“Sire,” he said, “M. Colbert has been asking me if your Majesty does not intend to sleep at Melun.”
“Sleep at Melun! What for?” exclaimed Louis XIV. “Sleep at Melun! Who, in Heaven’s name, can have thought of such a thing, when M. Fouquet is expecting us this evening?”
“It was simply,” returned Colbert, quickly, “the fear of causing your Majesty any delay; for, according to established etiquette, you cannot enter any place, with the exception of your own royal residences, until the soldiers’ quarters have been marked out by the quartermaster, and the garrison has been properly distributed.”
D’Artagnan listened with the greatest attention, biting his mustache; and the Queens listened attentively also. They were fatigued, and would have liked to go to rest without proceeding any farther, and especially to prevent the King from walking about in the evening with M. de Saint-Aignan and the ladies of the court; for if etiquette required the Princesses to remain within their own rooms, the ladies of honor, as soon as they had performed the services required of them, had no restrictions placed upon them, but were at liberty to walk about as they pleased. It will easily be conjectured that all these rival interests, gathering together in vapors, must necessarily produce clouds, and that the clouds would be followed by a tempest. The King had no mustache to gnaw, and therefore kept biting the handle of his whip instead, with ill-concealed impatience. How could he get out of it? D’Artagnan looked as agreeable as possible, and Colbert as sulky as he could. Who was there, then, with whom Louis could get in a passion?
“We will consult the Queen,” said Louis XIV, bowing to the royal ladies.
This kindness of consideration softened Maria Theresa’s heart, who was of a kind and generous disposition, and who, left to her own free will, replied: “I shall be delighted to do whatever your Majesty wishes.”
“How long will it take us to get to Vaux?” inquired Anne of Austria, in slow and measured accents, placing her hand upon her suffering bosom.
“An hour for your Majesties’ carriages,” said d’Artagnan; “the roads are tolerably good.”
The King looked at him. “And a quarter of an hour for the King,” he hastened to add.
“We should arrive by daylight,” said Louis XIV.
“But the billeting of the King’s military escort,” objected Colbert, softly, “will make his Majesty lose all the advantage of his speed, however quick he may be.”
“Double ass that you are!” thought d’Artagnan; “if I had any interest or motive in demolishing your credit, I could do it in ten minutes. If I were in the King’s place,” he added, aloud, “I should, in going to M. Fouquet, leave my escort behind me. I should go to him as a friend; I should enter accompanied only by my captain of the Guards. I should consider that I was acting more nobly, and should be invested with a still more sacred character by doing so.”
Delight sparkled in the King’s eyes. “That is, indeed, a very good suggestion. We will go to see a friend as friends. Those gentlemen who are with the carriages can go slowly; but we who are mounted- Forward!” and he rode off, accompanied by all those who were mounted.
Colbert hid his ugly head behind his horse’s neck.
“I shall be quits,” said d’Artagnan, as he galloped along, “by getting a little talk with Aramis this evening. And then, M. Fouquet is a man of honor. Mordioux! I have said so, and it must be so.”
In this way, towards seven o’clock in the evening, without trumpets, without advanced guard, without outriders or musketeers, the King presented himself before the gate of Vaux, where Fouquet, who had been informed of his royal guest’s approach, had been waiting for the last half-hour, with his head uncovered, surrounded by his household and his friends.
Chapter XLI: Nectar and Ambrosia
FOUQUET held the stirrup of the King, who having dismounted bowed graciously, and more graciously still held out his hand to him, which Fouquet, in spite of a slight resistance on the King’s part, carried respectfully to his lips. The King wished to wait in the first courtyard for the arrival of the carriages; nor had he long to wait. For the roads had been put into excellent order by the superintendent, and a stone would hardly have been found the size of an egg the whole way from Melun to Vaux; so that the carriages, rolling along as though on a carpet, brought the ladies to Vaux, without jolting or fatigue, by eight o’clock. They were received by Madame Fouquet; and at the moment when they made their appearance, a light as bright as day burst forth from all the trees and vases and marble statues. This species of enchantment lasted until their Majesties had retired into the palace. All these wonders and magical effects,- which the chronicler has heaped up, or rather preserved, in his recital at the risk of rivalling the creations of a romancist,- these splendors whereby night seemed conquered and Nature corrected, together with every delight and luxury combined for the satisfaction of all the senses as well as of the mind, Fouquet really offered to his sovereign in that enchanting retreat, to which no monarch could at that time boast of possessing an equal.