“Supper is ready, monseigneur,” said Vatel, with majestic air and tone.
The crowd of guests hurried, less slowly than is usually the case with ministerial entertainments, towards the banqueting-room, where a magnificent spectacle presented itself. Upon the buffets, upon the side-tables, upon the supper-table itself, in the midst of the flowers and light, glittered most dazzlingly the richest and most costly gold and silver plate that could possibly be seen—relics of those ancient magnificent productions which the Florentine artists, whom the Medici family had patronised, had sculptured, chased and cast for the purpose of holding flowers, at the time when gold yet existed in France. These hidden marvels, which had been buried during the civil wars, had timidly reappeared during the intervals of that war of good taste called La Fronde: at a time when noblemen fighting against noblemen, killed but did not pillage each other. All the plate present had Madame de Bellière’s arms engraved upon it. “Look,” cried La Fontaine, “here is a P. and a B.”
But the most remarkable object present was the cover which Fouquet had assigned to the Marquise. Near her was a pyramid of diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, antique cameos, sardonyx stones, carved by the old Greeks of Asia Minor, with mountings of Mysian gold; curious mosaics of ancient Alexandria, mounted in silver; massive Egyptian bracelets lay heaped up in a large plate of Palissy ware, supported by a tripod of gilt bronze which had been sculptured by Benvenuto. The Marquise turned pale, as she recognised what she had never expected to see again. A profound silence seemed to seize upon every one of the restless and excited guests. Fouquet did not even make a sign in dismissal of the richly-liveried servants who crowded like bees round the huge buffets and other tables in the room. “Gentlemen,” he said, “all this plate which you behold once belonged to Madame de Bellière, who, having observed one of her friends in great distress, sent all this gold and silver, together with the heap of jewels now before her, to her goldsmith. This noble conduct of a devoted friend can well be understood by such friends as you. Happy indeed is that man who sees himself loved in such a manner. Let us drink to the health of Madame de Bellière.”
A tremendous burst of applause followed his words; and made poor Madame de Bellière sink back dumb and breathless on her seat. “And then,” added Pélisson, who was always affected by a noble action, as he was invariably impressed by beauty, “let us also drink to the health of him who inspired Madame’s noble conduct; for such a man is worthy of being worthily loved.”
It was now the Marquise’s turn. She rose, pale and smiling; and as she held out her glass with her faltering hand, and her trembling fingers touched those of Fouquet, her look, full of love, found its reflection and response in that of her ardent and generous-hearted lover. Begun in this manner, the supper soon became a fête; no one tried to be witty, for no one failed in being so. La Fontaine forgot his Gorgny wine, and allowed Vatel to reconcile him to the wines of the Rhone, and those from the shores of Spain. The Abbé Fouquet became so kind and good-natured that Gourville said to him, “Take care, Abbé; if you are so tender, you will be eaten.”
The hours passed away so joyously, that, contrary to his usual custom, the Surintendant did not leave the table before the end of the dessert. He smiled upon his friends, delighted as a man is, whose heart becomes intoxicated before his head—and, for the first time, he had just looked at the clock. Suddenly, a carriage rolled into the courtyard, and, strange to say, it was heard high above the noise of the mirth which prevailed. Fouquet listened attentively, and then turned his eyes towards the antechamber. It seemed as if he could hear a step passing across it, and that this step, instead of pressing the ground, weighed heavily upon his heart. “M. d’Herblay Bishop of Vannes,” the usher announced. And Aramis’s grave and thoughtful face appeared upon the threshold of the door, between the remains of two garlands, of which the flame of a lamp had just burned the thread that had united them.
9
M. de Mazarin’s Receipt
FOUQUET WOULD HAVE UTTERED an exclamation of delight on seeing another friend arrive, if the cold air and averted aspect of Aramis had not restored all his reserve. “Are you going to join us at our dessert?” he asked. “And yet you would be frightened, perhaps, at the noise which our wild friends here are making.”
“Monseigneur,” replied Aramis respectfully, “I will begin by begging you to excuse me for having interrupted this merry meeting; and then, I will beg you to give me, as soon as pleasure shall have finished, a moment’s audience on matters of business.”
As the word “business” had roused the attention of some of the epicureans present, Fouquet rose, saying: “Business first of all, Monsieur d’Herblay; we are too happy when matters of business arrive only at the end of a meal.”
As he said this, he took the hand of Madame de Bellière, who looked at him with a kind of uneasiness, and then led her to an adjoining salon, after having recommended her to the most reasonable of his guests. And then, taking Aramis by the arm, he led him towards his cabinet. As soon as Aramis was there, throwing aside the respectful air he had assumed, he threw himself into a chair, saying: “Guess whom I have seen this evening?”
“My dear Chevalier, every time you begin in that manner, I am sure to hear you announce something disagreeable.”
“Well, and this time you will not be mistaken, either, my dear friend,” replied Aramis.
“Do not keep me in suspense,” added Fouquet phlegmatically.
“Well, then, I have seen Madame de Chevreuse.”
“The old Duchesse, do you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Her ghost, perhaps?”
“No, no; the old she-wolf herself.”
“Without teeth?”
“Possibly, but not without claws.”
“Well! what harm can she meditate against me? I am no miser with women who are not prudes. That is a quality that is always prized, even by the woman who no longer dares to provoke love.”
“Madame de Chevreuse knows very well that you are not avaricious, since she wishes to draw some money out of you.”
“Indeed! under what pretext?”
“Oh! pretexts are never wanting with her. Let me tell you what hers is; it seems that the Duchesse has a good many letters of M. de Mazarin’s in her possession.”
“I am not surprised at that, for the prelate was gallant enough.”
“Yes, but these letters have nothing whatever to do with the prelate’s love affairs. They concern, it is said, financial matters rather.”
“And accordingly they are less interesting.”
“Do you not suspect what I mean?”
“Not at all.”
“Have you never heard speak of a prosecution being instituted for an embezzlement, or appropriation rather, of public funds?”
“Yes, a hundred, nay, a thousand times. Ever since I have been engaged in public matters I have hardly ever heard anything else but that. It is precisely your own case, when, as a bishop, people reproach you for your impiety; or, as a musketeer, for your cowardice; the very thing of which they are always accusing ministers of finance, is the embezzlement of public funds.”
“Very good; but take a particular instance, for the Duchesse asserts that M. de Mazarin alludes to certain particular instances.”
“What are they?”
“Something like a sum of thirteen millions of francs, of which it would be very difficult for you to define the precise nature of the employment.”
“Thirteen millions!” said the Surintendant, stretching himself in his arm-chair, in order to enable him the more comfortably to look up towards the ceiling. “Thirteen millions—I am trying to remember them out of all those I have been accused of having stolen.”
“Do not laugh, my dear monsieur, for it is very serious. It is positive that the Duchesse has certain letters in her possession, and that these letters must be as she represents them, since she wished to sell them to me for five hundred thousand francs.”
“Oh! on
e can have a very tolerable calumny got up for such a sum as that,” replied Fouquet. “Ah! now I know what you mean,” and he began to laugh heartily.
“So much the better,” said Aramis, a little reassured.
“I remember the story of those thirteen millions, now. Yes, yes, I remember them quite well.”
“I am delighted to hear it; tell me about them.”
“Well, then, one day Signor Mazarin, Heaven rest his soul! made a profit of thirteen millions upon a concession of lands in the Valtelline; he cancelled them in the registry of receipts, sent them to me, and then made me advance them to him for war expenses.”
“Very good, then, there is no doubt of their proper destination.”
“No; the Cardinal made me invest them in my own name, and gave me a receipt.”
“You have the receipt?”
“Of course,” said Fouquet, as he quietly rose from his chair, and went to his large ebony bureau inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gold.
“What I most admire in you,” said Aramis, with an air of great satisfaction, “is, your memory in the first place, then your self-possession, and, finally, the perfect order which prevails in your administration; you of all men, too, who are by nature a poet.”
“Yes,” said Fouquet, “I am orderly out of a spirit of idleness, to save myself the trouble of looking after things, and so I know that Mazarin’s receipt is in the third drawer under the letter M; I open the drawer, and place my hand upon the very paper I need. In the night without a light I could find it.”
And with a confident hand he felt the bundle of papers which were piled up in the open drawer. “Nay, more than that,” he continued, “I remember the paper as if I saw it; it is thick, somewhat crumpled, with gilt edges; Mazarin had made a blot upon the figure of the date. Ah!” he said, “the paper knows we are talking about it, and that we want it very much, and so it hides itself out of the way.” And as the Surintendant looked into the drawer, Aramis rose from his seat.
“This is very singular,” said Fouquet.
“Your memory is treacherous, my dear monseigneur; look in another drawer.”
Fouquet took out the bundle of papers, and turned them over once more; he then became very pale.
“Don’t confine your search to that drawer,” said Aramis; “look elsewhere.”
“Quite useless; I have never made a mistake; no one but myself arranges any papers of mine of this nature; no one but myself ever opens this drawer, of which, besides, no one, with my own exception, is aware of the secret.”
“What do you conclude, then?” said Aramis, agitated.
“That Mazarin’s receipt has been stolen from me; Madame de Chevreuse was right, Chevalier; I have appropriated the public funds; I have robbed the state coffers of thirteen millions of money; I am a thief, Monsieur d’Herblay.”
“Nay, nay, do not get irritated—do not get excited.”
“But, why not, Chevalier? surely there is every reason for it. If the legal proceedings are well arranged, and a judgment is given in accordance with them, your friend the Surintendant can follow to Montfauçon his colleague Enguerrand de Marigny, and his predecessor, Semblançay.”
“Oh!” said Aramis, smiling, “not so fast as that.”
“And why not? why not so fast? What do you suppose Madame de Chevreuse will have done with those letters, for you refused them, I suppose?”
“Yes; at once. I suppose that she went and sold them to M. Colbert.”
“Well?”
“I said I supposed so; I might have said I was sure of it, for I had her followed, and when she left me, she returned to her own house, went out by a back door, and proceeded straight to the Intendant’s house.”
“Legal proceedings will be instituted then, scandal and dishonour will follow, and all will fall upon me like a thunderbolt, blindly, harshly, pitilessly.”
Aramis approached Fouquet, who sat trembling in his chair, close to the open drawers; he placed his hand on his shoulder, and, in an affectionate tone of voice, said: “Do not forget that the position of M. Fouquet can in no way be compared to that of Semblançay or of Marigny.”
“And why not, in Heaven’s name?”
“Because the proceedings against those ministers were determined, completed, and the sentence carried out, whilst in your case the same thing cannot take place.”
“Another blow, why not? A peculator is, under any circumstances, a criminal.”
“Those criminals who know how to find a safe asylum are never in danger.”
“What! make my escape! Fly!”
“No! I do not mean that; you forget that all such proceedings originate in the Parliament, that they are instituted by the Procureur-Général, and that you are Procureur-Général. You see that unless you wish to condemn yourself—”
“Oh!” cried Fouquet, suddenly, dashing his fist upon the table.
“Well! What? what is the matter?”
“I am Procureur-Général no longer.”
Aramis at this reply became as livid as death; he pressed his hands together convulsively, and with a wild, haggard look, which almost annihilated Fouquet, he said, laying a stress upon every distinct syllable. “You are Procureur-Général no longer; do you say?”
“No.”
“Since when?”
“Since the last four or five hours.”
“Take care,” interrupted Aramis coldly; “I do not think you are in the full possession of your senses, my friend; collect yourself.”
“I tell you,” returned Fouquet, “that a little while ago some one came to me, brought by my friends, to offer me fourteen hundred thousand francs for the appointment, and that I sold the appointment.”
Aramis looked as if he had been thunder-stricken; the intelligent and mocking expression of his countenance assumed an aspect of such profound gloom and terror, that it had more ef fect upon the Surintendant than all the exclamations and speeches in the world. “You had need of money, then?” he said.
“Yes; to discharge a debt of honour.” And in a few words, he gave Aramis an account of Madame de Bellière’s generosity, and the manner in which he had thought it but right to discharge that act of generosity.
“Yes,” said Aramis, “that is, indeed, a fine trait. What has it cost?”
“Exactly the fourteen hundred thousand francs—the price of my appointment.”
“Which you received in that manner, without reflection. Oh! imprudent man.”
“I have not yet received the amount, but I shall to-morrow.”
“It is not yet completed, then?”
“It must be carried out, though; for I have given the goldsmith, for twelve o‘clock to-morrow, an order upon my treasury, into which the purchaser’s money will be paid at six or seven o’clock.”
“Heaven be praised!” cried Aramis, clapping his hands together, “nothing is yet completed, since you have not been paid.”
“But the goldsmith?”
“You shall receive the fourteen hundred thousand francs from me, at a quarter before twelve.”
“Stay a moment; it is at six o’clock, this very morning, that I am to sign.”
“Oh! I will answer that you do not sign.”
“I have given my word, Chevalier.”
“If you have given it, you will take it back again, that is all.”
“Can I believe what I hear?” cried Fouquet, in a most expressive tone. “Fouquet recall his word, after it has been once pledged?”
Aramis replied to the almost stern look of the minister by a look full of anger. “Monsieur,” he said, “I believe I have deserved to be called a man of honour? As a soldier I have risked my life five hundred times; as a priest I have rendered still greater services, both to the State and to my friends. The value of a word, once passed, is estimated according to the worth of the man who gives it. So long as it is in his own keeping, it is of the purest, finest gold; when his wish to keep it has passed away, it is a two-edged sword. With that word, therefore, he
defends himself as with an honourable weapon, considering that when he disregards his word he endangers his life, and incurs an amount of risk far greater than that which his adversary is likely to derive of profit. In such a case, monsieur, he appeals to Heaven and to justice.”
Fouquet bent down his head, as he replied, “I am a poor, self-determined man, a true Breton born; my mind admires and fears yours. I do not say that I keep my word from a proper feeling only; I keep it, if you like, from custom, practice, what you will. But at all events, the ordinary run of men are simple enough to admire this custom of mine: it is my sole good quality, leave me such honour as it confers.”
“And so you are determined to sign the sale of the very appointment which can alone defend you against all your enemies. ”
“Yes, I shall sign.”
“You will deliver yourself up, then, bound hand and foot, from a false notion of honour, which the most scrupulous causists would disdain?”
“I shall sign,” repeated Fouquet.
Aramis sighed deeply, and looked all round him with the impatient gesture of a man who would gladly dash something to pieces, as a relief to his feelings. “We have still one means left,” he said; “and, I trust, you will not refuse to make use of that.”
“Certainly not, if it be loyal and honourable; as everything is, in fact, which you propose.”
“I know nothing more loyal than the renunciation of your purchaser. Is he a friend of yours?”
“Certainly; but—”
“‘But!’—if you allow me to manage the affair, I do not despair.”
“Oh! you shall be absolutely master to do what you please.”
“Whom are you in treaty with? What man is it?”
“I am not aware whether you know the Parliament.”
“Most of its members. One of the presidents, perhaps?”
“No; only a counsellor, of the name of Vanel.”
Aramis became perfectly purple. “Vanel,” he cried, rising abruptly from his seat; “Vanel! the husband of Marguerite Vanel.”
“Exactly.”
“Of your former mistress?”
Man in the Iron Mask (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 11