The Vicomte de Bragelonne; Or, Ten Years Later<br />Being the completion of "The Three Musketeers" a by Alexandre Dumas (read the beginning after the end novel .TXT) 📖

very willing to leave you to say Voliere; but myself I shall continue to say Moliere. Well, this, I was saying, does not surprise me, coming from Moliere, who is a very ingenious fellow, and inspired you with this grand idea."

"It will be of great use to him by-and-by I am sure."

"Won't it be of use to him indeed! I believe you it will, and not a little so; for you see my friend Moliere is of all known tailors the man who best clothes our barons, comtes, and marquises—according to their measure."

On this observation, neither the application nor depth of which shall we discuss, D'Artagnan and Porthos quitted M. Percerin's house and rejoined their carriage, wherein we will leave them, in order to look after Moliere and Aramis at Saint-Mandé.

CHAPTER LXXX. THE BEEHIVE, THE BEES, AND THE HONEY.

The bishop of Vannes, much annoyed at having met D'Artagnan at M. Percerin's, returned to Saint-Mandé in no very good humor. Moliere, on the other hand, quite delighted at having made such a capital rough sketch, and at knowing where to find its original again, whenever he should desire to convert his sketch into a picture, Moliere arrived in the merriest of moods. All the first story of the left wing was occupied by the most celebrated Epicureans in Paris, and those on the freest footing in the house—every one in his compartment, like the bees in their cells, employed in producing the honey intended for that royal cake which M. Fouquet proposed to offer his majesty Louis XIV. during the fete at Vaux. Pellisson, his head leaning on his hand, was engaged in drawing out the plan of the prologue to the "Facheux," a comedy in three acts, which was to be put on the stage by Poquelin de Moliere, as D'Artagnan called him, or Coquelin de Voliere, as Porthos styled him. Loret, with all the charming innocence of a gazetteer—the gazetteers of all ages have always been so artless!—Loret was composing an account of the fetes of Vaux, before those fetes had taken place. La Fontaine, sauntering about from one to the other, a wandering, absent, boring, unbearable shade, who kept buzzing and humming at everybody's shoulder a thousand poetic abstractions. He so often disturbed Pellisson, that the latter, raising his head, crossly[Pg 323] said, "At least, La Fontaine, supply me with a rhyme, since you say you have the run of the gardens at Parnassus."

"What rhyme do you want?" asked the Fabler, as Madame de Sevigne used to call him.

"I want a rhyme to lumière."

"Ornière," answered La Fontaine.

"Ah, but, my good friend, one cannot talk of wheel-ruts when celebrating the delights of Vaux," said Loret.

"Besides, it doesn't rhyme," answered Pellisson.

"How! doesn't rhyme!" cried La Fontaine, in surprise.

"Yes; you have an abominable habit, my friend—a habit which will ever prevent your becoming a poet of the first order. You rhyme in a slovenly manner."

"Oh, oh, you think so, do you, Pellisson?"

"Yes, I do, indeed. Remember that a rhyme is never good so long as one can find a better."

"Then I will never write anything again but in prose," said La Fontaine, who had taken up Pellisson's reproach in earnest. "Ah! I often suspected I was nothing but a rascally poet! Yes, 'tis the very truth."

"Do not say so; your remark is too sweeping, and there is much that is good in your 'Fables.'"

"And to begin," continued La Fontaine, following up his idea, "I will go and burn a hundred verses I have just made."

"Where are your verses?"

"In my head."

"Well, if they are in your head you cannot burn them."

"True," said La Fontaine; "but if I do not burn them—"

"Well, what will happen if you do not burn them?"

"They will remain in my mind, and I shall never forget them."

"The deuce?" cried Loret; "what a dangerous thing! One would go mad with it!"

"The deuce! the deuce!" repeated La Fontaine; "what can I do?"

"I have discovered the way," said[Pg 324] Moliere, who had entered just at this point of the conversation.

"What way?"

"Write them first and burn them afterward."

"How simple it is! Well, I should never have discovered that. What a mind that devil Moliere has!" said La Fontaine. Then, striking his forehead, "Oh, thou wilt never be aught but an ass, Jean la Fontaine!" he added.

"What are you saying there, my friend?" broke in Moliere, approaching the poet, whose aside he had heard.

"I say I shall never be aught but an ass," answered La Fontaine, with a heavy sigh and swimming eyes. "Yes, my friend," he added, with increasing grief, "it seems that I rhyme in a slovenly manner."

"Oh, 'tis wrong to say so."

"Nay I am a poor creature!"

"Who said so?"

"Parbleu! 'twas Pellisson; did you not, Pellisson?"

Pellisson, again lost in his work, took good care not to answer.

"But if Pellisson said you were so," cried Moliere, "Pellisson has seriously offended you."

"Do you think so?"

"Ah! I advise you, as you are a gentleman, not to leave an insult like that unpunished."

"How!" exclaimed La Fontaine.

"Did you ever fight?"

"Once only, with a lieutenant in the light horse."

"What wrong had he done you?"

"It seems he had run away with my wife."

"Ah, ah!" said Moliere, becoming slightly pale; but, as at La Fontaine's declaration, the others had turned round, Moliere kept upon his lips the rallying smile which had so nearly died away, and continuing to make La Fontaine speak—

"And what was the result of the duel?"

"The result was that on the ground my opponent disarmed me, and then made an apology, promising never again to set foot in my house."

"And you considered yourself satisfied," said Moliere.

"Not at all! on the contrary, I picked up my sword. 'I beg your pardon, monsieur,' I said, 'I have not fought you because you were my wife's friend, but because I was told I ought to fight. So, as I have never known any peace save since you made her acquaintance, do me the pleasure to continue your visits as heretofore, or, morbleu! let us set to again.' And so," continued La Fontaine, "he was compelled to resume his friendship with madame, and I continue to be the happiest of husbands."

All burst out laughing. Moliere alone passed his hands across his eyes. Why? Perhaps to wipe away a tear, perhaps to smother a sigh. Alas! we know that Moliere was a moralist, but he was not a philosopher. "'Tis all the same," he said, returning to the topic of the conversation, "Pellisson has insulted you."

"Ah, truly! I had already forgotten it."

"And I am going to challenge him on your behalf."

"Well, you can do so, if you think it indispensable."

"I do think it indispensable, and I am going—"

"Stay," exclaimed La Fontaine, "I want your advice."

"Upon what? this insult?"

"No; tell me really now whether lumière does not rhyme with ornière."

"I should make them rhyme—ah! I knew you would—and I have made a hundred thousand such rhymes in my time."

"A hundred thousand!" cried La Fontaine, "four times as many as La Pucelle, which M. Chaplain is meditating. Is it also on this subject too that you have composed a hundred thousand verses?"

"Listen to me, you eternally absent creature," said Moliere.

"It is certain," continued La Fontaine, "that légume, for instance, rhymes with posthume."

"In the plural, above all."

"Yes, above all in the plural, seeing that then it rhymes not with three letters, but with four; as ornière does with lumière."

"But ornières and lumières in the plural, my dear Pellisson," said La Fontaine, clapping his hand on the shoulder of his friend, whose insult he had quite forgotten, "and they will rhyme."

"Hem!" cried Pellisson.

"Moliere says so, and Moliere is a judge of it; he declares he has himself made a hundred thousand verses."

"Come," said Moliere, laughing, "he is off now."

"It is like rivage, which rhymes admirably with herbage. I would take my oath of it."

"But—" said Moliere.

"I tell you all this," continued La Fontaine, "because you are preparing a divertissement for Vaux, are you not?"

"Yes, the 'Facheux.'"

"Ah, yes, the 'Facheux;' yes, I recollect. Well, I was thinking a prologue would admirably suit your divertissement."

"Doubtless it would suit capitally."

"Ah! you are of my opinion?"

"So much so, that I ask you to write this prologue."

"You ask me to write it?"

"Yes, you, and on your refusal begged you to ask Pellisson, who is engaged upon it at this moment."

"Ah! that is what Pellisson is doing, then?"

"I'faith, my dear Moliere, you might indeed often be right."

"When?"

"When you call me absent. It is a wretched defect. I will cure myself of it, and do your prologue for you."

"But seeing that Pellisson is about it!—"

"Ah, true, double rascal that I am! Loret was indeed right in saying I was a poor creature."

"It was not Loret who said so, my friend."

"Well, then, whoever said so, 'tis the same to me! And so your divertissement is called the 'Facheux?' Well, can you not make heureux rhyme with fácheux?"

"If obliged, yes."

"And even with capricieux."[Pg 325]

"Oh, no, no."

"It would be hazardous, and yet why so?"

"There is too great a difference in the cadences."

"I was fancying," said La Fontaine, leaving Moliere for Loret—"I was fancying—"

"What were you fancying?" said Loret, in the middle of a sentence. "Make haste."

"You are writing the prologue to the 'Facheux,' are you not?"

"No! mordieu! it is Pellisson."

"Ah, Pellisson!" cried La Fontaine, going over to him. "I was fancying," he continued, "that the nymph of Vaux—"

"Ah, beautiful!" cried Loret. "The nymph of Vaux! thank you, La Fontaine; you have just given me the two concluding verses of my paper."

"Well, if you can rhyme so well, La Fontaine," said Pellisson, "tell me now in what way you would begin my prologue?"

"I should say, for instance, 'Oh! nymph, who—' After 'who' I should place a verb in the second person singular of the present indicative; and should go on thus: 'this grot profound.'"

"But the verb, the verb?" asked Pellisson.

"To admire the greatest king of all kings round," continued La Fontaine.

"But the verb, the verb," obstinately insisted Pellisson. "This second person singular of the present indicative?"

"Well then; quittest:—

"O, nymph, who quittest now this grot profound,
To admire the greatest king of all kings round."

"You would put 'who quittest,' would you?"

"Why not?"

"'Gentlest' after 'you who?'"

"Ah! my dear fellow," exclaimed La Fontaine, "you are a shocking pedant!"

"Without counting," said Moliere, "that the second verse, 'king of all kings round,' is very weak, my dear La Fontaine."[Pg 326]

"Then you see clearly I am nothing but a poor creature—a shuffler, as you said."

"I never said so."

"Then, as Loret said."

"And it was not Loret neither; it was Pellisson."

"Well, Pellisson was right a hundred times over. But what annoys me more than anything, my dear Moliere, is, that I fear we shall not have our Epicurean dresses."

"You expected yours, then, for the fete?"

"Yes, for the fete, and then for after the fete. My housekeeper told me that my own is rather faded."

"Diable! Your housekeeper is right; rather more than faded!"

"Ah, you see," resumed La Fontaine, "the fact is, I left it on the floor in my room, and my cat—"

"Well; your cat—"

"She kittened upon it, which has rather altered its color."

Moliere burst out laughing; Pellisson and Loret followed his example. At this juncture, the bishop of Vannes appeared, with a roll of plans and parchments under his arm. As if the angel of death had chilled all gay and sprightly fancies—as if that wan form had scared away the Graces to whom Xenocrates sacrificed—silence immediately reigned through the study, and every one resumed his self-possession and his pen. Aramis distributed the notes of invitation, and thanked them in the name of M. Fouquet. "The surintendant," he said, "being kept to his room by business, could not come and see them, but begged them to send him some of the fruits of their day's work, to enable him to forget the fatigue of his labor in the night."

At these words, all settled to work. La Fontaine placed himself at a table, and set his rapid pen running over the vellum; Pellisson made a fair copy of his prologue; Moliere gave fifty fresh verses, with which his visit to Percerin had inspired him; Loret, his article on the marvelous fetes he predicted; and Aramis, laden with booty like the king of the bees, that great black drone, decked with purple and gold, re-entered his apartment, silent and busy. But before departing, "Remember, gentlemen," said he, "we all leave to-morrow evening."

"In that case, I must give notice at home," said Moliere.

"Yes; poor Moliere!" said Loret, smiling; "he loves his home."

"'He loves,' yes," replied Moliere, with his sad, sweet smile. "'He loves,' that does not mean, they love him."

"As