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Twenty Years After: Paris

Two for, and two against Mazarin, therefore, the musketeers make their way to Paris, where there is great excitement because of a prophecy that Duc de Beaufort--the grandson of Henry IV and the idol of the populace--will escape from the dungeon of Vincennes before Whitsuntide. Beaufort hates Mazarin and uses ingenious means of ridiculing him. Grimaud, a servant of Athos, is set to guard him, and he, with Count de Rochefort, effects his escape; and d'Artagnan and Porthos, seeking to recapture him, have an encounter in which they are taken prisoner by Athos and Aramis, but are set free and the four pledge mutual friendship. Meanwhile the preparations for insurrection are intensified and a new ally of the popular cause is found in Abbe Scarron--"the queen's invalid," who is in control of the mendicants of Paris and whose pension has been cut off by Mazarin. Another important character is also introduced at this juncture--a wounded soldier calls for a priest, and he who responds proves to be the Monk Mordaunt, a desperate character whose sole aim is to avenge the death of his mother, in which the "three musketeers" participated. Learning from the man to whom he ministered that he had been the executioner of Milady, Mordaunt stabs him to the heart and then makes his escape. At this time Lord de Winter, uncle of Mordaunt, comes with a letter from Charles I of England to Queen Henrietta, who is an exile in France, telling of the desperate straits in which he is placed by the troops of Oliver Cromwell and directing her to entreat Mazarin to grant him asylum. Henrietta goes to plead with the cardinal, but is preceded by Mordaunt, who is an envoy of Cromwell, bearing from the Puritan leader the message that "to receive King Charles will be equal to flagrant hostilities."

The queen's petition is accordingly refused and she is in great despair; but de Winter tells her there are four men who might be able to save her husband. Of the four Athos and Aramis are persuaded to make the venture and they leave for Boulogne secretly, followed and spied upon by Mordaunt, leaving d'Artagnan and Porthos in the service of Mazarin.

But affairs grow worse in Paris. The archbishop of the city is ridiculed at court when he warns the queen not to provoke civil war, and, though the cardinal tries to assuage his anger by a gift of gold, he goes forth as a leader of the Frondists and instructs his curates to excite insurrection. Count de Rochefort commands a detachment of soldiers, and Abbe Scarron, the Beggar of St.-Eustache, displays a signal from the tower of St.-Jacques which summons thousands to barricade the streets.