In Chapter 13, we find out that Constance Bonacieux is only twenty-three years old; since she is married to a fifty-one-year-old stingy, selfish husband, she would naturally make a likely candidate for a love affair with d’Artagnan, especially since we also learn that her husband thinks of his love for his wife as being secondary to his love for money and influence. Bonacieux is thus an easy prey for the powerful cardinal, and he quickly becomes the cardinal’s dupe. Later, when Constance asks him to do a service for the queen, he will not consent to it; thus, she turns to our hero, d’Artagnan, and asks him to perform this crucial deed for the queen.
In his questioning of Monsieur Bonacieux, the cardinal is seen to have an acute sense of the intrigues of the court. He knows that the duke of Buckingham is in Paris, and he is able to discover where both the duke and Madame de Chevreuse are staying—that is, in the houses that Constance Bonacieux often visited, pretending to her husband that she was visiting “tradesmen.” Through his spies, the cardinal is able to deduce that the queen gave Buckingham the rosewood box containing the diamond tags. Knowing this, he requests the king to give a ball and demand that the queen wear the diamond tags. This demand, as we soon will see, will require d’Artagnan to go on his first adventure. He will have to get the diamond tags and return them to the queen before the date of the ball, a date which the cardinal sets as soon has he hears that his spy, Milady, has stolen two of the diamond tags—snipped them off while she was dancing with Buckingham.
In an earlier chapter, when d’Artagnan helped get a message to Monsieur de La Porte, the gentleman told d’Artagnan to find someone with a slow clock who could provide him with an alibi. D’Artagnan went to see Treville and reset his clock; now, when Treville has to give his word of honor that d’Artagnan was with him at a precise hour, he can do so—fully believing that he is telling the truth. Consequently, d’Artagnan is freed from all accusations by the cardinal.
Until Chapter 16, the reader might have wondered why the queen is such an enemy of the cardinal. It has been suggested that there are two reasons: (1) she is Spanish and Spain is France’s enemy, and (2) she loves Buckingham, an Englishman, and England is an enemy of France. However, in Chapter 16, the real reason appears: “. . . the queen [Anne of Austria] was persecuted by the cardinal because he could not forgive her for having rejected his amorous advances.”
Because of the cardinal’s accusations about Anne’s affair with Buckingham, the king is certain that his wife is untrue. He orders that her person be searched, and in those days, a gentleman’s having his wife searched for a love letter was a dastardly thing, but a king having the queen searched was beyond comprehension. Thus, the cardinal, whose rumors cleverly prompt the search, now urges the king to be reconciled with the queen. Cunningly, he suggests a festive ball so that the queen will have to wear the diamond tags, which he feels sure are in the possession of the duke of Buckingham. Now the trap for the queen is set, and to counteract this trap, d’Artagnan will have to undertake the journey to recover the diamond tags and return them to the queen.
