Man in the Iron Mask by Dumas, Alexandre part two

“If the dead, therefore, were to speak-”

“They do speak sometimes, Sire. Read!”

“Ah!” murmured Aramis in the Prince’s ear, who close beside him listened without losing a syllable, “since you are placed here, Monseigneur, in order to learn the vocation of a king, listen to a piece of infamy truly royal. You are about to be a witness of one of these scenes which God alone, or rather which the devil alone, can conceive and execute. Listen attentively,- you will find your advantage in it.”

The Prince redoubled his attention, and saw Louis XIV take from Colbert’s hand a letter which the latter held out to him.

“The late cardinal’s handwriting,” said the King.

“Your Majesty has an excellent memory,” replied Colbert, bowing; “it is an immense advantage for a king who is destined for hard work to recognize handwritings at the first glance.”

The King read Mazarin’s letter; but as its contents are already known to the reader, in consequence of the misunderstanding between Madame de Chevreuse and Aramis, nothing further would be learned if we stated them here again.

“I do not quite understand,” said the King, greatly interested.

“Your Majesty has not yet acquired the habit of going through the public accounts.”

“I see that it refers to money which had been given to M. Fouquet.”

“Thirteen millions,- a tolerably good sum.”

“Yes. Well, and these thirteen millions are wanting to balance the total of the accounts? That is what I do not very well understand. How was this deficit possible?”

“Possible, I do not say; but there is no doubt about its reality.”

“You say that these thirteen millions are found to be wanting in the accounts?”

“I do not say so; but the registry does.”

“And this letter of M. Mazarin indicates the employment of that sum, and the name of the person with whom it was deposited?”

“As your Majesty can judge for yourself.”

“Yes; and the result is, then, that M. Fouquet has not yet restored the thirteen millions.”

“That results from the accounts, certainly, Sire.”

“Well, and consequently-”

“Well, Sire, consequently, inasmuch as M. Fouquet has not given back the thirteen millions, he must have appropriated them to his own purposes; and with those thirteen millions one could incur four times and a fraction as much expense and display as your Majesty was able to do at Fontainebleau, where we spent only three millions altogether, if you remember.”

For a blunderer, the souvenir he had evoked was a very skilfully contrived piece of baseness, for in remembering his own fete the King, thanks to a word of Fouquet, had for the first time perceived its inferiority. Colbert received at Vaux what Fouquet had given him at Fontainebleau; and as a good financier, he returned it with the best possible interest. Having once disposed the King’s mind in that way, Colbert had nothing further to accomplish. He perceived it; the King had become gloomy. Colbert awaited the first word from the King’s lips with as much impatience as Philippe and Aramis did from their place of observation.

“Are you aware what is the natural consequence of all this, M. Colbert?” said the King, after a few moments’ reflection.

“No, Sire, I do not know.”

“Well, then, the fact of the appropriation of the thirteen millions, if it can be proved-”

“But it is so already.”

“I mean if it were to be declared, M. Colbert.”

“I think it will be to-morrow, if your Majesty-”

“Were we not under M. Fouquet’s roof, you were going to say, perhaps,” replied the King, with something of nobleness in his manner.

“The King is in his own palace wherever he may be, and especially in houses for which his own money has paid.”

“I think,” said Philippe, in a low tone to Aramis, “that the architect who constructed this dome ought, anticipating what use could be made of it, so to have contrived that it might easily be made to fall on the heads of scoundrels such as that M. Colbert.”

“I thought so, too,” replied Aramis; “but M. Colbert is so very near the King at this moment.”

“That is true, and that would open the succession.”

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