“Of which your younger brother would reap all the advantage, Monseigneur. But, stay! let us keep quiet and listen.”
“We shall not have long to listen,” said the young Prince.
“Why not, Monseigneur?”
“Because, if I were the King, I should not say anything further.”
“And what would you do?”
“I should wait until to-morrow morning to give myself time for reflection.”
Louis XIV at last raised his eyes, and finding Colbert attentively waiting for his next remark, said, hastily changing the conversation, “M. Colbert, I perceive it is getting very late, and I shall now retire to bed.”
“Ah!” said Colbert, “I should have-”
“Till to-morrow. By to-morrow morning I shall have made up my mind.”
“Very good, Sire,” returned Colbert, greatly incensed, although he restrained himself in the presence of the King.
The King made a gesture of adieu, and Colbert withdrew with a respectful bow. “My attendants!” cried the King; and they entered the apartment.
Philippe was about to quit his post of observation.
“A moment longer,” said Aramis to him, with his accustomed gentleness of manner. “What has just now taken place is only a detail, and to-morrow we shall have no occasion to think anything more about it; but the ceremony of the King’s retiring to rest, the etiquette observed in undressing the King,- that, indeed, is important. Learn, Sire, and study well how you ought to go to bed. Look! Look!”
Chapter XLIII: Colbert
HISTORY Will tell us, or rather history has told us, of the various events of the following day,- of the splendid fetes given by the superintendent to his sovereign. There was nothing but amusement and delight throughout the whole of the following day: there was a promenade, a banquet, a comedy, in which to his great amazement Porthos recognized “M. Coquelin de Voliere” as one of the actors, in the piece called “Les Facheux.”
Full of preoccupation after the scene of the previous evening, and hardly recovered from the effects of the poison which Colbert had then administered to him, the King during the whole of the day, so brilliant in its effects, so full of unexpected and startling novelties, in which all the wonders of the “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments” seemed to be reproduced for his especial amusement,- the King, we say, showed himself cold, reserved, and taciturn. Nothing could smooth the frowns upon his face; every one who observed him noticed that a deep feeling of resentment, of remote origin, increased by slow degrees, as the source becomes a river, thanks to the thousand threads of water which increase its body, was keenly alive in the depths of the King’s heart. Towards the middle of the day only did he begin to resume a little serenity of manner, by that time he had, in all probability, made up his mind. Aramis, who followed him step by step in his thoughts as in his walk, concluded that the event which he was expecting would soon occur.
This time Colbert seemed to walk in concert with the Bishop of Vannes; and had he received for every annoyance which he inflicted on the King a word of direction from Aramis, he could not have done better. During the whole of the day the King, who in all probability wished to free himself from some of the thoughts which disturbed his mind, seemed to seek La Valliere’s society as actively as he sought to avoid that of M. Colbert or M. Fouquet.
The evening came. The King had expressed a wish not to walk in the park until after cards in the evening. In the interval between supper and the promenade, cards and dice were introduced. The King won a thousand pistoles, and having won them put them in his pocket, and then rose, saying, “And now, gentlemen, to the park.” He found the ladies of the court already there. The King, we have before observed, had won a thousand pistoles, and had put them in his pocket. But M. Fouquet had somehow contrived to lose ten thousand; so that among the courtiers there was still left a hundred and ninety thousand livres’ profit to divide,- a circumstance which made the countenances of the courtiers and the officers of the King’s household the most joyous in the world. It was not the same, however, with the King’s face; for notwithstanding his success at play, to which he was by no means insensible, there still remained a slight shade of dissatisfaction.