Part 33

— That is a pretty sum to lay hands on all at once, said the Abbé Fouquet sententiously, who had not yet spoken.

— Poor Madame Vanel! murmured Fouquet.

Pélisson shrugged his shoulders.

— A demon! he said low into Fouquet’s ear.

— Precisely!... It would be charming to employ this demon’s money to repair the harm that an angel has done herself for my sake.

Pélisson looked at Fouquet with a surprised air, whose thoughts, from that moment, fixed themselves upon a new object.

— Well! said La Fontaine, how went my negotiation?

— Admirable! dear poet.

— Yes, said Gourville; but many a man boasts of wanting a horse who has not even wherewithal to pay for the bridle.

— Vanel would back out if one took him at his word, continued the Abbé Fouquet.

— I do not think so, said La Fontaine.

— How do you know?

— Because you are ignorant of the ending of my story.

— Ah! if there is an ending, said Gourville, why loiter on the road?

— Semper ad adventum, is it not so? said Fouquet in the tone of a great lord who wanders into barbarisms.

The Latinists clapped their hands.

— My ending, cried La Fontaine, is that Vanel, that tenacious bird, knowing I was coming to Saint-Mandé, begged me to take him along.

— Oh! oh!

— And to present him, if possible, to Monseigneur.

— So that?...

— So that he is there, on the lawn of Bel-Air.

— Like a beetle.

— You say that, Gourville, on account of the antennae, poor jester!

— Well! Monsieur Fouquet?

— Well! it is not fitting that Madame Vanel’s husband should catch cold outside my house; send for him, La Fontaine, since you know where he is.

— I will run myself.

— I will go with you, said the Abbé Fouquet; I will carry the bags.

— No bad jests, said Fouquet severely; let the matter be serious, if matter there be. First of all, let us be hospitable. Make my excuses well, La Fontaine, to that gentleman, and tell him I am desolated to have kept him waiting, but that I was unaware he was there.

La Fontaine was already gone. Fortunately Gourville accompanied him; for, wholly lost in his figures, the poet mistook the way, and was running toward Saint-Maur.

A quarter of an hour later, Monsieur Vanel was introduced into the superintendent’s cabinet, that same cabinet whose description and issues we gave at the beginning of this story. Fouquet, seeing him enter, called Pélisson, and spoke to him a few minutes in the ear.

— Bear this well in mind, he said to him: that all the plate, that all the dishes, that all the jewels be packed in the carriage. You will take the black horses; the goldsmith will accompany you; you will put off supper until the arrival of Madame de Bellière.

— Still, Madame de Bellière must be warned, said Pélisson.

— Useless, I take charge of that.

— Very well.

— Go, my friend.

Pélisson departed, guessing ill, but confident, as are all true friends, in the will he was submitting to. Therein lies the strength of noble souls. Suspicion is made only for inferior natures.

Vanel therefore bowed before the superintendent. He was about to begin a harangue.

— Sit down, sir, said Fouquet civilly. It appears you wish to buy my office?

— Monseigneur...

— How much can you give me for it?

— It is for you, monseigneur, to fix the sum. I know offers have been made you.

— Madame Vanel, I have been told, values it at fourteen hundred thousand livres.

— That is all we have.

— Can you give the sum at once?

— I have it not about me, said Vanel naïvely, dismayed at this simplicity, this greatness, he who expected struggles, finesse, chessboard maneuvers.

— When will you have it?

— When it pleases Monseigneur.

And he trembled lest Fouquet should be mocking him.

— Were it not for the trouble of returning to Paris, I would tell you at once...

— Oh! monseigneur...

— But, interrupted the superintendent, let us set the balance and the signing for tomorrow morning.

— Be it so, replied Vanel, frozen, stupefied.

— Six o’clock, added Fouquet.

— Six o’clock, repeated Vanel.

— Farewell, Monsieur Vanel! Tell Madame Vanel that I kiss her hands.

And Fouquet rose.

Then Vanel, whose blood was mounting to his eyes and who was beginning to lose his head:

— Monseigneur, monseigneur, said he seriously, are you giving me your word?

Fouquet turned his head.

— Pardieu! said he; and you?

Vanel hesitated, shivered, and finally advanced his hand timidly. Fouquet opened and nobly advanced his own. That loyal hand was impregnated for a second with the moisture of a hypocritical hand; Vanel pressed Fouquet’s fingers to better convince himself.

The superintendent gently disengaged his hand.

— Farewell! said he.

Vanel ran backward toward the door, precipitated himself through the antechambers, and fled.

Pélisson introduced that man into the cabinet which Fouquet had not yet left.

The superintendent thanked the goldsmith for having kindly kept as a deposit these riches which he had the right to sell. He cast his eyes over the total of the accounts, which amounted to thirteen hundred thousand livres.

Then, placing himself at his desk, he wrote a draft for fourteen hundred thousand livres, payable at sight at his treasury, before noon the next day.

— A hundred thousand livres profit! cried the goldsmith. Ah! monseigneur, what generosity!

— Not so, not so, sir, said Fouquet touching his shoulder, there are courtesies that are never paid for. The profit is about what you would have made; but there remains the interest on your money.

As he said these words, he detached from his cuff a diamond button which this same goldsmith had very often valued at three thousand pistoles.

— Take this in memory of me, said he to the goldsmith, and farewell; you are an honest man.

— And you, cried the goldsmith, deeply touched, you, monseigneur, you are a brave seigneur.

Fouquet had the worthy goldsmith pass out by a secret door; then he went to receive Madame de Bellière, whom all the guests were already surrounding.

The marquise was ever beautiful; but, that day, she shone.

— Do you not find, gentlemen, said Fouquet, that Madame is of incomparable beauty this evening? Do you know why?

— Because Madame is the most beautiful of women, said someone.

— No, but because she is the best. However...

— However? said the marquise smiling.

— However, all the jewels Madame wears this evening are false stones.

She blushed.

Chapter CLXXXVI — The Plate and Diamonds of Madame de Bellière

Scarcely had Fouquet dismissed Vanel than he reflected a moment.

— One can never do too much, said he, for the woman one has loved. Marguerite wishes to be a procureur, why not give her that pleasure? Now that the most scrupulous conscience could reproach me with nothing, let us think of the woman who loves me. Madame de Bellière must be there.

He pointed with his finger to the secret door.

Having shut himself in, he opened the underground passage and directed himself rapidly toward the communication established between the house of Vincennes and his own house.

He had neglected to warn his friend with the bell, well assured she never missed the rendezvous.

Indeed, the marquise had arrived. She was waiting. The noise the superintendent made warned her; she ran to receive through the door the note he passed her.

«Come, marquise, you are expected for supper.»

Happy and active, Madame de Bellière gained her carriage in the avenue of Vincennes, and came to tender her hand on the perron to Gourville, who, to better please his master, was watching for her arrival in the court.

She had not seen enter, smoking and white with foam, the black horses of Fouquet, which were bringing back to Saint-Mandé Pélisson and the goldsmith himself to whom Madame de Bellière had sold her plate and her jewels.

— Oh! oh! cried all the guests; one may say that without fear of a woman who has the finest diamonds in Paris.

— Well? said Fouquet low to Pélisson.

— Well! I have finally understood, replied the latter, and you did well.

— It is fortunate, smiled the superintendent.

— Monseigneur is served, cried Vatel majestically.

The flood of guests precipitated themselves less slowly than is the custom at ministerial feasts toward the dining hall, where a magnificent spectacle awaited them.

Upon the buffets, upon the sideboards, upon the table, amid flowers and lights, shone dazzlingly the richest gold and silver plate one could see; it was a remnant of those old magnificences that the Florentine artists, brought by the Medici, had sculpted, chiseled, cast for the flower sideboards, when there was gold in France; these marvels, hidden, buried during the civil wars, had reappeared timidly in the intermissions of that war of good taste called the Fronde; then seigneurs, fighting seigneurs, killed but did not plunder one another. All this plate was marked with the arms of Madame de Bellière.

— Why, cried La Fontaine, a P. and a B.

But what was most curious was the cover of the marquise, at the place Fouquet had assigned her; near him rose a pyramid of diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, antique cameos; the sardonyx engraved by the old Greeks of Asia Minor with its mountings of Mysian gold, the curious mosaics of old Alexandria set in silver, the massive bracelets of Cleopatra’s Egypt strewed a vast Palissy dish, supported on a gilded bronze tripod, sculpted by Benvenuto.

The marquise paled seeing what she never counted to see again. A deep silence, forerunner of vivid emotions, occupied the numbed and uneasy hall.

Fouquet did not even make a sign to chase away all the liveried valets who ran, busy bees, around the vast buffets and the side tables.

— Gentlemen, said he, this plate you see belonged to Madame de Bellière, who, one day, seeing a friend in straits, sent all this gold and all this silver to the goldsmith with that mass of jewels which rise there before her. This beautiful action of a friend was to be understood by friends such as you. Happy the man who sees himself loved thus! Let us drink to the health of Madame de Bellière.

An immense acclamation covered his words and struck mute, fainting on her seat, the poor woman, who had just lost her senses, like the birds of Greece that crossed the sky above the arena at Olympia.

— And then, added Pélisson, whom every virtue touched, whom every beauty charmed, let us drink a little also to him who inspired the beautiful action of Madame; for such a man must be worthy of being loved.

It was the marquise’s turn. She rose pale and smiling, tendered her glass with a failing hand whose trembling fingers brushed the fingers of Fouquet, while her still dying eyes went to seek all the love that burned in that generous heart.

Begun in this heroic fashion, supper promptly became a feast; none busied himself further with being witty, none lacked it.

La Fontaine forgot his wine of Gorgny, and permitted Vatel to reconcile him with the wines of the Rhône and those of Spain.

The Abbé Fouquet became so good that Gourville said to him:

— Take care, Monsieur l’Abbé! if you are so tender, you will be eaten.

The hours thus flowed joyful and shaking roses upon the guests. Contrary to his wont, the superintendent did not leave the table before the last largesses of dessert.

He smiled at most of his friends, drunk as one is when one has inebriated the heart before the head, and, for the first time, he had just looked at the clock.

Suddenly a carriage rolled in the court, and it was heard, strange thing! amid the noise and the songs.

Fouquet pricked up his ear, then turned his eyes toward the antechamber. It seemed to him a step rang there, and that this step, instead of treading the floor, weighed upon his heart.

Instinctively his foot left the foot Madame de Bellière had pressed against his own for two hours.

— Monsieur d’Herblay, Bishop of Vannes, cried the usher.

And the dark and pensive face of Aramis appeared upon the threshold, between the debris of two garlands whose threads a lamp flame had just broken.

Chapter CLXXXVII — The Receipt of Monsieur de Mazarin

Fouquet would have uttered a cry of joy at sight of a new friend, had the icy air, the distracted gaze of Aramis not restored to him all his reserve.

— Will you help us with dessert? he nonetheless asked; will you not be a little frightened at all this noise our follies make?

— Monseigneur, replied Aramis respectfully, I shall begin by excusing myself to you for troubling your joyful gathering; then I shall ask you, after pleasure, a moment of audience for business.

As this word business had made some epicureans prick up their ears, Fouquet rose.

— Business ever, said he, Monsieur d’Herblay; happy are we when business arrives only at the end of the meal.

And, saying this, he took the hand of Madame de Bellière, who regarded him with a sort of uneasiness; he led her into the nearest salon, after having entrusted her to the most reasonable of the company.

As for him, taking Aramis by the arm, he directed himself toward his cabinet.

Aramis, once there, forgot the respect of etiquette. He sat down:

— Guess, said he, whom I saw this evening?

— My dear chevalier, every time you begin thus, I am sure to hear announced something disagreeable.

— This time again, you will not have been mistaken, my dear friend, replied Aramis.

— Do not keep me languishing, added Fouquet phlegmatically.

— Well! I saw Madame de Chevreuse.

— The old duchess?

— Yes.

— Or her shade?

— Not so. An old she-wolf.

— Without teeth?

— Possibly, but not without claws.

— Well! why would she bear me ill will? I am not stingy with women who are not prudes. That is a quality always prized even by the woman who no longer dares provoke love.

— Madame de Chevreuse knows well that you are not stingy, since she wants to wring money from you.

— Good! under what pretext?

— Ah! pretexts never fail her. Here is hers.

— I listen.

— It would appear the duchess possesses several letters of Monsieur de Mazarin.

— That does not surprise me, the prelate was gallant.

— Yes; but these letters would have no relation to the prelate’s loves. They treat, it is said, of financial affairs.

— That is less interesting.

— You do not suspect a little what I mean?

— Not at all.

— Would you never have heard speak of an accusation of misappropriation of funds?

— A hundred times! a thousand times! Since I have been in affairs, my dear d’Herblay, I have never heard spoken of anything but that. It is like you, bishop, when they reproach you your impiety; you, musketeer, your cowardice; what they perpetually reproach the minister of Finance with is stealing the finances.

— Good; but let us be precise, for Monsieur de Mazarin is precise, according to the duchess.

— Let us see what he is precise about.

— Something like a sum of thirteen millions whose employment you would be much embarrassed, you, to specify.

— Thirteen millions! said the superintendent stretching in his armchair to better lift his head toward the ceiling. Thirteen millions... Ah! well! I am looking for them, you see, among all those they accuse me of having stolen.

— Do not laugh, my dear sir, it is grave. It is certain the duchess has the letters, and the letters must be good, seeing she wanted to sell them for five hundred thousand livres.

— One may have a very pretty calumny for that price, replied Fouquet. Eh! but I know what you mean.

Fouquet began to laugh heartily.

— So much the better! said Aramis little reassured.

— The story of those thirteen millions comes back to me. Yes, that is it; I hold them.

— You do me great pleasure. Let us see a little.

— Imagine to yourself, my dear, that signor Mazarin, God rest his soul! made one day this profit of thirteen millions on a concession of lands in litigation in the Valtelline; he struck them from the register of receipts, had them sent to me, and had them given to him by me, for war expenses.

— Good. Then the destination is justified.

— Not so; the cardinal had them placed under my name, and sent me a discharge.

— You have this discharge?

— Parbleu! said Fouquet rising tranquilly to go to the drawers of his vast bureau of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gold.

— What I admire in you, said Aramis charmed, is your memory first, then your coolness, and finally the perfect order that reigns in your administration, you, the poet par excellence.

— Yes, said Fouquet, I have order through spirit of laziness, to spare myself searching. Thus, I know the receipt of Mazarin is in the third drawer, letter M; I open this drawer and immediately lay my hand on the paper I need. At night, without a candle, I would find it.

And he felt with a sure hand the bundle of papers heaped in the open drawer.

— There is more, he continued, I recall this paper as if I saw it; it is stiff, a little rough, gilt on the edge; Mazarin had made a blot of ink on the figure of the date. Well! said he, there is the paper that senses one is concerned with it and that it is needed, it hides and rebels.

And the superintendent looked into the drawer.

— It is strange, said Fouquet.

— Your memory fails you, my dear sir, search in another bundle.

Fouquet took the bundle and went through it once more; then he paled.

— Do not persist with this one, said Aramis, search elsewhere.

— Useless, useless, never have I made an error; none but me arranges these sorts of papers; none opens this drawer, to which, you see, I have had a secret made whose number none but me knows.

— What do you conclude then? said Aramis agitated.

— That Mazarin’s receipt has been stolen from me. Madame de Chevreuse was right, chevalier; I have misappropriated public funds; I have stolen thirteen millions from the coffers of the State; I am a thief, Monsieur d’Herblay.

— Sir! sir! do not irritate yourself, do not exalt yourself!

— Why not exalt myself, chevalier? The cause is worth it. A good trial, a good judgment, and your friend the superintendent may follow to Montfaucon his colleague Enguerrand de Marigny, his predecessor Samblançay.

— Oh! said Aramis smiling, not so fast.

— How, not so fast! What do you suppose Madame de Chevreuse will have done with those letters; for you refused them, did you not?

— Oh! yes, flatly refused. I suppose she went to sell them to Monsieur Colbert.

— Well! do you see?

— I said I supposed, I could say I am sure of it; for I had her followed, and, on leaving me, she went home, then went out by a back door and betook herself to the house of the intendant, rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs.

— Trial then, scandal and dishonor, all falling like lightning falls, blindly, brutally, pitilessly.

Aramis approached Fouquet, who was shivering in his armchair, near the open drawers; he laid his hand on his shoulder, and, in an affectionate tone:

— Never forget, said he, that the position of Monsieur Fouquet cannot be compared to that of Samblançay or of Marigny.

— And why, my God?

— Because the trial of those ministers was made, perfect, and the sentence executed; whereas as regards you the same cannot come to pass.

— Again, why? In all times, a concessionaire is a criminal.

— Criminals who know how to find a place of asylum are never in danger.

— Save myself? flee?

— I do not speak to you of that, and you forget that these sorts of trials are evoked by the Parliament, instructed by the procureur général, and that you are procureur général. You see well that unless you wish to condemn yourself...

— Oh! cried suddenly Fouquet striking the table with his fist.

— Well! what? what is it?

— It is that I am no longer procureur général.

Aramis, in his turn, paled to appear livid; he clenched his fingers, which cracked one upon another, and, with a haggard eye that fulminated Fouquet:

— You are no longer procureur général? said he scanning each syllable.

— No.

— Since when?

— These four or five hours.

— Take care, interrupted Aramis coldly, I believe you are not in possession of your good sense, my friend; compose yourself.

— I tell you, resumed Fouquet, that awhile ago someone came, on behalf of my friends, to offer me fourteen hundred thousand livres for my office, and that I sold my office.

Aramis remained stupefied; his intelligent and raillery-filled face took on a character of gloomy fright which made more impression on the superintendent than all the cries and all the speeches in the world.

— You then had great need of money? said he finally.

— Yes, to acquit a debt of honor.

And he recounted in few words to Aramis the generosity of Madame de Bellière and the fashion in which he had thought fit to pay that generosity.

— That is a fine stroke, said Aramis. Does it cost you?

— Exactly the fourteen hundred thousand livres of my office.

— Which you received just like that, at once, without reflecting? O imprudent friend!

— I have not received them, but I shall receive them tomorrow.

— It is not then done yet?

— It must be done since I gave the goldsmith, for noon, a draft on my treasury, where the acquirer’s money will enter between six and seven o’clock.

— God be praised! cried Aramis clapping his hands, nothing is finished, since you have not been paid.

— But the goldsmith?

— You will receive from me the fourteen hundred thousand livres at a quarter to noon.

— One moment, one moment! it is this morning, at six o’clock, that I sign.

— Oh! I answer to you that you will not sign.

— I have given my word, chevalier.

— If you have given it, you will take it back, that is all.

— Oh! what are you saying to me? cried Fouquet with an accent profoundly loyal. Take back one’s word when one is Fouquet!

Aramis answered the severe gaze of the minister with an angry gaze.

— Monsieur, said he, I believe I have merited being called an honest man, have I not? Under the soldier’s cassock, I have risked my life five hundred times; under the priest’s habit, I have rendered still greater services, to God, to the State, or to my friends. A word is worth what the man who gives it is worth. It is, when he keeps it, pure gold; it is a cutting iron when he will not keep it. He then defends himself with this word as with a weapon of honor, seeing that, when he does not keep this word, that man of honor, it is that he is in danger of death, it is that he runs more risks than his adversary has profits to make. Then, Monsieur, one appeals to God and to his right.

Fouquet lowered his head:

— I am, said he, a poor obstinate and vulgar Breton; my mind admires and fears yours. I do not say I keep my word through virtue; I keep it, if you will, through routine; but, in short, common men are simple enough to admire this routine; it is my only virtue, leave me its honors.

— Then you will sign tomorrow the sale of that office, which defended you against all your enemies?

“Stories of the world, in your language.”