Part 35

— “M. de Colbert,” she added, “came two hours ago to inform me that he had been made intendant.”

— I have already told you, marquise, that M. de Colbert will be all the better under my hand for it.

— Yes, but that is not the whole of it: Marguerite, as you know, is connected with Mme d’Eymeris and Mme Lyodot.

— Yes.

— Well! M. de Colbert put many questions to her about the fortune of those two gentlemen, about the degree of devotion they bear you.

— Oh! as for those two, I answer for them; they would have to be killed before they ceased to be mine.

— Then, as Mme Vanel was obliged, in order to receive a visit, to leave M. Colbert for a moment, and as M. Colbert is a worker, scarcely was the new intendant left alone than he drew a pencil from his pocket, and, as there was paper on a table, set about jotting down notes.

— Notes on Emerys and Lyodot?

— Precisely.

— I should be curious to know what those notes said.

— That is exactly what I have come to bring you.

— Mme Vanel took Colbert’s notes and sends them to me?

— No, but, by a chance that resembles a miracle, she has a duplicate of those notes.

— How so?

— Listen. I told you Colbert found paper on a table?

— Yes.

— That he drew a pencil from his pocket?

— Yes.

— And wrote upon that paper?

— Yes.

— Well! that pencil was of lead, hard therefore: it marked in black on the first sheet and, on the second, traced its impression in white.

— After?

— Colbert, in tearing the first sheet, gave no thought to the second.

— Well?

— Well! upon the second one could read what had been written on the first; Mme Vanel read it and sent for me.

— Ah!

— Then, after satisfying herself that I was a devoted friend to you, she gave me the paper and told me the secret of that house.

— And this paper? said Fouquet, growing somewhat troubled.

— Here it is, monsieur; read, said the marquise.

Fouquet read: “Names of the tax-farmers to be condemned by the Chamber of Justice: d’Eymeris, friend of M. F. ...; Lyodot, friend of M. F. ...; de Vanin, indifferent.”

— D’Emerys! Lyodot! cried Fouquet, reading again.

— Friends of M. F., indicated the marquise with her finger.

— But what can these words mean: ‘To be condemned by the Chamber of Justice’?

— Why! said the marquise, it is clear, it seems to me. Besides, you are not at the end. Read, read.

Fouquet continued: “The first two, to death; the third to be dismissed, with MM. d’Hautemont and de La Valette, whose goods shall merely be confiscated.”

— Great God! cried Fouquet, to death, to death, Lyodot and d’Eymeris! But, even if the Chamber of Justice condemned them to death, the king will not ratify their sentence, and one does not execute without the king’s signature.

— The king has made M. Colbert intendant.

— Oh! cried Fouquet, as if he glimpsed an abyss beneath his feet, perceived, impossible! impossible! But who passed a pencil over the traces of M. Colbert’s?

— I did. I was afraid the first mark might fade.

— Oh! I shall know all.

— You will know nothing, monsieur; you despise your enemy too much for that.

— Forgive me, dear marquise, excuse me; yes, M. Colbert is my enemy, I believe it; yes, M. Colbert is a man to be feared, I admit. But... but, I have time, and since you are here, since you have assured me of your devotion, since you have let me glimpse your love, since we are alone...

— I came to save you, M. Fouquet, and not to ruin myself, said the marquise, rising; therefore, beware...

— Marquise, truly, you frighten yourself too much, and unless this fear be a pretext...

— That M. Colbert is a deep-hearted man! beware...

Fouquet rose in his turn.

— And I? he asked.

— Oh! you, you are but a noble heart. Beware! beware!

— Thus?

— I have done what I ought, my friend, at the risk of my reputation. Farewell!

— Not farewell, au revoir!

— Perhaps, said the marquise.

And, offering her hand to Fouquet to kiss, she advanced so resolutely toward the door that Fouquet dared not bar her passage. As for Fouquet, he resumed, head bowed and with a cloud upon his brow, the path of that subterranean passage along which ran the metal wires that communicated from one house to another, transmitting, behind the two mirrors, the desires and the calls of the two correspondents.

Chapter LV — The Abbé Fouquet

Fouquet hastened to return to his rooms by the underground passage and to set the mirror mechanism in motion. Scarcely was he in his study than he heard a knocking at the door; at the same time a well-known voice cried:

— Open, monseigneur, I pray you, open.

Fouquet, with a rapid movement, restored some order to all that might betray his agitation and his absence; he scattered papers upon the desk, took a pen in his hand, and through the door, to gain time:

— Who are you? he asked.

— What! Monseigneur does not recognize me? replied the voice.

“Indeed I do,” Fouquet said to himself, “indeed I do, my friend, I know you marvelously well!”

And aloud:

— Are you not Gourville?

— But yes, monseigneur.

Fouquet rose, cast a last glance at one of his mirrors, went to the door, drew the bolt, and Gourville entered.

— Ah! monseigneur, monseigneur, said he, what cruelty!

— Why?

— For a quarter of an hour I have been begging you to open and you have not even answered me.

— Once and for all, you know well that I will not be disturbed when I am working. Now, although you are an exception, Gourville, I wish, for the others, that my orders be respected.

— Monseigneur, at this moment, orders, doors, bolts and walls, I would have broken, overturned, smashed all.

— Ah! ah! it is then a great event? asked Fouquet.

— Oh! I answer for it, monseigneur! said Gourville.

— And what is this event? resumed Fouquet, somewhat moved by the distress of his most intimate confidant.

— There is a secret Chamber of Justice, monseigneur.

— I know it well; but is it sitting, Gourville?

— Not only is it sitting, but furthermore it has rendered a decree... monseigneur.

— A decree! said the surintendant with a shudder and a pallor he could not hide. A decree! And against whom?

— Against two of your friends.

— Lyodot, d’Eymeris, is it not?

— Yes, monseigneur.

— But a decree of what?

— A decree of death.

— Rendered! Oh! you are mistaken, Gourville, and it is impossible.

— Here is the copy of that decree which the king is to sign today, if indeed he has not already signed it.

Fouquet seized the paper avidly, read it and returned it to Gourville.

— The king will not sign, said he.

Gourville shook his head.

— Monseigneur, M. Colbert is a bold counselor; do not trust in that.

— Still M. Colbert! cried Fouquet; come! why does that name come at every turn for two or three days past to torment my ears? It is too much importance, Gourville, for so slight a subject. Let M. Colbert appear, I shall look at him; let him raise his head, I shall crush him; but you understand that I need at least a roughness for my gaze to rest upon, a surface for my foot to tread.

— Patience, monseigneur; for you do not know what Colbert is worth... Study him quickly; it is with that dark financier as with the meteors that the eye never sees completely before their disastrous invasion; when one feels them, one is dead.

— Oh! Gourville, that is much, replied Fouquet smiling; permit me, my friend, not to be so easily terrified; meteor, M. Colbert! Zounds! we shall hear the meteor... Come, acts, and not words. What has he done?

— He has ordered two gallows from the executioner of Paris, answered Gourville simply.

Fouquet lifted his head, and a flash passed through his eyes.

— Are you sure of what you say? cried he.

— Here is the proof, monseigneur.

And Gourville handed the surintendant a note communicated by one of the secretaries of the Hôtel de Ville, who was in Fouquet’s service.

— Yes, it is true, murmured the minister, the scaffold rises... but the king has not signed, Gourville, the king will not sign.

— I shall know presently, said Gourville.

— How so?

— If the king has signed, the gallows will be sent this evening to the Hôtel de Ville, in order to be fully erected tomorrow morning.

— But no, no! cried Fouquet once more; you are all mistaken, and deceive me in turn; the day before yesterday morning, Lyodot came to see me; three days ago I received a shipment of Syracuse wine from that poor d’Eymeris.

— What does that prove? replied Gourville, save that the Chamber of Justice assembled secretly, deliberated in the absence of the accused, and that the whole procedure was done when they were arrested.

— But they are then arrested?

— Doubtless.

— But where, when, how were they arrested?

— Lyodot, yesterday at daybreak; d’Eymeris, the night before last at evening, as he returned from his mistress’s; their disappearance had alarmed no one; but suddenly Colbert lifted the mask and had the matter published; it is being cried with sound of trumpet at this moment in the streets of Paris, and, in truth, monseigneur, there is scarce anyone but you who does not know the event.

Fouquet began to walk in the room with an uneasiness more and more painful.

— What do you decide, monseigneur? said Gourville.

— If that were so, I would go to the king, cried Fouquet. But, to go to the Louvre, I wish first to pass by the Hôtel de Ville. If the decree has been signed, we shall see!

Gourville shrugged his shoulders.

— Incredulity! said he, you are the plague of all great minds!

— Gourville!

— Yes, continued he, and you ruin them, as contagion kills the most robust healths, that is to say in an instant.

— Let us depart, cried Fouquet; have the door opened, Gourville.

— Take care, said the latter, M. the abbé Fouquet is there.

— Ah! my brother, replied Fouquet in a vexed tone, he is there? he then knows some bad news that he is overjoyed to bring me, as is his habit? Devil! if my brother is there, my affairs go ill, Gourville; why did you not tell me that sooner, I should have let myself be convinced more easily.

— Monseigneur calumnies him, said Gourville laughing; if he comes, it is not with an ill intention.

— Come, there you excuse him, cried Fouquet; a heartless fellow, without continuity of thought, a devourer of all goods.

— He knows you are rich.

— And he wants my ruin.

— No; he wants your purse. That is all.

— Enough! Enough! A hundred thousand écus a month for two years! Zounds! it is I who pay, Gourville, and I know my figures.

Gourville began to laugh with a silent and shrewd air.

— Yes, you mean to say it is the king, said the surintendant; ah! Gourville, that is an ugly jest; this is not the place.

— Monseigneur, do not be angry.

— Come now! Send the abbé Fouquet away, I have not a sou.

Gourville took a step toward the door.

— He went a month without seeing me, continued Fouquet; why should he not stay away two months?

— It is that he repents of living in bad company, said Gourville, and that he prefers you to all his bandits.

— Thank you for the preference. You make a strange advocate, Gourville, today... advocate for the abbé Fouquet!

— Eh! but every thing and every man has his good side, his useful side, monseigneur.

— The bandits the abbé pays and makes drunk have their useful side? Prove it to me then.

— Let the circumstance arise, monseigneur, and you will be happy to find those bandits at your hand.

— Then you advise me to be reconciled with M. the abbé? said Fouquet ironically.

— I advise you, monseigneur, not to fall out with a hundred or a hundred and twenty rogues who, placing their rapiers end to end, would make a steel cord capable of enclosing three thousand men.

Fouquet cast a deep glance at Gourville, and passing before him:

— Very well; let M. the abbé Fouquet be admitted, said he to the footmen. You are right, Gourville.

Two minutes later, the abbé appeared with great bows upon the threshold of the door.

He was a man of forty to forty-five years, half man of the Church, half man of war, a swashbuckler grafted upon an abbé; one saw that he had no sword at his side, but one felt that he had pistols. Fouquet saluted him as an elder brother, less than as a minister.

— What is your pleasure, said he, M. the abbé?

— Oh! oh! how you say that, my brother!

— I say that as a man in haste, monsieur.

The abbé looked maliciously at Gourville, anxiously at Fouquet, and said:

— I have three hundred pistoles to pay M. de Bregi this evening... Gaming debt, sacred debt.

— After? said Fouquet bravely, for he understood that the abbé Fouquet would not have disturbed him for such a trifle.

— A thousand to my butcher, who will furnish no more.

— After?

— Twelve hundred to the tailor of clothes... continued the abbé: the knave made me take back seven liveries of my people, so that my livery is compromised, and my mistress speaks of replacing me with a tax-farmer, which would be humiliating for the Church.

— What else is there? said Fouquet.

— You will remark, monsieur, said the abbé humbly, that I have asked nothing for myself.

— That is delicate, monsieur, replied Fouquet; also, as you see, I wait.

— And I ask nothing; oh! no... It is not for lack of keeping holiday... I answer for it.

The minister reflected a moment.

— Twelve hundred pistoles to the tailor of clothes, said he; that is a good many clothes, it seems to me?

— I maintain a hundred men! said the abbé proudly; that is a charge, I believe.

— Why a hundred men? said Fouquet; are you a Richelieu or a Mazarin to have a hundred men of guard? What use are those hundred men to you? Speak, tell!

— You ask me that? cried the abbé Fouquet; ah! how can you put such a question, why I maintain a hundred men? Ah!

— But yes, I put that question to you. What do you want with a hundred men? Answer!

— Ingrate! continued the abbé, affecting himself more and more.

— Explain yourself.

— But, M. le surintendant, I need but a valet de chambre, myself, and still, if I were alone, I would serve myself; but you, you who have so many enemies... a hundred men do not suffice me to defend you. A hundred men!... there would need ten thousand. I maintain all that so that in public places, so that in assemblies, none raises his voice against you; and without that, monsieur, you would be loaded with curses, you would be torn with fair teeth, you would not last eight days, no, not eight days, do you hear?

— Ah! I did not know you were such a champion to me, M. the abbé.

— You doubt it! cried the abbé. Listen then to what has happened. No later than yesterday, rue de la Huchette, a man was bargaining for a chicken.

— Well! how did that harm me, the abbé?

— In this. The chicken was not fat. The buyer refused to give eighteen sous, saying he could not pay eighteen sous for the skin of a chicken from which M. Fouquet had taken all the fat.

— After?

— The remark caused laughter, continued the abbé, laughter at your expense, death of all the devils! and the rabble gathered. The laugher added these words: “Give me a chicken fed by M. Colbert, that would be something! and I would pay you what you wish.” And straightway they clapped. Dreadful scandal! you understand; scandal that forces a brother to veil his face.

Fouquet reddened.

— And you veiled yourself? said the surintendant.

— No; for just then, continued the abbé, I had one of my men in the crowd; a new recruit come from the province, a M. de Menneville whom I am fond of. He cleft the press, saying to the laugher: “— A thousand beards! monsieur the poor jester, take a thrust of the sword for Colbert! — Take and tingue for Fouquet! replied the laugher.” Whereupon they drew before the roast-meat seller’s shop, with a hedge of curious onlookers around them and five hundred curious at the windows.

— Well? said Fouquet.

— Well! monsieur, my Menneville skewered the laugher to the great astonishment of the assembly, and said to the roaster: “— Take this turkey, my friend, he is fatter than your chicken.” There, monsieur, finished the abbé triumphantly, is what I spend my revenues on; I uphold the honor of the family, monsieur.

Fouquet lowered his head.

— And I have a hundred like that, pursued the abbé.

— Good, said Fouquet; give your bill to Gourville and remain here this evening, at my house.

— We sup?

— We sup.

— But the cash-box is closed?

— Gourville will open it to you. Go, M. the abbé, go.

The abbé made a bow.

— Then we are friends? said he.

— Yes, friends. Come, Gourville.

— You are going out? You are not supping then?

— I shall be here in an hour, be at ease. Then very low to Gourville: — Have my English horses harnessed, said he, and touch at the Hôtel de Ville of Paris.

Chapter LVI — The Wine of M. de La Fontaine

The carriages were already bringing Fouquet’s guests to Saint-Mandé; already the whole house was warming with the preparations for supper, when the surintendant launched his swift horses upon the road to Paris, and, taking by the quays to find fewer people on his way, gained the Hôtel de Ville. It was a quarter to eight. Fouquet descended at the corner of the rue du Long-Pont, directed his steps toward the Place de Grève, on foot, with Gourville.

At the turn of the square, they saw a man clad in black and violet of good appearance, who was preparing to mount into a hired carriage and telling the coachman to touch at Vincennes. He had before him a large basket full of bottles that he had just bought at the cabaret of the Image de Notre-Dame.

— Eh! but that is Vatel, my steward! said Fouquet to Gourville.

— Yes, monseigneur, replied the latter.

— What comes he to do at the Image-de-Notre-Dame?

— To buy wine, no doubt.

— How, one buys wine for me at a cabaret? said Fouquet. Is my cellar then so miserable!

And he advanced toward the steward, who was having his wine arranged in the carriage with minute care.

— Holà! Vatel! said he in a master’s voice.

— Take care, monseigneur, said Gourville, you are going to be recognized.

— Pooh!... what matter to me? Vatel!

The man clad in black and violet turned around. It was a good and gentle face without expression, a face of a mathematician, less the pride. A certain fire shone in the eyes of this personage, a rather fine smile hovered on his lips; but the observer would quickly have remarked that this fire, that this smile applied to nothing and illuminated nothing.

Vatel laughed like a absentminded man, or busied himself like a child.

At the sound of the voice that hailed him, he turned.

— Oh! said he, monseigneur?

— Yes, myself. What the devil are you doing there, Vatel?... Wine! you buy wine at a cabaret of the Place de Grève! Passable still for the Pomme-de-Pin or the Barreaux-Verts.

— But, monseigneur, said Vatel tranquilly, after casting a hostile glance at Gourville, what is one meddling with here?... Is my cellar ill kept?

— No, certainly, Vatel, no; but...

— What! but?... replied Vatel.

Gourville touched the surintendant’s elbow.

— Do not be angry, Vatel; I thought my cellar, your cellar well enough furnished that I might dispense with recourse to the Image-de-Notre-Dame.

— Eh! monsieur, said Vatel, falling from monseigneur to monsieur, with a certain disdain, your cellar is so well furnished that, when certain of your guests go to dine with you, they do not drink.

Fouquet, surprised, looked at Gourville, then at Vatel.

— What are you saying there?

— I say that your cellarman had no wines for all tastes, monsieur, and that M. de La Fontaine, M. Pellisson and M. Conrart do not drink when they come to the house. Those gentlemen do not like strong wine: what would you have?

— And then?

— Then, I have here a wine of Joigny that they are fond of. I know they come to drink it at the Image-de-Notre-Dame once a week. That is why I make my provision.

Fouquet had nothing more to say... He was almost moved.

Vatel, he, had much still to say no doubt, and one saw well that he was warming up.

— It is as if you reproached me, monseigneur, with going myself to rue Planche-Mibray to fetch the cider that M. Loret drinks when he comes to dine at the house.

— Loret drinks cider at my house? cried Fouquet laughing.

— Eh! yes, monsieur, eh! yes, that is why he dines with you with pleasure.

— Vatel, cried Fouquet pressing his steward’s hand, you are a man! I thank you, Vatel, for having understood that at my house M. de La Fontaine, M. Conrart and M. Loret are as much as dukes and peers, as much as princes, more than myself. Vatel, you are a good servant, and I double your fees.

Vatel did not even thank him; he shrugged his shoulders slightly murmuring this superb word:

— To be thanked for having done one’s duty, is humiliating.

— He is right, said Gourville, drawing Fouquet’s attention to another point by a single gesture.

He showed him indeed a low-shaped cart, drawn by two horses, upon which stirred two gallows all iron-bound, bound one to the other and back to back by chains; while an archer, seated on the thickness of the beam, sustained, as best he might, the rather low mien, the comments of a hundred vagabonds who scented the destination of those gallows and escorted them to the Hôtel de Ville. Fouquet trembled.

— It is decided, you see, said Gourville.

— But it is not done, replied Fouquet.

— Oh! do not deceive yourself, monseigneur; if thus they have lulled your friendship, your distrust, if things have come to this, you will defer to nothing.

— But I have not ratified, myself.

— M. de Lyonne will have ratified for you.

— I am going to the Louvre.

— You will not go.

— You would counsel me this cowardice! cried Fouquet, you would counsel me to abandon my friends, you would counsel me, being able to fight, to throw to the ground the arms I hold in my hand?

— I counsel you none of that, monseigneur; can you leave the surintendancy at this moment?

— No.

— Well! if the king nevertheless wishes to replace us?

— He will replace me from afar as from near.

— Yes, but you will never have wounded him.

— Yes, but I will have been cowardly; now, I do not wish my friends to die, and they shall not die.

— For that, is it necessary that you go to the Louvre?

— Gourville!

— Take care... once at the Louvre, either you will be forced to defend your friends aloud, that is to say to make a profession of faith, or you will be forced to abandon them without possible return.

— Never!

— Pardon me... the king will forcibly propose the alternative to you, or else you will propose it to him yourself.

— That is just.

— That is why there must be no conflict... Let us return to Saint-Mandé, monseigneur.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”