Chapter 2

Chapter II:
A Letter from M. Baisemeaux.

D'Artagnan, faithful to his plan, went the very next morning to pay a
visit to M. de Baisemeaux. It was cleaning up or tidying day at the
Bastile; the cannons were furbished up, the staircases scraped and
cleaned; and the jailers seemed to be carefully engaged in polishing the
very keys. As for the soldiers belonging to the garrison, they were
walking about in different courtyards, under the pretense that they were
clean enough. The governor, Baisemeaux, received D'Artagnan with more
than ordinary politeness, but he behaved towards him with so marked a
reserve of manner, that all D'Artagnan's tact and cleverness could not
get a syllable out of him. The more he kept himself within bounds, the
more D'Artagnan's suspicion increased. The latter even fancied he
remarked that the governor was acting under the influence of a recent
recommendation. Baisemeaux had not been at the Palais Royal with
D'Artagnan the same cold and impenetrable man which the latter now found
in the Baisemeaux of the Bastile. When D'Artagnan wished to make him
talk about the urgent money matters which had brought Baisemeaux in
search of D'Artagnan, and had rendered him expansive, notwithstanding
what had passed on that evening, Baisemeaux pretended that he had some
orders to give in the prison, and left D'Artagnan so long alone waiting
for him, that our musketeer, feeling sure that he should not get another
syllable out of him, left the Bastile without waiting until Baisemeaux
returned from his inspection. But D'Artagnan's suspicions were aroused,
and when once that was the case, D'Artagnan could not sleep or remain
quiet for a moment. He was among men what the cat is among quadrupeds,
the emblem of anxiety and impatience, at the same moment. A restless cat
can no more remain the same place than a silk thread wafted idly to and
fro with every breath of air. A cat on the watch is as motionless as
death stationed at is place of observation, and neither hunger nor thirst
can draw it from its meditations. D'Artagnan, who was burning with
impatience, suddenly threw aside the feeling, like a cloak which he felt
too heavy on his shoulders, and said to himself that that which they were
concealing from him was the very thing it was important he should know;
and, consequently, he reasoned that Baisemeaux would not fail to put
Aramis on his guard, if Aramis had given him any particular
recommendation, and this was, in fact, the very thing that happened.

Baisemeaux had hardly had time to return from the donjon, than D'Artagnan
placed himself in ambuscade close to the Rue de Petit-Musc, so as to see
every one who might leave the gates of the Bastile. After he had spent
an hour on the look-out from the