"Yes," replied Athos. "And Mordaunt?"
"Oh! thank God, he is dead at last. Look yonder."
And D'Artagnan forced Athos to look in the direction he pointed out, where the body of Mordaunt, tossed upon the wave, seemed to pursue the friends with a look of insult and mortal hate. Athos gazed at it with an expression of mingled pity and melancholy.
"Bravo! Athos," cried Aramis, with a degree of exultation which he rarely showed.
"A good blow," exclaimed Porthos.
"I have a son," said Athos, "and I wished to live. But it was not I who killed him. It was the hand of fate."
Soon after the escape of Monsieur de Beaufort, the Parisians, stirred up by various influential malecontents—one of the chief of whom is the famous Jean de Gondy, Coadjutor of Paris, and afterwards Cardinal de Retz—break out into open insurrection. Mazarine's life is menaced; the queen-mother and the young king are virtually prisoners of the Frondeurs. The Prince of Condé, with the laurels he has gained on the battle-field of Lens yet fresh upon his brow, hurries to Paris to take part against the Fronde; the queen and Mazarine are anxious to escape from the capital in order to carry on the war in the open field instead of in the narrow streets, fighting in which latter, or from behind their barricades, the ill-disciplined troops of the insurgents are nearly as efficient as the most practised veterans. How to manage the escape is the difficulty. The gates of the city are guarded by armed citizens; there appears no possibility of egress. In this dilemma, Anne of Austria bethinks her of the man to whose address and courage she had, twenty years previously, been so deeply indebted; D'Artagnan is called in to her assistance. He succeeds in smuggling the cardinal out of Paris, and then returns to fetch Louis XIV. and the queen-mother.
Instead of re-entering Paris by the gate of St Honoré, D'Artagnan, who had time to spare, went round to that of Richelieu. The guard stopped him, and when they saw by his plumed hat and laced cloak that he was an officer of mousquetaires, they insisted upon his crying out, "Down with Mazarine." This he did with so good a grace, and in so sonorous a voice, that the most difficult were fully satisfied. He then walked down the Rue Richelieu, reflecting how he should manage the escape of the queen, for it would be impossible to take her away in one of the royal carriages, with the arms of France painted upon it. On passing before the hotel of Madame de Guéménée, who passed for the mistress of Monsieur de Gondy, he perceived a coach standing at the door. A sudden idea struck him.
"Pardieu!" said he, "it would be an excellent manœig;uvre." And, stepping up to the carriage, he examined
the arms upon the panels, and the livery of the coachman, who was sleeping on the box.