Part 38

— As for the portrait, for I understand that the portrait is the principal grievance; as for the portrait, come now, am I guilty? Who desired to have her portrait taken? was it I? Who loves it? is it I? Who wants it? is it I?... Who took it? was it I? No! a thousand times no! I know that M. de Bragelonne must be in despair, I know that such misfortunes are cruel. See, I too am suffering. But resistance is impossible. Will he struggle? they would laugh at him. If he persists, he is ruined. You will tell me that despair is a madness; but you are reasonable, you have understood me. I see by your grave, reflective, even embarrassed air, that the importance of the situation has struck you. Return then to M. de Bragelonne; thank him, as I thank him myself, for having chosen as intermediary a man of your worth. Believe that, for my part, I shall keep an eternal gratitude toward him who has so ingeniously, so intelligently pacified our discord. And, since misfortune willed that this secret should be known to four instead of three, well! this secret, which might make the fortune of the most ambitious, I rejoice to share with you; I rejoice from the bottom of my soul. From this moment, then, dispose of me, I put myself at your mercy. What must I do for you? What ought I to ask, even to demand? Speak, sir, speak.

And, according to the familiarly friendly custom of the courtiers of that epoch, de Saint-Aignan came to clasp Porthos and press him tenderly in his arms.

Porthos allowed it with unheard-of phlegm.

— Speak, repeated de Saint-Aignan; what do you ask?

— Sir, said Porthos, I have a horse below; do me the pleasure of mounting it; he is excellent and will play you no bad tricks.

— Mount on horseback! to what end? asked de Saint-Aignan with curiosity.

— Why, to come with me where M. de Bragelonne awaits us.

— Ah! he would speak with me, I understand; have details. Alas! it is most delicate! But, at this moment, I cannot, the king expects me.

— The king will wait, said Porthos.

— But where does M. de Bragelonne await me?

— At the Minimes, at Vincennes.

— Come now! are we jesting?

— I do not think so; I, at least, do not.

And Porthos gave his face the rigidity of his severest lines.

— But the Minimes, that is a rendezvous of swords, is it not? Well then! what have I to do at the Minimes?

Porthos slowly drew his sword.

— Here is the measure of my friend's sword, said he.

— Zounds! the man is mad! cried de Saint-Aignan.

A red flush mounted to Porthos's ears.

— Sir, said he, if I were not honored to be in your house, and to serve the interests of M. de Bragelonne, I would throw you out of your window! It will be put off, and you shall lose nothing by waiting. Are you coming to the Minimes, sir?

— Eh!...

— Are you coming of your own free will?

— But...

— I will carry you there if you do not come! Take care!

— Basque! cried M. de Saint-Aignan.

— The king calls for the count, said Basque.

— That is different, said Porthos; the king's service before all. We shall wait there until evening, sir.

And, saluting de Saint-Aignan with his ordinary courtesy, Porthos went out, delighted to have arranged another affair.

De Saint-Aignan watched him go out; then, hastily smoothing his coat and waistcoat, he ran off, repairing the disorder of his toilette, and saying:

— To the Minimes!... to the Minimes!... We shall see how the king takes this challenge. It is well aimed at him, by God!

Chapter CXCV — Political Rivals

The king, after that walk so fruitful for Apollo, and in which each paid his tribute to the Muses, as the poets of the time said, the king found M. Fouquet awaiting him at home.

Behind the king came M. Colbert, who had taken him in a corridor as if he had lain in wait, and who followed him like his jealous and watchful shadow; M. Colbert, with his square head, his coarse luxury of disordered clothes, which made him resemble somewhat a Flemish nobleman after beer.

M. Fouquet, at sight of his enemy, remained calm, and applied himself, during the whole scene which was to follow, to observing that most difficult conduct of the superior man whose heart overflows with contempt, and who will not even show his contempt, for fear of doing his adversary too much honor.

Colbert hid not an insulting joy. For him, it was on M. Fouquet's part a badly played and hopelessly lost game, though it was not yet finished. Colbert belonged to that school of politicians who admire only skill, who esteem only success.

Moreover, Colbert, who was not merely an envious and jealous man, but who had at heart all the interests of the king, because he was endowed at bottom with the supreme probity of figures, Colbert could give himself the pretext, so happy when one hates, that he acted, in hating and ruining M. Fouquet, with a view to the good of the State and royal dignity.

None of these details escaped Fouquet. Through the thick brows of his enemy, and despite the incessant play of his eyelids, he read, by the eyes, to the very bottom of Colbert's heart; he saw then all that was in that heart: hatred and triumph.

Only, as, while penetrating, he wished to remain impenetrable, he cleared his face, smiled with that charming sympathetic smile which belonged to him alone, and, giving the most noble and at once most supple elasticity to his bow:

— Sire, said he, I see, by the joyful air of Your Majesty, that he has taken a good walk.

— Charming, indeed, Mr. Superintendent, charming! You were very wrong not to come with us, as I invited you.

— Sire, I was working, answered the superintendent.

Fouquet had not even need to turn his head; he did not look toward M. Colbert.

— Ah! the country, M. Fouquet! cried the king. My God, how I should like to be able always to live in the country, in the open air, under the trees!

— Oh! Your Majesty is not yet weary of the throne, I hope? said Fouquet.

— No; but the verdant thrones are very sweet.

— In truth, Sire, Your Majesty fulfills all my wishes in speaking thus. I had just a request to present to him.

— From whom, Mr. Superintendent?

— From the nymphs of Vaux.

— Ah! ah! said Louis XIV.

— The king has deigned to make a promise, said Fouquet.

— Yes, I recall it.

— The fête of Vaux, the famous fête, is it not, Sire? said Colbert, trying to show credit by mingling in the conversation.

Fouquet, with profound contempt, did not take up the word. It was for him as if Colbert had neither thought nor spoken.

— Your Majesty knows, said he, that I destine my estate of Vaux to receive the most amiable of princes, the most powerful of kings.

— I have promised, sir, said Louis XIV smiling, and a king has but his word.

— And I, Sire, come to tell Your Majesty that I am absolutely at your orders.

— Do you promise me many marvels, Mr. Superintendent?

And Louis XIV looked at Colbert.

— Marvels? Oh! no, Sire. I do not engage to that; I hope to be able to promise a little pleasure, perhaps even a little forgetfulness to the king.

— Not so, not so, M. Fouquet, said the king. I insist on the word marvel. Oh! you are a magician, we know your power, we know that you find gold, were there none in the world. Also the people say that you make it.

Fouquet felt that the blow came from a double quiver and that the king launched at him at once an arrow from his bow, an arrow from Colbert's bow. He began to laugh.

— Oh! said he, the people know perfectly in what mine I take that gold. They know it too well, perhaps; and besides, added he proudly, I can assure Your Majesty that the gold destined to pay for the fête of Vaux shall make neither blood nor tears flow. Sweat, perhaps. It shall be paid for.

Louis remained stupefied. He wished to look at Colbert, Colbert too wished to reply; an eagle's glance, a look loyal, even royal, cast by Fouquet, stopped the word on his lips.

The king had recovered himself meanwhile. He turned toward Fouquet, and said to him:

— Then, you formulate your invitation?

— Yes, Sire, if it please Your Majesty.

— For what day?

— For the day that shall suit you, Sire.

— That is speaking like an enchanter who improvises, M. Fouquet. I should not say as much, myself.

— Your Majesty will do, when he wishes, all that a king can and ought to do. The King of France has servants capable of all things for his service and his pleasures.

Colbert tried to look at the superintendent to see if this word was a return to less hostile sentiments. Fouquet had not even looked at his enemy. Colbert did not exist for him.

— Well! in eight days, will you? said the king.

— In eight days, Sire.

— We are Tuesday; will you until the following Sunday?

— The delay that His Majesty deigns to grant will powerfully second the works that my architects are about to undertake to contribute to the diversion of the king and his friends.

— And, in speaking of my friends, replied the king, how do you treat them?

— The king is master everywhere, Sire; the king makes his list and gives his orders. All those whom he deigns to invite are guests most respected by me.

— Thanks! replied the king, touched by the noble thought expressed with a noble accent.

Fouquet then took leave of Louis XIV, after a few words given to the details of certain affairs...

He felt that Colbert remained with the king, that they were going to talk of him, that neither one nor the other would spare him.

The satisfaction of giving a last blow, a terrible blow to his enemy, appeared to him as a compensation for all that they were about to make him suffer...

He came back then promptly, when he had already touched the door, and, addressing the king:

— Pardon! Sire, said he, pardon!

— Pardon for what, sir? said the prince with amenity.

— For a grave fault, which I was committing without perceiving it.

— A fault, you? Ah! M. Fouquet, I must indeed pardon you. Against what have you sinned, or against whom?

— Against all propriety, Sire. I was forgetting to acquaint Your Majesty with a rather important circumstance.

— Which?

Colbert shuddered; he believed in a denunciation. His conduct had been unmasked. A word from Fouquet, an articulated proof, and, before the youthful loyalty of Louis XIV, all Colbert's favor would vanish. He then trembled lest so bold a blow should overturn all his scaffolding, and, in fact, the blow was so fine to strike, that Aramis, the fine player, would not have missed it.

— Sire, said Fouquet with a free air, since you have had the goodness to pardon me, I am quite light in my confession: this morning, I sold one of my offices.

— One of your offices! cried the king; which one then?

Colbert turned livid.

— That which gave me, Sire, a great robe and a severe air: the office of attorney-general.

The king uttered an involuntary cry, and looked at Colbert.

The latter, sweat on his brow, felt near fainting.

— To whom did you sell that office, M. Fouquet? asked the king.

Colbert leaned on the chimney frame.

— To a councillor of the Parliament, Sire, who is called M. Vanel.

— Vanel?

— A friend of M. the intendant Colbert, added Fouquet letting fall these words with an inimitable nonchalance, with an expression of forgetfulness and ignorance that the painter, the actor and the poet must renounce to reproduce with the brush, the gesture or the pen.

Then, having finished, having crushed Colbert under the weight of this superiority, the superintendent saluted the king again, and departed half avenged by the prince's stupefaction and the favorite's humiliation.

— Is it possible? said the king to himself when Fouquet had disappeared. He has sold that office?

— Yes, Sire, replied Colbert with meaning.

— He is mad! ventured the king.

Colbert, this time, did not reply; he had glimpsed the master's thought. That thought avenged him too. To his hatred came joining his jealousy; to his plan of ruin came allying a threat of disgrace.

Henceforth, Colbert felt it, between Louis XIV and him, hostile ideas met no more obstacles, and the first fault of Fouquet that could serve as pretext would closely precede the punishment.

Fouquet had let his weapon fall. Hatred and Jealousy had just picked it up.

Colbert was invited by the king to the fête of Vaux; he bowed like a man sure of himself, he accepted like a man who obliges.

The king was at the name of Saint-Aignan on the order list, when the usher announced the count de Saint-Aignan.

Colbert withdrew discreetly at the arrival of the royal Mercury.

Chapter CXCVI — Rivals in Love

De Saint-Aignan had left Louis XIV scarcely two hours before; but, in that first effervescence of his love, when Louis XIV did not see La Vallière, he must speak of her. Now, the only person with whom he could speak of her at ease was de Saint-Aignan; de Saint-Aignan was then indispensable to him.

— Ah! is it you, count? cried he on seeing him, doubly joyful that he saw him and no longer saw Colbert, whose frowning face always saddened him. So much the better! I am glad to see you; you will be of the journey, will you not?

— Of the journey, Sire? asked de Saint-Aignan. And of what journey?

— Of that which we shall make to go enjoy the fête that M. the superintendent gives us at Vaux. Ah! de Saint-Aignan, you are going finally to see a fête near which our diversions of Fontainebleau will be the games of pettifoggers.

— At Vaux! the superintendent gives a fête to Your Majesty, and at Vaux, nothing less?

— Nothing less! I find you charming to play the disdainful. Do you know, you who play the disdainful, that, when it is known that M. Fouquet receives me at Vaux, from Sunday week, do you know that they will cut each other's throats to be invited to that fête? I repeat to you then, de Saint-Aignan, you will be of the journey.

— Yes, if, by then, I have not made another longer and less agreeable.

— Which?

— That of Styx, Sire.

— Fie! said Louis XIV laughing.

— No, seriously, Sire, answered de Saint-Aignan. I am invited there, and in such a way, truly, as not too well to know how to refuse.

— I do not understand you, my dear. I know you are in poetic vein; but try not to fall from Apollo into Phoebus.

— Well then! if Your Majesty deign to listen I shall no longer keep my king's mind on the rack.

— Speak.

— Does the king know M. the baron du Vallon?

— Yes, by God! a good servant of the king my father, and a fine guest, faith! For it is of him who dined with us at Fontainebleau that you speak?

— Precisely. But Your Majesty has forgotten to add to his qualities: an amiable killer of men.

— How! he wants to kill you, M. du Vallon.

— Or have me killed, which is all one.

— Oh! for example!

— Do not laugh, Sire, I say nothing beneath the truth.

— And you say he wants to have you killed?

— It is his idea for the moment, that worthy gentleman.

— Be tranquil, I will defend you, if he is wrong.

— Ah! there is an _if_.

— Doubtless. Come, answer as if it were of another, my poor de Saint-Aignan; is he wrong or right?

— Your Majesty is about to judge.

— What have you done to him?

— Oh! to him, nothing; but it appears I have done to one of his friends.

— It is all the same; and, his friend, is it one of the four famous?

— No, it is the son of one of the four famous, that is all.

— What have you done to this son? Come now.

— Why! I helped someone take his mistress from him.

— And you confess that?

— I must confess it, since it is true.

— In that case, you are wrong.

— Ah! I am wrong?

— Yes, and, faith, if he kills you...

— Well?

— Well! he will be right.

— Ah! so that is how you judge, Sire?

— Do you find the method bad?

— I find it expeditious.

— Good justice and prompt, said my grandfather Henri IV.

— Then, let the king quickly sign the pardon of my adversary, who awaits me at the Minimes to kill me.

— His name and a parchment.

— Sire, there is a parchment on Your Majesty's table, and, as for his name...

— As for his name?

— It is the vicomte de Bragelonne, Sire.

— The vicomte de Bragelonne? cried the king, passing from laughter to the deepest stupefaction.

Then, after a moment of silence, during which he wiped the sweat flowing on his brow:

— Bragelonne! murmured he.

— No more than that, Sire, said de Saint-Aignan.

— Bragelonne, the fiancé of?...

— Oh! my God, yes! Bragelonne, the fiancé of...

— He was in London, however!

— Yes; but I can answer you that he is no longer there, Sire.

— And he is in Paris?

— That is to say he is at the Minimes, where he awaits me, as I had the honor to tell the king.

— Knowing all?

— And many other things besides! If the king will see the note he had delivered to me...

And de Saint-Aignan drew from his pocket the note we know.

— When Your Majesty has read the note, said he, I shall have the honor to tell him how it came to me.

The king read with agitation, and immediately.

— Well? asked he.

— Well! Your Majesty knows a certain chiseled lock, closing a certain door of ebony wood, which separates a certain chamber from a certain blue and white sanctuary?

— Certainly, Louise's boudoir.

— Yes, Sire. Well! it is in the hole of that lock that I found this note. Who put it there? M. de Bragelonne or the devil? But, as the note smells of amber and not of sulfur, I conclude that it must be not the devil, but indeed M. de Bragelonne.

Louis bent his head and seemed sadly absorbed. Perhaps at this moment something like a remorse crossed his heart.

— Oh! said he, this discovered secret!

— Sire, I shall do my best that this secret die in the breast that holds it, said de Saint-Aignan in a wholly Spanish tone of bravado.

And he made a movement to gain the door; but with a gesture the king stopped him.

— And where are you going? asked he.

— Why, where I am awaited, Sire.

— To do what?

— To fight, probably.

— Fight? cried the king. One moment, if you please, Mr. Count!

De Saint-Aignan shook his head like the child who sulks when one wants to prevent him from throwing himself into a well or playing with a knife.

— But however, Sire... said he.

— And first, said the king, I am not enlightened.

— Oh! on that point, let Your Majesty interrogate, replied de Saint-Aignan, and I shall make light.

— Who told you that M. de Bragelonne penetrated into the chamber in question?

— This note that I found in the lock, as I had the honor to tell Your Majesty.

— Who tells you it is he who put it there?

— What other than he would have dared charge himself with such a commission?

— You are right. How did he penetrate into your house?

— Ah! this is very grave, seeing that all the doors were locked, and that my lackey, Basque, had the keys in his pockets.

— Well! someone will have won over your lackey.

— Impossible, Sire.

— Why, impossible?

— Because, if one had won him over, one would not have lost the poor boy, of whom one might still have need later, by clearly showing that one had made use of him.

— That is just. Now, there would remain then but one conjecture.

— Let us see, Sire, if that conjecture is the same as that which presented itself to my mind?

— That he would have introduced himself by the staircase.

— Alas! Sire, that seems to me more than probable.

— It is none the less necessary that someone have sold the secret of the trap.

— Sold or given.

— Why this distinction?

— Because certain persons, Sire, being above the price of a treason, give and do not sell.

— What do you mean?

— Oh! Sire, Your Majesty has too subtle a mind not to spare me, by guessing, the embarrassment of naming.

— You are right: Madame!

— Ah! said de Saint-Aignan.

— Madame, who worried about the moving.

— Madame, who has the keys to her daughters' chambers, and who is powerful enough to discover what none, except you, Sire, or her, would discover.

— And you believe my sister would have made alliance with Bragelonne?

— Eh! eh! Sire...

— To the point of instructing him in all these details?

— Perhaps even better.

— Better!... Finish.

— Perhaps to the point of accompanying him.

— Where? Below, at your house?

— Do you believe the thing impossible, Sire?

— Oh!

— Listen. Does the king know if Madame loves perfumes?

— Yes, it is a habit she took from my mother.

— Verbena especially?

— It is her preferred scent.

— Well! my apartment smells of verbena.

The king remained pensive.

— But, resumed he, after a moment of silence, why would Madame take Bragelonne's part against me?

In saying these words, to which de Saint-Aignan would very easily have answered: "Woman's jealousy!" the king sounded his friend to the bottom of the heart to see if he had penetrated the secret of his gallantry with his sister-in-law. But de Saint-Aignan was not a mediocre courtier; he did not lightly risk the discovery of family secrets; he was too much a friend of the Muses not often to think of that poor Ovidius Naso, whose eyes shed so many tears to expiate the crime of having seen who knows what in the house of Augustus. He then adroitly passed beside the secret of Madame. But as he had shown sagacity in indicating that Madame had come to his house with Bragelonne, he must pay the usury of that self-love and answer plainly to this question: "Why is Madame against me with Bragelonne?"

— Why? answered de Saint-Aignan. But Your Majesty forgets then that M. the count de Guiche is the intimate friend of the vicomte de Bragelonne?

— I do not see the connection, replied the king.

— Ah! pardon, Sire, said de Saint-Aignan; but I thought M. the count de Guiche great friend of Madame.

— That is just, replied the king; there is no need to seek further, the blow came from there.

— And, to parry it, is not the king of the opinion that another must be struck?

— Yes; but not of the kind that one strikes in the wood of Vincennes, replied the king.

— Your Majesty forgets, said de Saint-Aignan, that I am a gentleman, and that I have been provoked.

— It is not you that this concerns.

— But it is I whom they await at the Minimes, Sire, for more than an hour; I who am the cause of it, and dishonored if I do not go where I am awaited.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”