Man in the Iron Mask (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Alexandre Dumas

  “Monsieur meant to say the too great ardour,” interrupted d’Artagnan, with perfect frankness and much amenity. “The fact is, monseigneur, that hospitality was never practised as at Vaux.”

  Madame Fouquet permitted her countenance to show clearly that if Fouquet had conducted himself well towards the King, the King had not rendered the like to the minister. But d‘Artagnan knew the terrible secret. He alone with Fouquet knew it; those two men had not, the one the courage to complain, the other the right to accuse. The captain, to whom the two hundred pistoles were brought, was about to take his leave, when Fouquet, rising, took a glass of wine, and ordered one to be given d’Artagnan.

  “Monsieur,” said he, “to the health of the King, whatever may happen. ”

  “And to your health, monseigneur, whatever may happen,” said d’Artagnan.

  He bowed, with these words of evil omen, to all the company, who rose as soon as they heard the sound of his spurs and boots at the bottom of the stairs.

  “I, for a moment, thought it was me, and not my money he wanted,” said Fouquet, endeavouring to laugh.

  “You!” cried his friends; “and what for, in the name of Heaven?”

  “Oh! do not deceive yourselves, my dear brothers in Epicurus,” said the Surintendant; “I will not make a comparison between the most humble sinner on the earth and the God we adore, but remember, he gave one day to his friends a repast which is called the Last Supper, and which was nothing but a farewell dinner, like that which we are making at this moment.”

  A painful cry of denial arose from all parts of the table. “Shut the doors,” said Fouquet, and the servants disappeared. “My friends,” continued Fouquet, lowering his voice, “what was I formerly? What am I now? Consult among yourselves, and reply. A man like me sinks when he does not continue to rise. What shall we say, then, when he really sinks? I have no more money, no more credit; I have no longer anything but powerful enemies, and powerful friends.”

  “Quick!” cried Pélisson, rising. “Since you explain yourself with that frankness, it is our duty to be frank, likewise. Yes, you are ruined—yes, you are hastening to your ruin—stop. And, in the first place, what money have we left?”

  “Seven hundred thousand livres,” said the Intendant.

  “Bread,” murmured Madame Fouquet.

  “Relays,” said Pélisson, “relays, and fly!”

  “Whither?”

  “To Switzerland—to Savoy—but fly!”

  “If monseigneur flies,” said Madame Bellière, “it will be said that he was guilty, and was afraid.”

  “More than that, it will be said that I have carried away twenty millions with me.”

  “We will draw up memoirs to justify you,” said La Fontaine. “Fly!”

  “I will remain,” said Fouquet, “And, besides, does not everything serve me?”

  “You have Belle-Isle,” cried the Abbé Fouquet.

  “And I am naturally going there, when going to Nantes,” replied the Surintendant. “Patience, then, patience.”

  “Before arriving at Nantes, what a distance!” said Madame Fouquet.

  “Yes, I know that well,” replied Fouquet. “But what is to be done there? The King summons me to the States. I know well it is for the purpose of ruining me; but to refuse to go would be to evince uneasiness.”

  “Well, I have discovered the means of reconciling everything,” cried Pélisson. “You are going to set out for Nantes.”

  Fouquet looked at him with an air of surprise.

  “But with friends; but in your own carriage as far as Orleans; in your barge as far as Nantes; always ready to defend yourself, if you are attacked; to escape if you are threatened. In fact, you will carry your money against all chances; and, whilst flying, you will only have obeyed the King; then, reaching the sea when you like, you will embark for Belle-Isle, and from Belle-Isle you will shoot out wherever it may please you, like the eagle which rushes into space when it has been driven from its eyrie.”

  A general assent followed Pélisson’s words. “Yes, do so,” said Madame Fouquet to her husband.

  “Do so,” said Madame Bellière.

  “Do it! do it!” cried all his friends.

  “I will do so,” replied Fouquet.

  “This very evening?”

  “In an hour.”

  “Immediately.”

  “With seven hundred thousand livres you can lay the foundation of another fortune,” said the Abbé Fouquet. “What is there to prevent our arming corsairs at Belle-Isle?”

  “And if necessary we will go and discover a new world,” added La Fontaine, intoxicated with projects and enthusiasm.

  A knock at the door interrupted this concert of joy and hope. “A courier from the King,” said the master of the ceremonies.

  A profound silence immediately ensued, as if the message brought by this courier was nothing but a reply to all the projects given birth to an instant before. Every one waited to see what the master would do. His brow was streaming with perspiration, and he was really suffering from his fever at that instant. He passed into his cabinet, to receive the King’s message. There prevailed, as we have said, such a silence in the chambers, and throughout the attendance, that from the dining-room could be heard the voice of Fouquet, saying, “That is well, monsieur.” This voice was, however, broken by fatigue, trembling with emotion. An instant after, Fouquet called Gourville, who crossed the gallery amidst the universal expectation. At length, he himself reappeared among his guests; but it was no longer the same pale, spiritless countenance they had beheld when he left them; from pale he had become livid; and from spiritless, annihilated. A living spectre, he advanced with his arms stretched out, his mouth parched, like a shade that comes to salute friends of former days. On seeing him thus, every one cried out, and every one rushed towards Fouquet. The latter, looking at Pélisson, leant upon the Surintendante, and pressed the icy hand of the Marquise de Bellière.

  “Well!” said he, in a voice which had nothing human in it.

  “What has happened, my God?” said some one to him.

  Fouquet opened his right hand, which was clenched, humid, and displayed a paper, upon which Pélisson cast a terrified glance. He read the following lines, written by the King’s hand:—

  “‘Dear and well-beloved Monsieur Fouquet.—

  Give us, upon that which you have left of ours, the sum of seven hundred thousand livres, of which we stand in need to prepare for our departure.

  “‘And, as we know your health is not good, we pray God to restore you to health, and to have you in His holy keeping.

  Louis.

  “‘The present letter is to serve as a receipt.’ ”

  A murmur of terror circulated through the apartment.

  “Well!” cried Pélisson, in his turn, “you have received that letter?”

  “Received it, yes!”

  “What will you do, then?”

  “Nothing, since I have received it.”

  “But—”

  “If I have received it, Pélisson, I have paid it,” said the Surintendant, with a simplicity that went to the heart of all present.

  “You have paid it?” cried Madame Fouquet. “Then we are ruined!”

  “Come, no useless words,” interrupted Pélisson. “After money, life. Monsieur, to horse! to horse!”

  “What, leave us! at once cried both women, wild with grief.

  “Eh! monseigneur, in saving yourself, you save us all. To horse!”

  “But he cannot hold himself on. Look at him.”

  “Oh! if he takes time to reflect—” said the intrepid Pélisson.

  “He is right,” murmured Fouquet.

  “Monseigneur! Monseigneur!” cried Gourville, rushing up the stairs, four steps at once. “Monseigneur!”

  “Well! What?”

  “I escorted, as you desired, the King’s courier with the money.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well! when I arrived at the Palais-Royal, I saw—�
�

  “Take breath, my poor friend, take breath; you are suffocating. ”

  “What did you see?” cried the impatient friends.

  “I saw the musketeers mounting on horseback,” said Gourville.

  “There, then!” cried all voices at once; “there, then! is there an instant to be lost?”

  Madame Fouquet rushed downstairs, calling for her horses; Madame de Bellière flew after her, catching her in her arms, and saying:—

  “Madame, in the name of his safety, do not show anything, do not manifest any alarm.”

  Pélisson ran to have the horses put to the carriages. And, in the meantime, Gourville gathered in his hat all that the weeping friends were able to throw into it of gold and silver—the last offering, the pious alms made to misfortune by poverty. The Surintendant, dragged along by some, carried by others, was shut up in his carriage. Gourville took the reins and mounted the box. Pélisson supported Madame Fouquet, who had fainted. Madame de Bellière had more strength, and was well paid for it; she received Fouquet’s last kiss. Pélisson easily explained this precipitate departure by saying that an order from the King had summoned the minister to Nantes.

  64

  In the Carriage of M. Colbert

  As GOURVILLE HAD SEEN, the King’s musketeers were mounting and following their captain. The latter, who did not like to be confined in his proceedings, left his brigade under the orders of a lieutenant, and set off, on his part, upon post horses, recommending his men to use all diligence. However rapidly they might travel, they could not arrive before him. He had time, in passing along the Rue des Petits-Champs, to see a thing which afforded him plenty of food for thought and conjecture. He saw M. Colbert coming out from his house to get into his carriage, which was stationed before the door. In this carriage d‘Artagnan perceived the hoods of two women and, being rather curious, he wished to know the names of the women concealed beneath these hoods. To get a glimpse of them, for they kept themselves closely covered up, he urged his horse so near to the carriage, that he drove him against the step with such force as to shake everything containing and contained. The terrified women uttered, the one a faint cry, by which d’Artagnan recognised a young woman, the other an imprecation, by which he recognised the vigour and assurance which half a century bestows. The hoods were thrown back; one of the women was Madame Vanel, the other was the Duchesse de Chevreuse. D’Artagnan’s eyes were quicker than those of the ladies; he had seen and known them, whilst they did not recognise him; and as they laughed at their fright, pressing each other’s hands,——

  “Humph !” said d’Artagnan, “the old duchesse is not more difficult in her friendships than she was formerly. She paying her court to the mistress of M. Colbert! Poor M. Fouquet! that presages you nothing good!”

  He rode on. M. Colbert got into his carriage, and this noble trio commenced a sufficiently slow pilgrimage towards the wood of Vincennes. Madame de Chevreuse set down Madame Vanel at her husband’s house, and, left alone with M. Colbert, she chatted upon affairs, whilst continuing her ride. She had an inexhaustible fund of conversation, had that dear Duchesse, and as she always talked for the ill of others, always with a view to her own good, her conversation amused her interlocutor, and did not fail to leave a favourable impression behind.

  She taught Colbert, who, poor man! was ignorant of it, how great a minister he was, and how Fouquet would soon become nothing. She promised to rally around him, when he should become Surintendant, all the old nobility of the kingdom, and questioned him as to the preponderance it would be proper to allow La Vallière to take. She praised him, she blamed him, she bewildered him. She showed him the secret of so many secrets, that, for a moment, Colbert feared he must have to do with the devil. She proved to him that she held in her hand the Colbert of to-day, as she had held the Fouquet of yesterday; and as he asked her very simply the reason of her hatred for the Surintendant : “Why do you yourself hate him?” said she.

  “Madame, in politics,” replied he, “the differences of system may bring about divisions between men. M. Fouquet always appeared to me to practise a system opposed to the true interests of the King.”

  She interrupted him—“I will say no more to you about M. Fouquet. The journey the King is about to take to Nantes will give a good account of him. M. Fouquet, for me, is a man quite gone by—and for you also.”

  Colbert made no reply. “On his return from Nantes,” continued the Duchesse, “the King, who is only anxious for a pretext, will find that the States have not behaved well—that they have made too few sacrifices. The States will say that the imposts are too heavy, and that the Surintendant has ruined them. The King will lay all the blame on M. Fouquet, and then—”

  “And then?” said Colbert.

  “Oh! he will be disgraced. Is not that your opinion?”

  Colbert darted a glance at the Duchesse, which plainly said: “If M. Fouquet be only disgraced, you will not be the cause of it.”

  “Your place, M. Colbert,” the Duchesse hastened to say, “must be quite a marked place. Do you perceive any one between the King and yourself, after the fall of M. Fouquet?”

  “I do not understand,” said he.

  “You will understand. To what does your ambition aspire?”

  “I have none.”

  “It was useless then to overthrow the Surintendant, M. Colbert. That is idle.”

  “I had the honour to tell you, Madame—”

  “Oh! yes, I know all about the interest of the King—but, if you please, we will speak of your own.”

  “Mine! that is to say the affairs of His Majesty.”

  “In short, are you, or are you not, ruining M. Fouquet? Answer without evasion.”

  “Madame, I ruin nobody.”

  “I cannot then comprehend why you should purchase of me the letters of M. Mazarin concerning M. Fouquet. Neither can I conceive why you have laid those letters before the King.”

  Colbert, half stupefied, looked at the Duchesse with an air of constraint.

  “Madame,” said he, “I can less easily conceive how you, who received the money, can reproach me on that head.”

  “That is,” said the old Duchesse, “because we must will that which we wish for, unless we are not able to obtain what we wish.”

  “Will!” said Colbert, quite confounded by such coarse logic.

  “You are not able, hein! Speak.”

  “I am not able, I allow, to destroy certain influences near the King. ”

  “Which combat for M. Fouquet? What are they? Stop, let me help you.”

  “Do, madame.”

  “La Vallière?”

  “Oh! very little influence; no knowledge of business; and small means. M. Fouquet has paid his court to her.”

  “To defend him would be to accuse herself, would it not?”

  “I think it would.”

  “There is still another influence; what do you say to that?”

  “Is it considerable?”

  “The Queen-Mother, perhaps?”

  “Her Majesty, the Queen-Mother, has for M. Fouquet a weakness very prejudicial to her son.”

  “Never believe that,” said the old Duchesse, smiling.

  “Oh!” said Colbert, with incredulity, “I have often experienced it.”

  “Formerly?”

  “Very recently, madame, at Vaux. It was she who prevented the King from having M. Fouquet arrested.”

  “People do not always entertain the same opinions, my dear monsieur. That which the Queen may have wished recently, she would not, perhaps, to-day.”

  “And why not?” said Colbert, astonished.

  “Oh! the reason is of very little consequence.”

  “On the contrary, I think it is of great consequence; for, if I were certain of not displeasing Her Majesty the Queen-Mother, all my scruples would be removed.”

  “Well! have you never heard talk of a certain secret?”

  “A secret?”

  “Call it what you like. In short
, the Queen-Mother has conceived a horror for all those who have participated, in one fashion or another, in the discovery of this secret, and M. Fouquet I believe to be one of these.”

  “Then,” said Colbert, “we may be sure of the assent of the Queen-Mother? ”

  “I have just left Her Majesty, and she assures me so.”

  “So be it, then, madame.”

  “But there is something further: do you happen to know a man who was the intimate friend of M. Fouquet, a M. d’Herblay, a bishop, I believe?”

  “Bishop of Vannes.”

  “Well! this M. d’Herblay, who also knew the secret, the Queen-Mother is having him pursued with the utmost rancour.”

  “Indeed! ”

  “So hotly pursued, that if he were dead, she would not be satisfied with anything less than his head; to satisfy her he would never speak again.”

  “And is that the desire of the Queen-Mother?”

  “An order is given for it.”

  “This Monsieur d’Herblay shall be sought for, madame.”

  “Oh! it is well known where he is.” Colbert looked at the Duchesse.

  “Say where, madame.”

  “He is at Belle-Isle-en-Mer.”

  “At the residence of Monsieur Fouquet?”

  “At the residence of M. Fouquet.”

  “He shall be taken.”

  It was now the Duchesse’s turn to smile. “Do not fancy that so easy,” said she, “and do not promise it so lightly.”

  “Why not, madame?”

  “Because M. d’Herblay is not one of those people who can be taken just when you please.”

  “He is a rebel, then?”

  “Oh! Monsieur Colbert, we folks have passed all our lives in making rebels, and yet you see plainly, that so far from being taken, we take others.”

  Colbert fixed upon the old Duchesse one of those fierce looks of which no words can convey the expression, accompanied by a firmness which was not wanting in grandeur. “The times are gone,” said he, “in which subjects gained duchies by making war against the King of France. If M. d’Herblay conspires, he will perish on the scaffold. That will give, or will not give, pleasure to his enemies,—that is of very little importance to us.”