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Title: The Man in the Iron Mask

Author: Alexandre Dumas

Release date: August 1, 2001 [eBook #2759]
Most recently updated: April 24, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2759

Credits: John Bursey and David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN IN
THE IRON MASK ***

The Man in the Iron Mask

by Alexandre Dumas, Père

THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EDITOR’S NOTE TO THE PG
D’ARTAGNAN SERIES

LINKED INDEX OF PROJECT GUTENBERG VOLUMES:

PG
ORDER TITLE DATES VOLUME CHAPTERS
EBOOK#
The Three 1625–
1 1257 1
Musketeers 1628
Twenty Years 1648–
2 1259 2
After 1649
The Vicomte de
3 2609 1660 3 1–75
Bragelonne
1660–
4 Ten Years Later 2681 3 76–140
1661
Louise de la
5 2710 1661 3 141–208
Vallière
The Man in the 1661–
6 2759 3 209–269
Iron Mask 1673

[Project Gutenberg eBook 1258 listed below, is of the same
title as eBook 2681 and its contents overlap those of two
other volumes: it includes all the chapters of eBook 2609
and the first 28 chapters of 2681]

TITLE PG EBOOK# DATES VOLUME CHAPTERS

Ten Years Later 1258 1660–1661 3 1–104

Contents

Transcriber’s Notes:
Introduction:
Chapter I. The Prisoner.
Chapter II. How Mouston Had Become Fatter without Giving Porthos
Notice Thereof
Chapter III. Who Messire Jean Percerin Was.
Chapter IV. The Patterns.
Chapter V. Where, Probably, Moliere Obtained His First Idea of the
Bourgeois Gentilhomme.
Chapter VI. The Bee-Hive, the Bees, and the Honey.
Chapter VII. Another Supper at the Bastile.
Chapter VIII. The General of the Order.
Chapter IX. The Tempter.
Chapter X. Crown and Tiara.
Chapter XI. The Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte.
Chapter XII. The Wine of Melun.
Chapter XIII. Nectar and Ambrosia.
Chapter XIV. A Gascon, and a Gascon and a Half.
Chapter XV. Colbert.
Chapter XVI. Jealousy.
Chapter XVII. High Treason.
Chapter XVIII. A Night at the Bastile.
Chapter XIX. The Shadow of M. Fouquet.
Chapter XX. The Morning.
Chapter XXI. The King’s Friend.

Chapter XXII. Showing How the Countersign Was Respected at the
Bastile.
Chapter XXIII. The King’s Gratitude.
Chapter XXIV. The False King.
Chapter XXV. In Which Porthos Thinks He Is Pursuing a Duchy.
Chapter XXVI. The Last Adieux.
Chapter XXVII. Monsieur de Beaufort.
Chapter XXVIII. Preparations for Departure.
Chapter XXIX. Planchet’s Inventory.
Chapter XXX. The Inventory of M. de Beaufort.
Chapter XXXI. The Silver Dish.
Chapter XXXII. Captive and Jailers.
Chapter XXXIII. Promises.
Chapter XXXIV. Among Women.
Chapter XXXV. The Last Supper.
Chapter XXXVI. In M. Colbert’s Carriage.
Chapter XXXVII. The Two Lighters.
Chapter XXXVIII. Friendly Advice.
Chapter XXXIX. How the King, Louis XIV., Played His Little Part.
Chapter XL: The White Horse and the Black.
Chapter XLI. In Which the Squirrel Falls,—the Adder Flies.
Chapter XLII. Belle-Ile-en-Mer.
Chapter XLIII. Explanations by Aramis.
Chapter XLIV. Result of the Ideas of the King, and the Ideas of
D’Artagnan.
Chapter XLV. The Ancestors of Porthos.
Chapter XLVI. The Son of Biscarrat.
Chapter XLVII. The Grotto of Locmaria.
Chapter XLVIII. The Grotto.
Chapter XLIX. An Homeric Song.
Chapter L: The Death of a Titan.
Chapter LI. Porthos’s Epitaph.

Chapter LII. M. de Gesvres’s Round.
Chapter LIII. King Louis XIV.
Chapter LIV. M. Fouquet’s Friends.
Chapter LV. Porthos’s Will.
Chapter LVI. The Old Age of Athos.
Chapter LVII. Athos’s Vision.
Chapter LVIII. The Angel of Death.
Chapter LIX. The Bulletin.
Chapter LX. The Last Canto of the Poem.
Epilogue.
Footnotes

Transcriber’s Notes:

As you may be aware, Project Gutenberg has
been involved with the writings of both the Alexandre
Dumases for some time now, and since we get a few
questions about the order in which the books should
be read, and in which they were published, these
following comments should hopefully help most of
our readers.
***
The Vicomte de Bragelonne is the final volume of
D’Artagnan Romances: it is usually split into three or
four parts, and the final portion is entitled The Man in
the Iron Mask. The Man in the Iron Mask we’re
familiar with today is the last volume of the four-
volume edition. [Not all the editions split them in the
same manner, hence some of the confusion...but
wait...there’s yet more reason for confusion.]
We intend to do ALL of The Vicomte de
Bragelonne, split into four etexts entitled The
Vicomte de Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, Louise de
la Vallière, and The Man in the Iron Mask.
One thing that may be causing confusion is that
the etext we have now, entitled Ten Years Later,
says it’s the sequel to The Three Musketeers. While
this is technically true, there’s another book, Twenty
Years After, that comes between. The confusion is
generated by the two facts that we published Ten

Years Later BEFORE we published Twenty Years
After, and that many people see those titles as
meaning Ten and Twenty Years “After” the original
story...however, this is why the different words “After”
and “Later”...the Ten Years “After” is ten years after
the Twenty Years later...as per history. Also, the third
book of the D’Artagnan Romances, while entitled
The Vicomte de Bragelonne, has the subtitle Ten
Years Later. These two titles are also given to
different volumes: The Vicomte de Bragelonne can
refer to the whole book, or the first volume of the
three or four-volume editions. Ten Years Later can,
similarly, refer to the whole book, or the second
volume of the four-volume edition. To add to the
confusion, in the case of our etexts, it refers to the
first 104 chapters of the whole book, covering
material in the first and second etexts in the new
series. Here is a guide to the series which may
prove helpful:
The Three Musketeers: Etext 1257—First book of
the D’Artagnan Romances. Covers the years 1625-
1628.
Twenty Years After: Etext 1259—Second book of
the D’Artagnan Romances. Covers the years 1648-
1649. [Third in the order that we published, but
second in time sequence!!!]
Ten Years Later: Etext 1258—First 104 chapters of
the third book of the D’Artagnan Romances. Covers
the years 1660-1661.
The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Etext 2609 (first in
the new series)—First 75 chapters of the third book
of the D’Artagnan Romances. Covers the year 1660.
Ten Years Later: Etext 2681 (second in the new
series)—Chapters 76-140 of that third book of the
D’Artagnan Romances. Covers the years 1660-
1661. [In this particular editing of it]

Louise de la Vallière: Etext 2710 (third in the new
series)—Chapters 141-208 of the third book of the
D’Artagnan Romances. Covers the year 1661.
The Man in the Iron Mask: Etext 2759 (our next
text)—Chapters 209-269 of the third book of the
D’Artagnan Romances. Covers the years 1661-
1673.
Many thanks to Dr. David Coward, whose editions
of the D’Artagnan Romances have proved an
invaluable source of information.

Introduction:

In the months of March-July in 1844, in the
magazine Le Siecle, the first portion of a story
appeared, penned by the celebrated playwright
Alexandre Dumas. It was based, he claimed, on
some manuscripts he had found a year earlier in the
Bibliotheque Nationale while researching a history
he planned to write on Louis XIV. They chronicled
the adventures of a young man named D’Artagnan
who, upon entering Paris, became almost
immediately embroiled in court intrigues,
international politics, and ill-fated affairs between
royal lovers. Over the next six years, readers would
enjoy the adventures of this youth and his three
famous friends, Porthos, Athos, and Aramis, as their
exploits unraveled behind the scenes of some of the
most momentous events in French and even English
history.
Eventually these serialized adventures were
published in novel form, and became the three
D’Artagnan Romances known today. Here is a brief
summary of the first two novels:
The Three Musketeers (serialized March—July,
1844): The year is 1625. The young D’Artagnan
arrives in Paris at the tender age of 18, and almost
immediately offends three musketeers, Porthos,
Aramis, and Athos. Instead of dueling, the four are
attacked by five of the Cardinal’s guards, and the
courage of the youth is made apparent during the
battle. The four become fast friends, and, when
asked by D’Artagnan’s landlord to find his missing

wife, embark upon an adventure that takes them
across both France and England in order to thwart
the plans of the Cardinal Richelieu. Along the way,
they encounter a beautiful young spy, named simply
Milady, who will stop at nothing to disgrace Queen
Anne of Austria before her husband, Louis XIII, and
take her revenge upon the four friends.
Twenty Years After (serialized January—August,
1845): The year is now 1648, twenty years since the
close of the last story. Louis XIII has died, as has
Cardinal Richelieu, and while the crown of France
may sit upon the head of Anne of Austria as Regent
for the young Louis XIV, the real power resides with
the Cardinal Mazarin, her secret husband.
D’Artagnan is now a lieutenant of musketeers, and
his three friends have retired to private life. Athos
turned out to be a nobleman, the Comte de la Fere,
and has retired to his home with his son, Raoul de
Bragelonne. Aramis, whose real name is D’Herblay,
has followed his intention of shedding the
musketeer’s cassock for the priest’s robes, and
Porthos has married a wealthy woman, who left him
her fortune upon her death. But trouble is stirring in
both France and England. Cromwell menaces the
institution of royalty itself while marching against
Charles I, and at home the Fronde is threatening to
tear France apart. D’Artagnan brings his friends out
of retirement to save the threatened English
monarch, but Mordaunt, the son of Milady, who
seeks to avenge his mother’s death at the
musketeers’ hands, thwarts their valiant efforts.
Undaunted, our heroes return to France just in time
to help save the young Louis XIV, quiet the Fronde,
and tweak the nose of Cardinal Mazarin.
The third novel, The Vicomte de Bragelonne
(serialized October, 1847—January, 1850), has
enjoyed a strange history in its English translation. It

has been split into three, four, or five volumes at
various points in its history. The five-volume edition
generally does not give titles to the smaller portions,
but the others do. In the three-volume edition, the
novels are entitled The Vicomte de Bragelonne,
Louise de la Vallière, and The Man in the Iron Mask.
For the purposes of this etext, I have chosen to split
the novel as the four-volume edition does, with these
titles: The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Ten Years Later,
Louise de la Vallière, and The Man in the Iron Mask.
In the first three etexts:
The Vicomte de Bragelonne (Etext 2609): It is the
year 1660, and D’Artagnan, after thirty-five years of
loyal service, has become disgusted with serving
King Louis XIV while the real power resides with the
Cardinal Mazarin, and has tendered his resignation.
He embarks on his own project, that of restoring
Charles II to the throne of England, and, with the
help of Athos, succeeds, earning himself quite a
fortune in the process. D’Artagnan returns to Paris to
live the life of a rich citizen, and Athos, after
negotiating the marriage of Philip, the king’s brother,
to Princess Henrietta of England, likewise retires to
his own estate, La Fere. Meanwhile, Mazarin has
finally died, and left Louis to assume the reigns of
power, with the assistance of M. Colbert, formerly
Mazarin’s trusted clerk. Colbert has an intense
hatred for M. Fouquet, the king’s superintendent of
finances, and has resolved to use any means
necessary to bring about his fall. With the new rank
of intendant bestowed on him by Louis, Colbert
succeeds in having two of Fouquet’s loyal friends
tried and executed. He then brings to the king’s
attention that Fouquet is fortifying the island of Belle-
Ile-en-Mer, and could possibly be planning to use it
as a base for some military operation against the
king. Louis calls D’Artagnan out of retirement and

sends him to investigate the island, promising him a
tremendous salary and his long-promised promotion
to captain of the musketeers upon his return. At
Belle-Isle, D’Artagnan discovers that the engineer of
the fortifications is, in fact, Porthos, now the Baron
du Vallon, and that’s not all. The blueprints for the
island, although in Porthos’s handwriting, show
evidence of another script that has been erased, that
of Aramis. D’Artagnan later discovers that Aramis
has become the bishop of Vannes, which is,
coincidentally, a parish belonging to M. Fouquet.
Suspecting that D’Artagnan has arrived on the king’s
behalf to investigate, Aramis tricks D’Artagnan into
wandering around Vannes in search of Porthos, and
sends Porthos on an heroic ride back to Paris to
warn Fouquet of the danger. Fouquet rushes to the
king, and gives him Belle-Isle as a present, thus
allaying any suspicion, and at the same time
humiliating Colbert, just minutes before the usher
announces someone else seeking an audience with
the king.
Ten Years Later (Etext 2681): As 1661
approaches, Princess Henrietta of England arrives
for her marriage, and throws the court of France into
complete disorder. The jealousy of the Duke of
Buckingham, who is in love with her, nearly
occasions a war on the streets of Le Havre,
thankfully prevented by Raoul’s timely and tactful
intervention. After the marriage, though, Monsieur
Philip becomes horribly jealous of Buckingham, and
has him exiled. Before leaving, however, the duke
fights a duel with M. de Wardes at Calais. De
Wardes is a malicious and spiteful man, the sworn
enemy of D’Artagnan, and, by the same token, that
of Athos, Aramis, Porthos, and Raoul as well. Both
men are seriously wounded, and the duke is taken
back to England to recover. Raoul’s friend, the

Comte de Guiche, is the next to succumb to
Henrietta’s charms, and Monsieur obtains his exile
as well, though De Guiche soon effects a
reconciliation. But then the king’s eye falls on
Madame Henrietta during the comte’s absence, and
this time Monsieur’s jealousy has no recourse. Anne
of Austria intervenes, and the king and his sister-in-
law decide to pick a young lady with whom the king
can pretend to be in love, the better to mask their
own affair. They unfortunately select Louise de la
Vallière, Raoul’s fiancee. While the court is in
residence at Fontainebleau, the king unwitting
overhears Louise confessing her love for him while
chatting with her friends beneath the royal oak, and
the king promptly forgets his affection for Madame.
That same night, Henrietta overhears, at the same
oak, De Guiche confessing his love for her to Raoul.
The two embark on their own affair. A few days later,
during a rainstorm, Louis and Louise are trapped
alone together, and the whole court begins to talk of
the scandal while their love affair blossoms. Aware of
Louise’s attachment, the king arranges for Raoul to
be sent to England for an indefinite period.
Meanwhile, the struggle for power continues
between Fouquet and Colbert. Although the Belle-
Isle plot backfired, Colbert prompts the king to ask
Fouquet for more and more money, and without his
two friends to raise it for him, Fouquet is sorely
pressed. The situation gets so bad that his new
mistress, Madame de Belliere, must resort to selling
all her jewels and her gold and silver plate. Aramis,
while this is going on, has grown friendly with the
governor of the Bastile, M. de Baisemeaux, a fact
that Baisemeaux unwittingly reveals to D’Artagnan
while inquiring of him as to Aramis’s whereabouts.
This further arouses the suspicions of the
musketeer, who was made to look ridiculous by

Aramis. He had ridden overnight at an insane pace,
but arrived a few minutes after Fouquet had already
presented Belle-Isle to the king. Aramis learns from
the governor the location of a mysterious prisoner,
who bears a remarkable resemblance to Louis XIV—
in fact, the two are identical. He uses the existence
of this secret to persuade a dying Franciscan monk,
the general of the society of the Jesuits, to name
him, Aramis, the new general of the order. On
Aramis’s advice, hoping to use Louise’s influence
with the king to counteract Colbert’s influence,
Fouquet also writes a love letter to La Vallière,
unfortunately undated. It never reaches its
destination, however, as the servant ordered to
deliver it turns out to be an agent of Colbert’s.
Louise de la Vallière (Etext 2710): Believing
D’Artagnan occupied at Fontainebleau and Porthos
safely tucked away at Paris, Aramis holds a funeral
for the dead Franciscan—but in fact, Aramis is
wrong in both suppositions. D’Artagnan has left
Fontainebleau, bored to tears by the fetes, retrieved
Porthos, and is visiting the country-house of
Planchet, his old lackey. This house happens to be
right next door to the graveyard, and upon observing
Aramis at this funeral, and his subsequent meeting
with a mysterious hooded lady, D’Artagnan,
suspicions aroused, resolves to make a little trouble
for the bishop. He presents Porthos to the king at the
same time as Fouquet presents Aramis, thereby
surprising the wily prelate. Aramis’s professions of
affection and innocence do only a little to allay
D’Artagnan’s concerns, and he continues to regard
Aramis’s actions with a curious and wary eye.
Meanwhile, much to his delight, Porthos is invited to
dine with the king as a result of his presentation, and
with D’Artagnan’s guidance, manages to behave in

such a manner as to procure the king’s marked
favor.
The mysterious woman turns out to be the
Duchesse de Chevreuse, a notorious schemer and
former friend of Anne of Austria. She comes bearing
more bad news for Fouquet, who is already in
trouble, as the king has invited himself to a fete at
Vaux, Fouquet’s magnificent mansion, that will surely
bankrupt the poor superintendent. The Duchesse
has letters from Mazarin that prove that Fouquet has
received thirteen million francs from the royal
coffers, and she wishes to sell these letters to
Aramis. Aramis refuses, and the letters are instead
sold to Colbert. Fouquet, meanwhile, discovers that
the receipt that proves his innocence in the affair has
been stolen from him. Even worse, Fouquet,
desperate for money, is forced to sell the
parliamentary position that renders him untouchable
by any court proceedings. As part of her deal with
Colbert, though, Chevreuse also obtains a secret
audience with the queen-mother, where the two
discuss a shocking secret—Louis XIV has a twin
brother, long believed, however, to be dead.
Meanwhile, in other quarters, De Wardes, Raoul’s
inveterate enemy, has returned from Calais, barely
recovered from his wounds, and no sooner does he
return than he begins again to insult people,
particularly La Vallière, and this time the comte de
Guiche is the one to challenge him. The duel leaves
De Guiche horribly wounded, but enables Madame
to use her influence to destroy De Wardes’s standing
at court. The fetes, however, come to an end, and
the court returns to Paris. The king has been more
than obvious about his affections for Louise, and
Madame, the queen-mother, and the queen join
forces to destroy her. She is dishonorably
discharged from court, and in despair, she flees to

the convent at Chaillot. Along the way, though, she
runs into D’Artagnan, who manages to get word
back to the king of what has taken place. By literally
begging Madame in tears, Louis manages to secure
Louise’s return to court—but Madame still places
every obstacle possible before the lovers. They have
to resort to building a secret staircase and meeting
in the apartments of M. de Saint-Aignan, where
Louis has a painter create a portrait of Louise. But
Madame recalls Raoul from London and shows him
these proofs of Louise’s infidelity. Raoul, crushed,
challenges Saint-Aignan to a duel, which the king
prevents, and Athos, furious, breaks his sword
before the king. The king has D’Artagnan arrest
Athos, and at the Bastile they encounter Aramis,
who is paying Baisemeaux another visit. Raoul
learns of Athos’s arrest, and with Porthos in tow,
they effect a daring rescue, surprising the carriage
containing D’Artagnan and Athos as they leave the
Bastile. Although quite impressive, the intrepid raid is
in vain, as D’Artagnan has already secured Athos’s
pardon from the king. Instead, everybody switches
modes of transport; D’Artagnan and Porthos take the
horses back to Paris, and Athos and Raoul take the
carriage back to La Fere, where they intend to reside
permanently, as the king is now their sworn enemy,
Raoul cannot bear to see Louise, and they have no
more dealings in Paris.
Aramis, left alone with Baisemeaux, inquires the
governor of the prison about his loyalties, in
particular to the Jesuits. The bishop reveals that he
is a confessor of the society, and invokes their
regulations in order to obtain access to this
mysterious prisoner who bears such a striking
resemblance to Louis XIV...
And so Baisemeaux is conducting Aramis to the
prisoner as the final section of The Vicomte de

Bragelonne and this final story of the D’Artagnan
Romances opens. I have written a “Cast of Historical
Characters,” Etext 2760, that will enable curious
readers to compare personages in the novel with
their historical counterparts. Also of interest may be
an essay Dumas wrote on the possible identity of the
real Man in the Iron Mask, which is Etext 2751.
Enjoy!
John Bursey

Chapter I. The Prisoner.

Since Aramis’s singular transformation into a confessor of the order,
Baisemeaux was no longer the same man. Up to that period, the place
which Aramis had held in the worthy governor’s estimation was that of a
prelate whom he respected and a friend to whom he owed a debt of
gratitude; but now he felt himself an inferior, and that Aramis was his
master. He himself lighted a lantern, summoned a turnkey, and said,
returning to Aramis, “I am at your orders, monseigneur.” Aramis merely
nodded his head, as much as to say, “Very good”; and signed to him with
his hand to lead the way. Baisemeaux advanced, and Aramis followed him.
It was a calm and lovely starlit night; the steps of three men resounded on
the flags of the terraces, and the clinking of the keys hanging from the
jailer’s girdle made itself heard up to the stories of the towers, as if to
remind the prisoners that the liberty of earth was a luxury beyond their
reach. It might have been said that the alteration effected in Baisemeaux
extended even to the prisoners. The turnkey, the same who, on Aramis’s
first arrival had shown himself so inquisitive and curious, was now not only
silent, but impassible. He held his head down, and seemed afraid to keep his
ears open. In this wise they reached the basement of the Bertaudiere, the
two first stories of which were mounted silently and somewhat slowly; for
Baisemeaux, though far from disobeying, was far from exhibiting any
eagerness to obey. On arriving at the door, Baisemeaux showed a
disposition to enter the prisoner’s chamber; but Aramis, stopping him on the
threshold, said, “The rules do not allow the governor to hear the prisoner’s
confession.”
Baisemeaux bowed, and made way for Aramis, who took the lantern and
entered; and then signed to them to close the door behind him. For an
instant he remained standing, listening whether Baisemeaux and the turnkey
had retired; but as soon as he was assured by the sound of their descending
footsteps that they had left the tower, he put the lantern on the table and

gazed around. On a bed of green serge, similar in all respect to the other
beds in the Bastile, save that it was newer, and under curtains half-drawn,
reposed a young man, to whom we have already once before introduced
Aramis. According to custom, the prisoner was without a light. At the hour
of curfew, he was bound to extinguish his lamp, and we perceive how much
he was favored, in being allowed to keep it burning even till then. Near the
bed a large leathern armchair, with twisted legs, sustained his clothes. A
little table—without pens, books, paper, or ink—stood neglected in sadness
near the window; while several plates, still unemptied, showed that the
prisoner had scarcely touched his evening meal. Aramis saw that the young
man was stretched upon his bed, his face half concealed by his arms. The
arrival of a visitor did not caused any change of position; either he was
waiting in expectation, or was asleep. Aramis lighted the candle from the
lantern, pushed back the armchair, and approached the bed with an evident
mixture of interest and respect. The young man raised his head. “What is
it?” said he.
“You desired a confessor?” replied Aramis.
“Yes.”
“Because you were ill?”
“Yes.”
“Very ill?”
The young man gave Aramis a piercing glance, and answered, “I thank
you.” After a moment’s silence, “I have seen you before,” he continued.
Aramis bowed.
Doubtless the scrutiny the prisoner had just made of the cold, crafty, and
imperious character stamped upon the features of the bishop of Vannes was
little reassuring to one in his situation, for he added, “I am better.”
“And so?” said Aramis.
“Why, then—being better, I have no longer the same need of a confessor,
I think.”
“Not even of the hair-cloth, which the note you found in your bread
informed you of?”
The young man started; but before he had either assented or denied,
Aramis continued, “Not even of the ecclesiastic from whom you were to
hear an important revelation?”

“If it be so,” said the young man, sinking again on his pillow, “it is
different; I am listening.”
Aramis then looked at him more closely, and was struck with the easy
majesty of his mien, one which can never be acquired unless Heaven has
implanted it in the blood or heart. “Sit down, monsieur,” said the prisoner.
Aramis bowed and obeyed. “How does the Bastile agree with you?”
asked the bishop.
“Very well.”
“You do not suffer?”
“No.”
“You have nothing to regret?”
“Nothing.”
“Not even your liberty?”
“What do you call liberty, monsieur?” asked the prisoner, with the tone of
a man who is preparing for a struggle.
“I call liberty, the flowers, the air, light, the stars, the happiness of going
whithersoever the sinewy limbs of one-and-twenty chance to wish to carry
you.”
The young man smiled, whether in resignation or contempt, it was
difficult to tell. “Look,” said he, “I have in that Japanese vase two roses
gathered yesterday evening in the bud from the governor’s garden; this
morning they have blown and spread their vermilion chalice beneath my
gaze; with every opening petal they unfold the treasures of their perfumes,
filling my chamber with a fragrance that embalms it. Look now on these
two roses; even among roses these are beautiful, and the rose is the most
beautiful of flowers. Why, then, do you bid me desire other flowers when I
possess the loveliest of all?”
Aramis gazed at the young man in surprise.
“If flowers constitute liberty,” sadly resumed the captive, “I am free, for I
possess them.”
“But the air!” cried Aramis; “air is so necessary to life!”
“Well, monsieur,” returned the prisoner; “draw near to the window; it is
open. Between high heaven and earth the wind whirls on its waftages of
hail and lightning, exhales its torrid mist or breathes in gentle breezes. It

caresses my face. When mounted on the back of this armchair, with my arm
around the bars of the window to sustain myself, I fancy I am swimming the
wide expanse before me.” The countenance of Aramis darkened as the
young man continued: “Light I have! what is better than light? I have the
sun, a friend who comes to visit me every day without the permission of the
governor or the jailer’s company. He comes in at the window, and traces in
my room a square the shape of the window, which lights up the hangings of
my bed and floods the very floor. This luminous square increases from ten
o’clock till midday, and decreases from one till three slowly, as if, having
hastened to my presence, it sorrowed at bidding me farewell. When its last
ray disappears I have enjoyed its presence for five hours. Is not that
sufficient? I have been told that there are unhappy beings who dig in
quarries, and laborers who toil in mines, who never behold it at all.” Aramis
wiped the drops from his brow. “As to the stars which are so delightful to
view,” continued the young man, “they all resemble each other save in size
and brilliancy. I am a favored mortal, for if you had not lighted that candle
you would have been able to see the beautiful stars which I was gazing at
from my couch before your arrival, whose silvery rays were stealing
through my brain.”
Aramis lowered his head; he felt himself overwhelmed with the bitter
flow of that sinister philosophy which is the religion of the captive.
“So much, then, for the flowers, the air, the daylight, and the stars,”
tranquilly continued the young man; “there remains but exercise. Do I not
walk all day in the governor’s garden if it is fine—here if it rains? in the
fresh air if it is warm; in perfect warmth, thanks to my winter stove, if it be
cold? Ah! monsieur, do you fancy,” continued the prisoner, not without
bitterness, “that men have not done everything for me that a man can hope
for or desire?”
“Men!” said Aramis; “be it so; but it seems to me you are forgetting
Heaven.”
“Indeed I have forgotten Heaven,” murmured the prisoner, with emotion;
“but why do you mention it? Of what use is it to talk to a prisoner of
Heaven?”
Aramis looked steadily at this singular youth, who possessed the
resignation of a martyr with the smile of an atheist. “Is not Heaven in
everything?” he murmured in a reproachful tone.

“Say rather, at the end of everything,” answered the prisoner, firmly.
“Be it so,” said Aramis; “but let us return to our starting-point.”
“I ask nothing better,” returned the young man.
“I am your confessor.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, you ought, as a penitent, to tell me the truth.”
“My whole desire is to tell it you.”
“Every prisoner has committed some crime for which he has been
imprisoned. What crime, then, have you committed?”
“You asked me the same question the first time you saw me,” returned
the prisoner.
“And then, as now you evaded giving me an answer.”
“And what reason have you for thinking that I shall now reply to you?”
“Because this time I am your confessor.”
“Then if you wish me to tell what crime I have committed, explain to me
in what a crime consists. For as my conscience does not accuse me, I aver
that I am not a criminal.”
“We are often criminals in the sight of the great of the earth, not alone for
having ourselves committed crimes, but because we know that crimes have
been committed.”
The prisoner manifested the deepest attention.
“Yes, I understand you,” he said, after a pause; “yes, you are right,
monsieur; it is very possible that, in such a light, I am a criminal in the eyes
of the great of the earth.”
“Ah! then you know something,” said Aramis, who thought he had
pierced not merely through a defect in the harness, but through the joints of
it.
“No, I am not aware of anything,” replied the young man; “but
sometimes I think—and I say to myself—”
“What do you say to yourself?”
“That if I were to think but a little more deeply I should either go mad or
I should divine a great deal.”
“And then—and then?” said Aramis, impatiently.

“Then I leave off.”
“You leave off?”
“Yes; my head becomes confused and my ideas melancholy; I feel ennui
overtaking me; I wish—”
“What?”
“I don’t know; but I do not like to give myself up to longing for things
which I do not possess, when I am so happy with what I have.”
“You are afraid of death?” said Aramis, with a slight uneasiness.
“Yes,” said the young man, smiling.
Aramis felt the chill of that smile, and shuddered. “Oh, as you fear death,
you know more about matters than you say,” he cried.
“And you,” returned the prisoner, “who bade me to ask to see you; you,
who, when I did ask to see you, came here promising a world of
confidence; how is it that, nevertheless, it is you who are silent, leaving it
for me to speak? Since, then, we both wear masks, either let us both retain
them or put them aside together.”
Aramis felt the force and justice of the remark, saying to himself, “This is
no ordinary man; I must be cautious.—Are you ambitious?” said he
suddenly to the prisoner, aloud, without preparing him for the alteration.
“What do you mean by ambitious?” replied the youth.
“Ambition,” replied Aramis, “is the feeling which prompts a man to
desire more—much more—than he possesses.”
“I said that I was contented, monsieur; but, perhaps, I deceive myself. I
am ignorant of the nature of ambition; but it is not impossible I may have
some. Tell me your mind; that is all I ask.”
“An ambitious man,” said Aramis, “is one who covets that which is
beyond his station.”
“I covet nothing beyond my station,” said the young man, with an
assurance of manner which for the second time made the bishop of Vannes
tremble.
He was silent. But to look at the kindling eye, the knitted brow, and the
reflective attitude of the captive, it was evident that he expected something
more than silence,—a silence which Aramis now broke. “You lied the first
time I saw you,” said he.

“Lied!” cried the young man, starting up on his couch, with such a tone
in his voice, and such a lightning in his eyes, that Aramis recoiled, in spite
of himself.
“I should say,” returned Aramis, bowing, “you concealed from me what
you knew of your infancy.”
“A man’s secrets are his own, monsieur,” retorted the prisoner, “and not
at the mercy of the first chance-comer.”
“True,” said Aramis, bowing still lower than before, “‘tis true; pardon
me, but to-day do I still occupy the place of a chance-comer? I beseech you
to reply, monseigneur.”
This title slightly disturbed the prisoner; but nevertheless he did not
appear astonished that it was given him. “I do not know you, monsieur,”
said he.
“Oh, but if I dared, I would take your hand and kiss it!”
The young man seemed as if he were going to give Aramis his hand; but
the light which beamed in his eyes faded away, and he coldly and
distrustfully withdrew his hand again. “Kiss the hand of a prisoner,” he
said, shaking his head, “to what purpose?”
“Why did you tell me,” said Aramis, “that you were happy here? Why,
that you aspired to nothing? Why, in a word, by thus speaking, do you
prevent me from being frank in my turn?”
The same light shone a third time in the young man’s eyes, but died
ineffectually away as before.
“You distrust me,” said Aramis.
“And why say you so, monsieur?”
“Oh, for a very simple reason; if you know what you ought to know, you
ought to mistrust everybody.”
“Then do not be astonished that I am mistrustful, since you suspect me of
knowing what I do not know.”
Aramis was struck with admiration at this energetic resistance. “Oh,
monseigneur! you drive me to despair,” said he, striking the armchair with
his fist.
“And, on my part, I do not comprehend you, monsieur.”

“Well, then, try to understand me.” The prisoner looked fixedly at
Aramis.
“Sometimes it seems to me,” said the latter, “that I have before me the
man whom I seek, and then—”
“And then your man disappears,—is it not so?” said the prisoner, smiling.
“So much the better.”
Aramis rose. “Certainly,” said he; “I have nothing further to say to a man
who mistrusts me as you do.”
“And I, monsieur,” said the prisoner, in the same tone, “have nothing to
say to a man who will not understand that a prisoner ought to be mistrustful
of everybody.”
“Even of his old friends,” said Aramis. “Oh, monseigneur, you are too
prudent!”
“Of my old friends?—you one of my old friends,—you?”
“Do you no longer remember,” said Aramis, “that you once saw, in the
village where your early years were spent—”
“Do you know the name of the village?” asked the prisoner.
“Noisy-le-Sec, monseigneur,” answered Aramis, firmly.
“Go on,” said the young man, with an immovable aspect.
“Stay, monseigneur,” said Aramis; “if you are positively resolved to carry
on this game, let us break off. I am here to tell you many things, ‘tis true;
but you must allow me to see that, on your side, you have a desire to know
them. Before revealing the important matters I still withhold, be assured I
am in need of some encouragement, if not candor; a little sympathy, if not
confidence. But you keep yourself intrenched in a pretended which
paralyzes me. Oh, not for the reason you think; for, ignorant as you may be,
or indifferent as you feign to be, you are none the less what you are,
monseigneur, and there is nothing—nothing, mark me! which can cause you
not to be so.”
“I promise you,” replied the prisoner, “to hear you without impatience.
Only it appears to me that I have a right to repeat the question I have
already asked, ‘Who are you?’”
“Do you remember, fifteen or eighteen years ago, seeing at Noisy-le-Sec
a cavalier, accompanied by a lady in black silk, with flame-colored ribbons

in her hair?”
“Yes,” said the young man; “I once asked the name of this cavalier, and
they told me that he called himself the Abbe d’Herblay. I was astonished
that the abbe had so warlike an air, and they replied that there was nothing
singular in that, seeing that he was one of Louis XIII.‘s musketeers.”
“Well,” said Aramis, “that musketeer and abbe, afterwards bishop of
Vannes, is your confessor now.”
“I know it; I recognized you.”
“Then, monseigneur, if you know that, I must further add a fact of which
you are ignorant—that if the king were to know this evening of the presence
of this musketeer, this abbe, this bishop, this confessor, here—he, who has
risked everything to visit you, to-morrow would behold the steely glitter of
the executioner’s axe in a dungeon more gloomy, more obscure than yours.”
While listening to these words, delivered with emphasis, the young man
had raised himself on his couch, and was now gazing more and more
eagerly at Aramis.
The result of his scrutiny was that he appeared to derive some confidence
from it. “Yes,” he murmured, “I remember perfectly. The woman of whom
you speak came once with you, and twice afterwards with another.” He
hesitated.
“With another, who came to see you every month—is it not so,
monseigneur?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who this lady was?”
The light seemed ready to flash from the prisoner’s eyes. “I am aware
that she was one of the ladies of the court,” he said.
“You remember that lady well, do you not?”
“Oh, my recollection can hardly be very confused on this head,” said the
young prisoner. “I saw that lady once with a gentleman about forty-five
years old. I saw her once with you, and with the lady dressed in black. I
have seen her twice since then with the same person. These four people,
with my master, and old Perronnette, my jailer, and the governor of the
prison, are the only persons with whom I have ever spoken, and, indeed,
almost the only persons I have ever seen.”

“Then you were in prison?”
“If I am a prisoner here, then I was comparatively free, although in a very
narrow sense—a house I never quitted, a garden surrounded with walls I
could not climb, these constituted my residence, but you know it, as you
have been there. In a word, being accustomed to live within these bounds, I
never cared to leave them. And so you will understand, monsieur, that
having never seen anything of the world, I have nothing left to care for; and
therefore, if you relate anything, you will be obliged to explain each item to
me as you go along.”
“And I will do so,” said Aramis, bowing; “for it is my duty,
monseigneur.”
“Well, then, begin by telling me who was my tutor.”
“A worthy and, above all, an honorable gentleman, monseigneur; fit
guide for both body and soul. Had you ever any reason to complain of
him?”
“Oh, no; quite the contrary. But this gentleman of yours often used to tell
me that my father and mother were dead. Did he deceive me, or did he
speak the truth?”
“He was compelled to comply with the orders given him.”
“Then he lied?”
“In one respect. Your father is dead.”
“And my mother?”
“She is dead for you.”
“But then she lives for others, does she not?”
“Yes.”
“And I—and I, then” (the young man looked sharply at Aramis) “am
compelled to live in the obscurity of a prison?”
“Alas! I fear so.”
“And that because my presence in the world would lead to the revelation
of a great secret?”
“Certainly, a very great secret.”
“My enemy must indeed be powerful, to be able to shut up in the Bastile
a child such as I then was.”

“He is.”
“More powerful than my mother, then?”
“And why do you ask that?”
“Because my mother would have taken my part.”
Aramis hesitated. “Yes, monseigneur; more powerful than your mother.”
“Seeing, then, that my nurse and preceptor were carried off, and that I,
also, was separated from them—either they were, or I am, very dangerous
to my enemy?”
“Yes; but you are alluding to a peril from which he freed himself, by
causing the nurse and preceptor to disappear,” answered Aramis, quietly.
“Disappear!” cried the prisoner, “how did they disappear?”
“In a very sure way,” answered Aramis—“they are dead.”
The young man turned pale, and passed his hand tremblingly over his
face. “Poison?” he asked.
“Poison.”
The prisoner reflected a moment. “My enemy must indeed have been
very cruel, or hard beset by necessity, to assassinate those two innocent
people, my sole support; for the worthy gentleman and the poor nurse had
never harmed a living being.”
“In your family, monseigneur, necessity is stern. And so it is necessity
which compels me, to my great regret, to tell you that this gentleman and
the unhappy lady have been assassinated.”
“Oh, you tell me nothing I am not aware of,” said the prisoner, knitting
his brows.
“How?”
“I suspected it.”
“Why?”
“I will tell you.”
At this moment the young man, supporting himself on his two elbows,
drew close to Aramis’s face, with such an expression of dignity, of self-
command and of defiance even, that the bishop felt the electricity of
enthusiasm strike in devouring flashes from that great heart of his, into his
brain of adamant.

“Speak, monseigneur. I have already told you that by conversing with
you I endanger my life. Little value as it has, I implore you to accept it as
the ransom of your own.”
“Well,” resumed the young man, “this is why I suspected they had killed
my nurse and my preceptor—”
“Whom you used to call your father?”
“Yes; whom I called my father, but whose son I well knew I was not.”
“Who caused you to suppose so?”
“Just as you, monsieur, are too respectful for a friend, he was also too
respectful for a father.”
“I, however,” said Aramis, “have no intention to disguise myself.”
The young man nodded assent and continued: “Undoubtedly, I was not
destined to perpetual seclusion,” said the prisoner; “and that which makes
me believe so, above all, now, is the care that was taken to render me as
accomplished a cavalier as possible. The gentleman attached to my person
taught me everything he knew himself—mathematics, a little geometry,
astronomy, fencing and riding. Every morning I went through military
exercises, and practiced on horseback. Well, one morning during the
summer, it being very hot, I went to sleep in the hall. Nothing, up to that
period, except the respect paid me, had enlightened me, or even roused my
suspicions. I lived as children, as birds, as plants, as the air and the sun do. I
had just turned my fifteenth year—”
“This, then, is eight years ago?”
“Yes, nearly; but I have ceased to reckon time.”
“Excuse me; but what did your tutor tell you, to encourage you to work?”
“He used to say that a man was bound to make for himself, in the world,
that fortune which Heaven had refused him at his birth. He added that,
being a poor, obscure orphan, I had no one but myself to look to; and that
nobody either did, or ever would, take any interest in me. I was, then, in the
hall I have spoken of, asleep from fatigue with long fencing. My preceptor
was in his room on the first floor, just over me. Suddenly I heard him
exclaim, and then he called: ‘Perronnette! Perronnette!’ It was my nurse
whom he called.”
“Yes, I know it,” said Aramis. “Continue, monseigneur.”

“Very likely she was in the garden; for my preceptor came hastily
downstairs. I rose, anxious at seeing him anxious. He opened the garden-
door, still crying out, ‘Perronnette! Perronnette!’ The windows of the hall
looked into the court; the shutters were closed; but through a chink in them
I saw my tutor draw near a large well, which was almost directly under the
windows of his study. He stooped over the brim, looked into the well, and
again cried out, and made wild and affrighted gestures. Where I was, I
could not only see, but hear—and see and hear I did.”
“Go on, I pray you,” said Aramis.
“Dame Perronnette came running up, hearing the governor’s cries. He
went to meet her, took her by the arm, and drew her quickly towards the
edge; after which, as they both bent over it together, ‘Look, look,’ cried he,
‘what a misfortune!’
“‘Calm yourself, calm yourself,’ said Perronnette; ‘what is the matter?’
“‘The letter!’ he exclaimed; ‘do you see that letter?’ pointing to the
bottom of the well.
“‘What letter?’ she cried.
“‘The letter you see down there; the last letter from the queen.’
“At this word I trembled. My tutor—he who passed for my father, he
who was continually recommending me modesty and humility—in
correspondence with the queen!
“‘The queen’s last letter!’ cried Perronnette, without showing more
astonishment than at seeing this letter at the bottom of the well; ‘but how
came it there?’
“‘A chance, Dame Perronnette—a singular chance. I was entering my
room, and on opening the door, the window, too, being open, a puff of air
came suddenly and carried off this paper—this letter of her majesty’s; I
darted after it, and gained the window just in time to see it flutter a moment
in the breeze and disappear down the well.’
“‘Well,’ said Dame Perronnette; ‘and if the letter has fallen into the well,
‘tis all the same as if it was burnt; and as the queen burns all her letters
every time she comes—’
“And so you see this lady who came every month was the queen,” said
the prisoner.

“‘Doubtless, doubtless,’ continued the old gentleman; ‘but this letter
contained instructions—how can I follow them?’
“‘Write immediately to her; give her a plain account of the accident, and
the queen will no doubt write you another letter in place of this.’
“‘Oh! the queen would never believe the story,’ said the good gentleman,
shaking his head; ‘she will imagine that I want to keep this letter instead of
giving it up like the rest, so as to have a hold over her. She is so distrustful,
and M. de Mazarin so—Yon devil of an Italian is capable of having us
poisoned at the first breath of suspicion.’”
Aramis almost imperceptibly smiled.
“‘You know, Dame Perronnette, they are both so suspicious in all that
concerns Philippe.’
“Philippe was the name they gave me,” said the prisoner.
“‘Well, ‘tis no use hesitating,’ said Dame Perronnette, ‘somebody must
go down the well.’
“‘Of course; so that the person who goes down may read the paper as he
is coming up.’
“‘But let us choose some villager who cannot read, and then you will be
at ease.’
“‘Granted; but will not any one who descends guess that a paper must be
important for which we risk a man’s life? However, you have given me an
idea, Dame Perronnette; somebody shall go down the well, but that
somebody shall be myself.’
“But at this notion Dame Perronnette lamented and cried in such a
manner, and so implored the old nobleman, with tears in her eyes, that he
promised her to obtain a ladder long enough to reach down, while she went
in search of some stout-hearted youth, whom she was to persuade that a
jewel had fallen into the well, and that this jewel was wrapped in a paper.
‘And as paper,’ remarked my preceptor, ‘naturally unfolds in water, the
young man would not be surprised at finding nothing, after all, but the letter
wide open.’
“‘But perhaps the writing will be already effaced by that time,’ said
Dame Perronnette.

“‘No consequence, provided we secure the letter. On returning it to the
queen, she will see at once that we have not betrayed her; and consequently,
as we shall not rouse the distrust of Mazarin, we shall have nothing to fear
from him.’
“Having come to this resolution, they parted. I pushed back the shutter,
and, seeing that my tutor was about to re-enter, I threw myself on my couch,
in a confusion of brain caused by all I had just heard. My governor opened
the door a few moments after, and thinking I was asleep gently closed it
again. As soon as ever it was shut, I rose, and, listening, heard the sound of
retiring footsteps. Then I returned to the shutters, and saw my tutor and
Dame Perronnette go out together. I was alone in the house. They had
hardly closed the gate before I sprang from the window and ran to the well.
Then, just as my governor had leaned over, so leaned I. Something white
and luminous glistened in the green and quivering silence of the water. The
brilliant disk fascinated and allured me; my eyes became fixed, and I could
hardly breathe. The well seemed to draw me downwards with its slimy
mouth and icy breath; and I thought I read, at the bottom of the water,
characters of fire traced upon the letter the queen had touched. Then,
scarcely knowing what I was about, and urged on by one of those
instinctive impulses which drive men to destruction, I lowered the cord
from the windlass of the well to within about three feet of the water, leaving
the bucket dangling, at the same time taking infinite pains not to disturb that
coveted letter, which was beginning to change its white tint for the hue of
chrysoprase,—proof enough that it was sinking,—and then, with the rope
weltering in my hands, slid down into the abyss. When I saw myself
hanging over the dark pool, when I saw the sky lessening above my head, a
cold shudder came over me, a chill fear got the better of me, I was seized
with giddiness, and the hair rose on my head; but my strong will still
reigned supreme over all the terror and disquietude. I gained the water, and
at once plunged into it, holding on by one hand, while I immersed the other
and seized the dear letter, which, alas! came in two in my grasp. I concealed
the two fragments in my body-coat, and, helping myself with my feet
against the sides of the pit, and clinging on with my hands, agile and
vigorous as I was, and, above all, pressed for time, I regained the brink,
drenching it as I touched it with the water that streamed off me. I was no
sooner out of the well with my prize, than I rushed into the sunlight, and
took refuge in a kind of shrubbery at the bottom of the garden. As I entered

my hiding-place, the bell which resounded when the great gate was opened,
rang. It was my preceptor come back again. I had but just time. I calculated
that it would take ten minutes before he would gain my place of
concealment, even if, guessing where I was, he came straight to it; and
twenty if he were obliged to look for me. But this was time enough to allow
me to read the cherished letter, whose fragments I hastened to unite again.
The writing was already fading, but I managed to decipher it all.
“And will you tell me what you read therein, monseigneur?” asked
Aramis, deeply interested.
“Quite enough, monsieur, to see that my tutor was a man of noble rank,
and that Perronnette, without being a lady of quality, was far better than a
servant; and also to perceived that I must myself be high-born, since the
queen, Anne of Austria, and Mazarin, the prime minister, commended me so
earnestly to their care.” Here the young man paused, quite overcome.
“And what happened?” asked Aramis.
“It happened, monsieur,” answered he, “that the workmen they had
summoned found nothing in the well, after the closest search; that my
governor perceived that the brink was all watery; that I was not so dried by
the sun as to prevent Dame Perronnette spying that my garments were
moist; and, lastly, that I was seized with a violent fever, owing to the chill
and the excitement of my discovery, an attack of delirium supervening,
during which I related the whole adventure; so that, guided by my avowal,
my governor found the pieces of the queen’s letter inside the bolster where I
had concealed them.”
“Ah!” said Aramis, “now I understand.”
“Beyond this, all is conjecture. Doubtless the unfortunate lady and
gentleman, not daring to keep the occurrence secret, wrote of all this to the
queen and sent back the torn letter.”
“After which,” said Aramis, “you were arrested and removed to the
Bastile.”
“As you see.”
“Your two attendants disappeared?”
“Alas!”
“Let us not take up our time with the dead, but see what can be done with
the living. You told me you were resigned.”

“I repeat it.”
“Without any desire for freedom?”
“As I told you.”
“Without ambition, sorrow, or thought?”
The young man made no answer.
“Well,” asked Aramis, “why are you silent?”
“I think I have spoken enough,” answered the prisoner, “and that now it
is your turn. I am weary.”
Aramis gathered himself up, and a shade of deep solemnity spread itself
over his countenance. It was evident that he had reached the crisis in the
part he had come to the prison to play. “One question,” said Aramis.
“What is it? speak.”
“In the house you inhabited there were neither looking-glasses nor
mirrors?”
“What are those two words, and what is their meaning?” asked the young
man; “I have no sort of knowledge of them.”
“They designate two pieces of furniture which reflect objects; so that, for
instance, you may see in them your own lineaments, as you see mine now,
with the naked eye.”
“No; there was neither a glass nor a mirror in the house,” answered the
young man.
Aramis looked round him. “Nor is there anything of the kind here,
either,” he said; “they have again taken the same precaution.”
“To what end?”
“You will know directly. Now, you have told me that you were instructed
in mathematics, astronomy, fencing, and riding; but you have not said a
word about history.”
“My tutor sometimes related to me the principal deeds of the king, St.
Louis, King Francis I., and King Henry IV.”
“Is that all?”
“Very nearly.”
“This also was done by design, then; just as they deprived you of mirrors,
which reflect the present, so they left you in ignorance of history, which

reflects the past. Since your imprisonment, books have been forbidden you;
so that you are unacquainted with a number of facts, by means of which you
would be able to reconstruct the shattered mansion of your recollections and
your hopes.”
“It is true,” said the young man.
“Listen, then; I will in a few words tell you what has passed in France
during the last twenty-three or twenty-four years; that is, from the probable
date of your birth; in a word, from the time that interests you.”
“Say on.” And the young man resumed his serious and attentive attitude.
“Do you know who was the son of Henry IV.?”
“At least I know who his successor was.”
“How?”
“By means of a coin dated 1610, which bears the effigy of Henry IV.; and
another of 1612, bearing that of Louis XIII. So I presumed that, there being
only two years between the two dates, Louis was Henry’s successor.”
“Then,” said Aramis, “you know that the last reigning monarch was
Louis XIII.?”
“I do,” answered the youth, slightly reddening.
“Well, he was a prince full of noble ideas and great projects, always, alas!
deferred by the trouble of the times and the dread struggle that his minister
Richelieu had to maintain against the great nobles of France. The king
himself was of a feeble character, and died young and unhappy.”
“I know it.”
“He had been long anxious about having a heir; a care which weighs
heavily on princes, who desire to leave behind them more than one pledge
that their best thoughts and works will be continued.”
“Did the king, then, die childless?” asked the prisoner, smiling.
“No, but he was long without one, and for a long while thought he should
be the last of his race. This idea had reduced him to the depths of despair,
when suddenly, his wife, Anne of Austria—”
The prisoner trembled.
“Did you know,” said Aramis, “that Louis XIII.‘s wife was called Anne
of Austria?”

“Continue,” said the young man, without replying to the question.
“When suddenly,” resumed Aramis, “the queen announced an interesting
event. There was great joy at the intelligence, and all prayed for her happy
delivery. On the 5th of September, 1638, she gave birth to a son.”
Here Aramis looked at his companion, and thought he observed him
turning pale. “You are about to hear,” said Aramis, “an account which few
indeed could now avouch; for it refers to a secret which they imagined
buried with the dead, entombed in the abyss of the confessional.”
“And you will tell me this secret?” broke in the youth.
“Oh!” said Aramis, with unmistakable emphasis, “I do not know that I
ought to risk this secret by intrusting it to one who has no desire to quit the
Bastile.”
“I hear you, monsieur.”
“The queen, then, gave birth to a son. But while the court was rejoicing
over the event, when the king had shown the new-born child to the nobility
and people, and was sitting gayly down to table, to celebrate the event, the
queen, who was alone in her room, was again taken ill and gave birth to a
second son.”
“Oh!” said the prisoner, betraying a better acquaintance with affairs than
he had owned to, “I thought that Monsieur was only born in—”
Aramis raised his finger; “Permit me to continue,” he said.
The prisoner sighed impatiently, and paused.
“Yes,” said Aramis, “the queen had a second son, whom Dame
Perronnette, the midwife, received in her arms.”
“Dame Perronnette!” murmured the young man.
“They ran at once to the banqueting-room, and whispered to the king
what had happened; he rose and quitted the table. But this time it was no
longer happiness that his face expressed, but something akin to terror. The
birth of twins changed into bitterness the joy to which that of an only son
had given rise, seeing that in France (a fact you are assuredly ignorant of) it
is the oldest of the king’s sons who succeeds his father.”
“I know it.”
“And that the doctors and jurists assert that there is ground for doubting
whether the son that first makes his appearance is the elder by the law of

heaven and of nature.”
The prisoner uttered a smothered cry, and became whiter than the
coverlet under which he hid himself.
“Now you understand,” pursued Aramis, “that the king, who with so
much pleasure saw himself repeated in one, was in despair about two;
fearing that the second might dispute the first’s claim to seniority, which
had been recognized only two hours before; and so this second son, relying
on party interests and caprices, might one day sow discord and engender
civil war throughout the kingdom; by these means destroying the very
dynasty he should have strengthened.”
“Oh, I understand!—I understand!” murmured the young man.
“Well,” continued Aramis; “this is what they relate, what they declare;
this is why one of the queen’s two sons, shamefully parted from his brother,
shamefully sequestered, is buried in profound obscurity; this is why that
second son has disappeared, and so completely, that not a soul in France,
save his mother, is aware of his existence.”
“Yes! his mother, who has cast him off,” cried the prisoner in a tone of
despair.
“Except, also,” Aramis went on, “the lady in the black dress; and, finally,
excepting—”
“Excepting yourself—is it not? You who come and relate all this; you,
who rouse in my soul curiosity, hatred, ambition, and, perhaps, even the
thirst of vengeance; except you, monsieur, who, if you are the man to whom
I expect, whom the note I have received applies to, whom, in short, Heaven
ought to send me, must possess about you—”
“What?” asked Aramis.
“A portrait of the king, Louis XIV., who at this moment reigns upon the
throne of France.”
“Here is the portrait,” replied the bishop, handing the prisoner a
miniature in enamel, on which Louis was depicted life-like, with a
handsome, lofty mien. The prisoner eagerly seized the portrait, and gazed at
it with devouring eyes.
“And now, monseigneur,” said Aramis, “here is a mirror.” Aramis left the
prisoner time to recover his ideas.

“So high!—so high!” murmured the young man, eagerly comparing the
likeness of Louis with his own countenance reflected in the glass.
“What do you think of it?” at length said Aramis.
“I think that I am lost,” replied the captive; “the king will never set me
free.”
“And I—I demand to know,” added the bishop, fixing his piercing eyes
significantly upon the prisoner, “I demand to know which of these two is
king; the one this miniature portrays, or whom the glass reflects?”
“The king, monsieur,” sadly replied the young man, “is he who is on the
throne, who is not in prison; and who, on the other hand, can cause others to
be entombed there. Royalty means power; and you behold how powerless I
am.”
“Monseigneur,” answered Aramis, with a respect he had not yet
manifested, “the king, mark me, will, if you desire it, be the one that,
quitting his dungeon, shall maintain himself upon the throne, on which his
friends will place him.”
“Tempt me not, monsieur,” broke in the prisoner bitterly.
“Be not weak, monseigneur,” persisted Aramis; “I have brought you all
the proofs of your birth; consult them; satisfy yourself that you are a king’s
son; it is for us to act.”
“No, no; it is impossible.”
“Unless, indeed,” resumed the bishop ironically, “it be the destiny of
your race, that the brothers excluded from the throne should be always
princes void of courage and honesty, as was your uncle, M. Gaston
d’Orleans, who ten times conspired against his brother Louis XIII.”
“What!” cried the prince, astonished; “my uncle Gaston ‘conspired
against his brother’; conspired to dethrone him?”
“Exactly, monseigneur; for no other reason. I tell you the truth.”
“And he had friends—devoted friends?”
“As much so as I am to you.”
“And, after all, what did he do?—Failed!”
“He failed, I admit; but always through his own fault; and, for the sake of
purchasing—not his life—for the life of the king’s brother is sacred and
inviolable—but his liberty, he sacrificed the lives of all his friends, one after

another. And so, at this day, he is a very blot on history, the detestation of a
hundred noble families in this kingdom.”
“I understand, monsieur; either by weakness or treachery, my uncle slew
his friends.”
“By weakness; which, in princes, is always treachery.”
“And cannot a man fail, then, from incapacity and ignorance? Do you
really believe it possible that a poor captive such as I, brought up, not only
at a distance from the court, but even from the world—do you believe it
possible that such a one could assist those of his friends who should attempt
to serve him?” And as Aramis was about to reply, the young man suddenly
cried out, with a violence which betrayed the temper of his blood, “We are
speaking of friends; but how can I have any friends—I, whom no one
knows; and have neither liberty, money, nor influence, to gain any?”
“I fancy I had the honor to offer myself to your royal highness.”
“Oh, do not style me so, monsieur; ‘tis either treachery or cruelty. Bid me
not think of aught beyond these prison-walls, which so grimly confine me;
let me again love, or, at least, submit to my slavery and my obscurity.”
“Monseigneur, monseigneur; if you again utter these desperate words—
if, after having received proof of your high birth, you still remain poor-
spirited in body and soul, I will comply with your desire, I will depart, and
renounce forever the service of a master, to whom so eagerly I came to
devote my assistance and my life!”
“Monsieur,” cried the prince, “would it not have been better for you to
have reflected, before telling me all that you have done, that you have
broken my heart forever?”
“And so I desire to do, monseigneur.”
“To talk to me about power, grandeur, eye, and to prate of thrones! Is a
prison the fit place? You wish to make me believe in splendor, and we are
lying lost in night; you boast of glory, and we are smothering our words in
the curtains of this miserable bed; you give me glimpses of power absolute
whilst I hear the footsteps of the every-watchful jailer in the corridor—that
step which, after all, makes you tremble more than it does me. To render me
somewhat less incredulous, free me from the Bastile; let me breathe the
fresh air; give me my spurs and trusty sword, then we shall begin to
understand each other.”

“It is precisely my intention to give you all this, monseigneur, and more;
only, do you desire it?”
“A word more,” said the prince. “I know there are guards in every
gallery, bolts to every door, cannon and soldiery at every barrier. How will
you overcome the sentries—spike the guns? How will you break through
the bolts and bars?”
“Monseigneur,—how did you get the note which announced my arrival
to you?”
“You can bribe a jailer for such a thing as a note.”
“If we can corrupt one turnkey, we can corrupt ten.”
“Well; I admit that it may be possible to release a poor captive from the
Bastile; possible so to conceal him that the king’s people shall not again
ensnare him; possible, in some unknown retreat, to sustain the unhappy
wretch in some suitable manner.”
“Monseigneur!” said Aramis, smiling.
“I admit that, whoever would do this much for me, would seem more
than mortal in my eyes; but as you tell me I am a prince, brother of the king,
how can you restore me the rank and power which my mother and my
brother have deprived me of? And as, to effect this, I must pass a life of war
and hatred, how can you cause me to prevail in those combats—render me
invulnerable by my enemies? Ah! monsieur, reflect on all this; place me, to-
morrow, in some dark cavern at a mountain’s base; yield me the delight of
hearing in freedom sounds of the river, plain and valley, of beholding in
freedom the sun of the blue heavens, or the stormy sky, and it is enough.
Promise me no more than this, for, indeed, more you cannot give, and it
would be a crime to deceive me, since you call yourself my friend.”
Aramis waited in silence. “Monseigneur,” he resumed, after a moment’s
reflection, “I admire the firm, sound sense which dictates your words; I am
happy to have discovered my monarch’s mind.”
“Again, again! oh, God! for mercy’s sake,” cried the prince, pressing his
icy hands upon his clammy brow, “do not play with me! I have no need to
be a king to be the happiest of men.”
“But I, monseigneur, wish you to be a king for the good of humanity.”
“Ah!” said the prince, with fresh distrust inspired by the word; “ah! with
what, then, has humanity to reproach my brother?”

“I forgot to say, monseigneur, that if you would allow me to guide you,
and if you consent to become the most powerful monarch in Christendom,
you will have promoted the interests of all the friends whom I devote to the
success of your cause, and these friends are numerous.”
“Numerous?”
“Less numerous than powerful, monseigneur.”
“Explain yourself.”
“It is impossible; I will explain, I swear before Heaven, on that day that I
see you sitting on the throne of France.”
“But my brother?”
“You shall decree his fate. Do you pity him?”
“Him, who leaves me to perish in a dungeon? No, no. For him I have no
pity!”
“So much the better.”
“He might have himself come to this prison, have taken me by the hand,
and have said, ‘My brother, Heaven created us to love, not to contend with
one another. I come to you. A barbarous prejudice has condemned you to
pass your days in obscurity, far from mankind, deprived of every joy. I will
make you sit down beside me; I will buckle round your waist our father’s
sword. Will you take advantage of this reconciliation to put down or restrain
me? Will you employ that sword to spill my blood?’ ‘Oh! never,’ I would
have replied to him, ‘I look on you as my preserver, I will respect you as
my master. You give me far more than Heaven bestowed; for through you I
possess liberty and the privilege of loving and being loved in this world.’”
“And you would have kept your word, monseigneur?”
“On my life! While now—now that I have guilty ones to punish—”
“In what manner, monseigneur?”
“What do you say as to the resemblance that Heaven has given me to my
brother?”
“I say that there was in that likeness a providential instruction which the
king ought to have heeded; I say that your mother committed a crime in
rendering those different in happiness and fortune whom nature created so
startlingly alike, of her own flesh, and I conclude that the object of
punishment should be only to restore the equilibrium.”

“By which you mean—”
“That if I restore you to your place on your brother’s throne, he shall take
yours in prison.”
“Alas! there’s such infinity of suffering in prison, especially it would be
so for one who has drunk so deeply of the cup of enjoyment.”
“Your royal highness will always be free to act as you may desire; and if
it seems good to you, after punishment, you will have it in your power to
pardon.”
“Good. And now, are you aware of one thing, monsieur?”
“Tell me, my prince.”
“It is that I will hear nothing further from you till I am clear of the
Bastile.”
“I was going to say to your highness that I should only have the pleasure
of seeing you once again.”
“And when?”
“The day when my prince leaves these gloomy walls.”
“Heavens! how will you give me notice of it?”
“By myself coming to fetch you.”
“Yourself?”
“My prince, do not leave this chamber save with me, or if in my absence
you are compelled to do so, remember that I am not concerned in it.”
“And so I am not to speak a word of this to any one whatever, save to
you?”
“Save only to me.” Aramis bowed very low. The prince offered his hand.
“Monsieur,” he said, in a tone that issued from his heart, “one word more,
my last. If you have sought me for my destruction; if you are only a tool in
the hands of my enemies; if from our conference, in which you have
sounded the depths of my mind, anything worse than captivity result, that is
to say, if death befall me, still receive my blessing, for you will have ended
my troubles and given me repose from the tormenting fever that has preyed
on me for eight long, weary years.”
“Monseigneur, wait the results ere you judge me,” said Aramis.

“I say that, in such a case, I bless and forgive you. If, on the other hand,
you are come to restore me to that position in the sunshine of fortune and
glory to which I was destined by Heaven; if by your means I am enabled to
live in the memory of man, and confer luster on my race by deeds of valor,
or by solid benefits bestowed upon my people; if, from my present depths
of sorrow, aided by your generous hand, I raise myself to the very height of
honor, then to you, whom I thank with blessings, to you will I offer half my
power and my glory: though you would still be but partly recompensed, and
your share must always remain incomplete, since I could not divide with
you the happiness received at your hands.”
“Monseigneur,” replied Aramis, moved by the pallor and excitement of
the young man, “the nobleness of your heart fills me with joy and
admiration. It is not you who will have to thank me, but rather the nation
whom you will render happy, the posterity whose name you will make
glorious. Yes; I shall indeed have bestowed upon you more than life, I shall
have given you immortality.”
The prince offered his hand to Aramis, who sank upon his knee and
kissed it.
“It is the first act of homage paid to our future king,” said he. “When I
see you again, I shall say, ‘Good day, sire.’”
“Till then,” said the young man, pressing his wan and wasted fingers over
his heart,—“till then, no more dreams, no more strain on my life—my heart
would break! Oh, monsieur, how small is my prison—how low the window
—how narrow are the doors! To think that so much pride, splendor, and
happiness, should be able to enter in and to remain here!”
“Your royal highness makes me proud,” said Aramis, “since you infer it
is I who brought all this.” And he rapped immediately on the door. The
jailer came to open it with Baisemeaux, who, devoured by fear and
uneasiness, was beginning, in spite of himself, to listen at the door. Happily,
neither of the speakers had forgotten to smother his voice, even in the most
passionate outbreaks.
“What a confessor!” said the governor, forcing a laugh; “who would
believe that a compulsory recluse, a man as though in the very jaws of
death, could have committed crimes so numerous, and so long to tell of?”
Aramis made no reply. He was eager to leave the Bastile, where the
secret which overwhelmed him seemed to double the weight of the walls.

As soon as they reached Baisemeaux’s quarters, “Let us proceed to
business, my dear governor,” said Aramis.
“Alas!” replied Baisemeaux.
“You have to ask me for my receipt for one hundred and fifty thousand
livres,” said the bishop.
“And to pay over the first third of the sum,” added the poor governor,
with a sigh, taking three steps towards his iron strong-box.
“Here is the receipt,” said Aramis.
“And here is the money,” returned Baisemeaux, with a threefold sigh.
“The order instructed me only to give a receipt; it said nothing about
receiving the money,” rejoined Aramis. “Adieu, monsieur le governeur!”
And he departed, leaving Baisemeaux almost more than stifled with joy
and surprise at this regal present so liberally bestowed by the confessor
extraordinary to the Bastile.

Chapter II. How Mouston Had Become Fatter
without Giving Porthos Notice Thereof, and of the
Troubles Which Consequently Befell that Worthy
Gentleman.

Since the departure of Athos for Blois, Porthos and D’Artagnan were
seldom together. One was occupied with harassing duties for the king, the
other had been making many purchases of furniture which he intended to
forward to his estate, and by aid of which he hoped to establish in his
various residences something of the courtly luxury he had witnessed in all
its dazzling brightness in his majesty’s society. D’Artagnan, ever faithful,
one morning during an interval of service thought about Porthos, and being
uneasy at not having heard anything of him for a fortnight, directed his
steps towards his hotel, and pounced upon him just as he was getting up.
The worthy baron had a pensive—nay, more than pensive—melancholy air.
He was sitting on his bed, only half-dressed, and with legs dangling over
the edge, contemplating a host of garments, which with their fringes, lace,
embroidery, and slashes of ill-assorted hues, were strewed all over the floor.
Porthos, sad and reflective as La Fontaine’s hare, did not observe
D’Artagnan’s entrance, which was, moreover, screened at this moment by
M. Mouston, whose personal corpulency, quite enough at any time to hide
one man from another, was effectually doubled by a scarlet coat which the
intendant was holding up for his master’s inspection, by the sleeves, that he
might the better see it all over. D’Artagnan stopped at the threshold and
looked in at the pensive Porthos and then, as the sight of the innumerable
garments strewing the floor caused mighty sighs to heave the bosom of that
excellent gentleman, D’Artagnan thought it time to put an end to these
dismal reflections, and coughed by way of announcing himself.

“Ah!” exclaimed Porthos, whose countenance brightened with joy; “ah!
ah! Here is D’Artagnan. I shall then get hold of an idea!”
At these words Mouston, doubting what was going on behind him, got
out of the way, smiling kindly at the friend of his master, who thus found
himself freed from the material obstacle which had prevented his reaching
D’Artagnan. Porthos made his sturdy knees crack again in rising, and
crossing the room in two strides, found himself face to face with his friend,
whom he folded to his breast with a force of affection that seemed to
increase with every day. “Ah!” he repeated, “you are always welcome, dear
friend; but just now you are more welcome than ever.”
“But you seem to have the megrims here!” exclaimed D’Artagnan.
Porthos replied by a look expressive of dejection. “Well, then, tell me all
about it, Porthos, my friend, unless it is a secret.”
“In the first place,” returned Porthos, “you know I have no secrets from
you. This, then, is what saddens me.”
“Wait a minute, Porthos; let me first get rid of all this litter of satin and
velvet!”
“Oh, never mind,” said Porthos, contemptuously; “it is all trash.”
“Trash, Porthos! Cloth at twenty-five livres an ell! gorgeous satin! regal
velvet!”
“Then you think these clothes are—”
“Splendid, Porthos, splendid! I’ll wager that you alone in France have so
many; and suppose you never had any more made, and were to live to be a
hundred years of age, which wouldn’t astonish me in the very least, you
could still wear a new dress the day of your death, without being obliged to
see the nose of a single tailor from now till then.”
Porthos shook his head.
“Come, my friend,” said D’Artagnan, “this unnatural melancholy in you
frightens me. My dear Porthos, pray get it out, then. And the sooner the
better.”
“Yes, my friend, so I will: if, indeed, it is possible.”
“Perhaps you have received bad news from Bracieux?”
“No: they have felled the wood, and it has yielded a third more than the
estimate.”

“Then there has been a falling-off in the pools of Pierrefonds?”
“No, my friend: they have been fished, and there is enough left to stock
all the pools in the neighborhood.”
“Perhaps your estate at Vallon has been destroyed by an earthquake?”
“No, my friend; on the contrary, the ground was struck with lightning a
hundred paces from the chateau, and a fountain sprung up in a place
entirely destitute of water.”
“What in the world is the matter, then?”
“The fact is, I have received an invitation for the fete at Vaux,” said
Porthos, with a lugubrious expression.
“Well! do you complain of that? The king has caused a hundred mortal
heart-burnings among the courtiers by refusing invitations. And so, my dear
friend, you are really going to Vaux?”
“Indeed I am!”
“You will see a magnificent sight.”
“Alas! I doubt it, though.”
“Everything that is grand in France will be brought together there!”
“Ah!” cried Porthos, tearing out a lock of hair in his despair.
“Eh! good heavens, are you ill?” cried D’Artagnan.
“I am as firm as the Pont-Neuf! It isn’t that.”
“But what is it, then?”
“‘Tis that I have no clothes!”
D’Artagnan stood petrified. “No clothes! Porthos, no clothes!” he cried,
“when I see at least fifty suits on the floor.”
“Fifty, truly; but not one which fits me!”
“What? not one that fits you? But are you not measured, then, when you
give an order?”
“To be sure he is,” answered Mouston; “but unfortunately I have gotten
stouter!”
“What! you stouter!”
“So much so that I am now bigger than the baron. Would you believe it,
monsieur?”

“Parbleu! it seems to me that is quite evident.”
“Do you see, stupid?” said Porthos, “that is quite evident!”
“Be still, my dear Porthos,” resumed D’Artagnan, becoming slightly
impatient, “I don’t understand why your clothes should not fit you, because
Mouston has grown stouter.”
“I am going to explain it,” said Porthos. “You remember having related to
me the story of the Roman general Antony, who had always seven wild
boars kept roasting, each cooked up to a different point; so that he might be
able to have his dinner at any time of the day he chose to ask for it. Well,
then, I resolved, as at any time I might be invited to court to spend a week, I
resolved to have always seven suits ready for the occasion.”
“Capitally reasoned, Porthos—only a man must have a fortune like yours
to gratify such whims. Without counting the time lost in being measured,
the fashions are always changing.”
“That is exactly the point,” said Porthos, “in regard to which I flattered
myself I had hit on a very ingenious device.”
“Tell me what it is; for I don’t doubt your genius.”
“You remember what Mouston once was, then?”
“Yes; when he used to call himself Mousqueton.”
“And you remember, too, the period when he began to grow fatter?”
“No, not exactly. I beg your pardon, my good Mouston.”
“Oh! you are not in fault, monsieur,” said Mouston, graciously. “You
were in Paris, and as for us, we were at Pierrefonds.”
“Well, well, my dear Porthos; there was a time when Mouston began to
grow fat. Is that what you wished to say?”
“Yes, my friend; and I greatly rejoice over the period.”
“Indeed, I believe you do,” exclaimed D’Artagnan.
“You understand,” continued Porthos, “what a world of trouble it spared
for me.”
“No, I don’t—by any means.”
“Look here, my friend. In the first place, as you have said, to be
measured is a loss of time, even though it occur only once a fortnight. And
then, one may be travelling; and then you wish to have seven suits always

with you. In short, I have a horror of letting any one take my measure.
Confound it! either one is a nobleman or not. To be scrutinized and scanned
by a fellow who completely analyzes you, by inch and line—‘tis degrading!
Here, they find you too hollow; there, too prominent. They recognize your
strong and weak points. See, now, when we leave the measurer’s hands, we
are like those strongholds whose angles and different thicknesses have been
ascertained by a spy.”
“In truth, my dear Porthos, you possess ideas entirely original.”
“Ah! you see when a man is an engineer—”
“And has fortified Belle-Isle—‘tis natural, my friend.”
“Well, I had an idea, which would doubtless have proved a good one, but
for Mouston’s carelessness.”
D’Artagnan glanced at Mouston, who replied by a slight movement of
his body, as if to say, “You will see whether I am at all to blame in all this.”
“I congratulated myself, then,” resumed Porthos, “at seeing Mouston get
fat; and I did all I could, by means of substantial feeding, to make him stout
—always in the hope that he would come to equal myself in girth, and
could then be measured in my stead.”
“Ah!” cried D’Artagnan. “I see—that spared you both time and
humiliation.”
“Consider my joy when, after a year and a half’s judicious feeding—for I
used to feed him up myself—the fellow—”
“Oh! I lent a good hand myself, monsieur,” said Mouston, humbly.
“That’s true. Consider my joy when, one morning, I perceived Mouston
was obliged to squeeze in, as I once did myself, to get through the little
secret door that those fools of architects had made in the chamber of the late
Madame du Vallon, in the chateau of Pierrefonds. And, by the way, about
that door, my friend, I should like to ask you, who know everything, why
these wretches of architects, who ought to have the compasses run into
them, just to remind them, came to make doorways through which nobody
but thin people can pass?”
“Oh, those doors,” answered D’Artagnan, “were meant for gallants, and
they have generally slight and slender figures.”
“Madame du Vallon had no gallant!” answered Porthos, majestically.

“Perfectly true, my friend,” resumed D’Artagnan; “but the architects
were probably making their calculations on a basis of the probability of
your marrying again.”
“Ah! that is possible,” said Porthos. “And now I have received an
explanation of how it is that doorways are made too narrow, let us return to
the subject of Mouston’s fatness. But see how the two things apply to each
other. I have always noticed that people’s ideas run parallel. And so,
observe this phenomenon, D’Artagnan. I was talking to you of Mouston,
who is fat, and it led us on to Madame du Vallon—”
“Who was thin?”
“Hum! Is it not marvelous?”
“My dear friend, a savant of my acquaintance, M. Costar, has made the
same observation as you have, and he calls the process by some Greek
name which I forget.”
“What! my remark is not then original?” cried Porthos, astounded. “I
thought I was the discoverer.”
“My friend, the fact was known before Aristotle’s days—that is to say,
nearly two thousand years ago.”
“Well, well, ‘tis no less true,” said Porthos, delighted at the idea of
having jumped to a conclusion so closely in agreement with the greatest
sages of antiquity.
“Wonderfully—but suppose we return to Mouston. It seems to me, we
have left him fattening under our very eyes.”
“Yes, monsieur,” said Mouston.
“Well,” said Porthos, “Mouston fattened so well, that he gratified all my
hopes, by reaching my standard; a fact of which I was well able to convince
myself, by seeing the rascal, one day, in a waistcoat of mine, which he had
turned into a coat—a waistcoat, the mere embroidery of which was worth a
hundred pistoles.”
“‘Twas only to try it on, monsieur,” said Mouston.
“From that moment I determined to put Mouston in communication with
my tailors, and to have him measured instead of myself.”
“A capital idea, Porthos; but Mouston is a foot and a half shorter than
you.”

“Exactly! They measured him down to the ground, and the end of the
skirt came just below my knee.”
“What a marvelous man you are, Porthos! Such a thing could happen
only to you.”
“Ah! yes; pay your compliments; you have ample grounds to go upon. It
was exactly at that time—that is to say, nearly two years and a half ago—
that I set out for Belle-Isle, instructing Mouston (so as always to have, in
every event, a pattern of every fashion) to have a coat made for himself
every month.”
“And did Mouston neglect complying with your instructions? Ah! that
was anything but right, Mouston.”
“No, monsieur, quite the contrary; quite the contrary!”
“No, he never forgot to have his coats made; but he forgot to inform me
that he had got stouter!”
“But it was not my fault, monsieur! your tailor never told me.”
“And this to such an extent, monsieur,” continued Porthos, “that the
fellow in two years has gained eighteen inches in girth, and so my last
dozen coats are all too large, from a foot to a foot and a half.”
“But the rest; those which were made when you were of the same size?”
“They are no longer the fashion, my dear friend. Were I to put them on, I
should look like a fresh arrival from Siam; and as though I had been two
years away from court.”
“I understand your difficulty. You have how many new suits? nine?
thirty-six? and yet not one to wear. Well, you must have a thirty-seventh
made, and give the thirty-six to Mouston.”
“Ah! monsieur!” said Mouston, with a gratified air. “The truth is, that
monsieur has always been very generous to me.”
“Do you mean to insinuate that I hadn’t that idea, or that I was deterred
by the expense? But it wants only two days to the fete; I received the
invitation yesterday; made Mouston post hither with my wardrobe, and only
this morning discovered my misfortune; and from now till the day after to-
morrow, there isn’t a single fashionable tailor who will undertake to make
me a suit.”
“That is to say, one covered all over with gold, isn’t it?”

“I wish it so! undoubtedly, all over.”
“Oh, we shall manage it. You won’t leave for three days. The invitations
are for Wednesday, and this is only Sunday morning.”
“‘Tis true; but Aramis has strongly advised me to be at Vaux twenty-four
hours beforehand.”
“How, Aramis?”
“Yes, it was Aramis who brought me the invitation.”
“Ah! to be sure, I see. You are invited on the part of M. Fouquet?”
“By no means! by the king, dear friend. The letter bears the following as
large as life: ‘M. le Baron du Vallon is informed that the king has
condescended to place him on the invitation list—‘”
“Very good; but you leave with M. Fouquet?”
“And when I think,” cried Porthos, stamping on the floor, “when I think I
shall have no clothes, I am ready to burst with rage! I should like to strangle
somebody or smash something!”
“Neither strangle anybody nor smash anything, Porthos; I will manage it
all; put on one of your thirty-six suits, and come with me to a tailor.”
“Pooh! my agent has seen them all this morning.”
“Even M. Percerin?”
“Who is M. Percerin?”
“Oh! only the king’s tailor!”
“Oh, ah, yes,” said Porthos, who wished to appear to know the king’s
tailor, but now heard his name mentioned for the first time; “to M.
Percerin’s, by Jove! I was afraid he would be too busy.”
“Doubtless he will be; but be at ease, Porthos; he will do for me what he
wouldn’t do for another. Only you must allow yourself to be measured!”
“Ah!” said Porthos, with a sigh, “‘tis vexatious, but what would you have
me do?”
“Do? As others do; as the king does.”
“What! do they measure the king, too? does he put up with it?”
“The king is a beau, my good friend, and so are you, too, whatever you
may say about it.”

Porthos smiled triumphantly. “Let us go to the king’s tailor,” he said;
“and since he measures the king, I think, by my faith, I may do worse than
allow him to measure me!”

Chapter III. Who Messire Jean Percerin Was.

The king’s tailor, Messire Jean Percerin, occupied a rather large house in
the Rue St. Honore, near the Rue de l’Arbre Sec. He was a man of great
taste in elegant stuffs, embroideries, and velvets, being hereditary tailor to
the king. The preferment of his house reached as far back as the time of
Charles IX.; from whose reign dated, as we know, fancy in bravery difficult
enough to gratify. The Percerin of that period was a Huguenot, like
Ambrose Pare, and had been spared by the Queen of Navarre, the beautiful
Margot, as they used to write and say, too, in those days; because, in sooth,
he was the only one who could make for her those wonderful riding-habits
which she so loved to wear, seeing that they were marvelously well suited
to hide certain anatomical defects, which the Queen of Navarre used very
studiously to conceal. Percerin being saved, made, out of gratitude, some
beautiful black bodices, very inexpensively indeed, for Queen Catherine,
who ended by being pleased at the preservation of a Huguenot people, on
whom she had long looked with detestation. But Percerin was a very
prudent man; and having heard it said that there was no more dangerous
sign for a Protestant than to be smiled up on by Catherine, and having
observed that her smiles were more frequent than usual, he speedily turned
Catholic with all his family; and having thus become irreproachable,
attained the lofty position of master tailor to the Crown of France. Under
Henry III., gay king as he was, this position was as grand as the height of
one of the loftiest peaks of the Cordilleras. Now Percerin had been a clever
man all his life, and by way of keeping up his reputation beyond the grave,
took very good care not to make a bad death of it, and so contrived to die
very skillfully; and that at the very moment he felt his powers of invention
declining. He left a son and a daughter, both worthy of the name they were
called upon to bear; the son, a cutter as unerring and exact as the square
rule; the daughter, apt at embroidery, and at designing ornaments. The
marriage of Henry IV. and Marie de Medici, and the exquisite court-

mourning for the afore-mentioned queen, together with a few words let fall
by M. de Bassompiere, king of the beaux of the period, made the fortune of
the second generation of Percerins. M. Concino Concini, and his wife
Galligai, who subsequently shone at the French court, sought to Italianize
the fashion, and introduced some Florentine tailors; but Percerin, touched to
the quick in his patriotism and his self-esteem, entirely defeated these
foreigners, and that so well that Concino was the first to give up his
compatriots, and held the French tailor in such esteem that he would never
employ any other, and thus wore a doublet of his on the very day that Vitry
blew out his brains with a pistol at the Pont du Louvre.
And so it was a doublet issuing from M. Percerin’s workshop, which the
Parisians rejoiced in hacking into so many pieces with the living human
body it contained. Notwithstanding the favor Concino Concini had shown
Percerin, the king, Louis XIII., had the generosity to bear no malice to his
tailor, and to retain him in his service. At the time that Louis the Just
afforded this great example of equity, Percerin had brought up two sons,
one of whom made his debut at the marriage of Anne of Austria, invented
that admirable Spanish costume, in which Richelieu danced a saraband,
made the costumes for the tragedy of “Mirame,” and stitched on to
Buckingham’s mantle those famous pearls which were destined to be
scattered about the pavements of the Louvre. A man becomes easily notable
who has made the dresses of a Duke of Buckingham, a M. de Cinq-Mars, a
Mademoiselle Ninon, a M. de Beaufort, and a Marion de Lorme. And thus
Percerin the third had attained the summit of his glory when his father died.
This same Percerin III., old, famous and wealthy, yet further dressed Louis
XIV.; and having no son, which was a great cause of sorrow to him, seeing
that with himself his dynasty would end, he had brought up several hopeful
pupils. He possessed a carriage, a country house, men-servants the tallest in
Paris; and by special authority from Louis XIV., a pack of hounds. He
worked for MM. de Lyonne and Letellier, under a sort of patronage; but
politic man as he was, and versed in state secrets, he never succeeded in
fitting M. Colbert. This is beyond explanation; it is a matter for guessing or
for intuition. Great geniuses of every kind live on unseen, intangible ideas;
they act without themselves knowing why. The great Percerin (for, contrary
to the rule of dynasties, it was, above all, the last of the Percerins who
deserved the name of Great), the great Percerin was inspired when he cut a
robe for the queen, or a coat for the king; he could mount a mantle for

Monsieur, the clock of a stocking for Madame; but, in spite of his supreme
talent, he could never hit off anything approaching a creditable fit for M.
Colbert. “That man,” he used often to say, “is beyond my art; my needle can
never dot him down.” We need scarcely say that Percerin was M. Fouquet’s
tailor, and that the superintendent highly esteemed him. M. Percerin was
nearly eighty years old, nevertheless still fresh, and at the same time so dry,
the courtiers used to say, that he was positively brittle. His renown and his
fortune were great enough for M. le Prince, that king of fops, to take his
arm when talking over the fashions; and for those least eager to pay never
to dare to leave their accounts in arrear with him; for Master Percerin would
for the first time make clothes upon credit, but the second never, unless paid
for the former order.
It is easy to see at once that a tailor of such renown, instead of running
after customers, made difficulties about obliging any fresh ones. And so
Percerin declined to fit bourgeois, or those who had but recently obtained
patents of nobility. A story used to circulate that even M. de Mazarin, in
exchange for Percerin supplying him with a full suit of ceremonial
vestments as cardinal, one fine day slipped letters of nobility into his
pocket.
It was to the house of this grand llama of tailors that D’Artagnan took the
despairing Porthos; who, as they were going along, said to his friend, “Take
care, my good D’Artagnan, not to compromise the dignity of a man such as
I am with the arrogance of this Percerin, who will, I expect, be very
impertinent; for I give you notice, my friend, that if he is wanting in respect
I will infallibly chastise him.”
“Presented by me,” replied D’Artagnan, “you have nothing to fear, even
though you were what you are not.”
“Ah! ‘tis because—”
“What? Have you anything against Percerin, Porthos?”
“I think that I once sent Mouston to a fellow of that name.”
“And then?”
“The fellow refused to supply me.”
“Oh, a misunderstanding, no doubt, which it will be now exceedingly
easy to set right. Mouston must have made a mistake.”
“Perhaps.”

“He has confused the names.”
“Possibly. That rascal Mouston never can remember names.”
“I will take it all upon myself.”
“Very good.”
“Stop the carriage, Porthos; here we are.”
“Here! how here? We are at the Halles; and you told me the house was at
the corner of the Rue de l’Arbre Sec.”
“‘Tis true, but look.”
“Well, I do look, and I see—”
“What?”
“Pardieu! that we are at the Halles!”
“You do not, I suppose, want our horses to clamber up on the roof of the
carriage in front of us?”
“No.”
“Nor the carriage in front of us to mount on top of the one in front of it.
Nor that the second should be driven over the roofs of the thirty or forty
others which have arrived before us.”
“No, you are right, indeed. What a number of people! And what are they
all about?”
“‘Tis very simple. They are waiting their turn.”
“Bah! Have the comedians of the Hotel de Bourgogne shifted their
quarters?”
“No; their turn to obtain an entrance to M. Percerin’s house.”
“And we are going to wait too?”
“Oh, we shall show ourselves prompter and not so proud.”
“What are we to do, then?”
“Get down, pass through the footmen and lackeys, and enter the tailor’s
house, which I will answer for our doing, if you go first.”
“Come along, then,” said Porthos.
They accordingly alighted and made their way on foot towards the
establishment. The cause of the confusion was that M. Percerin’s doors
were closed, while a servant, standing before them, was explaining to the

illustrious customers of the illustrious tailor that just then M. Percerin could
not receive anybody. It was bruited about outside still, on the authority of
what the great lackey had told some great noble whom he favored, in
confidence, that M. Percerin was engaged on five costumes for the king,
and that, owing to the urgency of the case, he was meditating in his office
on the ornaments, colors, and cut of these five suits. Some, contented with
this reason, went away again, contented to repeat the tale to others, but
others, more tenacious, insisted on having the doors opened, and among
these last three Blue Ribbons, intended to take parts in a ballet, which
would inevitably fail unless the said three had their costumes shaped by the
very hand of the great Percerin himself. D’Artagnan, pushing on Porthos,
who scattered the groups of people right and left, succeeded in gaining the
counter, behind which the journeyman tailors were doing their best to
answer queries. (We forgot to mention that at the door they wanted to put
off Porthos like the rest, but D’Artagnan, showing himself, pronounced
merely these words, “The king’s order,” and was let in with his friend.) The
poor fellows had enough to do, and did their best, to reply to the demands
of the customers in the absence of their master, leaving off drawing a stitch
to knit a sentence; and when wounded pride, or disappointed expectation,
brought down upon them too cutting a rebuke, he who was attacked made a
dive and disappeared under the counter. The line of discontented lords
formed a truly remarkable picture. Our captain of musketeers, a man of sure
and rapid observation, took it all in at a glance; and having run over the
groups, his eye rested on a man in front of him. This man, seated upon a
stool, scarcely showed his head above the counter that sheltered him. He
was about forty years of age, with a melancholy aspect, pale face, and soft
luminous eyes. He was looking at D’Artagnan and the rest, with his chin
resting upon his hand, like a calm and inquiring amateur. Only on
perceiving, and doubtless recognizing, our captain, he pulled his hat down
over his eyes. It was this action, perhaps, that attracted D’Artagnan’s
attention. If so, the gentleman who had pulled down his hat produced an
effect entirely different from what he had desired. In other respects his
costume was plain, and his hair evenly cut enough for customers, who were
not close observers, to take him for a mere tailor’s apprentice, perched
behind the board, and carefully stitching cloth or velvet. Nevertheless, this
man held up his head too often to be very productively employed with his

fingers. D’Artagnan was not deceived,—not he; and he saw at once that if
this man was working at anything, it certainly was not at velvet.
“Eh!” said he, addressing this man, “and so you have become a tailor’s
boy, Monsieur Moliere!”
“Hush, M. d’Artagnan!” replied the man, softly, “you will make them
recognize me.”
“Well, and what harm?”
“The fact is, there is no harm, but—”
“You were going to say there is no good in doing it either, is it not so?”
“Alas! no; for I was occupied in examining some excellent figures.”
“Go on—go on, Monsieur Moliere. I quite understand the interest you
take in the plates—I will not disturb your studies.”
“Thank you.”
“But on one condition; that you tell me where M. Percerin really is.”
“Oh! willingly; in his own room. Only—”
“Only that one can’t enter it?”
“Unapproachable.”
“For everybody?”
“Everybody. He brought me here so that I might be at my ease to make
my observations, and then he went away.”
“Well, my dear Monsieur Moliere, but you will go and tell him I am
here.”
“I!” exclaimed Moliere, in the tone of a courageous dog, from which you
snatch the bone it has legitimately gained; “I disturb myself! Ah! Monsieur
d’Artagnan, how hard you are upon me!”
“If you don’t go directly and tell M. Percerin that I am here, my dear
Moliere,” said D’Artagnan, in a low tone, “I warn you of one thing: that I
won’t exhibit to you the friend I have brought with me.”
Moliere indicated Porthos by an imperceptible gesture, “This gentleman,
is it not?”
“Yes.”
Moliere fixed upon Porthos one of those looks which penetrate the minds
and hearts of men. The subject doubtless appeared a very promising one, for

he immediately rose and led the way into the adjoining chamber.

Chapter IV. The Patterns.

During all this time the noble mob was slowly heaving away, leaving at
every angle of the counter either a murmur or a menace, as the waves leave
foam or scattered seaweed on the sands, when they retire with the ebbing
tide. In about ten minutes Moliere reappeared, making another sign to
D’Artagnan from under the hangings. The latter hurried after him, with
Porthos in the rear, and after threading a labyrinth of corridors, introduced
him to M. Percerin’s room. The old man, with his sleeves turned up, was
gathering up in folds a piece of gold-flowered brocade, so as the better to
exhibit its luster. Perceiving D’Artagnan, he put the silk aside, and came to
meet him, by no means radiant with joy, and by no means courteous, but,
take it altogether, in a tolerably civil manner.
“The captain of the king’s musketeers will excuse me, I am sure, for I am
engaged.”
“Eh! yes, on the king’s costumes; I know that, my dear Monsieur
Percerin. You are making three, they tell me.”
“Five, my dear sir, five.”
“Three or five, ‘tis all the same to me, my dear monsieur; and I know that
you will make them most exquisitely.”
“Yes, I know. Once made they will be the most beautiful in the world, I
do not deny it; but that they may be the most beautiful in the word, they
must first be made; and to do this, captain, I am pressed for time.”
“Oh, bah! there are two days yet; ‘tis much more than you require,
Monsieur Percerin,” said D’Artagnan, in the coolest possible manner.
Percerin raised his head with the air of a man little accustomed to be
contradicted, even in his whims; but D’Artagnan did not pay the least
attention to the airs which the illustrious tailor began to assume.
“My dear M. Percerin,” he continued, “I bring you a customer.”

“Ah! ah!” exclaimed Percerin, crossly.
“M. le Baron du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds,” continued
D’Artagnan. Percerin attempted a bow, which found no favor in the eyes of
the terrible Porthos, who, from his first entry into the room, had been
regarding the tailor askance.
“A very good friend of mine,” concluded D’Artagnan.
“I will attend to monsieur,” said Percerin, “but later.”
“Later? but when?”
“When I have time.”
“You have already told my valet as much,” broke in Porthos,
discontentedly.
“Very likely,” said Percerin; “I am nearly always pushed for time.”
“My friend,” returned Porthos, sententiously, “there is always time to be
found when one chooses to seek it.”
Percerin turned crimson; an ominous sign indeed in old men blanched by
age.
“Monsieur is quite at liberty to confer his custom elsewhere.”
“Come, come, Percerin,” interposed D’Artagnan, “you are not in a good
temper to-day. Well, I will say one more word to you, which will bring you
on your knees; monsieur is not only a friend of mine, but more, a friend of
M. Fouquet’s.”
“Ah! ah!” exclaimed the tailor, “that is another thing.” Then turning to
Porthos, “Monsieur le baron is attached to the superintendent?” he inquired.
“I am attached to myself,” shouted Porthos, at the very moment that the
tapestry was raised to introduce a new speaker in the dialogue. Moliere was
all observation, D’Artagnan laughed, Porthos swore.
“My dear Percerin,” said D’Artagnan, “you will make a dress for the
baron. ‘Tis I who ask you.”
“To you I will not say nay, captain.”
“But that is not all; you will make it for him at once.”
“‘Tis impossible within eight days.”
“That, then, is as much as to refuse, because the dress is wanted for the
fete at Vaux.”

“I repeat that it is impossible,” returned the obstinate old man.
“By no means, dear Monsieur Percerin, above all if I ask you,” said a
mild voice at the door, a silvery voice which made D’Artagnan prick up his
ears. It was the voice of Aramis.
“Monsieur d’Herblay!” cried the tailor.
“Aramis,” murmured D’Artagnan.
“Ah! our bishop!” said Porthos.
“Good morning, D’Artagnan; good morning, Porthos; good-morning, my
dear friends,” said Aramis. “Come, come, M. Percerin, make the baron’s
dress; and I will answer for it you will gratify M. Fouquet.” And he
accompanied the words with a sign, which seemed to say, “Agree, and
dismiss them.”
It appeared that Aramis had over Master Percerin an influence superior
even to D’Artagnan’s, for the tailor bowed in assent, and turning round
upon Porthos, said, “Go and get measured on the other side.”
Porthos colored in a formidable manner. D’Artagnan saw the storm
coming, and addressing Moliere, said to him, in an undertone, “You see
before you, my dear monsieur, a man who considers himself disgraced, if
you measure the flesh and bones that Heaven has given him; study this type
for me, Master Aristophanes, and profit by it.”
Moliere had no need of encouragement, and his gaze dwelt long and
keenly on the Baron Porthos. “Monsieur,” he said, “if you will come with
me, I will make them take your measure without touching you.”
“Oh!” said Porthos, “how do you make that out, my friend?”
“I say that they shall apply neither line nor rule to the seams of your
dress. It is a new method we have invented for measuring people of quality,
who are too sensitive to allow low-born fellows to touch them. We know
some susceptible persons who will not put up with being measured, a
process which, as I think, wounds the natural dignity of a man; and if
perchance monsieur should be one of these—”
“Corboeuf! I believe I am too!”
“Well, that is a capital and most consolatory coincidence, and you shall
have the benefit of our invention.”
“But how in the world can it be done?” asked Porthos, delighted.

“Monsieur,” said Moliere, bowing, “if you will deign to follow me, you
will see.”
Aramis observed this scene with all his eyes. Perhaps he fancied from
D’Artagnan’s liveliness that he would leave with Porthos, so as not to lose
the conclusion of a scene well begun. But, clear-sighted as he was, Aramis
deceived himself. Porthos and Moliere left together: D’Artagnan remained
with Percerin. Why? From curiosity, doubtless; probably to enjoy a little
longer the society of his good friend Aramis. As Moliere and Porthos
disappeared, D’Artagnan drew near the bishop of Vannes, a proceeding
which appeared particularly to disconcert him.
“A dress for you, also, is it not, my friend?”
Aramis smiled. “No,” said he.
“You will go to Vaux, however?”
“I shall go, but without a new dress. You forget, dear D’Artagnan, that a
poor bishop of Vannes is not rich enough to have new dresses for every
fete.”
“Bah!” said the musketeer, laughing, “and do we write no more poems
now, either?”
“Oh! D’Artagnan,” exclaimed Aramis, “I have long ago given up all such
tomfoolery.”
“True,” repeated D’Artagnan, only half convinced. As for Percerin, he
was once more absorbed in contemplation of the brocades.
“Don’t you perceive,” said Aramis, smiling, “that we are greatly boring
this good gentleman, my dear D’Artagnan?”
“Ah! ah!” murmured the musketeer, aside; “that is, I am boring you, my
friend.” Then aloud, “Well, then, let us leave; I have no further business
here, and if you are as disengaged as I, Aramis—”
“No, not I—I wished—”
“Ah! you had something particular to say to M. Percerin? Why did you
not tell me so at once?”
“Something particular, certainly,” repeated Aramis, “but not for you,
D’Artagnan. But, at the same time, I hope you will believe that I can never
have anything so particular to say that a friend like you may not hear it.”

“Oh, no, no! I am going,” said D’Artagnan, imparting to his voice an
evident tone of curiosity; for Aramis’s annoyance, well dissembled as it
was, had not a whit escaped him; and he knew that, in that impenetrable
mind, every thing, even the most apparently trivial, was designed to some
end; an unknown one, but an end that, from the knowledge he had of his
friend’s character, the musketeer felt must be important.
On his part, Aramis saw that D’Artagnan was not without suspicion, and
pressed him. “Stay, by all means,” he said, “this is what it is.” Then turning
towards the tailor, “My dear Percerin,” said he,—“I am even very happy
that you are here, D’Artagnan.”
“Oh, indeed,” exclaimed the Gascon, for the third time, even less
deceived this time than before.
Percerin never moved. Aramis roused him violently, by snatching from
his hands the stuff upon which he was engaged. “My dear Percerin,” said
he, “I have, near hand, M. Lebrun, one of M. Fouquet’s painters.”
“Ah, very good,” thought D’Artagnan; “but why Lebrun?”
Aramis looked at D’Artagnan, who seemed to be occupied with an
engraving of Mark Antony. “And you wish that I should make him a dress,
similar to those of the Epicureans?” answered Percerin. And while saying
this, in an absent manner, the worthy tailor endeavored to recapture his
piece of brocade.
“An Epicurean’s dress?” asked D’Artagnan, in a tone of inquiry.
“I see,” said Aramis, with a most engaging smile, “it is written that our
dear D’Artagnan shall know all our secrets this evening. Yes, friend, you
have surely heard speak of M. Fouquet’s Epicureans, have you not?”
“Undoubtedly. Is it not a kind of poetical society, of which La Fontaine,
Loret, Pelisson, and Moliere are members, and which holds its sittings at
Saint-Mande?”
“Exactly so. Well, we are going to put our poets in uniform, and enroll
them in a regiment for the king.”
“Oh, very well, I understand; a surprise M. Fouquet is getting up for the
king. Be at ease; if that is the secret about M. Lebrun, I will not mention it.”
“Always agreeable, my friend. No, Monsieur Lebrun has nothing to do
with this part of it; the secret which concerns him is far more important than
the other.”

“Then, if it is so important as all that, I prefer not to know it,” said
D’Artagnan, making a show of departure.
“Come in, M. Lebrun, come in,” said Aramis, opening a side-door with
his right hand, and holding back D’Artagnan with his left.
“I’faith, I too, am quite in the dark,” quoth Percerin.
Aramis took an “opportunity,” as is said in theatrical matters.
“My dear M. de Percerin,” Aramis continued, “you are making five
dresses for the king, are you not? One in brocade; one in hunting-cloth; one
in velvet; one in satin; and one in Florentine stuffs.”
“Yes; but how—do you know all that, monseigneur?” said Percerin,
astounded.
“It is all very simple, my dear monsieur; there will be a hunt, a banquet,
concert, promenade and reception; these five kinds of dress are required by
etiquette.”
“You know everything, monseigneur!”
“And a thing or two in addition,” muttered D’Artagnan.
“But,” cried the tailor, in triumph, “what you do not know, monseigneur
—prince of the church though you are—what nobody will know—what
only the king, Mademoiselle de la Vallière, and myself do know, is the color
of the materials and nature of the ornaments, and the cut, the ensemble, the
finish of it all!”
“Well,” said Aramis, “that is precisely what I have come to ask you, dear
Percerin.”
“Ah, bah!” exclaimed the tailor, terrified, though Aramis had pronounced
these words in his softest and most honeyed tones. The request appeared, on
reflection, so exaggerated, so ridiculous, so monstrous to M. Percerin that
first he laughed to himself, then aloud, and finished with a shout.
D’Artagnan followed his example, not because he found the matter so “very
funny,” but in order not to allow Aramis to cool.
“At the outset, I appear to be hazarding an absurd question, do I not?”
said Aramis. “But D’Artagnan, who is incarnate wisdom itself, will tell you
that I could not do otherwise than ask you this.”
“Let us see,” said the attentive musketeer; perceiving with his wonderful
instinct that they had only been skirmishing till now, and that the hour of

battle was approaching.
“Let us see,” said Percerin, incredulously.
“Why, now,” continued Aramis, “does M. Fouquet give the king a fete?
—Is it not to please him?”
“Assuredly,” said Percerin. D’Artagnan nodded assent.
“By delicate attentions? by some happy device? by a succession of
surprises, like that of which we were talking?—the enrolment of our
Epicureans.”
“Admirable.”
“Well, then; this is the surprise we intend. M. Lebrun here is a man who
draws most excellently.”
“Yes,” said Percerin; “I have seen his pictures, and observed that his
dresses were highly elaborated. That is why I at once agreed to make him a
costume—whether to agree with those of the Epicureans, or an original
one.”
“My dear monsieur, we accept your offer, and shall presently avail
ourselves of it; but just now, M. Lebrun is not in want of the dresses you
will make for himself, but of those you are making for the king.”
Percerin made a bound backwards, which D’Artagnan—calmest and
most appreciative of men, did not consider overdone, so many strange and
startling aspects wore the proposal which Aramis had just hazarded. “The
king’s dresses! Give the king’s dresses to any mortal whatever! Oh! for
once, monseigneur, your grace is mad!” cried the poor tailor in extremity.
“Help me now, D’Artagnan,” said Aramis, more and more calm and
smiling. “Help me now to persuade monsieur, for you understand; do you
not?”
“Eh! eh!—not exactly, I declare.”
“What! you do not understand that M. Fouquet wishes to afford the king
the surprise of finding his portrait on his arrival at Vaux; and that the
portrait, which be a striking resemblance, ought to be dressed exactly as the
king will be on the day it is shown?”
“Oh! yes, yes,” said the musketeer, nearly convinced, so plausible was
this reasoning. “Yes, my dear Aramis, you are right; it is a happy idea. I will
wager it is one of your own, Aramis.”

“Well, I don’t know,” replied the bishop; “either mine or M. Fouquet’s.”
Then scanning Percerin, after noticing D’Artagnan’s hesitation, “Well,
Monsieur Percerin,” he asked, “what do you say to this?”
“I say, that—”
“That you are, doubtless, free to refuse. I know well—and I by no means
count upon compelling you, my dear monsieur. I will say more, I even
understand all the delicacy you feel in taking up with M. Fouquet’s idea;
you dread appearing to flatter the king. A noble spirit, M. Percerin, a noble
spirit!” The tailor stammered. “It would, indeed, be a very pretty
compliment to pay the young prince,” continued Aramis; “but as the
surintendant told me, ‘if Percerin refuse, tell him that it will not at all lower
him in my opinion, and I shall always esteem him, only—‘”
“‘Only?’” repeated Percerin, rather troubled.
“‘Only,’” continued Aramis, “‘I shall be compelled to say to the king,’—
you understand, my dear Monsieur Percerin, that these are M. Fouquet’s
words,—‘I shall be constrained to say to the king, “Sire, I had intended to
present your majesty with your portrait, but owing to a feeling of delicacy,
slightly exaggerated perhaps, although creditable, M. Percerin opposed the
project.”’”
“Opposed!” cried the tailor, terrified at the responsibility which would
weigh upon him; “I to oppose the desire, the will of M. Fouquet when he is
seeking to please the king! Oh, what a hateful word you have uttered,
monseigneur. Oppose! Oh, ‘tis not I who said it, Heaven have mercy on me.
I call the captain of the musketeers to witness it! Is it not true, Monsieur
d’Artagnan, that I have opposed nothing?”
D’Artagnan made a sign indicating that he wished to remain neutral. He
felt that there was an intrigue at the bottom of it, whether comedy or
tragedy; he was at his wit’s end at not being able to fathom it, but in the
meanwhile wished to keep clear.
But already Percerin, goaded by the idea that the king was to be told he
stood in the way of a pleasant surprise, had offered Lebrun a chair, and
proceeded to bring from a wardrobe four magnificent dresses, the fifth
being still in the workmen’s hands; and these masterpieces he successively
fitted upon four lay figures, which, imported into France in the time of
Concini, had been given to Percerin II. by Marshal d’Onore, after the
discomfiture of the Italian tailors ruined in their competition. The painter set

to work to draw and then to paint the dresses. But Aramis, who was closely
watching all the phases of his toil, suddenly stopped him.
“I think you have not quite got it, my dear Lebrun,” he said; “your colors
will deceive you, and on canvas we shall lack that exact resemblance which
is absolutely requisite. Time is necessary for attentively observing the finer
shades.”
“Quite true,” said Percerin, “but time is wanting, and on that head, you
will agree with me, monseigneur, I can do nothing.”
“Then the affair will fail,” said Aramis, quietly, “and that because of a
want of precision in the colors.”
Nevertheless Lebrun went on copying the materials and ornaments with
the closest fidelity—a process which Aramis watched with ill-concealed
impatience.
“What in the world, now, is the meaning of this imbroglio?” the
musketeer kept saying to himself.
“That will never do,” said Aramis: “M. Lebrun, close your box, and roll
up your canvas.”
“But, monsieur,” cried the vexed painter, “the light is abominable here.”
“An idea, M. Lebrun, an idea! If we had a pattern of the materials, for
example, and with time, and a better light—”
“Oh, then,” cried Lebrun, “I would answer for the effect.”
“Good!” said D’Artagnan, “this ought to be the knotty point of the whole
thing; they want a pattern of each of the materials. Mordioux! Will this
Percerin give in now?”
Percerin, beaten from his last retreat, and duped, moreover, by the
feigned good-nature of Aramis, cut out five patterns and handed them to the
bishop of Vannes.
“I like this better. That is your opinion, is it not?” said Aramis to
D’Artagnan.
“My dear Aramis,” said D’Artagnan, “my opinion is that you are always
the same.”
“And, consequently, always your friend,” said the bishop in a charming
tone.

“Yes, yes,” said D’Artagnan, aloud; then, in a low voice, “If I am your
dupe, double Jesuit that you are, I will not be your accomplice; and to
prevent it, ‘tis time I left this place.—Adieu, Aramis,” he added aloud,
“adieu; I am going to rejoin Porthos.”
“Then wait for me,” said Aramis, pocketing the patterns, “for I have
done, and shall be glad to say a parting word to our dear old friend.”
Lebrun packed up his paints and brushes, Percerin put back the dresses
into the closet, Aramis put his hand on his pocket to assure himself the
patterns were secure,—and they all left the study.

Chapter V. Where, Probably, Moliere Obtained His
First Idea of the Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

D’Artagnan found Porthos in the adjoining chamber; but no longer an
irritated Porthos, or a disappointed Porthos, but Porthos radiant, blooming,
fascinating, and chattering with Moliere, who was looking upon him with a
species of idolatry, and as a man would who had not only never seen
anything greater, but not even ever anything so great. Aramis went straight
up to Porthos and offered him his white hand, which lost itself in the
gigantic clasp of his old friend,—an operation which Aramis never
hazarded without a certain uneasiness. But the friendly pressure having
been performed not too painfully for him, the bishop of Vannes passed over
to Moliere.
“Well, monsieur,” said he, “will you come with me to Saint-Mande?”
“I will go anywhere you like, monseigneur,” answered Moliere.
“To Saint-Mande!” cried Porthos, surprised at seeing the proud bishop of
Vannes fraternizing with a journeyman tailor. “What, Aramis, are you going
to take this gentleman to Saint-Mande?”
“Yes,” said Aramis, smiling, “our work is pressing.”
“And besides, my dear Porthos,” continued D’Artagnan, “M. Moliere is
not altogether what he seems.”
“In what way?” asked Porthos.
“Why, this gentleman is one of M. Percerin’s chief clerks, and is
expected at Saint-Mande to try on the dresses which M. Fouquet has
ordered for the Epicureans.”
“‘Tis precisely so,” said Moliere.
“Yes, monsieur.”

“Come, then, my dear M. Moliere,” said Aramis, “that is, if you have
done with M. du Vallon.”
“We have finished,” replied Porthos.
“And you are satisfied?” asked D’Artagnan.
“Completely so,” replied Porthos.
Moliere took his leave of Porthos with much ceremony, and grasped the
hand which the captain of the musketeers furtively offered him.
“Pray, monsieur,” concluded Porthos, mincingly, “above all, be exact.”
“You will have your dress the day after to-morrow, monsieur le baron,”
answered Moliere. And he left with Aramis.
Then D’Artagnan, taking Porthos’s arm, “What has this tailor done for
you, my dear Porthos,” he asked, “that you are so pleased with him?”
“What has he done for me, my friend! done for me!” cried Porthos,
enthusiastically.
“Yes, I ask you, what has he done for you?”
“My friend, he has done that which no tailor ever yet accomplished: he
has taken my measure without touching me!”
“Ah, bah! tell me how he did it.”
“First, then, they went, I don’t know where, for a number of lay figures,
of all heights and sizes, hoping there would be one to suit mine, but the
largest—that of the drum-major of the Swiss guard—was two inches too
short, and a half foot too narrow in the chest.”
“Indeed!”
“It is exactly as I tell you, D’Artagnan; but he is a great man, or at the
very least a great tailor, is this M. Moliere. He was not at all put at fault by
the circumstance.”
“What did he do, then?”
“Oh! it is a very simple matter. I’faith, ‘tis an unheard-of thing that
people should have been so stupid as not to have discovered this method
from the first. What annoyance and humiliation they would have spared
me!”
“Not to mention of the costumes, my dear Porthos.”
“Yes, thirty dresses.”

“Well, my dear Porthos, come, tell me M. Moliere’s plan.”
“Moliere? You call him so, do you? I shall make a point of recollecting
his name.”
“Yes; or Poquelin, if you prefer that.”
“No; I like Moliere best. When I wish to recollect his name, I shall think
of voliere [an aviary]; and as I have one at Pierrefonds—”
“Capital!” returned D’Artagnan. “And M. Moliere’s plan?”
“‘Tis this: instead of pulling me to pieces, as all these rascals do—of
making me bend my back, and double my joints—all of them low and
dishonorable practices—” D’Artagnan made a sign of approbation with his
head. “‘Monsieur,’ he said to me,” continued Porthos, “‘a gentleman ought
to measure himself. Do me the pleasure to draw near this glass;’ and I drew
near the glass. I must own I did not exactly understand what this good M.
Voliere wanted with me.”
“Moliere!”
“Ah! yes, Moliere—Moliere. And as the fear of being measured still
possessed me, ‘Take care,’ said I to him, ‘what you are going to do with me;
I am very ticklish, I warn you.’ But he, with his soft voice (for he is a
courteous fellow, we must admit, my friend), he with his soft voice,
‘Monsieur,’ said he, ‘that your dress may fit you well, it must be made
according to your figure. Your figure is exactly reflected in this mirror. We
shall take the measure of this reflection.’”
“In fact,” said D’Artagnan, “you saw yourself in the glass; but where did
they find one in which you could see your whole figure?”
“My good friend, it is the very glass in which the king is used to look to
see himself.”
“Yes; but the king is a foot and a half shorter than you are.”
“Ah! well, I know not how that may be; it is, no doubt, a cunning way of
flattering the king; but the looking-glass was too large for me. ‘Tis true that
its height was made up of three Venetian plates of glass, placed one above
another, and its breadth of three similar parallelograms in juxtaposition.”
“Oh, Porthos! what excellent words you have command of. Where in the
word did you acquire such a voluminous vocabulary?”

“At Belle-Isle. Aramis and I had to use such words in our strategic
studies and castramentative experiments.”
D’Artagnan recoiled, as though the sesquipedalian syllables had knocked
the breath out of his body.
“Ah! very good. Let us return to the looking-glass, my friend.”
“Then, this good M. Voliere—”
“Moliere.”
“Yes—Moliere—you are right. You will see now, my dear friend, that I
shall recollect his name quite well. This excellent M. Moliere set to work
tracing out lines on the mirror, with a piece of Spanish chalk, following in
all the make of my arms and my shoulders, all the while expounding this
maxim, which I thought admirable: ‘It is advisable that a dress should not
incommode its wearer.’”
“In reality,” said D’Artagnan, “that is an excellent maxim, which is,
unfortunately, seldom carried out in practice.”
“That is why I found it all the more astonishing, when he expatiated upon
it.”
“Ah! he expatiated?”
“Parbleu!”
“Let me hear his theory.”
“‘Seeing that,’ he continued, ‘one may, in awkward circumstances, or in a
troublesome position, have one’s doublet on one’s shoulder, and not desire
to take one’s doublet off—‘”
“True,” said D’Artagnan.
“‘And so,’ continued M. Voliere—”
“Moliere.”
“Moliere, yes. ‘And so,’ went on M. Moliere, ‘you want to draw your
sword, monsieur, and you have your doublet on your back. What do you
do?’
“‘I take it off,’ I answered.
“‘Well, no,’ he replied.
“‘How no?’

“‘I say that the dress should be so well made, that it will in no way
encumber you, even in drawing your sword.’
“‘Ah, ah!’
“‘Throw yourself on guard,’ pursued he.
“I did it with such wondrous firmness, that two panes of glass burst out
of the window.
“‘’Tis nothing, nothing,’ said he. ‘Keep your position.’
“I raised my left arm in the air, the forearm gracefully bent, the ruffle
drooping, and my wrist curved, while my right arm, half extended, securely
covered my wrist with the elbow, and my breast with the wrist.”
“Yes,” said D’Artagnan, “‘tis the true guard—the academic guard.”
“You have said the very word, dear friend. In the meanwhile, Voliere—”
“Moliere.”
“Hold! I should certainly, after all, prefer to call him—what did you say
his other name was?”
“Poquelin.”
“I prefer to call him Poquelin.”
“And how will you remember this name better than the other?”
“You understand, he calls himself Poquelin, does he not?”
“Yes.”
“If I were to call to mind Madame Coquenard.”
“Good.”
“And change Coc into Poc, nard into lin; and instead of Coquenard I
shall have Poquelin.”
“‘Tis wonderful,” cried D’Artagnan, astounded. “Go on, my friend, I am
listening to you with admiration.”
“This Coquelin sketched my arm on the glass.”
“I beg your pardon—Poquelin.”
“What did I say, then?”
“You said Coquelin.”
“Ah! true. This Poquelin, then, sketched my arm on the glass; but he took
his time over it; he kept looking at me a good deal. The fact is, that I must

have been looking particularly handsome.”
“‘Does it weary you?’ he asked.
“‘A little,’ I replied, bending a little in my hands, ‘but I could hold out for
an hour or so longer.’
“‘No, no, I will not allow it; the willing fellows will make it a duty to
support your arms, as of old, men supported those of the prophet.’
“‘Very good,’ I answered.
“‘That will not be humiliating to you?’
“‘My friend,’ said I, ‘there is, I think, a great difference between being
supported and being measured.’”
“The distinction is full of the soundest sense,” interrupted D’Artagnan.
“Then,” continued Porthos, “he made a sign: two lads approached; one
supported my left arm, while the other, with infinite address, supported my
right.”
“‘Another, my man,’ cried he. A third approached. ‘Support monsieur by
the waist,’ said he. The garcon complied.”
“So that you were at rest?” asked D’Artagnan.
“Perfectly; and Pocquenard drew me on the glass.”
“Poquelin, my friend.”
“Poquelin—you are right. Stay, decidedly I prefer calling him Voliere.”
“Yes; and then it was over, wasn’t it?”
“During that time Voliere drew me as I appeared in the mirror.”
“‘Twas delicate in him.”
“I much like the plan; it is respectful, and keeps every one in his place.”
“And there it ended?”
“Without a soul having touched me, my friend.”
“Except the three garcons who supported you.”
“Doubtless; but I have, I think, already explained to you the difference
there is between supporting and measuring.”
“‘Tis true,” answered D’Artagnan; who said afterwards to himself,
“I’faith, I greatly deceive myself, or I have been the means of a good

windfall to that rascal Moliere, and we shall assuredly see the scene hit off
to the life in some comedy or other.” Porthos smiled.
“What are you laughing at?” asked D’Artagnan.
“Must I confess? Well, I was laughing over my good fortune.”
“Oh, that is true; I don’t know a happier man than you. But what is this
last piece of luck that has befallen you?’
“Well, my dear fellow, congratulate me.”
“I desire nothing better.”
“It seems that I am the first who has had his measure taken in that
manner.”
“Are you so sure of it?’
“Nearly so. Certain signs of intelligence which passed between Voliere
and the other garcons showed me the fact.”
“Well, my friend, that does not surprise me from Moliere,” said
D’Artagnan.
“Voliere, my friend.”
“Oh, no, no, indeed! I am very willing to leave you to go on saying
Voliere; but, as for me, I shall continued to say Moliere. Well, this, I was
saying, does not surprise me, coming from Moliere, who is a very ingenious
fellow, and inspired you with this grand idea.”
“It will be of great use to him by and by, I am sure.”
“Won’t it be of use to him, indeed? I believe you, it will, and that in the
highest degree;—for you see my friend Moliere is of all known tailors the
man who best clothes our barons, comtes, and marquises—according to
their measure.”
On this observation, neither the application nor depth of which we shall
discuss, D’Artagnan and Porthos quitted M. de Percerin’s house and
rejoined their carriages, wherein we will leave them, in order to look after
Moliere and Aramis at Saint-Mande.

Chapter VI. The Bee-Hive, the Bees, and the Honey.

The bishop of Vannes, much annoyed at having met D’Artagnan at M.
Percerin’s, returned to Saint-Mande in no very good humor. Moliere, on the
other hand, quite delighted at having made such a capital rough sketch, and
at knowing where to find his original again, whenever he should desire to
convert his sketch into a picture, Moliere arrived in the merriest of moods.
All the first story of the left wing was occupied by the most celebrated
Epicureans in Paris, and those on the freest footing in the house—every one
in his compartment, like the bees in their cells, employed in producing the
honey intended for that royal cake which M. Fouquet proposed to offer his
majesty Louis XIV. during the fete at Vaux. Pelisson, his head leaning on
his hand, was engaged in drawing out the plan of the prologue to the
“Facheux,” a comedy in three acts, which was to be put on the stage by
Poquelin de Moliere, as D’Artagnan called him, or Coquelin de Voliere, as
Porthos styled him. Loret, with all the charming innocence of a gazetteer,—
the gazetteers of all ages have always been so artless!—Loret was
composing an account of the fetes at Vaux, before those fetes had taken
place. La Fontaine sauntered about from one to the other, a peripatetic,
absent-minded, boring, unbearable dreamer, who kept buzzing and
humming at everybody’s elbow a thousand poetic abstractions. He so often
disturbed Pelisson, that the latter, raising his head, crossly said, “At least,
La Fontaine, supply me with a rhyme, since you have the run of the gardens
at Parnassus.”
“What rhyme do you want?” asked the Fabler as Madame de Sevigne
used to call him.
“I want a rhyme to lumiere.”
“Orniere,” answered La Fontaine.
“Ah, but, my good friend, one cannot talk of wheel-ruts when celebrating
the delights of Vaux,” said Loret.

“Besides, it doesn’t rhyme,” answered Pelisson.
“What! doesn’t rhyme!” cried La Fontaine, in surprise.
“Yes; you have an abominable habit, my friend,—a habit which will ever
prevent your becoming a poet of the first order. You rhyme in a slovenly
manner.”
“Oh, oh, you think so, do you, Pelisson?”
“Yes, I do, indeed. Remember that a rhyme is never good so long as one
can find a better.”
“Then I will never write anything again save in prose,” said La Fontaine,
who had taken up Pelisson’s reproach in earnest. “Ah! I often suspected I
was nothing but a rascally poet! Yes, ‘tis the very truth.”
“Do not say so; your remark is too sweeping, and there is much that is
good in your ‘Fables.’”
“And to begin,” continued La Fontaine, following up his idea, “I will go
and burn a hundred verses I have just made.”
“Where are your verses?”
“In my head.”
“Well, if they are in your head you cannot burn them.”
“True,” said La Fontaine; “but if I do not burn them—”
“Well, what will happen if you do not burn them?”
“They will remain in my mind, and I shall never forget them!”
“The deuce!” cried Loret; “what a dangerous thing! One would go mad
with it!”
“The deuce! the deuce!” repeated La Fontaine; “what can I do?”
“I have discovered the way,” said Moliere, who had entered just at this
point of the conversation.
“What way?”
“Write them first and burn them afterwards.”
“How simple! Well, I should never have discovered that. What a mind
that devil of a Moliere has!” said La Fontaine. Then, striking his forehead,
“Oh, thou wilt never be aught but an ass, Jean La Fontaine!” he added.
“What are you saying there, my friend?” broke in Moliere, approaching
the poet, whose aside he had heard.

“I say I shall never be aught but an ass,” answered La Fontaine, with a
heavy sigh and swimming eyes. “Yes, my friend,” he added, with increasing
grief, “it seems that I rhyme in a slovenly manner.”
“Oh, ‘tis wrong to say so.”
“Nay, I am a poor creature!”
“Who said so?”
“Parbleu! ‘twas Pelisson; did you not, Pelisson?”
Pelisson, again absorbed in his work, took good care not to answer.
“But if Pelisson said you were so,” cried Moliere, “Pelisson has seriously
offended you.”
“Do you think so?”
“Ah! I advise you, as you are a gentleman, not to leave an insult like that
unpunished.”
“What!” exclaimed La Fontaine.
“Did you ever fight?”
“Once only, with a lieutenant in the light horse.”
“What wrong had he done you?”
“It seems he ran away with my wife.”
“Ah, ah!” said Moliere, becoming slightly pale; but as, at La Fontaine’s
declaration, the others had turned round, Moliere kept upon his lips the
rallying smile which had so nearly died away, and continuing to make La
Fontaine speak—
“And what was the result of the duel?”
“The result was, that on the ground my opponent disarmed me, and then
made an apology, promising never again to set foot in my house.”
“And you considered yourself satisfied?” said Moliere.
“Not at all! on the contrary, I picked up my sword. ‘I beg your pardon,
monsieur,’ I said, ‘I have not fought you because you were my wife’s
friend, but because I was told I ought to fight. So, as I have never known
any peace save since you made her acquaintance, do me the pleasure to
continue your visits as heretofore, or morbleu! let us set to again.’ And so,”
continued La Fontaine, “he was compelled to resume his friendship with
madame, and I continue to be the happiest of husbands.”

All burst out laughing. Moliere alone passed his hand across his eyes.
Why? Perhaps to wipe away a tear, perhaps to smother a sigh. Alas! we
know that Moliere was a moralist, but he was not a philosopher. “‘Tis all
one,” he said, returning to the topic of the conversation, “Pelisson has
insulted you.”
“Ah, truly! I had already forgotten it.”
“And I am going to challenge him on your behalf.”
“Well, you can do so, if you think it indispensable.”
“I do think it indispensable, and I am going to—”
“Stay,” exclaimed La Fontaine, “I want your advice.”
“Upon what? this insult?”
“No; tell me really now whether lumiere does not rhyme with orniere.”
“I should make them rhyme.”
“Ah! I knew you would.”
“And I have made a hundred thousand such rhymes in my time.”
“A hundred thousand!” cried La Fontaine. “Four times as many as ‘La
Pucelle,’ which M. Chaplain is meditating. Is it also on this subject, too, that
you have composed a hundred thousand verses?”
“Listen to me, you eternally absent-minded creature,” said Moliere.
“It is certain,” continued La Fontaine, “that legume, for instance, rhymes
with posthume.”
“In the plural, above all.”
“Yes, above all in the plural, seeing that then it rhymes not with three
letters, but with four; as orniere does with lumiere.”
“But give me ornieres and lumieres in the plural, my dear Pelisson,” said
La Fontaine, clapping his hand on the shoulder of his friend, whose insult
he had quite forgotten, “and they will rhyme.”
“Hem!” coughed Pelisson.
“Moliere says so, and Moliere is a judge of such things; he declares he
has himself made a hundred thousand verses.”
“Come,” said Moliere, laughing, “he is off now.”
“It is like rivage, which rhymes admirably with herbage. I would take
my oath of it.”

“But—” said Moliere.
“I tell you all this,” continued La Fontaine, “because you are preparing a
divertissement for Vaux, are you not?”
“Yes, the ‘Facheux.’”
“Ah, yes, the ‘Facheux;’ yes, I recollect. Well, I was thinking a prologue
would admirably suit your divertissement.”
“Doubtless it would suit capitally.”
“Ah! you are of my opinion?”
“So much so, that I have asked you to write this very prologue.”
“You asked me to write it?”
“Yes, you, and on your refusal begged you to ask Pelisson, who is
engaged upon it at this moment.”
“Ah! that is what Pelisson is doing, then? I’faith, my dear Moliere, you
are indeed often right.”
“When?”
“When you call me absent-minded. It is a monstrous defect; I will cure
myself of it, and do your prologue for you.”
“But inasmuch as Pelisson is about it!—”
“Ah, true, miserable rascal that I am! Loret was indeed right in saying I
was a poor creature.”
“It was not Loret who said so, my friend.”
“Well, then, whoever said so, ‘tis the same to me! And so your
divertissement is called the ‘Facheux?’ Well, can you make heureux rhyme
with facheux?”
“If obliged, yes.”
“And even with capriceux.”
“Oh, no, no.”
“It would be hazardous, and yet why so?”
“There is too great a difference in the cadences.”
“I was fancying,” said La Fontaine, leaving Moliere for Loret—“I was
fancying—”

“What were you fancying?” said Loret, in the middle of a sentence.
“Make haste.”
“You are writing the prologue to the ‘Facheux,’ are you not?”
“No! mordieu! it is Pelisson.”
“Ah, Pelisson,” cried La Fontaine, going over to him, “I was fancying,”
he continued, “that the nymph of Vaux—”
“Ah, beautiful!” cried Loret. “The nymph of Vaux! thank you, La
Fontaine; you have just given me the two concluding verses of my paper.”
“Well, if you can rhyme so well, La Fontaine,” said Pelisson, “tell me
now in what way you would begin my prologue?”
“I should say, for instance, ‘Oh! nymph, who—’ After ‘who’ I should
place a verb in the second person singular of the present indicative; and
should go on thus: ‘this grot profound.’”
“But the verb, the verb?” asked Pelisson.
“To admire the greatest king of all kings round,” continued La Fontaine.
“But the verb, the verb,” obstinately insisted Pelisson. “This second
person singular of the present indicative?”
“Well, then; quittest:
“Oh, nymph, who quittest now this grot profound, To admire the greatest
king of all kings round.”
“You would not put ‘who quittest,’ would you?”
“Why not?”
“‘Quittest,’ after ‘you who’?”
“Ah! my dear fellow,” exclaimed La Fontaine, “you are a shocking
pedant!”
“Without counting,” said Moliere, “that the second verse, ‘king of all
kings round,’ is very weak, my dear La Fontaine.”
“Then you see clearly I am nothing but a poor creature,—a shuffler, as
you said.”
“I never said so.”
“Then, as Loret said.”
“And it was not Loret either; it was Pelisson.”

“Well, Pelisson was right a hundred times over. But what annoys me
more than anything, my dear Moliere, is, that I fear we shall not have our
Epicurean dresses.”
“You expected yours, then, for the fete?”
“Yes, for the fete, and then for after the fete. My housekeeper told me that
my own is rather faded.”
“Diable! your housekeeper is right; rather more than faded.”
“Ah, you see,” resumed La Fontaine, “the fact is, I left it on the floor in
my room, and my cat—”
“Well, your cat—”
“She made her nest upon it, which has rather changed its color.”
Moliere burst out laughing; Pelisson and Loret followed his example. At
this juncture, the bishop of Vannes appeared, with a roll of plans and
parchments under his arm. As if the angel of death had chilled all gay and
sprightly fancies—as if that wan form had scared away the Graces to whom
Xenocrates sacrificed—silence immediately reigned through the study, and
every one resumed his self-possession and his pen. Aramis distributed the
notes of invitation, and thanked them in the name of M. Fouquet. “The
superintendent,” he said, “being kept to his room by business, could not
come and see them, but begged them to send him some of the fruits of their
day’s work, to enable him to forget the fatigue of his labor in the night.”
At these words, all settled down to work. La Fontaine placed himself at a
table, and set his rapid pen an endless dance across the smooth white
vellum; Pelisson made a fair copy of his prologue; Moliere contributed fifty
fresh verses, with which his visit to Percerin had inspired him; Loret, an
article on the marvelous fetes he predicted; and Aramis, laden with his
booty like the king of the bees, that great black drone, decked with purple
and gold, re-entered his apartment, silent and busy. But before departing,
“Remember, gentlemen,” said he, “we leave to-morrow evening.”
“In that case, I must give notice at home,” said Moliere.
“Yes; poor Moliere!” said Loret, smiling; “he loves his home.”
“‘He loves,’ yes,” replied Moliere, with his sad, sweet smile. “‘He loves,’
that does not mean, they love him.”

“As for me,” said La Fontaine, “they love me at Chateau Thierry, I am
very sure.”
Aramis here re-entered after a brief disappearance.
“Will any one go with me?” he asked. “I am going by Paris, after having
passed a quarter of an hour with M. Fouquet. I offer my carriage.”
“Good,” said Moliere, “I accept it. I am in a hurry.”
“I shall dine here,” said Loret. “M. de Gourville has promised me some
craw-fish.”
“He has promised me some whitings. Find a rhyme for that, La
Fontaine.”
Aramis went out laughing, as only he could laugh, and Moliere followed
him. They were at the bottom of the stairs, when La Fontaine opened the
door, and shouted out:
“He has promised us some whitings, In return for these our writings.”
The shouts of laughter reached the ears of Fouquet at the moment Aramis
opened the door of the study. As to Moliere, he had undertaken to order the
horses, while Aramis went to exchange a parting word with the
superintendent. “Oh, how they are laughing there!” said Fouquet, with a
sigh.
“Do you not laugh, monseigneur?”
“I laugh no longer now, M. d’Herblay. The fete is approaching; money is
departing.”
“Have I not told you that was my business?”
“Yes, you promised me millions.”
“You shall have them the day after the king’s entree into Vaux.”
Fouquet looked closely at Aramis, and passed the back of his icy hand
across his moistened brow. Aramis perceived that the superintendent either
doubted him, or felt he was powerless to obtain the money. How could
Fouquet suppose that a poor bishop, ex-abbe, ex-musketeer, could find any?
“Why doubt me?” said Aramis. Fouquet smiled and shook his head.
“Man of little faith!” added the bishop.
“My dear M. d’Herblay,” answered Fouquet, “if I fall—”
“Well; if you ‘fall’?”

“I shall, at least, fall from such a height, that I shall shatter myself in
falling.” Then giving himself a shake, as though to escape from himself,
“Whence came you,” said he, “my friend?”
“From Paris—from Percerin.”
“And what have you been doing at Percerin’s, for I suppose you attach no
great importance to our poets’ dresses?”
“No; I went to prepare a surprise.”
“Surprise?”
“Yes; which you are going to give to the king.”
“And will it cost much?”
“Oh! a hundred pistoles you will give Lebrun.”
“A painting?—Ah! all the better! And what is this painting to represent?”
“I will tell you; then at the same time, whatever you may say or think of
it, I went to see the dresses for our poets.”
“Bah! and they will be rich and elegant?”
“Splendid! There will be few great monseigneurs with so good. People
will see the difference there is between the courtiers of wealth and those of
friendship.”
“Ever generous and grateful, dear prelate.”
“In your school.”
Fouquet grasped his hand. “And where are you going?” he said.
“I am off to Paris, when you shall have given a certain letter.”
“For whom?”
“M. de Lyonne.”
“And what do you want with Lyonne?”
“I wish to make him sign a lettre de cachet.”
“‘Lettre de cachet!’ Do you desire to put somebody in the Bastile?”
“On the contrary—to let somebody out.”
“And who?”
“A poor devil—a youth, a lad who has been Bastiled these ten years, for
two Latin verses he made against the Jesuits.”

“‘Two Latin verses!’ and, for ‘two Latin verses,’ the miserable being has
been in prison for ten years!”
“Yes!”
“And has committed no other crime?”
“Beyond this, he is as innocent as you or I.”
“On your word?”
“On my honor!”
“And his name is—”
“Seldon.”
“Yes.—But it is too bad. You knew this, and you never told me!”
“‘Twas only yesterday his mother applied to me, monseigneur.”
“And the woman is poor!”
“In the deepest misery.”
“Heaven,” said Fouquet, “sometimes bears with such injustice on earth,
that I hardly wonder there are wretches who doubt of its existence. Stay, M.
d’Herblay.” And Fouquet, taking a pen, wrote a few rapid lines to his
colleague Lyonne. Aramis took the letter and made ready to go.
“Wait,” said Fouquet. He opened his drawer, and took out ten
government notes which were there, each for a thousand francs. “Stay,” he
said; “set the son at liberty, and give this to the mother; but, above all, do
not tell her—”
“What, monseigneur?”
“That she is ten thousand livres richer than I. She would say I am but a
poor superintendent! Go! and I pray that God will bless those who are
mindful of his poor!”
“So also do I pray,” replied Aramis, kissing Fouquet’s hand.
And he went out quickly, carrying off the letter for Lyonne and the notes
for Seldon’s mother, and taking up Moliere, who was beginning to lose
patience.

Chapter VII. Another Supper at the Bastile.

Seven o’clock sounded from the great clock of the Bastile, that famous
clock, which, like all the accessories of the state prison, the very use of
which is a torture, recalled to the prisoners’ minds the destination of every
hour of their punishment. The time-piece of the Bastile, adorned with
figures, like most of the clocks of the period, represented St. Peter in bonds.
It was the supper hour of the unfortunate captives. The doors, grating on
their enormous hinges, opened for the passage of the baskets and trays of
provisions, the abundance and the delicacy of which, as M. de Baisemeaux
has himself taught us, was regulated by the condition in life of the prisoner.
We understand on this head the theories of M. de Baisemeaux, sovereign
dispenser of gastronomic delicacies, head cook of the royal fortress, whose
trays, full-laden, were ascending the steep staircases, carrying some
consolation to the prisoners in the shape of honestly filled bottles of good
vintages. This same hour was that of M. le gouverneur’s supper also. He
had a guest to-day, and the spit turned more heavily than usual. Roast
partridges, flanked with quails and flanking a larded leveret; boiled fowls;
hams, fried and sprinkled with white wine, cardons of Guipuzcoa and la
bisque ecrevisses: these, together with soups and hors d’oeuvres,
constituted the governor’s bill of fare. Baisemeaux, seated at table, was
rubbing his hands and looking at the bishop of Vannes, who, booted like a
cavalier, dressed in gray and sword at side, kept talking of his hunger and
testifying the liveliest impatience. M. de Baisemeaux de Montlezun was not
accustomed to the unbending movements of his greatness my lord of
Vannes, and this evening Aramis, becoming sprightly, volunteered
confidence on confidence. The prelate had again a little touch of the
musketeer about him. The bishop just trenched on the borders only of
license in his style of conversation. As for M. de Baisemeaux, with the
facility of vulgar people, he gave himself up entirely upon this point of his

guest’s freedom. “Monsieur,” said he, “for indeed to-night I dare not call
you monseigneur.”
“By no means,” said Aramis; “call me monsieur; I am booted.”
“Do you know, monsieur, of whom you remind me this evening?”
“No! faith,” said Aramis, taking up his glass; “but I hope I remind you of
a capital guest.”
“You remind me of two, monsieur. Francois, shut the window; the wind
may annoy his greatness.”
“And let him go,” added Aramis. “The supper is completely served, and
we shall eat it very well without waiters. I like exceedingly to be tete-a-tete
when I am with a friend.” Baisemeaux bowed respectfully.
“I like exceedingly,” continued Aramis, “to help myself.”
“Retire, Francois,” cried Baisemeaux. “I was saying that your greatness
puts me in mind of two persons; one very illustrious, the late cardinal, the
great Cardinal de la Rochelle, who wore boots like you.”
“Indeed,” said Aramis; “and the other?”
“The other was a certain musketeer, very handsome, very brave, very
adventurous, very fortunate, who, from being abbe, turned musketeer, and
from musketeer turned abbe.” Aramis condescended to smile. “From abbe,”
continued Baisemeaux, encouraged by Aramis’s smile—“from abbe, bishop
—and from bishop—”
“Ah! stay there, I beg,” exclaimed Aramis.
“I have just said, monsieur, that you gave me the idea of a cardinal.”
“Enough, dear M. Baisemeaux. As you said, I have on the boots of a
cavalier, but I do not intend, for all that, to embroil myself with the church
this evening.”
“But you have wicked intentions, nevertheless, monseigneur.”
“Oh, yes, wicked, I own, as everything mundane is.”
“You traverse the town and the streets in disguise?”
“In disguise, as you say.”
“And you still make use of your sword?”
“Yes, I should think so; but only when I am compelled. Do me the
pleasure to summon Francois.”

“Have you no wine there?”
“‘Tis not for wine, but because it is hot here, and the window is shut.”
“I shut the windows at supper-time so as not to hear the sounds or the
arrival of couriers.”
“Ah, yes. You hear them when the window is open?”
“But too well, and that disturbs me. You understand?”
“Nevertheless I am suffocated. Francois.” Francois entered. “Open the
windows, I pray you, Master Francois,” said Aramis. “You will allow him,
dear M. Baisemeaux?”
“You are at home here,” answered the governor. The window was
opened. “Do you not think,” said M. de Baisemeaux, “that you will find
yourself very lonely, now M. de la Fere has returned to his household gods
at Blois? He is a very old friend, is he not?”
“You know it as I do, Baisemeaux, seeing that you were in the
musketeers with us.”
“Bah! with my friends I reckon neither bottles of wine nor years.”
“And you are right. But I do more than love M. de la Fere, dear
Baisemeaux; I venerate him.”
“Well, for my part, though ‘tis singular,” said the governor, “I prefer M.
d’Artagnan to him. There is a man for you, who drinks long and well! That
kind of people allow you at least to penetrate their thoughts.”
“Baisemeaux, make me tipsy to-night; let us have a merry time of it as of
old, and if I have a trouble at the bottom of my heart, I promise you, you
shall see it as you would a diamond at the bottom of your glass.”
“Bravo!” said Baisemeaux, and he poured out a great glass of wine and
drank it off at a draught, trembling with joy at the idea of being, by hook or
by crook, in the secret of some high archiepiscopal misdemeanor. While he
was drinking he did not see with what attention Aramis was noting the
sounds in the great court. A courier came in about eight o’clock as Francois
brought in the fifth bottle, and, although the courier made a great noise,
Baisemeaux heard nothing.
“The devil take him,” said Aramis.
“What! who?” asked Baisemeaux. “I hope ‘tis neither the wine you drank
nor he who is the cause of your drinking it.”

“No; it is a horse, who is making noise enough in the court for a whole
squadron.”
“Pooh! some courier or other,” replied the governor, redoubling his
attention to the passing bottle. “Yes; and may the devil take him, and so
quickly that we shall never hear him speak more. Hurrah! hurrah!”
“You forget me, Baisemeaux! my glass is empty,” said Aramis, lifting his
dazzling Venetian goblet.
“Upon my honor, you delight me. Francois, wine!” Francois entered.
“Wine, fellow! and better.”
“Yes, monsieur, yes; but a courier has just arrived.”
“Let him go to the devil, I say.”
“Yes, monsieur, but—”
“Let him leave his news at the office; we will see to it to-morrow. To-
morrow, there will be time to-morrow; there will be daylight,” said
Baisemeaux, chanting the words.
“Ah, monsieur,” grumbled the soldier Francois, in spite of himself,
“monsieur.”
“Take care,” said Aramis, “take care!”
“Of what? dear M. d’Herblay,” said Baisemeaux, half intoxicated.
“The letter which the courier brings to the governor of a fortress is
sometimes an order.”
“Nearly always.”
“Do not orders issue from the ministers?”
“Yes, undoubtedly; but—”
“And what to these ministers do but countersign the signature of the
king?”
“Perhaps you are right. Nevertheless, ‘tis very tiresome when you are
sitting before a good table, tete-a-tete with a friend—Ah! I beg your
pardon, monsieur; I forgot it is I who engage you at supper, and that I speak
to a future cardinal.”
“Let us pass over that, dear Baisemeaux, and return to our soldier, to
Francois.”
“Well, and what has Francois done?”

“He has demurred!”
“He was wrong, then?”
“However, he has demurred, you see; ‘tis because there is something
extraordinary in this matter. It is very possible that it was not Francois who
was wrong in demurring, but you, who are in the wrong in not listening to
him.”
“Wrong? I to be wrong before Francois? that seems rather hard.”
“Pardon me, merely an irregularity. But I thought it my duty to make an
observation which I deem important.”
“Oh! perhaps you are right,” stammered Baisemeaux. “The king’s order
is sacred; but as to orders that arrive when one is at supper, I repeat that the
devil—”
“If you had said as much to the great cardinal—hem! my dear
Baisemeaux, and if his order had any importance.”
“I do it that I may not disturb a bishop. Mordioux! am I not, then,
excusable?”
“Do not forget, Baisemeaux, that I have worn the soldier’s coat, and I am
accustomed to obedience everywhere.”
“You wish, then—”
“I wish that you would do your duty, my friend; yes, at least before this
soldier.”
“‘Tis mathematically true,” exclaimed Baisemeaux. Francois still waited:
“Let them send this order of the king’s up to me,” he repeated, recovering
himself. And he added in a low tone, “Do you know what it is? I will tell
you something about as interesting as this. ‘Beware of fire near the powder
magazine;’ or, ‘Look close after such and such a one, who is clever at
escaping,’ Ah! if you only knew, monseigneur, how many times I have been
suddenly awakened from the very sweetest, deepest slumber, by messengers
arriving at full gallop to tell me, or rather, bring me a slip of paper
containing these words: ‘Monsieur de Baisemeaux, what news?’ ‘Tis clear
enough that those who waste their time writing such orders have never slept
in the Bastile. They would know better; they have never considered the
thickness of my walls, the vigilance of my officers, the number of rounds
we go. But, indeed, what can you expect, monseigneur? It is their business
to write and torment me when I am at rest, and to trouble me when I am

happy,” added Baisemeaux, bowing to Aramis. “Then let them do their
business.”
“And do you do yours,” added the bishop, smiling.
Francois re-entered; Baisemeaux took from his hands the minister’s
order. He slowly undid it, and as slowly read it. Aramis pretended to be
drinking, so as to be able to watch his host through the glass. Then,
Baisemeaux, having read it: “What was I just saying?” he exclaimed.
“What is it?” asked the bishop.
“An order of release! There, now; excellent news indeed to disturb us!”
“Excellent news for him whom it concerns, you will at least agree, my
dear governor!”
“And at eight o’clock in the evening!”
“It is charitable!”
“Oh! charity is all very well, but it is for that fellow who says he is so
weary and tired, but not for me who am amusing myself,” said Baisemeaux,
exasperated.
“Will you lose by him, then? And is the prisoner who is to be set at
liberty a good payer?”
“Oh, yes, indeed! a miserable, five-franc rat!”
“Let me see it,” asked M. d’Herblay. “It is no indiscretion?”
“By no means; read it.”
“There is ‘Urgent,’ on the paper; you have seen that, I suppose?”
“Oh, admirable! ‘Urgent!’—a man who has been there ten years! It is
urgent to set him free to-day, this very evening, at eight o’clock!—urgent!”
And Baisemeaux, shrugging his shoulders with an air of supreme disdain,
flung the order on the table and began eating again.
“They are fond of these tricks!” he said, with his mouth full; “they seize a
man, some fine day, keep him under lock and key for ten years, and write to
you, ‘Watch this fellow well,’ or ‘Keep him very strictly.’ And then, as soon
as you are accustomed to look upon the prisoner as a dangerous man, all of
a sudden, without rhyme or reason they write—‘Set him at liberty,’ and
actually add to their missive—‘urgent.’ You will own, my lord, ‘tis enough
to make a man at dinner shrug his shoulders!”

“What do you expect? It is for them to write,” said Aramis, “for you to
execute the order.”
“Good! good! execute it! Oh, patience! You must not imagine that I am a
slave.”
“Gracious Heaven! my very good M. Baisemeaux, who ever said so?
Your independence is well known.”
“Thank Heaven!”
“But your goodness of heart is also known.”
“Ah! don’t speak of it!”
“And your obedience to your superiors. Once a soldier, you see,
Baisemeaux, always a soldier.”
“And I shall directly obey; and to-morrow morning, at daybreak, the
prisoner referred to shall be set free.”
“To-morrow?”
“At dawn.”
“Why not this evening, seeing that the lettre de cachet bears, both on the
direction and inside, ‘urgent’?”
“Because this evening we are at supper, and our affairs are urgent, too!”
“Dear Baisemeaux, booted though I be, I feel myself a priest, and charity
has higher claims upon me than hunger and thirst. This unfortunate man has
suffered long enough, since you have just told me that he has been your
prisoner these ten years. Abridge his suffering. His good time has come;
give him the benefit quickly. God will repay you in Paradise with years of
felicity.”
“You wish it?”
“I entreat you.”
“What! in the very middle of our repast?”
“I implore you; such an action is worth ten Benedicites.”
“It shall be as you desire, only our supper will get cold.”
“Oh! never heed that.”
Baisemeaux leaned back to ring for Francois, and by a very natural
motion turned round towards the door. The order had remained on the table;
Aramis seized the opportunity when Baisemeaux was not looking to change

the paper for another, folded in the same manner, which he drew swiftly
from his pocket. “Francois,” said the governor, “let the major come up here
with the turnkeys of the Bertaudiere.” Francois bowed and quitted the room,
leaving the two companions alone.

Chapter VIII. The General of the Order.

There was now a brief silence, during which Aramis never removed his
eyes from Baisemeaux for a moment. The latter seemed only half decided
to disturb himself thus in the middle of supper, and it was clear he was
trying to invent some pretext, whether good or bad, for delay, at any rate till
after dessert. And it appeared also that he had hit upon an excuse at last.
“Eh! but it is impossible!” he cried.
“How impossible?” said Aramis. “Give me a glimpse of this
impossibility.”
“‘Tis impossible to set a prisoner at liberty at such an hour. Where can he
go to, a man so unacquainted with Paris?”
“He will find a place wherever he can.”
“You see, now, one might as well set a blind man free!”
“I have a carriage, and will take him wherever he wishes.”
“You have an answer for everything. Francois, tell monsieur le major to
go and open the cell of M. Seldon, No. 3, Bertaudiere.”
“Seldon!” exclaimed Aramis, very naturally. “You said Seldon, I think?”
“I said Seldon, of course. ‘Tis the name of the man they set free.”
“Oh! you mean to say Marchiali?” said Aramis.
“Marchiali? oh! yes, indeed. No, no, Seldon.”
“I think you are making a mistake, Monsieur Baisemeaux.”
“I have read the order.”
“And I also.”
“And I saw ‘Seldon’ in letters as large as that,” and Baisemeaux held up
his finger.
“And I read ‘Marchiali’ in characters as large as this,” said Aramis, also
holding up two fingers.

“To the proof; let us throw a light on the matter,” said Baisemeaux,
confident he was right. “There is the paper, you have only to read it.”
“I read ‘Marchiali,’” returned Aramis, spreading out the paper. “Look.”
Baisemeaux looked, and his arms dropped suddenly. “Yes, yes,” he said,
quite overwhelmed; “yes, Marchiali. ‘Tis plainly written Marchiali! Quite
true!”
“Ah!—”
“How? the man of whom we have talked so much? The man whom they
are every day telling me to take such care of?”
“There is ‘Marchiali,’” repeated the inflexible Aramis.
“I must own it, monseigneur. But I understand nothing about it.”
“You believe your eyes, at any rate.”
“To tell me very plainly there is ‘Marchiali.’”
“And in a good handwriting, too.”
“‘Tis a wonder! I still see this order and the name of Seldon, Irishman. I
see it. Ah! I even recollect that under this name there was a blot of ink.”
“No, there is no ink; no, there is no blot.”
“Oh! but there was, though; I know it, because I rubbed my finger—this
very one—in the powder that was over the blot.”
“In a word, be it how it may, dear M. Baisemeaux,” said Aramis, “and
whatever you may have seen, the order is signed to release Marchiali, blot
or no blot.”
“The order is signed to release Marchiali,” replied Baisemeaux,
mechanically, endeavoring to regain his courage.
“And you are going to release this prisoner. If your heart dictates you to
deliver Seldon also, I declare to you I will not oppose it the least in the
world.” Aramis accompanied this remark with a smile, the irony of which
effectually dispelled Baisemeaux’s confusion of mind, and restored his
courage.
“Monseigneur,” he said, “this Marchiali is the very same prisoner whom
the other day a priest confessor of our order came to visit in so imperious
and so secret a manner.”
“I don’t know that, monsieur,” replied the bishop.

“‘Tis no such long time ago, dear Monsieur d’Herblay.”
“It is true. But with us, monsieur, it is good that the man of to-day should
no longer know what the man of yesterday did.”
“In any case,” said Baisemeaux, “the visit of the Jesuit confessor must
have given happiness to this man.”
Aramis made no reply, but recommenced eating and drinking. As for
Baisemeaux, no longer touching anything that was on the table, he again
took up the order and examined it every way. This investigation, under
ordinary circumstances, would have made the ears of the impatient Aramis
burn with anger; but the bishop of Vannes did not become incensed for so
little, above all, when he had murmured to himself that to do so was
dangerous. “Are you going to release Marchiali?” he said. “What mellow,
fragrant and delicious sherry this is, my dear governor.”
“Monseigneur,” replied Baisemeaux, “I shall release the prisoner
Marchiali when I have summoned the courier who brought the order, and
above all, when, by interrogating him, I have satisfied myself.”
“The order is sealed, and the courier is ignorant of the contents. What do
you want to satisfy yourself about?”
“Be it so, monseigneur; but I shall send to the ministry, and M. de
Lyonne will either confirm or withdraw the order.”
“What is the good of all that?” asked Aramis, coldly.
“What good?”
“Yes; what is your object, I ask?”
“The object of never deceiving oneself, monseigneur; nor being wanting
in the respect which a subaltern owes to his superior officers, nor infringing
the duties of a service one has accepted of one’s own free will.”
“Very good; you have just spoken so eloquently, that I cannot but admire
you. It is true that a subaltern owes respect to his superiors; he is guilty
when he deceives himself, and he should be punished if he infringed either
the duties or laws of his office.”
Baisemeaux looked at the bishop with astonishment.
“It follows,” pursued Aramis, “that you are going to ask advice, to put
your conscience at ease in the matter?”
“Yes, monseigneur.”

“And if a superior officer gives you orders, you will obey?”
“Never doubt it, monseigneur.”
“You know the king’s signature well, M. de Baisemeaux?”
“Yes, monseigneur.”
“Is it not on this order of release?”
“It is true, but it may—”
“Be forged, you mean?”
“That is evident, monseigneur.”
“You are right. And that of M. de Lyonne?”
“I see it plain enough on the order; but for the same reason that the king’s
signature may have been forged, so also, and with even greater probability,
may M. de Lyonne’s.”
“Your logic has the stride of a giant, M. de Baisemeaux,” said Aramis;
“and your reasoning is irresistible. But on what special grounds do you base
your idea that these signatures are false?”
“On this: the absence of counter-signatures. Nothing checks his majesty’s
signature; and M. de Lyonne is not there to tell me he has signed.”
“Well, Monsieur de Baisemeaux,” said Aramis, bending an eagle glance
on the governor, “I adopt so frankly your doubts, and your mode of clearing
them up, that I will take a pen, if you will give me one.”
Baisemeaux gave him a pen.
“And a sheet of white paper,” added Aramis.
Baisemeaux handed him some paper.
“Now, I—I, also—I, here present—incontestably, I—am going to write
an order to which I am certain you will give credence, incredulous as you
are!”
Baisemeaux turned pale at this icy assurance of manner. It seemed to him
that the voice of the bishop’s, but just now so playful and gay, had become
funereal and sad; that the wax lights changed into the tapers of a mortuary
chapel, the very glasses of wine into chalices of blood.
Aramis took a pen and wrote. Baisemeaux, in terror, read over his
shoulder.

“A. M. D. G.,” wrote the bishop; and he drew a cross under these four
letters, which signify ad majorem Dei gloriam, “to the greater glory of
God;” and thus he continued: “It is our pleasure that the order brought to M.
de Baisemeaux de Montlezun, governor, for the king, of the castle of the
Bastile, be held by him good and effectual, and be immediately carried into
operation.”
(Signed) D’HERBLAY
“General of the Order, by the grace of God.”
Baisemeaux was so profoundly astonished, that his features remained
contracted, his lips parted, and his eyes fixed. He did not move an inch, nor
articulate a sound. Nothing could be heard in that large chamber but the
wing-whisper of a little moth, which was fluttering to its death about the
candles. Aramis, without even deigning to look at the man whom he had
reduced to so miserable a condition, drew from his pocket a small case of
black wax; he sealed the letter, and stamped it with a seal suspended at his
breast, beneath his doublet, and when the operation was concluded,
presented—still in silence—the missive to M. de Baisemeaux. The latter,
whose hands trembled in a manner to excite pity, turned a dull and
meaningless gaze upon the letter. A last gleam of feeling played over his
features, and he fell, as if thunder-struck, on a chair.
“Come, come,” said Aramis, after a long silence, during which the
governor of the Bastile had slowly recovered his senses, “do not lead me to
believe, dear Baisemeaux, that the presence of the general of the order is as
terrible as His, and that men die merely from having seen Him. Take
courage, rouse yourself; give me your hand—obey.”
Baisemeaux, reassured, if not satisfied, obeyed, kissed Aramis’s hand,
and rose. “Immediately?” he murmured.
“Oh, there is no pressing haste, my host; take your place again, and do
the honors over this beautiful dessert.”
“Monseigneur, I shall never recover such a shock as this; I who have
laughed, who have jested with you! I who have dared to treat you on a
footing of equality!”
“Say nothing about it, old comrade,” replied the bishop, who perceived
how strained the cord was and how dangerous it would have been to break
it; “say nothing about it. Let us each live in our own way; to you, my

protection and my friendship; to me, your obedience. Having exactly
fulfilled these two requirements, let us live happily.”
Baisemeaux reflected; he perceived, at a glance, the consequence of this
withdrawal of a prisoner by means of a forged order; and, putting in the
scale the guarantee offered him by the official order of the general, did not
consider it of any value.
Aramis divined this. “My dear Baisemeaux,” said he, “you are a
simpleton. Lose this habit of reflection when I give myself the trouble to
think for you.”
And at another gesture he made, Baisemeaux bowed again. “How shall I
set about it?” he said.
“What is the process for releasing a prisoner?”
“I have the regulations.”
“Well, then, follow the regulations, my friend.”
“I go with my major to the prisoner’s room, and conduct him, if he is a
personage of importance.”
“But this Marchiali is not an important personage,” said Aramis
carelessly.
“I don’t know,” answered the governor, as if he would have said, “It is
for you to instruct me.”
“Then if you don’t know it, I am right; so act towards Marchiali as you
act towards one of obscure station.”
“Good; the regulations so provide. They are to the effect that the turnkey,
or one of the lower officials, shall bring the prisoner before the governor, in
the office.”
“Well, ‘tis very wise, that; and then?”
“Then we return to the prisoner the valuables he wore at the time of his
imprisonment, his clothes and papers, if the minister’s orders have not
otherwise dictated.”
“What was the minister’s order as to this Marchiali?”
“Nothing; for the unhappy man arrived here without jewels, without
papers, and almost without clothes.”
“See how simple, then, all is. Indeed, Baisemeaux, you make a mountain
of everything. Remain here, and make them bring the prisoner to the

governor’s house.”
Baisemeaux obeyed. He summoned his lieutenant, and gave him an
order, which the latter passed on, without disturbing himself about it, to the
next whom it concerned.
Half an hour afterwards they heard a gate shut in the court; it was the
door to the dungeon, which had just rendered up its prey to the free air.
Aramis blew out all the candles which lighted the room but one, which he
left burning behind the door. This flickering glare prevented the sight from
resting steadily on any object. It multiplied tenfold the changing forms and
shadows of the place, by its wavering uncertainty. Steps drew near.
“Go and meet your men,” said Aramis to Baisemeaux.
The governor obeyed. The sergeant and turnkeys disappeared.
Baisemeaux re-entered, followed by a prisoner. Aramis had placed himself
in the shade; he saw without being seen. Baisemeaux, in an agitated tone of
voice, made the young man acquainted with the order which set him at
liberty. The prisoner listened, without making a single gesture or saying a
word.
“You will swear (‘tis the regulation that requires it),” added the governor,
“never to reveal anything that you have seen or heard in the Bastile.”
The prisoner perceived a crucifix; he stretched out his hands and swore
with his lips. “And now, monsieur, you are free. Whither do you intend
going?”
The prisoner turned his head, as if looking behind him for some
protection, on which he ought to rely. Then was it that Aramis came out of
the shade: “I am here,” he said, “to render the gentleman whatever service
he may please to ask.”
The prisoner slightly reddened, and, without hesitation, passed his arm
through that of Aramis. “God have you in his holy keeping,” he said, in a
voice the firmness of which made the governor tremble as much as the form
of the blessing astonished him.
Aramis, on shaking hands with Baisemeaux, said to him; “Does my order
trouble you? Do you fear their finding it here, should they come to search?”
“I desire to keep it, monseigneur,” said Baisemeaux. “If they found it
here, it would be a certain indication I should be lost, and in that case you
would be a powerful and a last auxiliary for me.”

“Being your accomplice, you mean?” answered Aramis, shrugging his
shoulders. “Adieu, Baisemeaux,” said he.
The horses were in waiting, making each rusty spring reverberate the
carriage again with their impatience. Baisemeaux accompanied the bishop
to the bottom of the steps. Aramis caused his companion to mount before
him, then followed, and without giving the driver any further order, “Go
on,” said he. The carriage rattled over the pavement of the courtyard. An
officer with a torch went before the horses, and gave orders at every post to
let them pass. During the time taken in opening all the barriers, Aramis
barely breathed, and you might have heard his “sealed heart knock against
his ribs.” The prisoner, buried in a corner of the carriage, made no more
sign of life than his companion. At length, a jolt more sever than the others
announced to them that they had cleared the last watercourse. Behind the
carriage closed the last gate, that in the Rue St. Antoine. No more walls
either on the right or the left; heaven everywhere, liberty everywhere, and
life everywhere. The horses, kept in check by a vigorous hand, went quietly
as far as the middle of the faubourg. There they began to trot. Little by little,
whether they were warming to their work, or whether they were urged, they
gained in swiftness, and once past Bercy, the carriage seemed to fly, so
great was the ardor of the coursers. The horses galloped thus as far as
Villeneuve St. George’s, where relays were waiting. Then four instead of
two whirled the carriage away in the direction of Melun, and pulled up for a
moment in the middle of the forest of Senart. No doubt the order had been
given the postilion beforehand, for Aramis had no occasion even to make a
sign.
“What is the matter?” asked the prisoner, as if waking from a long dream.
“The matter is, monseigneur,” said Aramis, “that before going further, it
is necessary your royal highness and I should converse.”
“I will await an opportunity, monsieur,” answered the young prince.
“We could not have a better, monseigneur. We are in the middle of a
forest, and no one can hear us.”
“The postilion?”
“The postilion of this relay is deaf and dumb, monseigneur.”
“I am at your service, M. d’Herblay.”
“Is it your pleasure to remain in the carriage?”

“Yes; we are comfortably seated, and I like this carriage, for it has
restored me to liberty.”
“Wait, monseigneur; there is yet a precaution to be taken.”
“What?”
“We are here on the highway; cavaliers or carriages traveling like
ourselves might pass, and seeing us stopping, deem us in some difficulty.
Let us avoid offers of assistance, which would embarrass us.”
“Give the postilion orders to conceal the carriage in one of the side
avenues.”
“‘Tis exactly what I wished to do, monseigneur.”
Aramis made a sign to the deaf and dumb driver of the carriage, whom he
touched on the arm. The latter dismounted, took the leaders by the bridle,
and led them over the velvet sward and the mossy grass of a winding alley,
at the bottom of which, on this moonless night, the deep shades formed a
curtain blacker than ink. This done, the man lay down on a slope near his
horses, who, on either side, kept nibbling the young oak shoots.
“I am listening,” said the young prince to Aramis; “but what are you
doing there?”
“I am disarming myself of my pistols, of which we have no further need,
monseigneur.”

Chapter IX. The Tempter.

“My prince,” said Aramis, turning in the carriage towards his companion,
“weak creature as I am, so unpretending in genius, so low in the scale of
intelligent beings, it has never yet happened to me to converse with a man
without penetrating his thoughts through that living mask which has been
thrown over our mind, in order to retain its expression. But to-night, in this
darkness, in the reserve which you maintain, I can read nothing on your
features, and something tells me that I shall have great difficulty in wresting
from you a sincere declaration. I beseech you, then, not for love of me, for
subjects should never weigh as anything in the balance which princes hold,
but for love of yourself, to retain every syllable, every inflexion which,
under the present most grave circumstances, will all have a sense and value
as important as any every uttered in the world.”
“I listen,” replied the young prince, “decidedly, without either eagerly
seeking or fearing anything you are about to say to me.” And he buried
himself still deeper in the thick cushions of the carriage, trying to deprive
his companion not only of the sight of him, but even of the very idea of his
presence.
Black was the darkness which fell wide and dense from the summits of
the intertwining trees. The carriage, covered in by this prodigious roof,
would not have received a particle of light, not even if a ray could have
struggled through the wreaths of mist that were already rising in the avenue.
“Monseigneur,” resumed Aramis, “you know the history of the
government which to-day controls France. The king issued from an infancy
imprisoned like yours, obscure as yours, and confined as yours; only,
instead of ending, like yourself, this slavery in a prison, this obscurity in
solitude, these straightened circumstances in concealment, he was fain to
bear all these miseries, humiliations, and distresses, in full daylight, under
the pitiless sun of royalty; on an elevation flooded with light, where every
stain appears a blemish, every glory a stain. The king has suffered; it

rankles in his mind; and he will avenge himself. He will be a bad king. I say
not that he will pour out his people’s blood, like Louis XI., or Charles IX.;
for he has no mortal injuries to avenge; but he will devour the means and
substance of his people; for he has himself undergone wrongs in his own
interest and money. In the first place, then, I acquit my conscience, when I
consider openly the merits and the faults of this great prince; and if I
condemn him, my conscience absolves me.”
Aramis paused. It was not to listen if the silence of the forest remained
undisturbed, but it was to gather up his thoughts from the very bottom of his
soul—to leave the thoughts he had uttered sufficient time to eat deeply into
the mind of his companion.
“All that Heaven does, Heaven does well,” continued the bishop of
Vannes; “and I am so persuaded of it that I have long been thankful to have
been chosen depositary of the secret which I have aided you to discover. To
a just Providence was necessary an instrument, at once penetrating,
persevering, and convinced, to accomplish a great work. I am this
instrument. I possess penetration, perseverance, conviction; I govern a
mysterious people, who has taken for its motto, the motto of God, ‘Patiens
quia oeternus.’” The prince moved. “I divine, monseigneur, why you are
raising your head, and are surprised at the people I have under my
command. You did not know you were dealing with a king—oh!
monseigneur, king of a people very humble, much disinherited; humble
because they have no force save when creeping; disinherited, because
never, almost never in this world, do my people reap the harvest they sow,
nor eat the fruit they cultivate. They labor for an abstract idea; they heap
together all the atoms of their power, so from a single man; and round this
man, with the sweat of their labor, they create a misty halo, which his
genius shall, in turn, render a glory gilded with the rays of all the crowns in
Christendom. Such is the man you have beside you, monseigneur. It is to
tell you that he has drawn you from the abyss for a great purpose, to raise
you above the powers of the earth—above himself.” 1
The prince lightly touched Aramis’s arm. “You speak to me,” he said, “of
that religious order whose chief you are. For me, the result of your words is,
that the day you desire to hurl down the man you shall have raised, the
event will be accomplished; and that you will keep under your hand your
creation of yesterday.”

“Undeceive yourself, monseigneur,” replied the bishop. “I should not
take the trouble to play this terrible game with your royal highness, if I had
not a double interest in gaining it. The day you are elevated, you are
elevated forever; you will overturn the footstool, as you rise, and will send
it rolling so far, that not even the sight of it will ever again recall to you its
right to simple gratitude.”
“Oh, monsieur!”
“Your movement, monseigneur, arises from an excellent disposition. I
thank you. Be well assured, I aspire to more than gratitude! I am convinced
that, when arrived at the summit, you will judge me still more worthy to be
your friend; and then, monseigneur, we two will do such great deeds, that
ages hereafter shall long speak of them.”
“Tell me plainly, monsieur—tell me without disguise—what I am to-day,
and what you aim at my being to-morrow.”
“You are the son of King Louis XIII., brother of Louis XIV., natural and
legitimate heir to the throne of France. In keeping you near him, as
Monsieur has been kept—Monsieur, your younger brother—the king
reserved to himself the right of being legitimate sovereign. The doctors only
could dispute his legitimacy. But the doctors always prefer the king who is
to the king who is not. Providence has willed that you should be persecuted;
this persecution to-day consecrates you king of France. You had, then, a
right to reign, seeing that it is disputed; you had a right to be proclaimed
seeing that you have been concealed; and you possess royal blood, since no
one has dared to shed yours, as that of your servants has been shed. Now
see, then, what this Providence, which you have so often accused of having
in every way thwarted you, has done for you. It has given you the features,
figure, age, and voice of your brother; and the very causes of your
persecution are about to become those of your triumphant restoration. To-
morrow, after to-morrow—from the very first, regal phantom, living shade
of Louis XIV., you will sit upon his throne, whence the will of Heaven,
confided in execution to the arm of man, will have hurled him, without
hope of return.”
“I understand,” said the prince, “my brother’s blood will not be shed,
then.”
“You will be sole arbiter of his fate.”
“The secret of which they made an evil use against me?”

“You will employ it against him. What did he do to conceal it? He
concealed you. Living image of himself, you will defeat the conspiracy of
Mazarin and Anne of Austria. You, my prince, will have the same interest in
concealing him, who will, as a prisoner, resemble you, as you will resemble
him as a king.”
“I fall back on what I was saying to you. Who will guard him?”
“Who guarded you?”
“You know this secret—you have made use of it with regard to myself.
Who else knows it?”
“The queen-mother and Madame de Chevreuse.”
“What will they do?”
“Nothing, if you choose.”
“How is that?”
“How can they recognize you, if you act in such a manner that no one
can recognize you?”
“‘Tis true; but there are grave difficulties.”
“State them, prince.”
“My brother is married; I cannot take my brother’s wife.”
“I will cause Spain to consent to a divorce; it is in the interest of your
new policy; it is human morality. All that is really noble and really useful in
this world will find its account therein.”
“The imprisoned king will speak.”
“To whom do you think he will speak—to the walls?”
“You mean, by walls, the men in whom you put confidence.”
“If need be, yes. And besides, your royal highness—”
“Besides?”
“I was going to say, that the designs of Providence do not stop on such a
fair road. Every scheme of this caliber is completed by its results, like a
geometrical calculation. The king, in prison, will not be for you the cause of
embarrassment that you have been for the king enthroned. His soul is
naturally proud and impatient; it is, moreover, disarmed and enfeebled, by
being accustomed to honors, and by the license of supreme power. The
same Providence which has willed that the concluding step in the

geometrical calculation I have had the honor of describing to your royal
highness should be your ascension to the throne, and the destruction of him
who is hurtful to you, has also determined that the conquered one shall soon
end both his own and your sufferings. Therefore, his soul and body have
been adapted for but a brief agony. Put into prison as a private individual,
left alone with your doubts, deprived of everything, you have exhibited the
most sublime, enduring principle of life in withstanding all this. But your
brother, a captive, forgotten, and in bonds, will not long endure the
calamity; and Heaven will resume his soul at the appointed time—that is to
say, soon.”
At this point in Aramis’s gloomy analysis, a bird of night uttered from the
depths of the forest that prolonged and plaintive cry which makes every
creature tremble.
“I will exile the deposed king,” said Philippe, shuddering; “‘twill be more
human.”
“The king’s good pleasure will decide the point,” said Aramis. “But has
the problem been well put? Have I brought out of the solution according to
the wishes or the foresight of your royal highness?”
“Yes, monsieur, yes; you have forgotten nothing—except, indeed, two
things.”
“The first?”
“Let us speak of it at once, with the same frankness we have already
conversed in. Let us speak of the causes which may bring about the ruin of
all the hopes we have conceived. Let us speak of the risks we are running.”
“They would be immense, infinite, terrific, insurmountable, if, as I have
said, all things did not concur to render them of absolutely no account.
There is no danger either for you or for me, if the constancy and intrepidity
of your royal highness are equal to that perfection of resemblance to your
brother which nature has bestowed upon you. I repeat it, there are no
dangers, only obstacles; a word, indeed, which I find in all languages, but
have always ill-understood, and, were I king, would have obliterated as
useless and absurd.”
“Yes, indeed, monsieur; there is a very serious obstacle, an
insurmountable danger, which you are forgetting.”
“Ah!” said Aramis.

“There is conscience, which cries aloud; remorse, that never dies.”
“True, true,” said the bishop; “there is a weakness of heart of which you
remind me. You are right, too, for that, indeed, is an immense obstacle. The
horse afraid of the ditch, leaps into the middle of it, and is killed! The man
who trembling crosses his sword with that of another leaves loopholes
whereby his enemy has him in his power.”
“Have you a brother?” said the young man to Aramis.
“I am alone in the world,” said the latter, with a hard, dry voice.
“But, surely, there is some one in the world whom you love?” added
Philippe.
“No one!—Yes, I love you.”
The young man sank into so profound a silence, that the mere sound of
his respiration seemed like a roaring tumult for Aramis. “Monseigneur,” he
resumed, “I have not said all I had to say to your royal highness; I have not
offered you all the salutary counsels and useful resources which I have at
my disposal. It is useless to flash bright visions before the eyes of one who
seeks and loves darkness: useless, too, is it to let the magnificence of the
cannon’s roar make itself heard in the ears of one who loves repose and the
quiet of the country. Monseigneur, I have your happiness spread out before
me in my thoughts; listen to my words; precious they indeed are, in their
import and their sense, for you who look with such tender regard upon the
bright heavens, the verdant meadows, the pure air. I know a country instinct
with delights of every kind, an unknown paradise, a secluded corner of the
world—where alone, unfettered and unknown, in the thick covert of the
woods, amidst flowers, and streams of rippling water, you will forget all the
misery that human folly has so recently allotted you. Oh! listen to me, my
prince. I do not jest. I have a heart, and mind, and soul, and can read your
own,—aye, even to its depths. I will not take you unready for your task, in
order to cast you into the crucible of my own desires, of my caprice, or my
ambition. Let it be all or nothing. You are chilled and galled, sick at heart,
overcome by excess of the emotions which but one hour’s liberty has
produced in you. For me, that is a certain and unmistakable sign that you do
not wish to continue at liberty. Would you prefer a more humble life, a life
more suited to your strength? Heaven is my witness, that I wish your
happiness to be the result of the trial to which I have exposed you.”

“Speak, speak,” said the prince, with a vivacity which did not escape
Aramis.
“I know,” resumed the prelate, “in the Bas-Poitou, a canton, of which no
one in France suspects the existence. Twenty leagues of country is
immense, is it not? Twenty leagues, monseigneur, all covered with water
and herbage, and reeds of the most luxuriant nature; the whole studded with
islands covered with woods of the densest foliage. These large marshes,
covered with reeds as with a thick mantle, sleep silently and calmly beneath
the sun’s soft and genial rays. A few fishermen with their families
indolently pass their lives away there, with their great living-rafts of poplar
and alder, the flooring formed of reeds, and the roof woven out of thick
rushes. These barks, these floating-houses, are wafted to and fro by the
changing winds. Whenever they touch a bank, it is but by chance; and so
gently, too, that the sleeping fisherman is not awakened by the shock.
Should he wish to land, it is merely because he has seen a large flight of
landrails or plovers, of wild ducks, teal, widgeon, or woodchucks, which
fall an easy pray to net or gun. Silver shad, eels, greedy pike, red and gray
mullet, swim in shoals into his nets; he has but to choose the finest and
largest, and return the others to the waters. Never yet has the food of the
stranger, be he soldier or simple citizen, never has any one, indeed,
penetrated into that district. The sun’s rays there are soft and tempered: in
plots of solid earth, whose soil is swart and fertile, grows the vine,
nourishing with generous juice its purple, white, and golden grapes. Once a
week, a boat is sent to deliver the bread which has been baked at an oven—
the common property of all. There—like the seigneurs of early days—
powerful in virtue of your dogs, your fishing-lines, your guns, and your
beautiful reed-built house, would you live, rich in the produce of the chase,
in plentitude of absolute secrecy. There would years of your life roll away,
at the end of which, no longer recognizable, for you would have been
perfectly transformed, you would have succeeded in acquiring a destiny
accorded to you by Heaven. There are a thousand pistoles in this bag,
monseigneur—more, far more, than sufficient to purchase the whole marsh
of which I have spoken; more than enough to live there as many years as
you have days to live; more than enough to constitute you the richest, the
freest, and the happiest man in the country. Accept it, as I offer it you—
sincerely, cheerfully. Forthwith, without a moment’s pause, I will unharness
two of my horses, which are attached to the carriage yonder, and they,

accompanied by my servant—my deaf and dumb attendant—shall conduct
you—traveling throughout the night, sleeping during the day—to the
locality I have described; and I shall, at least, have the satisfaction of
knowing that I have rendered to my prince the major service he himself
preferred. I shall have made one human being happy; and Heaven for that
will hold me in better account than if I had made one man powerful; the
former task is far more difficult. And now, monseigneur, your answer to this
proposition? Here is the money. Nay, do not hesitate. At Poitou, you can
risk nothing, except the chance of catching the fevers prevalent there; and
even of them, the so-called wizards of the country will cure you, for the
sake of your pistoles. If you play the other game, you run the chance of
being assassinated on a throne, strangled in a prison-cell. Upon my soul, I
assure you, now I begin to compare them together, I myself should hesitate
which lot I should accept.”
“Monsieur,” replied the young prince, “before I determine, let me alight
from this carriage, walk on the ground, and consult that still voice within
me, which Heaven bids us all to hearken to. Ten minutes is all I ask, and
then you shall have your answer.”
“As you please, monseigneur,” said Aramis, bending before him with
respect, so solemn and august in tone and address had sounded these
strange words.

Chapter X. Crown and Tiara.

Aramis was the first to descend from the carriage; he held the door open
for the young man. He saw him place his foot on the mossy ground with a
trembling of the whole body, and walk round the carriage with an unsteady
and almost tottering step. It seemed as if the poor prisoner was
unaccustomed to walk on God’s earth. It was the 15th of August, about
eleven o’clock at night; thick clouds, portending a tempest, overspread the
heavens, and shrouded every light and prospect underneath their heavy
folds. The extremities of the avenues were imperceptibly detached from the
copse, by a lighter shadow of opaque gray, which, upon closer examination,
became visible in the midst of the obscurity. But the fragrance which
ascended from the grass, fresher and more penetrating than that which
exhaled from the trees around him; the warm and balmy air which
enveloped him for the first time for many years past; the ineffable
enjoyment of liberty in an open country, spoke to the prince in so seductive
a language, that notwithstanding the preternatural caution, we would almost
say dissimulation of his character, of which we have tried to give an idea,
he could not restrain his emotion, and breathed a sigh of ecstasy. Then, by
degrees, he raised his aching head and inhaled the softly scented air, as it
was wafted in gentle gusts to his uplifted face. Crossing his arms on his
chest, as if to control this new sensation of delight, he drank in delicious
draughts of that mysterious air which interpenetrates at night the loftiest
forests. The sky he was contemplating, the murmuring waters, the universal
freshness—was not all this reality? Was not Aramis a madman to suppose
that he had aught else to dream of in this world? Those exciting pictures of
country life, so free from fears and troubles, the ocean of happy days that
glitters incessantly before all young imaginations, are real allurements
wherewith to fascinate a poor, unhappy prisoner, worn out by prison cares,
emaciated by the stifling air of the Bastile. It was the picture, it will be
remembered, drawn by Aramis, when he offered the thousand pistoles he

had with him in the carriage to the prince, and the enchanted Eden which
the deserts of Bas-Poitou hid from the eyes of the world. Such were the
reflections of Aramis as he watched, with an anxiety impossible to describe,
the silent progress of the emotions of Philippe, whom he perceived
gradually becoming more and more absorbed in his meditations. The young
prince was offering up an inward prayer to Heaven, to be divinely guided in
this trying moment, upon which his life or death depended. It was an
anxious time for the bishop of Vannes, who had never before been so
perplexed. His iron will, accustomed to overcome all obstacles, never
finding itself inferior or vanquished on any occasion, to be foiled in so vast
a project from not having foreseen the influence which a view of nature in
all its luxuriance would have on the human mind! Aramis, overwhelmed by
anxiety, contemplated with emotion the painful struggle that was taking
place in Philippe’s mind. This suspense lasted the whole ten minutes which
the young man had requested. During this space of time, which appeared an
eternity, Philippe continued gazing with an imploring and sorrowful look
towards the heavens; Aramis did not remove the piercing glance he had
fixed on Philippe. Suddenly the young man bowed his head. His thought
returned to the earth, his looks perceptibly hardened, his brow contracted,
his mouth assuming an expression of undaunted courage; again his looks
became fixed, but this time they wore a worldly expression, hardened by
covetousness, pride, and strong desire. Aramis’s look immediately became
as soft as it had before been gloomy. Philippe, seizing his hand in a quick,
agitated manner, exclaimed:
“Lead me to where the crown of France is to be found.”
“Is this your decision, monseigneur?” asked Aramis.
“It is.”
“Irrevocably so?”
Philippe did not even deign to reply. He gazed earnestly at the bishop, as
if to ask him if it were possible for a man to waver after having once made
up his mind.
“Such looks are flashes of the hidden fire that betrays men’s character,”
said Aramis, bowing over Philippe’s hand; “you will be great, monseigneur,
I will answer for that.”
“Let us resume our conversation. I wished to discuss two points with
you; in the first place the dangers, or the obstacles we may meet with. That

point is decided. The other is the conditions you intend imposing on me. It
is your turn to speak, M. d’Herblay.”
“The conditions, monseigneur?”
“Doubtless. You will not allow so mere a trifle to stop me, and you will
not do me the injustice to suppose that I think you have no interest in this
affair. Therefore, without subterfuge or hesitation, tell me the truth—”
“I will do so, monseigneur. Once a king—”
“When will that be?”
“To-morrow evening—I mean in the night.”
“Explain yourself.”
“When I shall have asked your highness a question.”
“Do so.”
“I sent to your highness a man in my confidence with instructions to
deliver some closely written notes, carefully drawn up, which will
thoroughly acquaint your highness with the different persons who compose
and will compose your court.”
“I perused those notes.”
“Attentively?”
“I know them by heart.”
“And understand them? Pardon me, but I may venture to ask that
question of a poor, abandoned captive of the Bastile? In a week’s time it
will not be requisite to further question a mind like yours. You will then be
in full possession of liberty and power.”
“Interrogate me, then, and I will be a scholar representing his lesson to
his master.”
“We will begin with your family, monseigneur.”
“My mother, Anne of Austria! all her sorrows, her painful malady. Oh! I
know her—I know her.”
“Your second brother?” asked Aramis, bowing.
“To these notes,” replied the prince, “you have added portraits so
faithfully painted, that I am able to recognize the persons whose characters,
manners, and history you have so carefully portrayed. Monsieur, my
brother, is a fine, dark young man, with a pale face; he does not love his

wife, Henrietta, whom I, Louis XIV., loved a little, and still flirt with, even
although she made me weep on the day she wished to dismiss
Mademoiselle de la Vallière from her service in disgrace.”
“You will have to be careful with regard to the watchfulness of the
latter,” said Aramis; “she is sincerely attached to the actual king. The eyes
of a woman who loves are not easily deceived.”
“She is fair, has blue eyes, whose affectionate gaze reveals her identity.
She halts slightly in her gait; she writes a letter every day, to which I have
to send an answer by M. de Saint-Aignan.”
“Do you know the latter?”
“As if I saw him, and I know the last verses he composed for me, as well
as those I composed in answer to his.”
“Very good. Do you know your ministers?”
“Colbert, an ugly, dark-browed man, but intelligent enough, his hair
covering his forehead, a large, heavy, full head; the mortal enemy of M.
Fouquet.”
“As for the latter, we need not disturb ourselves about him.”
“No; because necessarily you will not require me to exile him, I
suppose?”
Aramis, struck with admiration at the remark, said, “You will become
very great, monseigneur.”
“You see,” added the prince, “that I know my lesson by heart, and with
Heaven’s assistance, and yours afterwards, I shall seldom go wrong.”
“You have still an awkward pair of eyes to deal with, monseigneur.”
“Yes, the captain of the musketeers, M. d’Artagnan, your friend.”
“Yes; I can well say ‘my friend.’”
“He who escorted La Vallière to Le Chaillot; he who delivered up Monk,
cooped in an iron box, to Charles II.; he who so faithfully served my
mother; he to whom the crown of France owes so much that it owes
everything. Do you intend to ask me to exile him also?”
“Never, sire. D’Artagnan is a man to whom, at a certain given time, I will
undertake to reveal everything; but be on your guard with him, for if he
discovers our plot before it is revealed to him, you or I will certainly be
killed or taken. He is a bold and enterprising man.”

“I will think it over. Now tell me about M. Fouquet; what do you wish to
be done with regard to him?”
“One moment more, I entreat you, monseigneur; and forgive me, if I
seem to fail in respect to questioning you further.”
“It is your duty to do so, nay, more than that, your right.”
“Before we pass to M. Fouquet, I should very much regret forgetting
another friend of mine.”
“M. du Vallon, the Hercules of France, you mean; oh! as far as he is
concerned, his interests are more than safe.”
“No; it is not he whom I intended to refer to.”
“The Comte de la Fere, then?”
“And his son, the son of all four of us.”
“That poor boy who is dying of love for La Vallière, whom my brother so
disloyally bereft him of? Be easy on that score. I shall know how to
rehabilitate his happiness. Tell me only one thing, Monsieur d’Herblay; do
men, when they love, forget the treachery that has been shown them? Can a
man ever forgive the woman who has betrayed him? Is that a French
custom, or is it one of the laws of the human heart?”
“A man who loves deeply, as deeply as Raoul loves Mademoiselle de la
Vallière, finishes by forgetting the fault or crime of the woman he loves; but
I do not yet know whether Raoul will be able to forget.”
“I will see after that. Have you anything further to say about your
friend?”
“No; that is all.”
“Well, then, now for M. Fouquet. What do you wish me to do for him?”
“To keep him on as surintendant, in the capacity in which he has hitherto
acted, I entreat you.”
“Be it so; but he is the first minister at present.”
“Not quite so.”
“A king, ignorant and embarrassed as I shall be, will, as a matter of
course, require a first minister of state.”
“Your majesty will require a friend.”
“I have only one, and that is yourself.”

“You will have many others by and by, but none so devoted, none so
zealous for your glory.”
“You shall be my first minister of state.”
“Not immediately, monseigneur, for that would give rise to too much
suspicion and astonishment.”
“M. de Richelieu, the first minister of my grandmother, Marie de Medici,
was simply bishop of Lucon, as you are bishop of Vannes.”
“I perceive that your royal highness has studied my notes to great
advantage; your amazing perspicacity overpowers me with delight.”
“I am perfectly aware that M. de Richelieu, by means of the queen’s
protection, soon became cardinal.”
“It would be better,” said Aramis, bowing, “that I should not be
appointed first minister until your royal highness has procured my
nomination as cardinal.”
“You shall be nominated before two months are past, Monsieur
d’Herblay. But that is a matter of very trifling moment; you would not
offend me if you were to ask more than that, and you would cause me
serious regret if you were to limit yourself to that.”
“In that case, I have something still further to hope for, monseigneur.”
“Speak! speak!”
“M. Fouquet will not keep long at the head of affairs, he will soon get
old. He is fond of pleasure, consistently, I mean, with all his labors, thanks
to the youthfulness he still retains; but this protracted youth will disappear
at the approach of the first serious annoyance, or at the first illness he may
experience. We will spare him the annoyance, because he is an agreeable
and noble-hearted man; but we cannot save him from ill-health. So it is
determined. When you shall have paid all M. Fouquet’s debts, and restored
the finances to a sound condition, M. Fouquet will be able to remain the
sovereign ruler in his little court of poets and painters,—we shall have made
him rich. When that has been done, and I have become your royal
highness’s prime minister, I shall be able to think of my own interests and
yours.”
The young man looked at his interrogator.

“M. de Richelieu, of whom we were speaking just now, was very much
to blame in the fixed idea he had of governing France alone, unaided. He
allowed two kings, King Louis XIII. and himself, to be seated on the self-
same throne, whilst he might have installed them more conveniently upon
two separate and distinct thrones.”
“Upon two thrones?” said the young man, thoughtfully.
“In fact,” pursued Aramis, quietly, “a cardinal, prime minister of France,
assisted by the favor and by the countenance of his Most Christian Majesty
the King of France, a cardinal to whom the king his master lends the
treasures of the state, his army, his counsel, such a man would be acting
with twofold injustice in applying these mighty resources to France alone.
Besides,” added Aramis, “you will not be a king such as your father was,
delicate in health, slow in judgment, whom all things wearied; you will be a
king governing by your brain and by your sword; you will have in the
government of the state no more than you will be able to manage unaided; I
should only interfere with you. Besides, our friendship ought never to be, I
do not say impaired, but in any degree affected, by a secret thought. I shall
have given you the throne of France, you will confer on me the throne of St.
Peter. Whenever your loyal, firm, and mailed hand should joined in ties of
intimate association the hand of a pope such as I shall be, neither Charles
V., who owned two-thirds of the habitable globe, nor Charlemagne, who
possessed it entirely, will be able to reach to half your stature. I have no
alliances, I have no predilections; I will not throw you into persecutions of
heretics, nor will I cast you into the troubled waters of family dissension; I
will simply say to you: The whole universe is our own; for me the minds of
men, for you their bodies. And as I shall be the first to die, you will have
my inheritance. What do you say of my plan, monseigneur?”
“I say that you render me happy and proud, for no other reason than that
of having comprehended you thoroughly. Monsieur d’Herblay, you shall be
cardinal, and when cardinal, my prime minister; and then you will point out
to me the necessary steps to be taken to secure your election as pope, and I
will take them. You can ask what guarantees from me you please.”
“It is useless. Never shall I act except in such a manner that you will be
the gainer; I shall never ascend the ladder of fortune, fame, or position, until
I have first seen you placed upon the round of the ladder immediately above
me; I shall always hold myself sufficiently aloof from you to escape

incurring your jealousy, sufficiently near to sustain your personal advantage
and to watch over your friendship. All the contracts in the world are easily
violated because the interests included in them incline more to one side than
to another. With us, however, this will never be the case; I have no need of
any guarantees.”
“And so—my dear brother—will disappear?”
“Simply. We will remove him from his bed by means of a plank which
yields to the pressure of the finger. Having retired to rest a crowned
sovereign, he will awake a captive. Alone you will rule from that moment,
and you will have no interest dearer and better than that of keeping me near
you.”
“I believe it. There is my hand on it, Monsieur d’Herblay.”
“Allow me to kneel before you, sire, most respectfully. We will embrace
each other on the day we shall have upon our temples, you the crown, I the
tiara.”
“Still embrace me this very day also, and be, for and towards me, more
than great, more than skillful, more than sublime in genius; be kind and
indulgent—be my father!”
Aramis was almost overcome as he listened to his voice; he fancied he
detected in his own heart an emotion hitherto unknown; but this impression
was speedily removed. “His father!” he thought; “yes, his Holy Father.”
And they resumed their places in the carriage, which sped rapidly along
the road leading to Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Chapter XI. The Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte.

The chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte, situated about a league from Melun,
had been built by Fouquet in 1655, at a time when there was a scarcity of
money in France; Mazarin had taken all that there was, and Fouquet
expended the remainder. However, as certain men have fertile, false, and
useful vices, Fouquet, in scattering broadcast millions of money in the
construction of this palace, had found a means of gathering, as the result of
his generous profusion, three illustrious men together: Levau, the architect
of the building; Lenotre, the designer of the gardens; and Lebrun, the
decorator of the apartments. If the Chateau de Vaux possessed a single fault
with which it could be reproached, it was its grand, pretentious character. It
is even at the present day proverbial to calculate the number of acres of
roofing, the restoration of which would, in our age, be the ruin of fortunes
cramped and narrowed as the epoch itself. Vaux-le-Vicomte, when its
magnificent gates, supported by caryatides, have been passed through, has
the principal front of the main building opening upon a vast, so-called,
court of honor, inclosed by deep ditches, bordered by a magnificent stone
balustrade. Nothing could be more noble in appearance than the central
forecourt raised upon the flight of steps, like a king upon his throne, having
around it four pavilions at the angles, the immense Ionic columns of which
rose majestically to the whole height of the building. The friezes
ornamented with arabesques, and the pediments which crowned the
pilasters, conferred richness and grace on every part of the building, while
the domes which surmounted the whole added proportion and majesty. This
mansion, built by a subject, bore a far greater resemblance to those royal
residences which Wolsey fancied he was called upon to construct, in order
to present them to his master from the fear of rendering him jealous. But if
magnificence and splendor were displayed in any one particular part of this
palace more than another,—if anything could be preferred to the wonderful
arrangement of the interior, to the sumptuousness of the gilding, and to the

profusion of the paintings and statues, it would be the park and gardens of
Vaux. The jets d’eau, which were regarded as wonderful in 1653, are still
so, even at the present time; the cascades awakened the admiration of kings
and princes; and as for the famous grotto, the theme of so many poetical
effusions, the residence of that illustrious nymph of Vaux, whom Pelisson
made converse with La Fontaine, we must be spared the description of all
its beauties. We will do as Despreaux did,—we will enter the park, the trees
of which are of eight years’ growth only—that is to say, in their present
position—and whose summits even yet, as they proudly tower aloft,
blushingly unfold their leaves to the earliest rays of the rising sun. Lenotre
had hastened the pleasure of the Maecenas of his period; all the nursery-
grounds had furnished trees whose growth had been accelerated by careful
culture and the richest plant-food. Every tree in the neighborhood which
presented a fair appearance of beauty or stature had been taken up by its
roots and transplanted to the park. Fouquet could well afford to purchase
trees to ornament his park, since he had bought up three villages and their
appurtenances (to use a legal word) to increase its extent. M. de Scudery
said of this palace, that, for the purpose of keeping the grounds and gardens
well watered, M. Fouquet had divided a river into a thousand fountains, and
gathered the waters of a thousand fountains into torrents. This same
Monsieur de Scudery said a great many other things in his “Clelie,” about
this palace of Valterre, the charms of which he describes most minutely. We
should be far wiser to send our curious readers to Vaux to judge for
themselves, than to refer them to “Clelie;” and yet there are as many
leagues from Paris to Vaux, as there are volumes of the “Clelie.”
This magnificent palace had been got ready for the reception of the
greatest reigning sovereign of the time. M. Fouquet’s friends had
transported thither, some their actors and their dresses, others their troops of
sculptors and artists; not forgetting others with their ready-mended pens,—
floods of impromptus were contemplated. The cascades, somewhat
rebellious nymphs though they were, poured forth their waters brighter and
clearer than crystal: they scattered over the bronze triton and nereids their
waves of foam, which glistened like fire in the rays of the sun. An army of
servants were hurrying to and fro in squadrons in the courtyard and
corridors; while Fouquet, who had only that morning arrived, walked all
through the palace with a calm, observant glance, in order to give his last
orders, after his intendants had inspected everything.

It was, as we have said, the 15th of August. The sun poured down its
burning rays upon the heathen deities of marble and bronze: it raised the
temperature of the water in the conch shells, and ripened, on the walls,
those magnificent peaches, of which the king, fifty years later, spoke so
regretfully, when, at Marly, on an occasion of a scarcity of the finer sorts of
peaches being complained of, in the beautiful gardens there—gardens
which had cost France double the amount that had been expended on Vaux
—the great king observed to some one: “You are far too young to have
eaten any of M. Fouquet’s peaches.”
Oh, fame! Oh, blazon of renown! Oh, glory of this earth! That very man
whose judgment was so sound and accurate where merit was concerned—
he who had swept into his coffers the inheritance of Nicholas Fouquet, who
had robbed him of Lenotre and Lebrun, and had sent him to rot for the
remainder of his life in one of the state prisons—merely remembered the
peaches of that vanquished, crushed, forgotten enemy! It was to little
purpose that Fouquet had squandered thirty millions of francs in the
fountains of his gardens, in the crucibles of his sculptors, in the writing-
desks of his literary friends, in the portfolios of his painters; vainly had he
fancied that thereby he might be remembered. A peach—a blushing, rich-
flavored fruit, nestling in the trellis work on the garden-wall, hidden
beneath its long, green leaves,—this little vegetable production, that a
dormouse would nibble up without a thought, was sufficient to recall to the
memory of this great monarch the mournful shade of the last surintendant
of France.
With a perfect reliance that Aramis had made arrangements fairly to
distribute the vast number of guests throughout the palace, and that he had
not omitted to attend to any of the internal regulations for their comfort,
Fouquet devoted his entire attention to the ensemble alone. In one direction
Gourville showed him the preparations which had been made for the
fireworks; in another, Moliere led him over the theater; at last, after he had
visited the chapel, the salons, and the galleries, and was again going
downstairs, exhausted with fatigue, Fouquet saw Aramis on the staircase.
The prelate beckoned to him. The surintendant joined his friend, and, with
him, paused before a large picture scarcely finished. Applying himself,
heart and soul, to his work, the painter Lebrun, covered with perspiration,
stained with paint, pale from fatigue and the inspiration of genius, was
putting the last finishing touches with his rapid brush. It was the portrait of

the king, whom they were expecting, dressed in the court suit which
Percerin had condescended to show beforehand to the bishop of Vannes.
Fouquet placed himself before this portrait, which seemed to live, as one
might say, in the cool freshness of its flesh, and in its warmth of color. He
gazed upon it long and fixedly, estimated the prodigious labor that had been
bestowed upon it, and, not being able to find any recompense sufficiently
great for this Herculean effort, he passed his arm round the painter’s neck
and embraced him. The surintendant, by this action, had utterly ruined a suit
of clothes worth a thousand pistoles, but he had satisfied, more than
satisfied, Lebrun. It was a happy moment for the artist; it was an unhappy
moment for M. Percerin, who was walking behind Fouquet, and was
engaged in admiring, in Lebrun’s painting, the suit that he had made for his
majesty, a perfect objet d’art, as he called it, which was not to be matched
except in the wardrobe of the surintendant. His distress and his
exclamations were interrupted by a signal which had been given from the
summit of the mansion. In the direction of Melun, in the still empty, open
plain, the sentinels of Vaux had just perceived the advancing procession of
the king and the queens. His majesty was entering Melun with his long train
of carriages and cavaliers.
“In an hour—” said Aramis to Fouquet.
“In an hour!” replied the latter, sighing.
“And the people who ask one another what is the good of these royal
fetes!” continued the bishop of Vannes, laughing, with his false smile.
“Alas! I, too, who am not the people, ask myself the same thing.”
“I will answer you in four and twenty hours, monseigneur. Assume a
cheerful countenance, for it should be a day of true rejoicing.”
“Well, believe me or not, as you like, D’Herblay,” said the surintendant,
with a swelling heart, pointing at the cortege of Louis, visible in the
horizon, “he certainly loves me but very little, and I do not care much more
for him; but I cannot tell you how it is, that since he is approaching my
house—”
“Well, what?”
“Well, since I know he is on his way here, as my guest, he is more sacred
than ever for me; he is my acknowledged sovereign, and as such is very
dear to me.”

“Dear? yes,” said Aramis, playing upon the word, as the Abbe Terray did,
at a later period, with Louis XV.
“Do not laugh, D’Herblay; I feel that, if he really seemed to wish it, I
could love that young man.”
“You should not say that to me,” returned Aramis, “but rather to M.
Colbert.”
“To M. Colbert!” exclaimed Fouquet. “Why so?”
“Because he would allow you a pension out of the king’s privy purse, as
soon as he becomes surintendant,” said Aramis, preparing to leave as soon
as he had dealt this last blow.
“Where are you going?” returned Fouquet, with a gloomy look.
“To my own apartment, in order to change my costume, monseigneur.”
“Whereabouts are you lodging, D’Herblay?”
“In the blue room on the second story.”
“The room immediately over the king’s room?”
“Precisely.”
“You will be subject to very great restraint there. What an idea to
condemn yourself to a room where you cannot stir or move about!”
“During the night, monseigneur, I sleep or read in my bed.”
“And your servants?”
“I have but one attendant with me. I find my reader quite sufficient.
Adieu, monseigneur; do not overfatigue yourself; keep yourself fresh for
the arrival of the king.”
“We shall see you by and by, I suppose, and shall see your friend Du
Vallon also?”
“He is lodging next to me, and is at this moment dressing.”
And Fouquet, bowing, with a smile, passed on like a commander-in-chief
who pays the different outposts a visit after the enemy has been signaled in
sight. 2

Chapter XII. The Wine of Melun.

The king had, in point of fact, entered Melun with the intention of merely
passing through the city. The youthful monarch was most eagerly anxious
for amusements; only twice during the journey had he been able to catch a
glimpse of La Vallière, and, suspecting that his only opportunity of
speaking to her would be after nightfall, in the gardens, and after the
ceremonial of reception had been gone through, he had been very desirous
to arrive at Vaux as early as possible. But he reckoned without his captain
of the musketeers, and without M. Colbert. Like Calypso, who could not be
consoled at the departure of Ulysses, our Gascon could not console himself
for not having guessed why Aramis had asked Percerin to show him the
king’s new costumes. “There is not a doubt,” he said to himself, “that my
friend the bishop of Vannes had some motive in that;” and then he began to
rack his brains most uselessly. D’Artagnan, so intimately acquainted with
all the court intrigues, who knew the position of Fouquet better than even
Fouquet himself did, had conceived the strangest fancies and suspicions at
the announcement of the fete, which would have ruined a wealthy man, and
which became impossible, utter madness even, for a man so poor as he was.
And then, the presence of Aramis, who had returned from Belle-Isle, and
been nominated by Monsieur Fouquet inspector-general of all the
arrangements; his perseverance in mixing himself up with all the
surintendant’s affairs; his visits to Baisemeaux; all this suspicious
singularity of conduct had excessively troubled and tormented D’Artagnan
during the last two weeks.
“With men of Aramis’s stamp,” he said, “one is never the stronger except
sword in hand. So long as Aramis continued a soldier, there was hope of
getting the better of him; but since he has covered his cuirass with a stole,
we are lost. But what can Aramis’s object possibly be?” And D’Artagnan
plunged again into deep thought. “What does it matter to me, after all,” he
continued, “if his only object is to overthrow M. Colbert? And what else

can he be after?” And D’Artagnan rubbed his forehead—that fertile land,
whence the plowshare of his nails had turned up so many and such
admirable ideas in his time. He, at first, thought of talking the matter over
with Colbert, but his friendship for Aramis, the oath of earlier days, bound
him too strictly. He revolted at the bare idea of such a thing, and, besides,
he hated the financier too cordially. Then, again, he wished to unburden his
mind to the king; but yet the king would not be able to understand the
suspicions which had not even a shadow of reality at their base. He resolved
to address himself to Aramis, direct, the first time he met him. “I will get
him,” said the musketeer, “between a couple of candles, suddenly, and when
he least expects it, I will place my hand upon his heart, and he will tell me
—What will he tell me? Yes, he will tell me something, for mordioux! there
is something in it, I know.”
Somewhat calmer, D’Artagnan made every preparation for the journey,
and took the greatest care that the military household of the king, as yet
very inconsiderable in numbers, should be well officered and well
disciplined in its meager and limited proportions. The result was that,
through the captain’s arrangements, the king, on arriving at Melun, saw
himself at the head of both the musketeers and Swiss guards, as well as a
picket of the French guards. It might almost have been called a small army.
M. Colbert looked at the troops with great delight: he even wished they had
been a third more in number.
“But why?” said the king.
“In order to show greater honor to M. Fouquet,” replied Colbert.
“In order to ruin him the sooner,” thought D’Artagnan.
When this little army appeared before Melun, the chief magistrates came
out to meet the king, and to present him with the keys of the city, and
invited him to enter the Hotel de Ville, in order to partake of the wine of
honor. The king, who expected to pass through the city and to proceed to
Vaux without delay, became quite red in the face from vexation.
“Who was fool enough to occasion this delay?” muttered the king,
between his teeth, as the chief magistrate was in the middle of a long
address.
“Not I, certainly,” replied D’Artagnan, “but I believe it was M. Colbert.”

Colbert, having heard his name pronounced, said, “What was M.
d’Artagnan good enough to say?”
“I was good enough to remark that it was you who stopped the king’s
progress, so that he might taste the vin de Brie. Was I right?”
“Quite so, monsieur.”
“In that case, then, it was you whom the king called some name or other.”
“What name?”
“I hardly know; but wait a moment—idiot, I think it was—no, no, it was
fool or dolt. Yes; his majesty said that the man who had thought of the vin
de Melun was something of the sort.”
D’Artagnan, after this broadside, quietly caressed his mustache; M.
Colbert’s large head seemed to become larger and larger than ever.
D’Artagnan, seeing how ugly anger made him, did not stop half-way. The
orator still went on with his speech, while the king’s color was visibly
increasing.
“Mordioux!” said the musketeer, coolly, “the king is going to have an
attack of determination of blood to the head. Where the deuce did you get
hold of that idea, Monsieur Colbert? You have no luck.”
“Monsieur,” said the financier, drawing himself up, “my zeal for the
king’s service inspired me with the idea.”
“Bah!”
“Monsieur, Melun is a city, an excellent city, which pays well, and which
it would be imprudent to displease.”
“There, now! I, who do not pretend to be a financier, saw only one idea
in your idea.”
“What was that, monsieur?”
“That of causing a little annoyance to M. Fouquet, who is making
himself quite giddy on his donjons yonder, in waiting for us.”
This was a home-stroke, hard enough in all conscience. Colbert was
completely thrown out of the saddle by it, and retired, thoroughly
discomfited. Fortunately, the speech was now at an end; the king drank the
wine which was presented to him, and then every one resumed the progress
through the city. The king bit his lips in anger, for the evening was closing
in, and all hope of a walk with La Vallière was at an end. In order that the

whole of the king’s household should enter Vaux, four hours at least were
necessary, owing to the different arrangements. The king, therefore, who
was boiling with impatience, hurried forward as much as possible, in order
to reach it before nightfall. But, at the moment he was setting off again,
other and fresh difficulties arose.
“Is not the king going to sleep at Melun?” said Colbert, in a low tone of
voice, to D’Artagnan.
M. Colbert must have been badly inspired that day, to address himself in
that manner to the chief of the musketeers; for the latter guessed that the
king’s intention was very far from that of remaining where he was.
D’Artagnan would not allow him to enter Vaux except he were well and
strongly accompanied; and desired that his majesty would not enter except
with all the escort. On the other hand, he felt that these delays would irritate
that impatient monarch beyond measure. In what way could he possibly
reconcile these difficulties? D’Artagnan took up Colbert’s remark, and
determined to repeated it to the king.
“Sire,” he said, “M. Colbert has been asking me if your majesty does not
intend to sleep at Melun.”
“Sleep at Melun! What for?” exclaimed Louis XIV. “Sleep at Melun!
Who, in Heaven’s name, can have thought of such a thing, when M.
Fouquet is expecting us this evening?”
“It was simply,” replied Colbert, quickly, “the fear of causing your
majesty the least delay; for, according to established etiquette, you cannot
enter any place, with the exception of your own royal residences, until the
soldiers’ quarters have been marked out by the quartermaster, and the
garrison properly distributed.”
D’Artagnan listened with the greatest attention, biting his mustache to
conceal his vexation; and the queens were not less interested. They were
fatigued, and would have preferred to go to rest without proceeding any
farther; more especially, in order to prevent the king walking about in the
evening with M. de Saint-Aignan and the ladies of the court, for, if etiquette
required the princesses to remain within their own rooms, the ladies of
honor, as soon as they had performed the services required of them, had no
restrictions placed upon them, but were at liberty to walk about as they
pleased. It will easily be conjectured that all these rival interests, gathering
together in vapors, necessarily produced clouds, and that the clouds were

likely to be followed by a tempest. The king had no mustache to gnaw, and
therefore kept biting the handle of his whip instead, with ill-concealed
impatience. How could he get out of it? D’Artagnan looked as agreeable as
possible, and Colbert as sulky as he could. Who was there he could get in a
passion with?
“We will consult the queen,” said Louis XIV., bowing to the royal ladies.
And this kindness of consideration softened Maria Theresa’s heart, who,
being of a kind and generous disposition, when left to her own free-will,
replied:
“I shall be delighted to do whatever your majesty wishes.”
“How long will it take us to get to Vaux?” inquired Anne of Austria, in
slow and measured accents, placing her hand upon her bosom, where the
seat of her pain lay.
“An hour for your majesty’s carriages,” said D’Artagnan; “the roads are
tolerably good.”
The king looked at him. “And a quarter of an hour for the king,” he
hastened to add.
“We should arrive by daylight?” said Louis XIV.
“But the billeting of the king’s military escort,” objected Colbert, softly,
“will make his majesty lose all the advantage of his speed, however quick
he may be.”
“Double ass that you are!” thought D’Artagnan; “if I had any interest or
motive in demolishing your credit with the king, I could do it in ten
minutes. If I were in the king’s place,” he added aloud, “I should, in going
to M. Fouquet, leave my escort behind me; I should go to him as a friend; I
should enter accompanied only by my captain of the guards; I should
consider that I was acting more nobly, and should be invested with a still
more sacred character by doing so.”
Delight sparkled in the king’s eyes. “That is indeed a very sensible
suggestion. We will go to see a friend as friends; the gentlemen who are
with the carriages can go slowly: but we who are mounted will ride on.”
And he rode off, accompanied by all those who were mounted. Colbert hid
his ugly head behind his horse’s neck.
“I shall be quits,” said D’Artagnan, as he galloped along, “by getting a
little talk with Aramis this evening. And then, M. Fouquet is a man of

honor. Mordioux! I have said so, and it must be so.”
And this was the way how, towards seven o’clock in the evening, without
announcing his arrival by the din of trumpets, and without even his
advanced guard, without out-riders or musketeers, the king presented
himself before the gate of Vaux, where Fouquet, who had been informed of
his royal guest’s approach, had been waiting for the last half-hour, with his
head uncovered, surrounded by his household and his friends.

Chapter XIII. Nectar and Ambrosia.

M. Fouquet held the stirrup of the king, who, having dismounted, bowed
most graciously, and more graciously still held out his hand to him, which
Fouquet, in spite of a slight resistance on the king’s part, carried
respectfully to his lips. The king wished to wait in the first courtyard for the
arrival of the carriages, nor had he long to wait, for the roads had been put
into excellent order by the superintendent, and a stone would hardly have
been found of the size of an egg the whole way from Melun to Vaux; so that
the carriages, rolling along as though on a carpet, brought the ladies to
Vaux, without jolting or fatigue, by eight o’clock. They were received by
Madame Fouquet, and at the moment they made their appearance, a light as
bright as day burst forth from every quarter, trees, vases, and marble
statues. This species of enchantment lasted until their majesties had retired
into the palace. All these wonders and magical effects which the chronicler
has heaped up, or rather embalmed, in his recital, at the risk of rivaling the
brain-born scenes of romancers; these splendors whereby night seemed
vanquished and nature corrected, together with every delight and luxury
combined for the satisfaction of all the senses, as well as the imagination,
Fouquet did in real truth offer to his sovereign in that enchanting retreat of
which no monarch could at that time boast of possessing an equal. We do
not intend to describe the grand banquet, at which the royal guests were
present, nor the concerts, nor the fairy-like and more than magic
transformations and metamorphoses; it will be enough for our purpose to
depict the countenance the king assumed, which, from being gay, soon wore
a very gloomy, constrained, and irritated expression. He remembered his
own residence, royal though it was, and the mean and indifferent style of
luxury that prevailed there, which comprised but little more than what was
merely useful for the royal wants, without being his own personal property.
The large vases of the Louvre, the older furniture and plate of Henry II., of
Francis I., and of Louis XI., were but historic monuments of earlier days;

nothing but specimens of art, the relics of his predecessors; while with
Fouquet, the value of the article was as much in the workmanship as in the
article itself. Fouquet ate from a gold service, which artists in his own
employ had modeled and cast for him alone. Fouquet drank wines of which
the king of France did not even know the name, and drank them out of
goblets each more valuable than the entire royal cellar.
What, too, was to be said of the apartments, the hangings, the pictures,
the servants and officers, of every description, of his household? What of
the mode of service in which etiquette was replaced by order; stiff formality
by personal, unrestrained comfort; the happiness and contentment of the
guest became the supreme law of all who obeyed the host? The perfect
swarm of busily engaged persons moving about noiselessly; the multitude
of guests,—who were, however, even less numerous than the servants who
waited on them,—the myriad of exquisitely prepared dishes, of gold and
silver vases; the floods of dazzling light, the masses of unknown flowers of
which the hot-houses had been despoiled, redundant with luxuriance of
unequaled scent and beauty; the perfect harmony of the surroundings,
which, indeed, was no more than the prelude of the promised fete, charmed
all who were there; and they testified their admiration over and over again,
not by voice or gesture, but by deep silence and rapt attention, those two
languages of the courtier which acknowledge the hand of no master
powerful enough to restrain them.
As for the king, his eyes filled with tears; he dared not look at the queen.
Anne of Austria, whose pride was superior to that of any creature breathing,
overwhelmed her host by the contempt with which she treated everything
handed to her. The young queen, kind-hearted by nature and curious by
disposition, praised Fouquet, ate with an exceedingly good appetite, and
asked the names of the strange fruits as they were placed upon the table.
Fouquet replied that he was not aware of their names. The fruits came from
his own stores; he had often cultivated them himself, having an intimate
acquaintance with the cultivation of exotic fruits and plants. The king felt
and appreciated the delicacy of the replies, but was only the more
humiliated; he thought the queen a little too familiar in her manners, and
that Anne of Austria resembled Juno a little too much, in being too proud
and haughty; his chief anxiety, however, was himself, that he might remain
cold and distant in his behavior, bordering lightly the limits of supreme
disdain or simple admiration.

But Fouquet had foreseen all this; he was, in fact, one of those men who
foresee everything. The king had expressly declared that, so long as he
remained under Fouquet’s roof, he did not wish his own different repasts to
be served in accordance with the usual etiquette, and that he would,
consequently, dine with the rest of society; but by the thoughtful attention
of the surintendant, the king’s dinner was served up separately, if one may
so express it, in the middle of the general table; the dinner, wonderful in
every respect, from the dishes of which was composed, comprised
everything the king liked and generally preferred to anything else. Louis
had no excuse—he, indeed, who had the keenest appetite in his kingdom—
for saying that he was not hungry. Nay, M. Fouquet did even better still; he
certainly, in obedience to the king’s expressed desire, seated himself at the
table, but as soon as the soups were served, he arose and personally waited
on the king, while Madame Fouquet stood behind the queen-mother’s
armchair. The disdain of Juno and the sulky fits of temper of Jupiter could
not resist this excess of kindly feeling and polite attention. The queen ate a
biscuit dipped in a glass of San-Lucar wine; and the king ate of everything,
saying to M. Fouquet: “It is impossible, monsieur le surintendant, to dine
better anywhere.” Whereupon the whole court began, on all sides, to devour
the dishes spread before them with such enthusiasm that it looked as though
a cloud of Egyptian locusts was settling down on green and growing crops.
As soon, however, as his hunger was appeased, the king became morose
and overgloomed again; the more so in proportion to the satisfaction he
fancied he had previously manifested, and particularly on account of the
deferential manner which his courtiers had shown towards Fouquet.
D’Artagnan, who ate a good deal and drank but little, without allowing it to
be noticed, did not lose a single opportunity, but made a great number of
observations which he turned to good profit.
When the supper was finished, the king expressed a wish not to lose the
promenade. The park was illuminated; the moon, too, as if she had placed
herself at the orders of the lord of Vaux, silvered the trees and lake with her
own bright and quasi-phosphorescent light. The air was strangely soft and
balmy; the daintily shell-gravelled walks through the thickly set avenues
yielded luxuriously to the feet. The fete was complete in every respect, for
the king, having met La Vallière in one of the winding paths of the wood,
was able to press her hand and say, “I love you,” without any one

overhearing him except M. d’Artagnan, who followed, and M. Fouquet,
who preceded him.
The dreamy night of magical enchantments stole smoothly on. The king
having requested to be shown to his room, there was immediately a
movement in every direction. The queens passed to their own apartments,
accompanied by them music of theorbos and lutes; the king found his
musketeers awaiting him on the grand flight of steps, for M. Fouquet had
brought them on from Melun and had invited them to supper. D’Artagnan’s
suspicions at once disappeared. He was weary, he had supped well, and
wished, for once in his life, thoroughly to enjoy a fete given by a man who
was in every sense of the word a king. “M. Fouquet,” he said, “is the man
for me.”
The king was conducted with the greatest ceremony to the chamber of
Morpheus, of which we owe some cursory description to our readers. It was
the handsomest and largest in the palace. Lebrun had painted on the vaulted
ceiling the happy as well as the unhappy dreams which Morpheus inflicts
on kings as well as on other men. Everything that sleep gives birth to that is
lovely, its fairy scenes, its flowers and nectar, the wild voluptuousness or
profound repose of the senses, had the painter elaborated on his frescoes. It
was a composition as soft and pleasing in one part as dark and gloomy and
terrible in another. The poisoned chalice, the glittering dagger suspended
over the head of the sleeper; wizards and phantoms with terrific masks,
those half-dim shadows more alarming than the approach of fire or the
somber face of midnight, these, and such as these, he had made the
companions of his more pleasing pictures. No sooner had the king entered
his room than a cold shiver seemed to pass through him, and on Fouquet
asking him the cause of it, the king replied, as pale as death:
“I am sleepy, that is all.”
“Does your majesty wish for your attendants at once?”
“No; I have to talk with a few persons first,” said the king. “Will you
have the goodness to tell M. Colbert I wish to see him.”
Fouquet bowed and left the room.

Chapter XIV. A Gascon, and a Gascon and a Half.

D’Artagnan had determined to lose no time, and in fact he never was in
the habit of doing so. After having inquired for Aramis, he had looked for
him in every direction until he had succeeded in finding him. Besides, no
sooner had the king entered Vaux, than Aramis had retired to his own room,
meditating, doubtless, some new piece of gallant attention for his majesty’s
amusement. D’Artagnan desired the servants to announce him, and found
on the second story (in a beautiful room called the Blue Chamber, on
account of the color of its hangings) the bishop of Vannes in company with
Porthos and several of the modern Epicureans. Aramis came forward to
embrace his friend, and offered him the best seat. As it was after awhile
generally remarked among those present that the musketeer was reserved,
and wished for an opportunity for conversing secretly with Aramis, the
Epicureans took their leave. Porthos, however, did not stir; for true it is that,
having dined exceedingly well, he was fast asleep in his armchair; and the
freedom of conversation therefore was not interrupted by a third person.
Porthos had a deep, harmonious snore, and people might talk in the midst of
its loud bass without fear of disturbing him. D’Artagnan felt that he was
called upon to open the conversation.
“Well, and so we have come to Vaux,” he said.
“Why, yes, D’Artagnan. And how do you like the place?”
“Very much, and I like M. Fouquet, also.”
“Is he not a charming host?”
“No one could be more so.”
“I am told that the king began by showing great distance of manner
towards M. Fouquet, but that his majesty grew much more cordial
afterwards.”
“You did not notice it, then, since you say you have been told so?”

“No; I was engaged with the gentlemen who have just left the room about
the theatrical performances and the tournaments which are to take place to-
morrow.”
“Ah, indeed! you are the comptroller-general of the fetes here, then?”
“You know I am a friend of all kinds of amusement where the exercise of
the imagination is called into activity; I have always been a poet in one way
or another.”
“Yes, I remember the verses you used to write, they were charming.”
“I have forgotten them, but I am delighted to read the verses of others,
when those others are known by the names of Moliere, Pelisson, La
Fontaine, etc.”
“Do you know what idea occurred to me this evening, Aramis?”
“No; tell me what it was, for I should never be able to guess it, you have
so many.”
“Well, the idea occurred to me, that the true king of France is not Louis
XIV.”
“What!” said Aramis, involuntarily, looking the musketeer full in the
eyes.
“No, it is Monsieur Fouquet.”
Aramis breathed again, and smiled. “Ah! you are like all the rest,
jealous,” he said. “I would wager that it was M. Colbert who turned that
pretty phrase.” D’Artagnan, in order to throw Aramis off his guard, related
Colbert’s misadventures with regard to the vin de Melun.
“He comes of a mean race, does Colbert,” said Aramis.
“Quite true.”
“When I think, too,” added the bishop, “that that fellow will be your
minister within four months, and that you will serve him as blindly as you
did Richelieu or Mazarin—”
“And as you serve M. Fouquet,” said D’Artagnan.
“With this difference, though, that M. Fouquet is not M. Colbert.”
“True, true,” said D’Artagnan, as he pretended to become sad and full of
reflection; and then, a moment after, he added, “Why do you tell me that M.
Colbert will be minister in four months?”

“Because M. Fouquet will have ceased to be so,” replied Aramis.
“He will be ruined, you mean?” said D’Artagnan.
“Completely so.”
“Why does he give these fetes, then?” said the musketeer, in a tone so full
of thoughtful consideration, and so well assumed, that the bishop was for
the moment deceived by it. “Why did you not dissuade him from it?”
The latter part of the phrase was just a little too much, and Aramis’s
former suspicions were again aroused. “It is done with the object of
humoring the king.”
“By ruining himself?”
“Yes, by ruining himself for the king.”
“A most eccentric, one might say, sinister calculation, that.”
“Necessity, necessity, my friend.”
“I don’t see that, dear Aramis.”
“Do you not? Have you not remarked M. Colbert’s daily increasing
antagonism, and that he is doing his utmost to drive the king to get rid of
the superintendent?”
“One must be blind not to see it.”
“And that a cabal is already armed against M. Fouquet?”
“That is well known.”
“What likelihood is there that the king would join a party formed against
a man who will have spent everything he had to please him?”
“True, true,” said D’Artagnan, slowly, hardly convinced, yet curious to
broach another phase of the conversation. “There are follies, and follies,” he
resumed, “and I do not like those you are committing.”
“What do you allude to?”
“As for the banquet, the ball, the concert, the theatricals, the tournaments,
the cascades, the fireworks, the illuminations, and the presents—these are
well and good, I grant; but why were not these expenses sufficient? Why
was it necessary to have new liveries and costumes for your whole
household?”
“You are quite right. I told M. Fouquet that myself; he replied, that if he
were rich enough he would offer the king a newly erected chateau, from the

vanes at the houses to the very sub-cellars; completely new inside and out;
and that, as soon as the king had left, he would burn the whole building and
its contents, in order that it might not be made use of by any one else.”
“How completely Spanish!”
“I told him so, and he then added this: ‘Whoever advises me to spare
expense, I shall look upon as my enemy.’”
“It is positive madness; and that portrait, too!”
“What portrait?” said Aramis.
“That of the king, and the surprise as well.”
“What surprise?”
“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 favor, then. Why did you take some patterns of the
king’s costumes at Percerin’s?”
“Come with me and ask poor Lebrun, who has been working upon them
for the last two days and nights.”
“Aramis, that may be truth for everybody else, but for me—”
“Upon my word, D’Artagnan, you astonish me.”
“Be a little considerate. 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 have possibly 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 long ago divulged it?”
“No, Aramis, no. There are certain projects which are never revealed
until the favorable 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 up before me the least corner in his heart. Friendship, I repeat,
is nothing but an unsubstantial shadow—a lure, like everything else in this
bright, dazzling world.”
“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 of which
you have been speaking.”
“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? What an affecting relic of the former dear old 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 favor?”
“If I am not mistaken, Aramis, your words—at the moment you
pronounce them—are full of generous feeling.”
“Such a thing is very 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 conceal a smile of disdain that flitted over his haughty
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—we are 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 within me speaks and seems to trickle forth a rill of
light within my darkness: it is a voice that 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 to suspect me of wishing to assassinate the king!”
“Who spoke of such a thing?” smiled the musketeer.
“Well, let us understand one another. 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, one single
word of a true friend.”

“A true friend’s word is ever 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
honor; 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. Duty summons me. I have to get the watch-word. It seems I am to
be lodged in the king’s ante-room. Where does Porthos sleep?”
“Take him away with you, if you like, for he rumbles through his sleepy
nose like a park of artillery.”
“Ah! he does not stay with you, then?” said D’Artagnan.
“Not the least in the world. He has a chamber 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 loud yawn. “Come,” said D’Artagnan.
“What, D’Artagnan, my dear fellow, is that you? What a lucky chance!
Oh, yes—true; I have forgotten; I am at the fete at Vaux.”
“Yes; and your beautiful dress, too.”
“Yes, it was very attentive on the part of Monsieur Coquelin de Voliere,
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 lightness and calm of
wholesome 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 asleep myself.” 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’Artagnan entertains a great many suspicions, it seems,” he said.
“Ah!—you recognized 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
recognize 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?”
“Sit in 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 the 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 Colbert had
arrived. The conversation began between them by the king according to him
one of the highest favors 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 was about to be
dismissed, refused this unprecedented honor.
“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 they held under their feet, ready to crush them
when they 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 the doing of it.”
“I ran the risk of displeasing your majesty, but I risked, also, the
concealment of your best interests.”
“What! you were afraid of something on my account?”
“I was, sire, even if it were nothing more than an indigestion,” said
Colbert; “for people do not give their sovereigns such banquets as the one
of to-day, unless it be to stifle them beneath the burden of good living.”
Colbert awaited the effect this coarse jest would produce upon the king; and
Louis XIV., who was the vainest and the 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; and to the utmost farthing.”
“I know you are very exact.”
“Exactitude is the principal qualification required in an intendant of
finances.”
“But all are not so.”
“I thank you 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 favors those who practice it.”
“You have something to say to me more confidentially, 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 conceives and executes. 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 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
recognize 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 acquired the utilitarian habit of checking the
public accounts.”
“I see that it refers to money that had been given to M. Fouquet.”
“Thirteen millions. A tolerably good sum.”
“Yes. Well, these thirteen millions are wanting to balance the total of the
account. That is what I do not very well understand. How was this deficit
possible?”
“Possible I do not say; but there is no doubt about fact that it is really 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 that 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 purpose;
and with those thirteen millions one could incur four times and a little more
as much expense, 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 rather skillfully
contrived piece of baseness; for by the remembrance of his own fete 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, returned it with the best possible
interest. Having once disposed the king’s mind in this artful 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 gloomy state. Colbert
awaited the first words 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 usual and natural consequence of all this,
Monsieur Colbert?” said the king, after a few moments’ 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, M. 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 nobility in his demeanor.
“The king is in his own palace wherever he may be—especially in houses
which the royal money has constructed.”
“I think,” said Philippe in a low tone to Aramis, “that the architect who
planned this dome ought, anticipating the use it could be put to at a future
opportunity, so to have contrived that it might be made to fall upon the
heads of scoundrels such as M. Colbert.”
“I think 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 king, I should make no further reply.”

“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 remarks, said, hastily, changing the conversation, “M. 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.
“A moment longer,” said Aramis to him, with his accustomed gentleness
of manner; “what has just now taken place is only a detail, and to-morrow
we shall have no occasion to think anything more about it; but the
ceremony of the king’s retiring to rest, the etiquette observed in addressing
the king, that indeed is of the greatest importance. Learn, sire, and study
well how you ought to go to bed of a night. Look! look!”

Chapter XV. Colbert.

History will tell us, or rather history has told us, of the various events of
the following day, of the splendid fetes given by the surintendant to his
sovereign. Nothing but amusement and delight was allowed to prevail
throughout the whole of the following day; there was a promenade, a
banquet, a comedy to be acted, and a comedy, too, in which, to his great
amazement, Porthos recognized “M. Coquelin de Voliere” as one of the
actors, in the piece called “Les Facheux.” Full of preoccupation, however,
from the scene of the previous evening, and hardly recovered from the
effects of the poison which Colbert had then administered to him, the king,
during the whole of the day, so brilliant in its effects, so full of unexpected
and startling novelties, in which all the wonders of the “Arabian Night’s
Entertainments” seemed to be reproduced for his especial amusement—the
king, we say, showed himself cold, reserved, and taciturn. Nothing could
smooth the frowns upon his face; every one who observed him noticed that
a deep feeling of resentment, of remote origin, increased by slow degrees,
as the source becomes a river, thanks to the thousand threads of water that
increase its body, was keenly alive in the depths of the king’s heart.
Towards the middle of the day only did he begin to resume a little serenity
of manner, and by that time he had, in all probability, made up his mind.
Aramis, who followed him step by step in his thoughts, as in his walk,
concluded that the event he was expecting would not be long before it was
announced. This time Colbert seemed to walk in concert with the bishop of
Vannes, and had he received for every annoyance which he inflicted on the
king a word of direction from Aramis, he could not have done better.
During the whole of the day the king, who, in all probability, wished to free
himself from some of the thoughts which disturbed his mind, seemed to
seek La Vallière’s society as actively as he seemed to show his anxiety to
flee that of M. Colbert or M. Fouquet. The evening came. The king had
expressed a wish not to walk in the park until after cards in the evening. In

the interval between supper and the promenade, cards and dice were
introduced. The king won a thousand pistoles, and, having won them, put
them in his pocket, and then rose, saying, “And now, gentlemen, to the
park.” He found the ladies of the court were already there. The king, we
have before observed, had won a thousand pistoles, and had put them in his
pocket; but M. Fouquet had somehow contrived to lose ten thousand, so
that among the courtiers there was still left a hundred and ninety thousand
francs’ profit to divide, a circumstance which made the countenances of the
courtiers and the officers of the king’s household the most joyous
countenances in the world. It was not the same, however, with the king’s
face; for, notwithstanding his success at play, to which he was by no means
insensible, there still remained a slight shade of dissatisfaction. Colbert was
waiting for or upon him at the corner of one of the avenues; he was most
probably waiting there in consequence of a rendezvous which had been
given him by the king, as Louis XIV., who had avoided him, or who had
seemed to avoid him, suddenly made him a sign, and they then struck into
the depths of the park together. But La Vallière, too, had observed the king’s
gloomy aspect and kindling glances; she had remarked this—and as nothing
which lay hidden or smoldering in his heart was hidden from the gaze of
her affection, she understood that this repressed wrath menaced some one;
she prepared to withstand the current of his vengeance, and intercede like
an angel of mercy. Overcome by sadness, nervously agitated, deeply
distressed at having been so long separated from her lover, disturbed at the
sight of the emotion she had divined, she accordingly presented herself to
the king with an embarrassed aspect, which in his then disposition of mind
the king interpreted unfavorably. Then, as they were alone—nearly alone,
inasmuch as Colbert, as soon as he perceived the young girl approaching,
had stopped and drawn back a dozen paces—the king advanced towards La
Vallière and took her by the hand. “Mademoiselle,” he said to her, “should I
be guilty of an indiscretion if I were to inquire if you were indisposed? for
you seem to breathe as if you were oppressed by some secret cause of
uneasiness, and your eyes are filled with tears.”
“Oh! sire, if I be indeed so, and if my eyes are indeed full of tears, I am
sorrowful only at the sadness which seems to oppress your majesty.”
“My sadness? You are mistaken, mademoiselle; no, it is not sadness I
experience.”

“What is it, then, sire?”
“Humiliation.”
“Humiliation? oh! sire, what a word for you to use!”
“I mean, mademoiselle, that wherever I may happen to be, no one else
ought to be the master. Well, then, look round you on every side, and judge
whether I am not eclipsed—I, the king of France—before the monarch of
these wide domains. Oh!” he continued, clenching his hands and teeth,
“when I think that this king—”
“Well, sire?” said Louise, terrified.
“—That this king is a faithless, unworthy servant, who grows proud and
self-sufficient upon the strength of property that belongs to me, and which
he has stolen. And therefore I am about to change this impudent minister’s
fete into sorrow and mourning, of which the nymph of Vaux, as the poets
say, shall not soon lose the remembrance.”
“Oh! your majesty—”
“Well, mademoiselle, are you about to take M. Fouquet’s part?” said
Louis, impatiently.
“No, sire; I will only ask whether you are well informed. Your majesty
has more than once learned the value of accusations made at court.”
Louis XIV. made a sign for Colbert to approach. “Speak, Monsieur
Colbert,” said the young prince, “for I almost believe that Mademoiselle de
la Vallière has need of your assistance before she can put any faith in the
king’s word. Tell mademoiselle what M. Fouquet has done; and you,
mademoiselle, will perhaps have the kindness to listen. It will not be long.”
Why did Louis XIV. insist upon it in such a manner? A very simple
reason—his heart was not at rest, his mind was not thoroughly convinced;
he imagined there lay some dark, hidden, tortuous intrigue behind these
thirteen millions of francs; and he wished that the pure heart of La Vallière,
which had revolted at the idea of theft or robbery, should approve—even
were it only by a single word—the resolution he had taken, and which,
nevertheless, he hesitated before carrying into execution.
“Speak, monsieur,” said La Vallière to Colbert, who had advanced;
“speak, since the king wishes me to listen to you. Tell me, what is the crime
with which M. Fouquet is charged?”

“Oh! not very heinous, mademoiselle,” he returned, “a mere abuse of
confidence.”
“Speak, speak, Colbert; and when you have related it, leave us, and go
and inform M. d’Artagnan that I have certain orders to give him.”
“M. d’Artagnan, sire!” exclaimed La Vallière; “but why send for M.
d’Artagnan? I entreat you to tell me.”
“Pardieu! in order to arrest this haughty, arrogant Titan who, true to his
menace, threatens to scale my heaven.”
“Arrest M. Fouquet, do you say?”
“Ah! does that surprise you?”
“In his own house!”
“Why not? If he be guilty, he is as guilty in his own house as anywhere
else.”
“M. Fouquet, who at this moment is ruining himself for his sovereign.”
“In plain truth, mademoiselle, it seems as if you were defending this
traitor.”
Colbert began to chuckle silently. The king turned round at the sound of
this suppressed mirth.
“Sire,” said La Vallière, “it is not M. Fouquet I am defending; it is
yourself.”
“Me! you are defending me?”
“Sire, you would dishonor yourself if you were to give such an order.”
“Dishonor myself!” murmured the king, turning pale with anger. “In
plain truth, mademoiselle, you show a strange persistence in what you say.”
“If I do, sire, my only motive is that of serving your majesty,” replied the
noble-hearted girl: “for that I would risk, I would sacrifice my very life,
without the least reserve.”
Colbert seemed inclined to grumble and complain. La Vallière, that timid,
gentle lamb, turned round upon him, and with a glance like lightning
imposed silence upon him. “Monsieur,” she said, “when the king acts well,
whether, in doing so, he does either myself or those who belong to me an
injury, I have nothing to say; but were the king to confer a benefit either
upon me or mine, and if he acted badly, I should tell him so.”

“But it appears to me, mademoiselle,” Colbert ventured to say, “that I too
love the king.”
“Yes, monseigneur, we both love him, but each in a different manner,”
replied La Vallière, with such an accent that the heart of the young king was
powerfully affected by it. “I love him so deeply, that the whole world is
aware of it; so purely, that the king himself does not doubt my affection. He
is my king and my master; I am the least of all his servants. But whoso
touches his honor assails my life. Therefore, I repeat, that they dishonor the
king who advise him to arrest M. Fouquet under his own roof.”
Colbert hung down his head, for he felt that the king had abandoned him.
However, as he bent his head, he murmured, “Mademoiselle, I have only
one word to say.”
“Do not say it, then, monsieur; for I would not listen to it. Besides, what
could you have to tell me? That M. Fouquet has been guilty of certain
crimes? I believe he has, because the king has said so; and, from the
moment the king said, ‘I think so,’ I have no occasion for other lips to say,
‘I affirm it.’ But, were M. Fouquet the vilest of men, I should say aloud, ‘M.
Fouquet’s person is sacred to the king because he is the guest of M.
Fouquet. Were his house a den of thieves, were Vaux a cave of coiners or
robbers, his home is sacred, his palace is inviolable, since his wife is living
in it; and that is an asylum which even executioners would not dare to
violate.’”
La Vallière paused, and was silent. In spite of himself the king could not
but admire her; he was overpowered by the passionate energy of her voice;
by the nobleness of the cause she advocated. Colbert yielded, overcome by
the inequality of the struggle. At last the king breathed again more freely,
shook his head, and held out his hand to La Vallière. “Mademoiselle,” he
said, gently, “why do you decide against me? Do you know what this
wretched fellow will do, if I give him time to breathe again?”
“Is he not a prey which will always be within your grasp?”
“Should he escape, and take to flight?” exclaimed Colbert.
“Well, monsieur, it will always remain on record, to the king’s eternal
honor, that he allowed M. Fouquet to flee; and the more guilty he may have
been, the greater will the king’s honor and glory appear, compared with
such unnecessary misery and shame.”

Louis kissed La Vallière’s hand, as he knelt before her.
“I am lost,” thought Colbert; then suddenly his face brightened up again.
“Oh! no, no, aha, old fox!—not yet,” he said to himself.
And while the king, protected from observation by the thick covert of an
enormous lime, pressed La Vallière to his breast, with all the ardor of
ineffable affection, Colbert tranquilly fumbled among the papers in his
pocket-book and drew out of it a paper folded in the form of a letter,
somewhat yellow, perhaps, but one that must have been most precious,
since the intendant smiled as he looked at it; he then bent a look, full of
hatred, upon the charming group which the young girl and the king formed
together—a group revealed but for a moment, as the light of the
approaching torches shone upon it. Louis noticed the light reflected upon
La Vallière’s white dress. “Leave me, Louise,” he said, “for some one is
coming.”
“Mademoiselle, mademoiselle, some one is coming,” cried Colbert, to
expedite the young girl’s departure.
Louise disappeared rapidly among the trees; and then, as the king, who
had been on his knees before the young girl, was rising from his humble
posture, Colbert exclaimed, “Ah! Mademoiselle de la Vallière has let
something fall.”
“What is it?” inquired the king.
“A paper—a letter—something white; look there, sire.”
The king stooped down immediately and picked up the letter, crumpling
it in his hand, as he did so; and at the same moment the torches arrived,
inundating the blackness of the scene with a flood of light as bight as day.

Chapter XVI. Jealousy.

The torches we have just referred to, the eager attention every one
displayed, and the new ovation paid to the king by Fouquet, arrived in time
to suspend the effect of a resolution which La Vallière had already
considerably shaken in Louis XIV.‘s heart. He looked at Fouquet with a
feeling almost of gratitude for having given La Vallière an opportunity of
showing herself so generously disposed, so powerful in the influence she
exercised over his heart. The moment of the last and greatest display had
arrived. Hardly had Fouquet conducted the king towards the chateau, when
a mass of fire burst from the dome of Vaux, with a prodigious uproar,
pouring a flood of dazzling cataracts of rays on every side, and illumining
the remotest corners of the gardens. The fireworks began. Colbert, at twenty
paces from the king, who was surrounded and feted by the owner of Vaux,
seemed, by the obstinate persistence of his gloomy thoughts, to do his
utmost to recall Louis’s attention, which the magnificence of the spectacle
was already, in his opinion, too easily diverting. Suddenly, just as Louis was
on the point of holding it out to Fouquet, he perceived in his hand the paper
which, as he believed, La Vallière had dropped at his feet as she hurried
away. The still stronger magnet of love drew the young prince’s attention
towards the souvenir of his idol; and, by the brilliant light, which increased
momentarily in beauty, and drew from the neighboring villages loud cheers
of admiration, the king read the letter, which he supposed was a loving and
tender epistle La Vallière had destined for him. But as he read it, a death-
like pallor stole over his face, and an expression of deep-seated wrath,
illumined by the many-colored fire which gleamed so brightly, soaringly
around the scene, produced a terrible spectacle, which every one would
have shuddered at, could they only have read into his heart, now torn by the
most stormy and most bitter passions. There was no truce for him now,
influenced as he was by jealousy and mad passion. From the very moment
when the dark truth was revealed to him, every gentler feeling seemed to

disappear; pity, kindness of consideration, the religion of hospitality, all
were forgotten. In the bitter pang which wrung his heart, he, still too weak
to hide his sufferings, was almost on the point of uttering a cry of alarm,
and calling his guards to gather round him. This letter which Colbert had
thrown down at the king’s feet, the reader has doubtlessly guessed, was the
same that had disappeared with the porter Toby at Fontainebleau, after the
attempt which Fouquet had made upon La Vallière’s heart. Fouquet saw the
king’s pallor, and was far from guessing the evil; Colbert saw the king’s
anger, and rejoiced inwardly at the approach of the storm. Fouquet’s voice
drew the young prince from his wrathful reverie.
“What is the matter, sire?” inquired the superintendent, with an
expression of graceful interest.
Louis made a violent effort over himself, as he replied, “Nothing.”
“I am afraid your majesty is suffering?”
“I am suffering, and have already told you so, monsieur; but it is
nothing.”
And the king, without waiting for the termination of the fireworks, turned
towards the chateau. Fouquet accompanied him, and the whole court
followed, leaving the remains of the fireworks consuming for their own
amusement. The superintendent endeavored again to question Louis XIV.,
but did not succeed in obtaining a reply. He imagined there had been some
misunderstanding between Louis and La Vallière in the park, which had
resulted in a slight quarrel; and that the king, who was not ordinarily sulky
by disposition, but completely absorbed by his passion for La Vallière, had
taken a dislike to every one because his mistress had shown herself
offended with him. This idea was sufficient to console him; he had even a
friendly and kindly smile for the young king, when the latter wished him
good night. This, however, was not all the king had to submit to; he was
obliged to undergo the usual ceremony, which on that evening was marked
by close adherence to the strictest etiquette. The next day was the one fixed
for the departure; it was but proper that the guests should thank their host,
and show him a little attention in return for the expenditure of his twelve
millions. The only remark, approaching to amiability, which the king could
find to say to M. Fouquet, as he took leave of him, were in these words, “M.
Fouquet, you shall hear from me. Be good enough to desire M. d’Artagnan
to come here.”

But the blood of Louis XIV., who had so profoundly dissimulated his
feelings, boiled in his veins; and he was perfectly willing to order M.
Fouquet to be put an end to with the same readiness, indeed, as his
predecessor had caused the assassination of le Marechal d’Ancre; and so he
disguised the terrible resolution he had formed beneath one of those royal
smiles which, like lightning-flashes, indicated coups d’etat. Fouquet took
the king’s hand and kissed it; Louis shuddered throughout his whole frame,
but allowed M. Fouquet to touch his hand with his lips. Five minutes
afterwards, D’Artagnan, to whom the royal order had been communicated,
entered Louis XIV.‘s apartment. Aramis and Philippe were in theirs, still
eagerly attentive, and still listening with all their ears. The king did not even
give the captain of the musketeers time to approach his armchair, but ran
forward to meet him. “Take care,” he exclaimed, “that no one enters here.”
“Very good, sire,” replied the captain, whose glance had for a long time
past analyzed the stormy indications on the royal countenance. He gave the
necessary order at the door; but, returning to the king, he said, “Is there
something fresh the matter, your majesty?”
“How many men have you here?” inquired the king, without making any
other reply to the question addressed to him.
“What for, sire?”
“How many men have you, I say?” repeated the king, stamping upon the
ground with his foot.
“I have the musketeers.”
“Well; and what others?”
“Twenty guards and thirteen Swiss.”
“How many men will be required to—”
“To do what, sire?” replied the musketeer, opening his large, calm eyes.
“To arrest M. Fouquet.”
D’Artagnan fell back a step.
“To arrest M. Fouquet!” he burst forth.
“Are you going to tell me that it is impossible?” exclaimed the king, in
tones of cold, vindictive passion.
“I never say that anything is impossible,” replied D’Artagnan, wounded
to the quick.

“Very well; do it, then.”
D’Artagnan turned on his heel, and made his way towards the door; it
was but a short distance, and he cleared it in half a dozen paces; when he
reached it he suddenly paused, and said, “Your majesty will forgive me, but,
in order to effect this arrest, I should like written directions.”
“For what purpose—and since when has the king’s word been
insufficient for you?”
“Because the word of a king, when it springs from a feeling of anger,
may possibly change when the feeling changes.”
“A truce to set phrases, monsieur; you have another thought besides
that?”
“Oh, I, at least, have certain thoughts and ideas, which, unfortunately,
others have not,” D’Artagnan replied, impertinently.
The king, in the tempest of his wrath, hesitated, and drew back in the face
of D’Artagnan’s frank courage, just as a horse crouches on his haunches
under the strong hand of a bold and experienced rider. “What is your
thought?” he exclaimed.
“This, sire,” replied D’Artagnan: “you cause a man to be arrested when
you are still under his roof; and passion is alone the cause of that. When
your anger shall have passed, you will regret what you have done; and then
I wish to be in a position to show you your signature. If that, however,
should fail to be a reparation, it will at least show us that the king was
wrong to lose his temper.”
“Wrong to lose his temper!” cried the king, in a loud, passionate voice.
“Did not my father, my grandfathers, too, before me, lose their temper at
times, in Heaven’s name?”
“The king your father and the king your grandfather never lost their
temper except when under the protection of their own palace.”
“The king is master wherever he may be.”
“That is a flattering, complimentary phrase which cannot proceed from
any one but M. Colbert; but it happens not to be the truth. The king is at
home in every man’s house when he has driven its owner out of it.”
The king bit his lips, but said nothing.

“Can it be possible?” said D’Artagnan; “here is a man who is positively
ruining himself in order to please you, and you wish to have him arrested!
Mordioux! Sire, if my name was Fouquet, and people treated me in that
manner, I would swallow at a single gulp all sorts of fireworks and other
things, and I would set fire to them, and send myself and everybody else in
blown-up atoms to the sky. But it is all the same; it is your wish, and it shall
be done.”
“Go,” said the king; “but have you men enough?”
“Do you suppose I am going to take a whole host to help me? Arrest M.
Fouquet! why, that is so easy that a very child might do it! It is like drinking
a glass of wormwood; one makes an ugly face, and that is all.”
“If he defends himself?”
“He! it is not at all likely. Defend himself when such extreme harshness
as you are going to practice makes the man a very martyr! Nay, I am sure
that if he has a million of francs left, which I very much doubt, he would be
willing enough to give it in order to have such a termination as this. But
what does that matter? it shall be done at once.”
“Stay,” said the king; “do not make his arrest a public affair.”
“That will be more difficult.”
“Why so?”
“Because nothing is easier than to go up to M. Fouquet in the midst of a
thousand enthusiastic guests who surround him, and say, ‘In the king’s
name, I arrest you.’ But to go up to him, to turn him first one way and then
another, to drive him up into one of the corners of the chess-board, in such a
way that he cannot escape; to take him away from his guests, and keep him
a prisoner for you, without one of them, alas! having heard anything about
it; that, indeed, is a genuine difficulty, the greatest of all, in truth; and I
hardly see how it is to be done.”
“You had better say it is impossible, and you will have finished much
sooner. Heaven help me, but I seem to be surrounded by people who
prevent me doing what I wish.”
“I do not prevent your doing anything. Have you indeed decided?”
“Take care of M. Fouquet, until I shall have made up my mind by to-
morrow morning.”

“That shall be done, sire.”
“And return, when I rise in the morning, for further orders; and now
leave me to myself.”
“You do not even want M. Colbert, then?” said the musketeer, firing his
last shot as he was leaving the room. The king started. With his whole mind
fixed on the thought of revenge, he had forgotten the cause and substance of
the offense.
“No, no one,” he said; “no one here! Leave me.”
D’Artagnan quitted the room. The king closed the door with his own
hands, and began to walk up and down his apartment at a furious pace, like
a wounded bull in an arena, trailing from his horn the colored streamers and
the iron darts. At last he began to take comfort in the expression of his
violent feelings.
“Miserable wretch that he is! not only does he squander my finances, but
with his ill-gotten plunder he corrupts secretaries, friends, generals, artists,
and all, and tries to rob me of the one to whom I am most attached. This is
the reason that perfidious girl so boldly took his part! Gratitude! and who
can tell whether it was not a stronger feeling—love itself?” He gave himself
up for a moment to the bitterest reflections. “A satyr!” he thought, with that
abhorrent hate with which young men regard those more advanced in life,
who still think of love. “A man who has never found opposition or
resistance in any one, who lavishes his gold and jewels in every direction,
and who retains his staff of painters in order to take the portraits of his
mistresses in the costume of goddesses.” The king trembled with passion as
he continued, “He pollutes and profanes everything that belongs to me! He
destroys everything that is mine. He will be my death at last, I know. That
man is too much for me; he is my mortal enemy, but he shall forthwith fall!
I hate him—I hate him—I hate him!” and as he pronounced these words, he
struck the arm of the chair in which he was sitting violently, over and over
again, and then rose like one in an epileptic fit. “To-morrow! to-morrow!
oh, happy day!” he murmured, “when the sun rises, no other rival shall that
brilliant king of space possess but me. That man shall fall so low that when
people look at the abject ruin my anger shall have wrought, they will be
forced to confess at last and at least that I am indeed greater than he.” The
king, who was incapable of mastering his emotions any longer, knocked
over with a blow of his fist a small table placed close to his bedside, and in

the very bitterness of anger, almost weeping, and half-suffocated, he threw
himself on his bed, dressed as he was, and bit the sheets in his extremity of
passion, trying to find repose of body at least there. The bed creaked
beneath his weight, and with the exception of a few broken sounds,
emerging, or, one might say, exploding, from his overburdened chest,
absolute silence soon reigned in the chamber of Morpheus.

Chapter XVII. High Treason.

The ungovernable fury which took possession of the king at the sight and
at the perusal of Fouquet’s letter to La Vallière by degrees subsided into a
feeling of pain and extreme weariness. Youth, invigorated by health and
lightness of spirits, requiring soon that what it loses should be immediately
restored—youth knows not those endless, sleepless nights which enable us
to realize the fable of the vulture unceasingly feeding on Prometheus. In
cases where the man of middle life, in his acquired strength of will and
purpose, and the old, in their state of natural exhaustion, find incessant
augmentation of their bitter sorrow, a young man, surprised by the sudden
appearance of misfortune, weakens himself in sighs, and groans, and tears,
directly struggling with his grief, and is thereby far sooner overthrown by
the inflexible enemy with whom he is engaged. Once overthrown, his
struggles cease. Louis could not hold out more than a few minutes, at the
end of which he had ceased to clench his hands, and scorch in fancy with
his looks the invisible objects of his hatred; he soon ceased to attack with
his violent imprecations not M. Fouquet alone, but even La Vallière herself;
from fury he subsided into despair, and from despair to prostration. After he
had thrown himself for a few minutes to and fro convulsively on his bed,
his nerveless arms fell quietly down; his head lay languidly on his pillow;
his limbs, exhausted with excessive emotion, still trembled occasionally,
agitated by muscular contractions; while from his breast faint and
infrequent sighs still issued. Morpheus, the tutelary deity of the apartment,
towards whom Louis raised his eyes, wearied by his anger and reconciled
by his tears, showered down upon him the sleep-inducing poppies with
which his hands are ever filled; so presently the monarch closed his eyes
and fell asleep. Then it seemed to him, as it often happens in that first sleep,
so light and gentle, which raises the body above the couch, and the soul
above the earth—it seemed to him, we say, as if the god Morpheus, painted
on the ceiling, looked at him with eyes resembling human eyes; that

something shone brightly, and moved to and fro in the dome above the
sleeper; that the crowd of terrible dreams which thronged together in his
brain, and which were interrupted for a moment, half revealed a human
face, with a hand resting against the mouth, and in an attitude of deep and
absorbed meditation. And strange enough, too, this man bore so wonderful
a resemblance to the king himself, that Louis fancied he was looking at his
own face reflected in a mirror; with the exception, however, that the face
was saddened by a feeling of the profoundest pity. Then it seemed to him as
if the dome gradually retired, escaping from his gaze, and that the figures
and attributes painted by Lebrun became darker and darker as the distance
became more and more remote. A gentle, easy movement, as regular as that
by which a vessel plunges beneath the waves, had succeeded to the
immovableness of the bed. Doubtless the king was dreaming, and in this
dream the crown of gold, which fastened the curtains together, seemed to
recede from his vision, just as the dome, to which it remained suspended,
had done, so that the winged genius which, with both its hand, supported
the crown, seemed, though vainly so, to call upon the king, who was fast
disappearing from it. The bed still sunk. Louis, with his eyes open, could
not resist the deception of this cruel hallucination. At last, as the light of the
royal chamber faded away into darkness and gloom, something cold,
gloomy, and inexplicable in its nature seemed to infect the air. No paintings,
nor gold, nor velvet hangings, were visible any longer, nothing but walls of
a dull gray color, which the increasing gloom made darker every moment.
And yet the bed still continued to descend, and after a minute, which
seemed in its duration almost an age to the king, it reached a stratum of air,
black and chill as death, and then it stopped. The king could no longer see
the light in his room, except as from the bottom of a well we can see the
light of day. “I am under the influence of some atrocious dream,” he
thought. “It is time to awaken from it. Come! let me wake.”
Every one has experienced the sensation the above remark conveys; there
is hardly a person who, in the midst of a nightmare whose influence is
suffocating, has not said to himself, by the help of that light which still
burns in the brain when every human light is extinguished, “It is nothing
but a dream, after all.” This was precisely what Louis XIV. said to himself;
but when he said, “Come, come! wake up,” he perceived that not only was
he already awake, but still more, that he had his eyes open also. And then he
looked all round him. On his right hand and on his left two armed men

stood in stolid silence, each wrapped in a huge cloak, and the face covered
with a mask; one of them held a small lamp in his hand, whose glimmering
light revealed the saddest picture a king could look upon. Louis could not
help saying to himself that his dream still lasted, and that all he had to do to
cause it to disappear was to move his arms or to say something aloud; he
darted from his bed, and found himself upon the damp, moist ground. Then,
addressing himself to the man who held the lamp in his hand, he said:
“What is this, monsieur, and what is the meaning of this jest?”
“It is no jest,” replied in a deep voice the masked figure that held the
lantern.
“Do you belong to M. Fouquet?” inquired the king, greatly astonished at
his situation.
“It matters very little to whom we belong,” said the phantom; “we are
your masters now, that is sufficient.”
The king, more impatient than intimidated, turned to the other masked
figure. “If this is a comedy,” he said, “you will tell M. Fouquet that I find it
unseemly and improper, and that I command it should cease.”
The second masked person to whom the king had addressed himself was
a man of huge stature and vast circumference. He held himself erect and
motionless as any block of marble. “Well!” added the king, stamping his
foot, “you do not answer!”
“We do not answer you, my good monsieur,” said the giant, in a
stentorian voice, “because there is nothing to say.”
“At least, tell me what you want,” exclaimed Louis, folding his arms with
a passionate gesture.
“You will know by and by,” replied the man who held the lamp.
“In the meantime tell me where I am.”
“Look.”
Louis looked all round him; but by the light of the lamp which the
masked figure raised for the purpose, he could perceive nothing but the
damp walls which glistened here and there with the slimy traces of the
snail. “Oh—oh!—a dungeon,” cried the king.
“No, a subterranean passage.”
“Which leads—?”

“Will you be good enough to follow us?”
“I shall not stir from hence!” cried the king.
“If you are obstinate, my dear young friend,” replied the taller of the two,
“I will lift you up in my arms, and roll you up in your own cloak, and if you
should happen to be stifled, why—so much the worse for you.”
As he said this, he disengaged from beneath his cloak a hand of which
Milo of Crotona would have envied him the possession, on the day when he
had that unhappy idea of rending his last oak. The king dreaded violence,
for he could well believe that the two men into whose power he had fallen
had not gone so far with any idea of drawing back, and that they would
consequently be ready to proceed to extremities, if necessary. He shook his
head and said: “It seems I have fallen into the hands of a couple of
assassins. Move on, then.”
Neither of the men answered a word to this remark. The one who carried
the lantern walked first, the king followed him, while the second masked
figure closed the procession. In this manner they passed along a winding
gallery of some length, with as many staircases leading out of it as are to be
found in the mysterious and gloomy palaces of Ann Radcliffe’s creation. All
these windings and turnings, during which the king heard the sound of
running water over his head, ended at last in a long corridor closed by an
iron door. The figure with the lamp opened the door with one of the keys he
wore suspended at his girdle, where, during the whole of the brief journey,
the king had heard them rattle. As soon as the door was opened and
admitted the air, Louis recognized the balmy odors that trees exhale in hot
summer nights. He paused, hesitatingly, for a moment or two; but the huge
sentinel who followed him thrust him out of the subterranean passage.
“Another blow,” said the king, turning towards the one who had just had
the audacity to touch his sovereign; “what do you intend to do with the king
of France?”
“Try to forget that word,” replied the man with the lamp, in a tone which
as little admitted of a reply as one of the famous decrees of Minos.
“You deserve to be broken on the wheel for the words that you have just
made use of,” said the giant, as he extinguished the lamp his companion
handed to him; “but the king is too kind-hearted.”

Louis, at that threat, made so sudden a movement that it seemed as if he
meditated flight; but the giant’s hand was in a moment placed on his
shoulder, and fixed him motionless where he stood. “But tell me, at least,
where we are going,” said the king.
“Come,” replied the former of the two men, with a kind of respect in his
manner, and leading his prisoner towards a carriage which seemed to be in
waiting.
The carriage was completely concealed amid the trees. Two horses, with
their feet fettered, were fastened by a halter to the lower branches of a large
oak.
“Get in,” said the same man, opening the carriage-door and letting down
the step. The king obeyed, seated himself at the back of the carriage, the
padded door of which was shut and locked immediately upon him and his
guide. As for the giant, he cut the fastenings by which the horses were
bound, harnessed them himself, and mounted on the box of the carriage,
which was unoccupied. The carriage set off immediately at a quick trot,
turned into the road to Paris, and in the forest of Senart found a relay of
horses fastened to the trees in the same manner the first horses had been,
and without a postilion. The man on the box changed the horses, and
continued to follow the road towards Paris with the same rapidity, so that
they entered the city about three o’clock in the morning. They carriage
proceeded along the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and, after having called out to
the sentinel, “By the king’s order,” the driver conducted the horses into the
circular inclosure of the Bastile, looking out upon the courtyard, called La
Cour du Gouvernement. There the horses drew up, reeking with sweat, at
the flight of steps, and a sergeant of the guard ran forward. “Go and wake
the governor,” said the coachman in a voice of thunder.
With the exception of this voice, which might have been heard at the
entrance of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, everything remained as calm in the
carriage as in the prison. Ten minutes afterwards, M. de Baisemeaux
appeared in his dressing-gown on the threshold of the door. “What is the
matter now?” he asked; “and whom have you brought me there?”
The man with the lantern opened the carriage-door, and said two or three
words to the one who acted as driver, who immediately got down from his
seat, took up a short musket which he kept under his feet, and placed its
muzzle on his prisoner’s chest.

“And fire at once if he speaks!” added aloud the man who alighted from
the carriage.
“Very good,” replied his companion, without another remark.
With this recommendation, the person who had accompanied the king in
the carriage ascended the flight of steps, at the top of which the governor
was awaiting him. “Monsieur d’Herblay!” said the latter.
“Hush!” said Aramis. “Let us go into your room.”
“Good heavens! what brings you here at this hour?”
“A mistake, my dear Monsieur de Baisemeaux,” Aramis replied, quietly.
“It appears that you were quite right the other day.”
“What about?” inquired the governor.
“About the order of release, my dear friend.”
“Tell me what you mean, monsieur—no, monseigneur,” said the
governor, almost suffocated by surprise and terror.
“It is a very simple affair: you remember, dear M. de Baisemeaux, that an
order of release was sent to you.”
“Yes, for Marchiali.”
“Very good! we both thought that it was for Marchiali?”
“Certainly; you will recollect, however, that I would not credit it, but that
you compelled me to believe it.”
“Oh! Baisemeaux, my good fellow, what a word to make use of!—
strongly recommended, that was all.”
“Strongly recommended, yes; strongly recommended to give him up to
you; and that you carried him off with you in your carriage.”
“Well, my dear Monsieur de Baisemeaux, it was a mistake; it was
discovered at the ministry, so that I now bring you an order from the king to
set at liberty Seldon,—that poor Seldon fellow, you know.”
“Seldon! are you sure this time?”
“Well, read it yourself,” added Aramis, handing him the order.
“Why,” said Baisemeaux, “this order is the very same that has already
passed through my hands.”
“Indeed?”

“It is the very one I assured you I saw the other evening. Parbleu! I
recognize it by the blot of ink.”
“I do not know whether it is that; but all I know is, that I bring it for
you.”
“But then, what about the other?”
“What other?”
“Marchiali.”
“I have got him here with me.”
“But that is not enough for me. I require a new order to take him back
again.”
“Don’t talk such nonsense, my dear Baisemeaux; you talk like a child!
Where is the order you received respecting Marchiali?”
Baisemeaux ran to his iron chest and took it out. Aramis seized hold of it,
coolly tore it in four pieces, held them to the lamp, and burnt them. “Good
heavens! what are you doing?” exclaimed Baisemeaux, in an extremity of
terror.
“Look at your position quietly, my good governor,” said Aramis, with
imperturbable self-possession, “and you will see how very simple the whole
affair is. You no longer possess any order justifying Marchiali’s release.”
“I am a lost man!”
“Far from it, my good fellow, since I have brought Marchiali back to you,
and all accordingly is just the same as if he had never left.”
“Ah!” said the governor, completely overcome by terror.
“Plain enough, you see; and you will go and shut him up immediately.”
“I should think so, indeed.”
“And you will hand over this Seldon to me, whose liberation is
authorized by this order. Do you understand?”
“I—I—”
“You do understand, I see,” said Aramis. “Very good.” Baisemeaux
clapped his hands together.
“But why, at all events, after having taken Marchiali away from me, do
you bring him back again?” cried the unhappy governor, in a paroxysm of
terror, and completely dumbfounded.

“For a friend such as you are,” said Aramis—“for so devoted a servant, I
have no secrets;” and he put his mouth close to Baisemeaux’s ear, as he
said, in a low tone of voice, “you know the resemblance between that
unfortunate fellow, and—”
“And the king?—yes!”
“Very good; the first use that Marchiali made of his liberty was to persist
—Can you guess what?”
“How is it likely I should guess?”
“To persist in saying that he was king of France; to dress himself up in
clothes like those of the king; and then pretend to assume that he was the
king himself.”
“Gracious heavens!”
“That is the reason why I have brought him back again, my dear friend.
He is mad and lets every one see how mad he is.”
“What is to be done, then?”
“That is very simple; let no one hold any communication with him. You
understand that when his peculiar style of madness came to the king’s ears,
the king, who had pitied his terrible affliction, and saw that all his kindness
had been repaid by black ingratitude, became perfectly furious; so that, now
—and remember this very distinctly, dear Monsieur de Baisemeaux, for it
concerns you most closely—so that there is now, I repeat, sentence of death
pronounced against all those who may allow him to communicate with any
one else but me or the king himself. You understand, Baisemeaux, sentence
of death!”
“You need not ask me whether I understand.”
“And now, let us go down, and conduct this poor devil back to his
dungeon again, unless you prefer he should come up here.”
“What would be the good of that?”
“It would be better, perhaps, to enter his name in the prison-book at
once!”
“Of course, certainly; not a doubt of it.”
“In that case, have him up.”
Baisemeaux ordered the drums to be beaten and the bell to be rung, as a
warning to every one to retire, in order to avoid meeting a prisoner, about

whom it was desired to observe a certain mystery. Then, when the passages
were free, he went to take the prisoner from the carriage, at whose breast
Porthos, faithful to the directions which had been given him, still kept his
musket leveled. “Ah! is that you, miserable wretch?” cried the governor, as
soon as he perceived the king. “Very good, very good.” And immediately,
making the king get out of the carriage, he led him, still accompanied by
Porthos, who had not taken off his mask, and Aramis, who again resumed
his, up the stairs, to the second Bertaudiere, and opened the door of the
room in which Philippe for six long years had bemoaned his existence. The
king entered the cell without pronouncing a single word: he faltered in as
limp and haggard as a rain-struck lily. Baisemeaux shut the door upon him,
turned the key twice in the lock, and then returned to Aramis. “It is quite
true,” he said, in a low tone, “that he bears a striking resemblance to the
king; but less so than you said.”
“So that,” said Aramis, “you would not have been deceived by the
substitution of the one for the other?”
“What a question!”
“You are a most valuable fellow, Baisemeaux,” said Aramis; “and now,
set Seldon free.”
“Oh, yes. I was going to forget that. I will go and give orders at once.”
“Bah! to-morrow will be time enough.”
“To-morrow!—oh, no. This very minute.”
“Well; go off to your affairs, I will go away to mine. But it is quite
understood, is it not?”
“What ‘is quite understood’?”
“That no one is to enter the prisoner’s cell, expect with an order from the
king; an order which I will myself bring.”
“Quite so. Adieu, monseigneur.”
Aramis returned to his companion. “Now, Porthos, my good fellow, back
again to Vaux, and as fast as possible.”
“A man is light and easy enough, when he has faithfully served his king;
and, in serving him, saved his country,” said Porthos. “The horses will be as
light as if our tissues were constructed of the wind of heaven. So let us be
off.” And the carriage, lightened of a prisoner, who might well be—as he in

fact was—very heavy in the sight of Aramis, passed across the drawbridge
of the Bastile, which was raised again immediately behind it.

Chapter XVIII. A Night at the Bastile.

Pain, anguish, and suffering in human life are always in proportion to the
strength with which a man is endowed. We will not pretend to say that
Heaven always apportions to a man’s capability of endurance the anguish
with which he afflicts him; for that, indeed, would not be true, since Heaven
permits the existence of death, which is, sometimes, the only refuge open to
those who are too closely pressed—too bitterly afflicted, as far as the body
is concerned. Suffering is in proportion to the strength which has been
accorded; in other words, the weak suffer more, where the trial is the same,
than the strong. And what are the elementary principles, we may ask, that
compose human strength? Is it not—more than anything else—exercise,
habit, experience? We shall not even take the trouble to demonstrate this,
for it is an axiom in morals, as in physics. When the young king, stupefied
and crushed in every sense and feeling, found himself led to a cell in the
Bastile, he fancied death itself is but a sleep; that it, too, has its dreams as
well; that the bed had broken through the flooring of his room at Vaux; that
death had resulted from the occurrence; and that, still carrying out his
dream, the king, Louis XIV., now no longer living, was dreaming one of
those horrors, impossible to realize in life, which is termed dethronement,
imprisonment, and insult towards a sovereign who formerly wielded
unlimited power. To be present at—an actual witness, too—of this
bitterness of death; to float, indecisively, in an incomprehensible mystery,
between resemblance and reality; to hear everything, to see everything,
without interfering in a single detail of agonizing suffering, was—so the
king thought within himself—a torture far more terrible, since it might last
forever. “Is this what is termed eternity—hell?” he murmured, at the
moment the door was closed upon him, which we remember Baisemeaux
had shut with his own hands. He did not even look round him; and in the
room, leaning with his back against the wall, he allowed himself to be
carried away by the terrible supposition that he was already dead, as he

closed his eyes, in order to avoid looking upon something even worse still.
“How can I have died?” he said to himself, sick with terror. “The bed might
have been let down by some artificial means? But no! I do not remember to
have felt a bruise, nor any shock either. Would they not rather have
poisoned me at my meals, or with the fumes of wax, as they did my
ancestress, Jeanne d’Albret?” Suddenly, the chill of the dungeons seemed to
fall like a wet cloak upon Louis’s shoulders. “I have seen,” he said, “my
father lying dead upon his funeral couch, in his regal robes. That pale face,
so calm and worn; those hands, once so skillful, lying nerveless by his side;
those limbs stiffened by the icy grasp of death; nothing there betokened a
sleep that was disturbed by dreams. And yet, how numerous were the
dreams which Heaven might have sent that royal corpse—him whom so
many others had preceded, hurried away by him into eternal death! No, that
king was still the king: he was enthroned still upon that funeral couch, as
upon a velvet armchair; he had not abdicated one title of his majesty. God,
who had not punished him, cannot, will not punish me, who have done
nothing.” A strange sound attracted the young man’s attention. He looked
round him, and saw on the mantel-shelf, just below an enormous crucifix,
coarsely painted in fresco on the wall, a rat of enormous size engaged in
nibbling a piece of dry bread, but fixing all the time, an intelligent and
inquiring look upon the new occupant of the cell. The king could not resist
a sudden impulse of fear and disgust: he moved back towards the door,
uttering a loud cry; and as if he but needed this cry, which escaped from his
breast almost unconsciously, to recognize himself, Louis knew that he was
alive and in full possession of his natural senses. “A prisoner!” he cried. “I
—I, a prisoner!” He looked round him for a bell to summon some one to
him. “There are no bells in the Bastile,” he said, “and it is in the Bastile I
am imprisoned. In what way can I have been made a prisoner? It must have
been owing to a conspiracy of M. Fouquet. I have been drawn to Vaux, as to
a snare. M. Fouquet cannot be acting alone in this affair. His agent—That
voice that I but just now heard was M. d’Herblay’s; I recognized it. Colbert
was right, then. But what is Fouquet’s object? To reign in my place and
stead?—Impossible. Yet who knows!” thought the king, relapsing into
gloom again. “Perhaps my brother, the Duc d’Orleans, is doing that which
my uncle wished to do during the whole of his life against my father. But
the queen?—My mother, too? And La Vallière? Oh! La Vallière, she will
have been abandoned to Madame. Dear, dear girl! Yes, it is—it must be so.

They have shut her up as they have me. We are separated forever!” And at
this idea of separation the poor lover burst into a flood of tears and sobs and
groans.
“There is a governor in this place,” the king continued, in a fury of
passion; “I will speak to him, I will summon him to me.”
He called—no voice replied to his. He seized hold of his chair, and
hurled it against the massive oaken door. The wood resounded against the
door, and awakened many a mournful echo in the profound depths of the
staircase; but from a human creature, none.
This was a fresh proof for the king of the slight regard in which he was
held at the Bastile. Therefore, when his first fit of anger had passed away,
having remarked a barred window through which there passed a stream of
light, lozenge-shaped, which must be, he knew, the bright orb of
approaching day, Louis began to call out, at first gently enough, then louder
and louder still; but no one replied. Twenty other attempts which he made,
one after another, obtained no other or better success. His blood began to
boil within him, and mount to his head. His nature was such, that,
accustomed to command, he trembled at the idea of disobedience. The
prisoner broke the chair, which was too heavy for him to lift, and made use
of it as a battering ram to strike against the door. He struck so loudly, and so
repeatedly, that the perspiration soon began to pour down his face. The
sound became tremendous and continuous; certain stifled, smothered cries
replied in different directions. This sound produced a strange effect upon
the king. He paused to listen; it was the voice of the prisoners, formerly his
victims, now his companions. The voices ascended like vapors through the
thick ceilings and the massive walls, and rose in accusations against the
author of this noise, as doubtless their sighs and tears accused, in whispered
tones, the author of their captivity. After having deprived so many people of
their liberty, the king came among them to rob them of their rest. This idea
almost drove him mad; it redoubled his strength, or rather his will, bent
upon obtaining some information, or a conclusion to the affair. With a
portion of the broken chair he recommenced the noise. At the end of an
hour, Louis heard something in the corridor, behind the door of his cell, and
a violent blow, which was returned upon the door itself, made him cease his
own.

“Are you mad?” said a rude, brutal voice. “What is the matter with you
this morning?”
“This morning!” thought the king; but he said aloud, politely, “Monsieur,
are you the governor of the Bastile?”
“My good fellow, your head is out of sorts,” replied the voice; “but that is
no reason why you should make such a terrible disturbance. Be quiet;
mordioux!”
“Are you the governor?” the king inquired again.
He heard a door on the corridor close; the jailer had just left, not
condescending to reply a single word. When the king had assured himself
of his departure, his fury knew no longer any bounds. As agile as a tiger, he
leaped from the table to the window, and struck the iron bars with all his
might. He broke a pane of glass, the pieces of which fell clanking into the
courtyard below. He shouted with increasing hoarseness, “The governor, the
governor!” This excess lasted fully an hour, during which time he was in a
burning fever. With his hair in disorder and matted on his forehead, his
dress torn and covered with dust and plaster, his linen in shreds, the king
never rested until his strength was utterly exhausted, and it was not until
then that he clearly understood the pitiless thickness of the walls, the
impenetrable nature of the cement, invincible to every influence but that of
time, and that he possessed no other weapon but despair. He leaned his
forehead against the door, and let the feverish throbbings of his heart calm
by degrees; it had seemed as if one single additional pulsation would have
made it burst.
“A moment will come when the food which is given to the prisoners will
be brought to me. I shall then see some one, I shall speak to him, and get an
answer.”
And the king tried to remember at what hour the first repast of the
prisoners was served at the Bastile; he was ignorant even of this detail. The
feeling of remorse at this remembrance smote him like the thrust of a
dagger, that he should have lived for five and twenty years a king, and in
the enjoyment of every happiness, without having bestowed a moment’s
thought on the misery of those who had been unjustly deprived of their
liberty. The king blushed for very shame. He felt that Heaven, in permitting
this fearful humiliation, did no more than render to the man the same torture
as had been inflicted by that man upon so many others. Nothing could be

more efficacious for reawakening his mind to religious influences than the
prostration of his heart and mind and soul beneath the feeling of such acute
wretchedness. But Louis dared not even kneel in prayer to God to entreat
him to terminate his bitter trial.
“Heaven is right,” he said; “Heaven acts wisely. It would be cowardly to
pray to Heaven for that which I have so often refused my own fellow-
creatures.”
He had reached this stage of his reflections, that is, of his agony of mind,
when a similar noise was again heard behind his door, followed this time by
the sound of the key in the lock, and of the bolts being withdrawn from
their staples. The king bounded forward to be nearer to the person who was
about to enter, but, suddenly reflecting that it was a movement unworthy of
a sovereign, he paused, assumed a noble and calm expression, which for
him was easy enough, and waited with his back turned towards the window,
in order, to some extent, to conceal his agitation from the eyes of the person
who was about to enter. It was only a jailer with a basket of provisions. The
king looked at the man with restless anxiety, and waited until he spoke.
“Ah!” said the latter, “you have broken your chair. I said you had done
so! Why, you have gone quite mad.”
“Monsieur,” said the king, “be careful what you say; it will be a very
serious affair for you.”
The jailer placed the basket on the table, and looked at his prisoner
steadily. “What do you say?” he said.
“Desire the governor to come to me,” added the king, in accents full of
calm and dignity.
“Come, my boy,” said the turnkey, “you have always been very quiet and
reasonable, but you are getting vicious, it seems, and I wish you to know it
in time. You have broken your chair, and made a great disturbance; that is
an offense punishable by imprisonment in one of the lower dungeons.
Promise me not to begin over again, and I will not say a word about it to the
governor.”
“I wish to see the governor,” replied the king, still governing his
passions.
“He will send you off to one of the dungeons, I tell you; so take care.”
“I insist upon it, do you hear?”

“Ah! ah! your eyes are becoming wild again. Very good! I shall take
away your knife.”
And the jailer did what he said, quitted the prisoner, and closed the door,
leaving the king more astounded, more wretched, more isolated than ever. It
was useless, though he tried it, to make the same noise again on his door,
and equally useless that he threw the plates and dishes out of the window;
not a single sound was heard in recognition. Two hours afterwards he could
not be recognized as a king, a gentleman, a man, a human being; he might
rather be called a madman, tearing the door with his nails, trying to tear up
the flooring of his cell, and uttering such wild and fearful cries that the old
Bastile seemed to tremble to its very foundations for having revolted
against its master. As for the governor, the jailer did not even think of
disturbing him; the turnkeys and the sentinels had reported the occurrence
to him, but what was the good of it? Were not these madmen common
enough in such a prison? and were not the walls still stronger? M. de
Baisemeaux, thoroughly impressed with what Aramis had told him, and in
perfect conformity with the king’s order, hoped only that one thing might
happen; namely, that the madman Marchiali might be mad enough to hang
himself to the canopy of his bed, or to one of the bars of the window. In
fact, the prisoner was anything but a profitable investment for M.
Baisemeaux, and became more annoying than agreeable to him. These
complications of Seldon and Marchiali—the complications first of setting at
liberty and then imprisoning again, the complications arising from the
strong likeness in question—had at last found a very proper denouement.
Baisemeaux even thought he had remarked that D’Herblay himself was not
altogether dissatisfied with the result.
“And then, really,” said Baisemeaux to his next in command, “an
ordinary prisoner is already unhappy enough in being a prisoner; he suffers
quite enough, indeed, to induce one to hope, charitably enough, that his
death may not be far distant. With still greater reason, accordingly, when the
prisoner has gone mad, and might bite and make a terrible disturbance in
the Bastile; why, in such a case, it is not simply an act of mere charity to
wish him dead; it would be almost a good and even commendable action,
quietly to have him put out of his misery.”
And the good-natured governor thereupon sat down to his late breakfast.

Chapter XIX. The Shadow of M. Fouquet.

D’Artagnan, still confused and oppressed by the conversation he had just
had with the king, could not resist asking himself if he were really in
possession of his senses, if he were really and truly at Vaux; if he,
D’Artagnan, were really the captain of the musketeers, and M. Fouquet the
owner of the chateau in which Louis XIV. was at that moment partaking of
his hospitality. These reflections were not those of a drunken man, although
everything was in prodigal profusion at Vaux, and the surintendant’s wines
had met with a distinguished reception at the fete. The Gascon, however,
was a man of calm self-possession; and no sooner did he touch his bright
steel blade, than he knew how to adopt morally the cold, keen weapon as
his guide of action.
“Well,” he said, as he quitted the royal apartment, “I seem now to be
mixed up historically with the destinies of the king and of the minister; it
will be written, that M. d’Artagnan, a younger son of a Gascon family,
placed his hand on the shoulder of M. Nicolas Fouquet, the surintendant of
the finances of France. My descendants, if I have any, will flatter
themselves with the distinction which this arrest will confer, just as the
members of the De Luynes family have done with regard to the estates of
the poor Marechal d’Ancre. But the thing is, how best to execute the king’s
directions in a proper manner. Any man would know how to say to M.
Fouquet, ‘Your sword, monsieur.’ But it is not every one who would be able
to take care of M. Fouquet without others knowing anything about it. How
am I to manage, then, so that M. le surintendant pass from the height of
favor to the direst disgrace; that Vaux be turned into a dungeon for him; that
after having been steeped to his lips, as it were, in all the perfumes and
incense of Ahasuerus, he is transferred to the gallows of Haman; in other
words, of Enguerrand de Marigny?” And at this reflection, D’Artagnan’s
brow became clouded with perplexity. The musketeer had certain scruples
on the matter, it must be admitted. To deliver up to death (for not a doubt

existed that Louis hated Fouquet mortally) the man who had just shown
himself so delightful and charming a host in every way, was a real insult to
one’s conscience. “It almost seems,” said D’Artagnan to himself, “that if I
am not a poor, mean, miserable fellow, I should let M. Fouquet know the
opinion the king has about him. Yet, if I betray my master’s secret, I shall
be a false-hearted, treacherous knave, a traitor, too, a crime provided for
and punishable by military laws—so much so, indeed, that twenty times, in
former days when wars were rife, I have seen many a miserable fellow
strung up to a tree for doing, in but a small degree, what my scruples
counsel me to undertake upon a great scale now. No, I think that a man of
true readiness of wit ought to get out of this difficulty with more skill than
that. And now, let us admit that I do possess a little readiness of invention; it
is not at all certain, though, for, after having for forty years absorbed so
large a quantity, I shall be lucky if there were to be a pistole’s-worth left.”
D’Artagnan buried his head in his hands, tore at his mustache in sheer
vexation, and added, “What can be the reason of M. Fouquet’s disgrace?
There seem to be three good ones: the first, because M. Colbert doesn’t like
him; the second, because he wished to fall in love with Mademoiselle de la
Vallière; and lastly, because the king likes M. Colbert and loves
Mademoiselle de la Vallière. Oh! he is lost! But shall I put my foot on his
neck, I, of all men, when he is falling a prey to the intrigues of a pack of
women and clerks? For shame! If he be dangerous, I will lay him low
enough; if, however, he be only persecuted, I will look on. I have come to
such a decisive determination, that neither king nor living man shall change
my mind. If Athos were here, he would do as I have done. Therefore,
instead of going, in cold blood, up to M. Fouquet, and arresting him off-
hand and shutting him up altogether, I will try and conduct myself like a
man who understands what good manners are. People will talk about it, of
course; but they shall talk well of it, I am determined.” And D’Artagnan,
drawing by a gesture peculiar to himself his shoulder-belt over his shoulder,
went straight off to M. Fouquet, who, after he had taken leave of his guests,
was preparing to retire for the night and to sleep tranquilly after the
triumphs of the day. The air was still perfumed, or infected, whichever way
it may be considered, with the odors of the torches and the fireworks. The
wax-lights were dying away in their sockets, the flowers fell unfastened
from the garlands, the groups of dancers and courtiers were separating in
the salons. Surrounded by his friends, who complimented him and received

his flattering remarks in return, the surintendant half-closed his wearied
eyes. He longed for rest and quiet; he sank upon the bed of laurels which
had been heaped up for him for so many days past; it might almost have
been said that he seemed bowed beneath the weight of the new debts which
he had incurred for the purpose of giving the greatest possible honor to this
fete. Fouquet had just retired to his room, still smiling, but more than half-
asleep. He could listen to nothing more, he could hardly keep his eyes open;
his bed seemed to possess a fascinating and irresistible attraction for him.
The god Morpheus, the presiding deity of the dome painted by Lebrun, had
extended his influence over the adjoining rooms, and showered down his
most sleep-inducing poppies upon the master of the house. Fouquet, almost
entirely alone, was being assisted by his valet de chambre to undress, when
M. d’Artagnan appeared at the entrance of the room. D’Artagnan had never
been able to succeed in making himself common at the court; and
notwithstanding he was seen everywhere and on all occasions, he never
failed to produce an effect wherever and whenever he made his appearance.
Such is the happy privilege of certain natures, which in that respect
resemble either thunder or lightning; every one recognizes them; but their
appearance never fails to arouse surprise and astonishment, and whenever
they occur, the impression is always left that the last was the most
conspicuous or most important.
“What! M. d’Artagnan?” said Fouquet, who had already taken his right
arm out of the sleeve of his doublet.
“At your service,” replied the musketeer.
“Come in, my dear M. d’Artagnan.”
“Thank you.”
“Have you come to criticise the fete? You are ingenious enough in your
criticisms, I know.”
“By no means.”
“Are not your men looked after properly?”
“In every way.”
“You are not comfortably lodged, perhaps?”
“Nothing could be better.”
“In that case, I have to thank you for being so amiably disposed, and I
must not fail to express my obligations to you for all your flattering

kindness.”
These words were as much as to say, “My dear D’Artagnan, pray go to
bed, since you have a bed to lie down on, and let me do the same.”
D’Artagnan did not seem to understand it.
“Are you going to bed already?” he said to the superintendent.
“Yes; have you anything to say to me?”
“Nothing, monsieur, nothing at all. You sleep in this room, then?”
“Yes; as you see.”
“You have given a most charming fete to the king.”
“Do you think so?”
“Oh! beautiful!”
“Is the king pleased?”
“Enchanted.”
“Did he desire you to say as much to me?”
“He would not choose so unworthy a messenger, monseigneur.”
“You do not do yourself justice, Monsieur d’Artagnan.”
“Is that your bed, there?”
“Yes; but why do you ask? Are you not satisfied with your own?”
“My I speak frankly to you?”
“Most assuredly.”
“Well, then, I am not.”
Fouquet started; and then replied, “Will you take my room, Monsieur
d’Artagnan?”
“What! deprive you of it, monseigneur? never!”
“What am I to do, then?”
“Allow me to share yours with you.”
Fouquet looked at the musketeer fixedly. “Ah! ah!” he said, “you have
just left the king.”
“I have, monseigneur.”
“And the king wishes you to pass the night in my room?”
“Monseigneur—”

“Very well, Monsieur d’Artagnan, very well. You are the master here.”
“I assure you, monseigneur, that I do not wish to abuse—”
Fouquet turned to his valet, and said, “Leave us.” When the man had left,
he said to D’Artagnan, “You have something to say to me?”
“I?”
“A man of your superior intelligence cannot have come to talk with a
man like myself, at such an hour as the present, without grave motives.”
“Do not interrogate me.”
“On the contrary. What do you want with me?”
“Nothing more than the pleasure of your society.”
“Come into the garden, then,” said the superintendent suddenly, “or into
the park.”
“No,” replied the musketeer, hastily, “no.”
“Why?”
“The fresh air—”
“Come, admit at once that you arrest me,” said the superintendent to the
captain.
“Never!” said the latter.
“You intend to look after me, then?”
“Yes, monseigneur, I do, upon my honor.”
“Upon your honor—ah! that is quite another thing! So I am to be arrested
in my own house.”
“Do not say such a thing.”
“On the contrary, I will proclaim it aloud.”
“If you do so, I shall be compelled to request you to be silent.”
“Very good! Violence towards me, and in my own house, too.”
“We do not seem to understand one another at all. Stay a moment; there
is a chess-board there; we will have a game, if you have no objections.”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan, I am in disgrace, then?”
“Not at all; but—”
“I am prohibited, I suppose, from withdrawing from your sight.”

“I do not understand a word you are saying, monseigneur; and if you
wish me to withdraw, tell me so.”
“My dear Monsieur d’Artagnan, your mode of action is enough to drive
me mad; I was almost sinking for want of sleep, but you have completely
awakened me.”
“I shall never forgive myself, I am sure; and if you wish to reconcile me
with myself, why, go to sleep in your bed in my presence; and I shall be
delighted.”
“I am under surveillance, I see.”
“I will leave the room if you say any such thing.”
“You are beyond my comprehension.”
“Good night, monseigneur,” said D’Artagnan, as he pretended to
withdraw.
Fouquet ran after him. “I will not lie down,” he said. “Seriously, and
since you refuse to treat me as a man, and since you finesse with me, I will
try and set you at bay, as a hunter does a wild boar.”
“Bah!” cried D’Artagnan, pretending to smile.
“I shall order my horses, and set off for Paris,” said Fouquet, sounding
the captain of the musketeers.
“If that be the case, monseigneur, it is very difficult.”
“You will arrest me, then?”
“No, but I shall go along with you.”
“That is quite sufficient, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” returned Fouquet,
coldly. “It was not for nothing you acquired your reputation as a man of
intelligence and resource; but with me all this is quite superfluous. Let us
come to the point. Do me a service. Why do you arrest me? What have I
done?”
“Oh! I know nothing about what you may have done; but I do not arrest
you—this evening, at least!”
“This evening!” said Fouquet, turning pale, “but to-morrow?”
“It is not to-morrow just yet, monseigneur. Who can ever answer for the
morrow?”
“Quick, quick, captain! let me speak to M. d’Herblay.”

“Alas! that is quite impossible, monseigneur. I have strict orders to see
that you hold no communication with any one.”
“With M. d’Herblay, captain—with your friend!”
“Monseigneur, is M. d’Herblay the only person with whom you ought to
be prevented holding any communication?”
Fouquet colored, and then assuming an air of resignation, he said: “You
are right, monsieur; you have taught me a lesson I ought not to have
evoked. A fallen man cannot assert his right to anything, even from those
whose fortunes he may have made; for a still stronger reason, he cannot
claim anything from those to whom he may never have had the happiness of
doing a service.”
“Monseigneur!”
“It is perfectly true, Monsieur d’Artagnan; you have always acted in the
most admirable manner towards me—in such a manner, indeed, as most
becomes the man who is destined to arrest me. You, at least, have never
asked me anything.”
“Monsieur,” replied the Gascon, touched by his eloquent and noble tone
of grief, “will you—I ask it as a favor—pledge me your word as a man of
honor that you will not leave this room?”
“What is the use of it, dear Monsieur d’Artagnan, since you keep watch
and ward over me? Do you suppose I should contend against the most
valiant sword in the kingdom?”
“It is not that, at all, monseigneur; but that I am going to look for M.
d’Herblay, and, consequently, to leave you alone.”
Fouquet uttered a cry of delight and surprise.
“To look for M. d’Herblay! to leave me alone!” he exclaimed, clasping
his hands together.
“Which is M. d’Herblay’s room? The blue room is it not?”
“Yes, my friend, yes.”
“Your friend! thank you for that word, monseigneur; you confer it upon
me to-day, at least, if you have never done so before.”
“Ah! you have saved me.”
“It will take a good ten minutes to go from hence to the blue room, and to
return?” said D’Artagnan.

“Nearly so.”
“And then to wake Aramis, who sleeps very soundly, when he is asleep, I
put that down at another five minutes; making a total of fifteen minutes’
absence. And now, monseigneur, give me your word that you will not in any
way attempt to make your escape, and that when I return I shall find you
here again.”
“I give it, monsieur,” replied Fouquet, with an expression of the warmest
and deepest gratitude.
D’Artagnan disappeared. Fouquet looked at him as he quitted the room,
waited with a feverish impatience until the door was closed behind him, and
as soon as it was shut, flew to his keys, opened two or three secret doors
concealed in various articles of furniture in the room, looked vainly for
certain papers, which doubtless he had left at Saint-Mande, and which he
seemed to regret not having found in them; then hurriedly seizing hold of
letters, contracts, papers, writings, he heaped them up into a pile, which he
burnt in the extremest haste upon the marble hearth of the fireplace, not
even taking time to draw from the interior of it the vases and pots of flowers
with which it was filled. As soon as he had finished, like a man who has just
escaped an imminent danger, and whose strength abandons him as soon as
the danger is past, he sank down, completely overcome, on a couch. When
D’Artagnan returned, he found Fouquet in the same position; the worthy
musketeer had not the slightest doubt that Fouquet, having given his word,
would not even think of failing to keep it, but he had thought it most likely
that Fouquet would turn his (D’Artagnan’s) absence to the best advantage in
getting rid of all the papers, memorandums, and contracts, which might
possibly render his position, which was even now serious enough, more
dangerous than ever. And so, lifting up his head like a dog who has regained
the scent, he perceived an odor resembling smoke he had relied on finding
in the atmosphere, and having found it, made a movement of his head in
token of satisfaction. As D’Artagnan entered, Fouquet, on his side, raised
his head, and not one of D’Artagnan’s movements escaped him. And then
the looks of the two men met, and they both saw that they had understood
each other without exchanging a syllable.
“Well!” asked Fouquet, the first to speak, “and M. d’Herblay?”
“Upon my word, monseigneur,” replied D’Artagnan, “M. d’Herblay must
be desperately fond of walking out at night, and composing verses by

moonlight in the park of Vaux, with some of your poets, in all probability,
for he is not in his own room.”
“What! not in his own room?” cried Fouquet, whose last hope thus
escaped him; for unless he could ascertain in what way the bishop of
Vannes could assist him, he perfectly well knew that he could expect
assistance from no other quarter.
“Or, indeed,” continued D’Artagnan, “if he is in his own room, he has
very good reasons for not answering.”
“But surely you did not call him in such a manner that he could have
heard you?”
“You can hardly suppose, monseigneur, that having already exceeded my
orders, which forbade me leaving you a single moment—you can hardly
suppose, I say, that I should have been mad enough to rouse the whole
house and allow myself to be seen in the corridor of the bishop of Vannes,
in order that M. Colbert might state with positive certainty that I gave you
time to burn your papers.”
“My papers?”
“Of course; at least that is what I should have done in your place. When
any one opens a door for me I always avail myself of it.”
“Yes, yes, and I thank you, for I have availed myself of it.”
“And you have done perfectly right. Every man has his own peculiar
secrets with which others have nothing to do. But let us return to Aramis,
monseigneur.”
“Well, then, I tell you, you could not have called loud enough, or Aramis
would have heard you.”
“However softly any one may call Aramis, monseigneur, Aramis always
hears when he has an interest in hearing. I repeat what I said before—
Aramis was not in his own room, or Aramis had certain reasons for not
recognizing my voice, of which I am ignorant, and of which you may be
even ignorant yourself, notwithstanding your liege-man is His Greatness the
Lord Bishop of Vannes.”
Fouquet drew a deep sigh, rose from his seat, took three or four turns in
his room, and finished by seating himself, with an expression of extreme
dejection, upon his magnificent bed with velvet hangings, and costliest lace.

D’Artagnan looked at Fouquet with feelings of the deepest and sincerest
pity.
“I have seen a good many men arrested in my life,” said the musketeer,
sadly; “I have seen both M. de Cinq-Mars and M. de Chalais arrested,
though I was very young then. I have seen M. de Conde arrested with the
princes; I have seen M. de Retz arrested; I have seen M. Broussel arrested.
Stay a moment, monseigneur, it is disagreeable to have to say, but the very
one of all those whom you most resemble at this moment was that poor
fellow Broussel. You were very near doing as he did, putting your dinner
napkin in your portfolio, and wiping your mouth with your papers.
Mordioux! Monseigneur Fouquet, a man like you ought not to be dejected
in this manner. Suppose your friends saw you?”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” returned the surintendant, with a smile full of
gentleness, “you do not understand me; it is precisely because my friends
are not looking on, that I am as you see me now. I do not live, exist even,
isolated from others; I am nothing when left to myself. Understand that
throughout my whole life I have passed every moment of my time in
making friends, whom I hoped to render my stay and support. In times of
prosperity, all these cheerful, happy voices—rendered so through and by
my means—formed in my honor a concert of praise and kindly actions. In
the least disfavor, these humbler voices accompanied in harmonious accents
the murmur of my own heart. Isolation I have never yet known. Poverty (a
phantom I have sometimes beheld, clad in rags, awaiting me at the end of
my journey through life)—poverty has been the specter with which many of
my own friends have trifled for years past, which they poetize and caress,
and which has attracted me towards them. Poverty! I accept it, acknowledge
it, receive it, as a disinherited sister; for poverty is neither solitude, nor
exile, nor imprisonment. Is it likely I shall ever be poor, with such friends
as Pelisson, as La Fontaine, as Moliere? with such a mistress as—Oh! if
you knew how utterly lonely and desolate I feel at this moment, and how
you, who separate me from all I love, seem to resemble the image of
solitude, of annihilation—death itself.”
“But I have already told you, Monsieur Fouquet,” replied D’Artagnan,
moved to the depths of his soul, “that you are woefully exaggerating. The
king likes you.”
“No, no,” said Fouquet, shaking his head.

“M. Colbert hates you.”
“M. Colbert! What does that matter to me?”
“He will ruin you.”
“Ah! I defy him to do that, for I am ruined already.”
At this singular confession of the superintendent, D’Artagnan cast his
glance all round the room; and although he did not open his lips, Fouquet
understood him so thoroughly, that he added: “What can be done with such
wealth of substance as surrounds us, when a man can no longer cultivate his
taste for the magnificent? Do you know what good the greater part of the
wealth and the possessions which we rich enjoy, confer upon us? merely to
disgust us, by their very splendor even, with everything which does not
equal it! Vaux! you will say, and the wonders of Vaux! What of it? What
boot these wonders? If I am ruined, how shall I fill with water the urns
which my Naiads bear in their arms, or force the air into the lungs of my
Tritons? To be rich enough, Monsieur d’Artagnan, a man must be too rich.”
D’Artagnan shook his head.
“Oh! I know very well what you think,” replied Fouquet, quickly. “If
Vaux were yours, you would sell it, and would purchase an estate in the
country; an estate which should have woods, orchards, and land attached, so
that the estate should be made to support its master. With forty millions you
might—”
“Ten millions,” interrupted D’Artagnan.
“Not a million, my dear captain. No one in France is rich enough to give
two millions for Vaux, and to continue to maintain it as I have done; no one
could do it, no one would know how.”
“Well,” said D’Artagnan, “in any case, a million is not abject misery.”
“It is not far from it, my dear monsieur. But you do not understand me.
No; I will not sell my residence at Vaux; I will give it to you, if you like;”
and Fouquet accompanied these words with a movement of the shoulders to
which it would be impossible to do justice.
“Give it to the king; you will make a better bargain.”
“The king does not require me to give it to him,” said Fouquet; “he will
take it away from me with the most absolute ease and grace, if it pleases
him to do so; and that is the very reason I should prefer to see it perish. Do

you know, Monsieur d’Artagnan, that if the king did not happen to be under
my roof, I would take this candle, go straight to the dome, and set fire to a
couple of huge chests of fusees and fireworks which are in reserve there,
and would reduce my palace to ashes.”
“Bah!” said the musketeer, negligently. “At all events, you would not be
able to burn the gardens, and that is the finest feature of the place.”
“And yet,” resumed Fouquet, thoughtfully, “what was I saying? Great
heavens! burn Vaux! destroy my palace! But Vaux is not mine; these
wonderful creations are, it is true, the property, as far as sense of enjoyment
goes, of the man who has paid for them; but as far as duration is concerned,
they belong to those who created them. Vaux belongs to Lebrun, to Lenotre,
to Pelisson, to Levau, to La Fontaine, to Moliere; Vaux belongs to posterity,
in fact. You see, Monsieur d’Artagnan, that my very house has ceased to be
my own.”
“That is all well and good,” said D’Artagnan; “the idea is agreeable
enough, and I recognize M. Fouquet himself in it. That idea, indeed, makes
me forget that poor fellow Broussel altogether; and I now fail to recognize
in you the whining complaints of that old Frondeur. If you are ruined,
monsieur, look at the affair manfully, for you too, mordioux! belong to
posterity, and have no right to lessen yourself in any way. Stay a moment;
look at me, I who seem to exercise in some degree a kind of superiority
over you, because I am arresting you; fate, which distributes their different
parts to the comedians of this world, accorded me a less agreeable and less
advantageous part to fill than yours has been. I am one of those who think
that the parts which kings and powerful nobles are called upon to act are
infinitely of more worth than the parts of beggars or lackeys. It is far better
on the stage—on the stage, I mean, of another theater than the theater of
this world—it is far better to wear a fine coat and to talk a fine language,
than to walk the boards shod with a pair of old shoes, or to get one’s
backbone gently polished by a hearty dressing with a stick. In one word,
you have been a prodigal with money, you have ordered and been obeyed—
have been steeped to the lips in enjoyment; while I have dragged my tether
after me, have been commanded and have obeyed, and have drudged my
life away. Well, although I may seem of such trifling importance beside
you, monseigneur, I do declare to you, that the recollection of what I have
done serves me as a spur, and prevents me from bowing my old head too

soon. I shall remain unto the very end a trooper; and when my turn comes, I
shall fall perfectly straight, all in a heap, still alive, after having selected my
place beforehand. Do as I do, Monsieur Fouquet, you will not find yourself
the worse for it; a fall happens only once in a lifetime to men like yourself,
and the chief thing is, to take it gracefully when the chance presents itself.
There is a Latin proverb—the words have escaped me, but I remember the
sense of it very well, for I have thought over it more than once—which
says, ‘The end crowns the work!’”
Fouquet rose from his seat, passed his arm round D’Artagnan’s neck, and
clasped him in a close embrace, whilst with the other hand he pressed his
hand. “An excellent homily,” he said, after a moment’s pause.
“A soldier’s, monseigneur.”
“You have a regard for me, in telling me all that.”
“Perhaps.”
Fouquet resumed his pensive attitude once more, and then, a moment
after, he said: “Where can M. d’Herblay be? I dare not ask you to send for
him.”
“You would not ask me, because I would not do it, Monsieur Fouquet.
People would learn it, and Aramis, who is not mixed up with the affair,
might possibly be compromised and included in your disgrace.”
“I will wait here till daylight,” said Fouquet.
“Yes; that is best.”
“What shall we do when daylight comes?”
“I know nothing at all about it, monseigneur.”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan, will you do me a favor?”
“Most willingly.”
“You guard me, I remain; you are acting in the full discharge of your
duty, I suppose?”
“Certainly.”
“Very good, then; remain as close to me as my shadow if you like; and I
infinitely prefer such a shadow to any one else.”
D’Artagnan bowed to the compliment.

“But, forget that you are Monsieur d’Artagnan, captain of the
musketeers; forget that I am Monsieur Fouquet, surintendant of the
finances; and let us talk about my affairs.”
“That is rather a delicate subject.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes; but, for your sake, Monsieur Fouquet, I will do what may almost be
regarded as an impossibility.”
“Thank you. What did the king say to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Ah! is that the way you talk?”
“The deuce!”
“What do you think of my situation?”
“I do not know.”
“However, unless you have some ill feeling against me—”
“Your position is a difficult one.”
“In what respect?”
“Because you are under your own roof.”
“However difficult it may be, I understand it very well.”
“Do you suppose that, with any one else but yourself, I should have
shown so much frankness?”
“What! so much frankness, do you say? you, who refuse to tell me the
slightest thing?”
“At all events, then, so much ceremony and consideration.”
“Ah! I have nothing to say in that respect.”
“One moment, monseigneur: let me tell you how I should have behaved
towards any one but yourself. It might be that I happened to arrive at your
door just as your guests or your friends had left you—or, if they had not
gone yet, I should wait until they were leaving, and should then catch them
one after the other, like rabbits; I should lock them up quietly enough, I
should steal softly along the carpet of your corridor, and with one hand
upon you, before you suspected the slightest thing amiss, I should keep you
safely until my master’s breakfast in the morning. In this way, I should just
the same have avoided all publicity, all disturbance, all opposition; but there

would also have been no warning for M. Fouquet, no consideration for his
feelings, none of those delicate concessions which are shown by persons
who are essentially courteous in their natures, whenever the decisive
moment may arrive. Are you satisfied with the plan?”
“It makes me shudder.”
“I thought you would not like it. It would have been very disagreeable to
have made my appearance to-morrow, without any preparation, and to have
asked you to deliver up your sword.”
“Oh! monsieur, I should have died of shame and anger.”
“Your gratitude is too eloquently expressed. I have not done enough to
deserve it, I assure you.”
“Most certainly, monsieur, you will never get me to believe that.”
“Well, then, monseigneur, if you are satisfied with what I have done, and
have somewhat recovered from the shock which I prepared you for as much
as I possibly could, let us allow the few hours that remain to pass away
undisturbed. You are harassed, and should arrange your thoughts; I beg you,
therefore, go to sleep, or pretend to go to sleep, either on your bed, or in
your bed; I will sleep in this armchair; and when I fall asleep, my rest is so
sound that a cannon would not wake me.”
Fouquet smiled. “I expect, however,” continued the musketeer, “the case
of a door being opened, whether a secret door, or any other; or the case of
any one going out of, or coming into, the room—for anything like that my
ear is as quick and sensitive as the ear of a mouse. Creaking noises make
me start. It arises, I suppose, from a natural antipathy to anything of the
kind. Move about as much as you like; walk up and down in any part of the
room, write, efface, destroy, burn,—nothing like that will prevent me from
going to sleep or even prevent me from snoring, but do not touch either the
key or the handle of the door, for I should start up in a moment, and that
would shake my nerves and make me ill.”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Fouquet, “you are certainly the most witty
and the most courteous man I ever met with; and you will leave me only
one regret, that of having made your acquaintance so late.”
D’Artagnan drew a deep sigh, which seemed to say, “Alas! you have
perhaps made it too soon.” He then settled himself in his armchair, while
Fouquet, half lying on his bed and leaning on his arm, was meditating on

his misadventures. In this way, both of them, leaving the candles burning,
awaited the first dawn of the day; and when Fouquet happened to sigh too
loudly, D’Artagnan only snored the louder. Not a single visit, not even from
Aramis, disturbed their quietude: not a sound even was heard throughout
the whole vast palace. Outside, however, the guards of honor on duty, and
the patrol of musketeers, paced up and down; and the sound of their feet
could be heard on the gravel walks. It seemed to act as an additional
soporific for the sleepers, while the murmuring of the wind through the
trees, and the unceasing music of the fountains whose waters tumbled in the
basin, still went on uninterruptedly, without being disturbed at the slight
noises and items of little moment that constitute the life and death of human
nature.

Chapter XX. The Morning.

In vivid contrast to the sad and terrible destiny of the king imprisoned in
the Bastile, and tearing, in sheer despair, the bolts and bars of his dungeon,
the rhetoric of the chroniclers of old would not fail to present, as a complete
antithesis, the picture of Philippe lying asleep beneath the royal canopy. We
do not pretend to say that such rhetoric is always bad, and always scatters,
in places where they have no right to grow, the flowers with which it
embellishes and enlivens history. But we shall, on the present occasion,
carefully avoid polishing the antithesis in question, but shall proceed to
draw another picture as minutely as possible, to serve as foil and counterfoil
to the one in the preceding chapter. The young prince alighted from
Aramis’s room, in the same way the king had descended from the apartment
dedicated to Morpheus. The dome gradually and slowly sank down under
Aramis’s pressure, and Philippe stood beside the royal bed, which had
ascended again after having deposited its prisoner in the secret depths of the
subterranean passage. Alone, in the presence of all the luxury which
surrounded him; alone, in the presence of his power; alone, with the part he
was about to be forced to act, Philippe for the first time felt his heart, and
mind, and soul expand beneath the influence of a thousand mutable
emotions, which are the vital throbs of a king’s heart. He could not help
changing color when he looked upon the empty bed, still tumbled by his
brother’s body. This mute accomplice had returned, after having completed
the work it had been destined to perform; it returned with the traces of the
crime; it spoke to the guilty author of that crime, with the frank and
unreserved language which an accomplice never fears to use in the
company of his companion in guilt; for it spoke the truth. Philippe bent over
the bed, and perceived a pocket-handkerchief lying on it, which was still
damp from the cold sweat which had poured from Louis XIV.‘s face. This
sweat-bestained handkerchief terrified Philippe, as the gore of Abel
frightened Cain.

“I am face to face with my destiny,” said Philippe, his eyes on fire, and
his face a livid white. “Is it likely to be more terrifying than my captivity
has been sad and gloomy? Though I am compelled to follow out, at every
moment, the sovereign power and authority I have usurped, shall I cease to
listen to the scruples of my heart? Yes! the king has lain on this bed; it is
indeed his head that has left its impression on this pillow; his bitter tears
that have stained this handkerchief: and yet, I hesitate to throw myself on
the bed, or to press in my hand the handkerchief which is embroidered with
my brother’s arms. Away with such weakness; let me imitate M. d’Herblay,
who asserts that a man’s action should be always one degree above his
thoughts; let me imitate M. d’Herblay, whose thoughts are of and for
himself alone, who regards himself as a man of honor, so long as he injures
or betrays his enemies only. I, I alone, should have occupied this bed, if
Louis XIV. had not, owing to my mother’s criminal abandonment, stood in
my way; and this handkerchief, embroidered with the arms of France,
would in right and justice belong to me alone, if, as M. d’Herblay observes,
I had been left my royal cradle. Philippe, son of France, take your place on
that bed; Philippe, sole king of France, resume the blazonry that is yours!
Philippe, sole heir presumptive to Louis XIII., your father, show yourself
without pity or mercy for the usurper who, at this moment, has not even to
suffer the agony of the remorse of all that you have had to submit to.”
With these words, Philippe, notwithstanding an instinctive repugnance of
feeling, and in spite of the shudder of terror which mastered his will, threw
himself on the royal bed, and forced his muscles to press the still warm
place where Louis XIV. had lain, while he buried his burning face in the
handkerchief still moistened by his brother’s tears. With his head thrown
back and buried in the soft down of his pillow, Philippe perceived above
him the crown of France, suspended, as we have stated, by angels with
outspread golden wings.
A man may be ambitious of lying in a lion’s den, but can hardly hope to
sleep there quietly. Philippe listened attentively to every sound; his heart
panted and throbbed at the very suspicion of approaching terror and
misfortune; but confident in his own strength, which was confirmed by the
force of an overpoweringly resolute determination, he waited until some
decisive circumstance should permit him to judge for himself. He hoped
that imminent danger might be revealed to him, like those phosphoric lights
of the tempest which show the sailors the altitude of the waves against

which they have to struggle. But nothing approached. Silence, that mortal
enemy of restless hearts, and of ambitious minds, shrouded in the thickness
of its gloom during the remainder of the night the future king of France,
who lay there sheltered beneath his stolen crown. Towards the morning a
shadow, rather than a body, glided into the royal chamber; Philippe
expected his approach and neither expressed nor exhibited any surprise.
“Well, M. d’Herblay?”
“Well, sire, all is accomplished.”
“How?”
“Exactly as we expected.”
“Did he resist?”
“Terribly! tears and entreaties.”
“And then?”
“A perfect stupor.”
“But at last?”
“Oh! at last, a complete victory, and absolute silence.”
“Did the governor of the Bastile suspect anything?”
“Nothing.”
“The resemblance, however—”
“Was the cause of the success.”
“But the prisoner cannot fail to explain himself. Think well of that. I have
myself been able to do as much as that, on former occasion.”
“I have already provided for every chance. In a few days, sooner if
necessary, we will take the captive out of his prison, and will send him out
of the country, to a place of exile so remote—”
“People can return from their exile, Monsieur d’Herblay.”
“To a place of exile so distant, I was going to say, that human strength
and the duration of human life would not be enough for his return.”
Once more a cold look of intelligence passed between Aramis and the
young king.
“And M. du Vallon?” asked Philippe in order to change the conversation.
“He will be presented to you to-day, and confidentially will congratulate
you on the danger which that conspirator has made you run.”

“What is to be done with him?”
“With M. du Vallon?”
“Yes; confer a dukedom on him, I suppose.”
“A dukedom,” replied Aramis, smiling in a significant manner.
“Why do you laugh, Monsieur d’Herblay?”
“I laugh at the extreme caution of your idea.”
“Cautious, why so?”
“Your majesty is doubtless afraid that poor Porthos may possible become
a troublesome witness, and you wish to get rid of him.”
“What! in making him a duke?”
“Certainly; you would assuredly kill him, for he would die from joy, and
the secret would die with him.”
“Good heavens!”
“Yes,” said Aramis, phlegmatically; “I should lose a very good friend.”
At this moment, and in the middle of this idle conversation, under the
light tone of which the two conspirators concealed their joy and pride at
their mutual success, Aramis heard something which made him prick up his
ears.
“What is that?” said Philippe.
“The dawn, sire.”
“Well?”
“Well, before you retired to bed last night, you probably decided to do
something this morning at break of day.”
“Yes, I told my captain of the musketeers,” replied the young man
hurriedly, “that I should expect him.”
“If you told him that, he will certainly be here, for he is a most punctual
man.”
“I hear a step in the vestibule.”
“It must be he.”
“Come, let us begin the attack,” said the young king resolutely.
“Be cautious for Heaven’s sake. To begin the attack, and with
D’Artagnan, would be madness. D’Artagnan knows nothing, he has seen

nothing; he is a hundred miles from suspecting our mystery in the slightest
degree, but if he comes into this room the first this morning, he will be sure
to detect something of what has taken place, and which he would imagine it
his business to occupy himself about. Before we allow D’Artagnan to
penetrate into this room, we must air the room thoroughly, or introduce so
many people into it, that the keenest scent in the whole kingdom may be
deceived by the traces of twenty different persons.”
“But how can I send him away, since I have given him a rendezvous?”
observed the prince, impatient to measure swords with so redoubtable an
antagonist.
“I will take care of that,” replied the bishop, “and in order to begin, I am
going to strike a blow which will completely stupefy our man.”
“He, too, is striking a blow, for I hear him at the door,” added the prince,
hurriedly.
And, in fact, a knock at the door was heard at that moment. Aramis was
not mistaken; for it was indeed D’Artagnan who adopted that mode of
announcing himself.
We have seen how he passed the night in philosophizing with M.
Fouquet, but the musketeer was very weary even of feigning to fall asleep,
and as soon as earliest dawn illumined with its gloomy gleams of light the
sumptuous cornices of the superintendent’s room, D’Artagnan rose from his
armchair, arranged his sword, brushed his coat and hat with his sleeve, like
a private soldier getting ready for inspection.
“Are you going out?” said Fouquet.
“Yes, monseigneur. And you?”
“I shall remain.”
“You pledge your word?”
“Certainly.”
“Very good. Besides, my only reason for going out is to try and get that
reply,—you know what I mean?”
“That sentence, you mean—”
“Stay, I have something of the old Roman in me. This morning, when I
got up, I remarked that my sword had got caught in one of the aiguillettes,
and that my shoulder-belt had slipped quite off. That is an infallible sign.”

“Of prosperity?”
“Yes, be sure of it; for every time that that confounded belt of mine stuck
fast to my back, it always signified a punishment from M. de Treville, or a
refusal of money by M. de Mazarin. Every time my sword hung fast to my
shoulder-belt, it always predicted some disagreeable commission or another
for me to execute, and I have had showers of them all my life through.
Every time, too, my sword danced about in its sheath, a duel, fortunate in its
result, was sure to follow: whenever it dangled about the calves of my legs,
it signified a slight wound; every time it fell completely out of the scabbard,
I was booked, and made up my mind that I should have to remain on the
field of battle, with two or three months under surgical bandages into the
bargain.”
“I did not know your sword kept you so well informed,” said Fouquet,
with a faint smile, which showed how he was struggling against his own
weakness. “Is your sword bewitched, or under the influence of some
imperial charm?”
“Why, you must know that my sword may almost be regarded as part of
my own body. I have heard that certain men seem to have warnings given
them by feeling something the matter with their legs, or a throbbing of their
temples. With me, it is my sword that warns me. Well, it told me of nothing
this morning. But, stay a moment—look here, it has just fallen of its own
accord into the last hole of the belt. Do you know what that is a warning
of?”
“No.”
“Well, that tells me of an arrest that will have to be made this very day.”
“Well,” said the surintendant, more astonished than annoyed by this
frankness, “if there is nothing disagreeable predicted to you by your sword,
I am to conclude that it is not disagreeable for you to arrest me.”
“You! arrest you!”
“Of course. The warning—”
“Does not concern you, since you have been arrested ever since
yesterday. It is not you I shall have to arrest, be assured of that. That is the
reason why I am delighted, and also the reason why I said that my day will
be a happy one.”

And with these words, pronounced with the most affectionate
graciousness of manner, the captain took leave of Fouquet in order to wait
upon the king. He was on the point of leaving the room, when Fouquet said
to him, “One last mark of kindness.”
“What is it, monseigneur?”
“M. d’Herblay; let me see Monsieur d’Herblay.”
“I am going to try and get him to come to you.”
D’Artagnan did not think himself so good a prophet. It was written that
the day would pass away and realize all the predictions that had been made
in the morning. He had accordingly knocked, as we have seen, at the king’s
door. The door opened. The captain thought that it was the king who had
just opened it himself; and this supposition was not altogether inadmissible,
considering the state of agitation in which he had left Louis XIV. the
previous evening; but instead of his royal master, whom he was on the point
of saluting with the greatest respect, he perceived the long, calm features of
Aramis. So extreme was his surprise that he could hardly refrain from
uttering a loud exclamation. “Aramis!” he said.
“Good morning, dear D’Artagnan,” replied the prelate, coldly.
“You here!” stammered out the musketeer.
“His majesty desires you to report that he is still sleeping, after having
been greatly fatigued during the whole night.”
“Ah!” said D’Artagnan, who could not understand how the bishop of
Vannes, who had been so indifferent a favorite the previous evening, had
become in half a dozen hours the most magnificent mushroom of fortune
that had ever sprung up in a sovereign’s bedroom. In fact, to transmit the
orders of the king even to the mere threshold of that monarch’s room, to
serve as an intermediary of Louis XIV. so as to be able to give a single
order in his name at a couple paces from him, he must have become more
than Richelieu had ever been to Louis XIII. D’Artagnan’s expressive eye,
half-opened lips, his curling mustache, said as much indeed in the plainest
language to the chief favorite, who remained calm and perfectly unmoved.
“Moreover,” continued the bishop, “you will be good enough, monsieur
le capitaine des mousquetaires, to allow those only to pass into the king’s
room this morning who have special permission. His majesty does not wish
to be disturbed just yet.”

“But,” objected D’Artagnan, almost on the point of refusing to obey this
order, and particularly of giving unrestrained passage to the suspicions
which the king’s silence had aroused—“but, monsieur l’eveque, his majesty
gave me a rendezvous for this morning.”
“Later, later,” said the king’s voice, from the bottom of the alcove; a
voice which made a cold shudder pass through the musketeer’s veins. He
bowed, amazed, confused, and stupefied by the smile with which Aramis
seemed to overwhelm him, as soon as these words had been pronounced.
“And then,” continued the bishop, “as an answer to what you were
coming to ask the king, my dear D’Artagnan, here is an order of his
majesty, which you will be good enough to attend to forthwith, for it
concerns M. Fouquet.”
D’Artagnan took the order which was held out to him. “To be set at
liberty!” he murmured. “Ah!” and he uttered a second “ah!” still more full
of intelligence than the former; for this order explained Aramis’s presence
with the king, and that Aramis, in order to have obtained Fouquet’s pardon,
must have made considerable progress in the royal favor, and that this favor
explained, in its tenor, the hardly conceivable assurance with which M.
d’Herblay issued the order in the king’s name. For D’Artagnan it was quite
sufficient to have understood something of the matter in hand to order to
understand the rest. He bowed and withdrew a couple of paces, as though
he were about to leave.
“I am going with you,” said the bishop.
“Where to?”
“To M. Fouquet; I wish to be a witness of his delight.”
“Ah! Aramis, how you puzzled me just now!” said D’Artagnan again.
“But you understand now, I suppose?”
“Of course I understand,” he said aloud; but added in a low tone to
himself, almost hissing the words between his teeth, “No, no, I do not
understand yet. But it is all the same, for here is the order for it.” And then
he added, “I will lead the way, monseigneur,” and he conducted Aramis to
Fouquet’s apartments.

Chapter XXI. The King’s Friend.

Fouquet was waiting with anxiety; he had already sent away many of his
servants and friends, who, anticipating the usual hour of his ordinary
receptions, had called at his door to inquire after him. Preserving the utmost
silence respecting the danger which hung suspended by a hair above his
head, he only asked them, as he did every one, indeed, who came to the
door, where Aramis was. When he saw D’Artagnan return, and when he
perceived the bishop of Vannes behind him, he could hardly restrain his
delight; it was fully equal to his previous uneasiness. The mere sight of
Aramis was a complete compensation to the surintendant for the
unhappiness he had undergone in his arrest. The prelate was silent and
grave; D’Artagnan completely bewildered by such an accumulation of
events.
“Well, captain, so you have brought M. d’Herblay to me.”
“And something better still, monseigneur.”
“What is that?”
“Liberty.”
“I am free!”
“Yes; by the king’s order.”
Fouquet resumed his usual serenity, that he might interrogate Aramis
with a look.
“Oh! yes, you can thank M. l’eveque de Vannes,” pursued D’Artagnan,
“for it is indeed to him that you owe the change that has taken place in the
king.”
“Oh!” said Fouquet, more humiliated at the service than grateful at its
success.
“But you,” continued D’Artagnan, addressing Aramis—“you, who have
become M. Fouquet’s protector and patron, can you not do something for

me?”
“Anything in the wide world you like, my friend,” replied the bishop, in
his calmest tones.
“One thing only, then, and I shall be perfectly satisfied. How on earth did
you manage to become the favorite of the king, you who have never spoken
to him more than twice in your life?”
“From a friend such as you are,” said Aramis, “I cannot conceal
anything.”
“Ah! very good, tell me, then.”
“Very well. You think that I have seen the king only twice, whilst the fact
is I have seen him more than a hundred times; only we have kept it very
secret, that is all.” And without trying to remove the color which at this
revelation made D’Artagnan’s face flush scarlet, Aramis turned towards M.
Fouquet, who was as much surprised as the musketeer. “Monseigneur,” he
resumed, “the king desires me to inform you that he is more than ever your
friend, and that your beautiful fete, so generously offered by you on his
behalf, has touched him to the very heart.”
And thereupon he saluted M. Fouquet with so much reverence of manner,
that the latter, incapable of understanding a man whose diplomacy was of so
prodigious a character, remained incapable of uttering a single syllable, and
equally incapable of thought or movement. D’Artagnan fancied he
perceived that these two men had something to say to each other, and he
was about to yield to that feeling of instinctive politeness which in such a
case hurries a man towards the door, when he feels his presence is an
inconvenience for others; but his eager curiosity, spurred on by so many
mysteries, counseled him to remain.
Aramis thereupon turned towards him, and said, in a quiet tone, “You
will not forget, my friend, the king’s order respecting those whom he
intends to receive this morning on rising.” These words were clear enough,
and the musketeer understood them; he therefore bowed to Fouquet, and
then to Aramis,—to the latter with a slight admixture of ironical respect,—
and disappeared.
No sooner had he left, than Fouquet, whose impatience had hardly been
able to wait for that moment, darted towards the door to close it, and then
returning to the bishop, he said, “My dear D’Herblay, I think it now high

time you should explain all that has passed, for, in plain and honest truth, I
do not understand anything.”
“We will explain all that to you,” said Aramis, sitting down, and making
Fouquet sit down also. “Where shall I begin?”
“With this first of all. Why does the king set me at liberty?”
“You ought rather to ask me what his reason was for having you
arrested.”
“Since my arrest, I have had time to think over it, and my idea is that it
arises out of some slight feeling of jealousy. My fete put M. Colbert out of
temper, and M. Colbert discovered some cause of complaint against me;
Belle-Isle, for instance.”
“No; there is no question at all just now of Belle-Isle.”
“What is it, then?”
“Do you remember those receipts for thirteen millions which M. de
Mazarin contrived to steal from you?”
“Yes, of course!”
“Well, you are pronounced a public robber.”
“Good heavens!”
“Oh! that is not all. Do you also remember that letter you wrote to La
Vallière?”
“Alas! yes.”
“And that proclaims you a traitor and a suborner.”
“Why should he have pardoned me, then?”
“We have not yet arrived at that part of our argument. I wish you to be
quite convinced of the fact itself. Observe this well: the king knows you to
be guilty of an appropriation of public funds. Oh! of course I know that you
have done nothing of the kind; but, at all events, the king has seen the
receipts, and he can do no other than believe you are incriminated.”
“I beg your pardon, I do not see—”
“You will see presently, though. The king, moreover, having read your
love-letter to La Vallière, and the offers you there made her, cannot retain
any doubt of your intentions with regard to that young lady; you will admit
that, I suppose?”

“Certainly. Pray conclude.”
“In the fewest words. The king, we may henceforth assume, is your
powerful, implacable, and eternal enemy.”
“Agreed. But am I, then, so powerful, that he has not dared to sacrifice
me, notwithstanding his hatred, with all the means which my weakness, or
my misfortunes, may have given him as a hold upon me?”
“It is clear, beyond all doubt,” pursued Aramis, coldly, “that the king has
quarreled with you—irreconcilably.”
“But, since he has absolved me—”
“Do you believe it likely?” asked the bishop, with a searching look.
“Without believing in his sincerity, I believe it in the accomplished fact.”
Aramis slightly shrugged his shoulders.
“But why, then, should Louis XIV. have commissioned you to tell me
what you have just stated?”
“The king charged me with no message for you.”
“With nothing!” said the superintendent, stupefied. “But, that order—”
“Oh! yes. You are quite right. There is an order, certainly;” and these
words were pronounced by Aramis in so strange a tone, that Fouquet could
not resist starting.
“You are concealing something from me, I see. What is it?”
Aramis softly rubbed his white fingers over his chin, but said nothing.
“Does the king exile me?”
“Do not act as if you were playing at the game children play at when they
have to try and guess where a thing has been hidden, and are informed, by a
bell being rung, when they are approaching near to it, or going away from
it.”
“Speak, then.”
“Guess.”
“You alarm me.”
“Bah! that is because you have not guessed, then.”
“What did the king say to you? In the name of our friendship, do not
deceive me.”
“The king has not said one word to me.”

“You are killing me with impatience, D’Herblay. Am I still
superintendent?”
“As long as you like.”
“But what extraordinary empire have you so suddenly acquired over his
majesty’s mind?”
“Ah! that’s the point.”
“He does your bidding?”
“I believe so.”
“It is hardly credible.”
“So any one would say.”
“D’Herblay, by our alliance, by our friendship, by everything you hold
dearest in the world, speak openly, I implore you. By what means have you
succeeded in overcoming Louis XIV.‘s prejudices, for he did not like you, I
am certain.”
“The king will like me now,” said Aramis, laying stress upon the last
word.
“You have something particular, then, between you?”
“Yes.”
“A secret, perhaps?”
“A secret.”
“A secret of such a nature as to change his majesty’s interests?”
“You are, indeed, a man of superior intelligence, monseigneur, and have
made a particularly accurate guess. I have, in fact, discovered a secret, of a
nature to change the interests of the king of France.”
“Ah!” said Fouquet, with the reserve of a man who does not wish to ask
any more questions.
“And you shall judge of it yourself,” pursued Aramis; “and you shall tell
me if I am mistaken with regard to the importance of this secret.”
“I am listening, since you are good enough to unbosom yourself to me;
only do not forget that I have asked you about nothing which it may be
indiscreet in you to communicate.”
Aramis seemed, for a moment, as if he were collecting himself.
“Do not speak!” said Fouquet: “there is still time enough.”

“Do you remember,” said the bishop, casting down his eyes, “the birth of
Louis XIV.?”
“As if it were yesterday.”
“Have you ever heard anything particular respecting his birth?”
“Nothing; except that the king was not really the son of Louis XIII.”
“That does not matter to us, or the kingdom either; he is the son of his
father, says the French law, whose father is recognized by law.”
“True; but it is a grave matter, when the quality of races is called into
question.”
“A merely secondary question, after all. So that, in fact, you have never
learned or heard anything in particular?”
“Nothing.”
“That is where my secret begins. The queen, you must know, instead of
being delivered of a son, was delivered of twins.”
Fouquet looked up suddenly as he replied:
“And the second is dead?”
“You will see. These twins seemed likely to be regarded as the pride of
their mother, and the hope of France; but the weak nature of the king, his
superstitious feelings, made him apprehend a series of conflicts between
two children whose rights were equal; so he put out of the way—he
suppressed—one of the twins.”
“Suppressed, do you say?”
“Have patience. Both the children grew up; the one on the throne, whose
minister you are—the other, who is my friend, in gloom and isolation.”
“Good heavens! What are you saying, Monsieur d’Herblay? And what is
this poor prince doing?”
“Ask me, rather, what has he done.”
“Yes, yes.”
“He was brought up in the country, and then thrown into a fortress which
goes by the name of the Bastile.”
“Is it possible?” cried the surintendant, clasping his hands.
“The one was the most fortunate of men: the other the most unhappy and
miserable of all living beings.”

“Does his mother not know this?”
“Anne of Austria knows it all.”
“And the king?”
“Knows absolutely nothing.”
“So much the better,” said Fouquet.
This remark seemed to make a great impression on Aramis; he looked at
Fouquet with the most anxious expression of countenance.
“I beg your pardon; I interrupted you,” said Fouquet.
“I was saying,” resumed Aramis, “that this poor prince was the
unhappiest of human beings, when Heaven, whose thoughts are over all His
creatures, undertook to come to his assistance.”
“Oh! in what way? Tell me.”
“You will see. The reigning king—I say the reigning king—you can
guess very well why?”
“No. Why?”
“Because both of them, being legitimate princes, ought to have been
kings. Is not that your opinion?”
“It is, certainly.”
“Unreservedly?”
“Most unreservedly; twins are one person in two bodies.”
“I am pleased that a legist of your learning and authority should have
pronounced such an opinion. It is agreed, then, that each of them possessed
equal rights, is it not?”
“Incontestably! but, gracious heavens, what an extraordinary
circumstance!”
“We are not at the end of it yet.—Patience.”
“Oh! I shall find ‘patience’ enough.”
“Heaven wished to raise up for that oppressed child an avenger, or a
supporter, or vindicator, if you prefer it. It happened that the reigning king,
the usurper—you are quite of my opinion, I believe, that it is an act of
usurpation quietly to enjoy, and selfishly to assume the right over, an
inheritance to which a man has only half a right?”
“Yes, usurpation is the word.”

“In that case, I continue. It was Heaven’s will that the usurper should
possess, in the person of his first minister, a man of great talent, of large and
generous nature.”
“Well, well,” said Fouquet, “I understand you; you have relied upon me
to repair the wrong which has been done to this unhappy brother of Louis
XIV. You have thought well; I will help you. I thank you, D’Herblay, I
thank you.”
“Oh, no, it is not that at all; you have not allowed me to finish,” said
Aramis, perfectly unmoved.
“I will not say another word, then.”
“M. Fouquet, I was observing, the minister of the reigning sovereign, was
suddenly taken into the greatest aversion, and menaced with the ruin of his
fortune, loss of liberty, loss of life even, by intrigue and personal hatred, to
which the king gave too readily an attentive ear. But Heaven permits (still,
however, out of consideration for the unhappy prince who had been
sacrificed) that M. Fouquet should in his turn have a devoted friend who
knew this state secret, and felt that he possessed strength and courage
enough to divulge this secret, after having had the strength to carry it locked
up in his own heart for twenty years.
“Go no farther,” said Fouquet, full of generous feelings. “I understand
you, and can guess everything now. You went to see the king when the
intelligence of my arrest reached you; you implored him, he refused to
listen to you; then you threatened him with that secret, threatened to reveal
it, and Louis XIV., alarmed at the risk of its betrayal, granted to the terror of
your indiscretion what he refused to your generous intercession. I
understand, I understand; you have the king in your power; I understand.”
“You understand nothing—as yet,” replied Aramis, “and again you
interrupt me. Then, too, allow me to observe that you pay no attention to
logical reasoning, and seem to forget what you ought most to remember.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know upon what I laid the greatest stress at the beginning of our
conversation?”
“Yes, his majesty’s hate, invincible hate for me; yes, but what feeling of
hate could resist the threat of such a revelation?”

“Such a revelation, do you say? that is the very point where your logic
fails you. What! do you suppose that if I had made such a revelation to the
king, I should have been alive now?”
“It is not ten minutes ago that you were with the king.”
“That may be. He might not have had the time to get me killed outright,
but he would have had the time to get me gagged and thrown in a dungeon.
Come, come, show a little consistency in your reasoning, mordieu!”
And by the mere use of this word, which was so thoroughly his old
musketeer’s expression, forgotten by one who never seemed to forget
anything, Fouquet could not but understand to what a pitch of exaltation the
calm, impenetrable bishop of Vannes had wrought himself. He shuddered.
“And then,” replied the latter, after having mastered his feelings, “should
I be the man I really am, should I be the true friend you believe me, if I
were to expose you, whom the king already hates so bitterly, to a feeling
more than ever to be dreaded in that young man? To have robbed him, is
nothing; to have addressed the woman he loves, is not much; but to hold in
your keeping both his crown and his honor, why, he would pluck out your
heart with his own hands.”
“You have not allowed him to penetrate your secret, then?”
“I would sooner, far sooner, have swallowed at one draught all the
poisons that Mithridates drank in twenty years, in order to try and avoid
death, than have betrayed my secret to the king.”
“What have you done, then?”
“Ah! now we are coming to the point, monseigneur. I think I shall not fail
to excite in you a little interest. You are listening, I hope.”
“How can you ask me if I am listening? Go on.”
Aramis walked softly all round the room, satisfied himself that they were
alone, and that all was silent, and then returned and placed himself close to
the armchair in which Fouquet was seated, awaiting with the deepest
anxiety the revelation he had to make.
“I forgot to tell you,” resumed Aramis, addressing himself to Fouquet,
who listened to him with the most absorbed attention—“I forgot to mention
a most remarkable circumstance respecting these twins, namely, that God
had formed them so startlingly, so miraculously, like each other, that it

would be utterly impossible to distinguish the one from the other. Their own
mother would not be able to distinguish them.”
“Is it possible?” exclaimed Fouquet.
“The same noble character in their features, the same carriage, the same
stature, the same voice.”
“But their thoughts? degree of intelligence? their knowledge of human
life?”
“There is inequality there, I admit, monseigneur. Yes; for the prisoner of
the Bastile is, most incontestably, superior in every way to his brother; and
if, from his prison, this unhappy victim were to pass to the throne, France
would not, from the earliest period of its history, perhaps, have had a master
more powerful in genius and nobility of character.”
Fouquet buried his face in his hands, as if he were overwhelmed by the
weight of this immense secret. Aramis approached him.
“There is a further inequality,” he said, continuing his work of
temptation, “an inequality which concerns yourself, monseigneur, between
the twins, both sons of Louis XIII., namely, the last comer does not know
M. Colbert.”
Fouquet raised his head immediately—his features were pale and
distorted. The bolt had hit its mark—not his heart, but his mind and
comprehension.
“I understand you,” he said to Aramis; “you are proposing a conspiracy
to me?”
“Something like it.”
“One of those attempts which, as you said at the beginning of this
conversation, alters the fate of empires?”
“And of superintendents, too; yes, monseigneur.”
“In a word, you propose that I should agree to the substitution of the son
of Louis XIII., who is now a prisoner in the Bastile, for the son of Louis
XIII., who is at this moment asleep in the Chamber of Morpheus?”
Aramis smiled with the sinister expression of the sinister thought which
was passing through his brain. “Exactly,” he said.
“Have you thought,” continued Fouquet, becoming animated with that
strength of talent which in a few seconds originates, and matures the

conception of a plan, and with that largeness of view which foresees all
consequences, and embraces every result at a glance—“have you thought
that we must assemble the nobility, the clergy, and the third estate of the
realm; that we shall have to depose the reigning sovereign, to disturb by so
frightful a scandal the tomb of their dead father, to sacrifice the life, the
honor of a woman, Anne of Austria, the life and peace of mind and heart of
another woman, Maria Theresa; and suppose that it were all done, if we
were to succeed in doing it—”
“I do not understand you,” continued Aramis, coldly. “There is not a
single syllable of sense in all you have just said.”
“What!” said the superintendent, surprised, “a man like you refuse to
view the practical bearing of the case! Do you confine yourself to the
childish delight of a political illusion, and neglect the chances of its being
carried into execution; in other words, the reality itself, is it possible?”
“My friend,” said Aramis, emphasizing the word with a kind of
disdainful familiarity, “what does Heaven do in order to substitute one king
for another?”
“Heaven!” exclaimed Fouquet—“Heaven gives directions to its agent,
who seizes upon the doomed victim, hurries him away, and seats the
triumphant rival on the empty throne. But you forget that this agent is called
death. Oh! Monsieur d’Herblay, in Heaven’s name, tell me if you have had
the idea—”
“There is no question of that, monseigneur; you are going beyond the
object in view. Who spoke of Louis XIV.‘s death? who spoke of adopting
the example which Heaven sets in following out the strict execution of its
decrees? No, I wish you to understand that Heaven effects its purposes
without confusion or disturbance, without exciting comment or remark,
without difficulty or exertion; and that men, inspired by Heaven, succeed
like Heaven itself, in all their undertakings, in all they attempt, in all they
do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, my friend,” returned Aramis, with the same intonation on the
word friend that he had applied to it the first time—“I mean that if there has
been any confusion, scandal, and even effort in the substitution of the
prisoner for the king, I defy you to prove it.”

“What!” cried Fouquet, whiter than the handkerchief with which he
wiped his temples, “what do you say?”
“Go to the king’s apartment,” continued Aramis, tranquilly, “and you
who know the mystery, I defy even you to perceive that the prisoner of the
Bastile is lying in his brother’s bed.”
“But the king,” stammered Fouquet, seized with horror at the
intelligence.
“What king?” said Aramis, in his gentlest tone; “the one who hates you,
or the one who likes you?”
“The king—of—yesterday.”
“The king of yesterday! be quite easy on that score; he has gone to take
the place in the Bastile which his victim occupied for so many years.”
“Great God! And who took him there?”
“I.”
“You?”
“Yes, and in the simplest way. I carried him away last night. While he
was descending into midnight, the other was ascending into day. I do not
think there has been any disturbance whatever. A flash of lightning without
thunder awakens nobody.”
Fouquet uttered a thick, smothered cry, as if he had been struck by some
invisible blow, and clasping his head between his clenched hands, he
murmured: “You did that?”
“Cleverly enough, too; what do you think of it?”
“You dethroned the king? imprisoned him, too?”
“Yes, that has been done.”
“And such an action was committed here, at Vaux?”
“Yes, here, at Vaux, in the Chamber of Morpheus. It would almost seem
that it had been built in anticipation of such an act.”
“And at what time did it occur?”
“Last night, between twelve and one o’clock.”
Fouquet made a movement as if he were on the point of springing upon
Aramis; he restrained himself. “At Vaux; under my roof!” he said, in a half-
strangled voice.

“I believe so! for it is still your house, and it is likely to continue so,
since M. Colbert cannot rob you of it now.”
“It was under my roof, then, monsieur, that you committed this crime?”
“This crime?” said Aramis, stupefied.
“This abominable crime!” pursued Fouquet, becoming more and more
excited; “this crime more execrable than an assassination! this crime which
dishonors my name forever, and entails upon me the horror of posterity.”
“You are not in your senses, monsieur,” replied Aramis, in an irresolute
tone of voice; “you are speaking too loudly; take care!”
“I will call out so loudly, that the whole world shall hear me.”
“Monsieur Fouquet, take care!”
Fouquet turned round towards the prelate, whom he looked at full in the
face. “You have dishonored me,” he said, “in committing so foul an act of
treason, so heinous a crime upon my guest, upon one who was peacefully
reposing beneath my roof. Oh! woe, woe is me!”
“Woe to the man, rather, who beneath your roof meditated the ruin of
your fortune, your life. Do you forget that?”
“He was my guest, my sovereign.”
Aramis rose, his eyes literally bloodshot, his mouth trembling
convulsively. “Have I a man out of his senses to deal with?” he said.
“You have an honorable man to deal with.”
“You are mad.”
“A man who will prevent you consummating your crime.”
“You are mad, I say.”
“A man who would sooner, oh! far sooner, die; who would kill you even,
rather than allow you to complete his dishonor.”
And Fouquet snatched up his sword, which D’Artagnan had placed at the
head of his bed, and clenched it resolutely in his hand. Aramis frowned, and
thrust his hand into his breast as if in search of a weapon. This movement
did not escape Fouquet, who, full of nobleness and pride in his
magnanimity, threw his sword to a distance from him, and approached
Aramis so close as to touch his shoulder with his disarmed hand.
“Monsieur,” he said, “I would sooner die here on the spot than survive this

terrible disgrace; and if you have any pity left for me, I entreat you to take
my life.”
Aramis remained silent and motionless.
“You do not reply?” said Fouquet.
Aramis raised his head gently, and a glimmer of hope might be seen once
more to animate his eyes. “Reflect, monseigneur,” he said, “upon
everything we have to expect. As the matter now stands, the king is still
alive, and his imprisonment saves your life.”
“Yes,” replied Fouquet, “you may have been acting on my behalf, but I
will not, do not, accept your services. But, first of all, I do not wish your
ruin. You will leave this house.”
Aramis stifled the exclamation which almost escaped his broken heart.
“I am hospitable towards all who are dwellers beneath my roof,”
continued Fouquet, with an air of inexpressible majesty; “you will not be
more fatally lost than he whose ruin you have consummated.”
“You will be so,” said Aramis, in a hoarse, prophetic voice, “you will be
so, believe me.”
“I accept the augury, Monsieur d’Herblay; but nothing shall prevent me,
nothing shall stop me. You will leave Vaux—you must leave France; I give
you four hours to place yourself out of the king’s reach.”
“Four hours?” said Aramis, scornfully and incredulously.
“Upon the word of Fouquet, no one shall follow you before the
expiration of that time. You will therefore have four hours’ advance of those
whom the king may wish to dispatch after you.”
“Four hours!” repeated Aramis, in a thick, smothered voice.
“It is more than you will need to get on board a vessel and flee to Belle-
Isle, which I give you as a place of refuge.”
“Ah!” murmured Aramis.
“Belle-Isle is as much mine for you, as Vaux is mine for the king. Go,
D’Herblay, go! as long as I live, not a hair of your head shall be injured.”
“Thank you,” said Aramis, with a cold irony of manner.
“Go at once, then, and give me your hand, before we both hasten away;
you to save your life, I to save my honor.”

Aramis withdrew from his breast the hand he had concealed there; it was
stained with his blood. He had dug his nails into his flesh, as if in
punishment for having nursed so many projects, more vain, insensate, and
fleeting than the life of the man himself. Fouquet was horror-stricken, and
then his heart smote him with pity. He threw open his arms as if to embrace
him.
“I had no arms,” murmured Aramis, as wild and terrible in his wrath as
the shade of Dido. And then, without touching Fouquet’s hand, he turned
his head aside, and stepped back a pace or two. His last word was an
imprecation, his last gesture a curse, which his blood-stained hand seemed
to invoke, as it sprinkled on Fouquet’s face a few drops of blood which
flowed from his breast. And both of them darted out of the room by the
secret staircase which led down to the inner courtyard. Fouquet ordered his
best horses, while Aramis paused at the foot of the staircase which led to
Porthos’s apartment. He reflected profoundly and for some time, while
Fouquet’s carriage left the courtyard at full gallop.
“Shall I go alone?” said Aramis to himself, “or warn the prince? Oh!
fury! Warn the prince, and then—do what? Take him with me? To carry this
accusing witness about with me everywhere? War, too, would follow—civil
war, implacable in its nature! And without any resource save myself—it is
impossible! What could he do without me? Oh! without me he will be
utterly destroyed. Yet who knows—let destiny be fulfilled—condemned he
was, let him remain so then! Good or evil Spirit—gloomy and scornful
Power, whom men call the genius of humanity, thou art a power more
restlessly uncertain, more baselessly useless, than wild mountain wind!
Chance, thou term’st thyself, but thou art nothing; thou inflamest everything
with thy breath, crumblest mountains at thy approach, and suddenly art
thyself destroyed at the presence of the Cross of dead wood behind which
stand another Power invisible like thyself—whom thou deniest, perhaps,
but whose avenging hand is on thee, and hurls thee in the dust dishonored
and unnamed! Lost!—I am lost! What can be done? Flee to Belle-Isle? Yes,
and leave Porthos behind me, to talk and relate the whole affair to every
one! Porthos, too, who will have to suffer for what he has done. I will not
let poor Porthos suffer. He seems like one of the members of my own
frame; and his grief or misfortune would be mine as well. Porthos shall
leave with me, and shall follow my destiny. It must be so.”

And Aramis, apprehensive of meeting any one to whom his hurried
movements might appear suspicious, ascended the staircase without being
perceived. Porthos, so recently returned from Paris, was already in a
profound sleep; his huge body forgot its fatigue, as his mind forgot its
thoughts. Aramis entered, light as a shadow, and placed his nervous grasp
on the giant’s shoulder. “Come, Porthos,” he cried, “come.”
Porthos obeyed, rose from his bed, opened his eyes, even before his
intelligence seemed to be aroused.
“We leave immediately,” said Aramis.
“Ah!” returned Porthos.
“We shall go mounted, and faster than we have ever gone in our lives.”
“Ah!” repeated Porthos.
“Dress yourself, my friend.”
And he helped the giant to dress himself, and thrust his gold and
diamonds into his pocket. Whilst he was thus engaged, a slight noise
attracted his attention, and on looking up, he saw D’Artagnan watching
them through the half-opened door. Aramis started.
“What the devil are you doing there in such an agitated manner?” said the
musketeer.
“Hush!” said Porthos.
“We are going off on a mission of great importance,” added the bishop.
“You are very fortunate,” said the musketeer.
“Oh, dear me!” said Porthos, “I feel so wearied; I would far sooner have
been fast asleep. But the service of the king....”
“Have you seen M. Fouquet?” said Aramis to D’Artagnan.
“Yes, this very minute, in a carriage.”
“What did he say to you?”
“‘Adieu;’ nothing more.”
“Was that all?”
“What else do you think he could say? Am I worth anything now, since
you have got into such high favor?”
“Listen,” said Aramis, embracing the musketeer; “your good times are
returning again. You will have no occasion to be jealous of any one.”

“Ah! bah!”
“I predict that something will happen to you to-day which will increase
your importance more than ever.”
“Really?”
“You know that I know all the news?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Come, Porthos, are you ready? Let us go.”
“I am quite ready, Aramis.”
“Let us embrace D’Artagnan first.”
“Most certainly.”
“But the horses?”
“Oh! there is no want of them here. Will you have mine?”
“No; Porthos has his own stud. So adieu! adieu!”
The fugitives mounted their horses beneath the very eyes of the captain
of the musketeers, who held Porthos’s stirrup for him, and gazed after them
until they were out of sight.
“On any other occasion,” thought the Gascon, “I should say that those
gentlemen were making their escape; but in these days politics seem so
changed that such an exit is termed going on a mission. I have no objection;
let me attend to my own affairs, that is more than enough for me,”—and he
philosophically entered his apartments.

Chapter XXII. Showing How the Countersign Was
Respected at the Bastile.

Fouquet tore along as fast as his horses could drag him. On his way he
trembled with horror at the idea of what had just been revealed to him.
“What must have been,” he thought, “the youth of those extraordinary
men, who, even as age is stealing fast upon them, are still able to conceive
such gigantic plans, and carry them through without a tremor?”
At one moment he could not resist the idea that all Aramis had just been
recounting to him was nothing more than a dream, and whether the fable
itself was not the snare; so that when Fouquet arrived at the Bastile, he
might possibly find an order of arrest, which would send him to join the
dethroned king. Strongly impressed with this idea, he gave certain sealed
orders on his route, while fresh horses were being harnessed to his carriage.
These orders were addressed to M. d’Artagnan and to certain others whose
fidelity to the king was far above suspicion.
“In this way,” said Fouquet to himself, “prisoner or not, I shall have
performed the duty that I owe my honor. The orders will not reach them
until after my return, if I should return free, and consequently they will not
have been unsealed. I shall take them back again. If I am delayed; it will be
because some misfortune will have befallen me; and in that case assistance
will be sent for me as well as for the king.”
Prepared in this manner, the superintendent arrived at the Bastile; he had
traveled at the rate of five leagues and a half the hour. Every circumstance
of delay which Aramis had escaped in his visit to the Bastile befell Fouquet.
It was useless giving his name, equally useless his being recognized; he
could not succeed in obtaining an entrance. By dint of entreaties, threats,
commands, he succeeded in inducing a sentinel to speak to one of the
subalterns, who went and told the major. As for the governor they did not
even dare disturb him. Fouquet sat in his carriage, at the outer gate of the

fortress, chafing with rage and impatience, awaiting the return of the
officers, who at last re-appeared with a sufficiently sulky air.
“Well,” said Fouquet, impatiently, “what did the major say?”
“Well, monsieur,” replied the soldier, “the major laughed in my face. He
told me that M. Fouquet was at Vaux, and that even were he at Paris, M.
Fouquet would not get up at so early an hour as the present.”
“Mordieu! you are an absolute set of fools,” cried the minister, darting
out of the carriage; and before the subaltern had time to shut the gate,
Fouquet sprang through it, and ran forward in spite of the soldier, who cried
out for assistance. Fouquet gained ground, regardless of the cries of the
man, who, however, having at last come up with Fouquet, called out to the
sentinel of the second gate, “Look out, look out, sentinel!” The man crossed
his pike before the minister; but the latter, robust and active, and hurried
away, too, by his passion, wrested the pike from the soldier and struck him
a violent blow on the shoulder with it. The subaltern, who approached too
closely, received a share of the blows as well. Both of them uttered loud and
furious cries, at the sound of which the whole of the first body of the
advanced guard poured out of the guardhouse. Among them there was one,
however, who recognized the superintendent, and who called,
“Monseigneur, ah! monseigneur. Stop, stop, you fellows!” And he
effectually checked the soldiers, who were on the point of revenging their
companions. Fouquet desired them to open the gate, but they refused to do
so without the countersign; he desired them to inform the governor of his
presence; but the latter had already heard the disturbance at the gate. He ran
forward, followed by his major, and accompanied by a picket of twenty
men, persuaded that an attack was being made on the Bastile. Baisemeaux
also recognized Fouquet immediately, and dropped the sword he bravely
had been brandishing.
“Ah! monseigneur,” he stammered, “how can I excuse—”
“Monsieur,” said the superintendent, flushed with anger, and heated by
his exertions, “I congratulate you. Your watch and ward are admirably
kept.”
Baisemeaux turned pale, thinking that this remark was made ironically,
and portended a furious burst of anger. But Fouquet had recovered his
breath, and, beckoning the sentinel and the subaltern, who were rubbing
their shoulders, towards him, he said, “There are twenty pistoles for the

sentinel, and fifty for the officer. Pray receive my compliments, gentlemen.
I will not fail to speak to his majesty about you. And now, M. Baisemeaux,
a word with you.”
And he followed the governor to his official residence, accompanied by a
murmur of general satisfaction. Baisemeaux was already trembling with
shame and uneasiness. Aramis’s early visit, from that moment, seemed to
possess consequences, which a functionary such as he (Baisemeaux) was,
was perfectly justified in apprehending. It was quite another thing, however,
when Fouquet in a sharp tone of voice, and with an imperious look, said,
“You have seen M. d’Herblay this morning?”
“Yes, monseigneur.”
“And are you not horrified at the crime of which you have made yourself
an accomplice?”
“Well,” thought Baisemeaux, “good so far;” and then he added, aloud,
“But what crime, monseigneur, do you allude to?”
“That for which you can be quartered alive, monsieur—do not forget
that! But this is not a time to show anger. Conduct me immediately to the
prisoner.”
“To what prisoner?” said Baisemeaux, trembling.
“You pretend to be ignorant? Very good—it is the best plan for you,
perhaps; for if, in fact, you were to admit your participation in such a crime,
it would be all over with you. I wish, therefore, to seem to believe in your
assumption of ignorance.”
“I entreat you, monseigneur—”
“That will do. Lead me to the prisoner.”
“To Marchiali?”
“Who is Marchiali?”
“The prisoner who was brought back this morning by M. d’Herblay.”
“He is called Marchiali?” said the superintendent, his conviction
somewhat shaken by Baisemeaux’s cool manner.
“Yes, monseigneur; that is the name under which he was inscribed here.”
Fouquet looked steadily at Baisemeaux, as if he would read his very
heart; and perceived, with that clear-sightedness most men possess who are
accustomed to the exercise of power, that the man was speaking with

perfect sincerity. Besides, in observing his face for a few moments, he could
not believe that Aramis would have chosen such a confidant.
“It is the prisoner,” said the superintendent to him, “whom M. d’Herblay
carried away the day before yesterday?”
“Yes, monseigneur.”
“And whom he brought back this morning?” added Fouquet, quickly: for
he understood immediately the mechanism of Aramis’s plan.
“Precisely, monseigneur.”
“And his name is Marchiali, you say?”
“Yes, Marchiali. If monseigneur has come here to remove him, so much
the better, for I was going to write about him.”
“What has he done, then?”
“Ever since this morning he has annoyed me extremely. He has had such
terrible fits of passion, as almost to make me believe that he would bring
the Bastile itself down about our ears.”
“I will soon relieve you of his possession,” said Fouquet.
“Ah! so much the better.”
“Conduct me to his prison.”
“Will monseigneur give me the order?”
“What order?”
“An order from the king.”
“Wait until I sign you one.”
“That will not be sufficient, monseigneur. I must have an order from the
king.”
Fouquet assumed an irritated expression. “As you are so scrupulous,” he
said, “with regard to allowing prisoners to leave, show me the order by
which this one was set at liberty.”
Baisemeaux showed him the order to release Seldon.
“Very good,” said Fouquet; “but Seldon is not Marchiali.”
“But Marchiali is not at liberty, monseigneur; he is here.”
“But you said that M. d’Herblay carried him away and brought him back
again.”

“I did not say so.”
“So surely did you say it, that I almost seem to hear it now.”
“It was a slip of my tongue, then, monseigneur.”
“Take care, M. Baisemeaux, take care.”
“I have nothing to fear, monseigneur; I am acting according to the very
strictest regulation.”
“Do you dare to say so?”
“I would say so in the presence of one of the apostles. M. d’Herblay
brought me an order to set Seldon at liberty. Seldon is free.”
“I tell you that Marchiali has left the Bastile.”
“You must prove that, monseigneur.”
“Let me see him.”
“You, monseigneur, who govern this kingdom, know very well that no
one can see any of the prisoners without an express order from the king.”
“M. d’Herblay has entered, however.”
“That remains to be proved, monseigneur.”
“M. de Baisemeaux, once more I warn you to pay particular attention to
what you are saying.”
“All the documents are there, monseigneur.”
“M. d’Herblay is overthrown.”
“Overthrown?—M. d’Herblay! Impossible!”
“You see that he has undoubtedly influenced you.”
“No, monseigneur; what does, in fact, influence me, is the king’s service.
I am doing my duty. Give me an order from him, and you shall enter.”
“Stay, M. le gouverneur, I give you my word that if you allow me to see
the prisoner, I will give you an order from the king at once.”
“Give it to me now, monseigneur.”
“And that, if you refuse me, I will have you and all your officers arrested
on the spot.”
“Before you commit such an act of violence, monseigneur, you will
reflect,” said Baisemeaux, who had turned very pale, “that we will only
obey an order signed by the king; and that it will be just as easy for you to

obtain one to see Marchiali as to obtain one to do me so much injury; me,
too, who am perfectly innocent.”
“True. True!” cried Fouquet, furiously; “perfectly true. M. de
Baisemeaux,” he added, in a sonorous voice, drawing the unhappy governor
towards him, “do you know why I am so anxious to speak to the prisoner?”
“No, monseigneur; and allow me to observe that you are terrifying me
out of my senses; I am trembling all over—in fact, I feel as though I were
about to faint.”
“You will stand a better chance of fainting outright, Monsieur
Baisemeaux, when I return here at the head of ten thousand men and thirty
pieces of cannon.”
“Good heavens, monseigneur, you are losing your senses.”
“When I have roused the whole population of Paris against you and your
accursed towers, and have battered open the gates of this place, and hanged
you to the topmost tree of yonder pinnacle!”
“Monseigneur! monseigneur! for pity’s sake!”
“I give you ten minutes to make up your mind,” added Fouquet, in a calm
voice. “I will sit down here, in this armchair, and wait for you; if, in ten
minutes’ time, you still persist, I leave this place, and you may think me as
mad as you like. Then—you shall see!”
Baisemeaux stamped his foot on the ground like a man in a state of
despair, but he did not reply a single syllable; whereupon Fouquet seized a
pen and ink, and wrote:
“Order for M. le Prevot des Marchands to assemble the municipal guard
and to march upon the Bastile on the king’s immediate service.”
Baisemeaux shrugged his shoulders. Fouquet wrote:
“Order for the Duc de Bouillon and M. le Prince de Conde to assume the
command of the Swiss guards, of the king’s guards, and to march upon the
Bastile on the king’s immediate service.”
Baisemeaux reflected. Fouquet still wrote:
“Order for every soldier, citizen, or gentleman to seize and apprehend,
wherever he may be found, le Chevalier d’Herblay, Eveque de Vannes, and
his accomplices, who are: first, M. de Baisemeaux, governor of the Bastile,
suspected of the crimes of high treason and rebellion—”

“Stop, monseigneur!” cried Baisemeaux; “I do not understand a single jot
of the whole matter; but so many misfortunes, even were it madness itself
that had set them at their awful work, might happen here in a couple of
hours, that the king, by whom I must be judged, will see whether I have
been wrong in withdrawing the countersign before this flood of imminent
catastrophes. Come with me to the keep, monseigneur, you shall see
Marchiali.”
Fouquet darted out of the room, followed by Baisemeaux as he wiped the
perspiration from his face. “What a terrible morning!” he said; “what a
disgrace for me!”
“Walk faster,” replied Fouquet.
Baisemeaux made a sign to the jailer to precede them. He was afraid of
his companion, which the latter could not fail to perceive.
“A truce to this child’s play,” he said, roughly. “Let the man remain here;
take the keys yourself, and show me the way. Not a single person, do you
understand, must hear what is going to take place here.”
“Ah!” said Baisemeaux, undecided.
“Again!” cried M. Fouquet. “Ah! say ‘no’ at once, and I will leave the
Bastile and will myself carry my own dispatches.”
Baisemeaux bowed his head, took the keys, and unaccompanied, except
by the minister, ascended the staircase. The higher they advanced up the
spiral staircase, the more clearly did certain muffled murmurs become
distinct appeals and fearful imprecations.
“What is that?” asked Fouquet.
“That is your Marchiali,” said the governor; “this is the way these
madmen scream.”
And he accompanied that reply with a glance more pregnant with
injurious allusion, as far as Fouquet was concerned, than politeness. The
latter trembled; he had just recognized in one cry more terrible than any that
had preceded it, the king’s voice. He paused on the staircase, snatching the
bunch of keys from Baisemeaux, who thought this new madman was going
to dash out his brains with one of them. “Ah!” he cried, “M. d’Herblay did
not say a word about that.”
“Give me the keys at once!” cried Fouquet, tearing them from his hand.
“Which is the key of the door I am to open?”

“That one.”
A fearful cry, followed by a violent blow against the door, made the
whole staircase resound with the echo.
“Leave this place,” said Fouquet to Baisemeaux, in a threatening tone.
“I ask nothing better,” murmured the latter, to himself. “There will be a
couple of madmen face to face, and the one will kill the other, I am sure.”
“Go!” repeated Fouquet. “If you place your foot on this staircase before I
call you, remember that you shall take the place of the meanest prisoner in
the Bastile.”
“This job will kill me, I am sure it will,” muttered Baisemeaux, as he
withdrew with tottering steps.
The prisoner’s cries became more and more terrible. When Fouquet had
satisfied himself that Baisemeaux had reached the bottom of the staircase,
he inserted the key in the first lock. It was then that he heard the hoarse,
choking voice of the king, crying out, in a frenzy of rage, “Help, help! I am
the king.” The key of the second door was not the same as the first, and
Fouquet was obliged to look for it on the bunch. The king, however, furious
and almost mad with rage and passion, shouted at the top of his voice, “It
was M. Fouquet who brought me here. Help me against M. Fouquet! I am
the king! Help the king against M. Fouquet!” These cries filled the
minister’s heart with terrible emotions. They were followed by a shower of
blows leveled against the door with a part of the broken chair with which
the king had armed himself. Fouquet at last succeeded in finding the key.
The king was almost exhausted; he could hardly articulate distinctly as he
shouted, “Death to Fouquet! death to the traitor Fouquet!” The door flew
open.

Chapter XXIII. The King’s Gratitude.

The two men were on the point of darting towards each other when they
suddenly and abruptly stopped, as a mutual recognition took place, and each
uttered a cry of horror.
“Have you come to assassinate me, monsieur?” said the king, when he
recognized Fouquet.
“The king in this state!” murmured the minister.
Nothing could be more terrible indeed than the appearance of the young
prince at the moment Fouquet had surprised him; his clothes were in tatters;
his shirt, open and torn to rags, was stained with sweat and with the blood
which streamed from his lacerated breast and arms. Haggard, ghastly pale,
his hair in disheveled masses, Louis XIV. presented the most perfect picture
of despair, distress, anger and fear combined that could possibly be united
in one figure. Fouquet was so touched, so affected and disturbed by it, that
he ran towards him with his arms stretched out and his eyes filled with
tears. Louis held up the massive piece of wood of which he had made such
a furious use.
“Sire,” said Fouquet, in a voice trembling with emotion, “do you not
recognize the most faithful of your friends?”
“A friend—you!” repeated Louis, gnashing his teeth in a manner which
betrayed his hate and desire for speedy vengeance.
“The most respectful of your servants,” added Fouquet, throwing himself
on his knees. The king let the rude weapon fall from his grasp. Fouquet
approached him, kissed his knees, and took him in his arms with
inconceivable tenderness.
“My king, my child,” he said, “how you must have suffered!”
Louis, recalled to himself by the change of situation, looked at himself,
and ashamed of the disordered state of his apparel, ashamed of his conduct,
and ashamed of the air of pity and protection that was shown towards him,

drew back. Fouquet did not understand this movement; he did not perceive
that the king’s feeling of pride would never forgive him for having been a
witness of such an exhibition of weakness.
“Come, sire,” he said, “you are free.”
“Free?” repeated the king. “Oh! you set me at liberty, then, after having
dared to lift up your hand against me.”
“You do not believe that!” exclaimed Fouquet, indignantly; “you cannot
believe me to be guilty of such an act.”
And rapidly, warmly even, he related the whole particulars of the
intrigue, the details of which are already known to the reader. While the
recital continued, Louis suffered the most horrible anguish of mind; and
when it was finished, the magnitude of the danger he had run struck him far
more than the importance of the secret relative to his twin brother.
“Monsieur,” he said, suddenly to Fouquet, “this double birth is a
falsehood; it is impossible—you cannot have been the dupe of it.”
“Sire!”
“It is impossible, I tell you, that the honor, the virtue of my mother can be
suspected, and my first minister has not yet done justice on the criminals!”
“Reflect, sire, before you are hurried away by anger,” replied Fouquet.
“The birth of your brother—”
“I have only one brother—and that is Monsieur. You know it as well as
myself. There is a plot, I tell you, beginning with the governor of the
Bastile.”
“Be careful, sire, for this man has been deceived as every one else has by
the prince’s likeness to yourself.”
“Likeness? Absurd!”
“This Marchiali must be singularly like your majesty, to be able to
deceive every one’s eye,” Fouquet persisted.
“Ridiculous!”
“Do not say so, sire; those who had prepared everything in order to face
and deceive your ministers, your mother, your officers of state, the
members of your family, must be quite confident of the resemblance
between you.”
“But where are these persons, then?” murmured the king.

“At Vaux.”
“At Vaux! and you suffer them to remain there!”
“My most instant duty appeared to me to be your majesty’s release. I
have accomplished that duty; and now, whatever your majesty may
command, shall be done. I await your orders.”
Louis reflected for a few moments.
“Muster all the troops in Paris,” he said.
“All the necessary orders are given for that purpose,” replied Fouquet.
“You have given orders!” exclaimed the king.
“For that purpose, yes, sire; your majesty will be at the head of ten
thousand men in less than an hour.”
The only reply the king made was to take hold of Fouquet’s hand with
such an expression of feeling, that it was very easy to perceive how strongly
he had, until that remark, maintained his suspicions of the minister,
notwithstanding the latter’s intervention.
“And with these troops,” he said, “we shall go at once and besiege in
your house the rebels who by this time will have established and intrenched
themselves therein.”
“I should be surprised if that were the case,” replied Fouquet.
“Why?”
“Because their chief—the very soul of the enterprise—having been
unmasked by me, the whole plan seems to me to have miscarried.”
“You have unmasked this false prince also?”
“No, I have not seen him.”
“Whom have you seen, then?”
“The leader of the enterprise, not that unhappy young man; the latter is
merely an instrument, destined through his whole life to wretchedness, I
plainly perceive.”
“Most certainly.”
“It is M. l’Abbe d’Herblay, Eveque de Vannes.”
“Your friend?”
“He was my friend, sire,” replied Fouquet, nobly.

“An unfortunate circumstance for you,” said the king, in a less generous
tone of voice.
“Such friendships, sire, had nothing dishonorable in them so long as I
was ignorant of the crime.”
“You should have foreseen it.”
“If I am guilty, I place myself in your majesty’s hands.”
“Ah! Monsieur Fouquet, it was not that I meant,” returned the king, sorry
to have shown the bitterness of his thought in such a manner. “Well! I
assure you that, notwithstanding the mask with which the villain covered
his face, I had something like a vague suspicion that he was the very man.
But with this chief of the enterprise there was a man of prodigious strength,
the one who menaced me with a force almost herculean; what is he?”
“It must be his friend the Baron du Vallon, formerly one of the
musketeers.”
“The friend of D’Artagnan? the friend of the Comte de la Fere? Ah!”
exclaimed the king, as he paused at the name of the latter, “we must not
forget the connection that existed between the conspirators and M. de
Bragelonne.”
“Sire, sire, do not go too far. M. de la Fere is the most honorable man in
France. Be satisfied with those whom I deliver up to you.”
“With those whom you deliver up to me, you say? Very good, for you
will deliver up those who are guilty to me.”
“What does your majesty understand by that?” inquired Fouquet.
“I understand,” replied the king, “that we shall soon arrive at Vaux with a
large body of troops, that we will lay violent hands upon that nest of vipers,
and that not a soul shall escape.”
“Your majesty will put these men to death!” cried Fouquet.
“To the very meanest of them.”
“Oh! sire.”
“Let us understand one another, Monsieur Fouquet,” said the king,
haughtily. “We no longer live in times when assassination was the only and
the last resource kings held in reservation at extremity. No, Heaven be
praised! I have parliaments who sit and judge in my name, and I have
scaffolds on which supreme authority is carried out.”

Fouquet turned pale. “I will take the liberty of observing to your majesty,
that any proceedings instituted respecting these matters would bring down
the greatest scandal upon the dignity of the throne. The august name of
Anne of Austria must never be allowed to pass the lips of the people
accompanied by a smile.”
“Justice must be done, however, monsieur.”
“Good, sire; but royal blood must not be shed upon a scaffold.”
“The royal blood! you believe that!” cried the king with fury in his voice,
stamping his foot on the ground. “This double birth is an invention; and in
that invention, particularly, do I see M. d’Herblay’s crime. It is the crime I
wish to punish rather than the violence, or the insult.”
“And punish it with death, sire?”
“With death; yes, monsieur, I have said it.”
“Sire,” said the surintendant, with firmness, as he raised his head proudly,
“your majesty will take the life, if you please, of your brother Philippe of
France; that concerns you alone, and you will doubtless consult the queen-
mother upon the subject. Whatever she may command will be perfectly
correct. I do not wish to mix myself up in it, not even for the honor of your
crown, but I have a favor to ask of you, and I beg to submit it to you.”
“Speak,” said the king, in no little degree agitated by his minister’s last
words. “What do you require?”
“The pardon of M. d’Herblay and of M. du Vallon.”
“My assassins?”
“Two rebels, sire, that is all.”
“Oh! I understand, then, you ask me to forgive your friends.”
“My friends!” said Fouquet, deeply wounded.
“Your friends, certainly; but the safety of the state requires that an
exemplary punishment should be inflicted on the guilty.”
“I will not permit myself to remind your majesty that I have just restored
you to liberty, and have saved your life.”
“Monsieur!”
“I will not allow myself to remind your majesty that had M. d’Herblay
wished to carry out his character of an assassin, he could very easily have

assassinated your majesty this morning in the forest of Senart, and all would
have been over.” The king started.
“A pistol-bullet through the head,” pursued Fouquet, “and the disfigured
features of Louis XIV., which no one could have recognized, would be M.
d’Herblay’s complete and entire justification.”
The king turned pale and giddy at the bare idea of the danger he had
escaped.
“If M. d’Herblay,” continued Fouquet, “had been an assassin, he had no
occasion to inform me of his plan in order to succeed. Freed from the real
king, it would have been impossible in all futurity to guess the false. And if
the usurper had been recognized by Anne of Austria, he would still have
been—her son. The usurper, as far as Monsieur d’Herblay’s conscience was
concerned, was still a king of the blood of Louis XIII. Moreover, the
conspirator, in that course, would have had security, secrecy, impunity. A
pistol-bullet would have procured him all that. For the sake of Heaven, sire,
grant me his forgiveness.”
The king, instead of being touched by the picture, so faithfully drawn in
all details, of Aramis’s generosity, felt himself most painfully and cruelly
humiliated. His unconquerable pride revolted at the idea that a man had
held suspended at the end of his finger the thread of his royal life. Every
word that fell from Fouquet’s lips, and which he thought most efficacious in
procuring his friend’s pardon, seemed to pour another drop of poison into
the already ulcerated heart of Louis XIV. Nothing could bend or soften him.
Addressing himself to Fouquet, he said, “I really don’t know, monsieur,
why you should solicit the pardon of these men. What good is there in
asking that which can be obtained without solicitation?”
“I do not understand you, sire.”
“It is not difficult, either. Where am I now?”
“In the Bastile, sire.”
“Yes; in a dungeon. I am looked upon as a madman, am I not?”
“Yes, sire.”
“And no one is known here but Marchiali?”
“Certainly.”

“Well; change nothing in the position of affairs. Let the poor madman rot
between the slimy walls of the Bastile, and M. d’Herblay and M. du Vallon
will stand in no need of my forgiveness. Their new king will absolve them.”
“Your majesty does me a great injustice, sire; and you are wrong,”
replied Fouquet, dryly; “I am not child enough, nor is M. d’Herblay silly
enough, to have omitted to make all these reflections; and if I had wished to
make a new king, as you say, I had no occasion to have come here to force
open the gates and doors of the Bastile, to free you from this place. That
would show a want of even common sense. Your majesty’s mind is
disturbed by anger; otherwise you would be far from offending,
groundlessly, the very one of your servants who has rendered you the most
important service of all.”
Louis perceived that he had gone too far; that the gates of the Bastile
were still closed upon him, whilst, by degrees, the floodgates were
gradually being opened, behind which the generous-hearted Fouquet had
restrained his anger. “I did not say that to humiliate you, Heaven knows,
monsieur,” he replied. “Only you are addressing yourself to me in order to
obtain a pardon, and I answer according to my conscience. And so, judging
by my conscience, the criminals we speak of are not worthy of
consideration or forgiveness.”
Fouquet was silent.
“What I do is as generous,” added the king, “as what you have done, for I
am in your power. I will even say it is more generous, inasmuch as you
place before me certain conditions upon which my liberty, my life, may
depend; and to reject which is to make a sacrifice of both.”
“I was wrong, certainly,” replied Fouquet. “Yes,—I had the appearance
of extorting a favor; I regret it, and entreat your majesty’s forgiveness.”
“And you are forgiven, my dear Monsieur Fouquet,” said the king, with a
smile, which restored the serene expression of his features, which so many
circumstances had altered since the preceding evening.
“I have my own forgiveness,” replied the minister, with some degree of
persistence; “but M. d’Herblay, and M. du Vallon?”
“They will never obtain theirs, as long as I live,” replied the inflexible
king. “Do me the kindness not to speak of it again.”
“Your majesty shall be obeyed.”

“And you will bear me no ill-will for it?”
“Oh! no, sire; for I anticipated the event.”
“You had ‘anticipated’ that I should refuse to forgive those gentlemen?”
“Certainly; and all my measures were taken in consequence.”
“What do you mean to say?” cried the king, surprised.
“M. d’Herblay came, as may be said, to deliver himself into my hands.
M. d’Herblay left to me the happiness of saving my king and my country. I
could not condemn M. d’Herblay to death; nor could I, on the other hand,
expose him to your majesty’s justifiable wrath; it would have been just the
same as if I had killed him myself.”
“Well! and what have you done?”
“Sire, I gave M. d’Herblay the best horses in my stables and four hours’
start over all those your majesty might, probably, dispatch after him.”
“Be it so!” murmured the king. “But still, the world is wide enough and
large enough for those whom I may send to overtake your horses,
notwithstanding the ‘four hours’ start’ which you have given to M.
d’Herblay.”
“In giving him these four hours, sire, I knew I was giving him his life,
and he will save his life.”
“In what way?”
“After having galloped as hard as possible, with the four hours’ start,
before your musketeers, he will reach my chateau of Belle-Isle, where I
have given him a safe asylum.”
“That may be! But you forget that you have made me a present of Belle-
Isle.”
“But not for you to arrest my friends.”
“You take it back again, then?”
“As far as that goes—yes, sire.”
“My musketeers shall capture it, and the affair will be at an end.”
“Neither your musketeers, nor your whole army could take Belle-Isle,”
said Fouquet, coldly. “Belle-Isle is impregnable.”
The king became perfectly livid; a lightning flash seemed to dart from his
eyes. Fouquet felt that he was lost, but he as not one to shrink when the

voice of honor spoke loudly within him. He bore the king’s wrathful gaze;
the latter swallowed his rage, and after a few moments’ silence, said, “Are
we going to return to Vaux?”
“I am at your majesty’s orders,” replied Fouquet, with a low bow; “but I
think that your majesty can hardly dispense with changing your clothes
previous to appearing before your court.”
“We shall pass by the Louvre,” said the king. “Come.” And they left the
prison, passing before Baisemeaux, who looked completely bewildered as
he saw Marchiali once more leave; and, in his helplessness, tore out the
major portion of his few remaining hairs. It was perfectly true, however,
that Fouquet wrote and gave him an authority for the prisoner’s release, and
that the king wrote beneath it, “Seen and approved, Louis”; a piece of
madness that Baisemeaux, incapable of putting two ideas together,
acknowledged by giving himself a terrible blow on the forehead with his
own fist.

Chapter XXIV. The False King.

In the meantime, usurped royalty was playing out its part bravely at
Vaux. Philippe gave orders that for his petit lever the grandes entrees,
already prepared to appear before the king, should be introduced. He
determined to give this order notwithstanding the absence of M. d’Herblay,
who did not return—our readers know the reason. But the prince, not
believing that absence could be prolonged, wished, as all rash spirits do, to
try his valor and his fortune far from all protection and instruction. Another
reason urged him to this—Anne of Austria was about to appear; the guilty
mother was about to stand in the presence of her sacrificed son. Philippe
was not willing, if he had a weakness, to render the man a witness of it
before whom he was bound thenceforth to display so much strength.
Philippe opened his folding doors, and several persons entered silently.
Philippe did not stir whilst his valets de chambre dressed him. He had
watched, the evening before, all the habits of his brother, and played the
king in such a manner as to awaken no suspicion. He was thus completely
dressed in hunting costume when he received his visitors. His own memory
and the notes of Aramis announced everybody to him, first of all Anne of
Austria, to whom Monsieur gave his hand, and then Madame with M. de
Saint-Aignan. He smiled at seeing these countenances, but trembled on
recognizing his mother. That still so noble and imposing figure, ravaged by
pain, pleaded in his heart the cause of the famous queen who had
immolated a child to reasons of state. He found his mother still handsome.
He knew that Louis XIV. loved her, and he promised himself to love her
likewise, and not to prove a scourge to her old age. He contemplated his
brother with a tenderness easily to be understood. The latter had usurped
nothing, had cast no shades athwart his life. A separate tree, he allowed the
stem to rise without heeding its elevation or majestic life. Philippe promised
himself to be a kind brother to this prince, who required nothing but gold to
minister to his pleasures. He bowed with a friendly air to Saint-Aignan,

who was all reverences and smiles, and trembling held out his hand to
Henrietta, his sister-in-law, whose beauty struck him; but he saw in the eyes
of that princess an expression of coldness which would facilitate, as he
thought, their future relations.
“How much more easy,” thought he, “it will be to be the brother of that
woman than her gallant, if she evinces towards me a coldness that my
brother could not have for her, but which is imposed upon me as a duty.”
The only visit he dreaded at this moment was that of the queen; his heart—
his mind—had just been shaken by so violent a trial, that, in spite of their
firm temperament, they would not, perhaps, support another shock. Happily
the queen did not come. Then commenced, on the part of Anne of Austria, a
political dissertation upon the welcome M. Fouquet had given to the house
of France. She mixed up hostilities with compliments addressed to the king,
and questions as to his health, with little maternal flatteries and diplomatic
artifices.
“Well, my son,” said she, “are you convinced with regard to M.
Fouquet?”
“Saint-Aignan,” said Philippe, “have the goodness to go and inquire after
the queen.”
At these words, the first Philippe had pronounced aloud, the slight
difference that there was between his voice and that of the king was
sensible to maternal ears, and Anne of Austria looked earnestly at her son.
Saint-Aignan left the room, and Philippe continued:
“Madame, I do not like to hear M. Fouquet ill-spoken of, you know I do
not—and you have even spoken well of him yourself.”
“That is true; therefore I only question you on the state of your
sentiments with respect to him.”
“Sire,” said Henrietta, “I, on my part, have always liked M. Fouquet. He
is a man of good taste,—a superior man.”
“A superintendent who is never sordid or niggardly,” added Monsieur;
“and who pays in gold all the orders I have on him.”
“Every one in this thinks too much of himself, and nobody for the state,”
said the old queen. “M. Fouquet, it is a fact, M. Fouquet is ruining the
state.”