Part 23

He looked at his brother with a tenderness easy to understand. The latter had usurped nothing, spoiled nothing in his life. A side shoot pruned away, he let the stem rise, careless of the elevation and the majesty of his life. Philippe promised himself to be a good brother, to this prince for whom gold sufficed, gold that brings pleasures.

He saluted with an affectionate air Saint-Aignan, who was exhausting himself in smiles and bows, and held out his hand, trembling, to Henriette, his sister-in-law, whose beauty struck him. But he saw in the eyes of this princess a remnant of coldness that pleased him for the ease of their future relations.

“How much easier,” he thought, “will it be for me to be the brother of this woman than her lover, if she shows me a coldness that my brother could not have felt for her, and which is imposed upon me as a duty.”

The only visit he dreaded at that moment was that of the queen; his heart, his mind had just been shaken by a trial so violent, that, despite their solid temper, they might not bear a new shock. Happily, the queen did not come.

Then began, on the part of Anne of Austria, a political dissertation upon the welcome M. Fouquet had given to the house of France. She intermingled her hostilities with compliments addressed to the king, with questions about his health, with little maternal flatteries, and with diplomatic ruses.

— Well! my son, said she, have you changed your mind concerning M. Fouquet?

— Saint-Aignan, said Philippe, be so good as to go and ask for news of the queen.

At these words, the first Philippe had spoken aloud, the slight difference there was between his voice and that of Louis XIV became sensible to maternal ears; Anne of Austria looked fixedly at her son.

De Saint-Aignan went out. Philippe continued.

— Madame, I do not like to hear ill spoken of M. Fouquet, you know it, and you yourself have spoken well of him to me.

— That is true; and so I only question you upon the state of your feelings toward him.

— Sire, said Henriette, I, for my part, have always loved M. Fouquet. He is a man of good taste, an honest man.

— A superintendent who never haggles, added Monsieur, and who pays in gold all the bills I hold upon him.

— People count too much for themselves here, said the old queen. No one counts for the State: M. Fouquet, it is a fact, M. Fouquet is ruining the State.

— Come, my mother, replied Philippe in a lower tone, are you too making yourself the shield of M. Colbert?

— How so? said the old queen, surprised.

— It is that, in truth, resumed Philippe, I hear you speak there as your old friend, Mme de Chevreuse, would speak.

At this name, Anne of Austria grew pale and pinched her lips. Philippe had irritated the lioness.

— What do you come to speak to me of Mme de Chevreuse for, said she, and what humor have you toward me today?

Philippe continued:

— Does not Mme de Chevreuse always have a league to make against someone? has not Mme de Chevreuse come to pay you a visit, my mother?

— Monsieur, you speak to me here in such a fashion, replied the old queen, that I believe I hear the king your father.

— My father did not love Mme de Chevreuse, and he was right, said the prince. I, too, do not love her, and, if she presumes to come, as she used to come formerly, to sow divisions and hatreds under pretext of begging for money, well then!...

— Well then? said proudly Anne of Austria, herself provoking the storm.

— Well then! replied the young man with resolution, I will banish Mme de Chevreuse from the realm, and with her all the artisans of secrets and mysteries.

He had not calculated the reach of this terrible word, or perhaps he had wished to judge its effect, like those who, suffering from a chronic pain and seeking to break the monotony of that suffering, press upon their wound to procure for themselves an acute pain.

Anne of Austria nearly fainted; her eyes open, but lifeless, ceased to see for a moment; she stretched her arms toward her other son, who at once embraced her without fear of irritating the king.

— Sire, she murmured, you treat your mother cruelly.

— But in what, madame? replied he. I speak only of Mme de Chevreuse, and does my mother prefer Mme de Chevreuse to the safety of my State and the security of my person? Well! I tell you that Mme de Chevreuse has come into France to borrow money, that she applied to M. Fouquet to sell him a certain secret.

— A certain secret? cried Anne of Austria.

— Concerning pretended thefts that the superintendent would have committed; which is false, added Philippe. M. Fouquet had her driven away with indignation, preferring the esteem of the king to any complicity with intriguers. Then Mme de Chevreuse sold the secret to M. Colbert, and, as she is insatiable, and it is not enough for her to have extorted a hundred thousand crowns from that clerk, she sought higher still if she might not find deeper sources... Is that true, madame?

— You know all, Sire, said the queen, more uneasy than irritated.

— Now, pursued Philippe, I have good right to bear a grudge against that fury who comes to weave at my Court the dishonor of some and the ruin of others. If God has suffered certain crimes to be committed, and has hidden them in the shadow of His clemency, I do not admit that Mme de Chevreuse should have the power to thwart the designs of God.

This latter part of Philippe’s discourse had so agitated the queen mother, that her son pitied her. He took her hand and tenderly kissed it; she did not feel that, in this kiss given despite the revolts and rancors of the heart, there was a whole pardon of eight years of horrible sufferings.

Philippe let a moment of silence swallow up the emotions that had just been produced; then, with a sort of gaiety:

— We shall not set out yet today, said he; I have a plan.

And he turned toward the door, where he hoped to see Aramis, whose absence was beginning to weigh upon him.

The queen mother would have taken her leave.

— Stay, my mother, said he; I wish to make you make peace with M. Fouquet.

— But I bear no ill will to M. Fouquet; I only feared his prodigalities.

— We shall set that in order, and shall take from the superintendent only his good qualities.

— What is Your Majesty looking for? said Henriette, seeing the king still gazing toward the door, and wishing to shoot a dart at his heart; for she supposed he was awaiting La Vallière or a letter from her.

— My sister, said the young man, who had just guessed it, thanks to that marvelous perspicacity of which fortune was thenceforth to permit him the exercise, my sister, I await a most distinguished man, one of the ablest counselors, whom I wish to present to you all, recommending him to your good graces. Ah! come in, d’Artagnan.

D’Artagnan appeared.

— What does His Majesty wish?

— Tell me, where is the Bishop of Vannes, your friend?

— But, Sire...

— I await him and do not see him come. Let him be sought for.

D’Artagnan remained a moment stupefied, but soon, reflecting that Aramis had left Vaux secretly with a mission from the king, he concluded that the king wished to keep the secret.

— Sire, replied he, does Your Majesty absolutely wish M. d’Herblay brought to him?

— Absolutely is not the word, replied Philippe; I have not such need of him; but if he were found for me...

“I have guessed,” said d’Artagnan to himself.

— This M. d’Herblay, said Anne of Austria, is the Bishop of Vannes?

— Yes, madame.

— A friend of M. Fouquet?

— Yes, madame, a former musketeer.

Anne of Austria blushed.

— One of those four brave men who, long ago, wrought such wonders.

The old queen repented having wished to bite; she broke off the conversation so as to keep the rest of her teeth.

— Whatever your choice, Sire, said she, I hold it for excellent.

All bowed.

— You shall see, continued Philippe, the depth of M. de Richelieu, less the avarice of M. de Mazarin.

— A prime minister, Sire? asked Monsieur, frightened...

— I shall tell you of it, my brother; but it is strange that M. d’Herblay is not here!

He called.

— Let M. Fouquet be informed, said he, I have to speak with him... Oh! in your presence, in your presence; do not withdraw.

M. de Saint-Aignan returned, bringing satisfactory news of the queen, who kept her bed only by way of precaution, and so as to have strength to follow all the king’s wishes.

While M. Fouquet and Aramis were being sought everywhere, the new king calmly continued his trials, and everyone, family, officers, servants, recognized the king by his gesture, his voice, his habits.

For his part, Philippe, applying upon all faces the faithful note and outline furnished by his accomplice Aramis, conducted himself so as not even to raise a suspicion in the minds of those around him.

Nothing henceforth could trouble the usurper. With what strange ease had Providence just overturned the highest fortune in the world, to substitute for it the humblest!

Philippe admired this goodness of God toward him, and seconded it with all the resources of his admirable nature. But he sometimes felt as a shadow glide over the rays of his new glory. Aramis did not appear.

Conversation had languished in the royal family; Philippe, preoccupied, forgot to dismiss his brother and Madame Henriette. These wondered and little by little lost patience. Anne of Austria leaned toward her son and addressed him a few words in Spanish.

Philippe was wholly ignorant of that language; he grew pale before this unexpected obstacle. But, as if the spirit of the imperturbable Aramis had covered him with its infallibility, instead of being disconcerted, Philippe rose.

— Well! what? Answer, said Anne of Austria.

— What is all that noise? asked Philippe, turning toward the door of the hidden staircase.

And a voice was heard crying:

— This way, this way! A few more steps, Sire!

— The voice of M. Fouquet? said d’Artagnan, placed near the queen mother.

— M. d’Herblay cannot be far, added Philippe. But he saw what he was far from expecting to see so near him.

All eyes had turned toward the door by which M. Fouquet was to enter; but it was not he who entered.

A terrible cry broke from every corner of the chamber, a dolorous cry uttered by the king and the bystanders.

It is not given to men, even to those whose destiny contains the most strange elements and marvelous accidents, to contemplate a spectacle like that which the royal chamber offered at that moment.

The shutters, half closed, let penetrate only an uncertain light tempered by great velvet curtains lined with thick silk.

In this soft half-darkness the eyes had by degrees dilated, and each of the bystanders saw the others rather with confidence than with sight. Yet, one comes, in such circumstances, to let escape none of the surrounding details, and the new object that presents itself appears luminous as if illuminated by the sun.

Thus it happened for Louis XIV, when he showed himself pale and brow furrowed beneath the portière of the secret stair.

Fouquet let be seen, behind, his face imprinted with severity and sadness.

The queen mother, who caught sight of Louis XIV, and who held Philippe’s hand, uttered the cry of which we have spoken, as she would have done at seeing a ghost.

Monsieur made a movement of dazzlement and turned his head, from the one of the two kings he perceived facing him, toward the one at whose side he found himself.

Madame took a step forward, believing she saw reflected, in a mirror, her brother-in-law.

And, in fact, the illusion was possible.

The two princes, undone the one and the other, for we renounce to depict the frightful stupefaction of Philippe, and trembling both, clutching each a convulsive hand, measured one another with the eye and plunged their looks like daggers into one another’s soul. Mute, panting, bent, they seemed ready to swoop upon an enemy.

This unheard-of resemblance of face, of gesture, of stature, all, even to a resemblance of costume decided by chance, for Louis XIV had gone to take at the Louvre a violet velvet habit, this perfect analogy of the two princes completed the overturning of the heart of Anne of Austria.

She did not yet guess the truth, however. There are such misfortunes as no one will accept in life. One would rather believe in the supernatural, in the impossible.

Louis had not counted on these obstacles. He expected, upon simply entering, to be recognized. Living sun, he suffered not the suspicion of a parity with anyone whatsoever. He admitted not that every torch should not become darkness at the instant he made shine his victorious ray.

So, at the sight of Philippe, was he perhaps more terrified than any other around him, and his silence, his immobility, were that time of recollection and calm which precedes the violent explosions of anger.

But Fouquet—who could depict his stupefaction and his stupor, in presence of this living portrait of his master? Fouquet thought that Aramis was right, that this new arrival was a king as pure in his race as the other, and that, for having repudiated all participation in this coup d’État so skillfully wrought by the general of the Jesuits, one must be a mad enthusiast unworthy forever of dipping his hands in a political work.

And then it was the blood of Louis XIII that Fouquet was sacrificing to the blood of Louis XIII; it was to a selfish ambition that he was sacrificing a noble ambition; it was to the right of keeping that he was sacrificing the right of having. The whole extent of his fault was revealed to him by the mere aspect of the claimant.

All that passed in the mind of Fouquet was lost upon the bystanders. He had five minutes to concentrate his meditations upon this point of casuistry; five minutes, that is to say five centuries, during which the two kings and their family found scarce time to breathe from so terrible a shock.

D’Artagnan, leaning against the wall, facing Fouquet, fist on his brow, eye fixed, asked himself the reason of so marvelous a prodigy. He could not have said at once why he doubted; but he knew, assuredly, that he had been right to doubt, and that, in this encounter of the two Louis XIV, lay all the difficulty which, during these last days, had rendered the conduct of Aramis so suspect to the musketeer.

However, these ideas were wrapped in thick veils. The actors of this scene seemed to swim in the vapors of a heavy awakening.

Suddenly Louis XIV, more impatient and more accustomed to command, ran to one of the shutters, which he opened, tearing the curtains. A flood of vivid light entered the chamber and made Philippe recoil to the alcove.

This movement Louis seized with ardor, and, addressing the queen:

— My mother, said he, do you not recognize your son, since everyone here has mistaken his king?

Anne of Austria started and raised her arms to heaven without being able to articulate a word.

— My mother, said Philippe with a calm voice, do you not recognize your son?

And, this time, Louis recoiled in his turn.

As for Anne of Austria, she lost her balance, struck in head and heart by remorse. None aiding her, for all were petrified, she fell into her armchair with a faint sigh.

Louis could not bear this spectacle and this affront. He sprang toward d’Artagnan, whom vertigo was beginning to seize, and who staggered brushing the door, his point of support.

— To me, said he, musketeer! Look us in the face, and see which, of him or of me, is the paler.

This cry awoke d’Artagnan and came to stir in his heart the fiber of obedience. He shook his brow, and, hesitating no longer, he marched toward Philippe, upon whose shoulder he laid his hand, saying: Monsieur, you are my prisoner!

Philippe raised not his eyes to heaven, moved not from the place where he stood as if grappled to the floor, his eye profoundly fixed upon the king his brother. He reproached him, in a sublime silence, for all his past misfortunes, all his future tortures. Against this language of the soul, the king felt strength no more; he lowered his eyes, hurriedly drew away his brother and sister-in-law, forgetting his mother stretched motionless three paces from the son she was leaving a second time condemned to death. Philippe approached Anne of Austria, and said to her in a voice sweet and nobly moved:

— If I were not your son, I would curse you, my mother, for having made me so unhappy.

D’Artagnan felt a shiver pass through the marrow of his bones. He saluted the young prince respectfully, and said to him, half bowed:

— Pardon me, my lord, I am but a soldier, and my oaths belong to him who goes out of this chamber.

— Thanks, M. d’Artagnan. But what has become of M. d’Herblay?

— M. d’Herblay is in safety, my lord, said a voice behind them, and none, while I live or am free, shall cause a hair of his head to fall.

— Monsieur Fouquet! said the prince, smiling sadly.

— Pardon me, my lord, said Fouquet, kneeling; but he who has just gone out of here was my guest.

— There are, murmured Philippe with a sigh, brave friends and good hearts. They make me regret this world. March, M. d’Artagnan, I follow you.

At the moment when the captain of the musketeers was about to go out, Colbert appeared, handed d’Artagnan an order from the king, and withdrew.

D’Artagnan read it and crumpled the paper with rage.

— What is it? asked the prince.

— Read, my lord, replied the musketeer.

Philippe read these words traced in haste by the hand of Louis XIV:

“M. d’Artagnan shall conduct the prisoner to the Sainte-Marguerite islands. He shall cover his face with an iron visor, which the prisoner may not raise under pain of death.”

— It is just, said Philippe with resignation. I am ready.

— Aramis was right, said Fouquet, low, to the musketeer; this one is king as fully as the other.

— More! replied d’Artagnan. He lacks only me and you.

Chapter CCXXXI — Wherein Porthos believes himself running after a duchy

Aramis and Porthos, having profited by the time allowed by Fouquet, made, by their rapidity, honor to the French cavalry.

Porthos understood not well for what sort of mission he was forced to deploy such velocity: but as he saw Aramis spurring with rage, he, Porthos, spurred with fury.

They thus soon put twelve leagues between themselves and Vaux; then it was needful to change horses and organize a sort of posting service. It was during a relay that Porthos ventured discreetly to question Aramis.

— Hush! replied the latter; know only that our fortune depends upon our rapidity.

As if Porthos had been the musketeer without sou or penny of 1626, he pushed forward. That magic word fortune always means something to the human ear. It means enough, for those who have nothing; it means too much, for those who have enough.

— They will make me a duke, said Porthos aloud.

He spoke to himself.

— That is possible, replied Aramis, smiling in his way, outstripped by the horse of Porthos.

However, the head of Aramis was on fire; the activity of the body had not yet succeeded in overcoming that of the mind. All that there is of roaring angers, of sharp-toothed pains, of mortal threats, writhed, and bit, and growled in the thought of the vanquished prelate.

His physiognomy offered the plainly visible traces of this rude combat. Free, on the highroad, to abandon himself at least to the impressions of the moment, Aramis deprived himself not of blaspheming at each start of the horse, at each inequality of the road. Pale, sometimes bathed in boiling sweats, now dry and frozen, he beat the horses and made their flanks bleed.

Porthos groaned thereat, he whose dominant fault was not sensitivity. Thus they ran for eight great hours, and they arrived at Orléans.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Aramis, questioning his memories, thought that nothing proved a possible pursuit.

It would have been without example that a troop capable of taking Porthos and him had been furnished with sufficient relays to make forty leagues in eight hours. Thus, admitting the pursuit, which was not manifest, the fugitives had five good hours’ advance upon the pursuers.

Aramis thought that to rest was not imprudence, but that to continue was a stroke of the game. Indeed, twenty leagues more furnished with this rapidity, twenty leagues devoured, and none, not even d’Artagnan, could catch up with the enemies of the king.

Aramis therefore gave Porthos the grief of remounting on horseback. They ran until seven in the evening; they had but one stage more to arrive at Blois.

But, there, a diabolical contretemps came to alarm Aramis. Horses were lacking at the post.

The prelate asked himself by what infernal machination his enemies had arrived at depriving him of the means to go further, he who recognized not chance for a god, he who found to every result its cause; he preferred to believe that the refusal of the postmaster, at such an hour, in such a country, was the sequel of an order emanating from on high; order given with a view to stopping short the maker of majesty in his flight.

But, at the moment when he was about to fly into a passion to have, either an explanation, or a horse, an idea came to him. He recalled that the Count de La Fère lodged in the environs.

— I am not traveling, said he, and I am not making a full stage. Give me two horses to go pay a visit to a lord of my friends who lives near here.

— What lord? asked the postmaster.

— M. the Count de La Fère.

— Oh! replied this man, uncovering himself with respect, a worthy lord. But, whatever my desire to please him, I cannot give you two horses; all those of my post are engaged by M. the Duke de Beaufort.

— Ah! said Aramis, disappointed.

— Only, continued the postmaster, if it pleases you to mount in a little cart that I have, I will have put into it an old blind horse who has nothing left but legs, and who will conduct you to M. the Count de La Fère.

— That is worth a louis, said Aramis.

— No, monsieur, that is never worth but an écu; it is the price M. Grimaud, the count’s steward, pays me every time he uses my cart, and I would not wish that M. the count should have to reproach me with having made a friend pay too dear.

— It shall be as you please, said Aramis, and above all as it shall please the Count de La Fère, whom I shall take good care not to displease. You shall have your écu; only, I have good right to give you a louis for your idea.

— Assuredly, replied the master, quite joyful.

And he himself harnessed his old horse to the creaking car.

During this time, Porthos was curious to see. He fancied he had discovered the secret; he was beside himself with delight: first, because the visit to Athos was particularly agreeable to him; next, because he was in hope of finding at once a good bed and a good supper.

The master, having finished harnessing, offered one of his valets to conduct the strangers to La Fère.

Porthos seated himself in the bottom with Aramis and said to him in the ear:

— I understand.

— Ah! ah! replied Aramis; and what do you understand, dear friend?

“Stories of the world, in your language.”