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О реальном Рошфоре(из Джулии Пардо и других)
Миледи: О реальном Рошфоре(из Джулии Пардо и других) Джулия Пардо: "Оne evening," he says, "when I was in the buttery of the Cardinal, where I was eating some sweetmeats, his Eminence entered and asked for a [pg 438] draught of strawberry syrup. While he was drinking it the Comte de Rochefort arrived in his turn, and informed him that during the preceding night, as he was passing the Palace of the Luxembourg, he saw a man come out whom he instantly recognized as a certain Florent Radbod whom he had formerly met at Brussels, and whom he knew to have been frequently employed in secret matters of state. The lateness of the hour, which was, as he further stated, two in the morning, led him to believe that an individual of this description would not be there save for some important reason. "'You were very wrong not to follow him,' said his Eminence. "'I did so,' replied M. de Rochefort; 'but he was on his guard, and soon perceived that he was dogged. Therefore, thinking it better not to excite his suspicions, I turned aside and left him.' "'You did well,' said Richelieu; 'but what description of person is this Radbod? What is his age? his complexion? his height? Tell me every particular by which he may be recognized. M. de Rambure, have you your pencil about you?' "'I have my tablets, Monseigneur.' "'Write down then without loss of time,' said the Cardinal, 'the portrait of this man.' "I immediately obeyed, and my task was no sooner completed than his Eminence gave orders that at every post-house where carriages could be hired notice should be instantly given to himself if a person answering the description should endeavour [pg 439] to secure the means of leaving Paris. He also stationed men at every avenue leading from the city, who were to watch night and day, lest he might escape in the coach of an acquaintance. On the following morning his Eminence sent to summon me an hour before dawn, and I was surprised on my arrival to find him pacing his chamber in his dressing-gown. "'Rambure,' he said as I entered, 'I confess to you that I suspect some conspiracy is on foot against the King, the state, and myself; and, moreover, if I am not deceived, it is organizing at the Luxembourg with the consent and connivance of the Duc d'Orléans; but as this is mere suspicion, I am anxious, in order to see my way more clearly, to place some confidential person as a sentinel near the palace to watch who goes in and out.' "After having hesitated for a time, I told his Eminence that I was willing to undertake the adventure, and quite ready to obey his commands. "'I have faith in you, M. de Rambure,' said the Cardinal; 'I am perfectly convinced of the affection which you bear, not only towards the King and the state, but also towards myself; but I have determined to desire M. de Rochefort to disguise himself as a cripple, and to take up his position in front of the Luxembourg, where he must remain day and night until he has discovered whether it were really the Fleming that he saw.' "Then, summoning a page who was waiting in the antechamber, his Eminence sent for M. de [pg 440] Rochefort, who was not long in coming; and told him what he proposed. Rochefort, who was always ready to comply with every wish of the Cardinal, immediately declared his willingness to play the part assigned to him; and a trusty person who had attended him to the apartment of Monseigneur was instructed to procure without loss of time, and with the greatest secrecy, a pair of crutches, a suit of rags, and all the articles necessary to complete the metamorphosis. "His Eminence having, on the return of the lackey, expressed his desire to witness the effect of the disguise, M. de Rochefort retired to another chamber, where, with the assistance of his servant, he exchanged his velvet vest and satin haut-de-chausses for the foul garb of a mendicant; this done, he smeared his face with dirt, and crouching down in a corner, he requested me to announce to Monseigneur that he was ready to receive him. His Eminence was astonished at his appearance, as well as to see him act the character he had assumed as if he had studied and practised it all his life. He told him to set forth, and that if he succeeded in his attempt he would render him the greatest service which he had ever received. "As soon as the Cardinal had taken leave of Rochefort, he said to me: 'In the disguise the Count has on, and when he is crouched upon his dunghill like a miserable cripple, it will be easy for him to look every one in the face; and I hope he will make some discovery of that which troubles me.' [pg 441] His Eminence then told me that he wanted my valet, to place him in disguise in another direction. I therefore called him. He was a very sharp fellow at everything that was required of him; and the Cardinal made him put on a shabby cassock, with a false beard of grizzled hair and eyebrows to match, which were all fastened on with a certain liquid so firmly to the skin that it was necessary to apply vinegar in which the ashes of vine-twigs had been steeped, when they instantly fell off. My Basque was at length dressed in a torn, threadbare cassock, masked by his false beard, with an old hat upon his head, a breviary under his arm, and a tolerably thick stick in his hand, and received an order to post himself near the little gate of the Luxembourg stables. The Cardinal then desired me not to leave him, as he had certain orders to give me which he could not entrust to every one on such an occasion. "M. de Rochefort took up his station at the corner of the Rue de Tournon, laid himself down on a heap of manure, and began, with his face covered with mud and filth, to cry out continually and dolefully as if he had been in agony and want; and he played his part so naturally that several charitable folks were touched by his misery and gave him alms. From his dunghill he saw numbers of carriages pass and repass, and he began to be afraid that his prey would escape him. He consequently resolved to approach nearer to the gates of the palace, where his intolerable groans so harassed the Swiss guards of Monsieur that they threatened to drive him away, [pg 442] but upon his promise to be more quiet they permitted him to remain. He continued patiently at his post for three days and three nights without seeing anything to justify the suspicions of the Cardinal, and I was careful to visit him at intervals in order to receive his report; but when I found that so much time had been lost, I began to think that the Fleming would not, in all probability, enter the palace by the gate facing the Carmelite Convent, and Rochefort agreeing with me on this point, he resolved to change his station. The very same night he saw him arrive, and let himself in with a key that he carried about him; and an hour afterwards he observed another man stop at the same door, and enter by the same means. He was wrapped in a cloak so that the Count could not recognize him; but he desired my valet, who was not far off at the time, to follow him when he came out, by which means we ascertained that the individual who was thus tracked to his own residence was the Grand Equerry of France, M. de Cinq-Mars; while before the end of another week we discovered Radbod in the same manner." [236] Цитата на английском языке из книги Джулии Пардо "Жизнь Марии Медичи". Цитата цитаты из Мемуаров господина де Рамбюра. Эти мемуары так и не были опубликованы. Ей их подарил один ее друг, близко знавший семью Рамбюров.
Ответов - 10
Миледи: Книгу на английском языке можно скачать здесь. http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/p#a4017 http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11601 Третий том, откуда отрывок.
Миледи: THE CARDINAL'S AGENT. Джеральд Бренан: IT is one of the sorrows of those who love romance that Dumas did not deal more generously with the Comte de Rochefort. The vague Sittings of Rochefort through the pages of LES TROIS MOUSQUETAIRES and VINGT ANS APRES are, no doubt, quite in keeping with the soldier's ideal of Richelieu's agent, and with the stealthy nature of his work as judged from the stand- point of the Hdtel de Treville. To have presented us with a palpable, straightforward Rochefort in these splendid gasconnades, to have un- cloaked the mysterious Man of Meung, in fact would have been a serious artistic mistake. But Dumas might have taken us behind the arras in another story, or series of stories, and given us Rochefort the hero in place of Rochefort the villain. There is still a romance to be written with Cesar de Rochefort as its principal character, and having for motive that masterly scheme of plot and counterplot by which the great Cardinal strove at once to humble his bitter foes of the haute noblesse, and to keep the eager enemies of France at bay. The world has seldom seen a better organised or more successful system of secret service than that of which Richelieu was the master-spirit, and Rochefort the adroit lieutenant. How the superb imagination of Dumas would have revelled in describing the strifes and struggles of that devoted lieutenant ! What pictures have we not missed of midnight gallop and duello, of great dames carried off, and gallant gentlemen left cursing the Red Duke in their death-agonies, of the hero masquerading, now as priest and now as post-boy, and riding calmly through the enemy's country with death on his horse's crupper, of treasonable papers seized at the sword- point, in the very nick of time, the wanton traitor Cinq Mars brought to justice, and the dying Richelieu's last hours soothed by triumph, thanks to the watchful courage of Rochefort ! A rich field lies fallow before the romancer in LES MEMOIRES DE M. LE C DE R , the very title of which hints of state-secrets and deeds of high emprise. That Dumas knew this book we cannot doubt ; for not only did he take his Richelieu and Mazarin from its pages, but he was also to it indebted for his account of Miladi's early life, of the story of her marriage to a great noble, and of the discovery of the fleur-de lys branded upon her shoulder. The real heroine of this curious episode, by the way, was Rochefort's step-mother. The Rochefort Memoirs, with their mysterious title, were first published at Cologne in 1687, the editor of the work having been Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras, to whom we also owe the biography of D'Artagnan. Their general authenticity has never been doubted ; and even in minor points they can often be verified by reference to contemporary documents, notably the records of the Bastile and of the judicial tribunals at Paris and Orleans. The compiler of the work, Courtilz, was (according to his own express statement, since verified by the genealogists) a near relative of Rochefort ; and their family estates were situated close together in the same province of the Orleanais. The Cardinal's Agent. 307 Courtilz, when proscribed and a fugi- tive, was suspected of having sought shelter in the elder Rochefort's chateau, which was rudely entered and ran- sacked in consequence, as may be seen in these Memoirs, and (by way of con- firmation) in the civil register of the provincial court of Orleans. Rochefort and his editor were in exile together at Cologne, and for a time their lodgings were in the same street. Courtilz, therefore, had opportunities of making LES MEMOIRES DE M. LE C DE R at once intimate and accurate. In his preface to the original edition he says : " I publish here these Me- moirs against the last will and inten- tions of their author ; who, upon his death, which happened a month or two after his retirement, ordered me to suppress them." Rochefort is not the only autobiographer whose last wishes to this effect have been dis- obeyed, for good or ill, by his literary executor. Charles Cesar de Rochefort, the secret agent of Richelieu, was born in the year 1615. He came of a house which could trace its descent back to the year 1001, and which had nothing in common, save the name, with the family of Rochefort-Lu9ay, represented to-day by the Marquis Sans-culotte, Henri Rochefort. His mother had died in childbirth, and in a very few months his father began to cast about for a new consort. Negotiations were conducted secretly, as he did not wish to offend the Marillacs and other powerful connec- tions of the lady just laid to rest. As a result, the lord of St. Point was cruelly trapped into marriage with a convicted and branded felon. Here it is that we encounter the germ of the Miladi episode. A young priest, or pseudo-priest, of his acquaintance suggested to the simple Count that he should be introduced to one of the former's penitents, a young lady, so he was told, of extraordinary beauty, belonging to a great Huguenot family, but who had fled from her people with the view of becoming Catholic. She was not yet twenty, added M. 1'Abbe, and vastly desired to ground herself more thoroughly in the ancient faith, by converse with noblemen of understanding. M. de Rochefort asked for the lady's name. After some apparent hesitation, it was whis- pered in his ear, Madeleine de Caumont. The Count whistled, as well he might, for this implied that she was a member of the great Hugue- not house of De La Force, a niece perhaps, or even a daughter of its celebrated chief, Jacques Nompar de Caumont, who had cheated the bloody sword of St. Bartholomew to become a Marshal-Peer of France. Oue look at the dazzling Madeleine completed the work begun by the priest. A secret marriage was hurriedly entered into, under pretence of threatened interrup- tion by the bride's powerful Protestant kinsfolk ; and it may be supposed that, as in the case of Athos, the noble benedict's married life was for a time sufficiently happy. When, one unlucky morning, Rochefort discovered the felon's brand upon his wife's shoulder, he did not hang her out of hand, as Athos did Miladi ; probably he did not possess the right of High Justice. But he at once applied for annulment of the marriage contract ; and he thus got rid of her, at the cost of many pistoles, and no little ridicule on the part of the merry gentlemen of Berry and the Orleanais. Investi- gation showed that her name was really Madeleine de Caumont, in a sense ; since she came from the village of Caumont, where her father was a respectable miller. One would have thought an event of this kind humiliating enough to cool M. de Rochefort's matrimonial ardour ; yet in a little while he was x 2 308 The Cardinal's Agent. once more wife-hunting. After nar- rowly escaping the snare laid for him by a Parisian of the worst reputation, he at last found his fate in a lady of no great beauty, but belonging to a good family in Berry, one Anne de Lucinge. The first act of the new Countess was to banish her little stepson to his father's estate of St. Point on the borders of Burgundy, where he was placed under the charge of some peasants. The Count seems to have made no objection to this summary method of dealing with his heir; from the first he was completely under the thumb of his third wife, who, in the course of twelve years, presented him with four additional sons and three daughters. Meanwhile Cesar, by right Vicomte de Rochefort-St. Point, lived meanly in Burgundy, until by a happy chance his godfather, M. de Marillac, came to the neighbour- hood and discovered him. Then it was off with hodden grey, and on with rich velvet. Righteously in- dignant at the child's treatment, Marillac had him well fed and hand- somely clothed, after which M. le Vicomte was sent back to his father in a manner befitting his station. It upset Madame de Rochefort's calcula- tions not a little to have her stepson return in this unexpected manner, nor was her temper improved by the stinging rebuke which Marillac saw fit to administer. On the whole, poor Cesar must have regretted his life with the kindly peasants. He was ignored by his father, forced to eat with the servants, and scourged publicly as if he were no better than a lacquey himself. The only person who showed him any kindness was the village priest, who taught him how to read and write. At last the lad's spirit rebelled. In his ninth year he heard that a troop of Bohemians had camped in the neighbouring forest of Orleans, and with these wanderers the little Viscount desperately threw in his lot. To the gipsies he proved an invaluable ally, for he knew the skirts of the forest thoroughly, as well as all the chateaux and farm-houses of the canton. Geese, hens, and ducks disappeared with extraordinary celerity thereafter; and it was noticed that M. de Roche- fort and his tenants were especially favoured by visits from the marauders. No doubt Madame had a shrewd idea of the whereabouts of her missing stepson, and was glad to get rid of him at the cost of a few fowls, for no attempt was made to capture the Bohemians, and for months they lived upon the fat of the land, with the little Viscount as their guide and protector. But the roving instinct soon asserted itself, and, in spite of their comfortable quarters, the gipsies resolved to take to the road again. Charmed by the free life Rochefort resolved to travel with his new friends ; and so, for five years, he roamed hither and thither like an earlier George Borrow, sleeping under the stars and sharing the strange life of this strange people. The ties of brotherhood thus established after- ward stood him in good stead, when through his agency the Bohemians became exceedingly useful to Richelieu and himself as messengers and secret agents. Thus, too, he gained an exhaustive knowledge of French high- ways and byeways, besides journeying through Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries. But, in the end, while he was tramping across that very Lorraine of which his ancestor had once been chancellor, the authori- ties made a sudden descent and captured many of the band, hanging them promptly without trial. The remnant (including Rochefort, now a sturdy fellow of fourteen,) fled through Burgundy into France by way of The Cardinal's Agent. 309
Миледи: Dijon. Travelling only under cover of night, sleeping in thickets during the day, they reached Lyons ; and thence they pushed southward over Dauphine, into Languedoc, not resting satisfied until, among the mountains of Foix, they had put the breadth of France between themselves and the wrath of the Lorrainers. The exceptional privations of this flight, together with the aimless nature of the life he was leading, now induced Rochefort to take the second impor- tant step of his career. He had heard, as everyone in the country had heard, of the wars which the great Cardinal was waging north, south, east, and west against the enemies of the nation, as well as of the quick pro- motion which awaited gentlemen of brain and bravery in the Red Duke's service. Accordingly he determined to seek some sort of military employ. It was the year 1628, and the Car- dinal was busy putting an end to the long siege of Rochelle ; but, on the Pyrenean frontier, his lieutenants maintained a constant garrison war- fare against the Spaniards. Rochefort bade good-bye to his Bohemians, crossed the mountains by Capsi and Villefranche, passed through Nar- bonne, and eventually reached Locates (now Leucate in the Department of Aude) where he enlisted in the com- pany of the governor, M. de St. Aunais. Naturally swarthy, and tanned by long exposure to sun and wind, he was picked out by St. Aunais as a suitable spy to send against the Spaniards. Under the disguise of a mountaineer he paid frequent visits to the enemy's camp ; and in this way he discovered that the commandant of the Spanish garrison at Salses was accustomed to steal out every evening, slenderly guarded, to visit a fair dame of the district. Rochefort surprised tS^ lady's house at daybreak, armed with a brace of pistols, forced the governor of Salses and his guard to lay down their arms, and single-handed drove them before him into the French lines, where they were made prisoners. This exploit, as daring as it was adroit, won the admiration of M. de St. Aunais, who, on receiving assur- ances of Rochefort's gentle birth, gave the lad a pair of colours in the Regiment of Picardy. Better still, St. Aunais wrote to Richelieu, de- scribing how this stripling of fifteen had, without assistance, defeated and captured a famous Spanish captain and his veteran guard. The Cardinal, fresh from his victory over Rochelle, wrote at once to St. Aunais to send the youngster to him without delay, and enclosed a hundred pistoles for the expenses of his journey. One can well imagine the delight with which Rochefort heard of this characteristic command, and the alacrity with which he made ready for his voyage to Paris. His Spanish prisoner brought him a considerable ransom ; so that when he left Locates M. le Vicomte de Rochefort-St. Point had plenty of gold in his purse. He bought a couple of horses at Narbonne, invested in a valet, and set out for the north with a light heart. At Briare, on the borders of Orleanais, he could not resist turning aside from the main road to show himself in the paternal domains, and air his new honours at the expense of his stepmother. His first visit, however, was to the good priest who had taught him to read; after which he rode to his father's house. No doubt Madame was again vastly disgusted at the sight of this nuisance of a boy, who was not, appa- rently, born to be hanged. At all events the reception accorded to the returned wanderer was cold in the extreme; until, by chance, his valet let fall that his master had been specially summoned to Paris by the Cardinal. Instantly the manner of 310 Cardinal's Agent. Rochefort's relatives changed. No- thing was now too good for their dear Cesar ; and his stepmother, with an eye to a friend at Court, gave a grand breakfast in his honour ; all of which, however, only disgusted Roche- fort, who took no pains to hide his feelings. Two days later he found himself in Paris for the first time, and has- tened to the Palais Cardinal to pay his respects. His fame had preceded him ; and it was flattering to his vanity to find everyone talking of the brave cadet of Locates and his remark- able exploit. At the least, he looked for a place in the Cardinal's guards ; but a bitter disappointment awaited him. When he entered Richelieu's cabinet, the Cardinal laughed heartily at his youthful appearance. " Why," cried the Minister, " this cannot pos- sibly be the terrible cadet of Locates ! This is but a little, beardless boy. St. Aunais has been trying to play me a trick." Then, to Rochefort's intense chagrin, he ordered the young hero to don his livery, and become one of his household pages. From full-fledged ensign to page seemed a sad downfall ; but Richelieu consoled him by assuring him that, while as yet he looked far too boyish for a military uniform, he might hope for better things to come. Thus dis- missed, Rochefort went to arrange with the master of the household for a livery. He found that he was expected to give vails right and left, as well as to pay a large sum for clothing and accommodation. During his journey to Paris he had lived in princely fashion, as young men with fine prospects are apt to do, so that none of the Cardinal's gift or of the Spanish captain's ransom remained ; while his two horses, if sold, would fetch no more than fifty pistoles. The master of the household demanded at least four hundred crowns. Matters might have gone ill with Rochefort, had not his patron heard of the affair, ordered him a free outfit, and refilled his pockets right generously. From the first he became a favourite with Richelieu, who had set on foot a thorough investigation into the young fellow's antecedents, and found that his story was substantially true. The Cardinal, like Napoleon, while opposed by circumstances to the great bulk of the nobles, chose to surround himself as much as possible with persons of good blood. The Vicomte de Roche- fort became his cup-bearer, stood behind his chair, and ushered his visitors in and out. Rochefort clears up at least one mystery connected with his patron. The scandal has often been repeated that Richelieu was in love with his niece, Madame d'Aiguillon, because he went so frequently and so steal- thily to her house. According to Rochefort this was merely a subter- fuge. Richelieu used the Hotel d'Aiguillon, not for purposes of amorous dalliance, but as a safe and unsuspected headquarters for his system of espionage. Even at the Palais Cardinal he was watched by the agents of Spain, of the Queen, and of the great nobles. But nobody followed him to the house of his niece, believing that he went thither solely for his pleasure. Thus, while keeping up a deceitful show of state- craft in his own cabinet, the wily Cardinal met all his more important emissaries and friends, Sauve, Father Archer, the Scots Puritans, and others in a small chamber overlooking the D'Aiguillon gardens. This chamber was furnished with a private staircase, and it was part of Rochefort's duty to guide thither through the gardens many mysterious visitors to his master. They came, he says, in every imaginable disguise, monks, friars, secular priests, merchants, pedlars, The Cardinal's Agent. 311 grooms, and waiting-women. Before entrusting his page with this delicate office, Richelieu had caused him to be tempted. Madame de Sauve, wife of the Cardinal's chief spy and a very beautiful woman, was commissioned to make love to the boy, and to see if he could be induced to betray any of his patron's secrets. It was a serious trial for one so young ; and Rochefort would probably have been found wanting in discretion, had not the lady luckily taken a real fancy to him and disclosed the plot. The report which she subsequently made to the Cardinal of Cesar's prudence removed all his Eminence's doubts; and the cadet of Locates became keeper of the ministerial door. As such he officiated while the Cardinal was laying his plans for the supreme triumph of his career, that memor- able eleventh of November, 1630 (so aptly called the Day of Dupes) upon which he utterly routed his enemies and became the virtual dictator of France. As Rochefort grew older Richelieu began to send him on secret com- missions, chiefly connected with the payment of foreign agents and the reception of reports from such as did not dare to venture into Paris. Some of these errands make curious reading. On one occasion the Car- dinal handed his page a very heavy bag, containing both money and papers, with the following instruc- tions : " You are to take this bag, and to stroll leisurely along the road towards Pontoise. At the entrance to the hamlet of Sanois you will probably see a Capuchin asleep under a poplar-tree, with his hood hanging down over his shoulders. You must not say anything, but simply slip the bag into the open hood, and then, after a detour, you had better come back by way of St. Denis." A few weeks later he was sent with a heavy purse that clinked suggestively, and which he was ordered to place under a certain broad flagstone on the St. Denis road, about a furlong and a half beyond Montfaucon. This done, he was to return by another way. And again, he was sent to Notre Dame ; " where " said his Eminence, " you will walk up and down, until you see a man leaning against a tree, with his face hidden in his left hand, and with the other hand held behind him. You will then place these papers and money in the right hand of the unknown, and come away. On no account are you to look in the man's face, or seek to penetrate his identity." Gradually Richelieu sent him further and further afield, now to Brussels, now to the Spanish borders. Once, when hastening back through Dauphine with urgent mes- sages from M. de Montmorenci, the governor of Languedoc, his horse broke down in the midst of the great plain beyond Peage. It was night, the barren waste was infested by gangs of robbers, and, to crown all, he knew that the Cardinal's favour depended on his reaching Paris in time. Rochefort lost his way in the darkness, and was only saved by the chance arrival of a sick gentleman on his way to Lyons in a horse-litter, thanks to whose assistance he managed to reach Paris in the very nick of time. In the meanwhile, Rochefort's loving relatives, learning that his fine ex- pectations had apparently ended in a page's livery, saw fit to flout him once more. He was told that his presence at home was not desirable, and the letters which he wrote to his father were left unanswered. It had been his intention to ask his patron for a small benefice on behalf of his half-brother, Pierre -Antoine- Claude, who was about to take holy orders. But this sort of treatment determined 312 The Cardinal's Agent. him that the gift might be better bestowed elsewhere ; and he thought of his kind old friend, the poor priest who had taught him his letters. The Cardinal, as generous as Mazarin was to be niggardly, readily granted his page's request, and the good man was duly promoted, as much to his own surprise as to that of Rochefort's kinsfolk. Immediately M. le Comte de Rochefort and his wife posted to Paris, full of reproaches. Why had a country parson of no birth been preferred to Cesar's own loving brother 1 Rochefort reminded them of the neglect which he had endured at their hands ; but he finally melted, and promised that in future he would look after the advancement of his brothers. The fame of his influence with the Cardinal was trumpeted far and wide by his stepmother, and he was assailed by visits from cousins and connections in search of prefer- ment. " They came," he says, " from the far end of Berry. Some of them I had never seen or heard of before ; yet they insisted on worrying me by the hour with the ramifications of our genealogical tree, making it out quite plainly (for aught I knew) that they were my third, fourth, or fifth cousins ; a fact which, in their esti- mation, rendered it incumbent upon me to get them fat appointments as quickly as possible." So great was their importunity, that the Cardinal heard of it, and came to his favourite's rescue by threatening to give some of them permanent situations in the Bastile. This had the effect of send- ing the whole pack scurrying back to the Orleanais and Berry, grumbling savagely over the unnatural conduct of their cousin the Viscount. Very shortly after this affair, Roche- fort's influence with his patron was suddenly arrested, and came within an ace of being terminated entirely. In 1630 the Marechal de Marillac (Cesar's near relative, and brother of his godfather and earliest benefactor,) was arrested on a charge of high treason, and shut up in St. Menehould to await trial. Probably with a view to testing his absolute fidelity, Roche- fort himself was chosen by the Car- dinal to make the arrest. The page carried the warrant into Piedmont, and formally took possession of Marillac's sword ; but, this much dutifully accomplished, he conceived that he had earned some sort of right to intercede for a kinsman to whose family he owed so much. Accord- ingly he took advantage of a private audience with Richelieu to implore that Marillac's life might be spared. Without turning from the corres- pondence upon which he was engaged, Richelieu tossed towards him a report clearly showing that Marillac had for years been conspiring with the Queen Mother's friends and the emissaries of Spain and England. Still Roche- fort had the temerity to continue his plea. Not a word said the Red Duke ; but he raised his head, and fixed upon his page one look which spoke more eloquently than many words. " He glanced at me from under his eye- brows," says the culprit, " and it was as if I had been stricken speechless. I turned, and went down the stairs, feeling like a man who has fled from a pitched battle." The Vicornte de Rochefort was in disgrace, and no letter of dismissal was needed to tell him so. For two whole years he hid himself in the lowest quarters of Paris, helped at times by some gipsy friends, but starving for the most part, and never venturing near the precincts of the Palais Cardinal. In 1632 he heard of Marillac's execution ; and it speaks strongly for his fidelity that he bore all his sufferings without even think- ing of offering his services to the enemies of Richelieu, who would have The Cardinal's Agent. 313 been only too glad to welcome a recruit with such intimate knowledge of the apparatus of government. This loyalty did not go unrewarded. Richelieu had never lost sight of his former page, hide he where he might. One day Sauve, his Eminence's Span- ish agent, came to Rochefort's lodgings with a message. If Cesar had re- turned to his proper senses, he was to grease his boots forthwith, purchase a good horse with the money sent by M. de Sauve, and carry a letter of importance into Catalonia. The Spaniards had so far succeeded in hanging every French agent sent among the Catalans, and M. de Rochefort might decline the com- mission if he thought fit. But M. de Rochefort had no desire to decline, neither did he tarry to ask any questions. Within three hours he was already well on his way towards the southern frontier. Unable to purchase a good horse on such short notice, but confidently expecting to pick one up at a Bohemian camp he knew of in the neighbourhood of Sens, he performed the first stage of his journey on a wretched brute which, from the description, must have closely resembled the famous Butter- cup which D'Artagnan afterwards brought with him out of Beam. The Spaniards did not catch Rochefort ; and in a few weeks he found himself carrying a satisfactory report up the familiar staircase to Rochefort's cabinet. The Cardinal welcomed him back to duty with unwonted cordiality, and handed him then and there his patent of promotion to the post of gentleman-in- waiting. Roche- fort saw with amazement that the patent was dated from the very day upon which he had fallen into dis- grace, which signified that the treasurer of the household owed him more than two years' back pay. His first thought was to reward the poor taverners and gipsy-folk who had helped him in his emergency ; for this young man seems to have been an exceptionally fine fellow in the matter of gratitude for past kindnesses. Richelieu's shrewd policy had long been to keep the foreign enemies of France busy by fostering discontent and rebellion in their own domains. He helped the Catalans against Spain with arms and money, and lent vigor- ous aid towards the stirring up of the Irish Catholics. There seems little doubt, too, of his active sympathy with the Scots Puritans from a period long anterior to Leslie's victory at Dunse Law on that memorable seventh of June, 1639. At any rate, almosb immediately after Dunse Law, while Scotland was in the early stages of war, Rochefort tells us that the Car- dinal sent him with cipher letters of the last importance to the Covenanters' camp. He landed at one of the northern English ports, probably Newcastle, and passed himself off as a young French nobleman travelling for his own amusement. The letters he hid in an ingeniously contrived saddle, specially made for the journey. The plates of this saddle were of double pieces of iron welded together, and between each pair of welded pieces a letter was laid. In spite of his pretence of travel- ling for pleasure, Rochefort fell under suspicion. Hardly had he crossed the Scottish border when he was arrested by a body of Royalist horse, and, his angry protests notwithstanding, he had to submit to being searched ; even his saddle was ripped up, but the double plates kept their secrets well, and after five days' detention (during which he was cross-examined by several different persons), he was at length released with apologies. He made a feint of returning into England, evaded the Royalist out- posts, and eventually succeeded in 314 The Cardinal's Agent. delivering his letters safely to the Puritan chiefs. A fishing -vessel carried him back to France, where Richelieu rewarded him with two thousand crowns. The Cardinal's message was almost immediately followed by the visit to Paris of some person who is only de- scribed as one of the greatest of the Scots leaders. Rochefort received orders to go to the Faubourg St. Mar- ceau, over against the Conduit, where he would find a small tavern with the sign of a Headless Woman. He was to ascend the stairs without knocking, and to enter a room up two flights, where he would find a gentleman in a large bedstead with yellow curtains ; after certain signals had been exchanged, he was to bid the gentleman be at the H6tel d'Aiguillon shortly after eleven o'clock that night without fail. Everything was as the Cardinal had said ; and when Rochefort had entered the room described and looked behind the yellow curtains, he saw that the gentleman there concealed was the expected leader of the Covenanters. With considerable discretion he does not disclose the identity of the emissary, beyond saying that he was a person of high rank, and that he had already met him in Scotland. It is quite possible that the guest at the Headless Woman may have been Argyle himself. Whoever he was, he obeyed the Cardinal's mandate, and came at the appointed time to the house of Madame d'Aiguillon, dis- guised as a man crying jumbles {publics) in the street. He was at once ushered into the private cabinet, and remained there with Richelieu until four o'clock next morning. Great caution was evidently observed in these negotiations, for, after leaving the Cardinal, the Scots nobleman at once changed his place of sojourn from the Headless Woman to the Spinning Sow in the Rue de la Hachette beyond the Conduit. Two days later Rochefort was sent to him at the latter tavern with a large chest clearly containing money, since it was given to the messenger by the Superin- tendent of Finances, and accompanied by a bill of particulars which the Scot was to receipt. A waggon was needed to convey the chest ; but he for whom it was destined absolutely refused to accept the gift, when he perceived by the bill that only five hundred thousand francs had been sent. Riche- lieu, it appeared, had promised him six hundred thousand and not a centime less would he take. Roche- fort carted the money back to the Treasury, and reported the matter to his patron. The result was that, before nightfall, the canny Northerner received his full due, without paying toll to the officials. It is to be pre- sumed that the money arrived safely in Scotland. Meanwhile the charmingly dan- gerous Duchesse de Chevreuse, baffled in all her plots by Richelieu, had fled to Brussels, and there surrounded herself by that atmosphere of intrigue so dear to her heart. Rochefort was ordered to disguise himself as a Capuchin, and to follow Marie Michon to her new abode. To this end he was to place himself temporarily under the direction of the Cardinal's confessor, Father Joseph, who, a Capuchin himself, would see that the pretended friar was properly accredited. We find full confirmation of this in L'HlSTOIRE DU P&RE JOSEF, a WOl'k written by the Abbe Richard, con- fessor to Louis the Fourteenth and Censeur Royal. "The Pere Josef," writes Richard, "advised His Eminence to send somebody to Brussels, where the Duchesse de Che'vreuse was stir- ring up all kinds of conspiracies. 1 Good,' replied the Cardinal ; ' under- take the work yourself, and send the man as a Qapuchin.' ' Will you lend The Cardinal's Agent. 315 me a sure agent ? ' asked Pere Josef ; and the Cardinal, assenting, gave him the Comte de Rochefort, who left for the north at once, with orders to obey the Capuchin father's orders to the letter." Rochefort says that, before proceeding on his journey, he spent some time in the Capuchin convent in the Rue St. Honore'. He then set out on foot, in company with some priests and novices, and reached the Brussels convent of the order after fifteen days' travel, sadly battered by the long tramp, as well as by the hard beds of the country, so that he shocked the community by refusing to leave his cell for forty-eight hours after his arrival. Once recovered, however, he allowed no grass to grow under his feet, and managed to make the acquaintance of Geoffrey, Marquis de Laycques, the personal agent of the Chevreuse. Laycques took a great fancy to this unusually enter- taining friar, and wished to make him his confessor, an honour which Rochefort, not being a priest, had to regretfully decline. However, he in- gratiated himself so well with Laycques that the latter sent him to the French border with papers containing com- plete details of a plot to murder the Cardinal. Rochefort found means to send word to Pere Josef : the papers were seized on their arrival in Paris ; and Henri de Talleyrand, Comte de Chalais, who had laid the plot with Madame de Chevreuse, was brought to the scaffold. No suspicion rested on Rochefort, who remained for two years longer in Brussels upsetting all Marie Michon's little schemes one after another. It was no doubt wearisome that, in order to avert every doubt, he should have to dig in the convent-garden like the other friars, observe fast-days religiously, wield the knotted scourge, pray till his knees were sore, and beg through the streets for the benefit of the poor. He bore all these hardships with forti- tude, until one day, when leaving the house of Madame de Chevreuse, he came face to face with two gentlemen whom he had known in Paris. One of them, recognising him, exclaimed : "HJ maisl Tis Rochefort himself, as sure as I live." Without waiting to hear more, the pseudo-friar hastened round the nearest corner, and took to his heels. At the first tailor's shop he came to he bought suit, sword, periwig, boots, and cravat, having taken the precaution to always carry a well-filled purse concealed about him in readiness for such an emergency. Then, sauntering forth in his new finery, he hired post-horses, and rode out of Brussels. His Parisian ac- quaintance had already given the alarm, and orders had been issued to seize the Capuchin spy ; but the agents of the Chevreuse hurried to the convent, instead of to the gates, and while everyone was looking for a friar on foot, the fine gentleman on horseback escaped unnoticed. After his return to Paris Rochefort became a more important personage than ever in the Cardinal's household. Richelieu, feeling doubtless that his own end was nearing, desired to re- ward this most faithful of his ad- herents before it became too late. As a result, Rochefort obtained for his brother, Pierre-Antoirie, the rich parish of St. Martin de-Saumont, for three other brothers commissions in the Cardinal's Guards, and for a sister admission without a premium to the convent of Montmartre. Finally, being bidden to ask for himself rather than for his relatives, he ex- pressed a wish for a small pension to secure him against want ; and Richelieu invested in the Bank of Lyons a sum sufficient to ensure him one thousand francs a year for life. An untoward event put a stop to this flood of good fortune. Encounter- 316 The Cardinal's Agent. ing one of the English cavaliers whom he had tricked with his false saddle- plates while carrying the Cardinal's cipher to the Scots insurgents, Roche- fort allowed himself to be drawn into a quarrel, and a duel in the Bois de Boulogne ensued. According to the fashion, the Englishman brought two friends to keep him company with their swords ; and Rochefort invited his two older brothers to perform a like dangerous office. Rochefort suc- ceeded in bringing off his three adver- saries' swords ; but the victory was at the cost of one brother killed on the spot, while the other died soon afterwards of his wounds. Needless to say, Rochefort's stepmother felt the loss of her sons bitterly, and ac- cused him of having seduced them into a duel out of hatred of herself. But the rage of the Cardinal was more to be dreaded, for he abomi- nated duelling; and for the second time Rochefort was forced to hide himself from his patron's presence. This time, however, the term of disgrace was much shorter, and a reconciliation was effected after only three months' concealment. The Cinq Mars episode was at its height, and Richelieu had fallen into disgrace with the King. Suspecting that his enemies were traitorously plotting with Spain, his Eminence sent the forgiven Rochefort to Luxembourg, then a hotbed of in- trigue, to discover if possible who was acting as agent in the Spanish negotiations. Rochefort tramped to Luxenbourg disguised as a beggar, and, to avoid suspicion, scraped an acquaintance with many real mendi- cants upon the way. Arrived in the city, he took up his station in the Rue de Tournon, not far from the house of the Spanish agent. It was not long before he saw the Grand Equerry, Cinq Mars, enter the house ; and this piece of successful espionage gave Richelieu his first positive reason for suspecting the King's arrogant young favourite of treason. Through his gipsy allies Rochefort next learned that papers of importance had been sent into Spain. These, as the Car- dinal guessed, included the treaty signed by the Dukes of Orleans and Bouillon and by Cinq Mars, and for- warded to the Court of Madrid for ratification. This precious document, as we now know, spelled nothing less than the opening of the gates to Spanish invasion, the ruin of Riche- lieu, and the transformation of Cinq Mars into another Buckingham. If only the Cardinal could procure the ratified treaty on its way back from Spain, the King might yet be warned of the truth, and France saved. It was to Rochefort that the Red Duke turned in this dire emergency ; nor did Rochefort disappoint his patron's trust. Learning, probably through gipsy-sources, that the messengers to Cinq Mars were likely to enter France by the coast-road past St. Jean de Luz and Bayonne, he hurried to the latter town and hired himself to an inn- keeper there as a guide for persons posting to and fro. Many weeks passed before any suspicious person presented himself, but Rochefort's vigilance was ceaseless. Day and night he scoured the roads into Spain, os- tensibly looking for travellers in need of guidance across the Adour. No wayfarer went north whose features were not closely scanned ; and many an honest merchant, or sturdy smuggler, had his papers and effects overhauled, while he slept, by Roche- fort or his agents. For a long time no fish came into the net ; but one night the Flemish accent of a lonely courier speeding towards the north aroused the false guide's suspicions. Probably he offered the Fleming his services, and was denied, which would have formed an excellent pretext for The Cardinal's Agent. 317 picking a quarrel. At all events a quarrel there was, out of which the courier came second best ; and quilted in his boots Rochefort discovered the original treaty with Spain, with the signatures of Orleans, Bouillon, De Thou, and Cinq Mars attached. No time was to be lost. The King was at the siege of Perpignan in Roussillon. The Cardinal, practically banished from Court, grievously ill, but still unconquered and undaunted, waited silently in Languedoc. To him went Rochefort as fast as horses could bear him ; and at sight of the incriminating documents the Red Duke rose from his sick-bed, for he knew that once more he held his foes in the hollow of his hand. Hardly had Rochefort time to change his reeking horse for a fresh one, before he was sent at the gallop to the King's camp at Perpignan, with the Spanish treaty enclosed in a reproach- ful letter from Richelieu. History tells us the sequel. Cinq Mars and De Thou were executed as traitors : the Due de Bouillon only escaped death by presenting his principality of Sedan to France ; and the Cardinal came back to Court in triumph. This victory was his last. An unconquer- able enemy was upon him ; and in a little while he passed away, with Rochefort standing by his bedside. " He told me as he lay a-dying," so run the Memoirs, " that he had always loved me above all his followers, and that it grieved him greatly not to have done more for me." Before his death Richelieu sent a message to the King praying him to employ the Vicomte de Rochefort, or at least to see that this trusty servant came to no hurt. Hardly had the breath left the Cardinal's body, when Rochefort was approached by the agents of the Queen and of the Duke of Orleans, offering him employment. He would not trust either, fearing that they only wished to betray him to his arch enemy, Madame de Chevreuse. For a time he attached himself to the young Duke of Richelieu ; but, finding him a very different person from the Cardinal, left his train for that of the Duke of Beaufort. This step brought him into instant dis- favour with the rising star, Mazarin. Setting out from Anet to Paris, in September, 1643, with a message to Beaufort's bankers, he was suddenly arrested and conveyed to the Bastile. The name of the person who effected the arrest was Charles D'Artagnan, then a cadet in the Guards, but afterwards the famous Captain of Musketeers. For nearly six years Rochefort cooled his heels in the Bastile, his stepmother preventing his father and brothers from making any efforts in his behalf. At last, hearing the roar of the Fronde even in his cell, he bribed a certain old book-dealer, who visited the prison, into bringing him a rope. With this he swung himself into the Bastile ditch, swam as best he could through the filthy water, and succeeded in entering Paris through the Porte St. Martin. This exploit was performed under cover of darkness, and Rochefort spent the first hours of his freedom sleeping under a stall in the markets. At daybreak he found a lodging with friends in the Faubourg St. Germain. Paris was in an uproar, barricades and chains being across every street. The Duke of Beaufort, now the idol of the mob, caused a bill of pardon to be passed in favour of Mazarin's late prisoner, and found for him a lieutenancy in the Civic Guard. A week or two later he was back at his old trade of secret agent, sent by the Fronde to Belgium to secure the aid of the Archduke. But here he en- countered Madame de Chevreuse, who 318 The Cardinal's Agent. paid him back her old score by suc- cessfully intriguing against him. Meanwhile il illustrissimo Signor facchino, as Conde nicknamed Mazarin, had been practising a characteristic revenge upon Rochefort. The Vis- count's source of income, the money lodged by Richelieu in the Bank of Lyons, was seized by Bellinzani (the Rochefort of the new regime) upon forged evidences of debt. In order to raise sufficient money to carry the matter before the Privy Council, Rochefort rode to the paternal home in Orleans, but was flouted by his stepmother. He next turned to his brother, the Abbe Pierre-Antoine, whose parish he had been the means of securing. The Abbe kept three packs of hounds, two huntsmen, and a number of horses ; but he could not spare one crown to the brother who had made him what he was. Roche- fort was about to sell his nag and tramp back to Paris, when the village priest on his father's estate, successor to the old man who had taught him to read, came forward voluntarily with a loan of ten pistoles. By the time the Viscount reached Paris, Mazarin had fled with the Queen ; and, through Beaufort's influence the Bank of Lyons was compelled to restore the full sum invested in Rochefort's behalf by his former patron. In the fight at the Porte St. Antoine, on July 2nd, 1652, our hero led a company of the Civic Guard ; but certain events causing him to more than suspect the courage of Beaufort, he took occasion soon afterwards to make peace with the devil, or, in other words, to offer his services to Mazarin. The offer was accepted, and he was sent to Bordeaux to attempt to bring over the Prince de Conti. In taking service under the Signor Facchino, he informs us, he was acting against the earnest advice of two of his closest friends, D'Artagnan and M. de Besmaux (the latter afterwards governor of the Bastile). Both of these worthies warned him that they had served the Cardinal for years without gain or preferment, and that they had scarcely enough to buy their dinner with, let alone what would take them back decently to Gascony. Yet, in spite of sundry periods of disgrace (one of them caused by a frolic highway robbery, then a fashionable after- supper amusement, in which Orleans and the Comte d'Harcourt were ring- leaders,) Rochefort appears to have fared not ill at Mazarin's hands. After a severe duel with M. de Breaute', the Cardinal sent him his own surgeon and a present of five hundred crowns. He was given a troop of horse in Turenne's army, but only served two years, Mazarin send- ing him to Brussels to detach M. de Marsan from the Spanish service. On this delicate mission he was captured by the enemy, and remained a prisoner at Rocroy until delivered by the general peace on November 7th, 1657. Reinstated in favour, he had the misfortune to engage in a fatal duel with one of Mazarin's Italian con- fidants, and was forced to take refuge in a convent (said to have been that of the Capuchins) where he made believe to enter the novitiate. After the Cardinal's death, in March, 1661, he emerged from the cloister, and Louis the Fifteenth, hearing his story through the Comte de Charost, restored to him his troop of horse. At the close of 1663 Rochefort was summoned to the deathbed of his father, and, in spite of his step- mother's endeavours, some sort of reconciliation was effected between the two. After the Count's decease in the following year Cesar entered into possession as heir, and set his seal upon the title-deeds, charters, The Cardinal's Agent. and other papers ; but, to everyone's surprise, his stepmother suddenly produced a number of acknowledg- ments, signed apparently by her late husband, of large loans from her own sons, relatives, and certain lawyers of her acquaintance. The total amount of these alleged debts, curiously enough, tallied almost to a pistole with the Count's estate. Naturally Rochefort took the case to law, but, as his father's signatures were genuine, Madame de St. Point entered into possession of all, save the bare title which remained to her stepson. Not satisfied with this victory, she got Rochefort clapped into prison for the costs of the action, which he could not, or would not, pay. When he was released, it was to go to the Low Countries in the capacity of aide-de-camp to Turenne, and he was recruitipg levies in Alsace when his friend D'Artagnan was killed outside Maestricht, on June 25th, 1673. Rochefort was sixty years of age when Turenne died in 1675 ; but he did not abandon active service until the signing of the Peace of Nimeguen three years later. A small pension from the King, and the income from Richelieu's gift, enabled him to live comfortably, and to cut a modest figure at Court. His stepmother being dead, her sons held out the olive- branch, and acknowledged him as the lawful head of the family. He was soon able to do them an important favour. His eldest nephew, (after- wards Jean-Amedee, Comte de Roche fort-St. Point,) had, through an error of judgment, permitted some Spaniards to slip through his fingers. For this he was court-martialed, and sentenced to be shot. Count Cesar hurried to Paris, and interceded for the young man to such good purpose that Lou- vois gave him a free pardon. And now certain twinges of con- science began to afflict the old gen- tleman ; "I commenced," he says, " to frequent church, and to reflect upon death." For his soul's sake he took a trip to Gueldres, in order to hear a sermon by the famous Capuchin preacher, Father Marc d'Aviceno ; but, unfortunately, while witnessing the arrival of the holy monk, our pilgrim fell from an insecure scaffold- ing and broke his arm badly. Not long after he had two experiences which turned his thoughts more than ever towards religion. In the first place, he fell into the hands of the notorious gambler and blackleg, the Chevalier de Bragellonne, and was. plucked of half a year's income ; in the second, he fell in love, and love at seventy is a serious matter. He was accepted, for he was comfortably off, and could not in the nature of things live very long ; the marriage- day had been fixed, when the aged wooer accidentally discovered that the young lady loved another. With his. usual generosity, he released the girl, presented her with a comfortable dowry, and induced her parents to consent to her union with his rival. " And thus," conclude the Memoirs, "ended this affair, which I should still call unhappy, had it not very much conduced to show me the vanity of earthly things. Indeed, consider- ing that nought is to be met with here, save affliction, crosses, and dis- content, I resolved to do that upon which I had pondered so long. So, at last, I am retired into a monastery > where, burthened with years and depressed with infirmities, I await with patience the good time when it shall please Almighty God to take me to Himself." The religious house in which the shattered Comte de Rochefort found refuge was, according to the anti- quaries, that same convent of the Capuchins in the Rue St. Honore" to. 320 The Cardinal's Agent. which Father Joseph had sent him to prepare for his campaign against Madame de Chevreuse many years before. He did not linger long at this retreat. No doubt his reflec- tions were for the most part upon Heaven and eternity, but it is hard to believe that the man's thoughts did not sometimes stray from the paths of pious meditation, that now and then some flicker of fancy did not light up for him the stirring past. A stern face may have glanced at him from beneath its red biretta, a soldierly figure with spurs jingling under priestly robes may have swept through the penitent's dreams, and brought back memories of Richelieu. And the other Cardinal, Signer Fac- chino of the close fist and furtive eye, did not Rochefort think of him ? Marie Michon de Chevreuse, was she forgotten? Stout Charles D'Artagnan, with his Gascon swagger, came he never to curse Mazarin in the Capu- chin's cell ? Be sure that all of them were there, all the old foes and old friends, to keep Brother Cesar's knees from his priedieu, and to summon forth his blood for a last sortie from its beleaguered citadel. During the early spring of 1687 the Comte de Rochefort died peace- fully in his cell, and was laid to rest among the brethren in the convent- garden of the Rue St. Honore. GERALD BRENAN. MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE. MARCH, 1901.
Миледи: Это два редких и уникальных свидетельства, доказывающих историчность Мемуаров графа де Рошфора Сандра де Куртиля.
Миледи: А вот и сами Мемуары. Качайте PDF with text. http://www.archive.org/details/TheMemoirsOfTheCountDeRochefort
Миледи: Проблема со всем этим: необходимо хорошее знание английского языка! В случае чего я переведу игроку эту информацию.
Миледи: http://francexvii.borda.ru/?1-2-0-00000023-000-0-1-1247098663 На форуме Французский роман плаща и шпаги выложена первая часть Мемуаров, изложенная на английском языке.
Миледи: COURTILZ DE SANDRAS (Gatien de); MЁ¦moires de M. L.C.D.R. (le comte de Rochefort), contenant ce qui s'est passЁ¦ de plus particulier sous le MinistЁЁre du CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU, et du CARDINAL MAZARIN; Avec plusieurs particularitЁ¦s remarquables du rЁЁgne de LOUIS le GRAND. La Haye, Henry van Bulderen, 1689 Согласно этой книге граф де Рошфор - родственник Марильяков. При крещении получил имя Шарль-Сезар, в честь отца. Его мать умерла при родах, и когда его отец женился снова(история второго брака сама по себе напоминает роман, и содержит, среди прочего, пресловутую историю с лилией, отличающуюся от Дюма кое-какими деталями, например, тем, что дама была не из дворян), он был практически заброшен. Ему еще не исполнилось восьми лет, когда он сбежал из дома. Он вступает в цыганский табор, но в конце концов решает, что такая жизнь недостойна дворянина. В 16 лет он поступает в армию простым солдатом. Отличился, поймав важного испанского пленника, за что его начальник, г-н де Аннэ, рекомендует его Ришелье. И Шарль едет в Париж. В этом месте дано описание внешности Рошфора. Он выглядит маленьким и смуглым, его легко принять за испанца. В доме Ришелье он становится пажом, и его верность постоянно испытывается. Например, другой секретный агент Ришелье, де Сов, подговаривает собственную жену соблазнить юного пажа. Та из жалости открыла ему суть интриги, и предупредила, что здесь верить никому нельзя. Как только Ришелье был удовлетворен результатом проверки, он стал давать Рошфору простые поручения. Его посылают с секретными документами в Англию. Там его арестовали, но писем не нашли, он их хорошо спрятал в седле. И довел порученное дело до конца. Главной проверкой было доставить по назначению приказ об аресте часто помогавшего ему его родственника Марильяка. Рошфор понимает, что это опять проверка. Он пытается убедить Ришелье устроить ему другую проверку, но это ему не удается, и он вынужден отвезти приказ об аресте Марильяка куда надо. Следующим поручением было всем известное дело Брюсселя. Было очень много попыток подорвать доверие кардинала к Рошфору. В книге также много рассказывается об отношениях Рошфора с отцом, мачехой и сводными братьями. Что интересно, когда Рошфор вынужден защитить честь кардинала на дуэли, он приглашает в секунданты братьев. Обоих, к сожалению, убили, чего мачеха никогда ему не простит. Еще известное дело, описанное у Джулии Пардо, это то, как Рошфор помог раскрыть заговор Сен-Мара. Он случайно узнает на улице человека, которого видел в Брюсселе. Он переодевается нищим калекой и три дня караулит на той же улице, пока не узнает этого человека в компании с другим, в котором узнают Сен-Мара. Рошфору велят следить за этим человеком. Рошфор едет следом, и в подошве его башмаков находит оригинал договора с Испанией, подписанный от имени герцога Орлеанского. Он везет договор к кардиналу, тот посылает его с ним к королю, и изменников арестовывают. Затем кардинал умирает, и для Рошфора наступили черные дни. Больше такой удачи у него не будет никогда. И в Бастилию он на 6 лет попадет, и будет разорен. И кончит жизнь в капуцинском монастыре на улице Сент-Оноре. В целом книга куда сильнее Мемуаров д'Артаньяна. Здесь больше психологии и отношений. И видно, как щедр к нему кардинал, к нему и его родичам. И они становятся так близки, что Ришелье обращается к нему на "ты", кроме тех случаев, когда он на него сердит. здесь английский пересказ, послуживший первоисточником.
Рошфор: Моя благодарность за эту тему. Надеюсь с ее помощью побольше узнать о собственном герое.
Миледи: Сделано специально для Вас! Это редкая информация, с трудом добытая через университет.
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