These words were uttered with a harmony of tone and respect of manner that deprived the queen of all her anger and suspicion, but did not remove her feeling of curiosity. "You are right," she said; "it ill becomes those who are suffering to reject the means of relief which Heaven sends them. Speak, then; and may you, indeed, be able, as you assert you can, to administer relief to my body—"
"Let us first speak a little of the mind, if you please," said the Beguine; "of the mind, which, I am sure, must also suffer."
"My mind?"
"There are cancers so insidious in their nature that their very pulsation is invisible. Such cancers, madame, leave the ivory whiteness of the skin untouched, and marble not the firm, fair flesh, with their blue tints; the physician who bends over the patient's chest hears not, though he listens, the insatiable teeth of the disease grinding its onward progress through the muscles, as the blood flows freely on; the knife has never been able to destroy, and rarely even, temporarily, to disarm the rage of these mortal scourges; their home is in the mind, which they corrupt; they fill the whole heart until it breaks. Such, madame, are the cancers fatal to queens; are you, too, free from their scourge?"
Anne slowly raised her arm, dazzling in its perfect whiteness, and pure in its rounded outlines, as it was in the time of her earlier days.
"The evils to which you allude," she said, "are the condition of the lives of the high in rank upon earth, to whom Heaven has imparted mind. When those evils become too heavy to be borne, Heaven lightens their burden by penitence and confession. There we lay down our burden, and the secrets which oppress us. But, forget not, that the same gracious Heaven, in its mercy, apportions to their trials the strength of the feeble creatures of its hand; and my strength has enabled me to bear my burden. For the secrets of others, the silence of Heaven is more than sufficient; for my own secrets, that of my confessor is just enough."
"You are as courageous, madame, I see, as ever, against your enemies. You do not acknowledge your confidence in your friends."
"Queens have no friends; if you have nothing further to say to me—if you feel yourself inspired by Heaven as a prophetess—leave me, I pray, for I dread the future."
"I should have supposed," said the Beguine, resolutely, "that you would rather have dreaded the past."
Hardly had these words escaped her lips, than the queen rose up proudly. "Speak," she cried, in a short, imperious tone of voice, "explain yourself briefly, quickly, entirely; or, if not—"
"Nay, do not threaten me, your majesty," said the Beguine, gently; "I came to you full of compassion and respect. I came here on the part of a friend."
"Prove that to me! Comfort instead of irritating me."
"Easily enough: and your majesty will see who is friendly to you. What misfortune has happened to your majesty during these three and twenty years past—"
"Serious misfortunes, indeed; have I not lost the king?"
"I speak not of misfortunes of that kind. I wish to ask you, if since the birth of the king, any indiscretion on a friend's part has caused your majesty the slightest serious anxiety or distress?"
"I do not understand you," replied the queen, setting her teeth hard together in order to conceal her emotion.
"I will make myself understood, then. Your majesty remembers that the king was born on the 5th of September, 1633, at a quarter-past eleven o'clock."
"Yes," stammered out the queen.
"At half-past twelve," continued the Beguine, "the dauphin, who had been baptized by Monseigneur de Meaux in the king's and in your own presence, was acknowledged as the heir of the crown of France. The king then went to the chapel of the old Chateau de Saint-Germain to hear theTe Deumchanted."
"Quite true, quite true," murmured the queen.
"Your majesty's confinement took place in the presence of Monsieur, his majesty's late uncle, of the princes, and of the ladies attached to the court. The king's physician, Bovard, and Honore, the surgeon, were stationed in the antechamber; your majesty slept from three o'clock until seven, I believe!"
"Yes, yes: but you tell me no more than every one else knows as well as you and myself."
"I am now, madame, approaching that which very few persons are acquainted with. Very few persons, did I say, alas! I might almost say two only, for formerly there were but five in all, and for many years past the secret has been well preserved by the deaths of the principal participators in it. The late king sleepsnow with his ancestors; Peronne, the midwife, soon followed him; Laporte is already forgotten."
The queen opened her lips as though about to reply; she felt, beneath her icy hand, with which she kept her face half concealed, the beads of perspiration upon her brow.
"It was eight o'clock," pursued the Beguine; "the king was seated at supper, full of joy and happiness; around him on all sides arose wild cries of delight and drinking of healths; the people cheered beneath the balconies; the Swiss guards, the musketeers, and the royal guards wandered through the city, borne about in triumph by the drunken students. Those boisterous sounds of the general joy disturbed the dauphin, the future king of France, who was quietly lying in the arms of Madame de Hausac, his nurse, and whose eyes, as he opened them and stared about, might have observed two crowns at the foot of his cradle. Suddenly your majesty uttered a piercing cry, and Dame Peronne immediately flew to your bedside. The doctors were dining in a room at some distance from your chamber; the palace, deserted from the frequency of the irruptions made into it, was without either sentinels or guards. The midwife, having questioned and examined your majesty, gave a sudden exclamation, as if in wild astonishment, and taking you in her arms, bewildered almost out of her senses from sheer distress of mind, dispatched Laporte to inform the king that her majesty the queen-mother wished to see him in her room. Laporte, you are aware, madame, was a man of the most admirable calmness and presence of mind. He did not approach the king as if he were the bearer of alarming intelligence and wished to inspire the terror which he himself experienced; besides, it was not a very terrifying intelligence which awaited the king. Therefore, Laporte appeared with a smile upon his lips, and approached the king's chair, saying to him, 'Sire, the queen is very happy, and would be still more so to see your majesty.' On that day, Louis XIII. would have given his crown away to the veriest beggar for a 'God bless you.' Animated, light-hearted, and full of gayety, the king rose from the table, and said to those around him, in a tone that Henry IV. might have adopted, 'Gentlemen, I am going to see my wife.' He came to your bedside, madame, at the very moment Dame Peronne presented to him a second prince, as beautiful and healthy as the former, and said, 'Sire, Heaven will not allow the kingdom of France to fall into the female line.' The king, yielding to a first impulse, clasped the child in his arms, and cried, 'Oh! Heaven, I thank Thee!'"
At this part of her recital, the Beguine paused, observing how intensely the queen was suffering; she had thrown herself back in her chair, and with her head bent forward, and her eyes fixed, listened without seeming to hear, and her lips moving convulsively, either breathing a prayer to Heaven or in imprecations against the woman standing before her.
"Ah! do not believe that, because there could be but one dauphin in France," exclaimed the Beguine, "or that if the queen allowed that child to vegetate, banished from his royal parents' presence, she was on that account an unfeeling mother. Oh! no, no; there are those alive who know the floods of bitter tears she shed; there are those who have known and witnessed the passionate kisses she imprinted on that innocent creature in exchange for a life of misery and gloom to which state policy condemned the twin brother of Louis XIV."
"Oh! Heaven!" murmured the queen, feebly.
"It is admitted," continued the Beguine, quickly, "that when the king perceived the effect which would result from the existence of two sons, both equal in age and pretensions, he trembled for the welfare of France, for the tranquillity of the state; and it is equally well known that the Cardinal de Richelieu, by the direction of Louis XIII., thought over the subject with deep attention, and after an hour's meditation in his majesty's cabinet, he pronounced the following sentence: 'One prince is peace and safety for the state; two competitors are civil war and anarchy.'"
The queen rose suddenly from her seat, pale as death, and her hands clenched together. "You know too much," she said in a hoarse, thick voice, "since you refer to secrets of state. As for the friends from whom you have acquired this secret, they are false and treacherous. You are their accomplice in the crime which is being now committed. Now, throw aside your mask, or I will have you arrested by my captain of the guards. Do not think that this secret terrifies me! You have obtained it, you shall restore it to me. Never shall it leave your bosom, for neither your secret nor your own life belong to you from this moment."
Anne of Austria, joining gesture to the threat, advanced a couple of steps toward the Beguine. "Learn," said the latter, "to know and value the fidelity, the honor, and secrecy of the friends you have abandoned." And then suddenly threw aside her mask.
"Madame de Chevreuse!" exclaimed the queen.
"With your majesty the sole living confidante of this secret."
"Ah!" murmured Anne of Austria; "come and embrace me, duchesse. Alas! you kill your friend in thus trifling with her terrible distress."
And the queen, leaning her head upon the shoulder of the old duchesse, burst into a flood of bitter tears. "How young you are still!" said the latter, in a hollow voice; "you can weep!"
The queen looked steadily at Madame de Chevreuse, and said, "I believe you just now made use of the word 'happy' in speaking of me. Hitherto, duchesse, I had thought it impossible that a human creature could anywhere be found less happy than the queen of France."
"Your afflictions, madame, have indeedbeen terrible enough. But by the side of those great and grand misfortunes to which we, two old friends separated by men's malice, were just now alluding, you possess sources of pleasure, slight enough in themselves it may be, but which are greatly envied by the world."
"What are they?" said Anne of Austria, bitterly. "What can induce you to pronounce the word 'pleasure,' duchesse—you who, just now, admitted that my body and my mind both stood in need of remedies?"
Madame de Chevreuse collected herself for a moment and then murmured, "How far removed kings are from other people!"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that they are so far removed from the vulgar herd that they forget that others ever stand in need of the bare necessaries of life. They are like the inhabitant of the African mountain, who gazing from the verdant table land, refreshed by the rills of melted snow, cannot comprehend that the dwellers in the plains below him are perishing from hunger and thirst in the midst of their lands, burned up by the heat of the sun."
The queen slightly colored, for she now began to perceive the drift of her friend's remark. "It was very wrong," she said, "to have neglected you."
"Oh! madame, the king I know has inherited the hatred his father bore me. The king would dismiss me if he knew I were in the Palais Royal."
"I cannot say that the king is very well disposed toward you, duchesse," replied the queen; "but I could—secretly, you know—"
The duchesse's disdainful smile produced a feeling of uneasiness in the queen's mind. "Duchesse," she hastened to add, "you did perfectly right to come here, even were it only to give us the happiness of contradicting the report of your death."
"Has it been said, then, that I was dead?"
"Everywhere."
"And yet my children did not go into mourning."
"Ah! you know, duchesse, the court is very frequently moving about fromplace to place; we see M. Albert de Luynes but seldom, and many things escape our minds in the midst of the preoccupations which constantly beset us."
"Your majesty ought not to have believed the report of my death."
"Why not? Alas! we are all mortal; and you may perceive how rapidly I, your younger sister, as we used formerly to say, am approaching the tomb."
"If your majesty had believed me dead, you ought, in that case, to have been astonished not to have received any news of me."
"Death not unfrequently takes us by surprise, duchesse."
"Oh! your majesty, those who are burdened with secrets such as we have just now discussed, must, as a necessity of their nature, satisfy their craving desire to divulge them, and they feel they must gratify that desire before they die. Among the various preparations for their final journey, the task of placing their papers in order is not omitted."
The queen started.
"Your majesty will be sure to learn, in a particular manner, the day of my death."
"In what way?"
"Because your majesty will receive the next day, under several coverings, everything connected with our mysterious correspondence of former times."
"Did you not burn them?" cried Anne, in alarm.
"Traitors only," replied the duchesse, "destroy a royal correspondence."
"Traitors, do you say?"
"Yes, certainly, or rather they pretend to destroy, instead of which they keep or sell it. Faithful friends, on the contrary, most carefully secrete such treasures, for it may happen that some day or other they would wish to seek out their queen in order to say to her: Madame, I am getting old; my health is fast failing me; in the presence of the danger of death, for there is the danger for your majesty that this secret may be revealed, take, therefore, this paper, so fraught with danger for yourself, and trust not to another to burn it for you."
"What paper do you refer to?"
"As far as I am concerned, I have but one, it is true, but that is indeed most dangerous in its nature."
"Oh! duchesse, tell me what it is."
"A letter, dated Tuesday, the 2d of August, 1644, in which you beg me to go to Noisy-le-Sec, to see that unhappy child. In your own handwriting, madame, there are those words, 'that unhappy child!'"
A profound silence ensued; the queen's mind was wandering in the past; Madame de Chevreuse was watching the progress of her scheme. "Yes, unhappy, most unhappy!" murmured Anne of Austria; "how sad the existence he led, poor child, to finish it in so cruel a manner."
"Is he dead!" cried the duchesse, suddenly, with a curiosity whose sincere accents the queen instinctively detected.
"He died of consumption, died forgotten, died withered and blighted like the flowers a lover has given to his mistress, which she leaves to die secreted in a drawer where she had hid them from the gaze of others."
"Died!" repeated the duchesse with an air of discouragement, which would have afforded the queen the most unfeigned delight, had it not been tempered in some measure by a mixture of doubt.
"Died—at Noisy-le-Sec?"
"Yes, in the arms of his tutor, a poor, honest man, who did not long survive him."
"That can easily be understood; it is so difficult to bear up under the weight of such a loss and such a secret," said Madame de Chevreuse, the irony of which reflection the queen pretended not to perceive. Madame de Chevreuse continued: "Well, madame, I inquired some years ago at Noisy-le-Sec about this unhappy child. I was told that it was not believed he was dead, and that was my reason for not having at first been grieved with your majesty; for, most certainly, if I could have thought it were true, never should I have made the slightest allusion to so deplorable an event, and thus have reawakened your majesty's legitimate distress."
"You say that it is not believed that the child died at Noisy?"
"No, madame."
"What did they say about him, then?"
"They said—but, no doubt, they were mistaken—"
"Nay, speak, speak!"
"They said, that, one evening, about the year 1645, a lady, beautiful and majestic in her bearing, which was observed notwithstanding the mask and the mantle which concealed her figure—a lady of rank, of very high rank no doubt—came in a carriage to the place where the road branches off; the very same spot, you know, where I awaited news of the young prince when your majesty was graciously pleased to send me there."
"Well, well?"
"That the boy's tutor, or guardian, took the child to this lady."
"Well, what next?"
"That both the child and his tutor left that part of the country the very next day."
"There, you see there is some truth in what you relate, since, in point of fact, the poor child died from a sudden attack of illness, which makes the lives of all children, as doctors say, suspended as it were by a thread."
"What your majesty says is quite true; no one knows it better than you—no one believes it more than myself. But yet how strange it is—"
"What can it now be?" thought the queen.
"The person who gave me these details, who had been sent to inquire after the child's health—"
"Did you confide such a charge to any one else? Oh, duchesse!"
"Some one as dumb as your majesty, as dumb as myself; we will suppose it was myself, madame; this 'some one,' some months after, passing through Touraine—"
"Touraine!"
"Recognized both the tutor and the child, too! I am wrong: he thought he recognized them, both living, cheerful, happy, and flourishing, the one in a green old age, the other in the flower of hisyouth. Judge after that what truth can be attributed to the rumors which are circulated, or what faith, after that, placed in anything that may happen in the world? But I am fatiguing your majesty; it was not my intention, however, to do so, and I will take my leave of you, after renewing to you the assurance of my most respectful devotion."
"Stay, duchesse; let us first talk a little about yourself."
"Of myself, madame; I am not worthy that you should bend your looks upon me."
"Why not, indeed? Are you not the oldest friend I have? Are you angry with me, duchesse?"
"I, indeed! what motive could I have? If I had reason to be angry with your majesty, should I have come here?"
"Duchesse, age is fast creeping on us both; we should be united against that death whose approach cannot be far off."
"You overpower me, madame, with the kindness of your language."
"No one has ever loved or served me as you have done, duchesse."
"Your majesty is too kind in remembering it."
"Not so. Give me a proof of your friendship, duchesse."
"My whole being is devoted to you, madame."
"The proof I require is, that you should ask something of me."
"Ask—"
"Oh, I know you well—no one is more disinterested, more noble, and truly royal."
"Do not praise me too highly, madame," said the duchesse, somewhat anxiously.
"I could never praise you as much as you deserve to be praised."
"And yet, age and misfortune effect a terrible change in people, madame."
"So much the better; for the beautiful, the haughty, the adored duchesse of former days might have answered me ungratefully, 'I do not wish for anything from you.' Heaven be praised! The misfortunes you speak of have indeed worked a change in you, for you will now, perhaps, answer me, 'I accept.'"
The duchesse's look and smile soon changed at this conclusion, and she no longer attempted to act a false part.
"Speak, dearest, what do you want?"
"I must first explain to you—"
"Do so unhesitatingly."
"Well, then, your majesty can confer the greatest, the most ineffable pleasure upon me."
"What is it?" said the queen, a little distant in her manner, from an uneasiness of feeling produced by this remark. "But do not forget, my good Chevreuse, that I am quite as much under my son's influence as I was formerly under my husband's."
"I will not be too hard, madame."
"Call me as you used to do; it will be a sweet echo of our happy youth."
"Well, then, my dear mistress, my darling Anne—"
"Do you know Spanish still?"
"Yes."
"Ask me in Spanish, then."
"Will your majesty do me the honor to pass a few days with me at Dampierre?"
"Is that all?" said the queen, stupefied. "Nothing more than that?"
"Good heavens! Can you possibly imagine that in asking you that, I am not asking you the greatest conceivable favor. If that really be the case, you do not know me. Will you accept?"
"Yes, gladly. And I shall be happy," continued the queen, with some suspicion, "if my presence can in any way be useful to you."
"Useful!" exclaimed the duchesse, laughing; "oh, no, no, agreeable—delightful, if you like; and you promise me, then?"
"I swear it," said the queen, whereupon the duchesse seized her beautiful hand, and covered it with kisses. The queen could not help murmuring to herself, "She is a good-hearted woman, and very generous too."
"Will your majesty consent to wait a fortnight before you come?"
"Certainly; but why?"
"Because," said the duchesse, "knowing me to be in disgrace, no one would lend me the hundred thousand francs which I require to put Dampierre into a state of repair. But when it is known that I require that sum for the purpose of receiving your majesty at Dampierre properly, all the money in Paris will be at my disposal."
"Ah!" said the queen, gently nodding her head, in sign of intelligence, "a hundred thousand francs! you want a hundred thousand francs to put Dampierre into repair?"
"Quite as much as that."
"And no one will lend you them?"
"No one."
"I will lend them to you, if you like, duchesse."
"Oh, I hardly dare accept such a sum."
"You would be wrong if you did not. Besides, a hundred thousand francs is really not much. I know but too well that you never set a right value upon your silence and your secrecy. Push that table a little toward me, duchesse, and I will write you an order on M. Colbert; no, on M. Fouquet, who is a far more courteous and obliging man."
"Will he pay it, though?"
"If he will not pay it, I will; but it will be the first time he will have refused me."
The queen wrote and handed the duchesse the order, and afterward dismissed her with a warm and cheerful embrace.
All these intrigues are exhausted; the human mind, so variously complicated, has been enabled to develop itself at its ease in the three outlines with which our recital has supplied it. It is not unlikely that, in the future we are now preparing, a question of politics and intrigues may still arise, but the springs by which they work will be so carefully concealed that no one will be able to see aught but flowers and paintings, just as at a theater, where a Colossus appears upon the scene walking along moved by the small legs and slender arms of a child concealed within the framework.
We now return to Saint-Mandé, where the surintendant was in the habit of receiving his select society of epicureans. For some time past the host had met with some terrible trials. Every one in the house was aware of and felt the minister's distress. No more magnificent or recklessly improvident reunions. Money had been the pretext assigned by Fouquet, and neverwasany pretext, as Gourville said, more fallacious, for there was not the slightest appearance of money.
M. Vatel was most resolutely painstaking in keeping up the reputation of the house, and yet the gardeners who supplied the kitchens complained of a ruinous delay. The agents for the supply of Spanish wines frequently sent drafts which no one honored; fishermen, whom the surintendant engaged on the coast of Normandy, calculated that if they were paid all that was due to them, the amount would enable them to retire comfortably for the rest of their lives; fish, which, at a later period, was the cause of Vatel's death, did not arrive at all. However, on the ordinary day of reception, Fouquet's friends flocked in more numerously than ever. Gourville and the Abbe Fouquet talked over money matters—that is to say, the abbe borrowed a few pistoles from Gourville; Pellisson, seated with his legs crossed, was engaged in finishing the peroration of a speech with which Fouquet was to open the parliament; and this speech was a master-piece, because Pellisson wrote it for his friend—that is to say, he inserted everything in it which the latter would most certainly never have taken the trouble to say of his own accord. Presently Loret and La Fontaine would enter from the garden, engaged in a dispute upon the facility of making verses. The painters and musicians in their turn, also, were hovering near the dining-room. As soon as eight o'clock struck, the supper would be announced, for the surintendant never kept any one waiting. It was already half-past seven, and the appetites of the guests were beginning to be declared in a very emphatic manner. As soon as all the guests were assembled Gourville went straight up to Pellisson, awoke him out of his reverie, and led him into the middle of a room, and closed the doors. "Well," he said, "anything new?"
Pellisson raised his intelligent and gentle face, and said: "I have borrowed five-and-twenty thousand francs of my aunt, and I have them here in good sterling money."
"Good," replied Gourville, "we only want one hundred and ninety-five thousand livres for the first payment."
"The payment of what?" asked La Fontaine.
"What! absent as usual! Why it was you who told us that the small estate at Corbeil was going to be sold by one of M. Fouquet's creditors; and you, also, who proposed that all his friends should subscribe; more than that, too, it was you who said that you would sell a corner of your house at Chateau-Thierry, in order to furnish your own proportion, and you now come and ask—'The payment of what?'"
This remark was received with a general laugh, which made La Fontaine blush. "I beg your pardon," he said, "I had not forgotten it; oh, no! only—"
"Only you remembered nothing about it," replied Loret.
"That is the truth; and the fact is, he is quite right; there is a great difference between forgetting and not remembering."
"Well, then," added Pellisson, "you bring your mite in the shape of the price of the piece of land you have sold?"
"Sold? no!"
"Have you not sold the field, then?" inquired Gourville in astonishment, for he knew the poet's disinterestedness.
"My wife would not let me," replied the latter, at which there were fresh bursts of laughter.
"And yet you went to Chateau-Thierry for that purpose," said some one.
"Certainly I did, and on horseback."
"Poor fellow!"
"I had eight different horses, and I was almost jolted to death."
"You are an excellent fellow! And you rested yourself when you arrived there!"
"Rested! Oh! of course I did, for I had an immense deal of work to do."
"How so?"
"My wife had been flirting with the man to whom I wished to sell the land. The fellow drew back from his bargain, and so I challenged him."
"Very good; and you fought?"
"It seems not."
"You know nothing about it, I suppose?"
"No, my wife and her relations interfered in the matter. I was kept a quarter of an hour with my sword in my hand; but I was not wounded."
"And your adversary?"
"Oh! he just as much, for he never came on to the field."
"Capital!" cried his friends from all sides: "you must have been terribly angry."
"Exceedingly so; I had caught cold; I returned home, and then my wife began to quarrel with me."
"In real earnest?"
"Yes, in real earnest; she threw a loaf of bread at my head, a large loaf."
"And what did you do?"
"Oh! I upset the table over her and her guests; and then I got upon my horse again, and here I am."
Every one had great difficulty in keeping his countenance at the exposure of his heroi-comedy, and when the laughter had somewhat ceased, one of the guests present said to him:
"Is that all you have brought us back?"
"Oh, no! I have an excellent idea in my head."
"What is it?"
"Have you noticed that there is a good deal of sportive, jesting poetry written in France?"
"Yes, of course," replied every one.
"And," pursued La Fontaine, "only a very small portion of it is printed."
"The laws are strict, you know."
"That may be, but a rare article is a dear article, and that is the reason why I have written a small poem, excessively free in its style, very broad, and extremely cynical in its tone."
"The deuce you have!"
"Yes," continued the poet, with cold indifference; "and I have introduced in it the greatest freedom of language I could possibly employ."
Peals of laughter again broke forth, while the poet was thus announcing the quality of his wares.
"And," he continued, "I have tried to exceed everything that Boccaccio, Aretin, and other masters of their craft, have written in the same style."
"Its fate is clear," said Pellisson; "it will be scouted and forbidden."
"Do you think so?" said La Fontaine simply; "I assure you, I did not do it on my own account so much as on M. Fouquet's."
This wonderful conclusion again raised the mirth of all present.
"And I have sold the first edition of this little book for eight hundred livres," exclaimed La Fontaine, rubbing his hands together. "Serious and religious books sell at about half that rate."
"It would have been better," said Gourville, "to have written two religious books instead."
"It would have been too long and not amusing enough," replied La Fontaine, tranquilly; "my eight hundred livres are in this little bag, and I beg to offer them as my contribution."
As he said this, he placed his offering in the hands of their treasurer; it was then Loret's turn, who gave a hundred and fifty livres; the others stripped themselves in the same way; and the total sum in the purse amounted to forty thousand livres. The money was still being counted over when the surintendant noiselessly entered the room; he had heard everything; and then this man, who had possessed so many millions, who had exhausted all the pleasures and honors that this world had to bestow, this generous heart, this inexhaustible brain, which had, like two burning crucibles, devoured the material and moral substance of the first kingdom in the world, was seen to cross the threshold with his eyes filled with tears, and pass his fingers through the gold and silver which the bag contained.
"Poor offering," he said, in a softened and affected tone of voice; "you will disappear in the smallest corner of my empty purse, but you have filled to overflowing that which no one can ever exhaust, my heart. Thank you, my friends—thank you." And as he could not embrace every one present, who were all weeping a little, philosophers as they were, he embraced La Fontaine, saying to him, "Poor fellow! so you have, on my account, been beaten by your wife and censured by your confessor."
"Oh! it is a mere nothing," replied the poet; "if your creditors will only wait a couple of years, I shall have written a hundred other tales, which, at two editions each, will pay off the debt."
Fouquet pressed La Fontaine's hand most warmly, saying to him, "My dear poet, write a hundred other tales, not only for the eighty pistoles which each of them will produce you, but, still more, to enrich our language with a hundred other master-pieces of composition."
"Oh! oh!" said La Fontaine, with a little air of pride, "you must not suppose that I have only brought this idea and the eighty pistoles to the surintendant."
"Oh! indeed," was the general acclamation from all parts of the room, "M. de la Fontaine is in funds to-day."
"Heaven bless the idea, if it only brings us one or two millions," said Fouquet, gayly.
"Exactly," replied La Fontaine.
"Quick, quick!" cried the assembly.
"Take care," said Pellisson in La Fontaine's ear; "you have had a most brilliant success up to the present moment, so do not go too far."
"Not at all, Monsieur Pellisson; and you, who are a man of decided taste, willbe the first to approve of what I have done."
"We are talking of millions, remember," said Gourville.
"I have fifteen hundred thousand francs here, Monsieur Gourville," he replied, striking himself on the chest.
"The deuce take this Gascon from Chateau-Thierry!" cried Loret.
"It is not the pocket you should touch, but the brain," said Fouquet.
"Stay a moment, Monsieur le Surintendant," added La Fontaine; "you are not procureur-general—you are a poet."
"True, true!" cried Loret, Conrart, and every person present connected with literature.
"You are, I repeat, a poet and a painter, a sculptor, a friend of the arts and sciences; but acknowledge that you are no lawyer."
"Oh! I do acknowledge it," replied M. Fouquet, smiling.
"If you were to be nominated at the Academy, you would refuse, I think."
"I think I should, with all due deference to the academicians."
"Very good; if therefore you do not wish to belong to the Academy, why do you allow yourself to form one of the parliament?"
"Oh! oh!" said Pellisson, "we are talking politics."
"I wish to know whether the barrister's gown does or does not become M. Fouquet."
"There is no question of the gown at all," retorted Pellisson, annoyed at the laughter of those who were present.
"On the contrary, it is the gown," said Loret.
"Take the gown away from the procureur-general," said Conrart, "and we have M. Fouquet left us still, of whom we have no reason to complain; but, as he is no procureur-general without his gown, we agree with M. de la Fontaine, and pronounce the gown to be nothing but a bugbear."
"Fugiunt risus leporesque," said Loret.
"The smiles and the graces," said some one present.
"That is not the way," said Pellisson, gravely, "that I translatelepores."
"How do you translate it?" said La Fontaine.
"Thus: the hares run away as soon as they see M. Fouquet." A burst of laughter, in which the surintendant joined, followed this sally.
"But why hares?" objected Conrart, vexed.
"Because the hare will be the very one who will not be over-pleased to see M. Fouquet surrounded by all the attributes which his parliamentary strength and power confer on him."
"Oh! oh!" murmured the poets.
"Quo non ascendant," said Conrart, "seems impossible to me, when one is fortunate enough to wear the gown of the procureur-general."
"On the contrary, it seems so to me without that gown," said the obstinate Pellisson; "what is your opinion, Gourville?"
"I think the gown in question is a very good thing," replied the latter; "but I equally think a million and a half is far better than the gown."
"And I am of Gourville's opinion," exclaimed Fouquet, stopping the discussion by the expression of his own opinion, which would necessarily bear down all the others.
"A million and a half," Pellisson grumbled out; "now I happen to know an Indian fable—"
"Tell it me," said La Fontaine; "I ought to know it, too."
"Tell it, tell it," said the others.
"There was a tortoise, which was as usual well protected by its shell," said Pellisson; "whenever its enemies threatened it, it took refuge within its covering. One day some one said to it, 'You must feel very hot in such a house as that in the summer, and you are altogether prevented showing off your graces; here is a snake here who will give you a million and a half for your shell.'"
"Good!" said the surintendant, laughing.
"Well, what next?" said La Fontaine, much more interested in the apologue than its moral.
"The tortoise sold his shell and remained naked and defenseless. A vulture happened to see him, and being hungry, broke the tortoise's back with a blow of his beak and devoured it. The moral is, that M. Fouquet should take very good care to keep his gown."
La Fontaine understood the moral seriously. "You forget Eschylus," he said to his adversary.
"What do you mean?"
"Eschylus was bald-headed, and a vulture—your vulture, probably—who was a great amateur in tortoises, mistook at a distance his head for a block of stone, and let a tortoise, which was shrunk up in his shell, fall upon it."
"Yes, yes, La Fontaine is right," resumed Fouquet, who had become very thoughtful; "whenever a vulture wishes to devour a tortoise, he well knows how to break his shell; and but too happy is that tortoise which a snake pays a million and a half for his envelope. If any one were to bring me a generous-hearted snake like the one in your fable, Pellisson, I would give him my shell."
"Rara avis in terris!" cried Conrart.
"And like a black swan, is he not!" added La Fontaine; "well, then, the bird in question, black and very rare, is already found."
"Do you mean to say that you have found a purchaser for my post of procureur-general?" exclaimed Fouquet.
"I have, monsieur."
"But the surintendant never said that he wished to sell," resumed Pellisson.
"I beg your pardon," said Conrart, "you yourself spoke about it, even—"
"Yes, I am a witness to that," said Gourville.
"He seems very tenacious about his brilliant idea," said Fouquet, laughing. "Well, La Fontaine, who is the purchaser?"
"A perfect black bird, for he is a counselor belonging to the parliament, an excellent fellow."
"What is his name?"
"Vanel."
"Vanel!" exclaimed Fouquet, "Vanel, the husband of—"
"Precisely, her husband; yes monsieur."
"Poor fellow!" said Fouquet, with an expression of great interest.
"He wishes to be everything that you have been, monsieur," said Gourville, "and to do everything that you have done."
"It is very agreeable; tell us all about it, La Fontaine."
"It is very simple. I see him occasionally, and a short time ago I met him walking about on the Place de la Bastille, at the very moment when I was about to take the small carriage to come down here to Saint-Mandé."
"He must have been watching his wife," interrupted Loret.
"Oh, no!" said La Fontaine, "he is far from being jealous. He accosted me, embraced me, and took me to the inn called 'L'Image Saint-Fiacre,' and told me all about his troubles."
"He has his troubles, then?"
"Yes; his wife wants to make him ambitious."
"Well, and he told you—"
"That some one had spoken to him about a post in parliament: that M. Fouquet's name had been mentioned; that ever since Madame Vanel dreams of nothing else but being called Madame la Procureuse-Generale, and that it makes her ill and keeps her awake every night she does not dream of it."
"The deuce!"
"Poor woman!" said Fouquet.
"Wait a moment. Conrart is always telling me that I do not know how to conduct matters of business; you will see how I manage this one."
"Well, go on."
"'I suppose you know,' said I to Vanel, 'that the value of a post such as that which M. Fouquet holds is by no means trifling.'
"'How much do you imagine it to be?' he said.
"'M. Fouquet, I know, has refused seventeen hundred thousand francs.'
"'My wife,' replied Vanel, 'had estimated it at about fourteen hundred thousand.'
"'Ready money?' I asked.
"'Yes; she has sold some property of hers in Guienne, and has received the purchase money.'"
"That's a pretty sum to touch all at once," said the Abbe Fouquet, who had not hitherto said a word.
"Poor Madame Vanel!" murmured Fouquet.
Pellisson shrugged his shoulders, as he whispered in Fouquet's ear, "That woman is a perfect fiend."
"That may be; and it will be delightful to make use of this fiend's money to repair the injury which an angel has done herself for me."
Pellisson looked with a surprised air at Fouquet, whose thoughts were from that moment fixed upon a fresh object in view.
"Well!" inquired La Fontaine, "what about my negotiation?"
"Admirable, my dear poet."
"Yes," said Gourville; "but there are some people who are anxious to have the steed who have not money enough to pay for the bridle."
"And Vanel would draw back from his offer if he were to be taken at his word," continued the Abbe Fouquet.
"I do not believe it," said La Fontaine.
"What do you know about it?"
"Why, you have not yet heard thedénouementof my story."
"If there is adénouement, why do you beat about the bush so much?"
"Semper ad eventum.Is that correct?" said Fouquet, with the air of a nobleman who condescends to barbarisms. To which the Latinists present answered with loud applause.
"Mydénouement," cried La Fontaine, "is, that Vanel, that determined blackbird, knowing that I was coming to Saint-Mandé, implored me to bring him with me, and, if possible, to present him to M. Fouquet."
"So that—"
"So that he is here; I left him in that part of the grounds called Bel-Air. Well, M. Fouquet, what is your reply?"
"Well, it is not respectful toward Madame Vanel that her husband should runthe risk of catching cold outside my house; send for him, La Fontaine, since you know where he is."
"I will go there myself."
"And I will accompany you," said the Abbe Fouquet; "I can carry the money bags."
"No jesting," said Fouquet, seriously; "let the business be a serious one if it is to be one at all. But, first of all, let us show we are hospitable. Make my apologies, La Fontaine, to M. Vanel, and tell him how distressed I am to have kept him waiting, but that I was not aware he was there."
La Fontaine set off at once, fortunately accompanied by Gourville, for, absorbed in his own calculations, the poet would have mistaken the route, and was hurrying as fast as he could toward the village of Saint-Mandé. Within a quarter of an hour afterward, M. Vanel was introduced into the surintendant's cabinet, the description and details of which have already been given at the beginning of this story. When Fouquet saw him enter, he called to Pellisson and whispered a few words in his ear. "Do not lose a word of what I am going to say: let all the silver and gold plate, together with the jewels of every description, be packed up in the carriage. You will take the black horses: the jeweler will accompany you; and you will postpone the supper until Madame de Belliere's arrival."
"Will it be necessary to inform Madame de Belliere of it?" said Pellisson.
"No, that will be useless; I will do that. So away with you, my dear friend."
Pellisson set off, not quite clear as to his friend's meaning or intention, but confident, like every true friend, in the judgment of the man he was blindly obeying. It is that which constitutes the strength of such men; distrust only arises in the minds of inferior natures.
Vanel bowed lowly to the surintendant, and was about to begin a speech.
"Do not trouble yourself, monsieur," said Fouquet, politely; "I am told that you wish to purchase a post I hold. How much can you give me for it?"
"It is for you, monseigneur, to fix the amount you require. I know that offers of purchase have already been made to you for it."
"Madame Vanel, I have been told, values it at fourteen hundred thousand livres."
"That is all we have."
"Can you give me the money immediately?"
"I have not the money with me," said Vanel, frightened almost by the unpretending simplicity, amounting to greatness, of the man, for he had expected disputes, and difficulties, and opposition of every kind.
"When will you be able to have it?"
"Whenever you please, monseigneur;" for he began to be afraid that Fouquet was trifling with him.
"If it were not for the trouble you would have in returning to Paris, I would say at once; but we will arrange that the payment and the signature shall take place at six o'clock to-morrow morning."
"Very good," said Vanel, as cold as ice, and feeling quite bewildered.
"Adieu, Monsieur Vanel, present my humblest respects to Madame Vanel," said Fouquet, as he rose; upon which Vanel, who felt the blood rushing up to his head, for he was quite confounded by his success, said seriously to the surintendant, "Will you give me your word, monseigneur, upon this affair?"
Fouquet turned round his head, saying:
"Pardieu! and you, monsieur?"
Vanel hesitated, trembled all over, and at last finished by hesitatingly holding out his hand. Fouquet opened and nobly extended his own; this loyal hand lay for a moment in Vanel's moist hypocritical palm, and he pressed it in his own, in order the better to convince himself of its truth. The surintendant gently disengaged his hand, as he again said:
"Adieu!"
And then Vanel ran hastily to the door, hurried along the vestibules, and fled away as quickly as he could.
Hardly had Fouquet dismissed Vanel, than he began to reflect for a few moments: "A man never can do too much for the woman he has once loved. Marguerite wishes to be the wife of a procureur-general—and why not confer this pleasure upon her? And now that the most scrupulous and sensitive conscience will be unable to reproach me with anything, let my thoughts be bestowed on her who has shown so much devotion for me. Madame de Belliere ought to be there by this time," he said, as he turned toward the secret door.
After he had locked himself in, he opened the subterranean passage, and rapidly hastened toward the means of communicating between the house at Vincennes and his own residence. He had neglected to apprise his friend of his approach by ringing the bell, perfectly assured that she would never fail to be exact at the rendezvous; as, indeed, was the case, for she was already waiting. The noise the surintendant made aroused her; she ran to take from under the door the letter that he had thrust there, and which simply said, "Come, marquise; we are waiting supper for you." With her heart filled with happiness Madame de Belliere ran to her carriage in the Avenue de Vincennes, and in a few minutes she was holding out her hand to Gourville, who was standing at the entrance, where, in order the better to please his master, he had stationed himself to watch her arrival. She had not observed that Fouquet's black horses had arrived at the same time, smoking and covered with foam, having returned to Saint-Mandé with Pellisson and the very jeweler to whom Madame de Belliere had sold her plate and her jewels. Pellisson introduced the goldsmith into the cabinet, which Fouquet had not yet left. The surintendant thanked him for having been good enough to regard as a simple deposit in his hands the valuable property whichhe had had every right to sell; and he cast his eyes on the total of the account, which amounted to thirteen hundred thousand francs. Then, going for a few moments to his desk, he wrote an order for fourteen hundred thousand francs, payable at sight, at his treasury, before twelve o'clock the next day.
"A hundred thousand francs profit!" cried the goldsmith. "Oh, monseigneur, what generosity!"
"Nay, nay, not so, monsieur," said Fouquet, touching him on the shoulder; "there are certain kindnesses which can never be repaid. The profit is about that which you would have made; but the interest of your money still remains to be arranged." And, saying this, he unfastened from his sleeve a diamond button, which the goldsmith himself had often valued at three thousand pistoles. "Take this," he said to the goldsmith, "in remembrance of me. And farewell; you are an honest man."
"And you, monseigneur," cried the goldsmith, completely overcome, "are the noblest man that ever lived."
Fouquet let the worthy goldsmith pass out of the room by a secret door, and then went to receive Madame de Belliere, who was already surrounded by all the guests. The marquise was always beautiful, but now her loveliness was more dazzling than ever. "Do you not think, gentlemen," said Fouquet, "that madame is more than usually beautiful this evening? And do you happen to know why?"
"Because madame is really the most beautiful of all women," said some one present.
"No; but because she is the best. And yet—"
"Yet?" said the marquise, smiling.
"And yet, all the jewels which madame is wearing this evening are nothing but false stones." At this remark the marquise blushed most painfully.
"Oh, oh!" exclaimed all the guests, "that can very well be said of one who has the finest diamonds in Paris."
"Well?" said Fouquet to Pellisson, in a low tone.
"Well, at last I have understood you,"returned the latter; "and you have done excellently well."
"Supper is ready, monseigneur," said Vatel, with majestic air and tone.
The crowd of guests hurried, less slowly than is usually the case with ministerial entertainments, toward the banqueting room, where a magnificent spectacle presented itself. Upon the buffets, upon the side-tables, upon the supper-table itself, in the midst of flowers and light, glittered most dazzlingly the richest and most costly gold and silver plate that could possibly be seen—relics of those ancient magnificent productions which the Florentine artists, whom the Medici family had patronized, had sculptured, chased, and cast for the purpose of holding flowers, at a time when gold yet existed in France. These hidden marvels, which had been buried during the civil wars, had timidly reappeared during the intervals of that war of good taste called La Fronde; at a time when noblemen fighting against noblemen, killed, but did not pillage each other. All the plate present had Madame de Belliere's arms engraved upon it. "Look," cried La Fontaine, "here is a P and a B."
But the most remarkable object present was the cover which Fouquet had assigned to the marquise. Near her was a pyramid of diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, antique cameos, sardonyx stones, carved by the old Greeks of Asia Minor, with mountings of Mysian gold; curious mosaics of ancient Alexandria, mounted in silver; massive Egyptian bracelets lay heaped up in a large plate of Palissy ware, supported by a tripod of gilt bronze which had been sculptured by Benvenuto. The marquise turned pale, as she recognized what she had never expected to see again. A profound silence seemed to seize upon every one of the restless and excited guests. Fouquet did not even make a sign in dismissal of the richly liveried servants who crowded like bees round the huge buffets and other tables in the room. "Gentlemen," he said, "all this plate which you behold once belonged to Madame de Belliere, who having observed one of her friends in great distress, sent all this gold and silver, together with the heap of jewels now before her, to her goldsmith. This noble conduct of a devoted friend can well be understood by such friends as you. Happy indeed is that man who sees himself loved in such a manner. Let us drink to the health of Madame de Belliere."
A tremendous burst of applause followed his words, and made poor Madame de Belliere sink back dumb and breathless on her seat. "And then," added Pellisson, who was always affected by a noble action, as he was invariably impressed by beauty, "let us also drink to the health of him who inspired madame's noble conduct; for such a man is worthy of being worthily loved."
It was now the marquise's turn. She rose, pale and smiling; and as she held out her glass with a faltering hand, and her trembling fingers touched those of Fouquet, her look, full of love, found its reflection and response in that of her ardent and generous-hearted lover. Begun in this manner, the supper soon became a fete; no one tried to be witty, for no one failed in being so. La Fontaine forgot his Gorgny wine and allowed Vatel to reconcile him to the wines of the Rhone and those from the shores of Spain. The Abbe Fouquet became so kind and good-natured that Gourville said to him, "Take care, Monsieur l'Abbe; if you are so tender, you will be eaten."
The hours passed away so joyously, that, contrary to his usual custom, the surintendant did not leave the table before the end of the dessert. He smiled upon his friends, delighted as a man is, whose heart becomes intoxicated before his head—and, for the first time, he had just looked at the clock. Suddenly, a carriage rolled into the courtyard, and, strange to say, it was heard high above the noise of the mirth which prevailed. Fouquet listened attentively, and then turned his eyes toward the antechamber. It seemed as if he could hear a step passing across it, and that this step, instead of pressing the ground, weighed heavily upon his heart. "M. d'Herblay, bishop of Vannes," the usher announced. And Aramis' grave and thoughtful face appeared upon the threshold of the door, between the remains of two garlands, of which the flame of a lamp had just burned the thread that had united them.
Fouquet would have uttered an exclamation of delight on seeing another friend arrive if the cold air and averted aspect of Aramis had not restored all his reserve. "Are you going to join us at our dessert?" he asked. "And yet you would be frightened, perhaps, at the noise which our wild friends here are making?"
"Monseigneur," replied Aramis, respectfully, "I will begin by begging you to excuse me for having interrupted this merry meeting; and then I will beg you to give me, as soon as pleasure shall have finished, a moment's audience on matters of business."
As the word "business" had aroused the attention of some of the epicureans present, Fouquet rose, saying: "Business first of all, Monsieur d'Herblay; we are too happy when matters of business arrive only at the end of a meal."
As he said this, he took the hand of Madame de Belliere, who looked at him with a kind of uneasiness, and then led her to an adjoining salon, after having recommended her to the most reasonable of his guests. And then, taking Aramis by the arm, he led him toward his cabinet. As soon as Aramis was there, throwing aside the respectful air he had assumed, he threw himself into a chair, saying: "Guess whom I have seen this evening?"
"My dear chevalier, every time you begin in that manner I am sure to hear you announce something disagreeable."
"Well, and this time you will not be mistaken, either, my dear friend," replied Aramis.
"Do not keep me in suspense," added Fouquet, phlegmatically.
"Well, then, I have seen Madame de Chevreuse."
"The old duchesse, do you mean?"
"Yes."
"Her ghost, perhaps?"
"No, no; the old she-wolf herself."
"Without teeth?"
"Possibly, but not without claws."
"Well! what harm can she meditate against me? I am no miser, with women who are not prudes. That is a quality that is always prized, even by the woman who no longer dares to provoke love."
"Madame de Chevreuse knows very well that you are not avaricious, since she wishes to draw some money out of you."
"Indeed! under what pretext?"
"Oh; pretexts are never wanting with her. Let me tell you what hers is: it seems that the duchesse has a good many letters of M. de Mazarin's in her possession."
"I am not surprised at that, for the prelate was gallant enough."
"Yes, but these letters have nothing whatever to do with the prelate's love affairs. They concern, it is said, financial matters rather."
"And accordingly they are less interesting."
"Do you not suspect what I mean?"
"Not at all."
"Have you ever heard speak of a prosecution being instituted for an embezzlement, or appropriation, rather, of public funds?"
"Yes, a hundred, nay, a thousand times, ever since I have been engaged in public matters, I have hardly heard anything else but that. It is precisely your own case, when, as a bishop, people reproach you for your impiety; or, as a musketeer, for your cowardice; the very thing of which they are always accusing ministers of finance is the embezzlement of public funds."
"Very good; but take a particular instance, for the duchesse asserts that M. de Mazarin alludes to certain particular instances."
"What are they?"
"Something like a sum of thirteen millions of francs, of which it would be verydifficult for you to define the precise nature of the employment."
"Thirteen millions!" said the surintendant, stretching himself in his armchair, in order to enable him the more comfortably to look up toward the ceiling. "Thirteen millions—I am trying to remember them out of all those I have been accused of having stolen."
"Do not laugh, my dear monsieur, for it is very serious. It is positive that the duchesse has certain letters in her possession, and that these letters must be as she represents them, since she wished to sell them to me for five hundred thousand francs."
"Oh! one can have a very tolerable calumny got up for such a sum as that," replied Fouquet. "Ah! now I know what you mean," and he began to laugh heartily.
"So much the better," said Aramis, a little reassured.
"I remember the story of those thirteen millions now. Yes, yes, I remember them quite well."
"I am delighted to hear it; tell me about them."
"Well, then, one day Signor Mazarin, Heaven rest his soul! made a profit of thirteen millions upon a concession of lands in the Valtelline; he canceled them in the registry of receipts, sent them to me, and then made me advance them to him for war expenses."
"Very good, then, there is no doubt of their proper destination."
"No; the cardinal made me invest them in my own name, and gave me a receipt."
"You have the receipt?"
"Of course," said Fouquet, as he quietly rose from his chair and went to his large ebony bureau, inlaid with mother of pearl and gold.
"What I most admire in you," said Aramis, with an air of great satisfaction, "is your memory in the first place, then your self-possession; and, finally, the perfect order which prevails in your administration; you of all men, too, who are by nature a poet."
"Yes," said Fouquet, "I am orderly out of a spirit of idleness, to save myself the trouble of looking after things, and so I know that Mazarin's receipt is in the third drawer under the letter M; I open the drawer, and place my hand upon the very paper I need. In the night, without a light, I could find it."
And with a confident hand he felt the bundle of papers which were piled up in the open drawer. "Nay, more than that," he continued, "I remember the paper as if I saw it; it is thick, somewhat crumpled, with gilt edges; Mazarin had made a blot upon the figure of the date. Ah!" he said, "the paper knows we are talking about it, and that we want it very much, and so it hides itself out of the way."
And as the surintendant looked into the drawer, Aramis rose from his seat.
"This is very singular," said Fouquet.
"Your memory is treacherous, my dear monseigneur; look in another drawer."
Fouquet took out the bundle of papers, and turned them over once more; he then became very pale.
"Don't confine your search to that drawer," said Aramis; "look elsewhere."
"Quite useless; I have never made a mistake; no one but myself arranges any papers of mine of this nature; no one but myself ever opens this drawer, of which, besides, no one, with my own exception, is aware of the secret."
"What do you conclude, then?" said Aramis, agitated.
"That Mazarin's receipt has been stolen from me; Madame de Chevreuse was right, chevalier; I have appropriated the public funds; I have robbed the state coffers of thirteen millions of money; I am a thief, Monsieur d'Herblay."
"Nay, nay; do not get irritated—do not get excited."
"And why not, chevalier? surely there is even reason for it. If the legal proceedings are well arranged, and a judgment is given in accordance with them, your friend the surintendant can follow to Montfaucon his colleague Enguerrand de Marigny, and his predecessor, Semblancay."
"Oh!" said Aramis, smiling, "not so fast as that."
"And why not? why not so fast? What do you suppose Madame de Chevreuse will have done with those letters, for you refused them, I suppose?"
"Yes; at once. I suppose that she went and sold them to M. Colbert."
"Well?"
"I said I supposed so; I might have said I was sure of it, for I had her followed, and, when she left me, she returned to her own house, went out by a back door, and proceeded straight to the intendant's house in the street Croix des Petits-Champs."
"Legal proceedings will be instituted, then, scandal and dishonor will follow, and all will fall upon me like a thunder-bolt, blindly, harshly, pitilessly."
Aramis approached Fouquet, who sat trembling in his chair, close to the open drawers; he placed his hand on his shoulder, and, in an affectionate tone of voice, said:
"Do not forget that the position of M. Fouquet can in no way be compared to that of Semblancay or of Marigny."
"And why not, in Heaven's name?"
"Because the proceedings against those ministers were determined, completed, and the sentence carried out, while in your case the same thing cannot take place."
"Another blow, why not? A peculator is, under any circumstances, a criminal."
"Those criminals who know how to find a safe asylum are never in danger."
"What! make my escape! Fly!"
"No; I do not mean that; you forget that all such proceedings originate in the parliament, that they are instituted by the procureur-general, and that you are the procureur-general. You see that unless you wish to condemn yourself—"
"Oh!" cried Fouquet, suddenly, dashing his fist upon the table.
"Well! what? what is the matter?"
"I am procureur-general no longer."
Aramis at this reply became as livid as death; he pressed his hands together convulsively, and with a wild, haggard look, which almost annihilated Fouquet, he said, laying a stress upon every distinct syllable, "You are procureur-general no longer, do you say?"