Your affectionate,
"Philippe d'Orleans."
"What!" cried Buvat, fixing his great eyes on Clarice, "M. du Rocher—it is not possible!"
"Papa is dead," said little Bathilde, leaving the corner where she was playing with her doll, and running to her mother; "is it true that papa is dead?"
"Alas! yes, my dear child!" said Clarice, finding at once words and tears. "Oh yes, it is true; it is but too true, unhappy that we are!" ”

“ Do you know that that idiot of an Abbe Brigaud has got arrested three days ago at Orleans, dressed as a peddler, and—on false revelations, which they represented to him as coming from me—has confessed all, and compromised us terribly, so that I should not be astonished at being arrested this very day?"
"He for whom I come to implore your pity, madame, has revealed nothing, but, on the contrary, is condemned to death for having kept silence."
"Ah! my dear child," cried the duchess, "you speak of poor D'Harmental; he is a gentleman; you know him, then?" ”

“ Chevalier—If you have in your mind a quarter of the romance, or in your heart half the courage, that your friends give you credit for, some one is ready to offer you an enterprise worthy of you, and the result of which will be at the same time to avenge you on the man you hate most in the world, and to conduct you to a goal more brilliant than you can have hoped for in your wildest dreams. The good genius who will lead you thither by an enchanted road, and in whom you must trust entirely, will expect you this evening at ten o'clock at the opera ball. ”

“ He only knew that it is sweet to live when one is loved, and he did not see why he should not live and love forever. He was still in this dream, when, as we have said, supping with his friend, the Baron de Valef, at La Fillon's, in the Rue Saint Honore, he had been all at once brutally awakened by Lafare. Lovers are often unpleasantly awakened, and we have seen that D'Harmental was not more patient under it than others. It was more pardonable in the chevalier, because he thought he loved truly, and that in his juvenile good faith he thought nothing could replace that love in his heart. ”

“ What wounded her—as a betrayal of her good faith and an insult to her love—was this pretended absence, during which Raoul, forgetting the Rue du Temps-Perdu, had left his little room solitary, to mix in the fetes at Sceaux. Thus Raoul had had but an instant's caprice for her, sufficient to induce him to pass a week or two in an attic, but he had soon got tired of this life: then he had invented the pretext of a journey, declaring that it was a misfortune; but none of this was true. Raoul had never quitted Paris—or, if he had, his first visit had not been to the Rue du Temps-Perdu. ”

“ At a few minutes past four D'Harmental saw Buvat turning the corner of the Rue du Temps-Perdu. The chevalier thought he could recognize in the worthy writer an air of greater haste than usual, and instead of holding his stick perpendicularly, as a bourgeois always does when he is walking, he held it horizontally, like a runner. As to that air of majesty which had so struck Monsieur Boniface, it had entirely vanished, and had given place to a slight expression of uneasiness. He could not be mistaken. Buvat would not return so quickly if he was not uneasy about Bathilde. ”

“ Every time that D'Harmental perceived the young girl, there was in her such a sweet attraction that he saw nothing but the woman—young, beautiful, and graceful, a musician and painter—that is to say, the most delicious and complete creature he had ever met. But when, in his turn, the man of the terrace presented himself to the chevalier's gaze, with his common face, his insignificant figure—that indelible type of vulgarity which attaches to certain individuals—directly a sort of miraculous transition took place in the chevalier's mind. ”

“ All the people dispersed, and the two chiefs remained alone.
"Well, colonel," said Roquefinette, looking D'Harmental full in the face.
"Well, captain," replied the chevalier; "I have a great mind to ask one thing of you."
"What?" asked Roquefinette.
"To follow me into some cross-road and blow my brains out with your pistol, that this miserable head may be punished and not recognized."
"Why so?"
"Why? Because in such matters, when one fails one is but a fool: What am I to say to Madame de Maine now?" ”

“ To any one else I should say that a regent would be dearer, but to you, chevalier, I have only one price. Give me six thousand livres, and I will find a dozen determined men."
"But those twelve men, do you think that you may trust them?"
"What need for their knowing what they are doing? They shall think they are only carrying out a wager."
"And I," answered D'Harmental, "will show you that I do not haggle with my friends. Here are two thousand crowns in gold, take them on account if we succeed; if we fail we will cry quits." ”

“ D'Harmental understood that the old courtier was about to change his skin, and retired discreetly. Though the age was essentially that of egotism, the chevalier's first experience of it was bitter to him; but he was at that happy time of life when a disappointed ambition is rarely a deep or lasting grief.
Ambition is the passion of those who have no other, and the chevalier had all those proper to five-and-twenty years of age; besides, the spirit of the times did not tend to melancholy, that is a modern sentiment, springing from the overthrow of fortunes and the weakness of man. ”

“ Your life shall be my life, and your death my death; both are in the hands of God."
"And I, Bathilde," said D'Harmental, leading her before the crucifix, "I swear that from this moment you are my wife before God and before men; and since the events which may dispose of my life leave me nothing but my love to offer to you, that love is yours—profound, unalterable, eternal;" and the young people exchanged their first kiss with the renewal of their vows.
When D'Harmental left Bathilde, Buvat had not returned. ”

“ Bathilde turned pale. D'Harmental, to reassure her, promised to come to her again after the departure of the person he expected.
The chevalier had only been a few minutes at his window when he saw Roquefinette appear at the corner of the Rue Montmartre. He was mounted on a dapple-gray horse, both swift and strong, and evidently chosen by a connoisseur. He came along leisurely, like a man to whom it is equally indifferent whether he is seen or not. On arriving at the door he dismounted, fastened up his horse, and ascended the stairs. ”

“ In this courtyard was standing a carriage with two horses, on one of which was a postilion, and they saw, shining in the darkness, the cuirasses of a dozen musketeers. A ray of hope crossed the minds of the two lovers. Bathilde had asked the regent to change Raoul's death into a perpetual imprisonment. Perhaps the regent had granted him this favor. The carriage, ready, doubtless, to conduct him to some State prison, the musketeers destined to escort them, all gave to the supposition an air of reality. They raised their eyes to heaven to thank God for this unexpected happiness. ”

“ To abandon the interests of a princess of the blood to gain the good graces of a grisette."
"Abbe!" said D'Harmental.
"Oh, we must not get angry, my dear chevalier; we must reason! You engaged voluntarily in the affair we have in hand, and you promised to aid us in it. Would it be loyal to abandon us now for a repulse? No, no, my dear pupil; you must have a little more connection in your ideas if you mix in a conspiracy." ”

“ This recital was finished by expressions of regret, and such protestations of fidelity and love that Bathilde almost forgot the beginning of his discourse in listening to the end.
It was now her turn. She also had a long history to tell D'Harmental; it was the history of her life. With a certain pride in proving to her lover that she was worthy of him, she showed herself as a child with her father and mother, then an orphan and abandoned; then appeared Buvat with his plain face and his sublime heart, and she told all his kindness, all his love to his pupil ”

“ Buvat found his ward much agitated; during his absence she had grown rapidly worse, and the crisis foreseen by the doctor was fast approaching. Bathilde's eyes flashed; her skin seemed to glow; her words were short and firm. Madame Denis had just sent for the doctor.
The poor woman was not without her own anxieties; for some time she had suspected that the Abbe Brigaud was mixed up in some plot, and what she had just learned, that D'Harmental was not a poor student but a rich colonel, confirmed her conjectures, since it had been Brigaud who had introduced him to her. ”

“ Then began between these two men a duel, terrible, hidden, silent, for both were intent on their work, and each understood what sort of an adversary he had to contend with. By a reaction, very easy to be understood, it was now D'Harmental who was calm, and Roquefinette who was excited. Every instant he menaced D'Harmental with his long sword, but the frail rapier followed it as iron follows the loadstone, twisting and spinning round it like a viper. At the end of about five minutes the chevalier had not made a single lunge, but he had parried all those of his adversary. ”

“ During this time D'Harmental was seated before the spinet, playing his best. The shopkeeper had had a sort of conscience, and had sent him an instrument nearly in tune, so that the chevalier began to perceive that he was doing wonders, and almost believed he was born with a genius for music, which had only required such a circumstance to develop itself. Doubtless there was some truth in this, for in the middle of a brilliant shake he saw, from the other side of the street, five little fingers delicately raising the curtain to see from whence this unaccustomed harmony proceeded. ”

“ At eleven o'clock, the light scarcely seen through the double curtains, still hermetically closed, went out altogether, and D'Harmental was obliged to renounce the hope of seeing Bathilde till the next day.
The next day brought the same rigor; it was a settled plan of defense, which, with a man less in love than D'Harmental, would simply have indicated fear of defeat; but the chevalier, with a simplicity worthy of the age of gold, saw nothing but a coldness, in the eternity of which he began to believe, and it is true that it had lasted four and twenty hours. ”

“ When she was alone, Bathilde burst into tears, for her strength was but pride. She believed herself the most unfortunate woman in the world, as D'Harmental thought himself the most unfortunate man. At four o'clock Buvat returned. Bathilde, seeing the traces of uneasiness on his good-natured face, tried all she could to tranquilize him. She smiled, she joked, she kept him company at table; but all was in vain. After dinner he proposed to Bathilde, as an amusement which nothing could resist—to take a walk on the terrace. ”

“ At the same instant the bridge disappeared, as if, by an illusion not less visible than the others, the skillful machinist had wished to separate the past from the future, and fireworks expressed the joy of the Greenlanders at seeing their new sovereign. Meanwhile Madame de Maine was introduced by an usher into the most retired part of the palace, and the seven ambassadors having thrown off caps and cloaks, she found herself surrounded by the Prince de Cellamare, Cardinal Polignac, the Marquis de Pompadour, the Comte de Laval, the Baron de Valef, the Chevalier d'Harmental, and Malezieux. ”

“ Their blood and their purses are things which gentlemen lend each other every day; but you make the offer with so good a grace that I know not how to refuse you. If you ever have need of me, for anything whatever, remember that I am at your service."
"If that case should occur, where should I find you, monsieur?" said D'Harmental, smiling.
"I have no fixed residence, chevalier, but you may always hear of me by going to La Fillon's and asking for La Normande, and inquiring of her for Captain Roquefinette." ”

“ Indeed Madame Denis, ashamed of this scene passing before a young man on whom, with a mother's foresight, she had already begun to cast an eye, was nearly fainting. There is nothing in which men believe less than in women's faintings, and nothing to which they give way more easily. Whether he believed in it or not, D'Harmental was too polite not to show his hostess some attention in such circumstances. He advanced toward her with his arms extended. Madame Denis no sooner saw this support offered to her than she let herself fall, and, throwing her head back, fainted in the chevalier's arms. ”