“You will have to be careful with regard to watchfulness of the latter,” said Aramis; “she is sincerely attached to the actual King. The eyes of a woman who loves are not easily deceived.”
“She is fair; has blue eyes, whose affectionate gaze will reveal her identity. She halts slightly in her gait. She writes a letter every day, to which I shall have to send an answer by M. de Saint-Aignan.”
“Do you know the latter?”
“As if I saw him; and I know the last verses he composed for me, as well as those I composed in answer to his.”
“Very good. Do you know your ministers?”
“Colbert, an ugly, dark-browed man, but intelligent; his hair covering his forehead; a large, heavy, full head; the mortal enemy of M. Fouquet.”
“We need not disturb ourselves about M. Colbert.”
“No; because necessarily you will require me to exile him, will you not?”
Aramis, struck with admiration at the remark, said, “You will become very great, Monseigneur.”
“You see,” added the Prince, “that I know my lesson by heart; and with Heaven’s assistance, and yours afterwards, I shall seldom go wrong.”
“You have still a very awkward pair of eyes to deal with, Monseigneur.”
“Yes; the captain of the Musketeers, M. d’Artagnan, your friend.”
“Yes; I can well say ‘my friend.'”
“He who escorted La Valliere to Chaillot; he who delivered up Monk, in a box, to Charles II; he who so faithfully served my mother; he to whom the Crown of France owes so much that it owes everything. Do you intend to ask me to exile him also?”
“Never, Sire! D’Artagnan is a man to whom at a certain given time I will undertake to reveal everything. Be on your guard with him; for if he discovers our plot before it is revealed to him, you or I will certainly be killed or taken. He is a man of action.”
“I will consider. Now tell me about M. Fouquet; what do you wish to be done with regard to him?”
“One moment more, I entreat you, Monseigneur; and forgive me if I seem to fail in respect in questioning you further.”
“It is your duty to do so, and, more than that, your right also.”
“Before we pass to M. Fouquet, I should very much regret forgetting another friend of mine.”
“M. du Vallon, the Hercules of France, you mean. Oh! so far as he is concerned, his fortune is assured.”
“No, it is not he of whom I intended to speak.”
“The Comte de la Fere, then?”
“And his son,- the son of all four of us.”
“The lad who is dying of love for La Valliere, of whom my brother so disloyally deprived him? Be easy on that score! I shall know how to restore him. Tell me one thing, M. d’Herblay! Do men, when they love, forget the treachery that has been shown them? Can a man ever forgive the woman who has betrayed him? Is that a French custom; is it a law of the human heart?”
“A man who loves deeply, as deeply as Raoul loves Mademoiselle de la Valliere, finally forgets the fault of the woman he loves; but I do not know whether Raoul will forget.”
“I will provide for that. Have you anything further to say about your friend?”
“No; that is all.”
“Well, then, now for M. Fouquet. What do you wish me to do for him?”
“To continue him as superintendent, as he has hitherto acted, I entreat you.”
“Be it so; but he is the first minister at present.”
“Not quite so.”
“A King ignorant and embarrassed as I shall be, will, as a matter of course, require a first minister of State.”
“Your Majesty will require a friend.”
“I have only one, and that is you.”
“You will have many others by and by, but none so devoted, none so zealous for your glory.”
“You will be my first minister of State.”
“Not immediately, Monseigneur; for that would give rise to too much suspicion and astonishment.”
“M. de Richelieu, the first minister of my grandmother, Marie de Medicis, was simply Bishop of Lucon, as you are Bishop of Vannes.”