For a blunderer, the souvenir he had evoked was a rather skillfully contrived piece of baseness; for by the remembrance of his own fête he, for the first time, perceived its inferiority compared with that of Fouquet. Colbert received back again at Vaux what Fouquet had given him at Fontainebleau, and, as a good financier, returned it with the best possible interest. Having once disposed the king’s mind in this artful way, Colbert had nothing of much importance to detain him. He felt that such was the case, for the king, too, had again sunk into a dull and gloomy state. Colbert awaited the first words from the king’s lips with as much impatience as Philippe and Aramis did from their place of observation.
“Are you aware what is the usual and natural consequence of all this, Monsieur Colbert?” said the king, after a few moments’ reflection.
“No, sire, I do not know.”
“Well, then, the fact of the appropriation of the thirteen millions, if it can be proved—”
“But it is so already.”
“I mean if it were to be declared and certified, M. Colbert.”
“I think it will be tomorrow, if Your Majesty—”
“Were we not under M. Fouquet’s roof, you were going to say, perhaps,” replied the king, with something of nobility in his demeanor.
“The king is in his own palace wherever he may be—especially in houses which the royal money has constructed.”
“I think,” said Philippe in a low tone to Aramis, “that the architect who planned this dome ought, anticipating the use it could be put to at a future opportunity, so to have contrived that it might be made to fall upon the heads of scoundrels such as M. Colbert.”
“I think so too,” replied Aramis; “but M. Colbert is so very near the king at this moment.”
“That is true, and that would open the succession.”
“Of which your younger brother would reap all the advantage, Monseigneur. But stay, let us keep quiet, and go on listening.”
“We shall not have long to listen,” said the young prince.
“Why not, Monseigneur?”
“Because, if I were king, I should make no further reply.”
“And what would you do?”
“I should wait until tomorrow morning to give myself time for reflection.”
Louis XIV at last raised his eyes, and finding Colbert attentively waiting for his next remarks, said, hastily, changing the conversation, “M. Colbert, I perceive it is getting very late, and I shall now retire to bed. By tomorrow morning I shall have made up my mind.”
“Very good, sire,” returned Colbert, greatly incensed, although he restrained himself in the presence of the king.
The king made a gesture of adieu, and Colbert withdrew with a respectful bow. “My attendants!” cried the king; and, as they entered the apartment, Philippe was about to quit his post of observation.
“A moment longer,” said Aramis to him, with his accustomed gentleness of manner; “what has just now taken place is only a detail, and tomorrow we shall have no occasion to think anything more about it; but the ceremony of the king’s retiring to rest, the etiquette observed in addressing the king, that indeed is of the greatest importance. Learn, sire, and study well how you ought to go to bed of a night. Look! look!”
222
Colbert
History will tell us, or rather history has told us, of the various events of the following day, of the splendid fêtes given by the surintendant to his sovereign. Nothing but amusement and delight was allowed to prevail throughout the whole of the following day; there was a promenade, a banquet, a comedy to be acted, and a comedy, too, in which, to his great amazement, Porthos recognized “M. Coquelin de Volière” as one of the actors, in the piece called Les Fâcheux. Full of preoccupation, however, from the scene of the previous evening, and hardly recovered from the effects of the poison which Colbert had then administered to him, the king, during the whole of the day, so brilliant in its effects, so full of unexpected and startling novelties, in which all the wonders of the “Arabian Night’s Entertainments” seemed to be reproduced for his especial amusement—the king, we say, showed himself cold, reserved, and taciturn. Nothing could smooth the frowns upon his face; everyone who observed him noticed that a deep feeling of resentment, of remote origin, increased by slow degrees, as the source becomes a river, thanks to the thousand threads of water that increase its body, was keenly alive in the depths of the king’s heart. Towards the middle of the day only did he begin to resume a little serenity of manner, and by that time he had, in all probability, made up his mind. Aramis, who followed him step by step in his thoughts, as in his walk, concluded that the event he was expecting would not be long before it was announced. This time Colbert seemed to walk in concert with the bishop of Vannes, and had he received for every annoyance which he inflicted on the king a word of direction from Aramis, he could not have done better. During the whole of the day the king, who, in all probability, wished to free himself from some of the thoughts which disturbed his mind, seemed to seek La Vallière’s society as actively as he seemed to show his anxiety to flee that of M. Colbert or M. Fouquet. The evening came. The king had expressed a wish not to walk in the park until after cards in the evening. In the interval between supper and the promenade, cards and dice were introduced. The king won a thousand pistoles, and, having won them, put them in his pocket, and then rose, saying, “And now, gentlemen, to the park.” He found the ladies of the court were already there. The king, we have before observed, had won a thousand pistoles, and had put them
