The Vicomte de Bragelonne

Aramis bit his lips. “Nothing! nothing! Your pardon, I meant to say…”
“What?”
“That if we were inclined – if we took a fancy to make an excursion by
sea, we could not.”
“Very good! and why should that vex you? A fine pleasure, ma foi! For my part, I don’t regret it at all. What I regret is certainly not the more or less amusement we can find at Belle-Isle; what I regret, Aramis, is Pierrefonds; is Bracieux; is le Valon; is my beautiful France! Here weare not in France, my dear friend; we are – I know not where. Oh! I tell you …Read more »

“What sort of a person do you take me for?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you know anything, why conceal it from me? If you do not know anything, why did you write so warningly?”
“True, true, I was very wrong, and I regret having done so, Raoul. It seems nothing to write to a friend and say ‘Come;’ but to have this friend face to face, to feel him tremble, and breathlessly and anxiously wait to hear what one hardly dare tell him, is very different.”
“Dare! I have courage enough, if …Read more »

Begun in this manner, the supper soon became a fete; no one tried to be witty, for no one failed in being so. La Fontaine forgot his Gorgny wine and allowed Vatel to reconcile him to the wines of the Rhone and those from the shores of Spain. The Abbe Fouquet became so kind and good-natured that Gourville said to him, “Take care, Monsieur l’Abbe ; if you are so tender, you will be eaten.”
The hours passed away so joyously, that …Read more »

They had hardly closed the gate before I sprang from the window and ran to the well. Then, just as my governor had leaned over, so leaned I. Something white and luminous glistened in the green and quivering ripples of the water. The brilliant disk fascinated and allured me; my eyes became fixed, and I could hardly breathe. The well seemed to draw me in with its large mouth and icy breath; and I thought I read, at the bottom of the water, characters of fire traced upon the letter the queen had touched. Then, scarcely knowing what I was about, and urged on by one of those instinctive impulses which drive men upon their destruction, I lowered the cord …Read more »

“Shall we pass into the next room, sire?” said Saint-Aignan, opening the door to let his guests precede him. The king walked behind La Valliere, and fixed his eyes lingeringly and passionately upon her neck as white as snow, upon which her long fair ringlets fell in heavy masses.
La Valliere was dressed in a thick silk robe of pearl gray color, with a tinge of rose, with jet ornaments, which displayed to greater effect the dazzling purity of her skin, holding in her slender and transparent hands a bouquet of heartsease, Bengal roses, and clematis, surrounded with leaves of the tenderest green, above which uprose, like a tiny
goblet shedding perfumes, a Haarlem tulip of gray and violet tints, of a pure and beautiful species, which had cost the gardener five years’ toil of combinations and the king five thousand francs.
Louis had placed this bouquet in La Valliere’s hand as he saluted her.
In the room, the door of which Saint-Aignan had just opened, a young man …Read more »

The ladder just reached the edge of the cornice, that is to say, the sill of the window; so that, by standing upon the last round but one of the ladder, a man of about the middle height, as the king was, for instance, could easily hold a communication with those who might be in the room. Hardly had the ladder been properly placed, than the king, dropping the assumed part he had been playing in the comedy, began to ascend the rounds of the ladder, which Malicorne held at the bottom. But hardly had he completed half the distance, when a patrol of Swiss guards appeared in the garden, and advanced straight toward them. The king descended with the utmost precipitation, and concealed himself among the trees. Malicorne at once perceived that he must offer himself as a sacrifice; for, if he, too, were to conceal himself, the guard would search everywhere until they had found either himself or the king, perhaps both. It would be far better …Read more »

— Very well, Louise, to prove to you how fondly I love you, I will do one thing, I will see Madame; I will make her revoke her sentence, I will compel her to do so.
— Compel? Oh! no, no.
— True; you are right. I will bend her.
Louise shook her head.
— I will entreat her, if it be necessary, said Louis. Will you believe
in my affection after that?
Louise drew herself up.
— Oh, never, never, shall you humiliate yourself on my account; sooner, a thousand times,
would I die.
Louis reflected, his features assumed a dark expression. …Read more »