He rode on. M. Colbert got into his carriage, and this noble trio began a sufficiently slow pilgrimage towards the wood of Vincennes. Madame de Chevreuse set down Madame Vanel at her husband’s house; and left alone with M. Colbert, she chatted upon affairs while continuing her ride. She had an inexhaustible fund of conversation, had that dear duchess, and as she always talked for the ill of others, always with a view to her own good, her conversation amused her interlocutor, and did not fail to make a favorable impression.
She taught Colbert, who, poor man, was ignorant of it, how great a minister he was, and how Fouquet would soon become nothing. She promised to rally around him, when he should become superintendent, all the old nobility of the kingdom, and questioned him as to the degree of importance it would be proper to assign to La Valliere. She praised him; she blamed him; she bewildered him. She showed him the inside of so many secrets that for a moment Colbert feared he must have to do with the devil. She proved to him that she held in her hand the Colbert of to-day, as she had held the Fouquet of yesterday; and as he asked her, very simply, the reason of her hatred for the superintendent, “Why do you yourself hate him?” said she.
“Madame, in politics,” replied he, “the differences of system may bring about divisions between men. M. Fouquet always appeared to me to practise a system opposed to the true interests of the King.”
She interrupted him. “I will say no more to you about M. Fouquet. The journey the King is about to take to Nantes will give a good account of him. M. Fouquet, for me, is a man quite gone by,- and for you also.”
Colbert made no reply. “On his return from Nantes,” continued the duchess, “the King, who is only anxious for a pretext, will find that the States have not behaved well- that they have made too few sacrifices. The States will say that the imposts are too heavy, and that the superintendent has ruined them. The King will lay all the blame on M. Fouquet, and then-”
“And then?” said Colbert.
“Oh, he will be disgraced. Is not that your opinion?”
Colbert darted a glance at the duchess, which plainly said, “If M. Fouquet be only disgraced, you will not be the cause of it.”
“Your place, M. Colbert,” the duchess hastened to say, “should be very prominent. Do you perceive any one between the King and yourself after the fall of M. Fouquet?”
“I do not understand,” said he.
“You will understand. To what does your ambition aspire?”
“I have none.”
“It was useless then to overthrow the superintendent, M. Colbert. That is idle.”
“I had the honor to tell you, Madame-”
“Oh, yes, I know, the interest of the King; but if you please we will speak of your own.”
“Mine! that is to say, the affairs of his Majesty.”
“In short, are you, or are you not ruining M. Fouquet? Answer without evasion.”
“Madame, I ruin nobody.”
“I cannot then comprehend why you should purchase of me the letters of M. Mazarin concerning M. Fouquet. Neither can I conceive why you have laid those letters before the King.”
Colbert, half stupefied, looked at the duchess, and with an air of constraint, “Madame,” said he, “I can less easily conceive how you, who received the money, can reproach me on that head.”
“It is,” said the old duchess, “because we must choose what we can have when we can’t have what we choose.”
“You have hit it,” said Colbert, unhorsed by that plain speaking.
“You are not able, eh? Speak.”
“I am not able, I allow, to destroy certain influences near the King.”
“Which contend for M. Fouquet? What are they? Stop, let me help you.”
“Do, Madame.”
“La Valliere?”
“Oh! very little influence; no knowledge of affairs, and no resources. M. Fouquet has paid court to her.”
“To defend him would be to accuse herself, would it not?”
“I think it would.”
“There is still another influence; what do you say to that?”
“Is it considerable?”