The Vicomte de Bragelonne

by Alexandre Dumas

  CHAPTER LXXX.

  THE BEEHIVE, THE BEES, AND THE HONEY.

  The bishop of Vannes, much annoyed at having met D'Artagnan at M.Percerin's, returned to Saint-Mande in no very good humor. Moliere, onthe other hand, quite delighted at having made such a capital roughsketch, and at knowing where to find its original again, whenever heshould desire to convert his sketch into a picture, Moliere arrived inthe merriest of moods. All the first story of the left wing was occupiedby the most celebrated Epicureans in Paris, and those on the freestfooting in the house--every one in his compartment, like the bees intheir cells, employed in producing the honey intended for that royalcake which M. Fouquet proposed to offer his majesty Louis XIV. duringthe fete at Vaux. Pellisson, his head leaning on his hand, was engagedin drawing out the plan of the prologue to the "Facheux," a comedy inthree acts, which was to be put on the stage by Poquelin de Moliere, asD'Artagnan called him, or Coquelin de Voliere, as Porthos styled him.Loret, with all the charming innocence of a gazetteer--the gazetteers ofall ages have always been so artless!--Loret was composing an account ofthe fetes of Vaux, before those fetes had taken place. La Fontaine,sauntering about from one to the other, a wandering, absent, boring,unbearable shade, who kept buzzing and humming at everybody's shoulder athousand poetic abstractions. He so often disturbed Pellisson, that thelatter, raising his head, crossly said, "At least, La Fontaine, supplyme with a rhyme, since you say you have the run of the gardens atParnassus."

  "What rhyme do you want?" asked the _Fabler_, as Madame de Sevigne usedto call him.

  "I want a rhyme to _lumiere_."

  "_Orniere_," answered La Fontaine.

  "Ah, but, my good friend, one cannot talk of _wheel-ruts_ whencelebrating the delights of Vaux," said Loret.

  "Besides, it doesn't rhyme," answered Pellisson.

  "How! doesn't rhyme!" cried La Fontaine, in surprise.

  "Yes; you have an abominable habit, my friend--a habit which will everprevent your becoming a poet of the first order. You rhyme in a slovenlymanner."

  "Oh, oh, you think so, do you, Pellisson?"

  "Yes, I do, indeed. Remember that a rhyme is never good so long as onecan find a better."

  "Then I will never write anything again but in prose," said La Fontaine,who had taken up Pellisson's reproach in earnest. "Ah! I often suspectedI was nothing but a rascally poet! Yes, 'tis the very truth."

  "Do not say so; your remark is too sweeping, and there is much that isgood in your 'Fables.'"

  "And to begin," continued La Fontaine, following up his idea, "I will goand burn a hundred verses I have just made."

  "Where are your verses?"

  "In my head."

  "Well, if they are in your head you cannot burn them."

  "True," said La Fontaine; "but if I do not burn them--"

  "Well, what will happen if you do not burn them?"

  "They will remain in my mind, and I shall never forget them."

  "The deuce?" cried Loret; "what a dangerous thing! One would go mad withit!"

  "The deuce! the deuce!" repeated La Fontaine; "what can I do?"

  "I have discovered the way," said Moliere, who had entered just at thispoint of the conversation.

  "What way?"

  "Write them first and burn them afterward."

  "How simple it is! Well, I should never have discovered that. What amind that devil Moliere has!" said La Fontaine. Then, striking hisforehead, "Oh, thou wilt never be aught but an ass, Jean la Fontaine!"he added.

  "_What_ are you saying there, my friend?" broke in Moliere, approachingthe poet, whose aside he had heard.

  "I say I shall never be aught but an ass," answered La Fontaine, with aheavy sigh and swimming eyes. "Yes, my friend," he added, withincreasing grief, "it seems that I rhyme in a slovenly manner."

  "Oh, 'tis wrong to say so."

  "Nay I am a poor creature!"

  "Who said so?"

  "Parbleu! 'twas Pellisson; did you not, Pellisson?"

  Pellisson, again lost in his work, took good care not to answer.

  "But if Pellisson said you were so," cried Moliere, "Pellisson hasseriously offended you."

  "Do you think so?"

  "Ah! I advise you, as you are a gentleman, not to leave an insult likethat unpunished."

  "How!" exclaimed La Fontaine.

  "Did you ever fight?"

  "Once only, with a lieutenant in the light horse."

  "What wrong had he done you?"

  "It seems he had run away with my wife."

  "Ah, ah!" said Moliere, becoming slightly pale; but, as at La Fontaine'sdeclaration, the others had turned round, Moliere kept upon his lips therallying smile which had so nearly died away, and continuing to make LaFontaine speak--

  "And what was the result of the duel?"

  "The result was that on the ground my opponent disarmed me, and thenmade an apology, promising never again to set foot in my house."

  "And you considered yourself satisfied," said Moliere.

  "Not at all! on the contrary, I picked up my sword. 'I beg your pardon,monsieur,' I said, 'I have not fought you because you were my wife'sfriend, but because I was told I ought to fight. So, as I have neverknown any peace save since you made her acquaintance, do me the pleasureto continue your visits as heretofore, or, morbleu! let us set toagain.' And so," continued La Fontaine, "he was compelled to resume hisfriendship with madame, and I continue to be the happiest of husbands."

  All burst out laughing. Moliere alone passed his hands across his eyes.Why? Perhaps to wipe away a tear, perhaps to smother a sigh. Alas! weknow that Moliere was a moralist, but he was not a philosopher. "'Tisall the same," he said, returning to the topic of the conversation,"Pellisson has insulted you."

  "Ah, truly! I had already forgotten it."

  "And I am going to challenge him on your behalf."

  "Well, you can do so, if you think it indispensable."

  "I do think it indispensable, and I am going--"

  "Stay," exclaimed La Fontaine, "I want your advice."

  "Upon what? this insult?"

  "No; tell me really now whether _lumiere_ does not rhyme with_orniere_."

  "I should make them rhyme--ah! I knew you would--and I have made ahundred thousand such rhymes in my time."

  "A hundred thousand!" cried La Fontaine, "four times as many as LaPucelle, which M. Chaplain is meditating. Is it also on this subject toothat you have composed a hundred thousand verses?"

  "Listen to me, you eternally absent creature," said Moliere.

  "It is certain," continued La Fontaine, "that _legume_, for instance,rhymes with _posthume_."

  "In the plural, above all."

  "Yes, above all in the plural, seeing that then it rhymes not with threeletters, but with four; as _orniere_ does with _lumiere_."

  "But _ornieres_ and _lumieres_ in the plural, my dear Pellisson," saidLa Fontaine, clapping his hand on the shoulder of his friend, whoseinsult he had quite forgotten, "and they will rhyme."

  "Hem!" cried Pellisson.

  "Moliere says so, and Moliere is a judge of it; he declares he hashimself made a hundred thousand verses."

  "Come," said Moliere, laughing, "he is off now."

  "It is like _rivage_, which rhymes admirably with _herbage_. I wouldtake my oath of it."

  "But--" said Moliere.

  "I tell you all this," continued La Fontaine, "because you are preparinga _divertissement_ for Vaux, are you not?"

  "Yes, the 'Facheux.'"

  "Ah, yes, the 'Facheux;' yes, I recollect. Well, I was thinking aprologue would admirably suit your _divertissement_."

  "Doubtless it would suit capitally."

  "Ah! you are of my opinion?"

  "So much so, that I ask you to write this prologue."

  "You ask _me_ to write it?"

  "Yes, you, and on your refusal begged you to ask Pellisson, who isengaged upon it at this moment."

  "Ah! that is what Pellisson is doing, then?"

  "I'faith, my dear
Moliere, you might indeed often be right."

  "When?"

  "When you call me absent. It is a wretched defect. I will cure myself ofit, and do your prologue for you."

  "But seeing that Pellisson is about it!--"

  "Ah, true, double rascal that I am! Loret was indeed right in saying Iwas a poor creature."

  "It was not Loret who said so, my friend."

  "Well, then, whoever said so, 'tis the same to me! And so your_divertissement_ is called the 'Facheux?' Well, can you not make_heureux_ rhyme with _facheux_?"

  "If obliged, yes."

  "And even with _capricieux_."

  "Oh, no, no."

  "It would be hazardous, and yet why so?"

  "There is too great a difference in the cadences."

  "I was fancying," said La Fontaine, leaving Moliere for Loret--"I wasfancying--"

  "What were you fancying?" said Loret, in the middle of a sentence. "Makehaste."

  "You are writing the prologue to the 'Facheux,' are you not?"

  "No! mordieu! it is Pellisson."

  "Ah, Pellisson!" cried La Fontaine, going over to him. "I was fancying,"he continued, "that the nymph of Vaux--"

  "Ah, beautiful!" cried Loret. "The nymph of Vaux! thank you, LaFontaine; you have just given me the two concluding verses of my paper."

  "Well, if you can rhyme so well, La Fontaine," said Pellisson, "tell menow in what way you would begin my prologue?"

  "I should say, for instance, 'Oh! nymph, who--' After 'who' I shouldplace a verb in the second person singular of the present indicative;and should go on thus: 'this grot profound.'"

  "But the verb, the verb?" asked Pellisson.

  "To admire the greatest king of all kings round," continued La Fontaine.

  "But the verb, the verb," obstinately insisted Pellisson. "This secondperson singular of the present indicative?"

  "Well then; quittest:--

  "O, nymph, who quittest now this grot profound, To admire the greatest king of all kings round."

  "You would put 'who quittest,' would you?"

  "Why not?"

  "'Gentlest' after 'you who?'"

  "Ah! my dear fellow," exclaimed La Fontaine, "you are a shockingpedant!"

  "Without counting," said Moliere, "that the second verse, 'king of allkings round,' is very weak, my dear La Fontaine."

  "Then you see clearly I am nothing but a poor creature--a shuffler, asyou said."

  "I never said so."

  "Then, as Loret said."

  "And it was not Loret neither; it was Pellisson."

  "Well, Pellisson was right a hundred times over. But what annoys me morethan anything, my dear Moliere, is, that I fear we shall not have ourEpicurean dresses."

  "You expected yours, then, for the fete?"

  "Yes, for the fete, and then for after the fete. My housekeeper told methat my own is rather faded."

  "_Diable!_ Your housekeeper is right; rather more than faded!"

  "Ah, you see," resumed La Fontaine, "the fact is, I left it on the floorin my room, and my cat--"

  "Well; your cat--"

  "She kittened upon it, which has rather altered its color."

  Moliere burst out laughing; Pellisson and Loret followed his example. Atthis juncture, the bishop of Vannes appeared, with a roll of plans andparchments under his arm. As if the angel of death had chilled all gayand sprightly fancies--as if that wan form had scared away the Graces towhom Xenocrates sacrificed--silence immediately reigned through thestudy, and every one resumed his self-possession and his pen. Aramisdistributed the notes of invitation, and thanked them in the name of M.Fouquet. "The surintendant," he said, "being kept to his room bybusiness, could not come and see them, but begged them to send him someof the fruits of their day's work, to enable him to forget the fatigueof his labor in the night."

  At these words, all settled to work. La Fontaine placed himself at atable, and set his rapid pen running over the vellum; Pellisson made afair copy of his prologue; Moliere gave fifty fresh verses, with whichhis visit to Percerin had inspired him; Loret, his article on themarvelous fetes he predicted; and Aramis, laden with booty like the kingof the bees, that great black drone, decked with purple and gold,re-entered his apartment, silent and busy. But before departing,"Remember, gentlemen," said he, "we all leave to-morrow evening."

  "In that case, I must give notice at home," said Moliere.

  "Yes; poor Moliere!" said Loret, smiling; "he loves his home."

  "'_He_ loves,' yes," replied Moliere, with his sad, sweet smile. "'Heloves,' that does not mean, they love _him_."

  "As for me," said La Fontaine, "they love me at Chateau Thierry, I amvery sure."

  Aramis here re-entered after a brief disappearance. "Will any one gowith me?" he asked. "I am going by Paris, after having passed a quarterof an hour with M. Fouquet. I offer my carriage."

  "Good," said Moliere, "I accept it. I am in a hurry."

  "I shall dine here," said Loret. "M. de Gourville has promised me somecrawfish."

  "He has promised me some whitings. Find a rhyme for that, La Fontaine."

  Aramis went out laughing, as only he could laugh, and Moliere followedhim. They were at the bottom of the stairs, when La Fontaine opened thedoor and shouted out:

  "He has promised us some whitings, In return for all our writings."

  The shouts of laughter reached the ears of Fouquet, at the moment Aramisopened the door of the study. As to Moliere, he had undertaken to orderthe horses, while Aramis went to exchange a parting word with thesurintendant. "Oh, how they are laughing there!" said Fouquet with asigh.

  "And do not you laugh, monseigneur?"

  "I laugh no longer now, M. d'Herblay. The fete is approaching; money isdeparting."

  "Have I not told you that was my business?"

  "Yes; you promised me millions."

  "You shall have them the day after the king's entree into Vaux."

  Fouquet looked closely at Aramis, and passed his icy hand across hismoistened brow. Aramis perceived that the surintendant either doubtedhim, or felt he was powerless to obtain the money. How could Fouquetsuppose that a poor bishop, ex-abbe, ex-musketeer, could find any?

  "Why doubt me?" said Aramis. Fouquet smiled and shook his head.

  "Man of little faith!" added the bishop.

  "My dear M. d'Herblay," answered Fouquet, "if I fall--"

  "Well; if you 'fall'?"

  "I shall, at least, fall from such a height that I shall shatter myselfin falling." Then giving himself a shake, as though to escape fromhimself, "Whence come you," said he, "my friend?"

  "From Paris--from Percerin."

  "And what have you been doing at Percerin's, for I suppose you attach nosuch great importance to our poets' dresses?"

  "No; I went to prepare a surprise!

  "Surprise?"

  "Yes; which you are to give to the king."

  "And will it cost much?"

  "Oh! a hundred pistoles you will give Lebrun."

  "A painting?--Ah! all the better! And what is this painting torepresent?"

  "I will tell you; then at the same time, whatever you may say of it, Iwent to see the dresses for our poets."

  "Bah! and they will be rich and elegant?"

  "Splendid! There will be few great monsiegneurs with so good. Peoplewill see the difference there is between the courtiers of wealth andthose of friendship."

  "Ever generous and graceful, dear prelate!"

  "In your school."

  Fouquet grasped his hand. "And where are you going?" he said.

  "I am off to Paris, when you shall have given a certain letter."

  "For whom?"

  "M. de Lyonne."

  "And what do you want with Lyonne?"

  "I wish to make him sign a lettre de cachet."

  "'Lettre de cachet!' Do you desire to put somebody in the Bastille?"

  "On the contrary--to let somebody out."

  "And who?"

  "A poor devil--a youth, a lad who has
been bastilled these ten years,for two Latin verses he made against the Jesuits."

  "'Two Latin verses!' and, for 'two Latin verses,' the miserable beinghas been in prison for ten years!"

  "'Yes!"

  "And has committed no other crime?"

  "Beyond this he is as innocent as you or I."

  "On your word?"

  "On my honor!"

  "And his name is--?"

  "Seldon."

  "Yes.--But it is too bad. You knew this, and you never told me!"

  "'Twas only yesterday his mother applied to me, monseigneur."

  "And the woman is poor."

  "In the deepest misery."

  "Oh, Heaven!" said Fouquet, "you sometimes bear with such injustice onearth, that I understand why there are wretches who doubt in yourexistence. Stay, M. d'Herblay." And Fouquet, taking a pen, wrote a fewrapid lines to his colleague Lyonne. Aramis took the letter and madeready to go.

  "Wait," said Fouquet. He opened his drawer, and took out ten governmentnotes which were there, each for a thousand francs. "Stay," he said;"set the son at liberty, and give this to the mother; but, above all,tell her not--."

  "What, monseigneur?"

  "That she is ten thousand livres richer than I. She would say, I am buta poor surintendant! Go! and I hope that God will bless those who aremindful of his poor!"

  "So also do I hope," replied Aramis, kissing Fouquet's hand.

  And he went out quickly, carrying off the letter for Lyonne, and thenotes for Seldon's mother, and taking up Moliere, who was beginning tolose patience.