Man in the Iron Mask (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Alexandre Dumas

  “Well,” asked Fouquet, the first to speak, “and M. d’Herblay?”

  “Upon my word, monseigneur,” replied d‘Artagnan, “M. d’Herblay must be desperately fond of walks by night, and composing verses by moonlight in the park of Vaux—with some of your poets, in all probability—for he is not in his own room.”

  “What! not in his own room?” cried Fouquet, whose last hope had thus escaped him; for unless he could ascertain in what way the Bishop of Vannes could assist him, he perfectly well knew that in reality he could not expect assistance from anyone but him.

  “Or indeed,” continued d’Artagnan, “if he is in his own room, he has very good reasons for not answering.”

  “But surely you did not call him in such a manner that he could have heard you?”

  “You can hardly suppose, monseigneur, that having already exceeded my orders, which forbade me leaving you a single moment—you can hardly suppose, I say, that I should have been mad enough to rouse the whole house and allow myself to be seen in the corridor of the Bishop of Vannes, in order that M. Colbert might state with positive certainty that I gave you time to burn your papers.”

  “My papers?”

  “Of course; at least that is what I should have done in your place; when any one opens a door for me, I always avail myself of it.”

  “Yes, yes, and I thank you, for I have availed myself of it.”

  “And you have done perfectly right. Every man has his own peculiar secrets with which others have nothing to do. But let us return to Aramis, monseigneur.”

  “Well, then, I tell you, you could not have called loud enough, or Aramis would have heard you.”

  “However softly any one may call Aramis, monseigneur, Aramis always hears when he has an interest in hearing. I repeat what I said before—Aramis was not in his own room, or Aramis had certain reasons for not recognising my voice, of which I am ignorant, and of which you even may be ignorant yourself, notwithstanding your liege-man is his greatness the Lord Bishop of Vannes.”

  Fouquet drew a deep sigh, rose from his seat, made three or four turns in his room, and finished by seating himself, with an expression of extreme dejection, upon his magnificent bed with velvet hangings, and trimmed with the costliest lace. D’Artagnan looked at Fouquet with feelings of the deepest and sincerest pity.

  “I have seen a good many men arrested in my life,” said the musketeer sadly; “I have seen both M. de Cinq-Mars and M. de Chalais arrested, though I was very young then. I have seen M. de Condé arrested with the Princes; I have seen M. de Retz arrested; I have seen M. Brousselaf arrested. Stay a moment, monseigneur; it is disagreeable to have to say, but the very one of all those whom you most resemble at this moment, was that poor fellow Broussel. You were very near doing as he did, putting your dinner napkin in your portfolio, and wiping your mouth with your papers. Mordioux! Monseigneur Fouquet, a man like you ought not to be dejected in this manner. Suppose your friends saw you?”

  “Monsieur d’Artagnan,” returned the Surintendant, with a smile full of gentleness, “you do not understand me; it is precisely because my friends do not see me that I am such as you see me now. I do not live, exist even, isolated from others; I am nothing when left to myself. Understand that throughout my whole life I have passed every moment of my time in making friends, whom I hoped to render my stay and support. In times of prosperity, all these cheerful, happy voices—and rendered so through and by my means—formed in my honour a concert of praises and kindly actions. In the least disfavour, these humbler voices accompanied in harmonious accents the murmur of my own heart. Isolation I have never yet known. Poverty (a phantom I have sometimes beheld, clad in rags, awaiting me at the end of my journey through life)—this poverty has been the spectre with which many of my own friends have trifled for years past, which they poetise and caress, and which has attracted me towards them. Poverty! I accept it, acknowledge it, receive it, as a disinherited sister; for poverty is not solitude, nor exile, nor imprisonment. Is it likely I shall ever be poor, with such friends as Pélisson, as La Fontaine, as Molière? with such a mistress as——Oh! if you knew how utterly lonely and desolate I feel at this moment, and how you, who separate me from all I love, seem to resemble the image of solitude, of annihilation, and of death itself!”

  “But I have already told you, Monsieur Fouquet,” replied d’Artagnan, moved to the depths of his soul, “that you exaggerate matters a great deal too much. The King likes you.”

  “No, no,” said Fouquet, shaking his head.

  “M. de Colbert hates you.”

  “M. de Colbert! What does that matter to me?”

  “He will ruin you.”

  “Oh! I defy him to do that, for I am ruined already.”

  At this singular confession of the Surintendant, d‘Artagnan cast his glance all round the room; and although he did not open his lips, Fouquet understood him so thoroughly that he added: “What can be done with such wealth of substance as surrounds us, when a man can no longer cultivate his taste for the magnificent? Do you know what good the greater part of the wealth and the possessions which we rich enjoy, confer upon us?—merely to disgust us, by their very splendour even, with everything that does not equal this splendour. Vaux! you will say, and the wonders of Vaux! What then? What boot these wonders? If I am ruined, how shall I fill with water the urns which my Naiads bear in their arms, or force the air into the lungs of my Tritons? To be rich enough, Monsieur d’Artagnan, a man must be too rich.”

  D’Artagnan shook his head.

  “Oh! I know very well what you think,” replied Fouquet quickly. “If Vaux were yours, you would sell it, and would purchase an estate in the country; an estate which should have woods, orchards and land attached, and that this estate should be made to support its master. With forty millions you might—”

  “Ten millions,” interrupted d’Artagnan.

  “Not a million, my dear captain. No one in France is rich enough to give two millions for Vaux, and to continue to maintain it as I have done; no one could do it; no one would know how.”

  “Well,” said d’Artagnan, “in any case, a million is not abject misery.”

  “It is not far from it, my dear monsieur. But you do not understand me; no; I will not sell my residence at Vaux; I will give it to you, if you like;” and Fouquet accompanied these words with a movement of the shoulders to which it would be impossible to do justice.

  “Give it to the King; you will make a better bargain.”

  “The King does not require me to give it to him,” said Fouquet; “he will take it away from me with the most perfect ease and grace, if it please him to do so; and that is the reason why I should prefer to see it perish. Do you know, Monsieur d’Artagnan, that if the King did not happen to be under my roof, I would take this candle, go straight to the dome, and set fire to a couple of huge chests of fusees and fireworks which are in reserve there, and would reduce my palace to ashes.”

  “Bah!” said the musketeer negligently. “At all events, you would not be able to burn the gardens, and that is the best part about the place.”

  “And yet,” resumed Fouquet thoughtfully, “what was I saying? Great Heavens! burn Vaux! destroy my palace! But Vaux is not mine; this wealth, these wonderful creations are, it is true, the property, as far as sense of enjoyment goes, of the man who has paid for them; but as far as duration is concerned, they belong to those who created them. Vaux belongs to Lebrun, to Lenôtre, to Pélisson, to Levan, to La Fontaine, to Molière; Vaux belongs to posterity, in fact. You see, Monsieur d’Artagnan, that my very house ceases to be my own.”

  “That is all well and good,” said d‘Artagnan; “that idea is agreeable enough, and I recognise M. Fouquet himself in it. That idea, indeed, makes me forget that poor fellow Broussel altogether; and I now fail to recognise in you the whining complaints of that old Frondeur. If you are ruined, monsieur, look at the affair manfully, for you, too, mordioux! belong to posterity, and have no right to lessen yourself in any way.
Stay a moment; look at me—I, who seem to exercise in a degree a kind of superiority over you, because I arrest you; fate, which distributes their different parts to the comedians of this world, accorded to me a less agreeable and less advantageous part to fill than yours has been; I am one of those who think that the part which Kings and powerful nobles are called upon to act are infinitely of more worth than the parts of beggars or lackeys. It is far better on the stage—on the stage I mean, of another theatre than the theatre of this world—it is far better to wear a fine coat and to talk fine language, than to walk the boards shod with a pair of old shoes, or to get one’s backbone gently caressed by a sound thrashing with a stick. In one word, you have been a prodigal with money, you have ordered and been obeyed, have been steeped to the lips in enjoyment; while I have dragged my tether after me, have been commanded and have obeyed, and have drudged my life away. Well! although I may seem of such trifling importance beside you, monseigneur, I do declare to you that the recollection of what I have done serves me as a spur, and prevents me from bowing my old head too soon. I shall remain unto the very end, a good trooper; and when my turn comes, I shall fall perfectly straight, all in a heap, still alive, after having selected my place beforehand. Do as I do, Monsieur Fouquet; you will not find yourself the worse for it; that happens only once in a lifetime to men like yourself, and the chief thing is, to do it well when the chance presents itself. There is a Latin proverb,—the words have escaped me, but I remember the sense of it very well, for I have thought over it more than once, which says, ‘The end crowns the work!’ ”

  Fouquet rose from his seat, passed his arm round d’Artagnan’s neck, and clasped him in a close embrace, whilst with the other hand he pressed his hand. “An excellent homily,” he said, after a moment’s pause.

  “A soldier’s, monseigneur.”

  “You have a regard for me, in telling me all that.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Fouquet resumed his pensive attitude once more, and then a moment after he said, “Where can M. d’Herblay be? I dare not ask you to send for him?”

  “You would not ask me, because I would not do it, Monsieur Fouquet. People would learn it, and Aramis, who is not mixed up with the affair, might possibly be compromised and included in your disgrace.”

  “I will wait here till daylight,” said Fouquet.

  “Yes, that is best.”

  “What shall we do when daylight comes?”

  “I know nothing at all about it, monseigneur.”

  “Monsieur d’Artagnan, will you do me a favour?”

  “Most willingly.”

  “You guard me; I remain. You are acting in the full discharge of your duty, I suppose?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Very good, then; remain as close to me as my shadow, if you like; and I infinitely prefer such a shadow to any one else.”

  D’Artagnan bowed at this compliment.

  “But, forget that you are Monsieur d’Artagnan, captain of the musketeers; forget that I am Monsieur Fouquet, Surintendant of the Finances; and let us talk about my affairs.”

  “That is rather a delicate subject.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes; but, for your sake, Monsieur Fouquet, I will do what may almost be regarded as an impossibility.”

  “Thank you. What did the King say to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Ah! is that the way you talk?”

  “The deuce!”

  “What do you think of my situation?”

  “Nothing.”

  “However, unless you have some ill feeling against me—”

  “Your position is a difficult one.”

  “In what respect?”

  “Because you are under your own roof.”

  “However difficult it may be, yet I understand it very well.”

  “Do you suppose that, with any one else but yourself, I should have shown so much frankness?”

  “What! so much frankness, do you say? you, who refuse to tell me the slightest thing?”

  “At all events, then, so much ceremony and consideration.”

  “Ah! I have nothing to say in that respect.”

  “One moment, monseigneur; let me tell you how I should have behaved towards any one else but yourself. It might be that I happened to arrive at your door just as your guests or your friends had left you—or, if they had not yet gone, I should wait until they were leaving, and should then catch them one after the other, like rabbits; I should lock them up quietly enough; I should steal softly along the carpet of your corridor, and with one hand upon you, before you suspected the slightest thing about it, I should keep you safely until my master’s breakfast in the morning. In this way, I should just the same have avoided all publicity, all disturbance, all opposition; but there would also have been no warning for M. Fouquet, no consideration for his feelings, none of those delicate concessions which are shown by persons who are essentially courteous in their natures, whenever the decisive moment may arrive. Are you satisfied with that plan?”

  “It makes me shudder.”

  “I thought you would not like it. It would have been very disagreeable to have made your appearance to-morrow without any preparation, and to have asked you to deliver up your sword.”

  “Oh! monsieur, I should have died from sheer shame and anger.

  “Your gratitude is too eloquently expressed. I have not done enough to deserve it, I assure you.”

  “Most certainly, monsieur, you will never get me to believe that.”

  “Well, then, monseigneur, if you are satisfied with what I have done, and have somewhat recovered from the shock which I prepared you for as much as I possibly could, let us allow the few hours that remain to pass away undisturbed. You are harassed, and require to arrange your thoughts; I beg you, therefore, to go to sleep, or pretend to go to sleep, either on your bed, or in your bed. I shall sleep in this arm-chair; and when I fall asleep my rest is so sound that a cannon would not wake me.”

  Fouquet smiled. “I except, however,” continued the musketeer, “the case of a door being opened, whether a secret door, or any other; or the case of any one going out of or coming into the room. For anything like that, my ear is as quick and sensitive as possible. Any creaking noise makes me start. It arises, I suppose, from a natural antipathy to anything of the kind. Move about as much as you like; walk up and down in any part of the room; write, efface, destroy, burn—nothing like that will prevent me from going to sleep, or even prevent me from snoring; but do not touch either the key or the handle of the door! for I should start up in a moment, and that would shake my nerves terribly.”

  “Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Fouquet, “you are certainly the most witty and the most courteous man I ever met with; and you will leave me only one regret: that of having made your acquaintance so late.”

  D‘Artagnan drew a deep sigh, which seemed to say “Alas! you have perhaps made it too soon.” He then settled himself in his arm-chair, while Fouquet, half lying on his bed, and leaning on his arm, was meditating upon his adventure. In this way, both of them, leaving the candles burning, awaited the first dawn of day; and when Fouquet happened to sigh too loudly, d’Artagnan only snored the louder. Not a single visit, not even from Aramis, disturbed their quietude; not a sound, even, was heard throughout the vast palace. Outside, however, the guards of honour on duty, and the patrols of the musketeers, paced up and down; and the sound of their feet could be heard on the gravel walks. It seemed to act as an additional soporific for the sleepers; while the murmuring of the wind through the trees, and the unceasing music of the fountains, whose waters fell tumbling into the basins, still went on uninterruptedly, without being disturbed at the slight noises and matters of trifling moment which constitute the life and death of human nature.

  48

  The Morning

  IN OPPOSITION TO THE sad and terrible destiny of the King imprisoned in the Bastille, and tearing, in sheer despair, the bolts and bars of his dungeon, the rh
etoric of the chroniclers of old would not fail to present as a complete antithesis the picture of Philippe lying asleep beneath the royal canopy. We do not pretend to say that such rhetoric is always bad, and always scatters, in places it should not, the flowers with which it embellishes and enlivens history. But we shall, on the present occasion, carefully avoid polishing the antithesis in question, but shall proceed to draw another picture as carefully as possible, to serve as a companion to the one we have drawn in the last chapter. The young Prince descended from Aramis’s room, in the same way the King had descended from the apartment dedicated to Morpheus. The dome gradually and slowly sank down under Aramis’s pressure, and Philippe stood beside the royal bed, which had ascended again after having deposited its prisoner in the secret depths of the subterranean passage. Alone, in the presence of all the luxury which surrounded him; alone, in the presence of his power; alone, with the part he was about to be forced to act, Philippe for the first time felt his heart, and mind, and soul expand beneath the influence of a thousand varied emotions, which are the vital throbs of a king’s heart. But he could not help changing colour when he looked upon the empty bed, still tumbled by his brother’s body. This mute accomplice had returned, after having completed the work it had been destined to perform; it returned with the traces of the crime; it spoke to the guilty author of that crime with the frank and unreserved language which an accomplice never fears using towards his companion in guilt; for it spoke the truth. Philippe bent over the bed, and perceived a pocket-handkerchief lying on it, which was still damp from the cold sweat which had poured from Louis XIV’s face. This sweat-bestained handkerchief terrified Philippe as the blood of Abel had terrified Cain.