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

succeeded by a mortal pallor which betokened debility. As he gazed at him
Mazarin shook his head slightly, as much as to say, "This is a man who does
not appear to me fit for much."
After a pause, which appeared an age to Rochefort, Mazarin took from a
bundle of papers a letter, and showing it to the count, he said:
"I find here a letter in which you sue for liberty, Monsieur de
Rochefort. You are in prison, then?"
Rochefort trembled in every limb at this question. "But I thought," he
said, "that your eminence knew that circumstance better than any one-"
"I? Oh no! There is a congestion of prisoners in the Bastile, who were
cooped up in the time of Monsieur de Richelieu; I don't even know their
names."
"Yes, but in regard to myself, my lord, it cannot be so, for I was
removed from the Chatelet to the Bastile owing to an order from your
eminence."
"You think you were."
"I am certain of it."
"Ah, stay! I fancy I remember it. Did you not once refuse to undertake
a journey to Brussels for the queen?"
"Ah! ah!" exclaimed Rochefort. "There is the true reason! Idiot that I
am, though I have been trying to find it out for five years, I never found
it out."
"But I do not say it was the cause of your imprisonment. I merely ask
you, did you not refuse to go to Brussels for the queen, whilst you had
consented to go there to do some service for the late cardinal?"
"That is the very reason I refused to go back to Brussels. I was there
at a fearful moment. I was sent there to intercept a correspondence between
Chalais and the archduke, and even then, when I was discovered I was nearly
torn to pieces. How could I, then, return to Brussels? I should injure the
queen instead of serving her."
"Well, since the best motives are liable to misconstruction, the queen
saw in your refusal nothing but a refusal-a distinct refusal she had also
much to complain of you during the lifetime of the late cardinal; yes, her
majesty the queen-"
Rochefort smiled contemptuously.
"Since I was a faithful servant, my lord, to Cardinal Richelieu during
his life, it stands to reason that now, after his death, I should serve you
well, in defiance of the whole world."
"With regard to myself, Monsieur de Rochefort," replied Mazarin, "I am
not, like Monsieur de Richelieu, all-powerful. I am but a minister, who
wants no servants, being myself nothing but a servant of the queen's. Now,
the queen is of a sensitive nature. Hearing of your refusal to obey her she
looked upon it as a declaration of war, and as she considers you a man of
superior talent, and consequently dangerous, she desired me to make sure of
you; that is the reason of your being shut up in the Bastile. But your
release can be managed. You are one of those men who can comprehend certain
matters and having understood them, can act with energy-"
"Such was Cardinal Richelieu's opinion, my lord."
"The cardinal," interrupted Mazarin, "was a great politician and
therein shone his vast superiority over me. I am a straightforward, simple