And the carriage returned towards the Faubourg St. Antoine, after the conclusion of the treaty which gave up to death the last friend of Fouquet, the last defender of Belle-Isle, the ancient friend of Marie Michon, the new enemy of the duchess.
Chapter LXV: The Two Lighters
D’ARTAGNAN had set off, Fouquet likewise was gone, and he with a rapidity which the tender interest of his friends increased. The first moments of this journey, or better to say, of this flight, were troubled by the incessant fear of all the horses and all the carriages which could be perceived behind the fugitive. It was not natural, in fact, if Louis XIV was determined to seize this prey, that he should allow it to escape; the young lion was already accustomed to the chase, and he had bloodhounds ardent enough to be depended on. But insensibly all fears were dispersed; the superintendent, by hard travelling, placed such a distance between himself and his persecutors that no one of them could reasonably be expected to overtake him. As to his position, his friends had made it excellent for him. Was he not traveling to join the King at Nantes, and what did the rapidity prove but his zeal to obey? He arrived, fatigued but reassured, at Orleans, where he found, thanks to the care of a courier who had preceded him, a handsome lighter of eight oars.
These lighters, in the shape of gondolas, rather wide and rather heavy, containing a small cuddy, covered by the deck, and a chamber in the poop, formed by a tent, then acted as passage-boats from Orleans to Nantes, by the Loire; and this passage, a long one in our days, appeared then more easy and convenient than the high-road, with its post-hacks or its bad, insecurely hung carriages. Fouquet went on board this lighter, which set out immediately. The rowers, knowing they had the honor of conveying the Superintendent of the Finances, pulled with all their strength, and that magic phrase, “the finances,” promised them a liberal gratification, of which they wished to prove themselves worthy.
The lighter bounded over the waters of the Loire. Magnificent weather, one of those sun-risings that empurple landscapes, left the river all its limpid serenity. The current and the rowers carried Fouquet along as wings carry a bird, and he arrived before Beaugency without any accident upon the way. Fouquet hoped to be the first to arrive at Nantes; there he would see the notables and gain support among the principal members of the States; he would make himself necessary,- a thing very easy for a man of his merit,- and would delay the catastrophe, if he did not succeed in avoiding it entirely.
“Besides,” said Gourville to him, “at Nantes, you will make out, or we will make out, the intentions of your enemies; we will have horses always ready to convey you to the inextricable Poitou, and a boat in which to gain the sea; and when once in the open sea, Belle-Isle is the inviolable port. You see, besides, that no one is watching you, no one is following you.”
He had scarcely finished when they discovered at a distance, behind an elbow formed by the river, the masts of a large lighter, which was coming down. The rowers of Fouquet’s boat uttered a cry of surprise on seeing this galley.
“What is the matter?” asked Fouquet.
“The matter is, Monseigneur,” replied the skipper of the boat, “that it is a truly remarkable thing,- that lighter comes along like a hurricane.”
Gourville started and mounted on the deck, in order to see the better.
Fouquet did not go up with him; but he said to Gourville with a restrained mistrust, “See what it is, dear friend.”
The lighter had just passed the elbow. It came on so fast that behind it might be seen to tremble the white train of its wake illumined with the fires of day.
“How they go!” repeated the skipper,- “how they go! They must be well paid! I did not think,” he added, “that oars of wood could behave better than ours, but those yonder prove the contrary.”
“Well they may,” said one of the rowers; “they are twelve, and we are but eight.”