“I, Monsieur!” said Colbert; “oh, Monsieur! I would never persecute him. I wished to administer the finances, and to administer them alone, because I am ambitious, and, above all, because I have the most entire confidence in my own merit; because I know that all the gold of this country will fall beneath my eyes, and I love to look at the King’s gold; because, if I live thirty years, in thirty years not a denier of it will remain in my hands; because with that gold I will build granaries, edifices, cities, and will dig ports; because I will create a marine, will equip navies which shall bear the name of France to the most distant peoples; because I will create libraries and academies; because I will make of France the first country in the world, and the richest. These are the motives for my animosity against M. Fouquet, who prevented my acting. And then, when I shall be great and strong, when France is great and strong, in my turn then I will cry, ‘Mercy!'”
“Mercy, did you say? then ask his liberty of the King. The King crushes him only on your account.”
Colbert again raised his head. “Monsieur,” said he, “you know that it is not so, and that the King has his personal enmities against M. Fouquet; it is not for me to teach you that.”
“But the King will relax; he will forget.”
“The King never forgets, M. d’Artagnan. Hark! the King calls. He is going to issue an order. I have not influenced him, have I? Listen.”
The King, in fact, was calling his secretaries. “M. d’Artagnan,” said he.
“I am here, Sire.”
“Give twenty of your Musketeers to M. de Saint-Aignan, to form a guard for M. Fouquet.”
D’Artagnan and Colbert exchanged looks. “And from Angers,” continued the King, “they will conduct the prisoner to the Bastille in Paris.”
“You were right,” said the captain to the minister.
“Saint-Aignan,” continued the King, “you will have any one shot who shall attempt to speak privately with M. Fouquet during the journey.”
“But myself, Sire?” said the duke.
“You, Monsieur,- you will only speak to him in the presence of the Musketeers.” The duke bowed, and departed to execute his commission.
D’Artagnan was about to retire likewise; but the King stopped him. “Monsieur,” said he, “you will go immediately and take possession of the isle and fief of Belle-Isle-en-Mer.”
“Yes, Sire. Alone?”
“You will take a sufficient number of troops to prevent delay, in case the place should be contumacious.”
A murmur of adulatory incredulity arose from the group of courtiers.
“That is to be done,” said d’Artagnan.
“I saw the place in my infancy,” resumed the King, “and I do not wish to see it again. You have heard me? Go, Monsieur, and do not return without the keys of the place.”
Colbert went up to d’Artagnan. “A commission which if you carry it out well,” said he, “will be worth a marshal’s baton to you.”
“Why do you employ the words, ‘if you carry it out well’?”
“Because it is difficult.”
“Ah! in what respect?”
“You have friends in Belle-Isle, M. d’Artagnan; and it is not an easy thing for men like you to march over the bodies of their friends to obtain success.”
D’Artagnan hung down his head, while Colbert returned to the King. A quarter of an hour after, the captain received the written order from the King to blow up the fortress of Belle-Isle in case of resistance, with the power of life and death over all the inhabitants or refugees, and an injunction not to allow one to escape.
“Colbert was right,” thought d’Artagnan,- “my baton of a marshal of France will cost the lives of my two friends. Only they seem to forget that my friends are not more stupid than the birds, and that they will not wait for the hand of the fowler to extend their wings. I will show them that hand so plainly that they will have quite time enough to see it. Poor Porthos! poor Aramis! No; my fortune shall not cost your wings a feather.”
Having thus determined, d’Artagnan assembled the royal army, embarked it at Paimboeuf, and set sail without losing a moment.