D’Artagnan didn’t waste any time: as soon as it was convenient and opportune, he paid a visit to His Majesty’s Treasurer. There he had the great satisfaction of exchanging a bit of paper covered with an ugly scrawl for a prodigious quantity of crowns, all newly struck with the image of His Most Gracious Majesty Charles II.
D’Artagnan had long ago learned to master his emotions, but on this occasion he couldn’t help expressing a joy the readers may forgive, if they deign to be indulgent toward a man who, since his birth, had never seen so many coins and rolls of coins laid out before him in a pattern truly pleasing to the eye. The treasurer enclosed these rolls in sturdy sacks and sealed each bag with the arms of England, a favor that treasurers do not grant to everybody.
Then, impassive and just as polite as he ought to be to a man honored by the friendship of the king, he said to d’Artagnan, “Take your money, Sir.”
Your money. Those words made a thousand strings thrum in d’Artagnan’s heart where he’d never felt them before. He had the sacks loaded on a small cart and returned home, thinking deeply. A man who possesses three hundred thousand livres can no longer have an unlined brow; a wrinkle for every hundred thousand livres is the least he can expect.
D’Artagnan locked himself in, refused to open the door to anyone, wouldn’t eat, just sat with the lamp burning, a pistol cocked on the table, watching his fortune all night, considering how to keep those lovely crowns, which had passed from the royal coffers to his own, from somehow passing out of his coffers and into the pockets of a thief. The best means the Gascon could devise was to box his treasure up under locks so strong no tool could break them, and so clever no ordinary key could open them.
D’Artagnan remembered that the English are masters of mechanisms of security, and resolved to go the next day to find a mechanic who could sell him a safe. He didn’t have to go far: Mister Will Jobson, residing in Piccadilly, listened to his propositions, understood his needs, and promised to construct a lock for him so secure he would be freed from all fear of the future.
“I will make for you a mechanism totally new,” he said. “At the first serious attempt to crack your lock, a hidden aperture will open, and a miniature gun will shoot out a lovely copper bullet the weight of a mark, which will discommode your thief while making a resounding report. What do you think?”
“I think it sounds ingenious!” said d’Artagnan. “I particularly like the lovely copper bullet. So, Mister Mechanic, your terms?”
“Two weeks to make it, and fifteen thousand livres payable on delivery,” replied the artisan.
D’Artagnan grimaced. Two weeks were enough time for every thief in London to have their way with his fortune, and then he wouldn’t need a safe. As for the fifteen thousand livres, it was a high price to pay for what his vigilance could do for nothing. “I’ll… think about it,” he said. “Thank you, Sir.”
And he returned home at a run—but no one had disturbed his treasure.
That same day, Athos came to visit his friend and found him so anxious he confessed to being surprised. “What! Here you are rich but not happy?” he said. “You who always wanted wealth…”
“My friend, the pleasures we aren’t used to are worse than the sorrows we’re familiar with. You’ve always had money; can you give me some advice? When one has money, what does one do with it?”
“That depends.”
“What did you do with yours so as not to end up either a miser or a spendthrift? ‘For greed withers the heart, and prodigality wastes it’—isn’t that how it goes?”
“Even Fabricius88 couldn’t say it better. But, in truth, having money never troubled me.”
“Come, do you invest it in annuities?”
“No; you know I have a pretty good country house, and this house comprises the majority of my wealth.”
“Yes, so you’ve said.”
“Well, you can be as rich as I am, even richer if you like, by the same means.”
“But your income from rent—do you save it?”
“No.”
“What would you think of a hidden wall cache?”
“I’ve never used such a thing.”
“Then you have some confidential partner, some reliable businessman who manages your funds and pays a decent interest?”
“Not at all.”
“My God! What do you do, then?”
“I spend whatever I have and no more than that, my dear d’Artagnan.”
“Well, there! But you’re a sort of lesser prince, with fifteen or sixteen thousand livres of revenue to fritter away, plus expenses to keep up appearances.”
“But I don’t see that you’re much less noble than I am, my friend, and your fortune should be quite enough for you.”
“Three hundred thousand livres! It should be three times enough.”
“Your pardon, but it seems to me you told me… or I thought I understood… that is, you also have a partner…”
“Ah, mordioux! That’s right!” cried d’Artagnan, coloring. “There’s Planchet! I forgot about Planchet, upon my life. Well! There’s my three hundred thousand broken into… such a shame, it was a nice round figure. But it’s true, Athos, I’m not rich at all, really. What a memory you have!”
“Good enough, yes, God be praised.”
“The worthy Planchet,” groaned d’Artagnan. “His golden dreams come true. What an investment, peste! Well, what was said is said.”
“How much will you give him?”
“Oh, he’s not a bad lad,” said d’Artagnan. “I’ll do right by him. But I was put to considerable trouble, you see, had expenses, and all that must be taken into account.”
“I know you can be trusted, mon cher,” said Athos serenely, “and I don’t worry about the good Planchet; his interests are better off in your hands than in his. But now that we have no more to do here, we can go whenever you’re ready. You just need to take your leave of His Majesty, ask him if he has any orders, and we can see the towers of Notre Dame within a week.”
“Frankly, my friend, I’m burning to leave, so I’ll go and pay my respects to the king.”
“While I’m just going to meet a few people in the city,” said Athos, “and then I’m yours.”
“Will you lend me Grimaud?”
“With all my heart. What do you need him for?”
“A simple task that won’t wear him out—I just need to ask him to sit by this table with my pistols and keep an eye on my coffers of coins.”
“Very well,” Athos replied imperturbably.
“He won’t go off on his own?”
“No more than the pistols would.”
“Then I’ll go to see His Majesty. Au revoir.”
D’Artagnan hastened to Saint James’s Palace, where Charles II, who was writing his correspondence, kept him in the antechamber a full hour. As d’Artagnan walked back and forth across the gallery, from the doors to the windows and the windows to the doors, he thought he saw someone with a cloak like Athos’s leaving through the outer vestibule, but just as he was about to go see for himself the usher summoned him in to see His Majesty.
Charles II rubbed his hands while receiving our musketeer’s thanks. “Chevalier,” he said, “you’re wrong to think you owe me any gratitude, because I haven’t paid even a quarter of the worth of the story of the box in which you encased our brave general… or rather the excellent Duke of Albemarle.” And the king burst out laughing.
D’Artagnan thought it would be impolite to interrupt His Majesty and looked away modestly.
“By the way,” continued Charles, “has my dear Monck really forgiven you?”
“Forgiven me! I certainly hope so, Sire.”
“Heh! It must have been a cruel passage. Odds fish! To jug the leading personage of the English Revolution like a herring! I wouldn’t trust him if I were in your place, Chevalier.”
“But, Sire…”
“Yes, I’m well aware that Monck calls you his friend… but he has too calculating an eye not to have a sharp memory behind it, and a forehead that tall indicates great pride—you know, grande supercilium.”
“I really must learn some Latin,” d’Artagnan said to himself.
“Here, you must let me arrange your reconciliation,” said the king, enchanted with the idea. “I know just how to do it…”
D’Artagnan gnawed his mustache. “Would Your Majesty permit me to speak the truth?”
“Speak, Chevalier, speak.”
“Well, Sire, you’re starting to frighten me! If Your Majesty tries to manage my affairs, as he seems to wish, I’m a doomed man—the duke will have me assassinated.”
The king burst out laughing again, which made d’Artagnan genuinely alarmed. “Sire, I beg, promise me you’ll let me handle this matter myself. And now, if you have no further need of my services…”
“Not yet, Chevalier. You don’t really want to leave?” laughed Charles with increasingly disturbing hilarity.
“If Your Majesty has nothing more to ask of me.”
Charles grew more serious. “One more thing. Go see my sister, Princess Henrietta.* Does she know you?”
“No, Sire… but an old soldier like me won’t find favor with a young and cheerful princess.”
“And I say to you that I wish my sister to know you. I want her to know that she can count on you at need.”
“Sire, everything dear to Your Majesty is sacred to me.”
“Quite so… Parry! Come here, good Parry.”
The side door opened, and Parry came in, his face lighting up when he saw the chevalier.
“What’s Rochester* doing?” asked the king.
“He’s on the canal with the ladies.”
“And Buckingham?”*
“The same.”
“Perfect. Bring the chevalier to Villiers—that’s the Duke of Buckingham, Chevalier—and ask the duke to introduce Monsieur d’Artagnan to Milady Henrietta.”
Parry bowed and smiled at d’Artagnan.
“Chevalier,” continued the king, “this is your final audience, and you may take your leave whenever you please.”
“Thank you, Sire!”
“But make your peace with Monck.”
“Oh! Sire…”
“You know that one of my vessels is at your disposal?”
“Sire, you overwhelm me! I couldn’t think of putting Your Majesty’s officers to such trouble for me.”
The king clapped d’Artagnan on the shoulder. “It’s not just for you, Chevalier, but also for an ambassador I’m sending to France—one you’ll be happy to have for a companion, I think, for you know him.”
D’Artagnan looked at the king in surprise.
“It’s a certain Comte de La Fère, whom you call Athos,” added the king, ending the conversation as he’d begun it, with a burst of laughter. “Adieu, Chevalier, adieu! Love me as I love you.”
And with that, making a gesture to Parry to inquire if anyone awaited him in the adjacent study, the king disappeared into that room, leaving the audience chamber to the chevalier, still stunned by this unusual interview.
The old man took him amicably by the arm and led him into the gardens.