Somehow escaping discovery, he had in the end entered Colbert's study where, at last feeling himself to be safe, he had begun to rummage hastily among the letters and documents which were most readily and rapidly accessible. Twice, he had been compelled to break off his inspection, alarmed by the passage of strangers in the nearby corridor. The documents over which he had been able to cast a swift glance seemed practically devoid of interest: correspondence with the Ministry for War, affairs of the navy, letters concerning the Manufactures of France, appointments, accounts, minutes; nothing out of the ordinary. Then, once again he had heard through the door the approach of other visitors. He could not risk the bruiting abroad of the news that Abbot Melani had been surprised taking advantage of Colbert's illness to go clandestinely through the minister's papers. He had therefore confusedly grabbed and slipped into his breeches a few bunches of correspondence and notes piled in the drawers of the desk and the cabinets, to which he had without great difficulty found the keys.
"But had you permission to do this?"
"To ensure the King's security, every act is permitted," the abbot retorted drily.
He was already scrutinising the shady corridor before leaving the study (for his visit, the abbot had chosen the late afternoon, so as to be able to count on the declining light) when, through the corner of his eye, intuition caused him to catch sight of a small chest in an obscure recess half-hidden by the draperies of a heavy curtain and the massive flank of an ebony cupboard.
It lay under a considerable pile of white sheets of paper, on top of which balanced an imposing lectern with a richly carved foot; and on that lectern, a folder tied with a brand-new cord.
"It seemed as yet untouched," explained Atto.
Indeed, Colbert's illness, a violent renal colic, had peaked only a few weeks earlier. For several days, it was said that he had no longer attended to any business; this meant that the folder might still be waiting to be read. The decision was made in a flash: he put down all that he had taken and took the folder with him. Hardly had he picked it up, however, than his eyes again alighted on the pile of blank sheets of paper, deformed by the weight of the lectern
'"A fine place to leave writing paper,' I muttered to myself, attributing such a betise to the usual careless servant."
Taking the lectern under his left arm, the abbot tried to look through the still virgin sheets of paper, in case some interesting document should be hidden there. Nothing. It was paper of excellent quality, smooth and heavy. He did, however, find that some leaves had been cut in a way that was as accurate as it was singular: they all had the same form, like a star with irregular points.
"I thought at first that this might be some senile mania of the Coluber. Then I noticed that some of these papers bore marks of rubbing and, on the edge of one of the points, slight striations of what appeared to be black grease. I was still puzzling this over," continued Atto, "when I noticed that the great weight of the lectern was making my arm stiff. I decided to put it down on the writing desk when I remarked with horror that a corner of the delicate lace of my cuffs had been caught in a crudely fashioned joint of the lectern."
When the abbot succeeded in freeing the lace, it bore traces of black grease.
"Ah, you presumptuous little snake-in-the-grass, did you think you could deceive me?" thought Melani with a flash of sudden insight.
And swiftly he picked up one of the still new paper stars. Studying it carefully, he placed it on top of one of the used ones, turning it quickly until he could see which was the right point. Then he inserted it in the joint of the lectern. Nothing happened. Nervously, he tried again: still nothing. By then, the star was already crumpled and he had to take another one. This time, he inserted it in the joint with the greatest of care, holding his ear close to the operation, like a master clockmaker listening for the first tick of the mechanism he has returned to new life. And it was precisely a slight click that the abbot heard as soon as the tip of the paper reached the extremity of the slot: one end of the foot of the lectern had sprung open like a drawer, revealing a small cavity. In it lay an envelope bearing the effigy of a serpent.
"Such a presumptuous snake-in-the-grass," Abbot Melani muttered to himself before the emblem of the Coluber which so unexpectedly confronted him.
At that moment, Atto heard in the corridor the bustle of rapidly approaching footsteps. He took the envelope, adjusted his jacket in order to conceal as well as possible the bulge created by the parcel and held his breath, hidden behind an arras, while he heard a man arrive before the study door. Someone opened that door and said, turning to the others, "He will already have gone in."
Colbert's servants, not having heard Abbot Melani enter the dying man's sickroom, had begun to search for him. The door closed again, the servant returned whence he had come. Abbot Melani left in complete silence and moved without haste towards the main entrance. Here he greeted a valet with an easy smile: "He will soon be better," said he, looking him straight in the eye as he went through the door.
In the days that followed, no word reached him of the disappearance of any folder, and the abbot was able to peruse it at his ease.
"Pardon me, Signor Atto," I interrupted him, "but how did you understand which was the right point of the paper to insert into the joint?"
"Simple: all the paper stars that had already been used had traces of grease at exactly the same place. It had been a gross error on the Serpent's part to leave it there. Clearly, his senses had begun to grow dull of late."
"And why did the secret drawer not open at once?"
"Stupidly, I had thought it was a crude mechanism," sighed Atto, "which would be activated as soon as one touched the end of the aperture with the right key: in other words, with the point of the paper inserted at the right angle. But I had underestimated the French cabinet-makers' skill in inventing ever more remarkable devices. In reality (and here was why it was so important to use superior materials like those leaves of exquisitely fashioned paper) the mechanism was complex and involved many highly sensitive metal parts not situated directly behind the opening but at one remove from there, and only a slow stroking of both sides could activate all the parts in perfect succession."
I remained silent, lost in admiration.
"I should have understood at once," concluded Atto with a grimace. "The used stars were blackened not precisely at the tip but along both sides."
His instinct had not deceived him: into his hands had fallen one of the most extraordinary finds. Inside the envelope stamped with the face of the Serpent (and he emphasised the word) was a letter in Latin sent from Rome by someone unknown to Melani but whom he understood by his style and from other details to be certainly a cleric. The paper had grown yellow and seemed to date from many years previously. The missives referred to confidential information which the same informer had sent previously to the addressee. The latter, as was to be understood from the envelope, was the Superintendent General of Finances, Nicolas Fouquet.
"And why was this in Colbert's possession?"
"I have already told you, as you will recall, that at the time of his arrest and in the days that followed, all Fouquet's papers and correspondence, both private and relating to matters of state, were confiscated."
The language of the mysterious prelate was so cryptic that Melani was unable even to understand what might be the nature of the secret to which it alluded. He noted, amongst other things, that one of the epistles began curiously with the words mumiarum domino, but was unable to find any explanation for this.
But the most interesting part of Abbot Melani's tale was still to come, and here the material took on the contours of the incredible. The folder which Atto had found on top of the lectern contained very recent correspondence with which, because of his illness, Colbert had not yet been able to deal. Apart from a few matters of no importance, there were two letters sent from Rome in July and almost certainly (as appeared from the obsequious turns of phrase
employed) destined for Colbert in person. The sender must have been a trusted servant of the minister, and he reported the presence in the city of the squirrel on the arbor caritatis.
"Meaning..."
"Elementary. The squirrel is the animal on Fouquet's coat of arms; the arbor caritatis, the tree of charity, can only be the city of loving kindness, that is, Rome. And indeed, according to the informer, the former Superintendent Fouquet had been seen and followed no fewer than three times: near a piazza called Fiammetta, in the vicinity of the church of Sant'Apollinare and in the Piazza Navona. Three places, if I am not mistaken, in the Holy City."
"But that is not possible," I objected. "Did not Fouquet die in prison, at..."
"At Pinerol, of course, a good three years ago, and in the arms of his son who at that extreme hour was generously granted access to him. Yet the letter from Colbert's informer, although written in cipher, spoke to me clearly: he was here in Rome little more than a month ago."
The abbot decided to leave at once for Rome in order to solve the mystery. There were two possibilities: either the news of Fouquet's presence in Rome was true (and that would have been beyond anything that could have been imagined, since it was common knowledge that the Superintendent had died following a long illness after almost twenty years' imprisonment in a fortress); or it was false, and then it would be necessary to discover whether someone, perhaps an unfaithful agent, was distributing false rumours with a view to disturbing the King and the court and comforting the enemies of France.
Once again I noticed how, when telling of such secrets and surprising events, Abbot Melani's eyes lit up with a twinkle of malicious joy, of private satisfaction and unspoken pleasure in recounting these things to someone like myself, a poor apprentice utterly ignorant of intrigues, plots and secret affairs of state.
"Did Colbert die?"
"No doubt, seeing the condition he was in; even if not before my departure."
In fact, as I learned far later, Colbert died on the 6th of September, exactly a week before Abbot Melani told me of his intrusion.
"In the eyes of the world, he will have died a victor," added Atto after a pause, "immensely wealthy and powerful. For his family, he bought the finest noble titles and high offices: his brother Charles became Marquis de Croissy and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; another brother, Edouard-Francois, was created Marquis de Maulevrierand became Lieutenant-General of the King's armies; his son Jean-Baptiste became Marquis de Seignelay, and Secretary of State for the Navy. Without counting all the other brothers and sons who made brilliant military and ecclesiastical careers, or the rich marriages contracted by his three daughters, all of whom became duchesses."
"But did Colbert not cry scandal, accusing Fouquet of being too rich and of having placed his men everywhere?"
"Yes, and then he himself engaged in the most blatant nepotism. He spun a network of his own spies such as there had never been, hunting down and ruining all the most loyal friends of the Superintendent."
I knew that Melani was also referring to his own exile from Paris.
"Not only that: Colbert had accumulated an estate of over ten million livres net, concerning the origins of which no one has ever expressed the slightest suspicions. My poor friend Nicolas, on the other hand, had contracted personal debts in order to provide funds for Mazarin and for the war against Spain."
"An astute man, your Signor di Colbert."
"And unscrupulous," added Melani. "All his life, he was praised to heaven for his vast reforms of the state which will, alas, guarantee him a place in history. Yet, all of us at court know perfectly well that every single reform was stolen from Fouquet: those to do with revenue and estates, the easing of the taille, tax relief, the great manufactures, and the naval and colonial policies. It is no accident that he had all the Superintendent's papers burned very early on."
Fouquet, explained the abbot to me, was the first shipbuilder and coloniser of France, the first to take up Richelieu's old dream of making the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Morbihan the centre of the economic and maritime renewal of the kingdom. It was he, already the organiser of the victorious war against Spain, who first discovered and organised the weavers of the village of Maincy, whom Colbert later transformed into the manufactory of the Gobelins.
"Besides, it was soon common knowledge that these reforms were not flour from his own sack. For a good twenty-two years Colbert was Comptroller-General, a more modest title with which he, to please the King, had renamed the office of Superintendent, which was officially abolished. Fouquet, however, remained in government for eight years only. And here lay the problem: for as long as he was able to, the Serpent followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, and fortune smiled on him. But then he had to pursue on his own the reform plans which were confiscated from Fouquet at the time of his arrest. And from that point on, Colbert made one long series of false moves: in industrial and mercantile policy, where neither the nobility nor the bourgeoisie gave him credit, and in maritime policy, in which none of his much-vaunted companies were long-lived, and no one ever succeeded in gaining supremacy over the English and the Dutch."
"And was the Most Christian King aware of nothing?"
"The King keeps his changes of judgement jealously to himself; but it seems that, no sooner had the physicians given Colbert up for lost than he began a round of consultations to choose a successor, taking a selection of names of ministers whose character and training were very different from that of Colbert. When this was pointed out to him, it is said that His Majesty replied: "That is precisely why I chose them."
"Did Colbert then die in disgrace?"
"Let us not exaggerate. I should say, rather, that the whole of his career as minister was afflicted by the King's continuous rages. Colbert and Louvois, the Minister for War, the two most feared intendants in France, were overcome with trembling and covered in cold sweat whenever the King summoned them in council. They enjoyed the Sovereign's confidence, but they were his two first slaves. Colbert must have realised very early on how difficult it was to take Fouquet's place and, like him, to meet every day the King's demands for money for battles and ballets."
"How did he manage?"
"In the most practical way. The Coluber began to channel into the hands of one man, the Sovereign, all the wealth which had hitherto been that of the few. He abolished countless offices and pensions, he despoiled Paris and the kingdom of every luxury and all ended up in the coffers of the Crown. As for the people, those who previously had gone hungry now died of hunger."
"Did Colbert ever become more powerful than Fouquet had been?"
"My boy, he was far, far more powerful. Never did my friend Nicolas enjoy the liberties from which his successor benefited. Colbert laid his hands on everything, everywhere, interfering in areas that had remained completely beyond the reach of Fouquet, who faced the added difficulty of almost always acting in wartime. And yet the debts which the Serpent left behind him were far greater than those for which Fouquet was arraigned for ruining the state, he who ruined himself for the state."
"Did no one ever bring accusations to bear against Colbert?"
"There were several scandals: such as the one and only case of the forgery of money in France during the past several hundred years, and all of those involved were the Coluber's men, including his nephew. Or the stripping and illicit trafficking of Burgundy's timber; or the criminal exploitation of the forests of Normandy; and these both involved the same henchman of Colbert, Berryer, who had materially falsified documents in the Fouquet trial. All devices to amass wealth for his family."
"A fortunate life, then."
"That, I would not say. He spent his existence pretending to be of the most exemplary integrity, accumulating a fortune which he was never able to enjoy. He suffered from envy that was boundless and could never be allayed. He had always to sweat blood and tears in order to come up with some paltry idea which was not to be thrown away. A victim of his o
wn mania for power, he arrogated to himself control over every area of the country, spending a lifetime chained to his desk. He never enjoyed himself for one single hour, and despite that he was detested by the people. Every single day he suffered the terrible wrath of the Sovereign. He was mocked and despised for his ignorance. And it was a combination of these last two factors that eventually killed him."
"What do you mean?"
The abbot laughed heartily: "Do you know what brought Colbert to his deathbed?"
"A renal colic, you said."
"Precisely. And do you know why? The King, furious at his latest blunder, summoned him and showered him with insults and contumely."
"Was this some administrative error?"
"Far more. To emulate Fouquet's expertise, Colbert stuck his nose into the building of a new wing for the Chateau of Versailles, imposing his own opinions on the builders, who were unable to make him understand the risks incurred by his villainous intervention."
"But how so? Fouquet had died in prison three years before, and Colbert was still obsessed with him?"
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