Rescue of Madame Bonacieux

D'Artagnan's rescue of Constance Bonacieux from the mousetrap in her own home is the first decisive victory in his personal war against Cardinal Richelieu's police, and the event that transforms a chance encounter into a bond of love and mutual obligation between the young Gascon and the queen's seamstress.

The Mousetrap and the Escape

For days after the arrest of Monsieur Bonacieux, the cardinal's men had turned the mercer's ground-floor apartment into a mousetrap: anyone who knocked was seized and interrogated. D'Artagnan, lodging directly above, had converted his own chamber into an observatory, removing a floorboard to listen to the interrogations below. On the evening of the rescue, at about nine o'clock, a knocking at the street door was followed by the sound of a woman being taken. D'Artagnan heard cries and then moans that were being stifled. Recognizing the voice of Constance Bonacieux, he sprang up from the floor, seized his sword, and ordered Planchet to run and fetch Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Rather than wait, he let himself down from his first-story window, landed without injury, and knocked at the door of the mousetrap, murmuring that he would go himself to be caught but that woe be to the cats who pounced on such a mouse.

The Fight and the Victory

The moment the door opened, d'Artagnan rushed in, sword in hand. The four men in black—only one of whom was armed—were taken by surprise. D'Artagnan's blade inflicted two or three scratches, and within ten minutes the agents fled, leaving patches of their clothes and fragments of their cloaks on the furniture. The neighbors, accustomed to the perpetual riots of Paris, closed their windows as soon as they saw the four men in black flee. D'Artagnan remained master of the field of battle, alone with the half-fainting Constance.

The Recognition and the Flight

Examining Constance, d'Artagnan saw a charming woman of twenty-five or twenty-six with dark hair, blue eyes, and a complexion marbled with rose and opal. He also noticed on the ground a fine cambric handkerchief with the same cipher he had seen on the handkerchief that had nearly caused a duel between himself and Aramis; he discreetly placed it in her pocket. When Constance recovered her senses, she thanked him and explained that she had escaped her abductors by letting herself down from a window with the help of sheets, and had come home hoping to find her husband. D'Artagnan told her that her husband had been taken to the Bastille the previous evening. Realizing the danger of remaining, they fled together through the dark streets, eventually taking refuge in Athos's empty apartment in the Rue Ferou, where d'Artagnan left her with instructions to open the door only to a specific triple knock.

The Aftermath and the Alibi

D'Artagnan then went to the Louvre, where he used the password "Tours" and "Bruxelles" to contact Germain, who fetched Laporte, the queen's valet de chambre. Laporte advised d'Artagnan to establish an alibi by visiting someone whose clock was slow. D'Artagnan immediately went to Monsieur de Treville's, where he set the clock back three-quarters of an hour, claiming he had come at twenty-five minutes past nine. Treville, deceived, thanked him for his information about the queen's safety. D'Artagnan then reset the clock before leaving, securing a witness to prove he had been elsewhere at the time of the rescue.