La Rochelle, deprived of the assistance of the English
fleet and of the diversion promised by Buckingham,
surrendered after a siege of a year. On the twenty-eighth
of October, 1628, the capitulation was signed.
The king made his entrance into Paris on the twenty-third
of December of the same year. He was received
in triumph, as if he came from conquering an enemy
and not Frenchmen. He entered by the Faubourg
St. Jacques, under verdant arches.
D’Artagnan took possession of his command.
Porthos left the service, and in the course of the
following year married Mme. Coquenard; the coffer
so much coveted contained eight hundred thousand livres.
Mousqueton had a magnificent livery, and enjoyed the
satisfaction of which he had been ambitious all his
life—that of standing behind a gilded carriage.
Aramis, after a journey into Lorraine, disappeared
all at once, and ceased to write to his friends; they
learned at a later period through Mme. de Chevreuse,
who told it to two or three of her intimates, that,
yielding to his vocation, he had retired into a convent—only
into which, nobody knew.
Bazin became a lay brother.
Athos remained a Musketeer under the command of d’Artagnan
till the year 1633, at which period, after a journey
he made to Touraine, he also quit the service, under
the pretext of having inherited a small property in
Roussillon.
Grimaud followed Athos.
D’Artagnan fought three times with Rochefort,
and wounded him three times.
“I shall probably kill you the fourth,”
said he to him, holding out his hand to assist him
to rise.
“It is much better both for you and for me to
stop where we are,” answered the wounded man.
“CORBLEU—I am more your friend than
you think—for after our very first encounter,
I could by saying a word to the cardinal have had
your throat cut!”
They this time embraced heartily, and without retaining
any malice.
Planchet obtained from Rochefort the rank of sergeant
in the Piedmont regiment.
M. Bonacieux lived on very quietly, wholly ignorant
of what had become of his wife, and caring very little
about it. One day he had the imprudence to recall
himself to the memory of the cardinal. The cardinal
had him informed that he would provide for him so that
he should never want for anything in future.
In fact, M. Bonacieux, having left his house at seven
o’clock in the evening to go to the Louvre,
never appeared again in the Rue des Fossoyeurs; the
opinion of those who seemed to be best informed was
that he was fed and lodged in some royal castle, at
the expense of his generous Eminence.
