CHAPTER 21
In which D'Artagnan prepares to travel
for the Firm of Planchet and Company
D'Artagnan reflected to such good purpose during the night
that his plan was settled by morning. "This is it," said he,
sitting up in bed, supporting his elbow on his knee, and his
chin in his hand; -- "this is it. I shall seek out forty
steady, firm men, recruited among people a little
compromised, but having habits of discipline. I shall
promise them five hundred livres for a month if they return,
nothing if they do not return, or half for their kindred. As
to food and lodging, that concerns the English, who have
cattle in their pastures, bacon in their bacon-racks, fowls
in their poultry-yards, and corn in their barns. I will
present myself to General Monk with my little body of
troops. He will receive me. I shall win his confidence, and
take advantage of it, as soon as possible."
But without going farther, D'Artagnan shook his head and
interrupted himself. "No," said he; "I should not dare to
relate this to Athos; the way is therefore not honorable. I
must use violence," continued he, -- "very certainly I must,
but without compromising my loyalty. With forty men I will
traverse the country as a partisan. But if I fall in with,
not forty thousand English, as Planchet said, but purely and
simply with four hundred, I shall be beaten. Supposing that
among my forty warriors there should be found at least ten
stupid ones -- ten who will allow themselves to be killed
one after the other, from mere folly? No; it is, in fact,
impossible to find forty men to be depended upon -- they do
not exist. I must learn how to be contented with thirty.
With ten men less I should have the right of avoiding any
armed encounter, on account of the small number of my
people; and if the encounter should take place, my chance is
better with thirty men than forty. Besides, I should save
five thousand francs; that is to say, the eighth of my
capital; that is worth the trial. This being so, I should
have thirty men. I shall divide them into three bands, -- we
will spread ourselves about over the country, with an
injunction to reunite at a given moment; in this fashion,
ten by ten, we should excite no suspicion -- we should pass
unperceived. Yes, yes, thirty -- that is a magic number.
There are three tens -- three, that divine number! And then,
truly, a company of thirty men, when all together, will look
rather imposing. Ah! stupid wretch that I am!" continued
D'Artagnan, "I want thirty horses. That is ruinous. Where
the devil was my head when I forgot the horses? We cannot,
however, think of striking such a blow without horses. Well,
so be it, that sacrifice must be made; we can get the horses
in the country -- they are not bad, besides. But I forgot --
peste! Three bands -- that necessitates three leaders; there
is the difficulty. Of the three commanders I have already
one -- that is myself; -- yes, but the two others will of
themselves cost almost as much money as all the rest of the
troop. No; positively I must have but one lieutenant. In
that ease, then, I should reduce my troop to twenty men. I
know very well that twenty men is but very little; but since
with thirty I was determined not to seek to come to blows, I
should do so more carefully still with twenty. Twenty --
that is a round number; that, besides, reduces the number of
the horses by ten, which is a consideration; and then, with
a good lieutenant -- Mordioux! what things patience and
calculation are! Was I not going to embark with forty men,
and I have now reduced them to twenty for an equal success?
Ten thousand livres saved at one stroke, and more safety;
that is well! Now, then, let us see; we have nothing to do
but to find this lieutenant -- let him be found, then; and
after -- That is not so easy; he must be brave and good, a
second myself. Yes, but a lieutenant must have my secret,
and as that secret is worth a million, and I shall only pay
my man a thousand livres, fifteen hundred at the most, my
man will sell the secret to Monk. Mordioux! no lieutenant.
Besides, this man, were he as mute as a disciple of
Pythagoras, -- this man would be sure to have in the troop
some favourite soldier, whom he would make his sergeant, the
sergeant would penetrate the secret of the lieutenant, in
case the latter should be honest and unwilling to sell it.
Then the sergeant, less honest and less ambitious, will give
up the whole for fifty thousand livres. Come, come! that is
impossible. The lieutenant is impossible. But then I must
have no fractions; I cannot divide my troop into two, and
act upon two points, at once, without another self, who --
But what is the use of acting upon two points, as we have
only one man to take? What can be the good of weakening a
corps by placing the right here, and the left there? A
single corps -- Mordioux! a single one, and that commanded
by D'Artagnan. Very well. But twenty men marching in one
band are suspected by everybody; twenty horsemen must not be
seen marching together, or a company will be detached
against them and the password will be required; the which
company, upon seeing them embarrassed to give it, would
shoot M. d'Artagnan and his men like so many rabbits. I
reduce myself then to ten men; in this fashion I shall act
simply and with unity; I shall be forced to be prudent,
which is half the success in an affair of the kind I am
undertaking; a greater number might, perhaps, have drawn me
into some folly. Ten horses are not many, either to buy or
take. A capital idea; what tranquillity it infuses into my
mind! no more suspicions -- no passwords -- no more dangers!
Ten men, they are valets or clerks. Ten men, leading ten
horses laden with merchandise of whatever kind, are
tolerated, well received everywhere. Ten men travel on
account of the house of Planchet & Co., of France -- nothing
can be said against that. These ten men, clothed like
manufacturers, have a good cutlass or a good musket at their
saddle-bow, and a good pistol in the holster. They never
allow themselves to be uneasy, because they have no evil
designs. They are, perhaps, in truth, a little disposed to
be smugglers, but what harm is in that? Smuggling is not,
like polygamy, a hanging offense. The worst that can happen
to us is the confiscation of our merchandise. Our
merchandise confiscated -- fine affair that! Come, come! it
is a superb plan. Ten men only -- ten men, whom I will
engage for my service; ten men who shall be as resolute as
forty, who would cost me four times as much, and to whom,
for greater security, I will never open my mouth as to my
designs, and to whom I shall only say, `My friends, there is
a blow to be struck.' Things being after this fashion, Satan
will be very malicious if he plays me one of his tricks.
Fifteen thousand livres saved -- that's superb -- out of
twenty!"
Thus fortified by his laborious calculations, D'Artagnan
stopped at this plan, and determined to change nothing in
it. He had already on a list furnished by his inexhaustible
memory, ten men illustrious amongst the seekers of
adventures, ill-treated by fortune, and not on good terms
with justice. Upon this D'Artagnan rose, and instantly set
off on the search, telling Planchet not to expect him to
breakfast, and perhaps not to dinner. A day and a half spent
in rummaging amongst certain dens of Paris sufficed for his
recruiting; and, without allowing his adventurers to
communicate with each other, he had picked up and got
together, in less than thirty hours, a charming collection
of ill-looking faces, speaking a French less pure than the
English they were about to attempt. These men were, for the
most part, guards, whose merit D'Artagnan had had an
opportunity of appreciating in various encounters, whom
drunkenness, unlucky sword-thrusts, unexpected winnings at
play, or the economical reforms of Mazarin, had forced to
seek shade and solitude, those two great consolers of
irritated and chafing spirits. They bore upon their
countenances and in their vestments the traces of the
heartaches they had undergone. Some had their visages
scarred, -- all had their clothes in rags. D'Artagnan
comforted the most needy of these brotherly miseries by a
prudent distribution of the crowns of the society; then,
having taken care that these crowns should be employed in
the physical improvement of the troop, he appointed a
trysting place in the north of France, between Berghes and
Saint Omer. Six days were allowed as the utmost term, and
D'Artagnan was sufficiently acquainted with the good-will,
the good-humor, and the relative probity of these
illustrious recruits, to be certain that not one of them
would fail in his appointment. These orders given, this
rendezvous fixed, he went to bid farewell to Planchet, who
asked news of his army. D'Artagnan did not think proper to
inform him of the reduction he had made in his personnel. He
feared that the confidence of his associate would be abated
by such an avowal. Planchet was delighted to learn that the
army was levied, and that he (Planchet) found himself a kind
of half king, who from his throne-counter kept in pay a body
of troops destined to make war against perfidious Albion,
that enemy of all true French hearts. Planchet paid down in
double louis, twenty thousand livres to D'Artagnan, on the
part of himself (Planchet), and twenty thousand livres,
still in double louis, in account with D'Artagnan.
D'Artagnan placed each of the twenty thousand francs in a
bag, and weighing a hag in each hand, -- "This money is very
embarrassing, my dear Planchet," said he. "Do you know this
weighs thirty pounds?"
"Bah! your horse will carry that like a feather."
D'Artagnan shook his head. "Don't tell me such things,
Planchet: a horse overloaded with thirty pounds, in addition
to the rider and his portmanteau, cannot cross a river so
easily -- cannot leap over a wall or ditch so lightly; and
the horse failing, the horseman fails. It is true that you,
Planchet, who have served in the infantry, may not be aware
of all that."
"Then what is to be done, monsieur?" said Planchet, greatly
embarrassed.
"Listen to me," said D'Artagnan. "I will pay my army on its
return home. Keep my half of twenty thousand livres, which
you can use during that time."
"And my half?" said Planchet.
"I shall take that with me."
"Your confidence does me honor," said Planchet: "but
supposing you should not return?"
"That is possible, though not very probable. Then, Planchet,
in case I should not return -- give me a pen! I will make my
will." D'Artagnan took a pen and some paper, and wrote upon
a plain sheet, -- "I, D'Artagnan, possess twenty thousand
livres, laid up cent by cent during thirty years that I have
been in the service of his majesty the king of France. I
leave five thousand to Athos, five thousand to Porthos and
five thousand to Aramis, that they may give the said sums in
my name and their own to my young friend Raoul, Vicomte de
Bragelonne. I give the remaining five thousand to Planchet,
that he may distribute the fifteen thousand with less regret
among my friends. With which purpose I sign these presents.
-- D'Artagnan.
Planchet appeared very curious to know what D'Artagnan had
written.
"Here," said the musketeer, "read it"
On reading the last lines the tears came into Planchet's
eyes. "You think, then, that I would not have given the
money without that? Then I will have none of your five
thousand francs."
D'Artagnan smiled. "Accept it, accept it, Planchet; and in
that way you will only lose fifteen thousand francs instead
of twenty thousand, and you will not be tempted to disregard
the signature of your master and friend, by losing nothing
at all."
How well that dear Monsieur d'Artagnan knew the hearts of
men and grocers! They who have pronounced Don Quixote mad
because he rode out to the conquest of an empire with nobody
but Sancho, his squire, and they who have pronounced Sancho
mad because he accompanied his master in his attempt to
conquer the said empire, -- they certainly will have no
hesitation in extending the same judgment to D'Artagnan and
Planchet. And yet the first passed for one of the most
subtle spirits among the astute spirits of the court of
France. As to the second, he had acquired by good right the
reputation of having one of the longest heads among the
grocers of the Rue des Lombards; consequently of Paris, and
consequently of France. Now, to consider these two men from
the point of view from which you would consider other men,
and the means by the aid of which they contemplated to
restore a monarch to his throne, compared with other means,
the shallowest brains of the country where brains are most
shallow must have revolted against the presumptuous madness
of the lieutenant and the stupidity of his associate.
Fortunately, D'Artagnan was not a man to listen to the idle
talk of those around him, or to the comments that were made
on himself. He had adopted the motto, "Act well, and let
people talk." Planchet on his part, had adopted this, "Act
and say nothing." It resulted from this, that, according to
the custom of all superior geniuses, these two men flattered
themselves intra pectus, with being in the right against all
who found fault with them.
As a beginning, D'Artagnan set out in the finest of possible
weather, without a cloud in the heavens -- without a cloud
on his mind, joyous and strong, calm and decided, great in
his resolution, and consequently carrying with him a tenfold
dose of that potent fluid which the shocks of mind cause to
spring from the nerves, and which procure for the human
machine a force and an influence of which future ages will
render, according to all probability, a more arithmetical
account than we can possibly do at present. He was again, as
in times past, on that same road of adventures which had led
him to Boulogne, and which he was now traveling for the
fourth time. It appeared to him that he could almost
recognize the trace of his own steps upon the road, and that
of his first upon the doors of the hostelries; -- his
memory, always active and present, brought back that youth
which neither thirty years later his great heart nor his
wrist of steel would have belied. What a rich nature was
that of this man! He had all the passions, all the defects,
all the weaknesses, and the spirit of contradiction familiar
to his understanding changed all these imperfections into
corresponding qualities. D'Artagnan, thanks to his ever
active imagination, was afraid of a shadow; and ashamed of
being afraid, he marched straight up to that shadow, and
then became extravagant in his bravery if the danger proved
to be real. Thus everything in him was emotion, and
therefore enjoyment. He loved the society of others, but
never became tired of his own; and more than once, if he
could have been heard when he was alone, he might have been
seen laughing at the jokes he related to himself or the
tricks his imagination created just five minutes before
ennui might have been looked for. D'Artagnan was not perhaps
so gay this time as he would have been with the prospect of
finding some good friends at Calais, instead of joining the
ten scamps there; melancholy, however, did not visit him
more than once a day, and it was about five visits that he
received from that somber deity before he got sight of the
sea at Boulogne, and then these visits were indeed but
short. But when once D'Artagnan found himself near the field
of action, all other feelings but that of confidence
disappeared never to return. From Boulogne he followed the
coast to Calais. Calais was the place of general rendezvous,
and at Calais he had named to each of his recruits the
hostelry of "Le Grand Monarque," where living was not
extravagant, where sailors messed, and where men of the
sword, with sheath of leather, be it understood, found
lodging, table, food, and all the comforts of life, for
thirty sous per diem. D'Artagnan proposed to himself to take
them by surprise in flagrante delicto of wandering life, and
to judge by the first appearance if he could count on them
as trusty companions.
He arrived at Calais at half past four in the afternoon.
