“We shall see, then, in a very short time.”
“Very well. However, permit me to tell you that, personally, I regret exceedingly that you are at present so short of money, because I myself was about to ask you for some.”
“For yourself?”
“For myself, or some of my people, for mine or for ours.”
“How much do you want?”
“Be easy on that score; a roundish sum, it is true, but not too exorbitant.”
“Tell me the amount.”
“Fifty thousand francs.”
“Oh! a mere nothing. Of course one has always fifty thousand francs. Why the deuce cannot that knave Colbert be as easily satisfied as you are—and I should give myself far less trouble than I do. When do you need this sum?”
“Tomorrow morning; but you wish to know its destination?”
“Nay, nay, chevalier, I need no explanation.”
“Tomorrow is the first of June.”
“Well?”
“One of our bonds becomes due.”
“I did not know we had any bonds.”
“Certainly, tomorrow we pay our last third instalment.”
“What third?”
“Of the one hundred and fifty thousand francs to Baisemeaux.”
“Baisemeaux? Who is he?”
“The governor of the Bastille.”
“Yes, I remember. On what grounds am I to pay one hundred and fifty thousand francs for that man?”
“On account of the appointment which he, or rather we, purchased from Louvière and Tremblay.”
“I have a very vague recollection of the matter.”
“That is likely enough, for you have so many affairs to attend to. However, I do not believe you have any affair in the world of greater importance than this one.”
“Tell me, then, why we purchased this appointment.”
“Why, in order to render him a service in the first place, and afterwards ourselves.”
“Ourselves? You are joking.”
“Monseigneur, the time may come when the governor of the Bastille may prove a very excellent acquaintance.”
“I have not the good fortune to understand you, d’Herblay.”
“Monseigneur, we had our own poets, our own engineer, our own architect, our own musicians, our own printer, and our own painters; we needed our own governor of the Bastille.”
“Do you think so?”
“Let us not deceive ourselves, Monseigneur; we are very much opposed to paying the Bastille a visit,” added the prelate, displaying, beneath his pale lips, teeth which were still the same beautiful teeth so much admired thirty years previously by Marie Michon.
“And you think it is not too much to pay one hundred and fifty thousand francs for that? I thought you generally put out money at better interest than that.”
“The day will come when you will admit your mistake.”
“My dear d’Herblay, the very day on which a man enters the Bastille, he is no longer protected by his past.”
“Yes, he is, if the bonds are perfectly regular; besides, that good fellow Baisemeaux has not a courtier’s heart. I am certain, my lord, that he will not remain ungrateful for that money, without taking into account, I repeat, that I retain the acknowledgements.”
“It is a strange affair! usury in a matter of benevolence.”
“Do not mix yourself up with it, Monseigneur; if there be usury, it is I who practice it, and both of us reap the advantage from it—that is all.”
“Some intrigue, d’Herblay?”
“I do not deny it.”
“And Baisemeaux an accomplice in it?”
“Why not?—there are worse accomplices than he. May I depend, then, upon the five thousand pistoles tomorrow?”
“Do you want them this evening?”
“It would be better, for I wish to start early; poor Baisemeaux will not be able to imagine what has become of me, and must be upon thorns.”
“You shall have the amount in an hour. Ah, d’Herblay, the interest of your one hundred and fifty thousand francs will never pay my four millions for me.”
“Why not, Monseigneur?”
“Good night, I have business to transact with my clerks before I retire.”
“A good night’s rest, Monseigneur.”
“D’Herblay, you wish things that are impossible.”
“Shall I have my fifty thousand francs this evening?”
“Yes.”
“Go to sleep, then, in perfect safety—it is I who tell you to do so.”
Notwithstanding this assurance, and the tone in which it was given, Fouquet left the room shaking his head, and heaving a sigh.
98
M. Baisemeaux de Montlezun’s Accounts
The clock of St. Paul was striking seven as Aramis, on horseback, dressed as a simple citizen, that is to say, in colored suit, with no distinctive mark about him, except a kind of hunting-knife by his side, passed before the Rue du Petit-Muse, and stopped opposite the Rue des Tournelles, at the gate of the Bastille. Two sentinels were on duty at the gate; they made no difficulty about admitting Aramis, who entered without dismounting, and they pointed out the way he was to go by a long passage with buildings on both sides. This passage led to the drawbridge, or, in other words, to the real entrance. The drawbridge was down, and the duty of the day was about being entered upon. The sentinel at the outer guardhouse stopped Aramis’s further progress, asking him, in a rough tone of voice, what had brought him there. Aramis explained, with his usual politeness, that a wish to speak to M. Baisemeaux de Montlezun had occasioned his visit. The first sentinel then summoned a second sentinel, stationed within an inner lodge, who showed his face at the grating, and inspected the new arrival most attentively. Aramis reiterated the expression of his wish to see the governor; whereupon the sentinel called to an officer of lower grade, who was walking about in a tolerably spacious courtyard and who, in turn, on being informed of his object, ran to seek one of the officers of the governor’s staff. The latter, after having listened to Aramis’s request, begged him to wait a moment, then went away a short distance, but returned to ask his name. “I cannot tell it you, Monsieur,” said Aramis; “I need only mention that I have matters of such importance to communicate to the governor, that I can only rely beforehand upon one thing, that M. de Baisemeaux will be delighted
