"You don't know what it's like to have a son!"
D'Artagnan stood at the window of his room in the Louvre staring into the night. Athos had hurled the phrase at him this afternoon without the slightest idea of how wrong he was. The Captain of the Musketeers could not blame his old friend for that.
Athos was full of pain and anguish right now, for it appeared that the king was sending his beloved son Raoul to his death. But above all, he could not have known what Charles d'Artagnan, Captain of the Kings Musketeers, and queen-mother Anne d'Autriche had carefully hidden from the world for 24 years:
D'Artagnan had a son.
Louis XIV, King of France.
The man who had not directly condemned Athos' son to death, but who would have sent him to this fate aware of the potential outcome and presumably intending it. D'Artagnan closed his eyes. He hoped that his conversation with the king had achieved something. For Raoul's sake, but also for Louis'.
"You don't know what it's like to have a son!"
Athos was not the only one who feared for his son. D'Artagnan too was afraid, not only for Louis' life, but also for his soul. He could not help but comparing the two young men. Raoul, who was in every way and by all rights his father's pride and joy. Louis, of whom an honest father could only be ashamed. To love Raoul was easy. Loving Louis was something that probably only his father and mother could do.
How had it come to this?
Viewed superficially, Raoul had had a much worse start in life. He had grown up alone with his father in rather modest circumstances. Louis had grown up in a palace, surrounded by glamour and staff with his mother and no less than two fathers.
And that was probably where the problem originated.
Raoul had always been able to rely completely on his father's love and support. The family didn't have much, but Athos would have given everything for his son and Raoul knew that.
D'Artagnan, too, would have given everything for his son. But Louis did not know that. Worse, he was not even to suspect his true parentage. His official father, the old King Louis XIII, had always been fickle in his affections. As a young man, d'Artagnan had adored the monarch, but as time went by, he could not ignore the king's flaws. He had not been a bad man, but a weak one, prone to jealousy and listening to all sorts of whisperers.
D'Artagnan had always thought it a result of royal jealousy of a young child that Louis had been snatched early from his mother's care and placed in the hands of educators, most of whom seemed more concerned with their personal advancement than with their little protégé. To them the young dauphin was no more than a valuable pawn in the perpetual struggle for power and influence at the royal court. The fact that the crown prince was also a little boy was more of an annoyance to them.
Sometimes they neglected him so much that Louis' life had been in danger. Once, d'Artagnan had pulled the four-year-old out of a pond at the last second because the people whose duty it would have been to look after the child had obviously had better things to do. D'Artagnan still shuddered at the thought of how close his son had been to losing his life.
Later, the older boys at court had made a sport of ambushing the little dauphin and giving him what they called a "friendly thrashing". D'Artagnan never knew whether it was out of jealousy of the crown prince and future king, out of pure malice or because they wanted to boast about this feat later on - and if he was honest, he didn't care either. No one should take advantage of a defenceless, smaller child. Especially not his child. He had to use all his self-control not to give the other boys a good thrashing. For that would hardly have done Louis any good.
Louis' educators and the king did not think that the young prince needed protection in this respect. In their opinion, arguments among children strengthened character. They seemed to completely ignore the fact that the attackers were usually twice as big and strong.
Athos had never had such problems. Anyone who dared to hurt Raoul would have had to deal with a very angry musketeer. Raoul knew that as did everyone else. At court, everyone knew that they only had to wait for the right moment. How often had d'Artagnan listened to the tearful revenge fantasies of the humiliated child? How often had little Louis told to him about his phantasies on how he would punish the bad people and reward the good ones when he would be king one day? How often had d'Artagnan cursed his own lack of power?
He had done everything within his means. He had himself assigned to guard duty with the crown prince whenever possible. He taught Louis how to defend himself. He taught him the tricks of a proper street fight. There were moments when they had fun together and were not only father and son by blood, but it felt like it. But these precious moments were far too rare.
"You never kissed his hair or watched over his sleep."
Athos was right about that, d'Artagnan noted bitterly; he had never been allowed to experience all those moments. He always had to carefully keep a proper distance. How he would have liked to take Louis in his arms for once. But a musketeer did not take the Prince of France in his arms, no matter how little he might be. The danger was too great that this innocent gesture would turn the king against him and perhaps banish him from Louis' presence forever.
Like the lives of everyone else at court, Louis' life had always been focused on the king. He wanted to please him at all costs. But royal affection was fickle. If today the king was delighted that Louis greeted him cheerily in front of everyone, tomorrow he found it annoying. Where today he showered Louis with attention and gifts, tomorrow he ignored him and allowed for others to take the gifts away from the child. D'Artagnan suffered silently every time his little boy obviously struggled with tears because he had once again fallen into royal disgrace and had no idea why. If the king or the educators noticed the child's unhappiness, they punished him even more.
There had been Louis' seventh birthday, for example. The king had given the prince a magnificent little sword and a music box for his birthday. Louis adored both gifts. He proudly walked around with his sword and excitedly arranged to meet d'Artagnan for a fencing lesson. The next day, the sword adorned the belt of the Marquis de Malfoy's son. Once again, D'Artagnan had had to summon all his self-control not to snatch the sword from the smugly grinning twelve-year-old. But when the king saw that his son had "passed on" his gift, he had also taken the music box away from him in disappointment.
D'Artagnan would have loved to take his heartbroken child in his arms and run away with him. Instead, he could only try to ease the child's lot as best he could with his limited means.
D'Artagnan smiled a little as he remembered that his own gift, a small, chubby wooden horse that had reminded him of Louis's pony, was still among the king's possessions.
As a matter of fact, he had seriously contemplated the idea of running away more than once. What father could stand by and watch his child suffer like that? But he knew it would never have worked. They would have chased the Crown Prince and his captor to the ends of the world and beyond. And so, he had no choice but to watch over the dauphin, as the king's musketeer.
And he could not leave Anne.
Anne. D'Artagnan's smile deepened at the thought of the woman who was the mother of his child and love of his life. It was a wistful smile. The queen had been even more helpless than he. She had devoted herself to her son with much love and affection until the king, in his jealousy, had decided to remove the child from his mother's ostensibly harmful and pampering grasp. In their worst nightmares, Anne and d'Artagnan feared that the king in some way suspected that something was off with his alleged paternity and took revenge in this way.
Be that as it may, the little boy had been taken from his mother's sphere at a terribly young age, and all the pleading and entreaty on Anne's part had not been able to change the king's decision. In fact, d'Artagnan had been allowed to be even closer to his son than Anne - after all, he was not a pernicious female influence.
Clementine, the old nanny, had reported that Louis cried for nights on end after being separated from his mother. The distraught little child had not been able to understand what had happened and naturally felt abandoned by his beloved mother. He had wet himself again - and had, of course, been severely punished for it by his piqued guardians.
Anne had confided in d'Artagnan, she feared that Louis had never really forgiven her for the betrayal he must have felt.
As Louis grew up, the tormented child turned into an angry adolescent. Everything tender and vulnerable had been ground away from him and he had acquired a hard shell of arrogance and cruelty. He could be charming and kind when he thought he was better off for it, but his parents saw that it was just a façade. It hurt them to see what had become of their little boy. They continued to love him undiminished, but they were not blind. Where Louis had been tormented before, he was now cruel himself. Where Louis had never been able to rely on the people around him, he now proved himself to be fickle in his relationships with others. Where he had always been taken from, he now took without restraint. He constantly made sure that he was not taken advantage of or set back, that no one took what he considered to be rightfully his.
He only showed respect to the king and occasionally to d'Artagnan.
D'Artagnan had supervised the Dauphin's riding and fencing lessons. In the long hours they spent together he sometimes felt he was discovering in Louis something of the young man he believed his son to be deep inside. Occasionally the Dauphin surprised him with sensitive insights or progressive plans for the time when he himself would be king. His quick perception and great skill never failed to amaze his father.
D'Artagnan saw all that his son could have become if only he were not to be constantly poisoned. In fact, he still believed that Louis could one day become the person and king he dreamt of.
"Am I a fool to still hope?" he asked the darkness outside the window.
Athos had given up on the king. D'Artagnan couldn't. He wouldn't, even though Louis had disappointed him time and time again and had let every chance go to waste so far.
The darkness outside the window did not answer. Instead, he saw only the distorted reflection of his own face in the windowpane.
He had been hoping for so long now.
As a Frenchman, and especially as a king's musketeer, d'Artagnan should not have rejoiced at the death of his monarch. As a father, he had been relieved when the old king died. Louis had been eighteen years old and perhaps now he would finally be at peace.
But everything went worse. Louis appeared to his father like a drowning man, flailing helplessly in his panic, pushing away any potentially helping hand. He was sure that it was not only the burden of kingship that weighed on the young man. Something had happened shortly before the old king died. D'Artagnan still remembered how Anne and Louis had been summoned to the dying king. When they came out, they had both been pale, but while something like cautious joy had shone through under Anne's pallor, pure panic had been visible in Louis' face.
After the king's funeral, mother and son had had a heated argument and after that it seemed that all was lost. Louis had closed himself off even further from everyone, while Anne now seemed estranged from her son for the first time in her life. Sometimes it almost seemed to d'Artagnan that his son was doing everything he could to destroy himself.
If this king kills my son to take a mistress, then this king will be my enemy.
Bitter as it was, he could understand that Athos hated and despised Louis. To his old friend, Louis was the almighty king who cruelly and wantonly destroyed lives. And he was probably right. But to d'Artagnan, Louis was not only his king, but he was also his son. He would do anything to save him and if he couldn't protect him from himself, he would protect him from everyone else.
Then this king will be my enemy and anyone who comes between him and me.
Athos had threatened that if Raoul died, he would consider Louis and anyone who stayed by his side his enemy. Simply because Louis was a monster in his eyes.
D'Artagnan knew if he had to, he would kill his best friend, as well as anyone else who got too close to Louis. Simply because Louis was his son.
