古典文学-三个火枪手.pdfVIP

您下载的该文件来自久久TXT下载 Chapter 1 - The Three Presents of M. D’Artagnan the Elder On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the bourg of Meung, in which the author of the Romance of the Rose was born, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second Rochelle of it. Many citizens, seeing the women flying towards the High Street, leaving their children crying at the open doors, hastened to don the cuirass, and, supporting their somewhat uncertain courage with a musket or a partizan, directed their steps towards the hostelry of the Franc Meunier, before which was gathered, increasing every minute, a compact group, vociferous and full of curiosity. In those times panics were common, and few days passed without some city or other enregistered in its archives an event of this kind. There were nobles, who made war against one another; there was the king, who made war against the cardinal; there was Spain, who made war against the king. Then in addition to these concealed or public, secret or patent wars, there were robbers, mendicants, Huguenots, wolves, and scoundrels, who made war upon everybody. The citizens always took up arms against thieves, wolves, or scoundrels, often against nobles or Huguenots, sometimes against the king, but never against the cardinal or Spain. It resulted, therefore, from this habit, that on the said first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the citizens, on hearing the clamour, and seeing neither the red and yellow standard nor the livery of the Duc de Richelieu, rushed toward the hostelry of the Franc-Meunier. On reaching there the cause of this hubbub was apparent to all. A young man—we can sketch his portrait at a dash: imagine Don Quixote at eighteen; Don Quixote without his corselet, without his coat of mail, without his cuisses; Don Quixote clothed in a woollen doublet the blue colour of which had faded into a nameless shade between lees of wine and a heavenly azu