The Antechamber of M. de Tréville — The Three Musketeers

M. de Tréville began as D'Artagnan begins now: poor, bold, and sure that nerve can outrun money. He used a sword and a faithful motto until Louis XIII liked him enough to make him captain of the Musketeers. The liking is real and also useful. The king wants men who strike when he is displeased. The cardinal copies the idea and keeps his own guard. Both men forbid duels in public and stir them in private over a chessboard. Tréville's hôtel in the Rue du Vieux-Colombier runs like a camp from early morning. Fifty or sixty Musketeers parade in the court. Office seekers climb the huge stair. D'Artagnan walks in with a beating heart and a half smile. The swordsmen turn to look at him. For the first time he feels ridiculous.

On the bottom steps four Musketeers fence with naked points, not buttoned foils. In five minutes three men are scratched, and the defender of the stair has not been touched. D'Artagnan has seen hot heads in Gascony. This still astonishes him. On the landing the talk is about women. In the antechamber it is about the court. He blushes, then he trembles. The Musketeers mock the cardinal's body and his household out loud, which his father had taught him to treat as sacred. When someone names the king, the jokes stop for a breath, as if they are measuring the wall to Tréville's office. Then the laughter comes back. D'Artagnan thinks they will all be hanged, and he with them for listening. He still cannot help preferring the scene to the old warning. A servant at last asks what he wants. He gives his name, stresses that he is a compatriot, and asks for a moment with Tréville.

While he waits he studies Porthos, tall and loud in a faded blue doublet, a crimson cloak, and a gold baldric he says cost twelve pistoles. Aramis, milder and careful of his hands, nods as if that settles it. The talk then turns to Rochefort in a Capuchin disguise, stolen letters, and Chalais's death. Porthos wants to keep the story going. Aramis would rather drop it, then smiles that Buckingham is in France. Porthos tells him to be a Musketeer or an abbé, not both, and to leave the queen untouched. They snap each other's names until the group cries for peace. A servant throws open the cabinet door and calls D'Artagnan. The room goes mute. He crosses the antechamber glad to have slipped past the end of that quarrel.