“I will speak to the King about it; he will clear up the point.”
“And while waiting for that enlightenment M. l’Eveque de Vannes will have escaped. I would do so.”
“Escaped! he! and whither would he escape? Europe is ours, in will, if not in fact.”
“He will always find an asylum, Monsieur. It is evident you know nothing of the man you have to do with. You do not know d’Herblay; you did not know Aramis. He was one of those four musketeers who under the late King made Cardinal de Richelieu tremble, and who during the regency gave so much trouble to Monseigneur Mazarin.”
“But, Madame, what can he do, unless he has a kingdom to back him?”
“He has one, Monsieur.”
“A kingdom, he,- M. d’Herblay?”
“I repeat to you, Monsieur, that if he wants a kingdom, he either has it, or will have it.”
“Well, as you are so earnest that this rebel should not escape, Madame, I promise you he shall not escape.”
“Belle-Isle is fortified, M. Colbert, and fortified by him.”
“If Belle-Isle were also defended by him, Belle-Isle is not impregnable; and if M. l’Eveque de Vannes is shut up in Belle-Isle, well, Madame, the place will be besieged, and he will be taken.”
“You may be very certain, Monsieur, that the zeal which you display for the interests of the Queen-Mother will affect her Majesty warmly, and that you will be magnificently rewarded for it; but what shall I tell her of your projects respecting this man?”
“That when once taken, he shall be shut up in a fortress from which her secret shall never escape.”
“Very well, M. Colbert; and we may say, that, dating from this instant, we have formed a solid alliance, you and I, and that I am entirely at your service.”
“It is I, Madame, who place myself at yours. This Chevalier d’Herblay is a kind of Spanish spy, is he not?”
“More than that.”
“A secret ambassador?”
“Higher still.”
“Stop; King Philip III of Spain is a bigot. He is, perhaps, the confessor of Philip III.”
“You must go higher than that.”
“Mordieu?” cried Colbert, who forgot himself so far as to swear in the presence of this great lady, of this old friend of the Queen-Mother,- of the Duchesse de Chevreuse, in short. “He must then be the General of the Jesuits.”
“I believe you have guessed at last,” replied the duchess.
“Ah, then, Madame, this man will ruin us all if we do not ruin him; and we must make haste to do it too.”
“That was my opinion, Monsieur, but I did not dare to give it to you.”
“And it is fortunate for us that he has attacked the throne, and not us.”
“But mark this well, M. Colbert. M. d’Herblay is never discouraged; and if he has missed one blow, he will be sure to make another,- he will begin again. If he has allowed an opportunity to escape of making a king for himself, sooner or later he will make another, of whom, to a certainty, you will not be prime minister.”
Colbert knitted his brow with a menacing expression. “I feel assured that a prison will settle this affair for us, Madame, in a manner satisfactory for both.”
The duchess smiled. “Oh, if you knew,” said she, “how many times Aramis has got out of prison!
“Oh!” replied Colbert, “we will take care he shall not get out this time.”
“But you have not attended to what I said to you just now. Do you remember that Aramis was one of the four invincibles whom Richelieu dreaded? And at that period the four musketeers were not in possession of that which they have now,- money and experience.”
Colbert bit his lips. “We will renounce the idea of the prison,” said he, in a lower tone; “we will find a retreat from which the invincible will not possibly escape.”
“That is well spoken, our ally!” replied the duchess. “But it is getting late. Had we not better return?”
“The more willingly, Madame, from having my preparations to make for setting out with the King.”
“To Paris!” cried the duchess to the coachman.