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

by Alexandre Dumas

  And this us, a strange word in the mouth of Colbert, made the Duchesse thoughtful for a moment. She caught herself reckoning inwardly with this man.—Colbert had regained his superiority in the conversation, and he was desirous of keeping it.

  “You ask me, madame,” he said, “to have this M. d’Herblay arrested?”

  “I!—I asked you nothing of the kind!”

  “I thought you did, madame. But, as I have been mistaken, we will leave him alone; the King has said nothing about him.”

  The Duchesse bit her nails.

  “Besides,” continued Colbert, “what a poor capture would this bishop be! A bishop game for a King! Oh! no, no; I will not even take the least notice of him.”

  The hatred of the Duchesse now discovered itself.

  “Game for a woman!” said she, “and the Queen is a woman. If she wishes to have M. d‘Herblay arrested, she has her reasons for it. Besides, is not M. d’Herblay the friend of him who is destined to fall?”

  “Oh! never mind that,” said Colbert. “This man shall be spared, if he is not the enemy of the King. Is that displeasing to you?”

  “I say nothing.”

  “Yes—you wish to see him in prison, in the Bastille, for instance.”

  “I believe a secret better concealed behind the walls of the Bastille than behind those of Belle-Isle.”

  “I will speak to the King about it; he will clear up the point.”

  “And whilst waiting for that enlightenment, Monsieur the Bishop of Vannes will have escaped. I would do so.”

  “Escaped! he! and whither would he escape? Europe is ours, in will if not in fact.”

  “He will always find an asylum, monsieur. It is evident you know nothing of the man you have to do with. You do not know d’Herblay; you did not know Aramis. He was one of those four musketeers who, under the late King, made Cardinal de Richelieu tremble, and who, during the regency, gave so much trouble to Monseigneur Mazarin.”

  “But, madame, what can he do, unless he has a kingdom to back him?”

  “He has one, monsieur.”

  “A kingdom, he! what, Monsieur d’Herblay?”

  “I repeat to you, monsieur, that if he wants a kingdom, he either has it, or will have it.”

  “Well, as you are so earnest that this rebel should not escape, madame, I promise you he shall not escape.”

  “Belle-Isle is fortified, M. Colbert, and fortified by him.”

  “If Belle-Isle were also defended by him, Belle-Isle is not impregnable ; and if Monsieur the Bishop of Vannes is shut up in Belle-Isle—well, madame, the place will be besieged, and he will be taken.”

  “You may be very certain, monsieur, that the zeal which you display for the interests of the Queen-Mother will affect her Majesty warmly, and that you will be magnificently rewarded for it; but what shall I tell her of your projects respecting this man?”

  “That when once taken, he shall be shut up in a fortress from which her secret shall never escape.”

  “Very well, Monsieur Colbert, and we may say that, dating from this instant, we have formed a solid alliance; that is, you and I, and that I am perfectly at your service.”

  “It is I, madame, who place myself at yours. This Chevalier d’Herblay is a kind of Spanish spy, is he not?”

  “More than that.”

  “A secret ambassador?”

  “Higher still.”

  “Stop—King Philip III of Spain is a bigot. He is, perhaps, the confessor of Philip III.”

  “You must go much higher than that.”

  “Mordieu!” cried Colbert, who forgot himself so far as to swear in the presence of this great lady, of this old friend of the Queen-Mother—of the Duchesse de Chevreuse, in short. “He must then be the general of the Jesuits.”

  “I believe you have guessed at last,” replied the Duchesse.

  “Ah! then, madame, this man will ruin us all if we do not ruin him; and we must make haste to do it, too.”

  “That was my opinion, monsieur, but I did not dare to give it to you.”

  “And it is fortunate for us that he has attacked the throne, and not us.”

  “But mark this well, M. Colbert. M. d’Herblay is never discouraged ; and, if he has missed one blow, he will be sure to make another; he will begin again. If he has allowed an opportunity to escape of making a king for himself, sooner or later he will make another, of whom, to a certainty, you will not be prime minister.”

  Colbert knitted his brow with a menacing expression.

  “I feel assured that a prison will settle this affair for us, madame, in a manner satisfactory for both.” The Duchesse smiled again.

  “Oh! if you knew,” said she, “how many times Aramis has got out of prison.”

  “Oh!” replied Colbert, “we will take care he shall not get out this time.”

  “But you have not attended to what I said to you just now. Do you remember that Aramis was one of the four invincibles whom Richelieu dreaded? And at that period the four musketeers were not in possession of that which they have now—money and experience.”

  Colbert bit his lips.

  “We will renounce the idea of the prison,” said he, in a lower tone; “we will find a retreat from which the invincible will not possibly escape.”

  “That is well spoken, our ally! replied the Duchesse. ”But it is getting late; had we not better return?”

  “The more willingly, madame, from having my preparations to make for setting out with the King.”

  “To Paris!” cried the Duchesse to the coachman.

  And the carriage returned towards the Faubourg St. Antoine, after the conclusion of the treaty which gave up to death the last friend of Fouquet, the last defender of Belle-Isle, the ancient friend of Marie Michon, the new enemy of the Duchesse.

  65

  The Two Lighters

  D’ARTAGNAN HAD SET OFF; Fouquet likewise was gone, and he with a rapidity which doubled the tender interest of his friends. The first moments of this journey, or better to say, of this flight, were troubled by the incessant fear of all the horses and all the carriages which could be perceived behind the fugitive. It was not natural, in fact, if Louis XIV was determined to seize his prey, that he should allow it to escape; the young lion was already accustomed to the chase, and he had bloodhounds sufficiently ardent to allow him to depend upon them. But insensibly all the fears were dispersed; the Surintendant, by hard travelling, placed such a distance between himself and his persecutors that no one of them could reasonably be expected to overtake him. As to his position, his friends had made it excellent for him. Was he not travelling to join the King at Nantes, and what did rapidity prove but his zeal to obey? He arrived, fatigued but reassured, at Orleans, where he found, thanks to the care of a courier who had preceded him, a handsome lighter of eight oars. These lighters, in the shape of gondolas, rather wide and rather heavy, containing a small, covered chamber in shape of a deck, and a chamber in the poop formed by a tent, then acted as passage-boats from Orleans to Nantes, by the Loire, and this passage, a long one in our days, appeared then more easy and convenient than the high road, with its post hacks or its bad, scarcely hung carriages. Fouquet went on board this lighter, which set out immediately. The rowers, knowing they had the honour of conveying the Surintendant of the Finances, pulled with all their strength, and that magic word, the finances, promised them a liberal gratification, of which they wished to prove themselves worthy. The lighter bounded over the tiny waves of the Loire. Magnificent weather, one of those sun risings that empurple landscapes, left the river all its limpid serenity. The current and the rowers carried Fouquet along as wings carry a bird, and he arrived before Beaugency without any accident having signaled the voyage. Fouquet hoped to be the first to arrive at Nantes; there he would see the notables and gain support among the principal members of the States; he would make himself necessary, a thing very easy for a man of his merit, and would delay the catastrophe, if he did not succeed in avoiding it entirely. “Besides
,” said Gourville to him, “at Nantes you will make out, or we will make out the intentions of your enemies; we will have horses always ready to convey you to the inextricable Poitou, a barque in which to gain the sea and, when once in the open sea, Belle-Isle is the inviolable port. You see, besides, that no one is watching you, no one is following you.” He had scarcely finished when they discovered at a distance, behind an elbow formed by the river, the masts of a large lighter, which was coming down. The rowers of Fouquet’s boat uttered a cry of surprise on seeing this galley.

  “What is the matter?” asked Fouquet.

  “The matter is, monseigneur,” replied the skipper of the barque, “that it is a truly remarkable thing—that lighter comes along like a hurricane.”

  Gourville started, and mounted on the deck, in order to see the better.

  Fouquet did not go up with him, but he said to Gourville with a restrained mistrust: “See what it is, dear friend.”

  The lighter had just passed the elbow. It came on so fast, that behind it might be seen to tremble, the white train of its wake illumined with the fires of day.

  “How they go,” repeated the skipper, “how they go! They must be well paid! I did not think,” he added, “that oars of wood could behave better than ours, but those yonder prove the contrary.”

  “Well, they may,” said one of the rowers, “they are twelve, and we are but eight.”

  “Twelve rowers!” replied Gourville, “twelve! impossible.”

  The number of eight rowers for a lighter had never been exceeded, even for the King. This honour had been paid to Monsieur le Surintendant, much more for the sake of haste than of respect.

  “What does that mean?” said Gourville, endeavouring to distinguish beneath the tent which was already apparent, travellers which the most piercing eye could not yet have succeeded in discovering.

  “They must be in a hurry, for it is not the King,” said the skipper.

  Fouquet shuddered.

  “By what do you know that it is not the King?” said Gourville.

  “In the first place, because there is no white flag with fleurs-de-lis, which the royal lighter always carries.”

  “And then,” said Fouquet, “because it is impossible it should be the King, Gourville, as the King was still in Paris yesterday.”

  Gourville replied to the Surintendant by a look which said: “You were there yourself yesterday.”

  “And by what do you make out they are in such haste?” added he, for the sake of gaining time.

  “By this, monsieur,” said the skipper; “these people must have set out a long while after us, and they have already nearly overtaken us.”

  “Bah!” said Gourville, “who told you that they do not come from Beaugency or from Moit, even?”

  “We have seen no lighter of that shape, except at Orleans. It comes from Orleans, monsieur, and makes great haste.”

  Fouquet and Gourville exchanged a glance. The skipper remarked their uneasiness and, to mislead him, Gourville immediately said:—

  “Some friend, who has laid a wager he would catch us; let us win the wager, and not allow him to come up with us.”

  The skipper opened his mouth to reply that that was impossible, when Fouquet said with much hauteur,—

  “If it is any one who wishes to overtake us, let him come.”

  “We can try, monseigneur,” said the skipper timidly, “Come, you fellows, put out your strength—row, row!”

  “No,” said Fouquet, “stop short, on the contrary.”

  “Monseigneur! what folly!” interrupted Gourville, stooping towards his ear.

  “Quite short!” repeated Fouquet. The eight oars stopped, and resisting the water, they created a retrograde motion in the lighter. It was stopped. The twelve rowers in the other did not, at first, perceive this manoeuvre, for they continued to urge on their boat so vigorously that it arrived quickly within musket-shot. Fouquet was short-sighted, Gourville was annoyed by the sun, which was full in his eyes; the skipper alone, with that habit and clearness which are acquired by a constant struggle with the elements, perceived distinctly the travellers in the neighbouring lighter.

  “I can see them!” cried he, “there are two.”

  “I can see nothing,” said Gourville.

  “You will not be long before you distinguish them: in twenty strokes of their oars they will be within twenty paces of us.”

  But what the skipper announced was not realised; the lighter imitated the movement commanded by Fouquet, and instead of coming to join its pretended friends, it stopped short in the middle of the river.

  “I cannot comprehend this,” said the skipper.

  “Nor I, neither,” said Gourville.

  “You who can see so plainly the people in that lighter,” resumed Fouquet, “try to describe them to us, skipper, before we are too far off.”

  “I thought I saw two,” replied the boatman, “I can only see one now, under the tent.”

  “What sort of man is he?”

  “He is a dark man, large shoulders, short necked.”

  A little cloud at that moment passed across the azure of the heavens, and darkened the sun. Gourville, who was still looking, with one hand over his eyes, became able to see what he sought, and all at once, jumping from the deck into the chamber where Fouquet awaited him: “Colbert!” said he, in a voice broken by emotion.

  “Colbert!” repeated Fouquet, “Oh! how strange! but no, it is impossible!”

  “I tell you I recognised him, and he, at the same time, so plainly recognised me, that he is just gone into the chamber on the poop. Perhaps the King has sent him to make us come back.”

  “In that case he would join us, instead of lying by. What is he doing there?”

  “He is watching us, without doubt.”

  “I do not like uncertainty,” said Fouquet; “let us go straight up to him.”

  “Oh! monseigneur, do not do that, the lighter is full of armed men.”

  “He would arrest me, then, Gourville? Why does he not come on?”

  “Monseigneur, it is not consistent with your dignity to go to meet your ruin.”

  “But to allow them to watch me like a malefactor!”

  “Nothing tells us that they are watching you, monseigneur; be patient! ”

  “What is to be done, then?”

  “Do not stop; you were only going so fast to appear to obey the King’s order with zeal. Redouble the speed. He who lives will see!”

  “That’s just. Come!” cried Fouquet; “since they remain stock-still yonder, let us go on, on our part.”

  The skipper gave the signal, and Fouquet’s rowers resumed their task with all the success that could be looked for from men who had rested. Scarcely had the lighter made a hundred fathoms, than the other, that with the twelve rowers, resumed its course equally. This position lasted all the day, without any increase or diminution of distance between the two vessels. Towards evening Fouquet wished to try the intentions of his persecutor. He ordered his rowers to pull towards the shore, as if to effect a landing. Colbert’s lighter imitated this manoeuvre, and steered towards the shore in a slanting direction. By the greatest chance, at the spot where Fouquet pretended to wish to land, a stableman from the château of Langeais, was following the flowery banks, leading three horses in halters. Without doubt the people of the twelve-oared lighter fancied that Fouquet was directing his course towards horses prepared for his flight, for four or five men, armed with muskets, jumped from the lighter on to the shore, and marched along the banks, as if to gain ground on the horses and horseman. Fouquet, satisfied of having forced the enemy to a demonstration, considered it evident, and put his boat in motion again. Colbert’s people returned likewise to theirs, and the course of the two vessels was resumed with fresh perseverance. Upon seeing this, Fouquet felt himself threatened closely, and in a prophetic voice—“Well, Gourville,” said he whisperingly, “what did I say at our last repast, at my house? Am I going, or not, to my ruin?”

>   “Oh! monseigneur!”

  “These two boats, which follow each other with so much emulation, as if we were disputing, M. Colbert and I, a prize for swiftness on the Loire, do they not aptly represent our two fortunes ; and do you not believe, Gourville, that one of the two will be wrecked at Nantes?”

  “At least,” objected Gourville, “there is still uncertainty; you are about to appear at the States; you are about to show what sort of man you are; your eloquence and your genius for business are the buckler and sword that will serve to defend you, if not to conquer with. The Bretons do not know you; and when they shall know you your cause is won! Oh! let M. Colbert look to it well, for his lighter is as much exposed as yours to being upset! Both go quickly, his faster than yours, it is true; we shall see which shall be wrecked first.”

  Fouquet, taking Gourville’s hand,—“My friend,” said he, “everything considered, remember the proverb, ‘First come, first served!’ Well! M. Colbert takes care not to pass me. He is a prudent man, that M. Colbert!”

  He was right; the two lighters held their course as far as Nantes, watching each other. When the Surintendant landed, Gourville hoped he should be able to seek refuge at once and have relays prepared. But, at the landing, the second lighter joined the first, and Colbert, approaching Fouquet, saluted him on the quay with marks of profoundest respect—marks so significant, so public, that the result was the bringing of the whole population upon La Fosse. Fouquet was completely self-possessed ; he felt that in his last moments of greatness he had obligations towards himself. He wished to fall from such a height that his fall should crush some one of his enemies. Colbert was there—so much the worse for Colbert. The Surintendant, therefore, coming up to him, replied with that arrogant winking of the eyes peculiar to him—“What! is that you, M. Colbert?”

  “To offer you my respects, monseigneur,” said the latter.

  “Were you in that lighter?”—pointing to the one with twelve oars.

  “Yes, monseigneur.”

  “Of twelve rowers?” said Fouquet; “what luxury, M. Colbert. For a moment I thought it was the Queen-Mother or the King.”