“That will be rather difficult, sire.”
“Not at all.”
“Pardon me, sire, I cannot stifle M. Fouquet, and if he asks for liberty to breathe, I cannot prevent him by closing both the windows and the blinds. He will throw out at the doors all the cries and notes possible.”
“The case is provided for, Monsieur d’Artagnan; a carriage with a trellis will obviate both the difficulties you point out.”
“A carriage with an iron trellis!” cried d’Artagnan; “but a carriage with an iron trellis is not made in half an hour, and Your Majesty commands me to go immediately to M. Fouquet’s lodgings.”
“The carriage in question is already made.”
“Ah! that is quite a different thing,” said the captain; “if the carriage is ready made, very well, then, we have only to set it in motion.”
“It is ready—and the horses harnessed.”
“Ah!”
“And the coachman, with the outriders, is waiting in the lower court of the castle.”
D’Artagnan bowed. “There only remains for me to ask Your Majesty whither I shall conduct M. Fouquet.”
“To the castle of Angers, at first.”
“Very well, sire.”
“Afterwards we will see.”
“Yes, sire.”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan, one last word: you have remarked that, for making this capture of M. Fouquet, I have not employed my guards, on which account M. de Gesvres will be furious.”
“Your Majesty does not employ your guards,” said the captain, a little humiliated, “because you mistrust M. de Gesvres, that is all.”
“That is to say, Monsieur, that I have more confidence in you.”
“I know that very well, sire! and it is of no use to make so much of it.”
“It is only for the sake of arriving at this, Monsieur, that if, from this moment, it should happen that by any chance whatever M. Fouquet should escape—such chances have been, Monsieur—”
“Oh! very often, sire; but for others, not for me.”
“And why not with you?”
“Because I, sire, have, for an instant, wished to save M. Fouquet.”
The king started. “Because,” continued the captain, “I had then a right to do so, having guessed Your Majesty’s plan, without you having spoken to me of it, and that I took an interest in M. Fouquet. Now, was I not at liberty to show my interest in this man?”
“In truth, Monsieur, you do not reassure me with regard to your services.”
“If I had saved him then, I should have been perfectly innocent; I will say more, I should have done well, for M. Fouquet is not a bad man. But he was not willing; his destiny prevailed; he let the hour of liberty slip by. So much the worse! Now I have orders, I will obey those orders, and M. Fouquet you may consider as a man arrested. He is at the castle of Angers, this very M. Fouquet.”
“Oh! you have not got him yet, captain.”
“That concerns me; everyone to his trade, sire; only, once more, reflect! Do you seriously give me orders to arrest M. Fouquet, sire?”
“Yes, a thousand times, yes!”
“In writing, sire, then.”
“Here is the order.”
D’Artagnan read it, bowed to the king, and left the room. From the height of the terrace he perceived Gourville, who went by with a joyous air towards the lodgings of M. Fouquet.
247
The White Horse and the Black Horse
“That is rather surprising,” said d’Artagnan; “Gourville running about the streets so gayly, when he is almost certain that M. Fouquet is in danger; when it is almost equally certain that it was Gourville who warned M. Fouquet just now by the note which was torn into a thousand pieces upon the terrace, and given to the winds by Monsieur le Surintendant. Gourville is rubbing his hands; that is because he has done something clever. Whence comes M. Gourville? Gourville is coming from the Rue aux Herbes. Whither does the Rue aux Herbes lead?” And d’Artagnan followed, along the tops of the houses of Nantes, dominated by the castle, the line traced by the streets, as he would have done upon a topographical plan; only, instead of the dead, flat paper, the living chart rose in relief with the cries, the movements, and the shadows of men and things. Beyond the enclosure of the city, the great verdant plains stretched out, bordering the Loire, and appeared to run towards the pink horizon, which was cut by the azure of the waters and the dark green of the marshes. Immediately outside the gates of Nantes two white roads were seen diverging like separate fingers of a gigantic hand. D’Artagnan, who had taken in all the panorama at a glance by crossing the terrace, was led by the line of the Rue aux Herbes to the mouth of one of those roads which took its rise under the gates of Nantes. One step more, and he was about to descend the stairs, take his trellised carriage, and go towards the lodgings of M. Fouquet. But chance decreed at the moment of plunging into the staircase that he was attracted by a moving point then gaining ground upon that road.
What is that?
said the musketeer to himself; a horse galloping—a runaway horse, no doubt. What a rate he is going at!
The moving point became detached from the road, and entered into the fields. A white horse
, continued the captain, who had just observed the color thrown luminously against the dark ground, and he is mounted; it must be some boy whose horse is thirsty and has run away with him.
These reflections, rapid as lightning, simultaneous with visual perception, d’Artagnan had already forgotten when he descended the first steps of the staircase. Some morsels of paper were spread over the stairs, and shone out white against the dirty stones. Eh! eh!
said the captain to himself, here are some of the fragments of the note torn by M. Fouquet. Poor man! he has given his secret to the wind; the wind will have no more to do with it, and brings it back to the king. Decidedly, Fouquet, you play with misfortune! the game is not a fair one—fortune is against you. The
