CHAPTER ONE

THE THREE PRESENTS OF M. D'ARTAGNAN SR.

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas Learn more about the author, enter our monthly giveaways and save on books. CLICK HERE

On the first Monday of the month of April 1625, the village of Meung, where the author of the "Romance of the Rose" was born, seemed to be in as total an upheaval as if the Huguenots had come to make a second La Rochelle. Many of the townsmen, seeing women fleeing along the main street, hearing children crying on the doorsills, hastened to put on their breastplates and, backing up their somewhat uncertain countenances with a musket or a partisan, headed for the Jolly Miller Inn, before which jostled a compact group, noisy, full of curiosity, and growing every minute.

At that time panics were frequent, and few days passed without one town or another recording some such event in its archives. There were lords who fought among themselves; there was the king who made war on the cardinal; there was the Spaniard who made war on the king. Then, besides these hidden or public, secret or open wars, there were also the robbers, the beggars, the Huguenots, the wolves, and the lackeys, who made war on everybody. The townsfolk always took up arms against the robbers, against the wolves, against the lackeys—often against the lords and the Huguenots—and sometimes against the king—but never against the cardinal or the Spaniard. The result of this acquired habit thus was that, on the first Monday of the month of April 1625, the townsmen, hearing noise, and seeing neither the yellow-and-red standard, nor the livery of the duc de Richelieu, rushed for the Jolly Miller Inn.

Arrived there, each of them could see and identify the cause of the stir.

A young man...—let us draw his portrait with a single stroke of the pen: picture to yourself Don Quixote at eighteen, Don Quixote husked, without hauberk and greaves, Don Quixote dressed in a woolen doublet whose blue color has been transformed into an elusive nuance of wine lees and celestial azure. A long, brown face; prominent cheekbones, a token of shrewdness; enormously developed jaw muscles, an infallible sign by which to recognize a Gascon, even without a beret, and our young man was wearing a beret, decorated with a sort of feather; eyes open and intelligent; nose hooked but finely drawn; too tall for an adolescent, too small for a grown man, and whom an inexperienced eye would have taken for a farmer's son on a journey, were it not for his long sword, hung from a leather baldric, which slapped against its owner's calves when he was on foot, and against the bristling hide of his mount when he was on horseback.

For our young man had a mount, and this mount was even so remarkable that it was remarked: it was a Bearnais nag, twelve or fourteen years old, yellow of coat, without a hair in its tail, but not without galls on its legs, and which, though it walked with its head lower than its knees, rendering the application of a martingale unnecessary, still made its eight leagues a day. Unfortunately, the qualities of this horse were so well hidden under its strange hide and incongruous bearing that, in a time when everyone was a connoisseur of horses, the appearance of the abovementioned nag in Meung, which it had entered about a quarter of an hour before by the Beaugency gate, caused a sensation the disfavor of which reflected back on its rider.

And this sensation had been all the more painful to the young d'Artagnan (as the Don Quixote of this other Rosinante was called), in that he was unable to conceal the ridiculous side lent to him, good horseman that he was, by such a mount; indeed, he had sighed deeply on accepting the gift of it from M. d'Artagnan Sr. He was not unaware that such a beast was worth at least twenty livres; but in truth the words that had accompanied the gift were beyond price.

"My son," the Gascon gentleman had said, in that pure Bearnais patois of which Henri IV had never managed to rid himself, "my son, this horse was born in your father's house some thirteen years ago, and has remained there ever since, which should bring you to love it. Never sell it, let it die peacefully and honorably of old age, and if you go on campaign with it, handle it as you would an old servant. At court," M. d'Artagnan Sr. went on, "if you should have the honor of going there, an honor to which, moreover, your old nobility entitles you, uphold worthily your gentleman's name, which has been borne worthily by your ancestors for more than five hundred years. For you and yours—by yours I mean your relations and your friends—never bear with anything except from M. le cardinal and the king. It is by his courage, understand me well, it is by his courage alone that a gentleman makes his way nowadays. He who trembles for a second may let the bait escape which, for just that second, fortune held out to him. You are young, you must be brave for two reasons: first, because you are a Gascon, and second, because you are my son. Do not shrink from opportunities and seek out adventures. I have taught you to handle a sword; you have legs of iron, a fist of steel; fight whenever you can; fight all the more because duels are forbidden, and therefore it takes twice the courage to fight. All I can give you, my son, is fifteen ecus, my horse, and the advice you have just heard. Your mother will add the recipe for a certain balm, which she got from a Bohemian woman, and which has the miraculous virtue of healing every wound that does not attain the heart. Take your profit from everything, and live happily and long. I have only one more word to add, and it is an example I propose to you—not my own, because as for me, I have never appeared at court and only fought as a volunteer in the wars of religion; I mean to speak of M. de Treville, who was my neighbor once upon a time, and who had the honor while still a child of playing with our King Louis XIIIth, God keep him! Sometimes their games degenerated into fighting, and in these fights the king was not always the stronger. The blows he received gave him much esteem and friendship for M. de Treville. Later M. de Treville fought against others during his first trip to Paris, five times; from the death of the late king to the coming of age of the young one, not counting wars and sieges, seven times; and from that coming of age till today, maybe a hundred times! And so, despite edicts, rulings, and writs, here he is captain of the musketeers, that is, head of a legion of Caesars which the king sets great store by, and which the cardinal fears, he who does not fear much, as everyone knows. What's more, M. de Treville earns ten thousand ecus a year; so he is a very great lord. He began like you. Go to see him with this letter, and rule yourself by him, in order to become like him."

Upon which, M. d'Artagnan Sr. buckled his own sword on his son, kissed him tenderly on both cheeks, and gave him his blessing.

continued . . .

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Published by the Penguin Group, Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Translation and introduction copyright (c) Richard Pevear, 2006