“So much the worse,- you know I am not rich.”
“No, you are not; but the order is. And if you had been the general-”
“You know I am not the general.”
“In that case you have a friend who must be very wealthy,- M. Fouquet.”
“M. Fouquet! He is more than half ruined, Madame.”
“So it is said, but I would not believe it.”
“Why, Duchess?”
“Because I have, or rather Laicques has, certain letters in his possession from Cardinal Mazarin, which establish the existence of very strange accounts.”
“What accounts?”
“Relative to various sums of money borrowed and disposed of. I do not fully remember; but the point is that the superintendent, according to these letters, which are signed by Mazarin, had taken thirty millions from the coffers of the State. The case is a very serious one.”
Aramis clinched his hands in anxiety and apprehension. “Is it possible,” he said, “that you have such letters, and have not communicated them to M. Fouquet?”
“Ah!” replied the duchess, “I keep such little matters as these in reserve. When the day of need comes, we will take them from the closet.”
“And that day has arrived?” said Aramis.
“Yes.”
“And you are going to show those letters to M. Fouquet?”
“I prefer instead to talk about them with you.”
“You must be in sad want of money, my poor friend, to think of such things as these,- you, too, who held M. de Mazarin’s prose effusions in such indifferent esteem.”
“The fact is, I am in want of money.”
“And then,” continued Aramis, in cold accents, “it must have been very distressing to you to be obliged to have recourse to such a means. It is cruel.”
“Oh, if I had wished to do harm instead of good,” said Madame de Chevreuse, “instead of asking the general of the order or M. Fouquet for the five hundred thousand livres I require-”
“Five hundred thousand livres!”
“Yes; no more. Do you think it much? I require at least as much as that to restore Dampierre.”
“Yes, Madame.”
“I say, therefore, that instead of asking for this amount I should have gone to see my old friend the Queen-Mother; the letters from her husband, the Signor Mazarini, would have served me as an introduction, and I should have begged this mere trifle of her, saying to her, ‘I wish, Madame, to have the honor of receiving your Majesty at Dampierre. Permit me to put Dampierre in a fit state for that purpose.'”
Aramis did not say a single word in reply. “Well,” she said, “what are you thinking about?”
“I am making certain additions,” said Aramis.
“And M. Fouquet makes subtractions. I, on the other hand, am trying the art of multiplication. What excellent calculators we are! How well we could understand one another!”
“Will you allow me to reflect?” said Aramis.
“No; to such an overture between persons like ourselves, ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ should be the reply, and that immediately.”
“It is a snare,” thought the bishop; “it is impossible that Anne of Austria would listen to such a woman as this.”
“Well!” said the duchess.
“Well, Madame, I should be very much astonished if M. Fouquet had five hundred thousand livres at his disposal at the present moment.”
“It is of no use speaking of it further, then,” said the duchess, “and Dampierre must get restored how it can.”
“Oh, you are not embarrassed to such an extent as that, I suppose?”
“No; I am never embarrassed.”
“And the Queen,” continued the bishop, “will certainly do for you what the superintendent is unable to do.”
“Oh, certainly! But tell me, do you not think it would be better that I should speak myself to M. Fouquet about these letters?”
“You will do whatever you please in that respect, Duchess. M. Fouquet either feels or does not feel himself to be guilty. If he really be so, I know that he is proud enough not to confess it; if he be not so, he will be exceedingly offended at your menace.”
“As usual, you reason like an angel,” said the duchess, rising.
“And so you are going to denounce M. Fouquet to the Queen,” said Aramis.