“The surprise you seem to have in view, and on account of which you took some specimens away, when I met you at Percerin’s.” D’Artagnan paused. The shaft was discharged, and all he had to do was to wait and watch its effect.
“That is merely an act of graceful attention,” replied Aramis.
D’Artagnan went up to his friend, took hold of both his hands, and looking him full in the eyes, said, “Aramis, do you still care for me a very little?”
“What a question to ask!”
“Very good. One favour then. Why did you take some patterns of the Kings costumes at Percerin’s?”
“Come with me and ask poor Lebrun, who has been working upon them for the last two days and two nights.”
“Aramis, that may be the truth for anybody else, but for me—”
“Upon my word, d’Artagnan, you astonish me!”
“Be a little considerate for me. Tell me the exact truth; you would not like anything disagreeable to happen to me, would you?”
“My dear friend, you are becoming quite incomprehensible. What suspicion can you possibly have got hold of?”
“Do you believe in my instinctive feelings? Formerly, you used to have faith in them. Well then, an instinct tells me that you have some concealed project on foot.”
“I—a project!”
“I am convinced of it.”
“What nonsense!”
“I am not only sure of it, but I would even swear it.”
“Indeed, d’Artagnan, you cause me the greatest pain. Is it likely, if I have any project in hand that I ought to keep secret from you, I should tell you about it? If I had one that I could and ought to have revealed, should I not have already told it to you?”
“No, Aramis, no. There are certain projects which are never revealed until the favourable opportunity arrives.”
“In that case, my dear fellow,” returned the Bishop, laughing, “the only thing now is that the ‘opportunity’ has not yet arrived.”
D’Artagnan shook his head with a sorrowful expression. “Oh, friendship, friendship!” he said, “what an idle word you are! Here is a man, who if I were but to ask it, would suffer himself to be cut in pieces for my sake.”
“You are right,” said Aramis, nobly.
“And this man, who would shed every drop of blood in his veins for me, will not open the smallest corner of his heart. Friendship, I repeat, is nothing but a mere unsubstantial shadow and a lure, like everything else in this world which is bright and dazzling.”
“It is not thus you should speak of our friendship,” replied the Bishop, in a firm, assured voice; “for ours is not of the same nature as those you have been speaking of.”
“Look at us, Aramis; three out of the old ‘four.’ You are deceiving me; I suspect you; and Porthos is fast asleep. An admirable trio of friends, don’t you think so? A beautiful relic of former times.”
“I can only tell you one thing, d’Artagnan, and I swear it on the Bible; I love you just as I used to do. If I ever suspect you, it is on account of others, and not on account of either of us. In everything I may do, and should happen to succeed in, you will find your fourth. Will you promise me the same favour?”
“If I am not mistaken, Aramis, your words—at the moment you pronounce them—are full of generous feeling.”
“That is possible.”
“You are conspiring against M. Colbert. If that be all, mordioux! tell me so at once. I have the instrument in my own hand, and will pull out the tooth easily enough.”
Aramis could not restrain a smile of disdain which passed across his noble features. “And supposing that I were conspiring against Colbert, what harm would there be in that?”
“No, no; that would be too trifling a matter for you to take in hand, and it was not on that account you asked Percerin for those patterns of the King’s costumes. Oh! Aramis, we are not enemies, remember, but brothers. Tell me what you wish to undertake, and upon the word of a d’Artagnan, if I cannot help you, I will swear to remain neuter.”
“I am undertaking nothing,” said Aramis.
“Aramis, a voice speaks within me, and seems to enlighten my darkness; it is a voice which has never yet deceived me. It is the King you are conspiring against.”
“The King?” exclaimed the Bishop, pretending to be annoyed.
“Your face will not convince me; the King, I repeat.”
“Will you help me?” said Aramis, smiling ironically.
“Aramis, I will do more than help you—I will do more than remain neuter—I will save you.”
“You are mad, d’Artagnan.”
“I am the wiser of the two, in this matter.”
“You suspect me of wishing to assassinate the King!”
“Who spoke of that at all?” said the musketeer.
“Well, let us understand each other. I do not see what any one can do to a legitimate King as ours is, if he does not assassinate him.” D’Artagnan did not say a word. “Besides, you have your guards and your musketeers here,” said the Bishop.
“True.”
“You are not in M. Fouquet’s house, but in your own.”
“True; but in spite of that, Aramis, grant me, for pity’s sake, but one single word of a true friend.”
“A friend’s word is the truth itself. If I think of touching, even with my finger, the son of Anne of Austria, the true King of this realm of France—if I have not the firm intention of prostrating myself before his throne—if in every idea I may entertain to-morrow here at Vaux will not be the most glorious day my King ever enjoyed—may Heaven’s lightning blast me where I stand!” Aramis had pronounced these words with his face turned towards the alcove of his own bedroom; where, d‘Artagnan, seated with his back towards the alcove, could not suspect that any one was lying concealed. The earnestness of his words, the studied slowness with which he pronounced them, the solemnity of his oath, gave the musketeer the most complete satisfaction. He took hold of both Aramis’s hands, and shook them cordially. Aramis had endured reproaches without turning pale, and had blushed as he listened to words of praise. D’Artagnan, deceived, did him honour; but d’Artagnan, trustful and reliant, made him feel ashamed. “Are you going away?” he said as he embraced him, in order to conceal the flush on his face.
“Yes; my duty summons me. I have to get the watchword. It seems I am to be lodged in the King’s anteroom. Where does Porthos sleep?”
“Take him away with you, if you like, for he snores like a park of artillery.”
“Ah! he does not stay with you, then?” said d’Artagnan.
“Not the least in the world. He has his room to himself, but I don’t know where!”
“Very good!” said the musketeer, from whom this separation of the two associates removed his last suspicion, and he touched Porthos lightly on the shoulder. The latter replied by a terrible yawn. “Come,” said d’Artagnan.
“What, d’Artagnan, my dear fellow, is that you? What a lucky chance! Oh, yes—true; I had forgotten; I am at the fêtes at Vaux. ”
“Yes; and your beautiful dress, too.”
“Yes, it was very attentive on the part of Monsieur Coquelin de Volière, was it not?”
“Hush!” said Aramis. “You are walking so heavily, you will make the flooring give way.”
“True,” said the musketeer; “this room is above the dome, I think.”
“And I did not choose it for a fencing-room, I assure you,” added the Bishop. “The ceiling of the King’s room has all the sweetness and calm delights of sleep. Do not forget, therefore, that my flooring is merely the covering of his ceiling. Good-night, my friends, and in ten minutes I shall be fast asleep.” And Aramis accompanied them to the door, laughing quietly all the while. As soon as they were outside, he bolted the door hurriedly; closed up the chinks of the windows, and then called out, “Monseigneur!—monseigneur!” Philippe made his appearance from the alcove, as he pushed aside a sliding panel placed behind the bed.
“M. d’Artagna
n entertains a great many suspicions, it seems,” he said.
“Ah!—you recognised M. d’Artagnan, then?”
“Before you called him by his name, even.”
“He is your captain of musketeers.”
“He is very devoted to me,” replied Philippe, laying a stress upon the personal pronoun.
“As faithful as a dog; but he bites sometimes. If d‘Artagnan does not recognise you before the other has disappeared, rely upon d’Artagnan to the end of the world; for, in that case, if he has seen nothing, he will keep his fidelity. If he sees, when it is too late—he is a Gascon, and will never admit that he has been deceived.”
“I thought so. What are we to do, now?”
“You will go and take up your post at our place of observation, and watch the moment of the King’s retiring to rest, so as to learn how that ceremony is performed.”
“Very good. Where shall I place myself?”
“Sit down on this folding-chair. I am going to push aside a portion of the flooring; you will look through the opening, which answers to one of the false windows made in the dome of the King’s apartment. Can you see?”
“Yes,” said Philippe, starting as at the sight of an enemy, “I see the King!”
“What is he doing?”
“He seems to wish some man to sit down close to him.”
“M. Fouquet?”
“No, no; wait a moment—”
“Look at the notes and portraits, my Prince.”
“The man whom the King wishes to sit down in his presence is M. Colbert.”
“Colbert sit down in the King’s presence!” exclaimed Aramis, “it is impossible.”
“Look.”
Aramis looked through the opening in the flooring. “Yes,” he said. “Colbert himself. Oh, monseigneur! what can we be going to hear—and what can result from this intimacy?”
“Nothing good for M. Fouquet, at all events.”
The Prince did not deceive himself.
We have seen that Louis XIV had sent for Colbert, and that Colbert had arrived. The conversation began between them by the King according to him one of the highest favours that he had ever done; it was true the King was alone with his subject. “Colbert,” said he, “sit down.”
The intendant, overcome with delight, for he feared he should be dismissed, refused this unprecedented honour.
“Does he accept?” said Aramis.
“No, he remains standing.”
“Let us listen then.” And the future King and the future Pope listened eagerly to the simple mortals whom they held under their feet, ready to crush them if they had liked.
“Colbert,” said the King, “you have annoyed me exceedingly to-day.”
“I know it, sire.”
“Very good; I like that answer. Yes, you knew it, and there was courage in having done it.”
“I ran the risk of displeasing your Majesty, but I risked also concealing what were your true interests from you.”
“What! you were afraid of something on my account?”
“I was, sire, even if it were of nothing more than an indigestion,” said Colbert; “for people do not give their sovereigns such banquets as the one of to-day except to stifle them under the weight of good living.” Colbert waited the effect which this coarse jest would produce upon the King; and Louis XIV, who was the vainest and most fastidiously delicate man in his kingdom, forgave Colbert the joke.
“The truth is,” he said, “that M. Fouquet has given me too good a meal. Tell me, Colbert, where does he get all the money required for this enormous expenditure,—can you tell?”
“Yes, I do know, sire.”
“Will you be able to prove it with tolerable certainty?”
“Easily; to the very farthing.”
“I know you are very exact.”
“It is the principal qualification required in an intendant of finances.”
“But all are not so.”
“I thank your Majesty for so flattering a compliment from your own lips.”
“M. Fouquet, therefore, is rich—very rich, and I suppose every man knows he is so.”
“Every one, sire—the living as well as the dead.”
“What does that mean, Monsieur Colbert?”
“The living are witnesses of M. Fouquet’s wealth,—they admire and applaud the result produced; but the dead, wiser and better informed than we are, know how that wealth was obtained—and they rise up in accusation.”
“So that M. Fouquet owes his wealth to some cause or other.”
“The occupation of an intendant very often favours those who practise it.”
“You have something to say to me more confidently, I perceive; do not be afraid, we are quite alone.”
“I am never afraid of anything under the shelter of my own conscience, and under the protection of your Majesty,” said Colbert, bowing.
“If the dead therefore were to speak—”
“They do speak sometimes, sire—read.”
“Ah!” murmured Aramis, in the Prince’s ear, who, close beside him, listened without losing a syllable, “since you are placed here, monseigneur, in order to learn your vocation of a king, listen to a piece of infamy of a nature truly royal. You are about to be a witness of one of those scenes which the foul fiend alone can conceive and execute. Listen attentively; you will find your advantage in it.”
The Prince redoubled his attention, and saw Louis XIV take from Colbert’s hands a letter which the latter held out to him.
“The late Cardinal’s handwriting,” said the King.
“Your Majesty has an excellent memory,” replied Colbert, bowing; “it is an immense advantage for a King who is destined for hard work to recognise handwritings at the first glance.”
The King read Mazarin’s letter, and, as its contents are already known to the reader, in consequence of the misunderstanding between Madame de Chevreuse and Aramis, nothing further would be learned if we stated them here again.
“I do not quite understand,” said the King, greatly interested.
“Your Majesty has not yet acquired the habit of going through the public accounts.”
“I see that it refers to money which had been given to M. Fouquet.”
“Thirteen millions. A tolerably good sum.”
“Yes. Well, and these thirteen millions are wanting to balance the total of the accounts. That is what I do not very well understand. How is this deficit possible?”
“Possible, I do not say; but there is no doubt about the fact that it really is so.”
“You say that these thirteen millions are found to be wanting in the accounts?”
“I do not say so, but the registry does.”
“And this letter of M. Mazarin indicates the employment of the sum, and the name of the person with whom it was deposited?”
“As your Majesty can judge for yourself.”
“Yes; and the result is, then, that M. Fouquet has not yet restored the thirteen millions.”
“That results from the accounts, certainly, sire.”
“Well, and consequently—”
“Well, sire, in that case, inasmuch as M. Fouquet has not yet given back the thirteen millions, he must have appropriated them to his own purposes; and with those thirteen millions one could incur four times and a little more as much expenses, and make four times as great a display, as your Majesty was able to do at Fontainebleau, where we only spent three millions altogether, if you remember.”
For a blunderer, the souvenir he had evoked was a very skilfully-contrived piece of baseness; for by the remembrance of his own fête he, for the first time, perceived its inferiority compared with that of Fouquet. Colbert received back again at Vaux what Fouquet had given him at Fontainebleau, and, as a good financier, he returned it with the best possible interest. Having once disposed the King’s mind in that way, Colbert had nothing of much importance to detain him. He felt that such was the case, for the King, too, had again sunk into a dull and glo
omy state. Colbert awaited the first word from the King’s lips with as much impatience as Philippe and Aramis did from their place of observation.
“Are you aware what is the natural consequence of all this, Monsieur Colbert?” said the King, after a few minutes’ reflection.
“No, sire, I do not know.”
“Well, then, the fact of the appropriation of the thirteen millions, if it can be proved—”
“But it is so already.”
“I mean, if it were to be declared and certified, Monsieur Colbert.”
“I think it will be to-morrow, if your Majesty—”
“Were we not under M. Fouquet’s roof, you were going to say, perhaps,” replied the King, with something of nobleness in his manner.
“The King is in his own palace wherever he may be, and especially in houses which his own money has paid for.”
“I think,” said Philippe, in a low tone, to Aramis, “that the architect who constructed this dome ought, anticipating what use could be made of it, so to have contrived that it might easily be made to fall on the heads of scoundrels such as that M. Colbert.”
“I thought so too,” replied Aramis; “but M. Colbert is so very near the King at this moment.”
“That is true, and that would open the succession.”
“Of which your younger brother would reap all the advantage, monseigneur. But stay, let us keep quiet, and go on listening.”
“We shall not have long to listen,” said the young Prince.
“Why not, monseigneur?”
“Because if I were the King, I should not reply anything further.”
“And what would you do?”
“I should wait until to-morrow morning to give myself time for reflection.”
Louis XIV at last raised his eyes, and finding Colbert attentively waiting for his next remark, said, hastily changing the conversation, “Monsieur Colbert, I perceive it is getting very late, and I shall now retire to bed. By to-morrow morning I shall have made up my mind.”
“Very good sire,” returned Colbert, greatly incensed, although he restrained himself in the presence of the King.
The King made a gesture of adieu, and Colbert withdrew with a respectful bow. “My attendants,” cried the King; and, as they entered the apartment, Philippe was about to quit his post of observation.
Man in the Iron Mask (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 39
