Chapter 60

Chapter LX
The Last Canto of the Poem
On the morrow all the nobility of the provinces, of the environs, and from wherever messengers had carried the news, were seen to arrive. D’Artagnan had shut himself up, unwilling to speak to anybody. Two such heavy deaths falling upon the captain so closely after the death of Porthos, for a long time oppressed that spirit which had hitherto been so indefatigable and invulnerable. Except Grimaud, who entered his chamber once, the musketeer saw neither servants nor guests. He supposed, from the noises in the house and the continual coming and going, that preparations were making for the funeral of the count. He wrote to the King to ask for an extension of his leave of absence. Grimaud, as we have said, had entered d’Artagnan’s apartment, had seated himself upon a joint stool near the door, like a man who meditates profoundly; then, rising, he made a sign to d’Artagnan to follow him. The latter obeyed in silence. Grimaud descended to the count’s bed-chamber, showed the captain with his finger the place of the empty bed, and raised his eyes eloquently towards Heaven.

“Yes,” replied d’Artagnan; “yes, good Grimaud,- now with the son he loved so much!”

Grimaud left the chamber and led the way to the hall where, according to the custom of the province, the body was laid out previously to its being buried forever. D’Artagnan was struck at seeing two open coffins in the hall. In reply to the mute invitation of Grimaud, he approached and saw in one of them Athos, still handsome in death, and in the other Raoul, with his eyes closed, his cheeks pearly as those of the Pallas of Virgil, with a smile on his violet lips. He shuddered at seeing the father and son, those two departed souls, represented on earth by two silent, melancholy bodies, incapable of touching each other, however close they might be. “Raoul here?” murmured he; “oh, Grimaud, why did you not tell me this?”

Grimaud shook his head and made no reply; but taking d’Artagnan by the hand, he led him to the coffin and showed him under the thin winding-sheet the black wounds by which life had escaped. The captain turned away his eyes, and judging it useless to question Grimaud, who would not answer, he recollected that M. de Beaufort’s secretary had written more than he, d’Artagnan, had had the courage to read. Taking up the recital of the affair which had cost Raoul his life, he found these words, which terminated the last paragraph of the letter:-

“Monsieur the Duke has ordered that the body of Monsieur the Viscount should be embalmed, after the manner practised by the Arabs when they wish their bodies to be carried to their native land; and Monsieur the Duke has appointed relays, so that a confidential servant who had brought up the young man might take back his remains to