“In what respect?” said the king, graciously.
“For having committed a serious fault without perceiving it.”
“A fault! You! Ah! Monsieur Fouquet, I shall be unable to do otherwise than forgive you. In what way or against whom have you been found wanting?”
“Against every sense of propriety, sire. I forgot to inform Your Majesty of a circumstance that has lately occurred of some little importance.”
“What is it?”
Colbert trembled; he fancied that he was about to frame a denunciation against him. His conduct had been unmasked. A single syllable from Fouquet, a single proof formally advanced, and before the youthful loyalty of feeling which guided Louis XIV, Colbert’s favor would disappear at once; the latter trembled, therefore, lest so daring a blow might overthrow his whole scaffold; in point of fact, the opportunity was so admirably suited to be taken advantage of, that a skillful, practiced player like Aramis would not have let it slip. “Sire,” said Fouquet, with an easy, unconcerned air, “since you have had the kindness to forgive me, I am perfectly indifferent about my confession; this morning I sold one of the official appointments I hold.”
“One of your appointments,” said the king, “which?”
Colbert turned perfectly livid. “That which conferred upon me, sire, a grand gown, and a stern air of gravity; the appointment of procureur-général.”
The king involuntarily uttered a loud exclamation and looked at Colbert, who, with his face bedewed with perspiration, felt almost on the point of fainting. “To whom have you sold this department, Monsieur Fouquet?” inquired the king.
Colbert was obliged to lean against a column of the fireplace. “To a councilor belonging to the parliament, sire, whose name is Vanel.”
“Vanel?”
“Yes, sire, a particular friend of the intendant Colbert,” added Fouquet; letting every word fall from his lips with the most inimitable nonchalance, and with an admirably assumed expression of forgetfulness and ignorance. And having finished, and having overwhelmed Colbert beneath the weight of this superiority, the superintendent again saluted the king and quitted the room, partially revenged by the stupefaction of the king and the humiliation of the favorite.
“Is it really possible,” said the king, as soon as Fouquet had disappeared, “that he has sold that office?”
“Yes, sire,” said Colbert, meaningly.
“He must be mad,” the king added.
Colbert this time did not reply; he had penetrated the king’s thought, a thought which amply revenged him for the humiliation he had just been made to suffer; his hatred was augmented by a feeling of bitter jealousy of Fouquet; and a threat of disgrace was now added to the plan he had arranged for his ruin. Colbert felt perfectly assured that for the future, between Louis XIV and himself, their hostile feelings and ideas would meet with no obstacles, and that at the first fault committed by Fouquet, which could be laid hold of as a pretext, the chastisement so long impending would be precipitated. Fouquet had thrown aside his weapons of defense, and hate and jealousy had picked them up. Colbert was invited by the king to the fête at Vaux; he bowed like a man confident in himself, and accepted the invitation with the air of one who almost confers a favor. The king was about writing down Saint-Aignan’s name on his list of royal commands, when the usher announced the Comte de Saint-Aignan. As soon as the royal “Mercury” entered, Colbert discreetly withdrew.
197
Rivals in Love
Saint-Aignan had quitted Louis XIV hardly a couple of hours before; but in the first effervescence of his affection, whenever Louis XIV was out of sight of La Vallière, he was obliged to talk about her. Besides, the only person with whom he could speak about her at his ease was Saint-Aignan, and thus Saint-Aignan had become an indispensable.
“Ah, is that you, comte?” he exclaimed, as soon as he perceived him, doubly delighted, not only to see him again, but also to get rid of Colbert, whose scowling face always put him out of humor. “So much the better, I am very glad to see you. You will make one of the traveling party, I suppose?”
“Of what traveling part are you speaking, sire?” inquired Saint-Aignan.
“The one we are making up to go to the fête the superintendent is about to give at Vaux. Ah! Saint-Aignan, you will, at last, see a fête, a royal fête, by the side of which all our amusements at Fontainebleau are petty, contemptible affairs.”
“At Vaux! the superintendent going to give a fête in Your Majesty’s honor? Nothing more than that!”
“ ‘Nothing more than that,’ do you say? It is very diverting to find you treating it with so much disdain. Are you who express such an indifference on the subject, aware, that as soon as it is known that M. Fouquet is going to receive me at Vaux next Sunday week, people will be striving their very utmost to get invited to the fête? I repeat, Saint-Aignan, you shall be one of the invited guests.”
“Very well, sire; unless I shall, in the meantime, have undertaken a longer and a less agreeable journey.”
“What journey do you allude to?”
“The one across the Styx, sire.”
“Bah!” said Louis XIV, laughing.
“No, seriously, sire,” replied Saint-Aignan, “I am invited; and in such a way, in truth, that I hardly know what to say, or how to act, in order to refuse the invitation.”
“I do not understand you. I know that you are in a poetical vein; but try not to sink from Apollo to Phoebus.”
“Very well; if Your Majesty will deign to listen to me, I will not keep your mind on the rack a moment longer.”
“Speak.”
“Your Majesty knows the Baron du Vallon?”
“Yes, indeed; a good servant to my father, the late king, and an admirable companion at table; for, I think, you are referring to the gentleman who dined with us at Fontainebleau?”
“Precisely so; but you have
