Part 30

We have said that evening had come: it is night that should be said, and a thick night. Paris, grown calm again, hid in its indulgent shadow the noble duchess pursuing her political intrigue, and the simple bourgeoise who, lingering after a supper in town, took the longest way home on the arm of a lover to regain the conjugal roof.

Mme de Chevreuse was too accustomed to nocturnal politics not to know that a minister never conceals himself, even in his own home, from young and beautiful ladies who fear the dust of offices, or from very learned old ladies who fear the indiscreet echo of ministries.

A valet received the duchess beneath the peristyle, and, let it be said, he received her rather poorly. This man even explained to her, after seeing her face, that it was not at such an hour and at such an age that one came to disturb the final work of M. Colbert.

But Mme de Chevreuse, without growing angry, wrote upon a leaf of her tablets her name, a noisy name, which had so often jarred unpleasantly upon the ears of Louis XIII and the great cardinal.

She wrote this name with the large, ignorant handwriting of the high lords of that epoch, folded the paper in a manner peculiar to herself, and handed it to the valet without adding a word, but with so imperious a look, that the knave, accustomed to scenting his company, felt the princess, lowered his head, and ran to M. Colbert.

It goes without saying that the minister gave a little cry upon opening the paper, and that, this cry sufficiently instructing the valet as to the interest that must be taken in the mysterious visit, the valet came running back to fetch the duchess.

She therefore mounted rather heavily the first floor of the fine new house, paused on the landing so as not to enter breathless, and appeared before M. Colbert, who himself held the leaves of his door.

The duchess stopped on the threshold to look well at the man with whom she had to deal.

At first sight, the round, heavy, thick head, the great eyebrows, the ungraceful pout of that face crushed beneath a skullcap like those of priests, this ensemble, we say, promised the duchess few difficulties in the negotiations, but also little interest in the debate of articles.

For there was no appearance that this gross nature would be sensible to the charms of a refined vengeance or a thirsty ambition.

But, when the duchess saw more closely the small piercing black eyes, the longitudinal fold of that severe, bulging forehead, the imperceptible tightening of those lips, upon which one observed very vulgarly a look of good-nature, Mme de Chevreuse changed her mind and could say to herself: “I have found my man!”

— Who procures me the honour of your visit, madam? asked the intendant of finances.

— The need I have of you, sir, replied the duchess, and that which you have of me.

— Happy, madam, to have heard the first part of your sentence; but, as to the second...

Mme de Chevreuse sat upon the armchair that Colbert pushed toward her.

— M. Colbert, you are intendant of finances?

— Yes, madam.

— And you aspire to become surintendant?...

— Madam!

— Do not deny it; that would make our conversation long: it is useless.

— However, madam, however full of good will, even of politeness, I may be toward a lady of your merit, nothing will make me confess that I seek to supplant my superior.

— I did not speak to you of supplanting, M. Colbert. By chance, would I have pronounced that word? I think not. The word replace is less aggressive and more grammatically fitting, as M. de Voiture used to say. I maintain, then, that you aspire to replace M. Fouquet.

— The fortune of M. Fouquet, madam, is of those that resist. The surintendant plays, in this century, the role of the colossus of Rhodes: ships pass beneath him and do not overturn him.

— I should have used precisely that comparison. Yes, M. Fouquet plays the role of the colossus of Rhodes; but I remember having heard told by M. Conrart... an academician, I believe... that, the colossus of Rhodes having fallen, the merchant who had had it thrown down... a simple merchant, M. Colbert... had four hundred camels loaded with its fragments. A merchant! that is far less mighty than an intendant of finances.

— Madam, I can assure you that I shall never overturn M. Fouquet.

— Well then! M. Colbert, since you persist in showing sensitivity with me, as if you ignored that I am called Mme de Chevreuse, and that I am old, that is to say that you have to do with a woman who made politics with M. de Richelieu and who has no time left to lose, since, I say, you commit this imprudence, I am going to go find people more intelligent and more eager to make their fortune.

— In what, madam, in what?

— You give me a poor idea of the negotiations of today, sir. I swear to you well that, if, in my time, a woman had gone to find M. de Cinq-Mars, who nevertheless was not a great mind, I swear to you that, if she had said to him of the cardinal what I have just said to you of M. Fouquet, M. de Cinq-Mars, at this very hour, would already have put the irons to the fire.

— Come, madam, come, a little indulgence.

— So, you consent willingly to replace M. Fouquet?

— If the king dismisses M. Fouquet, yes, certainly.

— One word too many again; it is quite evident that, if you have not yet had M. Fouquet dismissed, it is because you could not do it. Also, I should be but a silly goose if, coming to you, I did not bring you that which you lack.

— I am desolated to insist, madam, said Colbert after a silence which had permitted the duchess to sound the whole depth of his dissimulation; but I must warn you that, for six years, denunciations upon denunciations have succeeded one another against M. Fouquet, without the position of the surintendant ever having been displaced.

— There is a time for everything, M. Colbert; those who made those denunciations were not called Mme de Chevreuse, and they had no proofs equivalent to six letters of M. de Mazarin, establishing the offence in question.

— The offence?

— The crime, if you prefer.

— A crime! Committed by M. Fouquet?

— Nothing less than that... Why, this is strange, M. Colbert; you who have the cold and insignificant face, I see you all illuminated.

— A crime?

— Delighted that it makes some impression on you.

— Oh! it is that the word contains so many things, madam!

— It contains a patent of surintendant of finances for you, and a letter of exile or of the Bastille for M. Fouquet.

— Pardon me, madam the duchess, it is almost impossible that M. Fouquet be exiled: imprisoned, disgraced, that is already so much!

— Oh! I know what I say, replied coldly Mme de Chevreuse. I do not live so far from Paris as not to know what passes there. The king does not like M. Fouquet, and he will gladly lose M. Fouquet, if one gives him the occasion.

— The occasion must be good.

— Good enough. Also, it is an occasion that I value at five hundred thousand livres.

— How so? said Colbert.

— I mean, sir, that, holding this occasion in my hands, I shall not let it pass into yours except in return for five hundred thousand livres.

— Very well, madam, I understand. But, since you have just fixed a price for the sale, let us see the thing sold.

— Oh! the least thing: six letters, I told you, of M. de Mazarin; autographs that would assuredly not be too dear, if they established in an irrefutable manner that M. Fouquet had diverted large sums to appropriate them to himself.

— In an irrefutable manner, said Colbert, his eyes shining with joy.

— Irrefutable! Do you wish to read the letters?

— With all my heart! The copy, of course?

— Of course, yes.

My lady the duchess drew from her bosom a small packet flattened by the velvet corset:

— Read, said she.

Colbert threw himself avidly upon these papers and devoured them.

— Admirable! said he.

— It is clear enough, is it not?

— Yes, madam, yes. M. de Mazarin would have handed money to M. Fouquet, who would have kept this money, but what money?

— Ah! there, what money? If we treat together, I shall join to his letters a seventh, which will give you the last information.

Colbert reflected.

— And the originals of the letters?

— Useless question. It is as if I asked you: M. Colbert, the money-bags you will give me, will they be full or empty?

— Very well, madam.

— Is it concluded?

— Not yet.

— How?

— There is a thing to which neither of us has given thought.

— Tell it to me.

— M. Fouquet cannot be ruined in this occurrence except by a trial.

— Yes.

— A public scandal.

— Yes. Well?

— Well! one cannot make him either the trial or the scandal.

— Because?

— Because he is attorney-general at the Parliament, because everything in France, administration, army, justice, commerce, is mutually linked by a chain of good will that is called esprit de corps. Thus, madam, never will the Parliament suffer that its chief be dragged before a tribunal. Never, if he be dragged there by royal authority, never will he be condemned.

— Ah! faith! M. Colbert, that is no concern of mine.

— I know it, madam, but it concerns me, and diminishes the value of your contribution. Of what use to me is a proof of crime without the possibility of condemnation?

— Suspected only, M. Fouquet will lose his office of surintendant.

— A great matter indeed! cried Colbert, whose dark features suddenly burst, illuminated with an expression of hatred and vengeance.

— Ah! ah! M. Colbert, said the duchess, excuse me, I did not know you were so impressionable. Good, very good! Then, since you need more than I have, let us speak no more of anything.

— On the contrary, madam, let us still speak of it. Only, your values having fallen, lower your claims.

— You bargain?

— It is a necessity for whoever wishes to pay loyally.

— How much do you offer me?

— Two hundred thousand livres.

The duchess laughed in his face; then, suddenly:

— Wait, said she.

— You consent?

— Not yet, I have another scheme.

— Speak.

— You give me three hundred thousand livres.

— No! no!

— Oh! it is take it or leave it... And then, that is not all.

— Again?... You become impossible, madam the duchess.

— Less than you believe; it is no longer money that I ask of you.

— What then?

— A service. You know that I have always tenderly loved the queen.

— Well?

— Well! I wish to have an interview with Her Majesty.

— With the queen?

— Yes, M. Colbert, with the queen, who is no longer my friend, it is true, and for long, but who may become so again, if one furnishes the occasion.

— Her Majesty receives no one, madam. She suffers greatly. You are not ignorant that the attacks of her malady recur more frequently...

— That is precisely why I desire to have an interview with Her Majesty. Picture to yourself that in Flanders we have many such illnesses.

— Cancers? A frightful, incurable disease.

— Do not believe that, M. Colbert. The Flemish peasant is somewhat the man of nature; he has not precisely a wife, he has a female.

— Well, madam?

— Well! M. Colbert, while he smokes his pipe, the woman works: she draws water from the well, loads the mule or the ass, loads herself as well. Sparing herself little, she knocks here and there, often even she is beaten. A cancer comes of a bruise.

— That is true.

— The Flemish women do not die of it. They go, when they suffer too much, in search of the remedy. And the béguines of Bruges are admirable physicians for all maladies. They have precious waters, topical applications, specifics: they give the sick woman a flask and a candle, they bless through the clergy and serve God by the exploitation of their two wares. I shall therefore bring to the queen the water of the béguinage of Bruges. Her Majesty will be cured, and will burn as many candles as she judges fitting. You see, M. Colbert, that to prevent me from going to see the queen is almost a crime of regicide.

— Madam the duchess, you are a woman of too much wit, you confound me; nevertheless, I well divine that this great charity toward the queen covers a small personal interest.

— Do I take the trouble to hide it, M. Colbert? You said, I believe, a small personal interest? Learn then that it is a great interest, and I shall prove it to you by summing up. If you have me enter into Her Majesty's presence, I content myself with the three hundred thousand livres claimed; if not, I keep my letters, unless you give me, then and there, five hundred thousand livres.

And, rising upon this decisive word, the old duchess left M. Colbert in an unpleasant perplexity.

To bargain further had become impossible; not to bargain further was to lose infinitely too much.

— Madam, said he, I am going to have the pleasure of counting you one hundred thousand écus.

— Oh! made the duchess.

— But how shall I have the true letters?

— In the simplest fashion, my dear M. Colbert... In whom do you trust?

The grave financier began to laugh silently, so that his great black eyebrows rose and fell like two bat's wings upon the deep line of his yellow forehead.

— In no one, said he.

— Oh! you will make an exception in your own favour, M. Colbert.

— How so, madam the duchess?

— I mean that, if you took the trouble to come with me to the place where the letters are, they would be delivered to yourself, and you could verify them, check them.

— It is true.

— You would have provided yourself with one hundred thousand écus, because I, too, trust no one.

M. the intendant Colbert blushed to his eyebrows. He was, like all superior men in the art of figures, of an insolent and mathematical probity.

— I shall bring, said he, madam, the promised sum, in two drafts payable at my treasury. Will that satisfy you?

— Would that your treasury drafts were of two millions, M. intendant!... I am therefore going to have the honour of showing you the way.

— Permit me to have my horses harnessed.

— I have a carriage below, sir.

Colbert coughed like an irresolute man. He imagined for a moment that the duchess's proposition was a snare; that perhaps someone waited at the door; that this lady, whose secret had just been sold for one hundred thousand écus to Colbert, must have proposed this secret to M. Fouquet for the same sum.

As he hesitated greatly, the duchess looked him in the eyes.

— You prefer your carriage? said she.

— I confess it.

— You picture to yourself that I am leading you into some trap?

— Madam the duchess, you have a playful character, and I, clothed with a character as grave, may be compromised by a jest.

— Yes; finally, you are afraid? Well! take your carriage, as many lackeys as you wish... Only, reflect well upon it... that which we do between ourselves, we alone know; that which a third party has seen, we tell to all the universe. After all, I do not care: my carriage shall follow yours, and I hold myself satisfied to mount into your carriage to go to the queen's.

— To the queen's?

— Had you already forgotten it? What! a clause of such importance to me had escaped you? How little it was to you, my God! Had I known, I should have asked you double.

— I have reflected, madam the duchess; I shall not accompany you.

— Truly!... Why?

— Because I have in you a boundless confidence.

— You overwhelm me!... But, so that I may touch the hundred thousand écus?...

— Here they are.

The intendant scribbled a few words upon a paper which he handed to the duchess.

— You are paid, said he.

— The act is fine, M. Colbert, and I am going to reward you for it.

In saying these words, she began to laugh.

The laugh of Mme de Chevreuse was a sinister murmur; any man who feels youth, faith, love, life beating in his heart, prefers tears to that lamentable laugh.

The duchess opened the top of her bodice and drew from her reddened bosom a small packet of papers tied with a fire-coloured ribbon. The clasps had yielded beneath the brutal pressure of her nervous hands. The skin, scraped by the extraction and the rubbing of the papers, appeared without modesty before the eyes of the intendant, much intrigued by these strange preliminaries. The duchess laughed still.

— There, said she, are the true letters of M. de Mazarin. You have them, and, moreover, the duchess of Chevreuse has undressed before you, as if you had been... I will not tell you names that would give you pride or jealousy. Now, M. Colbert, said she, fastening and tying with rapidity the body of her gown, your good fortune is ended; accompany me to the queen.

— Not so, madam: if you were to incur anew the disfavour of Her Majesty, and it were known at the Palais-Royal that I had been your introducer, the queen would never forgive me. No. I have devoted people at the palace, those will have you enter without compromising me.

— As you please, provided I enter.

— What do you call the religious ladies of Bruges who cure the sick?

— The béguines.

— You are a béguine.

— Be it so, but I must needs cease to be one.

— That concerns you.

— Pardon! pardon! I do not wish to be exposed to being refused entry.

— That concerns you again, madam. I am going to order the first valet de chambre of the gentleman in attendance upon Her Majesty to let enter a béguine bringing an efficacious remedy to relieve the pains of Her Majesty. You bear my letter, you charge yourself with the remedy and the explanations. I avow the béguine, I deny Mme de Chevreuse.

— No matter.

— Here is the letter of introduction, madam.

Chapter CLXXXI — The Bear's Skin

Colbert gave this letter to the duchess, gently withdrew from behind her the seat that sheltered her.

Mme de Chevreuse bowed very slightly and went out.

Colbert, who had recognised Mazarin's handwriting and counted the letters, rang for his secretary and enjoined him to go fetch from his house M. Vanel, councillor at the Parliament. The secretary replied that the councillor, faithful to his habits, had just entered the house to render account to the intendant of the principal details of the work accomplished that very day in the session of the Parliament.

Colbert approached the lamps, reread the letters of the late cardinal, smiled several times in recognising all the value of the pieces that Mme de Chevreuse had just delivered to him, and, supporting his heavy head in his hands for several minutes, he reflected deeply.

During these few minutes, a big and tall man, with a bony face, fixed eyes, and a hooked nose, had made his entrance into Colbert's cabinet with a modest assurance, which betrayed a character at once supple and decided: supple toward the master who could throw the prey, firm toward the dogs who might dispute this opulent prey with him.

M. Vanel had under his arm a voluminous dossier; he placed it upon the very desk where Colbert's two elbows supported his head.

— Good day, M. Vanel, said the latter, awakening from his meditation.

— Good day, monseigneur, said Vanel naturally.

— It is _monsieur_ that must be said, replied Colbert softly.

— One calls _monseigneur_ the ministers, said Vanel with an imperturbable coolness; you are a minister!

— Not yet!

— In fact, I call you monseigneur; besides, you are my lord, that suffices me; if it displeases you that I call you thus before the world, let me call you by that name in private.

Colbert raised his head to the height of the lamps and read or sought to read upon Vanel's face for how much sincerity entered into this protestation of devotion.

But the councillor knew how to sustain the weight of a gaze, were that gaze that of Monseigneur.

Colbert sighed. He had read nothing upon Vanel's face; Vanel might be honest. Colbert thought that this inferior was superior to him, in that he had an unfaithful wife.

At the moment when he was pitying the lot of this man, Vanel drew coldly from his pocket a perfumed note, sealed with Spanish wax, and tendered it to Monseigneur.

— What is this, Vanel?

— A letter from my wife, monseigneur.

Colbert coughed. He took the letter, opened it, read it, and locked it in his pocket, while Vanel impassively leafed through his volume of procedure.

— Vanel, said suddenly the protector to his protégé, you are a man of work, are you not?

— Yes, monseigneur.

— Twelve hours of study do not frighten you?

— I do fifteen a day.

— Impossible! A councillor could not work more than three hours for the Parliament.

— Oh! I make statements for a friend I have in the accounts, and, as I have time left, I study Hebrew.

— You are highly considered at the Parliament, Vanel?

— I believe so, monseigneur.

— It would be a matter of not languishing upon the seat of councillor.

— What to do for that?

— Buy an office.

— Which?

— Something great. Small ambitions are the most difficult to satisfy.

— Small purses, monseigneur, are the most difficult to fill.

— And then, what office do you see? said Colbert.

— I see none, it is true.

— There is indeed one, but one must be the king to buy it without constraint; now, the king will not, I believe, take the fancy of buying an office of attorney-general.

Hearing these words, Vanel fixed upon Colbert his gaze at once humble and dull.

Colbert asked himself if he had been guessed, or only met by the thought of this man.

— What do you speak to me of, monseigneur, said Vanel, of the office of attorney-general at the Parliament? I know no other than that of M. Fouquet.

— Precisely, my dear councillor.

— You are not discouraged, monseigneur; but, before the merchandise is bought, must it not be sold?

— I believe, M. Vanel, that this office will shortly be for sale...

— For sale!... the office of attorney of M. Fouquet?

— So it is said.

— The office that makes him inviolable, for sale? Oh! oh!

And Vanel began to laugh.

— Would you be afraid, of that office? said Colbert gravely.

— Afraid! not at all...

— Nor desirous?

— Monseigneur mocks me! replied Vanel; how should a councillor of the Parliament not desire to become attorney-general?

— Then, M. Vanel... since I tell you the office presents itself for sale.

— Monseigneur says so.

— The rumour runs.

— I repeat that it is impossible; never does a man throw away the buckler behind which he shelters his honour, his fortune, and his life.

— Sometimes there are fools who believe themselves above all ill chances, M. Vanel.

— Yes, monseigneur; but those fools do not commit their follies to the profit of the poor Vanels that there are in the world.

— Why not?

— Because those Vanels are poor.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”