D‘Artagnan gave his horse good breathing-time. He observed that the Surintendant had relaxed into a trot, which was to say, he likewise was indulging his horse. But both of them were too much pressed for time to allow them to continue long at that pace. The white horse sprang off like an arrow the moment his feet touched firm ground. D’Artagnan dropped his hand, and his black horse broke into a gallop. Both followed the same route; the quadruple echoes of the course were confounded. Fouquet had not yet perceived d‘Artagnan. But on issuing from the slope, a single echo struck the air, it was that of the steps of d’Artagnan’s horse, which rolled along like thunder. Fouquet turned round, and saw behind him, within a hundred paces, his enemy bent over the neck of his horse. There could be no doubt—the shining baldrick, the red cassock—it was a musketeer. Fouquet slackened his hand likewise, and the white horse placed twenty feet more between his adversary and himself.
“Oh, but,” thought d‘Artagnan, becoming very anxious, “that is not a common horse M. Fouquet is upon—let us see!” And he attentively examined with his infallible eye the shape and capabilities of the courser. Round, full quarters—a thin, long tail,—large hocks—thin legs, dry as bars of steel—hoofs hard as marble. He spurred his own, but the distance between the two remained the same. D’Artagnan listened attentively; not a breath of the horse reached him, and yet he seemed to cut the air. The black horse, on the contrary, began to blow like a blacksmith’s bellows.
“I must overtake him, if I kill my horse,” thought the musketeer; and he began to saw the mouth of the poor animal, whilst he buried the rowels of his merciless spurs in his sides. The maddened horse gained twenty toises,al and came up within pistol-shot of Fouquet.
“Courage!” said the musketeer to himself, “courage! the white horse will perhaps grow weaker, and if the horse does not fall, the master must fall at last.” But horse and rider remained upright together, and gaining ground by degrees, D’Artagnan uttered a wild cry, which made Fouquet turn round, and added speed to the white horse.
“A famous horse! a mad rider!” growled the captain. “Hola! mordioux! Monsieur Fouquet! stop! in the King’s name!” Fouquet made no reply.
“Do you hear me?” shouted d’Artagnan, whose horse had just stumbled.
“Pardieu!” replied Fouquet laconically; and rode on faster.
D‘Artagnan was nearly mad; the blood rushed boiling to his temples and his eyes. “In the King’s name!” cried he again; “stop, or I will bring you down with a pistol-shot!”
“Do!” replied Fouquet, without relaxing his speed.
D’Artagnan seized a pistol and cocked it, hoping that the noise of the spring would stop his enemy. “You have pistols likewise,” said he; “turn, and defend yourself.”
Fouquet did turn round at the noise, and looking d’Artagnan full in the face, opened with his right hand the part of his dress which concealed his body, but he did not even touch his holsters. There were not more than twenty paces between the two.
“Mordioux!” said d’Artagnan, “I will not assassinate you; if you will not fire upon me, surrender! what is a prison?”
“I would rather die!” replied Fouquet; “I shall suffer less.”
D’Artagnan, drunk with despair, hurled his pistol to the ground. “I will take you alive!” said he; and by a prodigy of skill of which this incomparable horseman alone was capable, he threw his horse forward to within ten paces of the white horse; already his hand was stretched out to seize his prey.
“Kill me! kill me!” cried Fouquet; “it is more humane!”
“No! alive—alive!” murmured the captain.
At this moment his horse made a false step for the second time, and Fouquet’s again took the lead. It was an unheard of spectacle, this race between two horses which were only kept alive by the will of their riders. It might be said that d‘Artagnan rode carrying his horse along between his knees. To the furious gallop had succeeded the fast trot, and that had sunk to what might be scarcely called a trot at all. And the chase appeared equally warm in the two fatigued men. D’Artagnan, quite in despair, seized his second pistol, and cocked it.
“At your horse! not at you!” cried he to Fouquet. And he fired. The animal was hit in the quarters—he made a furious bound, and plunged forward. At that moment d’Artagnan’s horse fell dead.
“I am dishonoured!” thought the musketeer; “I am a miserable wretch! for pity’s sake, M. Fouquet, throw me one of your pistols that I may blow out my brains!” But Fouquet rode on.
“For mercy’s sake! for mercy’s sake!” cried d’Artagnan; “that which you will not do at this moment, I myself will do within an hour; but here, upon this road, I should die bravely; I should die esteemed; do me that service, M. Fouquet!”
M. Fouquet made no reply, but continued to trot on. D‘Artagnan began to run after his enemy. Successively he threw off his hat, his coat, which embarrassed him, and then the sheath of his sword, which got between his legs as he was running. The sword in his hand even became too heavy, and he threw it after the sheath. The white horse began to rattle in his throat; d’Artagnan gained upon him. From a trot the exhausted animal sunk to a staggering walk—the foam from his mouth was mixed with blood. D’Artagnan made a desperate effort, sprang towards Fouquet, and seized him by the leg, saying in a broken, breathless voice, “I arrest you in the King’s name! blow my brains out if you like—we have both done our duty.”
Fouquet hurled far from him, into the river, the two pistols which d’Artagnan might have seized and, dismounting from his horse—“I am your prisoner, monsieur,” said he; “will you take my arm, for I see you are ready to faint?”
“Thanks!” murmured d‘Artagnan, who, in fact, felt the earth moving from under his feet, and the sky melting away over his head; and he rolled upon the sand without breath or strength. Fouquet hastened to the brink of the river, dipped some water in his hat, with which he bathed the temples of the musketeer, and introduced a few drops between his lips. D’Artagnan raised himself up, looking round with a wandering eye. He saw Fouquet on his knees, with his wet hat in his hand, smiling upon him with ineffable sweetness. “You are not gone then?” cried he. “Oh, monsieur! the true king in loyalty, in heart, in soul, is not Louis of the Louvre, or Philippe of Sainte-Marguerite; it is you, the proscribed, the condemned!”
“I, who this day am ruined by a single error, M. d’Artagnan.”
“What, in the name of Heaven! is that?”
“I should have had you for a friend! But how shall we return to Nantes? We are a great way from it.”
“That is true,” said d’Artagnan, gloomy and sad.
“The white horse will recover, perhaps; he is a good horse! Mount, Monsieur d’Artagnan; I will walk till you have rested a little.”
“Poor beast! and wounded too!” said the musketeer.
“He will go, I tell you; I know him; but we can do better still, let us both get up, and ride slowly.”
“We can try,” said the captain. But they had scarcely charged the animal with his double load, than he began to stagger, then, with a great effort, walked a few minutes, then staggered again, and sank down dead by the side of the black horse which he had just managed to come up to.
“We will go on foot—destiny wills it so—the walk will be pleasant,” said Fouquet, passing his arm through that of d’Artagnan.
“Mordioux!” cried the latter, with a fixed eye, a contracted brow, and a swelling heart—“A disgraceful day!”
They walked slowly the four leagues that separated them from the little wood behind which waited the carriage with the escort. When Fouquet perceived that sinister machine, he said to d‘Artagnan, who cast down his eyes as ashamed of Louis XIV. “There is an idea which is not that of a brave man, Captain d’Artagnan; it is not yours. What are these gratings for?” said he.
“To prevent your throwing letters out.”
“Ingenious! ”
“But you can speak if you cannot write,” said d’Artagnan.
“Can I speak to you?”
“Why—certainly, if you wish to do so.”
Fouquet reflected for a moment, then looking the captain full in the face, “One single word,” said he; “will you remember it?”
“I will not forget it.”
“Will you speak it to whom I wish?”
“I will.”
“Saint-Mandé,” articulated Fouquet, in a low voice.
“Well! and for whom?”
“For Madame de Bellière or Pélisson.”
“It shall be done.”
The carriage passed through Nantes, and took the route of Angers.
69
In Which the Squirrel Falls—In Which the Adder Flies
IT WAS TWO O’CLOCK in the afternoon. The King, full of impatience, went to his cabinet on the terrace, and kept opening the door of the corridor, to see what his secretaries were doing.
M. Colbert, seated in the same place M. Saint-Aignan had so long occupied in the morning, was chatting, in a low voice, with M. de Brienne. The King opened the door suddenly, and addressing them, “What do you say?” asked he.
“We were speaking of the first sitting of the States,” said M. de Brienne, rising.
“Very well,” replied the King, and returned to his room.
Five minutes after, the summons of the bell recalled Rose, whose hour it was.
“Have you finished your copies?” asked the King.
“Not yet, sire.”
“See, then, if M. d’Artagnan has returned.”
“Not yet, sire.”
“It is very strange!” murmured the King. “Call M. Colbert.”
Colbert entered; he had been expecting this moment all the morning.
“Monsieur Colbert,” said the King, very sharply; “it must be ascertained what has become of M. d’Artagnan.”
Colbert, in his calm voice, replied, “Where would your Majesty desire him to be sought for?”
“Eh! monsieur! do you not know to what place I have sent him?” replied Louis acrimoniously.
“Your Majesty has not told me.”
“Monsieur, there are things that are to be guessed; and you, above all others, do guess them.”
“I might have been able to imagine, sire; but I do not presume to be positive.”
Colbert had not finished these words when a much rougher voice than that of the King interrupted the interesting conversation thus begun between the monarch and his clerk.
“D’Artagnan!” cried the King, with evident joy.
D’Artagnan, pale and in evidently bad humour, cried to the King, as he entered, “Sire, is it your Majesty who has given orders to my musketeers?”
“What orders?” said the King.
“About M. Fouquet’s house?”
“None!” replied Louis.
“Ah! ah!” said d’Artagnan, biting his moustache; “I was not mistaken, then; it was monsieur, here;” and he pointed to Colbert.
“What orders? Let me know,” said the King.
“Orders to turn a house inside out, to beat M. Fouquet’s servants, to force the drawers, to give over a peaceful house to pillage ! Mordioux! these are savage orders!”
“Monsieur!” said Colbert, becoming pale.
“Monsieur!” interrupted d’Artagnan, “the King alone, understand—the King alone has a right to command my musketeers; but, as to you, I forbid you to do it, and I tell you so before His Majesty; gentlemen who wear swords are not fellows with pens behind their ears.”
“D‘Artagnan! d’Artagnan!” murmured the King.
“It is humiliating,” continued the musketeer; “my soldiers are disgraced. I do not command a pack of pillagers, thank you, nor clerks of the intendance, mordioux!”
“Well! but what is all this about?” said the King, with authority.
“About this, sire; monsieur—monsieur, who could not guess your Majesty’s orders, and consequently could not know I was gone to arrest M. Fouquet; monsieur, who has caused the iron cage to be constructed for his patron of yesterday—has sent M. de Roncherat to the lodgings of M. Fouquet, and, under pretence of taking away the Surintendant’s papers, they have taken away the furniture. My musketeers have been placed round the house all the morning; such were my orders. Why did any one presume to order them to enter? Why, by forcing them to assist in this pillage, have they been made accomplices in it? Mordioux! we serve the King, we do, but we do not serve M. Colbert!”
“M. d’Artagnan,” said the King sternly, “take care; it is not in my presence that such explanations, and made in this tone, should take place.”
“I have acted for the good of the King,” said Colbert, in a faltering voice; “it is hard to be so treated by one of your Majesty’s officers, and that without vengeance, on account of the respect I owe the King.”
“The respect you owe the King!” cried d’Artagnan, whose eyes flashed fire, “consists, in the first place, in making his authority respected, and making his person beloved. Every agent of a power without control represents that power, and when people curse the hand which strikes them, it is to the royal hand that God makes the reproach, do you hear? Must a soldier, hardened by forty years of wounds and blood, give you this lesson, monsieur? Must mercy be on my side, and ferocity on yours? You have caused the innocent to be arrested, bound, and imprisoned!”
“The accomplices, perhaps, of M. Fouquet,” said Colbert.
“Who told you that M. Fouquet had accomplices, or even that he was guilty? The King alone knows that, his justice is not blind! When he shall say, ‘Arrest and imprison’ such and such people, then he shall be obeyed. Do not talk to me then any more of the respect you owe the King, and be careful of your words, that they may not chance to convey any menace; for the King will not allow those to be threatened who do him service by others who do him disservice; and if in case I should have, which God forbid! a master so ungrateful, I would make myself respected.”
Thus saying, d‘Artagnan took his station haughtily in the King’s cabinet, his eyes flashing, his hand on his sword, his lips trembling, affecting much more anger than he really felt. Colbert, humiliated and devoured with rage, bowed to the King as if to ask his permission to leave the room. The King, crossed in his pride and in his curiosity, knew not which part to take. D’Artagnan saw him hesitate. To remain longer would have been an error; it was necessary to obtain a triumph over Colbert, and the only means was to touch the King so near and so strongly to the quick, that His Majesty would have no other means of extricating himself but choosing between the two antagonists. D‘Artagnan then bowed as Colbert had done; but the King, who, in preference to everything else, was anxious to have all the exact details of the arrest of the Surintendant of the Finances from him who had made him tremble for a moment—the King, perceiving that the ill humour of d’Artagnan would put off for half-an-hour at least the details he was burning to be acquainted with—Louis, we say, forgot Colbert, who had nothing new to tell him, and recalled his captain of the musketeers.
“In the first place,” said he, “let me see the result of your commission, monsieur; you may repose afterwards.”
D‘Artagnan, who was just passing through the door, stopped at the voice of the King, retraced his steps, and Colbert was forced to leave the closet. His countenance assumed almost a purple hue, his black and threatening eyes shone with a dark fire beneath their thick brows; he stepped out, bowed before the King, half drew himself up in passing d’Artagnan, and went away with death in his heart. D’Artagnan, on being left alone with the King, softened immediately, and composing his countenance: “Sire,” said he, “you are a young king. It is by the dawn that people judge whether the day will be fine or dull. How, sire, will the people, whom the hand of God has placed under your law, augur of your reign, if, between them and you, you allow angry and violent ministers to act? But let us speak of me, sire, let us leave a discussion that may appear idle, and perhaps inconvenient to you. Let us speak of me. I have arrested M. Fouquet.”<
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“You took plenty of time about it,” said the King sharply.
D’Artagnan looked at the King. “I perceive that I have expressed myself badly. I announced to your Majesty that I had arrested Monsieur Fouquet.”
“You did; and what then?”
“Well! I ought to have told your Majesty that M. Fouquet had arrested me; that would have been more just. I re-establish the truth, then; I have been arrested by M. Fouquet.”
It was now the turn of Louis XIV to be surprised. His Majesty was astonished in his turn. D’Artagnan, with his quick glance, appreciated what was passing in the heart of his master. He did not allow him time to put any questions. He related, with all that poetry, that picturesqueness, which perhaps he alone possessed at that period, the evasion of Fouquet, the pursuit, the furious race, and, lastly, the inimitable generosity of the Surintendant, who might have fled ten times over, who might have killed the adversary attached to the pursuit of him, and who had preferred imprisonment, and perhaps worse, to the humiliation of him who wished to ravish his liberty from him. In proportion as the tale advanced, the King became agitated, devouring the narrator’s words, and knocking his finger nails against each other.
“It results from this, then, sire, in my eyes at least, that the man who conducts himself thus is a gallant man, and cannot be an enemy to the King. That is my opinion, and I repeat it to your Majesty. I know what the King will say to me, and I bow to it: reasons of state—so be it! That in my eyes is very respectable. But I am a soldier, I have received my orders, my orders are executed—very unwillingly on my part it is true, but they are executed. I say no more.”
Man in the Iron Mask (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 63