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by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  Saint-Mars laid the blame on the two valets who gave him no peace with their requests and who always strove to favour their mas­ter, to whom they were devoted body and soul.

  The years passed, but the King's almost obsessional fear that Fou­quet might somehow get away from him in no way lessened. Nor was he mistaken: towards the end of 1669 an attempt to help him escape was found out. It is not known who organised it, perhaps the family, but it was rumoured that Madame de Sevigne and Mademoiselle de Scudery were not unconnected with it. The person who paid the price for this was an old servant, a moving example of fidelity. He was called La Foret, and he had accompanied the Superintendent at the. time of his arrest in Nantes. After the arrest, he had marched for hours and hours to escape the musketeers who had placed a cordon around the city. Thence, he reached the nearest postal stage, whence he rode with all speed to Paris in order to give the grim news of the arrest to Fouquet's pious mother. La Foret had even gone so far as to wait by the roadside for the carriage bearing his master to Pinerol, so as to be able to salute him for the last time. Even d'Artagnan had been moved, for he had the convoy stopped and allowed the two to exchange a few words.

  La Foret was, then, the only person not to have lost all hope. He arrived at Pinerol in disguise and even succeeded in finding a number of informers within the fortress and communicating with his adored master by gestures, through a window. In the end, his attempt was discovered and the poor man was hanged immediately. Life became hard for Fouquet. His windows were barred. No longer could he see the sky.

  His health declined. In 1670, Louvois travelled to Pinerol in person, sent by the King. After six years of refusals and prohibitions, Louis finally consulted the Superintendent's old physician, Pecquet.

  "How strange. Did not the King wish to see Fouquet dead?"

  "The one thing that is certain is that, from that moment on, Louis seemed to be concerned about the health of the poor Squir­rel. Those of the Superintendent's friends who had not fallen into disgrace, like Pomponne (who had just been appointed Secretary of State), Turenne, Chequi, Bellefonds and Charost, returned to the attack and sent petitions to the Most Christian King. The turning point, however, came later."

  In 1671, the number of special prisoners at Pinerol grew to two. Another illustrious captive arrived at the fortress: the Comte de Lauzun.

  "Because he had married Mademoiselle, the King's cousin," I interjected, remembering Abbot Melani's previous account.

  "Bravo, I see that you have a good memory. And now the tale becomes really interesting."

  After subjecting Fouquet to years of isolation, the decision to ac­cord him a prison companion seems inexplicable. Even stranger is the fact that, in the immense fortress, he should have been given the cell next to Fouquet's.

  Of Lauzun, all manner of things may be said, but not that he was an ordinary personage. At the outset, he was the youngest scion of a Gascon family, with neither fortune nor skill, a braggart and full of himself, who had, however, the good fortune to be liked by the King when the latter was very young and to become his boon companion. Although only a cheap seducer, he had succeeded in charming Mad­emoiselle, the very wealthy and very ugly 44-year-old cousin of the King. He was a difficult prisoner, and lost no time in making that quite clear. His attitude was tempestuous, bombastic, insolent; no sooner was he left in his cell than he set fire to it, also damaging a beam in Fouquet's cell. He then gave himself up to painful simula­tions of sickness or folly, with the clear aim of attempting to escape. Saint-Mars, whose experience as a gaoler was limited to guarding the Superintendent, was unable to tame Lauzun and, faced with such fury, came to call Fouquet "the little lamb".

  Very early on (but this was discovered far later) Lauzun succeed­ed in communicating with Fouquet through a hole in the wall.

  "But how is it possible that no one should have realised," I pro­tested incredulously, "what with all the surveillance which Fouquet had to put up with every day?"

  "I have asked myself the same question many times," agreed Ab­bot Melani.

  Another year passed. In October 1675 His Majesty authorised Fouquet and his wife to correspond. The couple's letters were, how­ever, first to be read by the King who arrogated himself the right to alter or destroy them. But there was more: without any logical reason, some twelve months later, the King had Fouquet sent a number of books on recent political developments. A little while later, Louvois sent Saint-Mars a letter for the Superintendent, adding that if the prisoner should request writing paper in order to reply, it was to be given to him. And that is what happened: the Superintendent wrote and sent two reports to Louvois.

  "What did they contain?"

  "No one has succeeded in finding out, although rumours immedi­ately started in Paris that they had been copied throughout the city. Immediately afterwards, however, it became known that Louvois had sent them back to Fouquet, saying that they were of no interest to the King."

  This was an inexplicable gesture, commented Melani: first, be­cause if a memorandum is useless, it is simply thrown away; and sec­ondly, because it is practically impossible that Fouquet should not have given the King some good counsel.

  "Perhaps they wanted to humiliate him yet again," I speculated.

  "Or perhaps the King wanted something from Fouquet which he would not give him."

  The concessions, however, continued. In 1674, Louis authorised husband and wife to write to each other twice a year, even though the letters first passed through his hands. The Superintendent's health again worsened and the King became worried: he did not permit him to leave his cell, but had him visited by a physician sent from Paris.

  From November 1677, he was at last permitted to take a little air; in whose company? Why, that of Lauzun, of course; and the two were even allowed to converse! With the proviso that Saint-Mars should listen to their every word and faithfully report all that was said.

  The King's gracious concessions became more and more numer­ous. Now, Fouquet even received copies of the Mercure Galant and other gazettes. It seemed almost as though Louis wished to keep Fouquet informed of everything important that was happening in France and in Europe. Louvois recommended Saint-Mars to place the accent, in his dealings with the prisoner, on the military victories of the Most Christian King.

  In December 1678 Louvois informed Saint-Mars of his intention to hold a free epistolary correspondence with Fouquet: the letters were to be rigorously sealed and secret, so that Saint-Mars' only duty was to see to their delivery.

  Scarcely a month later, the astonished gaoler received an aide-memoire penned by the King in person on the conditions to apply to Fouquet and Lauzun. The two could meet and converse as often as they pleased and could walk not only within the inner fortress but throughout the whole citadel. They could read whatever they wished, and the officers of the garrison were obliged to keep them company if they so desired. They could also request and receive any table games.

  A few months passed and another opening came: Fouquet could correspond as much as he pleased with all his family.

  "In Paris we were so excited," said Atto Melani, "for we were now almost sure that sooner or later the Superintendent would be freed."

  A few months later, in May 1679, another long-awaited announcement was made: the King would soon allow all Fouquet's family to visit him. Fouquet's friends exulted. The months passed, one year passed. With bated breath they awaited the Squirrel's liberation which, however, never came. They began to fear some stumbling- block; perhaps Colbert was up to his usual tricks.

  In the end, no pardon came. Instead, like a bolt of lightning re­ducing hearts to ashes, came news of the sudden death of Nicolas Fouquet in his cell at Pinerol, in his son's arms. It was 23rd March, 1680.

  "And what about Lauzun?" I asked, as we climbed the vertical well that led back to the inn.

  "Yes, Lauzun. He remained in prison a few months longer. Then he was freed."

  "I do not understand; it is as though Lauzun had been
imprisoned to stay close to Fouquet."

  "That is a good guess. Yet, I wonder, what for?"

  "Well, nothing comes to mind, except... to make him talk. To get Fouquet to say something which the King wished to know, something which..."

  "That will do. Now you know why we are about to search Pompeo Dulcibeni's chamber."

  The search was far less difficult than expected. I kept an eye on the corridor, while Atto entered the Marchigiano's chamber carrying only a candle. I heard him rummage for a long time, with intervals of silence. After a few minutes, I too entered, stirred both by the fear of being discovered and by curiosity.

  Atto had already combed through a good many of Pompeo Dul­cibeni's personal effects: clothing, books (amongst them the three volumes from Tiracorda's library), a few scraps of food, a passport to travel from the Kingdom of Naples to the Papal States and a number of gazettes. One of these was entitled:

  Relation of what took place between the Caesarean Armies and the Ottomans on 10th July, 1683.

  "It concerns the siege of Vienna," murmured Abbot Melani.

  The other gazettes too, of which there were over a dozen, also dealt with the same subject. We ended by examining the whole room hurriedly; no other object of any significance came to our attention. I was already inviting Abbot Melani to abandon the search when I saw him stop in the middle of the chamber, thoughtfully scratching his chin.

  Suddenly, he rushed to the wardrobe and, finding the corner in which the dirty linen was piled, literally plunged into it, groping and pulling with his hands at the underclothing waiting to be laundered. At length, he grasped a pair of muslin drawers. He began to finger them in several places, until his hands concentrated on the piping through which passed the cord that holds up the drawers.

  "Here we are. The chore was malodorous, but it was well worth the trouble," said Abbot Melani with satisfaction, extracting from Dulcibeni's drawers a small flattened coil. This consisted of several folded and compressed sheets of paper. The abbot unfolded them and placed them under the candle in order to read them.

  I should be lying to the reader of these pages were I to hide the fact that the image of what took place in the minutes that followed remains engraved in my memory, as vivid as it is chaotic.

  We began to read aloud avidly, almost in unison, the letter formed by those few leaves of paper. It was a long discourse in Latin, written in a senile, uncertain hand.

  "Optimo amico Nicolao Fouquet... mumiarum domino... tributum extremum... secretum pestis... secretum morbi... ut lues debelletur... It is incred­ible, truly incredible," Abbot Melani murmured to himself.

  Some of those words sounded strangely familiar to me. At once, however, he invited me to keep an eye on the corridor, in order not to be surprised by Dulcibeni's return. So I posted myself outside the door, keeping an eye on the stairs. While Abbot Melani completed his reading, I heard him muttering undisguised expressions of surprise and incredulity.

  There then occurred what I was by now inured to fearing. Stop­ping his nose and his mouth, with his eyes narrowed and swollen, Abbot Melani rushed out from the chamber and placed the letter in my hands. He squirmed, again and again desperately repressing a dangerous sneeze.

  I went straight to the last part of the letter, which he, in all prob­ability, had been as yet unable to read. I, however, understood little of the content, owing to my excitement and to the bizarre contor­tions whereby Atto Melani was striving to mount his resistance to the beneficial release. My eyes moved directly to the end, where I understood why the words mumiarum domino had not sounded new to me when, almost incredulously, I deciphered the signature: Athanasius Kircher I.H.S.

  Now at the limit of his resistance, Atto pointed at Dulcibeni's drawers, into which I hastily returned the letter. Obviously, we could not remove it. Dulcibeni would certainly discover that, with unfore­seeable consequences. A few moments after we had left Dulcibeni's chamber and locked the door, Atto Melani exploded in a noisy, liber­ating, triumphal sneeze. Cristofano's door opened.

  I took to the stairs and rushed down to the cellars. I heard the doctor reproving Abbot Melani. "What are you doing outside your chamber?"

  The abbot needed all of his wits about him to arrange a clumsy excuse: he was on his way to call on Cristofano because, said he, of a sudden sneezing attack which was suffocating him.

  "Good, then why are your shoes all muddy?" asked Cristofano an-grily.

  "Oh well... er... yes, indeed, they did get rather dirty on the jour­ney from Paris and I have not yet had them cleaned here, what with all that has happened," stammered Atto. "But please, let us not talk here, we shall wake up Bedfordi,"—for the Englishman was indeed sleeping nearby.

  The physician muttered something and I heard the door close. A few minutes later, I heard the two emerge once again.

  "I do not like this business; now we shall see who else is play­ing the night wanderer," hissed Cristofano, knocking at a door. From within came Devize's voice, half-smothered by sleep.

  "No, it is nothing, excuse me, just a little check," explained the doctor.

  My sweat ran cold. He was about to knock on Dulcibeni's door. Cristofano knocked.

  The door opened: "Yes?"

  Pompeo Dulcibeni had returned.

  After leaving a while for the waters to calm, I returned to await Atto Melani in my chamber. What we most feared had, alas, come to pass. Not only had Cristofano found Atto wandering about the inn, but Dulcibeni too had witnessed that nocturnal confusion. Clearly, he had returned to his apartment just when Atto was in Cristofano's chamber. At that moment, I myself was on the stairs, some way be­low. Thus, I did not hear Dulcibeni's return. The old gentleman must have descended the stairs between the little room and the first floor on tiptoe, despite the fact that he was moving in the dark. What had taken place then was bizarre, although not impossible.

  What did seem almost incredible was the fact that Dulcibeni should have succeeded in making a timely return after all those comings and goings in the underground galleries, then in Tiracorda's house, and again in the tunnels; hauling himself up through the trapdoor with his own strength, walking in the dark, climbing steep stairs, and all in complete solitude. Dulcibeni was strongly built and far from short-winded. Too far, I thought, for a man of his age.

  I did not have to wait long until Abbot Melani came to my door. He was not a little gloomy because of the stupid and ridiculous way in which we had been caught by Cristofano, arousing the suspicions of Dulcibeni himself.

  "And what if Dulcibeni runs away?"

  "I do not think he will do that. He would fear that Cristofano might raise the alarm and that, in dread of the Bargello's men, you and I might reveal the underground passage and the trapdoor leading directly to the house of his friend Tiracorda; which might irremedia­bly compromise his mysterious plans. I am rather of the opinion that, whatever Dulcibeni may have in mind to do, after what has taken place tonight, he will quicken his pace. We must be on guard."

  "Yet, finding that letter in his drawers, we did make a great discovery," I added, recovering my good humour. "By the way, what led you to find the hiding place so quickly?"

  "I see that you cannot bear to think matters through. Who accompanied Dulcibeni when he came to the hostelry?"

  "Devize; and Fouquet."

  "Good. And where did Fouquet hide his writings when he was imprisoned at Pinerol?"

  "I thought about all that Abbot Melani had narrated to me an hour previously. "In chairs, in the lining of clothes, and in his undergarments!"

  "Exactly."

  "But then, Dulcibeni knows everything about Fouquet."

  The abbot nodded his assent.

  "So, Dulcibeni lied on the morning of our sequestration, when he told the Bargello's men that he had met the old Frenchman only recently," said I in amazement.

  "Precisely. To have attained such a degree of intimacy, in real­ity, Dulcibeni and the Superintendent must have met a long time previously. Do not forget that Fo
uquet emerged from twenty years' imprisonment in a very poor state of health: I do not believe he can have moved around very much before settling in Naples. Nothing could be simpler than that he should have sought anonymous refuge in a circle of Jansenists, who are among the most bitter enemies of Louis XIV and who are well established in that city."

  "And there," I concluded, "he must have made the acquaintance of Dulcibeni, to whom he will have revealed his identity."

  "Just so. That would mean that their friendship dates back three years, and not two months, as Dulcibeni would wish us to believe. And now, with God's help, we shall see this matter through to the end."