Louise de la Vallière

During all these long and noisy debates between the opposite ambitions of politics and love, one of our characters, perhaps the one least deserving of neglect, was, however, ver...

D’Artagnan, faithful to his plan, went the very next morning to pay a visit to M. de Baisemeaux. It was cleaning up or tidying day at the Bastile; the cannons were furbished up,...

D’Artagnan had, according to his usual style, calculated that every hour is worth sixty minutes, and every minute worth sixty seconds. Thanks to this perfectly exact calculation...

D’Artagnan and Porthos returned on foot, as D’Artagnan had set out. When D’Artagnan, as he entered the shop of the Pilon d’Or, announced to Planchet that M. du Vallon would be o...

The cavaliers looked up, and saw that what Planchet had announced to them was true. Ten minutes afterwards they were in the street called the Rue de Lyon, on the opposite side o...

The next morning found the three heroes sleeping soundly. Truchen had closed the outside blinds to keep the first rays of the sun from the leaden-lidded eyes of her guests, like...

There was good living in Planchet’s house. Porthos broke a ladder and two cherry-trees, stripped the raspberry-bushes, and was only unable to succeed in reaching the strawberry-...

At seven o’clock the same evening, the king gave an audience to an ambassador from the United Provinces, in the grand reception-room. The audience lasted a quarter of an hour. H...

Aramis cleverly managed to effect a diversion for the purpose of finding D’Artagnan and Porthos. He came up to the latter, behind one of the columns, and, as he pressed his hand...

It will not be forgotten how Comte de Guiche left the queen-mother’s apartments on the day when Louis XIV. presented La Vallière with the beautiful bracelets he had won in the l...

Montalais was right. M. de Guiche, thus summoned in every direction, was very much exposed, from such a multiplication of business, to the risk of not attending to any. It so ha...

Monsieur had received De Wardes with that marked favor light and frivolous minds bestow on every novelty that comes in their way. De Wardes, who had been absent for a month, was...

De Wardes and De Guiche selected their horses, and saddled them with their own hands, with holster saddles. De Guiche, having two pairs of pistols, went to his apartments to get...

The king, while these matters were being arranged, was sitting at the supper-table, and the not very large number of guests for that day had taken their seats too, after the usu...

“Verses! Saint-Aignan,” exclaimed the king in ecstasy. “Give them to me at once.” And Louis broke the seal of a little letter, inclosing the verses which history has preserved e...

While the king was engaged in making these last-mentioned arrangements in order to ascertain the truth, D’Artagnan, without losing a second, ran to the stable, took down the lan...

The king signified with an imperious gesture, first to the musketeer, then to Saint-Aignan, “On your lives, not a word.” D’Artagnan withdrew, like a sentinel, to a corner of the...

M. Valot entered. The position of the different persons present was precisely the same: the king was seated, Saint-Aignan leaning over the back of his armchair, D’Artagnan with...

“Yes, I understand it all now. You say that it was one of the maids of honor of my sister-in-law who was the subject of dispute, and that the person in question, De Guiche’s adv...

Manicamp quitted the king’s apartment, delighted at having succeeded so well, when, just as he reached the bottom of the staircase and was passing a doorway, he felt that some o...

Two women, their figures completely concealed by their mantles, and whose masks effectually hid the upper portion of their faces, timidly followed Manicamp’s steps. On the first...

The next day being agreed upon for the departure, the king, at eleven o’clock precisely, descended the grand staircase with the two queens and Madame, in order to enter his carr...

On the king’s arrival in Paris, he sat at the council which had been summoned, and worked for a certain portion of the day. The queen remained with the queen-mother, and burst i...

La Vallière entered the queen-mother’s apartments without in the least suspecting that a serious plot was being concerted against her. She thought it was for something connected...

As soon as the king was gone La Vallière raised herself from the ground, and stretched out her arms, as if to follow and detain him, but when, having violently closed the door,...

La Vallière followed the patrol as it left the courtyard. The patrol bent its steps towards the right, by the Rue St. Honore, and mechanically La Vallière turned to the left. He...

When the king left the apartments of the maids of honor, he found Colbert awaiting him to take directions for the next day’s ceremony, as the king was then to receive the Dutch...

D’Artagnan had, with very few exceptions, learned almost all of the particulars of what we have just been relating; for among his friends he reckoned all the useful, serviceable...

Although they had not been summoned, Manicamp and Malicorne had followed the king and D’Artagnan. They were both exceedingly intelligent men; except that Malicorne was too preci...

From the manner in which the king had dismissed the ambassadors, even the least clear-sighted persons belonging to the court imagined war would ensue. The ambassadors themselves...

Madame was not bad-hearted--she was only hasty and impetuous. The king was not imprudent--he was simply in love. Hardly had they entered into this compact, which terminated in L...

Miracles, unfortunately, could not be always happening, whilst Madame’s ill-humor still continued. In a week’s time, matters had reached such a point, that the king could no lon...

The advice which had been given to Montalais was communicated by her to La Vallière, who could not but acknowledge that it was by no means deficient in judgment, and who, after...

Saint-Aignan, delighted with what he had just heard, and rejoiced at what the future foreshadowed for him, bent his steps towards De Guiche’s two rooms. He who, a quarter of an...

La Vallière very soon recovered from her surprise, for, owing to his respectful bearing, the king inspired her with more confidence by his presence than his sudden appearance ha...

In that malady which is termed love the paroxysms succeed each other at intervals, ever accelerating from the moment the disease declares itself. By and by, the paroxysms are le...

The revelation we have witnessed, that Montalais made to La Vallière, in a preceding chapter, very naturally makes us return to the principal hero of this tale, a poor wandering...

Charles II. was busily engaged in proving, or in endeavoring to prove, to Miss Stewart that she was the only person for whom he cared at all, and consequently was avowing to her...

The king most assiduously followed the progress which was made in La Vallière’s portrait; and did so with a care and attention arising as much from a desire that it should resem...

Whilst every one at court was busily engaged with his own affairs, a man mysteriously took up his post behind the Place de Greve, in the house which we once saw besieged by D’Ar...

Aramis had been perfectly correct in his supposition; for hardly had she left the house in the Place Baudoyer than Madame de Chevreuse proceeded homeward. She was doubtless afra...

Colbert handed the duchesse the letter, and gently drew aside the chair behind which she was standing; Madame de Chevreuse, with a very slight bow, immediately left the room. Co...

The queen-mother was in the bedroom at the Palais Royal, with Madame de Motteville and Senora Molina. King Louis, who had been impatiently expected the whole day, had not made h...

The queen looked steadily at Madame de Chevreuse, and said: “I believe you just now made use of the word ‘happy’ in speaking of me. Hitherto, duchesse, I had thought it impossib...

All these intrigues are exhausted; the human mind, so variously complicated, has been enabled to develop itself at its ease in the three outlines with which our recital has supp...

Fouquet pressed La Fontaine’s hand most warmly, saying to him, “My dear poet, write a hundred other tales, not only for the eighty pistoles which each of them will produce you,...

Fouquet had no sooner dismissed Vanel than he began to reflect for a few moments--“A man never can do too much for the woman he has once loved. Marguerite wishes to be the wife...

Fouquet would have uttered an exclamation of delight on seeing another friend arrive, if the cold air and averted aspect of Aramis had not restored all his reserve. “Are you goi...

Vanel, who entered at this stage of the conversation, was nothing less for Aramis and Fouquet than the full stop which completes a phrase. But, for Vanel, Aramis’s presence in F...

Our readers will have observed in this story, the adventures of the new and of the past generation being detailed, as it were, side by side. He will have noticed in the former,...

The captain, sitting buried in his leathern armchair, his spurs fixed in the floor, his sword between his legs, was reading a number of letters, as he twisted his mustache. D’Ar...

Lovers are tender towards everything that forms part of the daily life of the object of their affection. Raoul no sooner found himself alone with Montalais, than he kissed her h...

The princess, preceding Raoul, led him through the courtyard towards that part of the building La Vallière inhabited, and, ascending the same staircase which Raoul himself had a...

The great number of individuals we have introduced into this long story is the reason why each of them has been forced to appear only in turn, according to the exigencies of the...

Porthos, intrusted, to his great delight, with this mission, which made him feel young again, took half an hour less than his usual time to put on his court suit. To show that h...

On his return from the promenade, which had been so prolific in poetical effusions, and in which every one had paid his or her tribute to the Muses, as the poets of the period u...

Saint-Aignan had quitted Louis XIV. hardly a couple of hours before; but in the first effervescence of his affection, whenever Louis XIV. was out of sight of La Vallière, he was...

The king endeavored to recover his self-possession as quickly as possible, in order to meet M. de la Fere with an untroubled countenance. He clearly saw it was not mere chance t...

Our readers will doubtlessly have been asking themselves how it happened that Athos, of whom not a word has been said for some time past, arrived so very opportunely at court. W...

“Poor Raoul!” had said Athos. “Poor Raoul!” had said D’Artagnan: and, in point of fact, to be pitied by both these men, Raoul must indeed have been most unhappy. And therefore,...

“I know--but I entreated Olivain not to tell you--” She hesitated; and as Raoul did not attempt to interrupt her, a moment’s silence ensued, during which the sound of their thro...

As soon as Raoul had quitted Athos and D’Artagnan, as the two exclamations that had followed his departure escaped their lips, they found themselves face to face alone. Athos im...

The carriage arrived at the outside of the gate of the Bastile. A soldier on guard stopped it, but D’Artagnan had only to utter a single word to procure admittance, and the carr...

M. de Saint-Aignan had executed the commission with which the king had intrusted him for La Vallière--as we have already seen in one of the preceding chapters; but, whatever his...

D’Artagnan had promised M. de Baisemeaux to return in time for dessert, and he kept his word. They had just reached the finer and more delicate class of wines and liqueurs with...

The good and worthy Porthos, faithful to all the laws of ancient chivalry, had determined to wait for M. de Saint-Aignan until sunset; and as Saint-Aignan did not come, as Raoul...

under the blinds, and had communicated to the comte the result of his observation. They were desirous only of seeing whether Raoul and Porthos would push the affair to the utter...

The reader has not forgotten that, on quitting the Bastile, D’Artagnan and the Comte de la Fere had left Aramis in close confabulation with Baisemeaux. When once these two guest...