The Man in the Iron Mask

On the morrow, all the _noblesse_ of the provinces, of the environs, and wherever messengers had carried the news, might have been seen arriving in detachments. D’Artagnan had s...

Since Aramis’s singular transformation into a confessor of the order, Baisemeaux was no longer the same man. Up to that period, the place which Aramis had held in the worthy gov...

D’Artagnan, still confused and oppressed by the conversation he had just had with the king, could not resist asking himself if he were really in possession of his senses, if he...

Fouquet was waiting with anxiety; he had already sent away many of his servants and friends, who, anticipating the usual hour of his ordinary receptions, had called at his door...

Scarcely had D’Artagnan re-entered his apartment with his two friends, when one of the soldiers of the fort came to inform him that the governor was seeking him. The bark which...

D’Artagnan had determined to lose no time, and in fact he never was in the habit of doing so. After having inquired for Aramis, he had looked for him in every direction until he...

“Oh! you speak so well, my friend, that I could listen to you for days together. Speak, then, I beg--and--stop, I have an idea: I will, to make your task more easy, I will, to a...

In the meantime, usurped royalty was playing out its part bravely at Vaux. Philippe gave orders that for his _petit lever_ the _grandes entrees_, already prepared to appear befo...

The ungovernable fury which took possession of the king at the sight and at the perusal of Fouquet’s letter to La Vallière by degrees subsided into a feeling of pain and extreme...

It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The king, full of impatience, went to his cabinet on the terrace, and kept opening the door of the corridor, to see what his secretaries wer...

When they had entered the fort, and whilst the governor was making some preparations for the reception of his guests, “Come,” said Athos, “let us have a word of explanation whil...

During all this time the noble mob was slowly heaving away, leaving at every angle of the counter either a murmur or a menace, as the waves leave foam or scattered seaweed on th...

At the extremity of the mole, against which the furious sea beats at the evening tide, two men, holding each other by the arm, were conversing in an animated and expansive tone,...

“My prince,” said Aramis, turning in the carriage towards his companion, “weak creature as I am, so unpretending in genius, so low in the scale of intelligent beings, it has nev...

The king was seated in his cabinet, with his back turned towards the door of entrance. In front of him was a mirror, in which, while turning over his papers, he could see at a g...

There was now a brief silence, during which Aramis never removed his eyes from Baisemeaux for a moment. The latter seemed only half decided to disturb himself thus in the middle...

D’Artagnan had not been able to hide his feelings from his friends so much as he would have wished. The stoical soldier, the impassive man-at-arms, overcome by fear and sad pres...

The bishop of Vannes, much annoyed at having met D’Artagnan at M. Percerin’s, returned to Saint-Mande in no very good humor. Moliere, on the other hand, quite delighted at havin...

In vivid contrast to the sad and terrible destiny of the king imprisoned in the Bastile, and tearing, in sheer despair, the bolts and bars of his dungeon, the rhetoric of the ch...

The two men were on the point of darting towards each other when they suddenly and abruptly stopped, as a mutual recognition took place, and each uttered a cry of horror.

Aramis was the first to descend from the carriage; he held the door open for the young man. He saw him place his foot on the mossy ground with a trembling of the whole body, and...

As Fouquet was alighting from his carriage, to enter the castle of Nantes, a man of mean appearance went up to him with marks of the greatest respect, and gave him a letter. D’A...

Athos lost no more time in combating this immutable resolution. He gave all his attention to preparing, during the two days the duke had granted him, the proper appointments for...

In spite of the sort of divination which was the remarkable side of the character of Aramis, the event, subject to the risks of things over which uncertainty presides, did not f...

“That is rather surprising,” said D’Artagnan; “Gourville running about the streets so gayly, when he is almost certain that M. Fouquet is in danger; when it is almost equally ce...

The prince turned round at the moment when Raoul, in order to leave him alone with Athos, was shutting the door, and preparing to go with the other officers into an adjoining ap...

The journey passed off pretty well. Athos and his son traversed France at the rate of fifteen leagues per day; sometimes more, sometimes less, according to the intensity of Raou...

Since the departure of Athos for Blois, Porthos and D’Artagnan were seldom together. One was occupied with harassing duties for the king, the other had been making many purchase...

“What must have been,” he thought, “the youth of those extraordinary men, who, even as age is stealing fast upon them, are still able to conceive such gigantic plans, and carry...

Pain, anguish, and suffering in human life are always in proportion to the strength with which a man is endowed. We will not pretend to say that Heaven always apportions to a ma...

D’Artagnan had set off; Fouquet likewise was gone, and with a rapidity which doubled the tender interest of his friends. The first moments of this journey, or better say, this f...

As Gourville had seen, the king’s musketeers were mounting and following their captain. The latter, who did not like to be confined in his proceedings, left his brigade under th...

The superintendent had no doubt received advice of the approaching departure, for he was giving a farewell dinner to his friends. From the bottom to the top of the house, the hu...

The torches we have just referred to, the eager attention every one displayed, and the new ovation paid to the king by Fouquet, arrived in time to suspend the effect of a resolu...

Aramis, silent and sad as ice, trembling like a timid child, arose shivering from the stone. A Christian does not walk on tombs. But, though capable of standing, he was not capa...

Seven o’clock sounded from the great clock of the Bastile, that famous clock, which, like all the accessories of the state prison, the very use of which is a torture, recalled t...

The king had returned to Paris, and with him D’Artagnan, who, in twenty-four hours, having made with greatest care all possible inquiries at Belle-Isle, succeeded in learning no...

At the moment when Porthos, more accustomed to the darkness than these men, coming from open daylight, was looking round him to see if through this artificial midnight Aramis we...

The king’s tailor, Messire Jean Percerin, occupied a rather large house in the Rue St. Honore, near the Rue de l’Arbre Sec. He was a man of great taste in elegant stuffs, embroi...

When this fainting of Athos had ceased, the comte, almost ashamed of having given way before this superior natural event, dressed himself and ordered his horse, determined to ri...

“MY DEAR COMTE,” wrote the prince, in his large, school-boy’s hand,--“a great misfortune has struck us amidst a great triumph. The king loses one of the bravest of soldiers. I l...

To have talked of D’Artagnan with Planchet, to have seen Planchet quit Paris to bury himself in his country retreat, had been for Athos and his son like a last farewell to the n...

History will tell us, or rather history has told us, of the various events of the following day, of the splendid _fetes_ given by the surintendant to his sovereign. Nothing but...

The cavern of Locmaria was sufficiently distant from the mole to render it necessary for our friends to husband their strength in order to reach it. Besides, night was advancing...

D’Artagnan was little used to resistance like that he had just experienced. He returned, profoundly irritated, to Nantes. Irritation, with this vigorous man, usually vented itse...

The king had, in point of fact, entered Melun with the intention of merely passing through the city. The youthful monarch was most eagerly anxious for amusements; only twice dur...

At Pierrefonds everything was in mourning. The courts were deserted--the stables closed--the parterres neglected. In the basins, the fountains, formerly so jubilantly fresh and...

D’Artagnan found Porthos in the adjoining chamber; but no longer an irritated Porthos, or a disappointed Porthos, but Porthos radiant, blooming, fascinating, and chattering with...

“What will happen,” said he to Porthos, when everybody was gone home, “will be that the anger of the king will be roused by the account of the resistance; and that these brave p...

The chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte, situated about a league from Melun, had been built by Fouquet in 1655, at a time when there was a scarcity of money in France; Mazarin had taken...

While these affairs were separating forever the four musketeers, formerly bound together in a manner that seemed indissoluble, Athos, left alone after the departure of Raoul, be...

Aramis and Porthos, having profited by the time granted them by Fouquet, did honor to the French cavalry by their speed. Porthos did not clearly understand on what kind of missi...

Fouquet had gone to bed, like a man who clings to life, and wishes to economize, as much as possible, that slender tissue of existence, of which the shocks and frictions of this...

It is time to pass to the other camp, and to describe at once the combatants and the field of battle. Aramis and Porthos had gone to the grotto of Locmaria with the expectation...

Athos, during the visit made to the Luxembourg by Raoul, had gone to Planchet’s residence to inquire after D’Artagnan. The comte, on arriving at the Rue des Lombards, found the...

Athos was at this part of his marvelous vision, when the charm was suddenly broken by a great noise rising from the outer gates. A horse was heard galloping over the hard gravel...

Raoul uttered a cry, and affectionately embraced Porthos. Aramis and Athos embraced like old men; and this embrace itself being a question for Aramis, he immediately said, “My f...

M. Fouquet held the stirrup of the king, who, having dismounted, bowed most graciously, and more graciously still held out his hand to him, which Fouquet, in spite of a slight r...

When D’Artagnan left Aramis and Porthos, the latter returned to the principal fort, in order to converse with greater liberty. Porthos, still thoughtful, was a restraint on Aram...

The blow was direct. It was severe, mortal. D’Artagnan, furious at having been anticipated by an idea of the king’s, did not despair, however, even yet; and reflecting upon the...