The Vicomte de Bragelonne; Or, Ten Years Later Being the completion of "The Three Musketeers" and "Twenty Years After"

On the morrow, all the noblesse of the provinces, of the environs, and wherever messengers had carried the news, were seen to arrive. D'Artagnan had shut himself up, without bei...

Since Aramis' 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 gove...

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 his friends, who, anticipating the usual hour of his ordinary receptions, had called at his d...

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...

While every one at court was busily engaged upon 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'Art...

The revelation of which we have been witnesses, that Montalais made to La Valliere, in a preceding chapter, very naturally makes us return to the principal hero of this tale, a...

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

During the continuance of the long and violent debates between the opposite ambitions of the court and those of the heart, one of our characters, the least deserving of neglect,...

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...

At this moment, and in the same direction, too, that the king and La Valliere were proceeding, except that they were walking in the wood itself instead of following the path, tw...

Monsieur had received De Wardes with that marked favor which all light and frivolous minds bestow on every novelty that may come in their way. De Wardes, who had been absent for...

Manicamp quitted the king's apartment delighted at having succeeded so well, when, just as he reached the bottom of the staircase, and was about passing before a doorway, he fel...

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

"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...

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, a...

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...

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

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 he was swearing f...

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' presence in Fo...

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

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

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

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 were...

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

La Valliere 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...

While La Valliere and the king were mingling together, in their first confession of love, all the bitterness of the past, all the happiness of the present, and all the hopes of...

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

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 generally...

At the extremity of the mole, which the furious sea beats at evening tide, two men, holding each other by the arm, were conversing in an animated and expansive tone, without the...

"My prince," said Aramis, turning in the carriage toward his companion, "weak creature as I am, so unpretending in genius, so low in the scale of intelligent beings, it has neve...

Saint-Aignan stopped at the foot of the staircase which led to the _entresol_, where the maids of honor were lodged, and to the first floor, where Madame's apartments were situa...

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

At eight o'clock in the evening, every one had assembled in the queen-mother's apartments. Anne of Austria, in full dress, beautiful still, from former loveliness, and from all...

The dawn of the following day was dark and gloomy, and as every one knew that the promenade was set down in the royal programme, every one's gaze, as his eyes were opened, was d...

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

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...

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

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

In opposition to the sad and terrible destiny of the king imprisoned in the Bastille, and tearing, in sheer despair, the bolts and bars of his dungeon, the rhetoric of the chron...

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

Two hours after the surintendant's cortege had set off by Aramis' directions, conveying them both toward Fontainebleau with the fleetness of the clouds, which the last breath of...

Montalais was right. M. de Guiche, summoned in every direction, was very much exposed, even from the multiplication of matters, to the risk of not answering in any one direction...

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...

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

Aramis was 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 wal...

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

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

"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...

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 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...

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...

It will not be forgotten that the Comte de Guiche had left the queen-mother's apartment on the day when Louis XIV. presented La Valliere with the beautiful bracelets he had won...

The numerous individuals we have introduced into this long story is the cause of each of them being obliged to appear only in his own turn, and according to the exigencies of th...

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

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

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 goin...

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...

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

La Valliere 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...

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 m...

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

Saint-Aignan had quitted Louis XIV. hardly a couple of hours before; but in the first effervescence of his affection, whenever Louis XIV. did not see La Valliere he was obliged...

Anne of Austria had begged the young queen to pay her a visit. For some time past suffering most acutely, and losing both her youth and beauty with that rapidity which signalize...

Aramis, silent, icy, trembling like a timid child, arose shivering from the stone. A Christian does not walk upon tombs. But though capable of standing, he was not capable of wa...

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...

Miracles, unfortunately, could not always last forever, while Madame's ill-humor still continued to last. In a week's time, matters had reached such a point that the king could...

The princess, preceding Raoul, led him through the courtyard toward that part of the building which La Valliere inhabited, and, ascending the same staircase which Raoul had hims...

The surintendant 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 hurr...

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

Aramis had 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...

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

At the moment when Porthos, more accustomed to the darkness than all these men coming from open daylight, was looking round him to see if in this night Aramis were not making hi...

The king had returned to Paris, and with him D'Artagnan, who, in twenty-four hours, having made with the greatest care all possible inquiries at Belle-Isle, had learned nothing...

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,...

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

D'Artagnan and Porthos returned on foot, as D'Artagnan had arrived. When D'Artagnan, as he entered the shop of the Pilon d'Or, had announced to Planchet that M. de Valon would b...

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...

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

La Valliere followed the patrol as it left the courtyard. The patrol bent its steps toward the right, by the Rue St. Honore, and mechanically La Valliere went to the left. Her r...

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...

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

The cavern of Locmaria was sufficiently distant from the mole to render it necessary for our friends to husband their strength to arrive there. Besides, night was advancing; mid...

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

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. There was noth...

To have talked of D'Artagnan with Planchet, to have seen Planchet quit Paris to bury himself in his county retreat, had been for Athos and his son like a last farewell to the no...

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...

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

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...

As soon as Raoul had quitted Athos and D'Artagnan, and as soon as the two exclamations which had followed his departure had escaped their lips, they found themselves face to fac...

"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...

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 Raou...

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. To the former, the reflection of the...

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 next morning found the three heroes sleeping soundly. Trüchen had closed the outside blinds to keep the first rays of the sun from the heavy eyes of her guests, like a kind...

As soon as the king had left her, La Valliere raised herself from the ground, and extended her arms, as if to follow and detain him; but when, having violently closed the door,...

D'Artagnan was not accustomed to resistances like that he had just experienced. He returned, profoundly irritated, to Nantes. Irritation with this vigorous man vented itself in...

The captain was sitting buried in his leathern armchair, his spur fixed in the floor, his sword between his legs, and was occupied in reading a great number of letters, as he tw...

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 spreading, noisy, and...

While all 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...

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

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...

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...

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

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 for what kind of miss...

Fouquet was gone to bed, like a man who clings to life, and who economizes as much as possible that slender tissue of existence of which the shocks and angles of this world so q...

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...

When the king left the apartment of the maids of honor, he found Colbert awaiting him to receive his directions with regard to the next day's ceremony, as the king was then to r...

It is time to pass into 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 expectatio...

The king, while these matters were being arranged, had sat down to the supper-table, and the not very large number of guests invited for that day had taken their seats, after th...

Lovers are very tender toward everything which concerns the person they are in love with. Raoul no sooner found himself alone with Montalais than he kissed her hand with rapture...

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

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

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

Madame was not bad-hearted, she was only hasty and impetuous. The king was not imprudent, he was only in love. Hardly had they both entered into this sort of compact, which term...

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...

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

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

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

The king, determined to be satisfied that no one was listening, went himself to the door, and then returned precipitately and placed himself opposite to Manicamp. "And now we ar...

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...

"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,...

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...

The king with his hand made, first to the musketeer, and then to Saint-Aignan, an imperious and significant gesture, as much as to say, "On your lives, not a word." D'Artagnan w...

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

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-...

When D'Artagnan had quitted Aramis and Porthos, the latter returned to the principal fort to converse with the greater liberty. Porthos, still thoughtful, was a constraint upon...

Hardly had Fouquet 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 of...

III.--D'Artagnan, reclining upon an immense straight-backed chair, with his legs not stretched out, but simply placed upon a stool, formed an angle of the most obtuse form that...

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...

"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...

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