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- Author: Alexandre Dumas
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“Gourville!—Gourville!” cried he, while slipping his watch into his pocket. And the bell sounded again, whilst Fouquet repeated, “Gourville!—Gourville!”
Gourville at length appeared, breathless and pale.
“Let us be gone! Let us be gone!” cried Fouquet, as soon as he saw him.
“It is too late!” said the surintendant’s poor friend.
“Too late!—why?”
“Listen!” And they heard the sounds of trumpets and drums in front of the castle.
“What does that mean, Gourville?”
“It means the king is come, monseigneur.”
“The king!”
“The king, who has ridden double stages, who has killed horses, and who is eight hours in advance of all our calculations.”
“We are lost!” murmured Fouquet. “Brave D’Artagnan, all is over, thou has spoken to me too late!”
The king, in fact, was entering the city, which soon resounded with the cannon from the ramparts, and from a vessel which replied from the lower parts of the river. Fouquet’s brow darkened; he called his valets de chambre and dressed in ceremonial costume. From his window, behind the curtains, he could see the eagerness of the people, and the movement of a large troop, which had followed the prince. The king was conducted to the castle with great pomp, and Fouquet saw him dismount under the portcullis, and say something in the ear of D’Artagnan, who held his stirrup. D’Artagnan, when the king had passed under the arch, directed his steps towards the house Fouquet was in; but so slowly, and stopping so frequently to speak to his musketeers, drawn up like a hedge, that it might be said he was counting the seconds, or the steps, before accomplishing his object. Fouquet opened the window to speak to him in the court.
“Ah!” cried D’Artagnan, on perceiving him, “are you still there, monseigneur?”
And that word still completed the proof to Fouquet of how much information and how many useful counsels were contained in the first visit the musketeer had paid him. The surintendant sighed deeply. “Good heavens! yes, monsieur,” replied he. “The arrival of the king has interrupted me in the projects I had formed.”
“Oh, then you know that the king has arrived?”
“Yes, monsieur, I have seen him; and this time you come from him—”
“To inquire after you, monseigneur; and, if your health is not too bad, to beg you to have the kindness to repair to the castle.”
“Directly, Monsieur d’Artagnan, directly!”
“Ah, mordioux!” said the captain, “now the king is come, there is no more walking for anybody—no more free will; the password governs all now, you as much as me, me as much as you.”
Fouquet heaved a last sigh, climbed with difficulty into his carriage, so great was his weakness, and went to the castle, escorted by D’Artagnan, whose politeness was not less terrifying this time than it had just before been consoling and cheerful.
Chapter XXXIX. How the King, Louis XIV., Played His Little Part.
As Fouquet was alighting from his carriage, to enter the castle of Nantes, a man of mean appearance went up to him with marks of the greatest respect, and gave him a letter. D’Artagnan endeavored to prevent this man from speaking to Fouquet, and pushed him away, but the message had been given to the surintendant. Fouquet opened the letter and read it, and instantly a vague terror, which D’Artagnan did not fail to penetrate, was painted on the countenance of the first minister. Fouquet put the paper into the portfolio which he had under his arm, and passed on towards the king’s apartments. D’Artagnan, through the small windows made at every landing of the donjon stairs, saw, as he went up behind Fouquet, the man who had delivered the note, looking round him on the place and making signs to several persons, who disappeared in the adjacent streets, after having themselves repeated the signals. Fouquet was made to wait for a moment on the terrace of which we have spoken,—a terrace which abutted on the little corridor, at the end of which the cabinet of the king was located. Here D’Artagnan passed on before the surintendant, whom, till that time, he had respectfully accompanied, and entered the royal cabinet.
“Well?” asked Louis XIV., who, on perceiving him, threw on to the table covered with papers a large green cloth.
“The order is executed, sire.”
“And Fouquet?”
“Monsieur le surintendant follows me,” said D’Artagnan.
“In ten minutes let him be introduced,” said the king, dismissing D’Artagnan again with a gesture. The latter retired; but had scarcely reached the corridor at the extremity of which Fouquet was waiting for him, when he was recalled by the king’s bell.
“Did he not appear astonished?” asked the king.
“Who, sire?”
“Fouquet,” replied the king, without saying monsieur, a peculiarity which confirmed the captain of the musketeers in his suspicions.
“No, sire,” replied he.
“That’s well!” And a second time Louis dismissed D’Artagnan.
Fouquet had not quitted the terrace where he had been left by his guide. He reperused his note, conceived thus:
“Something is being contrived against you. Perhaps they will not dare to carry it out at the castle; it will be on your return home. The house is already surrounded by musketeers. Do not enter. A white horse is in waiting for you behind the esplanade!”
Fouquet recognized the writing and zeal of Gourville. Not being willing that, if any evil happened to himself, this paper should compromise a faithful friend, the surintendant was busy tearing it into a thousand morsels, spread about by the wind from the balustrade of the terrace. D’Artagnan found him watching the snowflake fluttering of the last scraps in space.
“Monsieur,” said he, “the king awaits you.”
Fouquet walked with a deliberate step along the little corridor, where MM. de Brienne and Rose were at work, whilst the Duc de Saint-Aignan, seated on a chair, likewise in the corridor, appeared
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