"Alexandre Dumas. Twenty Years After." - читать интересную книгу автора

Palais Royal, Mazarin approached an officer who was walking up and down
within that inclosure.
It was D'Artagnan, who was waiting for him.
"Cane hither," said Mazarin in his softest voice; "I have an order to
give you."
D'Artagnan bent low and following the cardinal up the secret
staircase, soon found himself in the study whence they had first set out.
The cardinal seated himself before his bureau and taking a sheet of
paper wrote some lines upon it, whilst D'Artagnan stood imperturbable,
without showing either impatience or curiosity. He was like a soldierly
automaton, or rather, like a magnificent marionette.
The cardinal folded and sealed his letter.
"Monsieur d'Artagnan," he said, "you are to take this dispatch to the
Bastile and bring back here the person it concerns. You must take a
carriage and an escort, and guard the prisoner with the greatest care."
D'Artagnan took the letter, touched his hat with his hand, turned
round upon his heel like a drill-sergeant, and a moment afterward was
heard, in his dry and monotonous tone, commanding "Four men and an escort,
a carriage and a horse." Five minutes afterward the wheels of the carriage
and the horses' shoes were heard resounding on the pavement of the
courtyard.


3
DEAD ANIMOSITIES.

D'Artagnan arrived at the Bastile just as it was striking half-past
eight. His visit was announced to the governor, who, on hearing that he
came from the cardinal, went to meet him and received him at the top of the
great flight of steps outside the door. The governor of the Bastile was
Monsieur du Tremblay, the brother of the famous Capuchin, Joseph, that
fearful favorite of Richelieu's, who went by the name of the Gray Cardinal.
During the period that the Duc de Bassompierre passed in the
Bastile-where he remained for twelve long years-when his companions, in
their dreams of liberty, said to each other: "As for me, I shall go out of
the prison at such a time," and another, at such and such a time, the duke
used to answer, "As for me, gentlemen, I shall leave only when Monsieur du
Tremblay leaves;" meaning that at the death of the cardinal Du Tremblay
would certainly lose his place at the Bastile and De Bassompierre regain
his at court.
His prediction was nearly fulfilled, but in a very different way from
that which De Bassompierre supposed; for after the death of Richelieu
everything went on, contrary to expectation, in the same way as before; and
Bassompierre had little chance of leaving his prison.
Monsieur du Tremblay received D'Artagnan with extreme politeness and
invited him to sit down with him to supper, of which he was himself about
to partake.
"I should be delighted to do so," was the reply; "but if I am not
mistaken, the words `In haste,' are written on the envelope of the letter
which I brought."