41. The Recital
The maliciousness of the cardinal did not leave much for the ambassador to say; nevertheless, the word “restoration” had struck the king, who, addressing the comte, upon whom his eyes had been fixed since his entrance,—“Monsieur,” said he, “will you have the kindness to give us some details concerning the affairs of England. You come from that country, you are a Frenchman, and the orders which I see glittering upon your person announce you to be a man of merit as well as a man of quality.”
“Monsieur,” said the cardinal, turning towards the queen-mother, “is an ancient servant of your majesty’s, Monsieur le Comte de la Fere.”
Anne of Austria was as oblivious as a queen whose life had been mingled with fine and stormy days. She looked at Mazarin, whose evil smile promised her something disagreeable; then she solicited from Athos, by another look, an explanation.
“Monsieur,” continued the cardinal, “was a Tréville musketeer, in the service of the late king. Monsieur is well acquainted with England, whither he has made several voyages at various periods; he is a subject of the highest merit.”
These words made allusion to all the memories which Anne of Austria trembled to evoke. England, that was her hatred of Richelieu and her love for Buckingham; a Tréville musketeer, that was the whole Odyssey of the triumphs which had made the heart of the young woman throb, and of the dangers which had been so near overturning the throne of the young queen. These words had much power, for they rendered mute and attentive all the royal personages, who, with very various sentiments, set about recomposing at the same time the mysteries which the young had not seen, and which the old had believed to be forever effaced.
“Speak, monsieur,” said Louis XIV., the first to escape from troubles, suspicions, and remembrances.
“Yes, speak,” added Mazarin, to whom the little malicious thrust directed against Anne of Austria had restored energy and gayety.
“Sire,” said the comte, “a sort of miracle has changed the whole destiny of Charles II. That which men, till that time, had been unable to do, God resolved to accomplish.”
Mazarin coughed while tossing about in his bed.
“King Charles II.,” continued Athos, “left the Hague neither as a fugitive nor a conqueror, but as an absolute king, who, after a distant voyage from his kingdom, returns amidst universal benedictions.”
“A great miracle, indeed,” said Mazarin; “for, if the news was true, King Charles II., who has just returned amidst benedictions, went away amidst musket-shots.”
The king remained impassible. Philip, younger and more frivolous, could not repress a smile, which flattered Mazarin as an applause of his pleasantry.
“It is plain,” said the king, “there is a miracle; but God, who does so much for kings, monsieur le comte, nevertheless employs the hand of man to bring about the triumph of His designs. To what men does Charles II. principally owe his re-establishment?”
“Why,” interrupted Mazarin, without any regard for the king’s pride—“does not your majesty know that it is to M. Monk?”
“I ought to know it,” replied Louis XIV., resolutely; “and yet I ask my lord ambassador the causes of the change in this General Monk?”
“And your majesty touches precisely the question,” replied Athos, “for without the miracle of which I have had the honor to speak, General Monk would probably have remained an implacable enemy of Charles II. God willed that a strange, bold, and ingenious idea should enter into the mind of a certain man, whilst a devoted and courageous idea took possession of the mind of another man. The combinations of these two ideas brought about such a change in the position of M. Monk, that, from an inveterate enemy, he became a friend to the deposed king.”
“These are exactly the details I asked for,” said the king. “Who and what are the two men of whom you speak?”
“Two Frenchmen, sire.”
“Indeed! I am glad of that.”
“And the two ideas,” said Mazarin;—“I am more curious about ideas than about men, for my part.”
“Yes,” murmured the king.
“The second idea, the devoted, reasonable idea—the least important, sir—was to go and dig up a million in gold, buried by King Charles I. at Newcastle, and to purchase with that gold the adherence of Monk.”
“Oh, oh!” said Mazarin, reanimated by the word million. “But Newcastle was at the time occupied by Monk.”
“Yes, monsieur le cardinal, and that is why I venture to call the idea courageous as well as devoted. It was necessary, if Monk refused the offers of the negotiator, to reinstate King Charles II. in possession of this million, which was to be torn, as it were, from the loyalty and not the royalism of General Monk. This was effected in spite of many difficulties: the general proved to be loyal, and allowed the money to be taken away.”
“It seems to me,” said the timid, thoughtful king, “that Charles II. could not have known of this million whilst he was in Paris.”
“It seems to me,” rejoined the cardinal, maliciously, “that his majesty the king of Great Britain knew perfectly well of this million, but that he preferred having two millions to having one.”
“Sire,” said Athos, firmly, “the king of England, whilst in France, was so poor that he had not even money to take the post; so destitute of hope that he frequently thought of dying. He was so entirely ignorant of the existence of the million at Newcastle, that but for a gentleman—one of your majesty’s subjects—the moral depositary of the million, who revealed the secret to King Charles II., that prince would still be vegetating in the most cruel forgetfulness.”
“Let us pass on to the strange, bold and ingenious idea,” interrupted Mazarin, whose sagacity foresaw a check. “What was that idea?”
“This—M. Monk formed the only obstacle to the re-establishment of the fallen king. A Frenchman imagined the idea of suppressing this obstacle.”
“Oh! oh! but he is a scoundrel, that Frenchman,” said Mazarin, “and the idea is not so ingenious as to prevent its author being tied up by the neck at the Place de Greve, by decree of the parliament.”
“Your eminence is mistaken,” replied Athos, dryly; “I did not say that the Frenchman in question had resolved to assassinate M. Monk, but only to suppress him. The words of the French language have a value which the gentlemen of France know perfectly. Besides, this is an affair of war; and when men serve kings against their enemies they are not to be condemned by a parliament—God is their judge. This French gentleman, then, formed the idea of gaining possession of the person of Monk, and he executed his plan.”
The king became animated at the recital of great actions. The king’s younger brother struck the table with his hand, exclaiming, “Ah! that is fine!”
“He carried off Monk?” said the king. “Why, Monk was in his camp.”
“And the gentleman was alone, sire.”
“That is marvelous!” said Philip.
“Marvelous, indeed!” cried the king.
“Good! There are the two little lions unchained,” murmured the cardinal. And with an air of spite, which he did not dissemble: “I am unacquainted with these details, will you guarantee their authenticity, monsieur?”
“All the more easily, my lord cardinal, from having seen the events.”
“You have?”
“Yes, monseigneur.”
The king had involuntarily drawn close to the count, the Duc d’Anjou had turned sharply round, and pressed Athos on the other side.
“What next? monsieur, what next?” cried they both at the same time.
“Sire, M. Monk, being taken by the Frenchman, was brought to King Charles II., at the Hague. The king gave back his freedom to Monk, and the grateful general, in return, gave Charles II. the throne of Great Britain, for which so many valiant men had fought in vain.”
Philip clapped his hands with enthusiasm; Louis XIV., more reflective, turned towards the Comte de la Fere.
“Is this true,” said he, “in all its details?”
“Absolutely true, sire.”
“That one of my gentlemen knew the secret of the million, and kept it?”
“Yes, sire.”
“The name of that gentleman?”
“It was your humble servant,” said Athos, simply, and bowing.
A murmur of admiration made the heart of Athos swell with pleasure. He had reason to be proud, at least. Mazarin, himself, had raised his arms towards heaven.
“Monsieur,” said the king, “I shall seek, and find means to reward you.” Athos made a movement. “Oh, not for your honesty, to be paid for that would humiliate you, but I owe you a reward for having participated in the restoration of my brother, King Charles II.”
“Certainly,” said Mazarin.
“It is the triumph of a good cause which fills the whole house of France with joy,” said Anne of Austria.
“I continue,” said Louis XIV. “Is it also true that a single man penetrated to Monk, in his camp, and carried him off?”
“That man had ten auxiliaries, taken from a very inferior rank.”
“And nothing but them?”
“Nothing more.”
“And he is named?”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan, formerly lieutenant of the musketeers of your majesty.”
Anne of Austria colored; Mazarin became yellow with shame; Louis XIV. was deeply thoughtful, and a drop of moisture fell from his pale brow. “What men!” murmured he. And, involuntarily, he darted a glance at the minister which would have terrified him, if Mazarin, at the moment, had not concealed his head under his pillow.
“Monsieur,” said the young Duc d’Anjou, placing his hand, delicate and white as that of a woman, upon the arm of Athos, “tell that brave man, I beg you, that Monsieur, brother of the king, will to-morrow drink his health before five hundred of the best gentlemen of France.” And, on finishing these words, the young man, perceiving that his enthusiasm had deranged one of his ruffles, set to work to put it to rights with the greatest care imaginable.
“Let us resume business, sire,” interrupted Mazarin who never was enthusiastic, and who wore no ruffles.
“Yes, monsieur,” replied Louis XIV. “Pursue your communication, monsieur le comte,” added he, turning towards Athos.
Athos immediately began and offered in due form the hand of the Princess Henrietta Stuart to the young prince, the king’s brother. The conference lasted an hour; after which the doors of the chamber were thrown open to the courtiers, who resumed their places as if nothing had been kept from them in the occupations of that evening. Athos then found himself again with Raoul, and the father and son were able to clasp each other’s hands.
42. In which Mazarin becomes Prodigal
Whilst Mazarin was endeavoring to recover from the serious alarm he had just experienced, Athos and Raoul were exchanging a few words in a corner of the apartment. “Well, here you are at Paris, then, Raoul?” said the comte.
“Yes, monsieur, since the return of M. le Prince.”
“I cannot converse freely with you here, because we are observed; but I shall return home presently, and shall expect you as soon as your duty permits.”
Raoul bowed, and, at that moment, M. le Prince came up to them. The prince had that clear and keen look which distinguishes birds of prey of the noble species; his physiognomy itself presented several distinct traits of this resemblance. It is known that in the Prince de Conde, the aquiline nose rose out sharply and incisively from a brow slightly retreating, rather low than high, and according to the railers of the court,—a pitiless race even for genius,—constituted rather an eagle’s beak than a human nose, in the heir of the illustrious princes of the house of Conde. This penetrating look, this imperious expression of the whole countenance generally disturbed those to whom the prince spoke, more than either majesty or regular beauty could have done in the conqueror of Rocroy. Besides this, the fire mounted so suddenly to his projecting eyes, that with the prince every sort of animation resembled passion. Now, on account of his rank, everybody at the court respected M. le Prince, and many even, seeing only the man, carried their respect as far as terror.
Louis de Conde then advanced towards the Comte de la Fere and Raoul, with the marked intention of being saluted by the one, and of speaking to the other. No man bowed with more reserved grace than the Comte de la Fere. He disdained to put into a salutation all the shades which a courtier ordinarily borrows from the same color—the desire to please. Athos knew his own personal value, and bowed to the prince like a man, correcting by something sympathetic and undefinable that which might have appeared offensive to the pride of the highest rank in the inflexibility of his attitude. The prince was about to speak to Raoul. Athos forestalled him. “If M. le Vicomte de Bragelonne,” said he, “were not one of the humble servants of your royal highness, I would beg him to pronounce my name before you—mon prince.”
“I have the honor to address Monsieur le Comte de la Fere,” said Conde instantly.
“My protector,” added Raoul, blushing.
“One of the most honorable men in the kingdom,” continued the prince; “one of the first gentlemen of France, and of whom I have heard so much that I have frequently desired to number him among my friends.”
“An honour of which I should be unworthy,” replied Athos, “but for the respect and admiration I entertain for your royal highness.”
“Monsieur de Bragelonne,” said the prince, “is a good officer, and it is plainly seen that he has been to a good school. Ah, monsieur le comte, in your time, generals had soldiers!”
“That is true, my lord, but nowadays soldiers have generals.”
This compliment, which savored so little of flattery, gave a thrill of joy to the man whom already Europe considered a hero; and who might be thought to be satiated with praise.
“I regret very much,” continued the prince, “that you should have retired from the service, monsieur le comte, for it is more than probable that the king will soon have a war with Holland or England, and opportunities for distinguishing himself would not be wanting for a man who, like you, knows Great Britain as well as you do France.”
“I believe I may say, monseigneur, that I have acted wisely in retiring from the service,” said Athos, smiling. “France and Great Britain will henceforward live like two sisters, if I can trust my presentiments.”
“Your presentiments?”
“Stop, monseigneur, listen to what is being said yonder, at the table of my lord the cardinal.”
“Where they are playing?”
“Yes, my lord.”
The cardinal had just raised himself on one elbow, and made a sign to the king’s brother, who went to him.
“My lord,” said the cardinal, “pick up, if you please, all those gold crowns.” And he pointed to the enormous pile of yellow and glittering pieces which the Comte de Guiche had raised by degrees before him by a surprising run of luck at play.
“For me?” cried the Duc d’Anjou.
“Those fifty thousand crowns; yes, monseigneur, they are yours.”
“Do you give them to me?”
“I have been playing on your account, monseigneur,” replied the cardinal, getting weaker and weaker, as if this effort of giving money had exhausted all his physical and moral faculties.
“Oh, good heavens!” exclaimed Philip, wild with joy, “what a fortunate day!” And he himself, making a rake of his fingers, drew a part of the sum into his pockets, which he filled, and still full a third remained on the table.
“Chevalier,” said Philip to his favorite, the Chevalier de Lorraine, “come hither, chevalier.” The favorite quickly obeyed. “Pocket the rest,” said the young prince.
This singular scene was considered by the persons present only as a touching kind of family fete. The cardinal assumed the airs of a father with the sons of France, and the two young princes had grown up under his wing. No one then imputed to pride, or even impertinence, as would be done nowadays, this liberality on the part of the first minister. The courtiers were satisfied with envying the prince.—The king turned away his head.
“I never had so much money before,” said the young prince, joyously, as he crossed the chamber with his favorite to go to his carriage. “No, never! What a weight these crowns are!”
“But why has monsieur le cardinal given all this money at once?” asked M. le Prince of the Comte de la Fere. “He must be very ill, the dear cardinal!”
“Yes, my lord, very ill; without doubt; he looks very ill, as your royal highness may perceive.”
“But surely he will die of it. A hundred and fifty thousand crowns! Oh, it is incredible! But, comte tell me a reason for it?”
“Patience, monseigneur, I beg of you. Here comes M. le Duc d’Anjou, talking with the Chevalier de Lorraine; I should not be surprised if they spared us the trouble of being indiscreet. Listen to them.”
In fact the chevalier said to the prince in a low voice, “My lord, it is not natural for M. Mazarin to give you so much money. Take care! you will let some of the pieces fall, my lord. What design has the cardinal upon you to make him so generous?”
“As I said,” whispered Athos in the prince’s ear; “that, perhaps, is the best reply to your question.”
“Tell me, my lord,” repeated the chevalier impatiently, as he was calculating, by weighing them in his pocket, the quota of the sum which had fallen to his share by rebound.
“My dear chevalier, a wedding present.”
“How a wedding present?”
“Eh! yes, I am going to be married,” replied the Duc d’Anjou, without perceiving, at the moment, he was passing the prince and Athos, who both bowed respectfully.
The chevalier darted at the young duke a glance so strange, and so malicious, that the Comte de la Fere quite started on beholding it.
“You! you to be married!” repeated he; “oh! that’s impossible. You would not commit such a folly!”
“Bah! I don’t do it myself; I am made to do it,” replied the Duc d’Anjou. “But come, quick! let us get rid of our money.” Thereupon he disappeared with his companion, laughing and talking, whilst all heads were bowed on his passage.
“Then,” whispered the prince to Athos, “that is the secret.”
“It was not I that told you so, my lord.”
“He is to marry the sister of Charles II.?”
“I believe so.”
The prince reflected for a moment, and his eye shot forth one of its not unfrequent flashes. “Humph!” said he slowly, as if speaking to himself; “our swords are once more to be hung on the wall—for a long time!” and he sighed.
All that sigh contained of ambition silently stifled, of extinguished illusions and disappointed hopes, Athos alone divined, for he alone had heard that sigh. Immediately after, the prince took leave and the king left the apartment. Athos, by a sign made to Bragelonne, renewed the desire he had expressed at the beginning of the scene. By degrees the chamber was deserted, and Mazarin was left alone, a prey to suffering which he could no longer dissemble. “Bernouin! Bernouin!” cried he, in a broken voice.
“What does monseigneur want?”
“Guenaud—let Guenaud be sent for,” said his eminence. “I think I’m dying.”
Bernouin, in great terror, rushed into the cabinet to give the order, and the piqueur, who hastened to fetch the physician, passed the king’s carriage in the Rue Saint Honore.
43. Guenaud
The cardinal’s order was pressing; Guenaud quickly obeyed it. He found his patient stretched on his bed, his legs swelled, his face livid, and his stomach collapsed. Mazarin had a severe attack of gout. He suffered tortures with the impatience of a man who has not been accustomed to resistances. On seeing Guenaud: “Ah!” said he; “now I am saved!”
Guenaud was a very learned and circumspect man, who stood in no need of the critiques of Boileau to obtain a reputation. When facing a disease, if it were personified in a king, he treated the patient as a Turk treats a Moor. He did not, therefore, reply to Mazarin as the minister expected: “Here is the doctor; good-bye disease!” On the contrary, on examining his patient, with a very serious air:
“Oh! oh!” said he.
“Eh! what! Guenaud! How you look at me!”
“I look as I should on seeing your complaint, my lord; it is a very dangerous one.”
“The gout—oh! yes, the gout.”
“With complications, my lord”
Mazarin raised himself upon his elbow, and, questioning by look and gesture: “What do you mean by that? Am I worse than I believe myself to be?”
“My lord,” said Guenaud, seating himself beside the bed, “your eminence has worked very hard during your life; your eminence has suffered much.”
“But I am not old, I fancy. The late M. de Richelieu was but seventeen months younger than I am when he died, and died of a mortal disease. I am young, Guenaud: remember, I am scarcely fifty-two.”
“Oh! my lord, you are much more than that. How long did the Fronde last?”
“For what purpose do you put such a question to me?”
“For a medical calculation, monseigneur.”
“Well, some ten years—off and on.”
“Very well, be kind enough to reckon every year of the Fronde as three years—that makes thirty; now twenty and fifty-two makes seventy-two years. You are seventy-two, my lord; and that is a great age.”
Whilst saying this, he felt the pulse of his patient. This pulse was full of such fatal indications, that the physician continued, notwithstanding the interruptions of the patient: “Put down the years of the Fronde at four each, and you have lived eighty-two years.”
“Are you speaking seriously, Guenaud?”
“Alas! yes, monseigneur.”
“You take a roundabout way, then, to inform me that I am very ill?”
“Ma foi! yes, my lord, and with a man of the mind and courage of your eminence, it ought not to be necessary to do.”
The cardinal breathed with such difficulty that he inspired pity even in a pitiless physician. “There are diseases and diseases,” resumed Mazarin. “From some of them people escape.”
“That is true, my lord.”
“Is it not?” cried Mazarin, almost joyously; “for, in short, what else would be the use of power, of strength of will? What would the use of genius be—your genius, Guenaud? What would be the use of science and art, if the patient, who disposes of all that, cannot be saved from peril?”
Guenaud was about to open his mouth, but Mazarin continued:
“Remember,” said he, “I am the most confiding of your patients; remember I obey you blindly, and that consequently——”
“I know all that,” said Guenaud.
“I shall be cured, then?”
“Monseigneur, there is neither strength of will, nor power, nor genius, nor science that can resist a disease which God doubtless sends, or which He casts upon the earth at the creation, with full power to destroy and kill mankind. When the disease is mortal, it kills, and nothing can——”
“Is—my—disease—mortal?” asked Mazarin.
“Yes, my lord.”
His eminence sank down for a moment, like an unfortunate wretch who is crushed by a falling column. But the spirit of Mazarin was a strong one, or rather his mind was a firm one. “Guenaud,” said he, recovering from his first shock, “you will permit me to appeal from your judgment. I will call together the most learned men of Europe: I will consult them. I will live, in short, by the virtue of I care not what remedy.”
“My lord must not suppose,” said Guenaud, “that I have the presumption to pronounce alone upon an existence so valuable as yours. I have already assembled all the good physicians and practitioners of France and Europe. There were twelve of them.”
“And they said——”
“They said that your eminence was suffering from a mortal disease; I have the consultation signed in my portfolio. If your eminence will please to see it, you will find the names of all the incurable diseases we have met with. There is first——”
“No, no!” cried Mazarin, pushing away the paper. “No, no, Guenaud, I yield! I yield!” And a profound silence, during which the cardinal resumed his senses and recovered his strength, succeeded to the agitation of this scene. “There is another thing,” murmured Mazarin; “there are empirics and charlatans. In my country, those whom physicians abandon run the chance of a quack, who kills them ten times but saves them a hundred times.”
“Has not your eminence observed, that during the last month I have changed my remedies ten times?”
“Yes. Well?”
“Well, I have spent fifty thousand crowns in purchasing the secrets of all these fellows: the list is exhausted, and so is my purse. You are not cured; and but for my art, you would be dead.”
“That ends it!” murmured the cardinal; “that ends it.” And he threw a melancholy look upon the riches which surrounded him. “And must I quit all that?” sighed he. “I am dying, Guenaud! I am dying!”
“Oh! not yet, my lord,” said the physician.
Mazarin seized his hand. “In what time?” asked he, fixing his two large eyes upon the impassible countenance of the physician.
“My lord, we never tell that.”
“To ordinary men, perhaps not;—but to me—to me, whose every minute is worth a treasure. Tell me, Guenaud, tell me!”
“No, no, my lord.”
“I insist upon it, I tell you. Oh! give me a month and for every one of those thirty days I will pay you a hundred thousand crowns.”
“My lord,” replied Guenaud, in a firm voice, “it is God who can give you days of grace, and not I. God only allows you a fortnight.”
The cardinal breathed a painful sigh, and sank back upon his pillow, murmuring, “Thank you, Guenaud, thank you!”
The physician was about to depart; the dying man, raising himself up: “Silence!” said he, with flaming eyes, “silence!”
“My lord, I have known this secret two months; you see that I have kept it faithfully.”
“Go, Guenaud, I will take care of your fortunes, go and tell Brienne to send me a clerk called M. Colbert. Go!”
44. Colbert
Colbert was not far off. During the whole evening he had remained in one of the corridors, chatting with Bernouin and Brienne, and commenting, with the ordinary skill of people of a court, upon the news which developed like air-bubbles upon the water, on the surface of each event. It is doubtless time to trace, in a few words, one of the most interesting portraits of the age, and to trace it with as much truth, perhaps, as contemporary painters have been able to do. Colbert was a man in whom the historian and the moralist have an equal right.
He was thirteen years older than Louis XIV., his future master. Of middle height, rather lean than otherwise, he had deep-set eyes, a mean appearance, his hair was coarse, black and thin, which, say the biographers of his time, made him take early to the skull-cap. A look of severity, or harshness even, a sort of stiffness, which, with inferiors, was pride, with superiors an affectation of superior virtue; a surly cast of countenance upon all occasions, even when looking at himself in a glass alone—such is the exterior of this personage. As to the moral part of his character, the depth of his talent for accounts, and his ingenuity in making sterility itself productive, were much boasted of. Colbert had formed the idea of forcing governors of frontier places to feed the garrisons without pay, with what they drew from contributions. Such a valuable quality made Mazarin think of replacing Joubert, his intendant, who had recently died, by M. Colbert, who had such skill in nibbling down allowances. Colbert by degrees crept into court, notwithstanding his lowly birth, for he was the son of a man who sold wine as his father had done, but who afterwards sold cloth, and then silk stuffs. Colbert, destined for trade, had been clerk in Lyons to a merchant, whom he had quitted to come to Paris in the office of a Chatelet procureur named Biterne. It was here he learned the art of drawing up an account, and the much more valuable one of complicating it.
This stiffness of manner in Colbert had been of great service to him; it is so true that Fortune, when she has a caprice, resembles those women of antiquity, who, when they had a fancy, were disgusted by no physical or moral defects in either men or things. Colbert, placed with Michel Letellier, secretary of state in 1648, by his cousin Colbert, Seigneur de Saint-Penange, who protected him, received one day from the minister a commission for Cardinal Mazarin. His eminence was then in the enjoyment of flourishing health, and the bad years of the Fronde had not yet counted triple and quadruple for him. He was at Sedan, very much annoyed at a court intrigue in which Anne of Austria seemed inclined to desert his cause.
Of this intrigue Letellier held the thread. He had just received a letter from Anne of Austria, a letter very valuable to him, and strongly compromising Mazarin; but, as he already played the double part which served him so well, and by which he always managed two enemies so as to draw advantage from both, either by embroiling them more and more or by reconciling them, Michel Letellier wished to send Anne of Austria’s letter to Mazarin, in order that he might be acquainted with it, and consequently pleased with his having so willingly rendered him a service. To send the letter was an easy matter; to recover it again, after having communicated it, that was the difficulty. Letellier cast his eyes around him, and seeing the black and meager clerk with the scowling brow, scribbling away in his office, he preferred him to the best gendarme for the execution of this design.
Colbert was commanded to set out for Sedan, with positive orders to carry the letter to Mazarin, and bring it back to Letellier. He listened to his orders with scrupulous attention, required the instructions to be repeated twice, and was particular in learning whether the bringing back was as necessary as the communicating, and Letellier replied sternly, “More necessary.” Then he set out, traveled like a courier, without any care for his body, and placed in the hands of Mazarin, first a letter from Letellier, which announced to the cardinal the sending of the precious letter, and then that letter itself. Mazarin colored greatly whilst reading Anne of Austria’s letter, gave Colbert a gracious smile and dismissed him.
“When shall I have the answer, monseigneur?”
“To-morrow.”
“To-morrow morning?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
The clerk turned upon his heel, after making his very best bow. The next day he was at his post at seven o’clock. Mazarin made him wait till ten. He remained patiently in the ante-chamber; his turn having come, he entered; Mazarin gave him a sealed packet. On the envelope of this packet were these words:—Monsieur Michel Letellier, etc. Colbert looked at the packet with much attention; the cardinal put on a pleasant countenance and pushed him towards the door.
“And the letter of the queen-mother, my lord?” asked Colbert.
“It is with the rest, in the packet,” said Mazarin.
“Oh! very well,” replied Colbert, and placing his hat between his knees, he began to unseal the packet.
Mazarin uttered a cry. “What are you doing?” said he, angrily.
“I am unsealing the packet, my lord.”
“You mistrust me, then, master pedant, do you? Did any one ever see such impertinence?”
“Oh! my lord, do not be angry with me! It is certainly not your eminence’s word I place in doubt, God forbid!”
“What then?”
“It is the carefulness of your chancery, my lord. What is a letter? A rag. May not a rag be forgotten? And look, my lord, look if I was not right. Your clerks have forgotten the rag; the letter is not in the packet.”
“You are an insolent fellow, and you have not looked,” cried Mazarin, very angrily, “begone and wait my pleasure.” Whilst saying these words, with perfectly Italian subtlety he snatched the packet from the hands of Colbert, and re-entered his apartments.
But this anger could not last so long as not to be replaced in time by reason. Mazarin, every morning, on opening his closet door, found the figure of Colbert like a sentinel behind the bench, and this disagreeable figure never failed to ask him humbly, but with tenacity, for the queen-mother’s letter. Mazarin could hold out no longer, and was obliged to give it up. He accompanied this restitution with a most severe reprimand, during which Colbert contented himself with examining, feeling, even smelling, as it were, the paper, the characters, and the signature, neither more nor less than if he had to deal with the greatest forger in the kingdom. Mazarin behaved still more rudely to him, but Colbert, still impassible, having obtained a certainty that the letter was the true one, went off as if he had been deaf. This conduct obtained for him afterwards the post of Joubert; for Mazarin, instead of bearing malice, admired him, and was desirous of attaching so much fidelity to himself.
It may be judged by this single anecdote, what the character of Colbert was. Events, developing themselves, by degrees allowed all the powers of his mind to act freely. Colbert was not long in insinuating himself into the good graces of the cardinal: he became even indispensable to him. The clerk was acquainted with all his accounts without the cardinal’s ever having spoken to him about them. This secret between them was a powerful tie, and this was why, when about to appear before the Master of another world, Mazarin was desirous of taking good counsel in disposing of the wealth he was so unwillingly obliged to leave in this world. After the visit of Guenaud, he therefore sent for Colbert, desired him to sit down, and said to him: “Let us converse, Monsieur Colbert, and seriously, for I am very ill, and I may chance to die.”
“Man is mortal,” replied Colbert.
“I have always remembered that, M. Colbert, and I have worked with that end in view. You know that I have amassed a little wealth.”
“I know you have, monseigneur.”
“At how much do you estimate, as near as you can, the amount of this wealth, M. Colbert?”
“At forty millions, five hundred and sixty thousand, two hundred livres, nine cents, eight farthings,” replied Colbert.
The cardinal heaved a deep sigh, and looked at Colbert with wonder, but he allowed a smile to steal across his lips.
“Known money,” added Colbert, in reply to that smile.
The cardinal gave quite a start in bed. “What do you mean by that?” said he.
“I mean,” said Colbert, “that besides those forty millions, five hundred and sixty thousand, two hundred livres, nine cents, eight farthings, there are thirteen millions that are not known.”
“Ouf!” sighed Mazarin, “what a man!”
At this moment the head of Bernouin appeared through the embrasure of the door.
“What is it?” asked Mazarin, “and why do you disturb me?”
“The Theatin father, your eminence’s director, was sent for this evening; and he cannot come again to my lord till after to-morrow.”
Mazarin looked at Colbert, who rose and took his hat saying: “I shall come again, my lord.”
Mazarin hesitated. “No, no,” said he; “I have as much business to transact with you as with him. Besides, you are my other confessor—and what I have to say to one the other may hear. Remain where you are, Colbert.”
“But, my lord, if there be no secret of penitence, will the director consent to my being here?”
“Do not trouble yourself about that; come into the ruelle.”
“I can wait outside, monseigneur.”
“No, no, it will do you good to hear the confession of a rich man.”
Colbert bowed and went into the ruelle.
“Introduce the Theatin father,” said Mazarin, closing the curtains.
45. Confession of a Man of Wealth
The Theatin entered deliberately, without being too much astonished at the noise and agitation which anxiety for the cardinal’s health had raised in his household. “Come in, my reverend father,” said Mazarin, after a last look at the ruelle, “come in and console me.”
“That is my duty, my lord,” replied the Theatin.
“Begin by sitting down, and making yourself comfortable, for I am going to begin with a general confession, you will afterwards give me a good absolution, and I shall believe myself more tranquil.”
“My lord,” said the father, “you are not so ill as to make a general confession urgent—and it will be very fatiguing—take care.”
“You suspect then, that it may be long, father”
“How can I think it otherwise, when a man has lived so completely as your eminence has done?”
“Ah! that is true!—yes—the recital may be long.”
“The mercy of God is great,” snuffled the Theatin.
“Stop,” said Mazarin; “there I begin to terrify myself with having allowed so many things to pass which the Lord might reprove.”
“Is not that always so?” said the Theatin naively, removing further from the lamp his thin pointed face, like that of a mole. “Sinners are so forgetful beforehand, and scrupulous when it is too late.”
“Sinners?” replied Mazarin. “Do you use that word ironically, and to reproach me with all the genealogies I have allowed to be made on my account—I—the son of a fisherman, in fact?”*
* This is quite untranslatable—it being a play upon the words pecheur, a sinner, and pecheur, a fisherman. It is in very bad taste.—TRANS.
“Hum!” said the Theatin.
“That is a first sin, father; for I have allowed myself made to descend from two old Roman consuls, S. Geganius Macerinus 1st, Macerinus 2d, and Proculus Macerinus 3d, of whom the Chronicle of Haolander speaks. From Macerinus to Mazarin the proximity was tempting. Macerinus, a diminutive, means leanish, poorish, out of case. Oh! reverend father! Mazarini may now be carried to the augmentative Maigre, thin as Lazarus. Look!” and he showed his fleshless arms.
“In your having been born of a family of fishermen I see nothing injurious to you; for—St. Peter was a fisherman; and if you are a prince of the church, my lord, he was the supreme head of it. Pass on, if you please.”
“So much the more for my having threatened with the Bastile a certain Bounet, a priest of Avignon, who wanted to publish a genealogy of the Casa Mazarini much too marvelous.”
“To be probable?” replied the Theatin.
“Oh! if I had acted up to his idea, father, that would have been the vice of pride—another sin.”
“It was excess of wit, and a person is not to be reproached with such sorts of abuses. Pass on, pass on!”
“I was all pride. Look you, father, I will endeavor to divide that into capital sins.”
“I like divisions, when well made.”
“I am glad of that. You must know that in 1630—alas! that is thirty-one years ago——”
“You were then twenty-nine years old, monseigneur.”
“A hot-headed age. I was then something of a soldier, and I threw myself at Casal into the arquebuscades, to show that I rode on horseback as well as an officer. It is true, I restored peace between the French and the Spaniards. That redeems my sin a little.”
“I see no sin in being able to ride well on horseback,” said the Theatin; “that is in perfect good taste, and does honor to our gown. As a Christian, I approve of your having prevented the effusion of blood; as a monk I am proud of the bravery a monk has exhibited.”
Mazarin bowed his head humbly. “Yes,” said he, “but the consequences?”
“What consequences?”
“Eh! that damned sin of pride has roots without end. From the time that I threw myself in that manner between two armies, that I had smelt powder and faced lines of soldiers, I have held generals a little in contempt.”
“Ah!” said the father.
“There is the evil; so that I have not found one endurable since that time.”
“The fact is,” said the Theatin, “that the generals we have had have not been remarkable.”
“Oh!” cried Mazarin, “there was Monsieur le Prince. I have tormented him thoroughly.”
“He is not much to be pitied: he has acquired sufficient glory, and sufficient wealth.”
“That may be, for Monsieur le Prince; but M. Beaufort, for example—whom I held suffering so long in the dungeon of Vincennes?”
“Ah! but he was a rebel, and the safety of the state required that you should make a sacrifice. Pass on!”
“I believe I have exhausted pride. There is another sin which I am afraid to qualify.”
“I can qualify it myself. Tell it.”
“A great sin, reverend father!”
“We shall judge, monseigneur.”
“You cannot fail to have heard of certain relations which I have had—with her majesty the queen-mother;—the malevolent——”
“The malevolent, my lord, are fools. Was it not necessary for the good of the state and the interests of the young king, that you should live in good intelligence with the queen? Pass on, pass on!”
“I assure you,” said Mazarin, “you remove a terrible weight from my breast.”
“These are all trifles!—look for something serious.”
“I have had much ambition, father.”
“That is the march of great minds and things, my lord.”
“Even the longing for the tiara?”
“To be pope is to be the first of Christians. Why should you not desire that?”
“It has been printed that, to gain that object, I had sold Cambria to the Spaniards.”
“You have, perhaps, yourself written pamphlets without severely persecuting pamphleteers.”
“Then, reverend father, I have truly a clean breast. I feel nothing remaining but slight peccadilloes.”
“What are they?”
“Play.”
“That is rather worldly: but you were obliged by the duties of greatness to keep a good house.”
“I like to win.”
“No player plays to lose.”
“I cheated a little.”
“You took your advantage. Pass on.”
“Well! reverend father, I feel nothing else upon my conscience. Give me absolution, and my soul will be able, when God shall please to call it, to mount without obstacle to the throne——”
The Theatin moved neither his arms nor his lips. “What are you waiting for, father?” said Mazarin.
“I am waiting for the end.”
“The end of what?”
“Of the confession, monsieur.”
“But I have ended.”
“Oh, no; your eminence is mistaken.”
“Not that I know of.”
“Search diligently.”
“I have searched as well as possible.”
“Then I shall assist your memory.”
“Do.”
The Theatin coughed several times. “You have said nothing of avarice, another capital sin, nor of those millions,” said he.
“What millions, father?”
“Why, those you possess, my lord.”
“Father, that money is mine, why should I speak to you about that?”
“Because, see you, our opinions differ. You say that money is yours, whilst I—I believe it is rather the property of others.”
Mazarin lifted his cold hand to his brow, which was beaded with perspiration. “How so?” stammered he.
“This way. Your excellency has gained much wealth—in the service of the king.”
“Hum! much—that is, not too much.”
“Whatever it may be, whence came that wealth?
“From the state.”
“The state, that is the king.”
“But what do you conclude from that, father?” said Mazarin, who began to tremble.
“I cannot conclude without seeing a list of the riches you possess. Let us reckon a little, if you please. You have the bishopric of Metz?”
“Yes.”
“The abbeys of St. Clement, St. Arnould, and St. Vincent, all at Metz?”
“Yes.”
“You have the abbey of St. Denis, in France, a magnificent property?”
“Yes, father.”
“You have the abbey of Cluny, which is rich?”
“I have.”
“That of St. Medard at Soissons, with a revenue of one hundred thousand livres?”
“I cannot deny it.”
“That of St. Victor, at Marseilles,—one of the best in the south?”
“Yes, father.”
“A good million a year. With the emoluments of the cardinalship and the ministry, I say too little when I say two millions a year.”
“Eh!”
“In ten years that is twenty millions,—and twenty millions put out at fifty per cent give, by progression, twenty-three millions in ten years.”
“How well you reckon for a Theatin!”
“Since your eminence placed our order in the convent we occupy, near St. Germain des Pres, in 1641, I have kept the accounts of the society.”
“And mine likewise, apparently, father.”
“One ought to know a little of everything, my lord.”
“Very well. Conclude, at present.”
“I conclude that your baggage is too heavy to allow you to pass through the gates of Paradise.”
“Shall I be damned?”
“If you do not make restitution, yes.”
Mazarin uttered a piteous cry. “Restitution!—but to whom, good God?”
“To the owner of that money,—to the king.”
“But the king did not give it all to me.”
“One moment,—does not the king sign the ordonnances?”
Mazarin passed from sighs to groans. “Absolution! absolution!” cried he.
“Impossible, my lord. Restitution! restitution!” replied the Theatin.
“But you absolve me from all other sins, why not from that?”
“Because,” replied the father, “to absolve you for that motive would be a sin for which the king would never absolve me, my lord.”
Thereupon the confessor quitted his penitent with an air full of compunction. He then went out in the same manner he had entered.
“Oh, good God!” groaned the cardinal. “Come here, Colbert, I am very, very ill indeed, my friend.”
46. The Donation
Colbert reappeared beneath the curtains.
“Have you heard?” said Mazarin.
“Alas! yes, my lord.”
“Can he be right? Can all this money be badly acquired?”
“A Theatin, monseigneur, is a bad judge in matters of finance,” replied Colbert, coolly. “And yet it is very possible that, according to his theological ideas, your eminence has been, in a certain degree, in the wrong. People generally find they have been so,—when they die.”
“In the first place, they commit the wrong of dying, Colbert.”
“That is true, my lord. Against whom, however, did the Theatin make out that you had committed these wrongs? Against the king?!”
Mazarin shrugged his shoulders. “As if I had not saved both his state and his finances.”
“That admits of no contradiction, my lord.”
“Does it? Then I have received a merely legitimate salary, in spite of the opinion of my confessor?”
“That is beyond doubt.”
“And I might fairly keep for my own family, which is so needy, a good fortune,—the whole, even, of which I have earned?”
“I see no impediment to that, monseigneur.”
“I felt assured that in consulting you, Colbert, I should have good advice,” replied Mazarin, greatly delighted.
Colbert resumed his pedantic look. “My lord,” interrupted he, “I think it would be quite as well to examine whether what the Theatin said is not a snare.”
“Oh! no; a snare? What for? The Theatin is an honest man.”
“He believed your eminence to be at death’s door, because your eminence consulted him. Did not I hear him say—‘Distinguish that which the king has given you from that which you have given yourself.’ Recollect, my lord, if he did not say something a little like that to you?—that is quite a theatrical speech.”
“That is possible.”
“In which case, my lord, I should consider you as required by the Theatin to——”
“To make restitution!” cried Mazarin, with great warmth.
“Eh! I do not say no.”
“What, of all! You do not dream of such a thing! You speak just as the confessor did.”
“To make restitution of a part,—that is to say, his majesty’s part; and that, monseigneur, may have its dangers. Your eminence is too skillful a politician not to know that, at this moment, the king does not possess a hundred and fifty thousand livres clear in his coffers.”
“That is not my affair,” said Mazarin, triumphantly; “that belongs to M. le Surintendant Fouquet, whose accounts I gave you to verify some months ago.”
Colbert bit his lips at the name of Fouquet. “His majesty,” said he, between his teeth, “has no money but that which M. Fouquet collects: your money, monseigneur, would afford him a delicious banquet.”
“Well, but I am not the superintendent of his majesty’s finances—I have my purse—surely I would do much for his majesty’s welfare—some legacy—but I cannot disappoint my family.”
“The legacy of a part would dishonor you and offend the king. Leaving a part to his majesty is to avow that that part has inspired you with doubts as to the lawfulness of the means of acquisition.”
“Monsieur Colbert!”
“I thought your eminence did me the honor to ask my advice?”
“Yes, but you are ignorant of the principal details of the question.”
“I am ignorant of nothing, my lord; during ten years, all the columns of figures which are found in France have passed in review before me, and if I have painfully nailed them into my brain, they are there now so well riveted, that, from the office of M. Letellier, who is sober, to the little secret largesses of M. Fouquet, who is prodigal, I could recite, figure by figure, all the money that is spent in France from Marseilles to Cherbourg.”
“Then, you would have me throw all my money into the coffers of the king!” cried Mazarin, ironically; and from whom, at the same time, the gout forced painful moans. “Surely the king would reproach me with nothing, but he would laugh at me, while squandering my millions, and with good reason.”
“Your eminence has misunderstood me. I did not, the least in the world, pretend that his majesty ought to spend your money.”
“You said so clearly, it seems to me, when you advised me to give it to him.”
“Ah,” replied Colbert, “that is because your eminence, absorbed as you are by your disease, entirely loses sight of the character of Louis XIV.”
“How so?”
“That character, if I may venture to express myself thus, resembles that which my lord confessed just now to the Theatin.”
“Go on—that is?”
“Pride! Pardon me, my lord, haughtiness, nobleness; kings have no pride, that is a human passion.”
“Pride,—yes, you are right. Next?”
“Well, my lord, if I have divined rightly, your eminence has but to give all your money to the king, and that immediately.”
“But for what?” said Mazarin, quite bewildered.
“Because the king will not accept of the whole.”
“What, and he a young man, and devoured by ambition?”
“Just so.”
“A young man who is anxious for my death——”
“My lord!”
“To inherit, yes, Colbert, yes; he is anxious for my death in order to inherit. Triple fool that I am! I would prevent him!”
“Exactly: if the donation were made in a certain form he would refuse it.”
“Well, but how?”
“That is plain enough. A young man who has yet done nothing—who burns to distinguish himself—who burns to reign alone, will never take anything ready built, he will construct for himself. This prince, monseigneur, will never be content with the Palais Royal, which M. de Richelieu left him, nor with the Palais Mazarin, which you have had so superbly constructed, nor with the Louvre, which his ancestors inhabited; nor with St. Germain, where he was born. All that does not proceed from himself, I predict, he will disdain.”
“And you will guarantee, that if I give my forty millions to the king——”
“Saying certain things to him at the same time, I guarantee he will refuse them.”
“But those things—what are they?”
“I will write them, if my lord will have the goodness to dictate them.”
“Well, but, after all, what advantage will that be to me?”
“An enormous one. Nobody will afterwards be able to accuse your eminence of that unjust avarice with which pamphleteers have reproached the most brilliant mind of the present age.”
“You are right, Colbert, you are right; go, and seek the king, on my part, and take him my will.”
“Your donation, my lord.”
“But, if he should accept it; if he should even think of accepting it!”
“Then there would remain thirteen millions for your family, and that is a good round sum.”
“But then you would be either a fool or a traitor.”
“And I am neither the one nor the other, my lord. You appear to be much afraid that the king will accept; you have a deal more reason to fear that he will not accept.”
“But, see you, if he does not accept, I should like to guarantee my thirteen reserved millions to him—yes, I will do so—yes. But my pains are returning, I shall faint. I am very, very ill, Colbert; I am very near my end!”
Colbert started. The cardinal was indeed very ill; large drops of sweat flowed down upon his bed of agony, and the frightful pallor of a face streaming with water was a spectacle which the most hardened practitioner could not have beheld without compassion. Colbert was, without doubt, very much affected, for he quitted the chamber, calling Bernouin to attend the dying man and went into the corridor. There, walking about with a meditative expression, which almost gave nobility to his vulgar head, his shoulders thrown up, his neck stretched out, his lips half open, to give vent to unconnected fragments of incoherent thoughts, he lashed up his courage to the pitch of the undertaking contemplated, whilst within ten paces of him, separated only by a wall, his master was being stifled by anguish which drew from him lamentable cries, thinking no more of the treasures of the earth, or of the joys of Paradise, but much of all the horrors of hell. Whilst burning-hot napkins, physic, revulsives, and Guenaud, who was recalled, were performing their functions with increased activity, Colbert, holding his great head in both his hands, to compress within it the fever of the projects engendered by the brain, was meditating the tenor of the donation he would make Mazarin write, at the first hour of respite his disease should afford him. It would appear as if all the cries of the cardinal, and all the attacks of death upon this representative of the past, were stimulants for the genius of this thinker with the bushy eyebrows, who was turning already towards the rising sun of a regenerated society. Colbert resumed his place at Mazarin’s pillow at the first interval of pain, and persuaded him to dictate a donation thus conceived.
“About to appear before God, the Master of mankind, I beg the king, who was my master on earth, to resume the wealth which his bounty has bestowed upon me, and which my family would be happy to see pass into such illustrious hands. The particulars of my property will be found—they are drawn up—at the first requisition of his majesty, or at the last sigh of his most devoted servant,
“Jules, Cardinal de Mazarin.”
The cardinal sighed heavily as he signed this; Colbert sealed the packet, and carried it immediately to the Louvre, whither the king had returned.
He then went back to his own home, rubbing his hands with the confidence of a workman who has done a good day’s work.
47. How Anne of Austria gave one Piece of Advice to Louis XIV., and how M. Fouquet gave him another
The news of the extreme illness of the cardinal had already spread, and attracted at least as much attention among the people of the Louvre as the news of the marriage of Monsieur, the king’s brother, which had already been announced as an official fact. Scarcely had Louis XIV. returned home, with his thoughts fully occupied with the various things he had seen and heard in the course of the evening, when an usher announced that the same crowd of courtiers who, in the morning, had thronged his levee, presented themselves again at his coucher, a remarkable piece of respect which, during the reign of the cardinal, the court, not very discreet in its preferences, had accorded to the minister, without caring about displeasing the king.
But the minister had had, as we have said, an alarming attack of gout, and the tide of flattery was mounting towards the throne. Courtiers have a marvelous instinct in scenting the turn of events; courtiers possess a supreme kind of science; they are diplomatists in throwing light upon the unraveling of complicated intrigues, captains in divining the issue of battles, and physicians in curing the sick. Louis XIV., to whom his mother had taught this axiom, together with many others, understood at once that the cardinal must be very ill.
Scarcely had Anne of Austria conducted the young queen to her apartments and taken from her brow the head-dress of ceremony, when she went to see her son in his cabinet, where, alone, melancholy and depressed, he was indulging, as if to exercise his will, in one of those terrible inward passions—king’s passions—which create events when they break out, and with Louis XIV., thanks to his astonishing command over himself, became such benign tempests, that his most violent, his only passion, that which Saint Simon mentions with astonishment, was that famous fit of anger which he exhibited fifty years later, on the occasion of a little concealment of the Duc de Maine’s and which had for result a shower of blows inflicted with a cane upon the back of a poor valet who had stolen a biscuit. The young king then was, as we have seen, a prey to a double excitement; and he said to himself as he looked in a glass, “O king!—king by name, and not in fact;—phantom, vain phantom art thou!—inert statue, which has no other power than that of provoking salutations from courtiers, when wilt thou be able to raise thy velvet arm, or clench thy silken hand? when wilt thou be able to open, for any purpose but to sigh, or smile, lips condemned to the motionless stupidity of the marbles in thy gallery?”
Then, passing his hand over his brow, and feeling the want of air, he approached a window, and looking down, saw below some horsemen talking together, and groups of timid observers. These horsemen were a fraction of the watch: the groups were busy portions of the people, to whom a king is always a curious thing, the same as a rhinoceros, a crocodile, or a serpent. He struck his brow with his open hand, crying,—“King of France! what title! People of France! what a heap of creatures! I have just returned to my Louvre; my horses, just unharnessed, are still smoking, and I have created interest enough to induce scarcely twenty persons to look at me as I passed. Twenty! what do I say? no; there were not twenty anxious to see the king of France. There are not even ten archers to guard my place of residence: archers, people, guards, all are at the Palais Royal! Why, my good God! have not I, the king, the right to ask of you all that?”
“Because,” said a voice, replying to his, and which sounded from the other side of the door of the cabinet, “because at the Palais Royal lies all the gold,—that is to say, all the power of him who desires to reign.”
Louis turned sharply round. The voice which had pronounced these words was that of Anne of Austria. The king started, and advanced towards her. “I hope,” said he, “your majesty has paid no attention to the vain declamations which the solitude and disgust familiar to kings suggest to the happiest dispositions?”
“I only paid attention to one thing, my son, and that was, that you were complaining.”
“Who! I? Not at all,” said Louis XIV.; “no, in truth, you err, madame.”
“What were you doing, then?”
“I thought I was under the ferule of my professor, and developing a subject of amplification.”
“My son,” replied Anne of Austria, shaking her head, “you are wrong not to trust my word; you are wrong not to grant me your confidence. A day will come, and perhaps quickly, wherein you will have occasion to remember that axiom:—‘Gold is universal power; and they alone are kings who are all-powerful.’”
“Your intention,” continued the king, “was not, however, to cast blame upon the rich men of this age, was it?
“No,” said the queen, warmly; “no, sire; they who are rich in this age, under your reign, are rich because you have been willing they should be so, and I entertain against them neither malice nor envy; they have, without doubt, served your majesty sufficiently well for your majesty to have permitted them to reward themselves. That is what I mean to say by the words for which you reproach me.”
“God forbid, madame, that I should ever reproach my mother with anything!”
“Besides,” continued Anne of Austria, “the Lord never gives the goods of this world but for a season; the Lord—as correctives to honor and riches—the Lord has placed sufferings, sickness, and death; and no one,” added she, with a melancholy smile, which proved she made the application of the funeral precept to herself, “no man can take his wealth or greatness with him to the grave. It results, therefore, that the young gather the abundant harvest prepared for them by the old.”
Louis listened with increased attention to the words which Anne of Austria, no doubt, pronounced with a view to console him. “Madame,” said he, looking earnestly at his mother, “one would almost say in truth that you had something else to announce to me.”
“I have absolutely nothing, my son; only you cannot have failed to remark that his eminence the cardinal is very ill.”
Louis looked at his mother, expecting some emotion in her voice, some sorrow in her countenance. The face of Anne of Austria appeared a little changed, but that was from sufferings of quite a personal character. Perhaps the alteration was caused by the cancer which had begun to consume her breast. “Yes, madame,” said the king; “yes, M. de Mazarin is very ill.”
“And it would be a great loss to the kingdom if God were to summon his eminence away. Is not that your opinion as well as mine, my son?” said the queen.
“Yes, madame; yes, certainly, it would be a great loss for the kingdom,” said Louis, coloring; “but the peril does not seem to me to be so great; besides, the cardinal is still young.” The king had scarcely ceased speaking when an usher lifted the tapestry, and stood with a paper in his hand, waiting for the king to speak to him.
“What have you there?” asked the king.
“A message from M. de Mazarin,” replied the usher.
“Give it to me,” said the king; and he took the paper. But at the moment he was about to open it, there was a great noise in the gallery, the ante-chamber, and the court.
“Ah, ah,” said Louis XIV., who doubtless knew the meaning of that triple noise. “How could I say there was but one king in France! I was mistaken, there are two.”
As he spoke or thought thus, the door opened, and the superintendent of the finances, Fouquet, appeared before his nominal master. It was he who made the noise in the ante-chamber, it was his horses that made the noise in the courtyard. In addition to all this, a loud murmur was heard along his passage, which did not die away till some time after he had passed. It was this murmur which Louis XIV. regretted so deeply not hearing as he passed, and dying away behind him.
“He is not precisely a king, as you fancy,” said Anne of Austria to her son; “he is only a man who is much too rich—that is all.”
Whilst saying these words, a bitter feeling gave to these words of the queen a most hateful expression; whereas the brow of the king, calm and self-possessed, on the contrary, was without the slightest wrinkle. He nodded, therefore, familiarly to Fouquet, whilst he continued to unfold the paper given to him by the usher. Fouquet perceived this movement, and with a politeness at once easy and respectful, advanced towards the queen, so as not to disturb the king. Louis had opened the paper, and yet he did not read it. He listened to Fouquet paying the most charming compliments to the queen upon her hand and arm. Anne of Austria’s frown relaxed a little, she even almost smiled. Fouquet perceived that the king, instead of reading, was looking at him; he turned half round, therefore, and while continuing his conversation with the queen, faced the king.
“You know, Monsieur Fouquet,” said Louis, “how ill M. Mazarin is?”
“Yes, sire, I know that,” said Fouquet; “in fact, he is very ill. I was at my country-house of Vaux when the news reached me; and the affair seemed so pressing that I left at once.”
“You left Vaux this evening, monsieur?”
“An hour and a half ago, yes, your majesty,” said Fouquet, consulting a watch, richly ornamented with diamonds.
“An hour and a half!” said the king, still able to restrain his anger, but not to conceal his astonishment.
“I understand you, sire. Your majesty doubts my word, and you have reason to do so, but I have really come in that time, though it is wonderful! I received from England three pairs of very fast horses, as I had been assured. They were placed at distances of four leagues apart, and I tried them this evening. They really brought me from Vaux to the Louvre in an hour and a half, so your majesty sees I have not been cheated.” The queen-mother smiled with something like secret envy. But Fouquet caught her thought. “Thus, madame,” he promptly said, “such horses are made for kings, not for subjects; for kings ought never to yield to any one in anything.”
The king looked up.
“And yet,” interrupted Anne of Austria, “you are not a king, that I know of, M. Fouquet.”
“Truly not, madame; therefore the horses only await the orders of his majesty to enter the royal stables; and if I allowed myself to try them, it was only for fear of offering to the king anything that was not positively wonderful.”
The king became quite red.
“You know, Monsieur Fouquet,” said the queen, “that at the court of France it is not the custom for a subject to offer anything to his king.”
Louis started.
“I hoped, madame,” said Fouquet, much agitated, “that my love for his majesty, my incessant desire to please him, would serve to compensate the want of etiquette. It was not so much a present that I permitted myself to offer, as the tribute I paid.”
“Thank you, Monsieur Fouquet,” said the king politely, “and I am gratified by your intention, for I love good horses; but you know I am not very rich; you, who are my superintendent of finances, know it better than any one else. I am not able, then, however willing I may be, to purchase such a valuable set of horses.”
Fouquet darted a haughty glance at the queen-mother, who appeared to triumph at the false position in which the minister had placed himself, and replied:—
“Luxury is the virtue of kings, sire: it is luxury which makes them resemble God: it is by luxury they are more than other men. With luxury a king nourishes his subjects, and honors them. Under the mild heat of this luxury of kings springs the luxury of individuals, a source of riches for the people. His majesty, by accepting the gift of these six incomparable horses, would stimulate the pride of his own breeders, of Limousin, Perche, and Normandy, and this emulation would have been beneficial to all. But the king is silent, and consequently I am condemned.”
During this speech, Louis was, unconsciously, folding and unfolding Mazarin’s paper, upon which he had not cast his eyes. At length he glanced upon it, and uttered a faint cry at reading the first line.
“What is the matter, my son?” asked the queen, anxiously, and going towards the king.
“From the cardinal,” replied the king, continuing to read; “yes, yes, it is really from him.”
“Is he worse, then?”
“Read!” said the king, passing the parchment to his mother, as if he thought that nothing less than reading would convince Anne of Austria of a thing so astonishing as was conveyed in that paper.
Anne of Austria read in turn, and as she read, her eyes sparkled with a joy all the greater from her useless endeavor to hide it, which attracted the attention of Fouquet.
“Oh! a regularly drawn up deed of gift,” said she.
“A gift?” repeated Fouquet.
“Yes,” said the king, replying pointedly to the superintendent of finances, “yes, at the point of death, monsieur le cardinal makes me a donation of all his wealth.”
“Forty millions,” cried the queen. “Oh, my son! this is very noble on the part of his eminence, and will silence all malicious rumors; forty millions scraped together slowly, coming back all in one heap to the treasury! It is the act of a faithful subject and a good Christian.” And having once more cast her eyes over the act, she restored it to Louis XIV., whom the announcement of the sum greatly agitated. Fouquet had taken some steps backwards and remained silent. The king looked at him, and held the paper out to him, in turn. The superintendent only bestowed a haughty look of a second upon it; then bowing,—“Yes, sire,” said he, “a donation, I see.”
“You must reply to it, my son,” said Anne of Austria; “you must reply to it, and immediately.”
“But how, madame?”
“By a visit to the cardinal.”
“Why, it is but an hour since I left his eminence,” said the king.
“Write, then, sire.”
“Write!” said the young king, with evident repugnance.
“Well!” replied Anne of Austria, “it seems to me, my son, that a man who has just made such a present has a good right to expect to be thanked for it with some degree of promptitude.” Then turning towards Fouquet: “Is not that likewise your opinion, monsieur?”
“That the present is worth the trouble? Yes madame,” said Fouquet, with a lofty air that did not escape the king.
“Accept, then, and thank him,” insisted Anne of Austria.
“What says M. Fouquet?” asked Louis XIV.
“Does your majesty wish to know my opinion?”
“Yes.”
“Thank him, sire——”
“Ah!” said the queen.
“But do not accept,” continued Fouquet.
“And why not?” asked the queen.
“You have yourself said why, madame,” replied Fouquet; “because kings cannot and ought not to receive presents from their subjects.”
The king remained silent between these two contrary opinions.
“But forty millions!” said Anne of Austria, in the same tone as that in which, at a later period, poor Marie Antoinette replied, “You will tell me as much!”
“I know,” said Fouquet, laughing, “forty millions makes a good round sum,—such a sum as could almost tempt a royal conscience.”
“But monsieur,” said Anne of Austria, “instead of persuading the king not to receive this present, recall to his majesty’s mind, you, whose duty it is, that these forty millions are a fortune to him.”
“It is precisely, madame, because these forty millions would be a fortune that I will say to the king, ‘Sire, if it be not decent for a king to accept from a subject six horses, worth twenty thousand livres, it would be disgraceful for him to owe a fortune to another subject, more or less scrupulous in the choice of the materials which contributed to the building up of that fortune.’”
“It ill becomes you, monsieur, to give your king a lesson,” said Anne of Austria; “better procure for him forty millions to replace those you make him lose.”
“The king shall have them whenever he wishes,” said the superintendent of finances, bowing.
“Yes, by oppressing the people,” said the queen.
“And were they not oppressed, madame,” replied Fouquet, “when they were made to sweat the forty millions given by this deed? Furthermore, his majesty has asked my opinion, I have given it; if his majesty ask my concurrence, it will be the same.”
“Nonsense! accept, my son, accept,” said Anne of Austria. “You are above reports and interpretations.”
“Refuse, sire,” said Fouquet. “As long as a king lives, he has no other measure but his conscience,—no other judge than his own desires; but when dead, he has posterity, which applauds or accuses.”
“Thank you, mother,” replied Louis, bowing respectfully to the queen. “Thank you, Monsieur Fouquet,” said he, dismissing the superintendent civilly.
“Do you accept?” asked Anne of Austria, once more.
“I shall consider of it,” replied he, looking at Fouquet.
48. Agony
The day that the deed of gift had been sent to the king, the cardinal caused himself to be transported to Vincennes. The king and the court followed him thither. The last flashes of this torch still cast splendor enough around to absorb all other lights in its rays. Besides, as it has been seen, the faithful satellite of his minister, young Louis XIV., marched to the last minute in accordance with his gravitation. The disease, as Guenaud had predicted, had become worse; it was no longer an attack of gout, it was an attack of death; then there was another thing which made that agony more agonizing still,—and that was the agitation brought into his mind by the donation he had sent to the king, and which, according to Colbert, the king ought to send back unaccepted to the cardinal. The cardinal had, as we have said, great faith in the predictions of his secretary; but the sum was a large one, and whatever might be the genius of Colbert, from time to time the cardinal thought to himself that the Theatin also might possibly have been mistaken, and that there was at least as much chance of his not being damned, as there was of Louis XIV. sending back his millions.
Besides, the longer the donation was in coming back, the more Mazarin thought that forty millions were worth a little risk, particularly of so hypothetic a thing as the soul. Mazarin, in his character of cardinal and prime minister, was almost an atheist, and quite a materialist. Every time that the door opened, he turned sharply round towards that door, expecting to see the return of his unfortunate donation; then, deceived in his hope, he fell back again with a sigh, and found his pains so much the greater for having forgotten them for an instant.
Anne of Austria had also followed the cardinal; her heart, though age had made it selfish, could not help evincing towards the dying man a sorrow which she owed him as a wife, according to some; and as a sovereign, according to others. She had, in some sort, put on a mourning countenance beforehand, and all the court wore it as she did.
Louis, in order not to show on his face what was passing at the bottom of his heart, persisted in remaining in his own apartments, where his nurse alone kept him company; the more he saw the approach of the time when all constraint would be at an end, the more humble and patient he was, falling back upon himself, as all strong men do when they form great designs, in order to gain more spring at the decisive moment. Extreme unction had been administered to the cardinal, who, faithful to his habits of dissimulation, struggled against appearances, and even against reality, receiving company in his bed, as if he only suffered from a temporary complaint.
Guenaud, on his part, preserved profound secrecy; wearied with visits and questions, he answered nothing but “his eminence is still full of youth and strength, but God wills that which He wills, and when He has decided that man is to be laid low, he will be laid low.” These words, which he scattered with a sort of discretion, reserve, and preference, were commented upon earnestly by two persons,—the king and the cardinal. Mazarin, notwithstanding the prophecy of Guenaud, still lured himself with a hope, or rather played his part so well, that the most cunning, when saying that he lured himself, proved that they were his dupes.
Louis, absent from the cardinal for two days; Louis with his eyes fixed upon that same donation which so constantly preoccupied the cardinal; Louis did not exactly know how to make out Mazarin’s conduct. The son of Louis XIII., following the paternal traditions, had, up to that time, been so little of a king that, whilst ardently desiring royalty, he desired it with that terror which always accompanies the unknown. Thus, having formed his resolution, which, besides, he communicated to nobody, he determined to have an interview with Mazarin. It was Anne of Austria, who, constant in her attendance upon the cardinal, first heard this proposition of the king’s, and transmitted it to the dying man, whom it greatly agitated. For what purpose could Louis wish for an interview? Was it to return the deed, as Colbert had said he would? Was it to keep it, after thanking him, as Mazarin thought he would? Nevertheless, as the dying man felt that the uncertainty increased his torments, he did not hesitate an instant.
“His majesty will be welcome,—yes, very welcome,” cried he, making a sign to Colbert, who was seated at the foot of the bed, and which the latter understood perfectly. “Madame,” continued Mazarin, “will your majesty be good enough to assure the king yourself of the truth of what I have just said?”
Anne of Austria rose; she herself was anxious to have the question of the forty millions settled—the question which seemed to lie heavy on the mind of every one. Anne of Austria went out; Mazarin made a great effort, and, raising himself up towards Colbert: “Well, Colbert,” said he, “two days have passed away—two mortal days—and, you see, nothing has been returned from yonder.”
“Patience, my lord,” said Colbert.
“Are you mad, you wretch? You advise me to have patience! Oh, in sad truth, Colbert, you are laughing at me. I am dying, and you call out to me to wait!”
“My lord,” said Colbert, with his habitual coolness, “it is impossible that things should not come out as I have said. His majesty is coming to see you, and no doubt he brings back the deed himself.”
“Do you think so? Well, I, on the contrary, am sure that his majesty is coming to thank me.”
At this moment Anne of Austria returned. On her way to the apartments of her son she had met with a new empiric. This was a powder which was said to have power to save the cardinal; and she brought a portion of this powder with her. But this was not what Mazarin expected; therefore he would not even look at it, declaring that life was not worth the pains that were taken to preserve it. But, whilst professing this philosophical axiom, his long-confined secret escaped him at last.
“That, madame,” said he, “that is not the interesting part of my situation. I made, two days ago, a little donation to the king; up to this time, from delicacy, no doubt, his majesty has not condescended to say anything about it; but the time for explanation is come, and I implore your majesty to tell me if the king has made up his mind on that matter.”
Anne of Austria was about to reply, when Mazarin stopped her.
“The truth, madame,” said he—“in the name of Heaven, the truth! Do not flatter a dying man with a hope that may prove vain.” There he stopped, a look from Colbert telling him that he was on a wrong tack.
“I know,” said Anne of Austria, taking the cardinal’s hand, “I know that you have generously made, not a little donation, as you modestly call it, but a magnificent gift. I know how painful it would be to you if the king——”
Mazarin listened, dying as he was, as ten living men could not have listened.
“If the king——” replied he.
“If the king,” continued Anne of Austria, “should not freely accept what you offer so nobly.”
Mazarin allowed himself to sink back upon his pillow like Pantaloon; that is to say, with all the despair of a man who bows before the tempest; but he still preserved sufficient strength and presence of mind to cast upon Colbert one of those looks which are well worth ten sonnets, which is to say, ten long poems.
“Should you not,” added the queen, “have considered the refusal of the king as a sort of insult?” Mazarin rolled his head about upon his pillow, without articulating a syllable. The queen was deceived, or feigned to be deceived, by this demonstration.
“Therefore,” resumed she, “I have circumvented him with good counsels; and as certain minds, jealous, no doubt, of the glory you are about to acquire by this generosity, have endeavored to prove to the king that he ought not to accept this donation, I have struggled in your favor, and so well have I struggled, that you will not have, I hope, that distress to undergo.”
“Ah!” murmured Mazarin, with languishing eyes, “ah! that is a service I shall never forget for a single minute of the few hours I still have to live.”
“I must admit,” continued the queen, “that it was not without trouble I rendered it to your eminence.”
“Ah, peste! I believe that. Oh! oh!”
“Good God! what is the matter?”
“I am burning!”
“Do you suffer much?”
“As much as one of the damned.”
Colbert would have liked to sink through the floor.
“So, then,” resumed Mazarin, “your majesty thinks that the king——” he stopped several seconds—“that the king is coming here to offer me some small thanks?”
“I think so,” said the queen. Mazarin annihilated Colbert with his last look.
At that moment the ushers announced that the king was in the ante-chambers, which were filled with people. This announcement produced a stir of which Colbert took advantage to escape by the door of the ruelle. Anne of Austria arose, and awaited her son, standing. Louis XIV. appeared at the threshold of the door, with his eyes fixed upon the dying man, who did not even think it worth while to notice that majesty from whom he thought he had nothing more to expect. An usher placed an armchair close to the bed. Louis bowed to his mother, then to the cardinal, and sat down. The queen took a seat in her turn.
Then, as the king looked behind him, the usher understood that look and made a sign to the courtiers who filled up the doorway to go out, which they instantly did. Silence fell upon the chamber with the velvet curtains. The king, still very young, and very timid in the presence of him who had been his master from his birth, still respected him much, particularly now, in the supreme majesty of death. He did not dare, therefore, to begin the conversation, feeling that every word must have its weight not only upon things of this world, but of the next. As to the cardinal, at that moment he had but one thought—his donation. It was not physical pain which gave him that air of despondency, and that lugubrious look; it was the expectation of the thanks that were about to issue from the king’s mouth, and cut off all hope of restitution. Mazarin was the first to break the silence. “Is your majesty come to make any stay at Vincennes?” said he.
Louis made an affirmative sign with his head.
“That is a gracious favor,” continued Mazarin, “granted to a dying man, and which will render death less painful to him.”
“I hope,” replied the king, “I am come to visit, not a dying man, but a sick man, susceptible of cure.”
Mazarin replied by a movement of the head.
“Your majesty is very kind; but I know more than you on that subject. The last visit, sire,” said he, “the last visit.”
“If it were so, monsieur le cardinal,” said Louis, “I would come a last time to ask the counsels of a guide to whom I owe everything.”
Anne of Austria was a woman; she could not restrain her tears. Louis showed himself much affected, and Mazarin still more than his two guests, but from very different motives. Here the silence returned. The queen wiped her eyes, and the king resumed his firmness.
“I was saying,” continued the king, “that I owed much to your eminence.” The eyes of the cardinal devoured the king, for he felt the great moment had come. “And,” continued Louis, “the principal object of my visit was to offer you very sincere thanks for the last evidence of friendship you have kindly sent me.”
The cheeks of the cardinal became sunken, his lips partially opened, and the most lamentable sigh he had ever uttered was about to issue from his chest.
“Sire,” said he, “I shall have despoiled my poor family; I shall have ruined all who belong to me, which may be imputed to me as an error; but, at least, it shall not be said of me that I have refused to sacrifice everything to my king.”
Anne of Austria’s tears flowed afresh.
“My dear Monsieur Mazarin,” said the king, in a more serious tone than might have been expected from his youth, “you have misunderstood me, apparently.”
Mazarin raised himself upon his elbow.
“I have no purpose to despoil your dear family, nor to ruin your servants. Oh, no, that must never be!”
“Humph!” thought Mazarin, “he is going to restore me some scraps; let us get the largest piece we can.”
“The king is going to be foolishly affected and play the generous,” thought the queen; “he must not be allowed to impoverish himself; such an opportunity for getting a fortune will never occur again.”
“Sire,” said the cardinal, aloud, “my family is very numerous, and my nieces will be destitute when I am gone.”
“Oh,” interrupted the queen, eagerly, “have no uneasiness with respect to your family, dear Monsieur Mazarin; we have no friends dearer than your friends; your nieces shall be my children, the sisters of his majesty; and if a favor be distributed in France, it shall be to those you love.”
“Smoke!” thought Mazarin, who knew better than any one the faith that can be put in the promises of kings. Louis read the dying man’s thought in his face.
“Be comforted, my dear Monsieur Mazarin,” said he, with a half-smile, sad beneath its irony; “the Mesdemoiselles de Mancini will lose, in losing you, their most precious good; but they shall none the less be the richest heiresses of France; and since you have been kind enough to give me their dowry”—the cardinal was panting—“I restore it to them,” continued Louis, drawing from his breast and holding towards the cardinal’s bed the parchment which contained the donation that, during two days, had kept alive such tempests in the mind of Mazarin.
“What did I tell you, my lord?” murmured in the alcove a voice which passed away like a breath.
“Your majesty returns my donation!” cried Mazarin, so disturbed by joy as to forget his character of a benefactor.
“Your majesty rejects the forty millions!” cried Anne of Austria, so stupefied as to forget her character of an afflicted wife, or queen.
“Yes, my lord cardinal; yes, madame,” replied Louis XIV., tearing the parchment which Mazarin had not yet ventured to clutch; “yes, I annihilate this deed, which despoiled a whole family. The wealth acquired by his eminence in my service is his own wealth and not mine.”
“But, sire, does your majesty reflect,” said Anne of Austria, “that you have not ten thousand crowns in your coffers?”
“Madame, I have just performed my first royal action, and I hope it will worthily inaugurate my reign.”
“Ah! sire, you are right!” cried Mazarin; “that is truly great—that is truly generous which you have just done.” And he looked, one after the other, at the pieces of the act spread over his bed, to assure himself that it was the original and not a copy that had been torn. At length his eyes fell upon the fragment which bore his signature, and recognizing it, he sunk back on his bolster in a swoon. Anne of Austria, without strength to conceal her regret, raised her hands and eyes toward heaven.
“Oh! sire,” cried Mazarin, “may you be blessed! My God! May you be beloved by all my family. Per Baccho! If ever any of those belonging to me should cause your displeasure, sire, only frown, and I will rise from my tomb!”
This pantalonnade did not produce all the effect Mazarin had counted upon. Louis had already passed to considerations of a higher nature, and as to Anne of Austria, unable to bear, without abandoning herself to the anger she felt burning within her, the magnanimity of her son and the hypocrisy of the cardinal, she arose and left the chamber, heedless of thus betraying the extent of her grief. Mazarin saw all this, and fearing that Louis XIV. might repent his decision, in order to draw attention another way he began to cry out, as, at a later period, Scapin was to cry out, in that sublime piece of pleasantry with which the morose and grumbling Boileau dared to reproach Moliere. His cries, however, by degrees, became fainter; and when Anne of Austria left the apartment, they ceased altogether.
“Monsieur le cardinal,” said the king, “have you any recommendations to make to me?”
“Sire,” replied Mazarin, “you are already wisdom itself, prudence personified; of your generosity I shall not venture to speak; that which you have just done exceeds all that the most generous men of antiquity or of modern times have ever done.”
The king received this praise coldly.
“So you confine yourself,” said he, “to your thanks—and your experience, much more extensive than my wisdom, my prudence, or my generosity, does not furnish you with a single piece of friendly advice to guide my future.”
Mazarin reflected for a moment. “You have just done much for me, sire,” said he, “that is, for my family.”
“Say no more about that,” said the king.
“Well!” continued Mazarin, “I shall give you something in exchange for these forty millions you have refused so royally.”
Louis XIV. indicated by a movement that these flatteries were displeasing to him. “I shall give you a piece of advice,” continued Mazarin; “yes, a piece of advice—advice more precious than the forty millions.”
“My lord cardinal!” interrupted Louis.
“Sire, listen to this advice.”
“I am listening.”
“Come nearer, sire, for I am weak!—nearer, sire, nearer!”
The king bent over the dying man. “Sire,” said Mazarin, in so low a tone that the breath of his words arrived only like a recommendation from the tomb in the attentive ears of the king—“Sire, never have a prime minister.”
Louis drew back astonished. The advice was a confession—a treasure, in fact, was that sincere confession of Mazarin. The legacy of the cardinal to the young king was composed of six words only, but those six words, as Mazarin had said, were worth forty millions. Louis remained for an instant bewildered. As for Mazarin, he appeared only to have said something quite natural. A little scratching was heard along the curtains of the alcove. Mazarin understood: “Yes, yes!” cried he warmly, “yes, sire, I recommend to you a wise man, an honest man, and a clever man.”
“Tell me his name, my lord.”
“His name is yet almost unknown, sire; it is M. Colbert, my attendant. Oh! try him,” added Mazarin, in an earnest voice; “all that he has predicted has come to pass, he has a safe glance, he is never mistaken either in things or in men—which is more surprising still. Sire, I owe you much, but I think I acquit myself of all towards you in giving you M. Colbert.”
“So be it,” said Louis, faintly, for, as Mazarin had said, the name of Colbert was quite unknown to him, and he thought the enthusiasm of the cardinal partook of the delirium of a dying man. The cardinal sank back on his pillows.
“For the present, adieu, sire! adieu,” murmured Mazarin. “I am tired, and I have yet a rough journey to take before I present myself to my new Master. Adieu, sire!”
The young king felt the tears rise to his eyes; he bent over the dying man, already half a corpse, and then hastily retired.
49. The First Appearance of Colbert
The whole night was passed in anguish, common to the dying man and to the king: the dying man expected his deliverance, the king awaited his liberty. Louis did not go to bed. An hour after leaving the chamber of the cardinal, he learned that the dying man, recovering a little strength, had insisted upon being dressed, adorned and painted, and seeing the ambassadors. Like Augustus, he no doubt considered the world a great stage, and was desirous of playing out the last act of the comedy. Anne of Austria reappeared no more in the cardinal’s apartments; she had nothing more to do there. Propriety was the pretext for her absence. On his part, the cardinal did not ask for her: the advice the queen had given her son rankled in his heart.
Towards midnight, while still painted, Mazarin’s mortal agony came on. He had revised his will, and as this will was the exact expression of his wishes, and as he feared that some interested influence might take advantage of his weakness to make him change something in it, he had given orders to Colbert, who walked up and down the corridor which led to the cardinal’s bed-chamber, like the most vigilant of sentinels. The king, shut up in his own apartment, dispatched his nurse every hour to Mazarin’s chamber, with orders to bring him back the exact bulletin of the cardinal’s state. After having heard that Mazarin was dressed, painted, and had seen the ambassadors, Louis heard that the prayers for the dying were being read for the cardinal. At one o’clock in the morning, Guenaud had administered the last remedy. This was a relic of the old customs of that fencing time, which was about to disappear to give place to another time, to believe that death could be kept off by some good secret thrust. Mazarin, after having taken the remedy, respired freely for nearly ten minutes. He immediately gave orders that the news should be spread everywhere of a fortunate crisis. The king, on learning this, felt as if a cold sweat were passing over his brow;—he had had a glimpse of the light of liberty; slavery appeared to him more dark and less acceptable than ever. But the bulletin which followed entirely changed the face of things. Mazarin could no longer breathe at all, and could scarcely follow the prayers which the cure of Saint-Nicholas-des-Champs recited near him. The king resumed his agitated walk about his chamber, and consulted, as he walked, several papers drawn from a casket of which he alone had the key. A third time the nurse returned. M. de Mazarin had just uttered a joke, and had ordered his “Flora,” by Titian, to be revarnished. At length, towards two o’clock in the morning, the king could no longer resist his weariness: he had not slept for twenty-four hours. Sleep, so powerful at his age, overcame him for about an hour. But he did not go to bed for that hour, he slept in a fauteuil. About four o’clock his nurse awoke him by entering the room.
“Well?” asked the king.
“Well, my dear sire,” said the nurse, clasping her hands with an air of commiseration. “Well, he is dead!”
The king arose at a bound, as if a steel spring had been applied to his legs. “Dead!” cried he.
“Alas! yes.”
“Is it quite certain?”
“Yes.”
“Official?”
“Yes.”
“Has the news been made public?”
“Not yet.”
“Who told you, then, that the cardinal was dead?”
“M. Colbert.”
“M. Colbert?”
“Yes.”
“And was he sure of what he said?”
“He came out of the chamber, and had held a glass for some minutes before the cardinal’s lips.”
“Ah!” said the king. “And what is become of M. Colbert?”
“He has just left his eminence’s chamber.”
“Where is he?”
“He followed me.”
“So that he is——”
“Sire, waiting at your door, till it shall be your good pleasure to receive him.”
Louis ran to the door, opened it himself, and perceived Colbert standing waiting in the passage. The king started at sight of this statue, all clothed in black. Colbert, bowing with profound respect, advanced two steps towards his majesty. Louis re-entered his chamber, making Colbert a sign to follow. Colbert entered; Louis dismissed the nurse, who closed the door as she went out. Colbert remained modestly standing near that door.
“What do you come to announce to me, monsieur?” said Louis, very much troubled at being thus surprised in his private thoughts, which he could not completely conceal.
“That monsieur le cardinal has just expired, sire; and that I bring your majesty his last adieu.”
The king remained pensive for a minute; and during that minute he looked attentively at Colbert;—it was evident that the cardinal’s last words were in his mind. “Are you, then, M. Colbert?” asked he.
“Yes, sire.”
“His faithful servant, as his eminence himself told me?”
“Yes, sire.”
“The depositary of many of his secrets?”
“Of all of them.”
“The friends and servants of his eminence will be dear to me, monsieur, and I shall take care that you are well placed in my employment.”
Colbert bowed.
“You are a financier, monsieur, I believe?”
“Yes, sire.”
“And did monsieur le cardinal employ you in his stewardship?”
“I had that honor, sire.”
“You never did anything personally for my household, I believe?”
“Pardon me, sire, it was I who had the honor of giving monsieur le cardinal the idea of an economy which puts three hundred thousand francs a year into your majesty’s coffers.”
“What economy was that, monsieur?” asked Louis XIV.
“Your majesty knows that the hundred Swiss have silver lace on each side of their ribbons?”
“Doubtless.”
“Well, sire, it was I who proposed that imitation silver lace should be placed upon these ribbons, it could not be detected, and a hundred thousand crowns serve to feed a regiment during six months; and is the price of ten thousand good muskets or the value of a vessel of ten guns, ready for sea.”
“That is true,” said Louis XIV., considering more attentively, “and, ma foi! that was a well placed economy; besides, it was ridiculous for soldiers to wear the same lace as noblemen.”
“I am happy to be approved of by your majesty.”
“Is that the only appointment you held about the cardinal?” asked the king.
“It was I who was appointed to examine the accounts of the superintendent, sire.”
“Ah!” said Louis, who was about to dismiss Colbert, but whom that word stopped; “ah! it was you whom his eminence had charged to control M. Fouquet, was it? And the result of the examination?”
“Is that there is a deficit, sire; but if your majesty will permit me——”
“Speak, M. Colbert.”
“I ought to give your majesty some explanations.”
“Not at all, monsieur, it is you who have controlled these accounts, give me the result.”
“That is very easily done, sire; emptiness everywhere, money nowhere.”
“Beware, monsieur; you are roughly attacking the administration of M. Fouquet, who, nevertheless, I have heard say, is an able man.”
Colbert colored, and then became pale, for he felt that from that minute he entered upon a struggle with a man whose power almost equaled the sway of him who had just died. “Yes, sire, a very able man,” repeated Colbert, bowing.
“But if M. Fouquet is an able man, and, in spite of that ability, if money be wanting, whose fault is it?”
“I do not accuse, sire, I verify.”
“That is well; make out your accounts, and present them to me. There is a deficit, you say? A deficit may be temporary; credit returns and funds are restored.”
“No, sire.”
“Upon this year, perhaps, I understand that; but upon next year?”
“Next year is eaten as bare as the current year.”
“But the year after, then?”
“Will be just like next year.”
“What do you tell me, Monsieur Colbert?”
“I say there are four years engaged beforehand.
“They must have a loan, then.”
“They must have three, sire.”
“I will create offices to make them resign, and the salary of the posts shall be paid into the treasury.”
“Impossible, sire, for there have already been creations upon creations of offices, the provisions of which are given in blank, so that the purchasers enjoy them without filling them. That is why your majesty cannot make them resign. Further, upon each agreement M. Fouquet has made an abatement of a third, so that the people have been plundered, without your majesty profiting by it. Let your majesty set down clearly your thought, and tell me what you wish me to explain.”
“You are right, clearness is what you wish, is it not?”
“Yes, sire, clearness. God is God above all things, because He made light.”
“Well, for example,” resumed Louis XIV., “if today, the cardinal being dead, and I being king, suppose I wanted money?”
“Your majesty would not have any.”
“Oh! that is strange, monsieur! How! my superintendent would not find me any money?”
Colbert shook his large head.
“How is that?” said the king, “is the income of the state so much in debt that there is no longer any revenue?”
“Yes, sire.”
The king started. “Explain me that, M. Colbert,” added he with a frown. “If it be so, I will get together the ordonnances to obtain a discharge from the holders, a liquidation at a cheap rate.”
“Impossible, for the ordonnances have been converted into bills, which bills, for the convenience of return and facility of transaction, are divided into so many parts that the originals can no longer be recognized.”
Louis, very much agitated, walked about, still frowning. “But, if this is as you say, Monsieur Colbert,” said he, stopping all at once, “I shall be ruined before I begin to reign.”
“You are, in fact, sire,” said the impassible caster-up of figures.
“Well, but yet, monsieur, the money is somewhere?”
“Yes, sire, and even as a beginning, I bring your majesty a note of funds which M. le Cardinal Mazarin was not willing to set down in his testament, neither in any act whatever, but which he confided to me.”
“To you?”
“Yes, sire, with an injunction to remit it to your majesty.”
“What! besides the forty millions of the testament?”
“Yes, sire.”
“M. de Mazarin had still other funds?”
Colbert bowed.
“Why, that man was a gulf!” murmured the king. “M. de Mazarin on one side, M. Fouquet on the other,—more than a hundred millions perhaps between them! No wonder my coffers should be empty!” Colbert waited without stirring.
“And is the sum you bring me worth the trouble?” asked the king.
“Yes, sire, it is a round sum.”
“Amounting to how much?”
“To thirteen millions of livres, sire.”
“Thirteen millions!” cried Louis, trembling with joy: “do you say thirteen millions, Monsieur Colbert?”
“I said thirteen millions, yes, your majesty.”
“Of which everybody is ignorant?”
“Of which everybody is ignorant.”
“Which are in your hands?”
“In my hands, yes, sire.”
“And which I can have?”
“Within two hours, sire.”
“But where are they, then?”
“In the cellar of a house which the cardinal possessed in the city, and which he was so kind as to leave me by a particular clause of his will.”
“You are acquainted with the cardinal’s will, then?”
“I have a duplicate of it, signed by his hand.”
“A duplicate?”
“Yes, sire, and here it is.” Colbert drew the deed quietly from his pocket and showed it to the king. The king read the article relative to the donation of the house.
“But,” said he, “there is no question here but of the house; there is nothing said of the money.”
“Your pardon, sire, it is in my conscience.”
“And Monsieur Mazarin has intrusted it to you?”
“Why not, sire?”
“He! a man mistrustful of everybody?”
“He was not so of me, sire, as your majesty may perceive.”
Louis fixed his eyes with admiration upon that vulgar but expressive face. “You are an honest man, M. Colbert,” said the king.
“That is not a virtue, it is a duty,” replied Colbert, coolly.
“But,” added Louis, “does not the money belong to the family?”
“If this money belonged to the family it would be disposed of in the testament, as the rest of his fortune is. If this money belonged to the family, I, who drew up the deed of donation in favor of your majesty, should have added the sum of thirteen millions to that of forty millions which was offered to you.”
“How!” exclaimed Louis XIV., “was it you who drew up the deed of donation?”
“Yes, sire.”
“And yet the cardinal was attached to you?” added the king ingenuously.
“I had assured his eminence you would by no means accept the gift,” said Colbert in that same quiet manner we have described, and which, even in the common habits of life, had something solemn in it.
Louis passed his hand over his brow. “Oh! how young I am,” murmured he, “to have the command of men.”
Colbert waited the end of this monologue. He saw Louis raise his head. “At what hour shall I send the money to your majesty?” asked he.
“To-night, at eleven o’clock; I desire that no one may know that I possess this money.”
Colbert made no more reply than if the thing had not been said to him.
“Is the amount in ingots, or coined gold?”
“In coined gold, sire.”
“That is well.”
“Where shall I send it?”
“To the Louvre. Thank you, M. Colbert.”
Colbert bowed and retired. “Thirteen millions!” exclaimed Louis, as soon as he was alone. “This must be a dream!” Then he allowed his head to sink between his hands, as if he were really asleep. But at the end of a moment he arose, and opening the window violently he bathed his burning brow in the keen morning air, which brought to his senses the scent of the trees, and the perfume of flowers. A splendid dawn was gilding the horizon, and the first rays of the sun bathed in flame the young king’s brow. “This is the dawn of my reign,” murmured Louis XIV. “It’s a presage sent by the Almighty.”
50. The First Day of the Royalty of Louis XIV
In the morning, the news of the death of the cardinal was spread through the castle, and thence speedily reached the city. The ministers Fouquet, Lyonne, and Letellier entered la salle des seances, to hold a council. The king sent for them immediately. “Messieurs,” said he, “as long as monsieur le cardinal lived, I allowed him to govern my affairs; but now I mean to govern them myself. You will give me your advice when I ask it. You may go.”
The ministers looked at each other with surprise. If they concealed a smile it was with a great effort, for they knew that the prince, brought up in absolute ignorance of business, by this took upon himself a burden much too heavy for his strength. Fouquet took leave of his colleagues upon the stairs, saying:—“Messieurs! there will be so much less labor for us.”
And he climbed gayly into his carriage. The others, a little uneasy at the turn things had taken, went back to Paris together. Towards ten o’clock the king repaired to the apartment of his mother, with whom he had a long and private conversation. After dinner, he got into his carriage, and went straight to the Louvre. There he received much company, and took a degree of pleasure in remarking the hesitation of each, and the curiosity of all. Towards evening he ordered the doors of the Louvre to be closed, with the exception of one only, which opened on the quay. He placed on duty at this point two hundred Swiss, who did not speak a word of French, with orders to admit all who carried packages, but no others; and by no means to allow any one to go out. At eleven o’clock precisely, he heard the rolling of a heavy carriage under the arch, then of another, then of a third; after which the gate grated upon its hinges to be closed. Soon after, somebody scratched with his nail at the door of the cabinet. The king opened it himself, and beheld Colbert, whose first word was this:—“The money is in your majesty’s cellar.”
The king then descended and went himself to see the barrels of specie, in gold and silver, which, under the direction of Colbert, four men had just rolled into a cellar of which the king had given Colbert the key in the morning. This review completed, Louis returned to his apartments, followed by Colbert, who had not apparently warmed with one ray of personal satisfaction.
“Monsieur,” said the king, “what do you wish that I should give you, as a recompense for this devotedness and probity?”
“Absolutely nothing, sire.”
“How nothing? Not even an opportunity of serving me?”
“If your majesty were not to furnish me with that opportunity, I should not the less serve you. It is impossible for me not to be the best servant of the king.”
“You shall be intendant of the finances, M. Colbert.”
“But there is already a superintendent, sire.”
“I know that.”
“Sire, the superintendent of the finances is the most powerful man in the kingdom.”
“Ah!” cried Louis, coloring, “do you think so?”
“He will crush me in a week, sire. Your majesty gives me a controle for which strength is indispensable. An intendant under a superintendent,—that is inferiority.”
“You want support—you do not reckon upon me?”
“I had the honor of telling your majesty that during the lifetime of M. de Mazarin, M. Fouquet was the second man in the kingdom; now M. de Mazarin is dead, M. Fouquet is become the first.”
“Monsieur, I agree to what you told me of all things up to to-day; but to-morrow, please to remember, I shall no longer suffer it.”
“Then I shall be of no use to your majesty?”
“You are already, since you fear to compromise yourself in serving me.”
“I only fear to be placed so that I cannot serve your majesty.”
“What do you wish, then?”
“I wish your majesty to allow me assistance in the labors of the office of intendant.”
“The post would lose its value.”
“It would gain in security.”
“Choose your colleagues.”
“Messieurs Breteuil, Marin, Harvard.”
“To-morrow the ordonnance shall appear.
“Sire, I thank you.”
“Is that all you ask?
“No, sire, one thing more.”
“What is that?”
“Allow me to compose a chamber of justice.”
“What would this chamber of justice do?”
“Try the farmers-general and contractors, who, during ten years, have been robbing the state.”
“Well, but what would you do with them?”
“Hang two or three, and that would make the rest disgorge.”
“I cannot commence my reign with executions, Monsieur Colbert.”
“On the contrary, sire, you had better, in order not to have to end with them.”
The king made no reply. “Does your majesty consent?” said Colbert.
“I will reflect upon it, monsieur.”
“It will be too late when reflection may be made.”
“Why?”
“Because you have to deal with people stronger than ourselves, if they are warned.”
“Compose that chamber of justice, monsieur.”
“I will, sire.”
“Is that all?”
“No, sire; there is still another important affair. What rights does your majesty attach to this office of intendant?”
“Well—I do not know—the customary ones.”
“Sire, I desire that this office be invested with the right of reading the correspondence with England.”
“Impossible, monsieur, for that correspondence is kept from the council; monsieur le cardinal himself carried it on.”
“I thought your majesty had this morning declared that there should no longer be a council?”
“Yes, I said so.”
“Let your majesty then have the goodness to read all the letters yourself, particularly those from England; I hold strongly to this article.”
“Monsieur, you shall have that correspondence, and render me an account of it.”
“Now, sire, what shall I do with respect to the finances?”
“Everything M. Fouquet has not done.”
“That is all I ask of your majesty. Thanks, sire, I depart in peace;” and at these words he took his leave. Louis watched his departure. Colbert was not yet a hundred paces from the Louvre when the king received a courier from England. After having looked at and examined the envelope, the king broke the seal precipitately, and found a letter from Charles II. The following is what the English prince wrote to his royal brother:—
“Your majesty must be rendered very uneasy by the illness of M. le Cardinal Mazarin; but the excess of danger can only prove of service to you. The cardinal is given over by his physician. I thank you for the gracious reply you have made to my communication touching the Princess Henrietta, my sister, and, in a week, the princess and her court will set out for Paris. It is gratifying to me to acknowledge the fraternal friendship you have evinced towards me, and to call you, more justly than ever, my brother. It is gratifying to me, above everything, to prove to your majesty how much I am interested in all that may please you. You are having Belle-Isle-en-Mer secretly fortified. That is wrong. We shall never be at war against each other. That measure does not make me uneasy, it makes me sad. You are spending useless millions, tell your ministers so; and rest assured that I am well informed; render me the same service, my brother, if occasion offers.”
The king rang his bell violently, and his valet de chambre appeared. “Monsieur Colbert is just gone; he cannot be far off. Let him be called back!” exclaimed he.
The valet was about to execute the order, when the king stopped him.
“No,” said he, “no, I see the whole scheme of that man. Belle-Isle belongs to M. Fouquet; Belle-Isle is being fortified: that is a conspiracy on the part of M. Fouquet. The discovery of that conspiracy is the ruin of the superintendent, and that discovery is the result of the correspondence with England: this is why Colbert wished to have that correspondence. Oh! but I cannot place all my dependence upon that man; he has a good head, but I must have an arm!” Louis, all at once, uttered a joyful cry. “I had,” said he, “a lieutenant of musketeers!”
“Yes, sire—Monsieur d’Artagnan.”
“He quitted the service for a time.”
“Yes, sire.”
“Let him be found, and be here to-morrow the first thing in the morning.”
The valet de chambre bowed and went out.
“Thirteen millions in my cellar,” said the king; “Colbert carrying my purse and D’Artagnan my sword—I am king.”
51. A Passion
The day of his arrival, on returning from the Palais Royal, Athos, as we have seen, went straight to his hotel in the Rue Saint-Honore. He there found the Vicomte de Bragelonne waiting for him in his chamber, chatting with Grimaud. It was not an easy thing to talk with this old servant. Two men only possessed the secret, Athos and D’Artagnan. The first succeeded, because Grimaud sought to make him speak himself; D’Artagnan, on the contrary, because he knew how to make Grimaud talk. Raoul was occupied in making him describe the voyage to England, and Grimaud had related it in all its details, with a limited number of gestures and eight words, neither more nor less. He had, at first, indicated by an undulating movement of his hand, that his master and he had crossed the sea. “Upon some expedition?” Raoul had asked.
Grimaud by bending down his head had answered, “Yes.”
“When monsieur le comte incurred much danger?” asked Raoul.
“Neither too much nor too little,” was replied by a shrug of the shoulders.
“But, still, what sort of danger?” insisted Raoul.
Grimaud pointed to the sword; he pointed to the fire and to a musket that was hanging on the wall.
“Monsieur le comte had an enemy there, then?” cried Raoul.
“Monk,” replied Grimaud.
“It is strange,” continued Raoul, “that monsieur le comte persists in considering me a novice, and not allowing me to partake the honor and danger of his adventure.”
Grimaud smiled. It was at this moment Athos came in. The host was lighting him up the stairs, and Grimaud, recognizing the step of his master, hastened to meet him, which cut short the conversation. But Raoul was launched on the sea of interrogatories, and did not stop. Taking both hands of the comte, with warm, but respectful tenderness,—“How is it, monsieur,” said he, “that you have set out upon a dangerous voyage without bidding me adieu, without commanding the aid of my sword, of myself, who ought to be your support, now I have the strength; whom you have brought up like a man? Ah! monsieur, can you expose me to the cruel trial of never seeing you again?”
“Who told you, Raoul,” said the comte, placing his cloak and hat in the hands of Grimaud, who had unbuckled his sword, “who told you that my voyage was a dangerous one?”
“I,” said Grimaud.
“And why did you do so?” said Athos, sternly.
Grimaud was embarrassed; Raoul came to his assistance, by answering for him. “It is natural, monsieur that our good Grimaud should tell me the truth in what concerns you. By whom should you be loved and supported, if not by me?”
Athos did not reply. He made a friendly motion to Grimaud, which sent him out of the room, he then seated himself in a fauteuil, whilst Raoul remained standing before him.
“But is it true,” continued Raoul, “that your voyage was an expedition, and that steel and fire threatened you?”
“Say no more about that, vicomte,” said Athos mildly. “I set out hastily, it is true: but the service of King Charles II. required a prompt departure. As to your anxiety, I thank you for it, and I know that I can depend upon you. You have not wanted for anything, vicomte, in my absence, have you?”
“No, monsieur, thank you.”
“I left orders with Blaisois to pay you a hundred pistoles, if you should stand in need of money.”
“Monsieur, I have not seen Blaisois.”
“You have been without money, then?”
“Monsieur, I had thirty pistoles left from the sale of the horses I took in my last campaign, and M. le Prince had the kindness to allow me to win two hundred pistoles at his play-table three months ago.”
“Do you play? I don’t like that, Raoul.”
“I never play, monsieur; it was M. le Prince who ordered me to hold his cards at Chantilly—one night when a courier came to him from the king. I won, and M. le Prince commanded me to take the stakes.”
“Is that a practice in the household, Raoul?” asked Athos with a frown.
“Yes, monsieur; every week M. le Prince affords, upon one occasion or another, a similar advantage to one of his gentlemen. There are fifty gentlemen in his highness’s household; it was my turn.”
“Very well! You went into Spain, then?”
“Yes, monsieur, I made a very delightful and interesting journey.”
“You have been back a month, have you not?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“And in the course of that month?”
“In that month——”
“What have you done?”
“My duty, monsieur.”
“Have you not been home, to La Fere?”
Raoul colored. Athos looked at him with a fixed but tranquil expression.
“You would be wrong not to believe me,” said Raoul. “I feel that I colored, and in spite of myself. The question you did me the honor to ask me is of a nature to raise in me much emotion. I color, then, because I am agitated, not because I meditate a falsehood.”
“I know, Raoul, you never lie.”
“No, monsieur.”
“Besides, my young friend, you would be wrong; what I wanted to say——”
“I know quite well, monsieur. You would ask me if I have not been to Blois?”
“Exactly so.”
“I have not been there; I have not even seen the person to whom you allude.”
Raoul’s voice trembled as he pronounced these words. Athos, a sovereign judge in all matters of delicacy, immediately added, “Raoul, you answer with a painful feeling; you are unhappy.”
“Very, monsieur; you have forbidden me to go to Blois, or to see Mademoiselle de la Vallière again.” Here the young man stopped. That dear name, so delightful to pronounce, made his heart bleed, although so sweet upon his lips.
“And I have acted rightly, Raoul,” Athos hastened to reply. “I am neither an unjust nor a barbarous father; I respect true love; but I look forward for you to a future—an immense future. A new reign is about to break upon us like a fresh dawn. War calls upon a young king full of chivalric spirit. What is wanting to assist this heroic ardor is a battalion of young and free lieutenants who would rush to the fight with enthusiasm and fall, crying: ‘Vive le Roi!’ instead of ‘Adieu, my dear wife.’ You understand that, Raoul. However brutal my reasoning may appear, I conjure you, then, to believe me, and to turn away your thoughts from those early days of youth in which you took up this habit of love—days of effeminate carelessness, which soften the heart and render it incapable of consuming those strong, bitter draughts called glory and adversity. Therefore, Raoul, I repeat to you, you should see in my counsel only the desire of being useful to you, only the ambition of seeing you prosper. I believe you capable of becoming a remarkable man. March alone, and you will march better, and more quickly.”
“You have commanded, monsieur,” replied Raoul, “and I obey.”
“Commanded!” cried Athos. “Is it thus you reply to me? I have commanded you! Oh! you distort my words as you misconceive my intentions. I do not command you; I request you.”
“No, monsieur, you have commanded,” said Raoul, persistently; “had you only requested me, your request is even more effective than your order. I have not seen Mademoiselle de la Vallière again.”
“But you are unhappy! you are unhappy!” insisted Athos.
Raoul made no reply.
“I find you pale; I find you dull. The sentiment is strong, then?”
“It is a passion,” replied Raoul.
“No—a habit.”
“Monsieur, you know I have traveled much, that I have passed two years far away from her. A habit would yield to an absence of two years, I believe; whereas, on my return, I loved, not more, that was impossible, but as much. Mademoiselle de la Vallière is for me the one lady above all others; but you are for me a god upon earth—to you I sacrifice everything.”
“You are wrong,” said Athos; “I have no longer any right over you. Age has emancipated you; you no longer even stand in need of my consent. Besides, I will not refuse my consent after what you have told me. Marry Mademoiselle de la Vallière, if you like.”
Raoul was startled, but suddenly: “You are very kind, monsieur,” said he, “and your concession excites my warmest gratitude, but I will not accept it.”
“Then you now refuse?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“I will not oppose you in anything, Raoul.”
“But you have at the bottom of your heart an idea against this marriage: it is not your choice.”
“That is true.”
“That is sufficient to make me resist: I will wait.”
“Beware, Raoul! What you are now saying is serious.”
“I know it is, monsieur; as I said, I will wait.”
“Until I die?” said Athos, much agitated.
“Oh! monsieur,” cried Raoul, with tears in his eyes, “is it possible that you should wound my heart thus? I have never given you cause of complaint!”
“Dear boy, that is true,” murmured Athos, pressing his lips violently together to conceal the emotion of which he was no longer master. “No, I will no longer afflict you; only I do not comprehend what you mean by waiting. Will you wait till you love no longer?”
“Ah! for that!—no, monsieur. I will wait till you change your opinion.”
“I should wish to put the matter to a test, Raoul; I should like to see if Mademoiselle de la Vallière will wait as you do.”
“I hope so, monsieur.”
“But take care, Raoul! suppose she did not wait? Ah, you are so young, so confiding, so loyal! Women are changeable.”
“You have never spoken ill to me of women, monsieur; you have never had to complain of them; why should you doubt of Mademoiselle de la Vallière?”
“That is true,” said Athos, casting down his eyes; “I have never spoken ill to you of women; I have never had to complain of them; Mademoiselle de la Vallière never gave birth to a suspicion; but when we are looking forward, we must go even to exceptions, even to improbabilities! If, I say, Mademoiselle de la Vallière should not wait for you?”
“How, monsieur?”
“If she turned her eyes another way.”
“If she looked favorably upon another, do you mean, monsieur?” said Raoul, pale with agony.
“Exactly.”
“Well, monsieur, I would kill him,” said Raoul, simply, “and all the men whom Mademoiselle de la Vallière should choose, until one of them had killed me, or Mademoiselle de la Vallière had restored me her heart.”
Athos started. “I thought,” resumed he, in an agitated voice, “that you called me just now your god, your law in this world.”
“Oh!” said Raoul, trembling, “you would forbid me the duel?”
“Suppose I did forbid it, Raoul?”
“You would forbid me to hope, monsieur; consequently you would not forbid me to die.”
Athos raised his eyes toward the vicomte. He had pronounced these words with the most melancholy inflection, accompanied by the most melancholy look. “Enough,” said Athos, after a long silence, “enough of this subject, upon which we both go too far. Live as well as you are able, Raoul, perform your duties, love Mademoiselle de; la Vallière; in a word, act like a man, since you have attained the age of a man; only do not forget that I love you tenderly, and that you profess to love me.”
“Ah! monsieur le comte!” cried Raoul, pressing the hand of Athos to his heart.
“Enough, dear boy, leave me; I want rest. A propos, M. d’Artagnan has returned from England with me; you owe him a visit.”
“I will pay it, monsieur, with great pleasure. I love Monsieur d’Artagnan exceedingly.”
“You are right in doing so; he is a worthy man and a brave cavalier.”
“Who loves you dearly.”
“I am sure of that. Do you know his address?”
“At the Louvre, I suppose, or wherever the king is. Does he not command the musketeers?”
“No; at present M. d’Artagnan is absent on leave; he is resting for awhile. Do not, therefore, seek him at the posts of his service. You will hear of him at the house of a certain Planchet.”
“His former lackey?”
“Exactly, turned grocer.”
“I know; Rue des Lombards?”
“Somewhere thereabouts, or Rue des Arcis.”
“I will find it, monsieur,—I will find it.”
“You will say a thousand kind things to him, on my part, and ask him to come and dine with me before I set out for La Fere.”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Good-night, Raoul!”
“Monsieur, I see you wear an order I never saw you wear before; accept my compliments!”
“The Fleece! that is true. A bauble, my boy, which no longer amuses an old child like myself. Goodnight, Raoul!”
52. D’Artagnan’s Lesson
Raoul did not meet with D’Artagnan the next day, as he had hoped. He only met with Planchet, whose joy was great at seeing the young man again, and who contrived to pay him two or three little soldierly compliments, savoring very little of the grocer’s shop. But as Raoul was returning the next day from Vincennes, at the head of fifty dragoons confided to him by Monsieur le Prince, he perceived, in La Place Baudoyer, a man with his nose in the air, examining a house as we examine a horse we have a fancy to buy. This man, dressed in citizen costume buttoned up like a military pourpoint, a very small hat on his head, but a long shagreen-mounted sword by his side, turned his head as soon as he heard the steps of the horses, and left off looking at the house to look at the dragoons. It was simply M. d’Artagnan; D’Artagnan on foot; D’Artagnan with his hands behind him, passing a little review upon the dragoons, after having reviewed the buildings. Not a man, not a tag, not a horse’s hoof escaped his inspection. Raoul rode at the side of his troop; D’Artagnan perceived him the last. “Eh!” said he, “Eh! Mordioux!”
“I was not mistaken!” cried Raoul, turning his horse towards him.
“Mistaken—no! Good-day to you,” replied the ex-musketeer; whilst Raoul eagerly pressed the hand of his old friend. “Take care, Raoul,” said D’Artagnan, “the second horse of the fifth rank will lose a shoe before he gets to the Pont Marie; he has only two nails left in his off fore-foot.”
“Wait a minute, I will come back,” said Raoul.
“Can you quit your detachment?”
“The cornet is there to take my place.”
“Then you will come and dine with me?”
“Most willingly, Monsieur d’Artagnan.”
“Be quick, then; leave your horse, or make them give me one.”
“I prefer coming back on foot with you.”
Raoul hastened to give notice to the cornet, who took his post; he then dismounted, gave his horse to one of the dragoons, and with great delight seized the arm of M. d’Artagnan, who had watched him during all these little evolutions with the satisfaction of a connoisseur.
“What, do you come from Vincennes?” said he.
“Yes, monsieur le chevalier.”
“And the cardinal?”
“Is very ill, it is even reported he is dead.’
“Are you on good terms with M. Fouquet?” asked D’Artagnan, with a disdainful movement of the shoulders, proving that the death of Mazarin did not affect him beyond measure.
“With M. Fouquet?” said Raoul, “I do not know him.”
“So much the worse! so much the worse! for a new king always seeks to get good men in his employment.”
“Oh! the king means no harm,” replied the young man.
“I say nothing about the crown,” cried D’Artagnan; “I am speaking of the king—the king, that is M. Fouquet, if the cardinal is dead. You must contrive to stand well with M. Fouquet, if you do not wish to molder away all your life as I have moldered. It is true you have, fortunately, other protectors.”
“M. le Prince, for instance.”
“Worn out! worn out!”
“M. le Comte de la Fere?”
“Athos! Oh! that’s different; yes, Athos—and if you have any wish to make your way in England, you cannot apply to a better person; I can even say, without too much vanity, that I myself have some credit at the court of Charles II. There is a king—God speed him!”
“Ah!” cried Raoul, with the natural curiosity of well-born young people, while listening to experience and courage.
“Yes, a king who amuses himself, it is true, but who has had a sword in his hand, and can appreciate useful men. Athos is on good terms with Charles II. Take service there, and leave these scoundrels of contractors and farmers-general, who steal as well with French hands as others have done with Italian hands; leave the little snivelling king, who is going to give us another reign of Francis II. Do you know anything of history, Raoul?”
“Yes, monsieur le chevalier.”
“Do you know, then, that Francis II. had always the earache?”
“No, I did not know that.”
“That Charles IV. had always the headache?”
“Indeed!”
“And Henry III. always the stomach-ache?”
Raoul began to laugh.
“Well, my dear friend, Louis XIV. always has the heartache; it is deplorable to see a king sighing from morning till night without saying once in course of the day, ventre-saint-gris! corboeuf! or anything to rouse one.”
“Was that the reason why you quitted the service, monsieur le chevalier?”
“Yes.”
“But you yourself, M. d’Artagnan, are throwing the handle after the axe; you will not make a fortune.”
“Who? I?” replied D’Artagnan, in a careless tone; “I am settled—I had some family property.”
Raoul looked at him. The poverty of D’Artagnan was proverbial. A Gascon, he exceeded in ill-luck all the gasconnades of France and Navarre; Raoul had a hundred times heard Job and D’Artagnan named together, as the twins Romulus and Remus. D’Artagnan caught Raoul’s look of astonishment.
“And has not your father told you I have been in England?”
“Yes, monsieur le chevalier.”
“And that I there met with a very lucky chance?”
“No, monsieur, I did not know that.”
“Yes, a very worthy friend of mine, a great nobleman, the viceroy of Scotland and Ireland, has endowed me with an inheritance.”
“An inheritance?”
“And a good one, too.”
“Then you are rich?”
“Bah!”
“Receive my sincere congratulation.”
“Thank you! Look, that is my house.”
“Place de Greve?”
“Yes, don’t you like this quarter?”
“On the contrary, the look-out over the water is pleasant. Oh! what a pretty old house!”
“The sign Notre Dame; it is an old cabaret, which I have transformed into a private house in two days.”
“But the cabaret is still open?”
“Pardieu!”
“And where do you lodge, then?
“I? I lodge with Planchet.”
“You said, just now, ‘This is my house.’”
“I said so, because, in fact, it is my house. I have bought it.”
“Ah!” said Raoul.
“At ten years’ purchase, my dear Raoul; a superb affair, I bought the house for thirty thousand livres; it has a garden which opens to the Rue de la Mortillerie; the cabaret lets for a thousand livres, with the first story; the garret, or second floor, for five hundred livres.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Five hundred livres for a garret? Why, it is not habitable.”
“Therefore no one inhabits it, only, you see this garret has two windows which look out upon the Place.”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Well, then, every time anybody is broken on the wheel or hung, quartered, or burnt, these two windows let for twenty pistoles.”
“Oh!” said Raoul, with horror.
“It is disgusting, is it not?” said D’Artagnan.
“Oh!” repeated Raoul.
“It is disgusting, but so it is. These Parisian cockneys are sometimes real anthropophagi. I cannot conceive how men, Christians, can make such speculations.”
“That is true.”
“As for myself,” continued D’Artagnan, “if I inhabited that house, on days of execution I would shut it up to the very keyholes; but I do not inhabit it.”
“And you let the garret for five hundred livres?”
“To the ferocious cabaretier, who sub-lets it. I said, then, fifteen hundred livres.”
“The natural interest of money,” said Raoul,—“five per cent.”
“Exactly so. I then have left the side of the house at the back, store-rooms, and cellars, inundated every winter, two hundred livres; and the garden, which is very fine, well planted, well shaded under the walls and the portal of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais, thirteen hundred livres.”
“Thirteen hundred livres! why, that is royal!”
“This is the whole history. I strongly suspect some canon of the parish (these canons are all as rich as Croesus)—I suspect some canon of having hired the garden to take his pleasure in. The tenant has given the name of M. Godard. That is either a false name or a real name; if true, he is a canon; if false, he is some unknown; but of what consequence is it to me? he always pays in advance. I had also an idea just now, when I met you, of buying a house in the Place Baudoyer, the back premises of which join my garden, and would make a magnificent property. Your dragoons interrupted my calculations. But come, let us take the Rue de la Vannerie: that will lead us straight to M. Planchet’s.” D’Artagnan mended his pace, and conducted Raoul to Planchet’s dwelling, a chamber of which the grocer had given up to his old master. Planchet was out, but the dinner was ready. There was a remains of military regularity and punctuality preserved in the grocer’s household. D’Artagnan returned to the subject of Raoul’s future.
“Your father brings you up rather strictly?” said he.
“Justly, monsieur le chevalier.”
“Oh, yes, I know Athos is just, but close, perhaps?”
“A royal hand, Monsieur d’Artagnan.”
“Well, never want, my boy! If ever you stand in need of a few pistoles, the old musketeer is at hand.”
“My dear Monsieur d’Artagnan!”
“Do you play a little?”
“Never.”
“Successful with the ladies, then?—Oh, my little Aramis! That, my dear friend, costs even more than play. It is true we fight when we lose, that is a compensation. Bah! that little sniveller, the king, makes winners give him his revenge. What a reign! my poor Raoul, what a reign! When we think that, in my time, the musketeers were besieged in their houses like Hector and Priam in the city of Troy, and the women wept, and then the walls laughed, and then five hundred beggarly fellows clapped their hands, and cried, ‘Kill! kill!’ when not one musketeer was hurt. Mordioux! you will never see anything like that.”
“You are very hard upon the king, my dear Monsieur d’Artagnan; and yet you scarcely know him.”
“I! Listen, Raoul. Day by day, hour by hour,—take note of my words,—I will predict what he will do. The cardinal being dead, he will fret; very well, that is the least silly thing he will do, particularly if he does not shed a tear.”
“And then?”
“Why then he will get M. Fouquet to allow him a pension, and will go and compose verses at Fontainebleau, upon some Mancini or other, whose eyes the queen will scratch out. She is a Spaniard, you see,—this queen of ours, and she has, for mother-in-law, Madame Anne of Austria. I know something of the Spaniards of the house of Austria.”
“And next?”
“Well, after having torn off the silver lace from the uniforms of his Swiss, because lace is too expensive, he will dismount the musketeers, because the oats and hay of a horse cost five sols a day.”
“Oh! do not say that.”
“Of what consequence is it to me? I am no longer a musketeer, am I? Let them be on horseback, let them be on foot, let them carry a larding-pin, a spit, a sword, or nothing—what is it to me?”
“My dear Monsieur d’Artagnan, I beseech you speak no more ill of the king. I am almost in his service, and my father would be very angry with me for having heard, even from your mouth, words injurious to his majesty.”
“Your father, eh? He is a knight in every bad cause. Pardieu! yes, your father is a brave man, a Caesar, it is true—but a man without perception.”
“Now, my dear chevalier,” exclaimed Raoul, laughing, “are you going to speak ill of my father, of him you call the great Athos. Truly you are in a bad vein to-day; riches render you as sour as poverty renders other people.”
“Pardieu! you are right. I am a rascal and in my dotage; I am an unhappy wretch grown old; a tent-cord untwisted, a pierced cuirass, a boot without a sole, a spur without a rowel;—but do me the pleasure to add one thing.”
“What is that, my dear Monsieur d’Artagnan?”
“Simply say: ‘Mazarin was a pitiful wretch.’”
“Perhaps he is dead.”
“More the reason—I say was; if I did not hope that he was dead, I would entreat you to say: ‘Mazarin is a pitiful wretch.’ Come, say so, say so, for love of me.”
“Well, I will.”
“Say it!”
“Mazarin was a pitiful wretch,” said Raoul, smiling at the musketeer, who roared with laughter, as in his best days.
“A moment,” said the latter; “you have spoken my first proposition, here is the conclusion of it,—repeat, Raoul, repeat: ‘But I regret Mazarin.’”
“Chevalier!”
“You will not say it? Well, then, I will say it twice for you.”
“But you would regret Mazarin?”
And they were still laughing and discussing this profession of principles, when one of the shop-boys entered. “A letter, monsieur,” said he, “for M. d’Artagnan.”
“Thank you; give it me,” cried the musketeer.
“The handwriting of monsieur le comte,” said Raoul.
“Yes, yes.” And D’Artagnan broke the seal.
“Dear friend,” said Athos, “a person has just been here to beg me to seek for you, on the part of the king.”
“Seek me!” said D’Artagnan, letting the paper fall upon the table. Raoul picked it up, and continued to read aloud:—
“Make haste. His majesty is very anxious to speak to you, and expects you at the Louvre.”
“Expects me?” again repeated the musketeer.
“He, he, he!” laughed Raoul.
“Oh, oh!” replied D’Artagnan. “What the devil can this mean?”
53. The King
The first moment of surprise over, D’Artagnan reperused Athos’s note. “It is strange,” said he, “that the king should send for me.”
“Why so?” said Raoul; “do you not think, monsieur, that the king must regret such a servant as you?”
“Oh, oh!” cried the officer, laughing with all his might; “you are poking fun at me, Master Raoul. If the king had regretted me, he would not have let me leave him. No, no; I see in it something better, or worse, if you like.”
“Worse! What can that be, monsieur le chevalier?”
“You are young, you are a boy, you are admirable. Oh, how I should like to be as you are! To be but twenty-four, with an unfurrowed brow, under which the brain is void of everything but women, love, and good intentions. Oh, Raoul, as long as you have not received the smiles of kings, the confidence of queens; as long as you have not had two cardinals killed under you, the one a tiger, the other a fox, as long as you have not—But what is the good of all this trifling? We must part, Raoul.”
“How you say the word! What a serious face!”
“Eh! but the occasion is worthy of it. Listen to me. I have a very good recommendation to tender you.”
“I am all attention, Monsieur d’Artagnan.”
“You will go and inform your father of my departure.”
“Your departure?”
“Pardieu! You will tell him that I am gone into England; and that I am living in my little country-house.”
“In England, you!—And the king’s orders?”
“You get more and more silly: do you imagine that I am going to the Louvre, to place myself at the disposal of that little crowned wolf-cub?”
“The king a wolf-cub? Why, monsieur le chevalier, you are mad!”
“On the contrary, I never was so sane. You do not know what he wants to do with me, this worthy son of Louis le Juste!—But, Mordioux! that is policy. He wishes to ensconce me snugly in the Bastile—purely and simply, look you!”
“What for?” cried Raoul, terrified at what he heard.
“On account of what I told him one day at Blois. I was warm; he remembers it.”
“You told him what?”
“That he was mean, cowardly, and silly.”
“Good God!” cried Raoul, “is it possible that such words should have issued from your mouth?”
“Perhaps I don’t give the letter of my speech, but I give the sense of it.”
“But did not the king have you arrested immediately?”
“By whom? It was I who commanded the musketeers; he must have commanded me to convey myself to prison; I would never have consented: I would have resisted myself. And then I went into England—no more D’Artagnan. Now, the cardinal is dead, or nearly so, they learn that I am in Paris, and they lay their hands on me.”
“The cardinal was your protector?”
“The cardinal knew me; he knew certain particularities of me; I also knew some of his; we appreciated each other mutually. And then, on rendering his soul to the devil, he would recommend Anne of Austria to make me the inhabitant of a safe place. Go then, and find your father, relate the fact to him—and adieu!”
“My dear Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Raoul, very much agitated, after having looked out at the window, “you cannot even fly!”
“Why not?”
“Because there is below an officer of the Swiss guards waiting for you.”
“Well!”
“Well, he will arrest you.”
D’Artagnan broke into a Homeric laugh.
“Oh! I know very well that you will resist, that you will fight, even; I know very well that you will prove the conqueror; but that amounts to rebellion, and you are an officer yourself, knowing what discipline is.”
“Devil of a boy, how logical that is!” grumbled D’Artagnan.
“You approve of it, do you not?”
“Yes, instead of passing into the street, where that idiot is waiting for me, I will slip quietly out at the back. I have a horse in the stable, and a good one. I will ride him to death; my means permit me to do so, and by killing one horse after another, I shall arrive at Boulogne in eleven hours; I know the road. Only tell your father one thing.”
“What is that?”
“That is—that the thing he knows about is placed at Planchet’s house, except a fifth, and that——”
“But, my dear M. d’Artagnan, rest assured that if you fly, two things will be said of you.”
“What are they, my dear friend?”
“The first, that you have been afraid.”
“Ah! and who will dare to say that?”
“The king first.”
“Well! but he will tell the truth,—I am afraid.”
“The second, that you knew yourself guilty.”
“Guilty of what?”
“Why, of the crimes they wish to impute to you.”
“That is true again. So, then, you advise me to go and get myself made a prisoner in the Bastile?”
“M. le Comte de la Fere would advise you just as I do.”
“Pardieu! I know he would,” said D’Artagnan thoughtfully. “You are right, I shall not escape. But if they cast me into the Bastile?”
“We will get you out again,” said Raoul, with a quiet, calm air.
“Mordioux! You said that after a brave fashion, Raoul,” said D’Artagnan, seizing his hand, “that savors of Athos, distinctly. Well, I will go, then. Do not forget my last word.”
“Except a fifth,” said Raoul.
“Yes, you are a fine boy! and I wish you to add one thing to that last word.”
“Speak, chevalier!”
“It is that if you cannot get me out of the Bastile, and I remain there—oh! that will be so, and I shall be a detestable prisoner; I, who have been a passable man,—in that case, I give three-fifths to you, and the fourth to your father.”
“Chevalier!”
“Mordioux! If you will have some masses said for me, you are welcome.”
That being said, D’Artagnan took his belt from the hook, girded on his sword, took a hat the feather of which was fresh, and held his hand out to Raoul, who threw himself into his arms. When in the shop, he cast a quick glance at the shop-lads, who looked upon the scene with a pride mingled with some inquietude; then plunging his hands into a chest of currants, he went straight to the officer who was waiting for him at the door.
“Those features! Can it be you, Monsieur de Friedisch?” cried D’Artagnan, gayly. “Eh! eh! what, do we arrest our friends?”
“Arrest!” whispered the lads among themselves.
“Yes, it is I, Monsieur d’Artagnan! Good-day to you!” said the Swiss, in his mountain patois.
“Must I give you up my sword? I warn you, that it is long and heavy; you had better let me wear it to the Louvre: I feel quite lost in the streets without a sword, and you would be more at a loss than I should, with two.”
“The king has given no orders about it,” replied the Swiss, “so keep your sword.”
“Well, that is very polite on the part of the king. Let us go, at once.”
Monsieur Friedisch was not a talker, and D’Artagnan had too many things to think about to say much. From Planchet’s shop to the Louvre was not far—they arrived in ten minutes. It was a dark night. M. de Friedisch wanted to enter by the wicket. “No,” said D’Artagnan, “you would lose time by that; take the little staircase.”
The Swiss did as D’Artagnan advised, and conducted him to the vestibule of the king’s cabinet. When arrived there, he bowed to his prisoner, and, without saying anything, returned to his post. D’Artagnan had not had time to ask why his sword was not taken from him, when the door of the cabinet opened, and a valet de chambre called “M. D’Artagnan!” The musketeer assumed his parade carriage and entered, with his large eyes wide open, his brow calm, his mustache stiff. The king was seated at a table writing. He did not disturb himself when the step of the musketeer resounded on the floor; he did not even turn his head. D’Artagnan advanced as far as the middle of the room, and seeing that the king paid no attention to him, and suspecting, besides, that this was nothing but affectation, a sort of tormenting preamble to the explanation that was preparing, he turned his back on the prince, and began to examine the frescoes on the cornices, and the cracks in the ceiling. This maneuver was accompanied by a little tacit monologue. “Ah! you want to humble me, do you?—you, whom I have seen so young—you, whom I have served as I would my own child,—you, whom I have served as I would a God—that is to say, for nothing. Wait awhile! wait awhile! you shall see what a man can do who has snuffed the air of the fire of the Huguenots, under the beard of monsieur le cardinal—the true cardinal.” At this moment Louis turned round.
“Ah! are you there, Monsieur d’Artagnan?” said he.
D’Artagnan saw the movement and imitated it. “Yes, sire,” said he.
“Very well; have the goodness to wait till I have cast this up.”
D’Artagnan made no reply; he only bowed. “That is polite enough,” thought he; “I have nothing to say.”
Louis made a violent dash with his pen, and threw it angrily away.
“Ah! go on, work yourself up!” thought the musketeer; “you will put me at my ease. You shall find I did not empty the bag, the other day, at Blois.”
Louis rose from his seat, passed his hand over his brow, then, stopping opposite to D’Artagnan, he looked at him with an air at once imperious and kind. “What the devil does he want with me? I wish he would begin!” thought the musketeer.
“Monsieur,” said the king, “you know, without doubt, that monsieur le cardinal is dead?”
“I suspected so, sire.”
“You know that, consequently, I am master in my own kingdom?”
“That is not a thing that dates from the death of monsieur le cardinal, sire; a man is always master in his own house, when he wishes to be so.”
“Yes; but do you remember all you said to me at Blois?”
“Now we come to it,” thought D’Artagnan, “I was not deceived. Well, so much the better, it is a sign that my scent is tolerably keen yet.”
“You do not answer me,” said Louis.
“Sire, I think I recollect.”
“You only think?”
“It is so long ago.”
“If you do not remember, I do. You said to me,—listen with attention.”
“Ah! I shall listen with all my ears, sire; for it is very likely the conversation will turn in a fashion very interesting to me.”
Louis once more looked at the musketeer, The latter smoothed the feather of his hat, then his mustache, and waited bravely. Louis XIV. continued: “You quitted my service, monsieur, after having told me the whole truth?”
“Yes, sire.”
“That is, after having declared to me all you thought to be true, with regard to my mode of thinking and acting. That is always a merit. You began by telling me that you had served my family thirty years, and were fatigued.”
“I said so; yes, sire.”
“And you afterwards admitted that that fatigue was a pretext, and that discontent was the real cause.”
“I was discontented, in fact, but that discontent has never betrayed itself, that I know of, and if, like a man of heart, I have spoken out before your majesty, I have not even thought of the matter, before anybody else.”
“Do not excuse yourself, D’Artagnan, but continue to listen to me. When making me the reproach that you were discontented, you received in reply a promise:—‘Wait.’—Is not that true?”
“Yes, sire, as true as what I told you.”
“You answered me, ‘Hereafter! No, now, immediately.’ Do not excuse yourself, I tell you. It was natural, but you had no charity for your poor prince, Monsieur d’Artagnan.”
“Sire! charity for a king, on the part of a poor soldier!”
“You understand me very well; you knew that I stood in need of it; you knew very well that I was not master; you knew very well that my hope was in the future. Now, you answered me when I spoke of that future, ‘My discharge,—and that directly.’”
“That is true,” murmured D’Artagnan, biting his mustache.
“You did not flatter me when I was in distress,” added Louis.
“But,” said D’Artagnan, raising his head nobly, “if I did not flatter your majesty when poor, neither did I betray you. I have shed my blood for nothing; I have watched like a dog at a door, knowing full well that neither bread nor bone would be thrown to me. I, although poor likewise, asked nothing of your majesty but the discharge you speak of.”
“I know you are a brave man, but I was a young man, and you ought to have had some indulgence for me. What had you to reproach the king with?—that he left King Charles II. without assistance?—let us say further—that he did not marry Mademoiselle de Mancini?” When saying these words, the king fixed upon the musketeer a searching look.
“Ah! ah!” thought the latter, “he is doing far more than remembering, he divines. The devil!”
“Your sentence,” continued Louis, “fell upon the king and fell upon the man. But, Monsieur d’Artagnan, that weakness, for you considered it a weakness?”—D’Artagnan made no reply—“you reproached me also with regard to monsieur, the defunct cardinal. Now, monsieur le cardinal, did he not bring me up, did he not support me?—elevating himself and supporting himself at the same time, I admit; but the benefit was discharged. As an ingrate or an egotist, would you, then, have better loved or served me?”
“Sire!”
“We will say no more about it, monsieur; it would only create in you too many regrets, and me too much pain.”
D’Artagnan was not convinced. The young king, in adopting a tone of hauteur with him, did not forward his purpose.
“You have since reflected?” resumed Louis.
“Upon what, sire?” asked D’Artagnan, politely.
“Why, upon all that I have said to you, monsieur.”
“Yes, sire, no doubt——”
“And you have only waited for an opportunity of retracting your words?”
“Sire!”
“You hesitate, it seems.”
“I do not understand what your majesty did me the honor to say to me.”
Louis’s brow became cloudy.
“Have the goodness to excuse me, sire; my understanding is particularly thick; things do not penetrate it without difficulty; but it is true, when once they get in, they remain there.”
“Yes, yes; you appear to have a memory.”
“Almost as good a one as your majesty’s.”
“Then give me quickly one solution. My time is valuable. What have you been doing since your discharge?”
“Making my fortune, sire.”
“The expression is crude, Monsieur d’Artagnan.”
“Your majesty takes it in bad part, certainly. I entertain nothing but the profoundest respect for the king; and if I have been impolite, which might be excused by my long sojourn in camps and barracks, your majesty is too much above me to be offended at a word that innocently escapes from a soldier.”
“In fact, I know you performed a brilliant action in England, monsieur. I only regret that you have broken your promise.”
“I!” cried D’Artagnan.
“Doubtless. You engaged your word not to serve any other prince on quitting my service. Now it was for King Charles II. that you undertook the marvelous carrying off of M. Monk.”
“Pardon me, sire, it was for myself.”
“And did you succeed?”
“Like the captains of the fifteenth century, coups-de-main and adventures.”
“What do you call succeeding?—a fortune?”
“A hundred thousand crowns, sire, which I now possess—that is, in one week three times as much money as I ever had in fifty years.”
“It is a handsome sum. But you are ambitious, I perceive.”
“I, sire? The quarter of that would be a treasure; and I swear to you I have no thought of augmenting it.”
“What! you contemplate remaining idle?”
“Yes, sire.”
“You mean to drop the sword?”
“That I have already done.”
“Impossible, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Louis, firmly.
“But, sire——”
“Well?”
“And why, sire?”
“Because it is my wish you should not!” said the young prince, in a voice so stern and imperious that D’Artagnan evinced surprise and even uneasiness.
“Will your majesty allow me one word of reply?” said he.
“Speak.”
“I formed that resolution when I was poor and destitute.”
“So be it. Go on.”
“Now, when by my energy I have acquired a comfortable means of subsistence, would your majesty despoil me of my liberty? Your majesty would condemn me to the lowest, when I have gained the highest?”
“Who gave you permission, monsieur to fathom my designs, or to reckon with me?” replied Louis, in a voice almost angry; “who told you what I shall do or what you will yourself do?”
“Sire,” said the musketeer, quietly, “as far as I see, freedom is not the order of the conversation, as it was on the day we came to an explanation at Blois.”
“No, monsieur; everything is changed.”
“I tender your majesty my sincere compliments upon that, but——”
“But you don’t believe it?”
“I am not a great statesman, and yet I have my eye upon affairs; it seldom fails; now, I do not see exactly as your majesty does, sire. The reign of Mazarin is over, but that of the financiers is begun. They have the money; your majesty will not often see much of it. To live under the paw of these hungry wolves is hard for a man who reckoned upon independence.”
At this moment some one scratched at the door of the cabinet; the king raised his head proudly. “Your pardon, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said he; “it is M. Colbert, who comes to make me a report. Come in M. Colbert.”
D’Artagnan drew back. Colbert entered with papers in his hand, and went up to the king. There can be little doubt that the Gascon did not lose the opportunity of applying his keen, quick glance to the new figure which presented itself.
“Is the inquiry made?”
“Yes, sire.”
“And the opinion of the inquisitors?”
“Is that the accused merit confiscation and death.”
“Ah! ah!” said the king, without changing countenance, and casting an oblique look at D’Artagnan. “And your own opinion, M. Colbert?” said he.
Colbert looked at D’Artagnan in his turn. That imposing countenance checked the words upon his lips. Louis perceived this. “Do not disturb yourself,” said he; “it is M. d’Artagnan,—do you not know M. d’Artagnan again?”
These two men looked at each other—D’Artagnan, with eyes open and bright as the day—Colbert, with his half closed, and dim. The frank intrepidity of the one annoyed the other; the circumspection of the financier disgusted the soldier. “Ah! ah! this is the gentleman who made that brilliant stroke in England,” said Colbert. And he bowed slightly to D’Artagnan.
“Ah! ah!” said the Gascon, “this is the gentleman who clipped off the lace from the uniform of the Swiss! A praiseworthy piece of economy.”
The financier thought to pierce the musketeer; but the musketeer ran the financier through.
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” resumed the king, who had not remarked all the shades of which Mazarin would have missed not one, “this concerns the farmers of the revenue who have robbed me, whom I am hanging, and whose death-warrants I am about to sign.”
“Oh! oh!” said D’Artagnan, starting.
“What did you say?”
“Oh! nothing, sire. This is no business of mine.”
The king had already taken up the pen, and was applying it to the paper. “Sire,” said Colbert in a subdued voice, “I beg to warn your majesty, that if an example be necessary, there will be difficulty in the execution of your orders.”
“What do you say?” said Louis.
“You must not conceal from yourself,” continued Colbert quietly, “that attacking the farmers-general is attacking the superintendence. The two unfortunate guilty men in question are the particular friends of a powerful personage, and the punishment, which otherwise might be comfortably confined to the Chatelet will doubtless be a signal for disturbances!”
Louis colored and turned towards D’Artagnan, who took a slight bite at his mustache, not without a smile of pity for the financier, and for the king who had to listen to him so long. But Louis seized the pen, and with a movement so rapid, that his hand shook, he affixed his signature at the bottom of the two papers presented by Colbert,—then looking the latter in the face,—“Monsieur Colbert’” said he, “when you speak to me on business, exclude more frequently the word difficulty from your reasonings and opinions; as to the word impossibility, never pronounce it.”
Colbert bowed, much humiliated at having to undergo such a lesson before the musketeer; he was about to go out, but, jealous to repair his check: “I forgot to announce to your majesty,” said he, “that the confiscations amount to the sum of five millions of livres.”
“That’s pretty well!” thought D’Artagnan.
“Which makes in my coffers?” said the king.
“Eighteen millions of livres, sire,” replied Colbert, bowing.
“Mordioux!” growled D’Artagnan, “that’s glorious!”
“Monsieur Colbert,” added the king, “you will, if you please, go through the gallery where M. Lyonne is waiting, and will tell him to bring hither what he has drawn up—by my order.”
“Directly, sire; if your majesty wants me no more this evening?”
“No, monsieur: good-night!” And Colbert went out.
“Now, let us return to our affair, M. d’Artagnan,” said the king, as if nothing had happened. “You see that, with respect to money, there is already a notable change.”
“Something to the tune of from zero to eighteen millions,” replied the musketeer, gayly. “Ah! that was what your majesty wanted the day King Charles II. came to Blois. The two states would not have been embroiled to-day; for I must say, that there also I see another stumbling-block.”
“Well, in the first place,” replied Louis, “you are unjust, monsieur; for, if Providence had made me able to give my brother the million that day, you would not have quitted my service, and, consequently, you would not have made your fortune, as you told me just now you have done. But, in addition to this, I have had another piece of good fortune; and my difference with Great Britain need not alarm you.”
A valet de chambre interrupted the king by announcing M. Lyonne. “Come in, monsieur,” said the king; “you are punctual; that is like a good servant. Let us see your letter to my brother Charles II.”
D’Artagnan pricked up his ears. “A moment, monsieur,” said Louis, carelessly to the Gascon, “I must expedite to London my consent to the marriage of my brother, M. le Duc d’Anjou, with the Princess Henrietta Stuart.”
“He is knocking me about, it seems,” murmured D’Artagnan, whilst the king signed the letter, and dismissed M. de Lyonne, “but, ma foi! the more he knocks me about in this manner, the better I like it.”
The king followed M. de Lyonne with his eyes, till the door was closed behind him; he even made three steps, as if he would follow the minister, but, after these three steps, stopping, pausing, and coming back to the musketeer,—“Now, monsieur,” said he, “let us hasten to terminate our affair. You told me the other day, at Blois, that you were not rich?”
“But I am now, sire.”
“Yes, but that does not concern me; you have your own money, not mine; that does not enter into my account.”
“I do not well understand what your majesty means.”
“Then, instead of leaving you to draw out words, speak, spontaneously. Should you be satisfied with twenty thousand livres a year as a fixed income?”
“But, sire,” said D’Artagnan, opening his eyes to the utmost.
“Would you be satisfied with four horses furnished and kept, and with a supplement of funds such as you might require, according to occasions and needs, or would you prefer a fixed sum which would be, for example, forty thousand livres? Answer.”
“Sire, your majesty——”
“Yes, you are surprised; that is natural, and I expected it. Answer me, come! or I shall think you have no longer that rapidity of judgment I have so much admired in you.”
“It is certain, sire, that twenty thousand livres a year make a handsome sum; but——”
“No buts! Yes or no, is it an honorable indemnity?”
“Oh! very certainly.”
“You will be satisfied with it? That is well. It will be better to reckon the extra expenses separately; you can arrange that with Colbert. Now let us pass to something more important.”
“But, sire, I told your majesty——”
“That you wanted rest, I know you did: only I replied that I would not allow it—I am master, I suppose?”
“Yes, sire.”
“That is well. You were formerly in the way of becoming captain of the musketeers?”
“Yes, sire.”
“Well, here is your commission signed. I place it in this drawer. The day on which you shall return from a certain expedition which I have to confide to you, on that day you may yourself take the commission from the drawer.” D’Artagnan still hesitated, and hung down his head. “Come, monsieur,” said the king, “one would believe, to look at you, that you did not know that at the court of the most Christian king, the captain-general of the musketeers takes precedence of the marechals of France.”
“Sire, I know he does.
“Then, am I to think you do put no faith in my word?”
“Oh! sire, never—never dream of such a thing.”
“I have wished to prove to you, that you, so good a servant, had lost a good master; am I anything like the master that will suit you?”
“I begin to think you are, sire.”
“Then, monsieur, you will resume your functions. Your company is quite disorganized since your departure and the men go about drinking and rioting in the cabarets where they fight, in spite of my edicts, and those of my father. You will reorganize the service as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sire.”
“You will not again quit my person.”
“Very well, sire.”
“You will march with me to the army, you will encamp round my tent.”
“Then, sire,” said D’Artagnan, “if it is only to impose upon me a service like that, your majesty need not give me twenty thousand livres a year. I shall not earn them.”
“I desire that you shall keep open house; I desire that you should keep a liberal table; I desire that my captain of musketeers should be a personage.”
“And I,” said D’Artagnan, bluntly; “I do not like easily found money; I like money won! Your majesty gives me an idle trade, which the first comer would perform for four thousand livres.”
Louis XIV. began to laugh. “You are a true Gascon, Monsieur d’Artagnan; you will draw my heart’s secret from me.”
“Bah! has your majesty a secret, then?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Well! then I accept the twenty thousand livres, for I will keep that secret, and discretion is above all price, in these times. Will your majesty speak now?”
“Boot yourself, Monsieur d’Artagnan, and to horse!”
“Directly, sire.”
“Within two days.”
“That is well, sire: for I have my affairs to settle before I set out; particularly if it is likely there should be any blows stirring.”
“That may happen.”
“We can receive them! But, sire, you have addressed yourself to avarice, to ambition; you have addressed yourself to the heart of M. d’Artagnan, but you have forgotten one thing.”
“What is that?”
“You have said nothing to his vanity, when shall I be a knight of the king’s orders?”
“Does that interest you?”
“Why, yes, sire. My friend Athos is quite covered with orders, and that dazzles me.”
“You shall be a knight of my order a month after you have taken your commission of captain.”
“Ah! ah!” said the officer, thoughtfully, “after the expedition.”
“Precisely.”
“Where is your majesty going to send me?”
“Are you acquainted with Bretagne?”
“Have you any friends there?”
“In Bretagne? No, ma foi!”
“So much the better. Do you know anything about fortifications?”
“I believe I do, sire,” said D’Artagnan, smiling.
“That is to say you can readily distinguish a fortress from a simple fortification, such as is allowed to chatelains or vassals?”
“I distinguish a fort from a rampart as I distinguish a cuirass from a raised pie-crust, sire. Is that sufficient?”
“Yes, monsieur. You will set out then.”
“For Bretagne?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Absolutely alone. That is to say, you must not even take a lackey with you.”
“May I ask your majesty for what reason?”
“Because, monsieur, it will be necessary to disguise yourself sometimes, as the servant of a good family. Your face is very well known in France, M. d’Artagnan.”
“And then, sire?”
“And then you will travel slowly through Bretagne, and will examine carefully the fortifications of that country.”
“The coasts?”
“Yes, and the isles, commencing by Belle-Isle-en-Mer.”
“Ah! which belongs to M. Fouquet!” said D’Artagnan, in a serious tone, raising his intelligent eye to Louis XIV.
“I fancy you are right, monsieur, and that Belle-Isle does belong to M. Fouquet, in fact.”
“Then your majesty wishes me to ascertain if Belle-Isle is a strong place?”
“Yes.”
“If the fortifications of it are new or old?”
“Precisely.”
“And if the vassals of M. Fouquet are sufficiently numerous to form a garrison?”
“That is what I want to know; you have placed your finger on the question.”
“And if they are not fortifying, sire?”
“You will travel about Bretagne, listening and judging.”
“Then I am a king’s spy?” said D’Artagnan, bluntly, twisting his mustache.
“No, monsieur.”
“Your pardon, sire; I spy on your majesty’s account.”
“You start on a voyage of discovery, monsieur. Would you march at the head of your musketeers, with your sword in your hand, to observe any spot whatever, or an enemy’s position?”
At this word D’Artagnan started.
“Do you,” continued the king, “imagine yourself to be a spy?”
“No, no,” said D’Artagnan, but pensively; “the thing changes its face when one observes an enemy; one is but a soldier. And if they are fortifying Belle-Isle?” added he, quickly.
“You will take an exact plan of the fortifications.”
“Will they permit me to enter?”
“That does not concern me; that is your affair. Did you not understand that I reserved for you a supplement of twenty thousand livres per annum, if you wished it?”
“Yes, sire; but if they are not fortifying?”
“You will return quietly, without fatiguing your horse.”
“Sire, I am ready.”
“You will begin to-morrow by going to monsieur le surintendant’s to take the first quarter of the pension I give you. Do you know M. Fouquet?”
“Very little, sire; but I beg your majesty to observe that I don’t think it immediately necessary that I should know him.”
“Your pardon, monsieur; for he will refuse you the money I wish you to take; and it is that refusal I look for.”
“Ah!” said D’Artagnan. “Then, sire?”
“The money being refused, you will go and seek it at M. Colbert’s. A propos, have you a good horse?”
“An excellent one, sire.”
“How much did it cost you?”
“A hundred and fifty pistoles.”
“I will buy it of you. Here is a note for two hundred pistoles.”
“But I want my horse for my journey, sire.”
“Well!”
“Well, and you take mine from me.”
“Not at all. On the contrary, I give it you. Only as it is now mine and not yours, I am sure you will not spare it.”
“Your majesty is in a hurry, then?”
“A great hurry.”
“Then what compels me to wait two days?”
“Reasons known to myself.”
“That’s a different affair. The horse may make up the two days, in the eight he has to travel; and then there is the post.”
“No, no, the post compromises, Monsieur d’Artagnan. Begone and do not forget you are my servant.”
“Sire, it is not my duty to forget it! At what hour to-morrow shall I take my leave of your majesty?”
“Where do you lodge?”
“I must henceforward lodge at the Louvre.”
“That must not be now—keep your lodgings in the city: I will pay for them. As to your departure, it must take place at night; you must set out without being seen by any one, or, if you are seen, it must not be known that you belong to me. Keep your mouth shut, monsieur.”
“Your majesty spoils all you have said by that single word.”
“I asked you where you lodged, for I cannot always send to M. le Comte de la Fere to seek you.”
“I lodge with M. Planchet, a grocer, Rue des Lombards, at the sign of the Pilon d’Or.”
“Go out but little, show yourself less, and await my orders.”
“And yet, sire, I must go for the money.”
“That is true, but when going to the superintendence, where so many people are constantly going, you must mingle with the crowd.”
“I want the notes, sire, for the money.”
“Here they are.” The king signed them, and D’Artagnan looked on, to assure himself of their regularity.
“Adieu! Monsieur d’Artagnan,” added the king; “I think you have perfectly understood me.”
“I? I understand that your majesty sends me to Belle-Isle-en-Mer, that is all.”
“To learn?”
“To learn how M. Fouquet’s works are going on; that is all.”
“Very well: I admit you may be taken.”
“And I do not admit it,” replied the Gascon, boldly.
“I admit you may be killed,” continued the king.
“That is not probable, sire.”
“In the first case, you must not speak; in the second there must be no papers found upon you.”
D’Artagnan shrugged his shoulders without ceremony, and took leave of the king, saying to himself:—“The English shower continues—let us remain under the spout!”
54. The Houses of M. Fouquet
Whilst D’Artagnan was returning to Planchet’s house, his head aching and bewildered with all that had happened to him, there was passing a scene of quite a different character, and which, nevertheless is not foreign to the conversation our musketeer had just had with the king; only this scene took place out of Paris, in a house possessed by the superintendent Fouquet in the village of Saint-Mande. The minister had just arrived at this country-house, followed by his principal clerk, who carried an enormous portfolio full of papers to be examined, and others waiting for signature. As it might be about five o’clock in the afternoon, the masters had dined: supper was being prepared for twenty subaltern guests. The superintendent did not stop: on alighting from his carriage, he, at the same bound, sprang through the doorway, traversed the apartments and gained his cabinet, where he declared he would shut himself up to work, commanding that he should not be disturbed for anything but an order from the king. As soon as this order was given, Fouquet shut himself up, and two footmen were placed as sentinels at his door. Then Fouquet pushed a bolt which displaced a panel that walled up the entrance, and prevented everything that passed in this apartment from being either seen or heard. But, against all probability, it was only for the sake of shutting himself up that Fouquet shut himself up thus, for he went straight to a bureau, seated himself at it, opened the portfolio, and began to make a choice amongst the enormous mass of papers it contained. It was not more than ten minutes after he had entered, and taken all the precautions we have described, when the repeated noise of several slight equal knocks struck his ear, and appeared to fix his utmost attention. Fouquet raised his head, turned his ear, and listened.
The strokes continued. Then the worker arose with a slight movement of impatience and walked straight up to a glass behind which the blows were struck by a hand, or by some invisible mechanism. It was a large glass let into a panel. Three other glasses, exactly similar to it, completed the symmetry of the apartment. Nothing distinguished that one from the others. Without doubt, these reiterated knocks were a signal; for, at the moment Fouquet approached the glass listening, the same noise was renewed, and in the same measure. “Oh! oh!” murmured the intendent, with surprise, “who is yonder? I did not expect anybody to-day.” And, without doubt, to respond to that signal, he pulled out a gilded nail near the glass, and shook it thrice. Then returning to his place, and seating himself again, “Ma foi! let them wait,” said he. And plunging again into the ocean of papers unrolled before him, he appeared to think of nothing now but work. In fact with incredible rapidity and marvelous lucidity, Fouquet deciphered the largest papers and most complicated writings, correcting them, annotating them with a pen moved as if by a fever, and the work melting under his hands, signatures, figures, references, became multiplied as if ten clerks—that is to say, a hundred fingers and ten brains had performed the duties, instead of the five fingers and single brain of this man. From time to time, only, Fouquet, absorbed by his work, raised his head to cast a furtive glance upon a clock placed before him. The reason of this was, Fouquet set himself a task, and when this task was once set, in one hour’s work he, by himself, did what another would not have accomplished in a day; always certain, consequently, provided he was not disturbed, of arriving at the close in the time his devouring activity had fixed. But in the midst of his ardent labor, the soft strokes upon the little bell placed behind the glass sounded again, hasty, and, consequently, more urgent.
“The lady appears to be impatient,” said Fouquet. “Humph! a calm! That must be the comtesse; but, no, the comtesse is gone to Rambouillet for three days. The presidente, then? Oh! no, the presidente would not assume such grand airs; she would ring very humbly, then she would wait my good pleasure. The greatest certainty is, that I do not know who it can be, but that I know who it cannot be. And since it is not you, marquise, since it cannot be you, deuce take the rest!” And he went on with his work in spite of the reiterated appeals of the bell. At the end of a quarter of an hour, however, impatience prevailed over Fouquet in his turn: he might be said to consume, rather than to complete the rest of his work; he thrust his papers into his portfolio, and giving a glance at the mirror, whilst the taps continued faster than ever: “Oh! oh!” said he, “whence comes all this racket? What has happened, and who can the Ariadne be who expects me so impatiently. Let us see!”
He then applied the tip of his finger to the nail parallel to the one he had drawn. Immediately the glass moved like a folding-door and discovered a secret closet, rather deep, in which the superintendent disappeared as if going into a vast box. When there, he touched another spring, which opened, not a board, but a block of the wall, and he went out by that opening, leaving the door to shut of itself. Then Fouquet descended about a score of steps which sank, winding, underground, and came to a long, subterranean passage, lighted by imperceptible loopholes. The walls of this vault were covered with slabs or tiles, and the floor with carpeting. This passage was under the street itself, which separated Fouquet’s house from the Park of Vincennes. At the end of the passage ascended a winding staircase parallel with that by which Fouquet had entered. He mounted these other stairs, entered by means of a spring placed in a closet similar to that in his cabinet, and from this closet an untenanted chamber furnished with the utmost elegance. As soon as he entered, he examined carefully whether the glass closed without leaving any trace, and, doubtless satisfied with his observation, he opened by means of a small gold key the triple fastenings of a door in front of him. This time the door opened upon a handsome cabinet sumptuously furnished, in which was seated upon cushions a lady of surpassing beauty, who at the sound of the lock sprang towards Fouquet. “Ah! good heavens!” cried the latter, starting back with astonishment. “Madame la Marquise de Belliere, you here?”
“Yes,” murmured la marquise. “Yes; it is I, monsieur.”
“Marquise! dear marquise!” added Fouquet, ready to prostrate himself. “Ah! my God! how did you come here? And I, to keep you waiting!”
“A long time, monsieur; yes, a very long time!”
“I am happy in thinking this waiting has appeared long to you, marquise!”
“Oh! an eternity, monsieur; oh! I rang more than twenty times. Did you not hear me?”
“Marquise, you are pale, you tremble.”
“Did you not hear, then, that you were summoned?”
“Oh, yes; I heard plainly enough, madame; but I could not come. After your rigors and your refusals, how could I dream it was you? If I could have had any suspicion of the happiness that awaited me, believe me, madame, I would have quitted everything to fall at your feet, as I do at this moment.”
“Are we quite alone, monsieur?” asked the marquise, looking round the room.
“Oh, yes, madame, I can assure you of that.”
“Really?” said the marquise, in a melancholy tone.
“You sigh!” said Fouquet.
“What mysteries! what precautions!” said the marquise, with a slight bitterness of expression; “and how evident it is that you fear the least suspicion of your amours to escape.”
“Would you prefer their being made public?”
“Oh, no; you act like a delicate man,” said the marquise, smiling.
“Come, dear marquise, punish me not with reproaches, I implore you.”
“Reproaches! Have I a right to make you any?”
“No, unfortunately, no; but tell me, you, who during a year I have loved without return or hope——”
“You are mistaken—without hope it is true, but not without return.”
“What! for me, of my love! there is but one proof, and that proof I still want.”
“I am here to bring it, monsieur.”
Fouquet wished to clasp her in his arms, but she disengaged herself with a gesture.
“You persist in deceiving yourself, monsieur, and never will accept of me the only thing I am willing to give you—devotion.”
“Ah, then, you do not love me? Devotion is but a virtue, love is a passion.”
“Listen to me, I implore you: I should not have come hither without a serious motive: you are well assured of that, are you not?”
“The motive is of very little consequence, so that you are but here—so that I see you—so that I speak to you!”
“You are right; the principal thing is that I am here without any one having seen me, and that I can speak to you.”—Fouquet sank on his knees before her. “Speak! speak, madame!” said he, “I listen to you.”
The marquise looked at Fouquet, on his knees at her feet, and there was in the looks of the woman a strange mixture of love and melancholy. “Oh!” at length murmured she, “would that I were she who has the right of seeing you every minute, of speaking to you every instant! would that I were she who might watch over you, she who would have no need of mysterious springs, to summon and cause to appear, like a sylph, the man she loves, to look at him for an hour, and then see him disappear in the darkness of a mystery, still more strange at his going out than at his coming in. Oh! that would be to live a happy woman!”
“Do you happen, marquise,” said Fouquet, smiling, “to be speaking of my wife?”
“Yes, certainly, of her I spoke.”
“Well, you need not envy her lot, marquise; of all the women with whom I have any relations, Madame Fouquet is the one I see the least of, and who has the least intercourse with me.”
“At least, monsieur, she is not reduced to place, as I have done, her hand upon the ornament of a glass to call you to her; at least you do not reply to her by the mysterious, alarming sound of a bell, the spring of which comes from I don’t know where; at least you have not forbidden her to endeavor to discover the secret of these communications under pain of breaking off forever your connections with her, as you have forbidden all who have come here before me, and all who will come after me.”
“Dear marquise, how unjust you are, and how little do you know what you are doing in thus exclaiming against mystery; it is with mystery alone we can love without trouble; it is with love without trouble alone that we can be happy. But let us return to ourselves, to that devotion of which you were speaking, or rather let me labor under a pleasing delusion, and believe that this devotion is love.”
“Just now,” repeated the marquise, passing over her eyes a hand that might have been a model for the graceful contours of antiquity; “just now I was prepared to speak, my ideas were clear and bold, now I am quite confused, quite troubled; I fear I bring you bad news.”
“If it is to that bad news I owe your presence, marquise, welcome be even that bad news! or rather, marquise, since you allow that I am not quite indifferent to you, let me hear nothing of the bad news, but speak of yourself.”
“No, no, on the contrary, demand it of me; require me to tell it to you instantly, and not to allow myself to be turned aside by any feeling whatever. Fouquet, my friend! it is of immense importance!”
“You astonish me, marquise; I will even say you almost frighten me. You, so serious, so collected; you who know the world we live in so well. Is it, then important?”
“Oh! very important.”
“In the first place, how did you come here?”
“You shall know that presently; but first to something of more consequence.”
“Speak, marquise, speak! I implore you, have pity on my impatience.”
“Do you know that Colbert is made intendant of the finances?”
“Bah! Colbert, little Colbert.”
“Yes, Colbert, little Colbert.”
“Mazarin’s factotum?”
“The same.”
“Well! what do you see so terrific in that, dear marquise? little Colbert is intendant; that is astonishing, I confess, but is not terrific.”
“Do you think the king has given, without a pressing motive, such a place to one you call a little cuistre?”
“In the first place, is it positively true that the king has given it to him?”
“It is so said.”
“Ay, but who says so?”
“Everybody.”
“Everybody, that’s nobody; mention some one likely to be well informed who says so.”
“Madame Vanel.”
“Ah! now you begin to frighten me in earnest,” said Fouquet, laughing; “if any one is well informed, or ought to be well informed, it is the person you name.”
“Do not speak ill of poor Marguerite, Monsieur Fouquet, for she still loves you.”
“Bah! indeed? That is scarcely credible. I thought little Colbert, as you said just now, had passed over that love, and left the impression upon it of a spot of ink or a stain of grease.”
“Fouquet! Fouquet! Is this the way you always treat the poor creatures you desert?”
“Why, you surely are not going to undertake the defense of Madame Vanel?”
“Yes, I will undertake it: for, I repeat, she loves you still, and the proof is she saves you.”
“But your interposition, marquise; that is very cunning on her part. No angel could be more agreeable to me, or could lead me more certainly to salvation. But, let me ask you do you know Marguerite?”
“She was my convent friend.”
“And you say that she has informed you that Monsieur Colbert was named intendant?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Well, enlighten me, marquise; granted Monsieur Colbert is intendant—so be it. In what can an intendant, that is to say my subordinate, my clerk, give me umbrage or injure me, even if he is Monsieur Colbert?”
“You do not reflect, monsieur, apparently,” replied the marquise.
“Upon what?”
“This: that Monsieur Colbert hates you.”
“Hates me?” cried Fouquet. “Good heavens! marquise, whence do you come? where can you live? Hates me! why all the world hates me, he, of course as others do.”
“He more than others.”
“More than others—let him.”
“He is ambitious.”
“Who is not, marquise?”
“‘Yes, but with him ambition has no bounds.”
“I am quite aware of that, since he made it a point to succeed me with Madame Vanel.”
“And obtained his end; look at that.”
“Do you mean to say he has the presumption to hope to pass from intendant to superintendent?”
“Have you not yourself already had the same fear?”
“Oh! oh!” said Fouquet, “to succeed with Madame Vanel is one thing, to succeed me with the king is another. France is not to be purchased so easily as the wife of a maitre des comptes.”
“Eh! monsieur, everything is to be bought; if not by gold, by intrigue.”
“Nobody knows to the contrary better than you, madame, you to whom I have offered millions.”
“Instead of millions, Fouquet, you should have offered me a true, only and boundless love: I might have accepted that. So you see, still, everything is to be bought, if not in one way, by another.”
“So, Colbert, in your opinion, is in a fair way of bargaining for my place of superintendent. Make yourself easy on that head, my dear marquise; he is not yet rich enough to purchase it.”
“But if he should rob you of it?”
“Ah! that is another thing. Unfortunately, before he can reach me, that is to say, the body of the place, he must destroy, must make a breach in the advanced works, and I am devilishly well fortified, marquise.”
“What you call your advanced works are your creatures, are they not—your friends?”
“Exactly so.”
“And is M. d’Eymeris one of your creatures?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Is M. Lyodot one of your friends?”
“Certainly.”
“M. de Vanin?”
“M. de Vanin! ah! they may do what they like with him, but——”
“But——”
“But they must not touch the others!”
“Well, if you are anxious they should not touch MM. d’Eymeris and Lyodot, it is time to look about you.”
“Who threatens them?”
“Will you listen to me now?”
“Attentively, marquise.”
“Without interrupting me?”
“Speak.”
“Well, this morning Marguerite sent for me.”
“And what did she want with you?”
“‘I dare not see M. Fouquet myself,’ said she.”
“Bah! why should she think I would reproach her? Poor woman, she vastly deceives herself.”
“‘See him yourself,’ said she, ‘and tell him to beware of M. Colbert.’”
“What! she warned me to beware of her lover?”
“I have told you she still loves you.”
“Go on, marquise.”
“‘M. Colbert,’ she added, ‘came to me two hours ago, to inform me he was appointed intendant.’”
“I have already told you marquise, that M. Colbert would only be the more in my power for that.”
“Yes, but that is not all: Marguerite is intimate, as you know, with Madame d’Eymeris and Madame Lyodot.”
“I know it.”
“Well, M. Colbert put many questions to her, relative to the fortunes of those two gentlemen, and as to the devotion they had for you.”
“Oh, as to those two, I can answer for them; they must be killed before they will cease to be mine.”
“Then, as Madame Vanel was obliged to quit M. Colbert for an instant to receive a visitor, and as M. Colbert is industrious, scarcely was the new intendant left alone, before he took a pencil from his pocket, and as there was paper on the table, began to make notes.”
“Notes concerning d’Eymeris and Lyodot?”
“Exactly.”
“I should like to know what those notes were about.”
“And that is just what I have brought you.”
“Madame Vanel has taken Colbert’s notes and sent them to me?”
“No, but by a chance which resembles a miracle, she has a duplicate of those notes.”
“How could she get that?”
“Listen; I told you that Colbert found paper on the table.”
“Yes.”
“That he took a pencil from his pocket.”
“Yes.”
“And wrote upon that paper.”
“Yes.”
“Well, this pencil was a lead-pencil, consequently hard; so it marked in black upon the first sheet, and in white upon the second.”
“Go on.”
“Colbert, when tearing off the first sheet, took no notice of the second.”
“Well?”
“Well, on the second was to be read what had been written on the first, Madame Vanel read it, and sent for me.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Then, when she was assured I was your devoted friend, she gave me the paper, and told me the secret of this house.”
“And this paper?” said Fouquet, in some degree of agitation.
“Here it is, monsieur—read it,” said the marquise.
Fouquet read:
“Names of the farmers of revenue to be condemned by the Chamber of Justice: D’Eymeris, friend of M. F.; Lyodot, friend of M. F.; De Vanin, indif.”
“D’Eymeris and Lyodot!” cried Fouquet, reading the paper eagerly again.
“Friends of M. F.,” pointed the marquise with her finger.
“But what is the meaning of these words: ‘To be condemned by the Chamber of Justice’?”
“Dame!” said the marquise, “that is clear enough, I think. Besides, that is not all. Read on, read on;” and Fouquet continued,—“The two first to death, the third to be dismissed, with MM. d’Hautemont and de la Vallette, who will only have their property confiscated.”
“Great God!” cried Fouquet, “to death, to death! Lyodot and D’Eymeris. But even if the Chamber of Justice should condemn them to death, the king will never ratify their condemnation, and they cannot be executed without the king’s signature.”
“The king has made M. Colbert intendant.”
“Oh!” cried Fouquet, as if he caught a glimpse of the abyss that yawned beneath his feet, “impossible! impossible! But who passed a pencil over the marks made by Colbert?”
“I did. I was afraid the first would be effaced.”
“Oh! I will know all.”
“You will know nothing, monsieur; you despise your enemy too much for that.”
“Pardon me, my dear marquise; excuse me; yes, M. Colbert is my enemy, I believe him to be so; yes, M. Colbert is a man to be dreaded, I admit. But I! I have time, and as you are here, as you have assured me of your devotion, as you have allowed me to hope for your love, as we are alone——”
“I came here to save you, Monsieur Fouquet, and not to ruin myself,” said the marquise, rising—“therefore, beware!——”
“Marquise, in truth you terrify yourself too much at least, unless this terror is but a pretext——”
“He is very deep, very deep; this M. Colbert: beware!”
Fouquet, in his turn, drew himself up. “And I?” asked he.
“And you, you have only a noble heart. Beware! beware!”
“So?”
“I have done what was right, my friend, at the risk of my reputation. Adieu!”
“Not adieu, au revoir!”
“Perhaps,” said the marquise, giving her hand to Fouquet to kiss, and walking towards the door with so firm a step, that he did not dare to bar her passage. As to Fouquet, he retook, with his head hanging down and a fixed cloud on his brow, the path of the subterranean passage along which ran the metal wires that communicated from one house to the other, transmitting, through two glasses, the wishes and signals of hidden correspondents.