“Why not? If he be guilty, he is guilty in his own house as anywhere else.”
“M. Fouquet, who at this moment is ruining himself for his sovereign!”
“I believe, Mademoiselle, you are defending this traitor!”
Colbert began to chuckle silently. The King turned round at the sound of this suppressed mirth.
“Sire,” said La Valliere, “it is not M. Fouquet I am defending; it is yourself.”
“Me! you defend me?”
“Sire, you would be dishonoring yourself if you were to give such an order.”
“Dishonor myself?” murmured the King, turning pale with anger. “In truth, Mademoiselle, you put a strange eagerness into what you say.”
“I put eagerness not into what I say, but into serving your Majesty,” replied the noble-hearted girl; “in that I would lay down my life, were it needed, and with the same eagerness, Sire.”
Colbert seemed inclined to grumble. La Valliere, that gentle lamb, turned round upon him, and with a glance like lightning imposed silence upon him. “Monsieur,” she said, “when the King acts well, if in doing so he does either myself or those who belong to me an injury, I have nothing to say; but were the King to confer a benefit either upon me or mine, and if he acted badly, I should tell him so.”
“But it appears to me, Mademoiselle,” Colbert ventured to say, “that I too love the King.”
“Yes, Monsieur, we both love him, but each in a different manner,” replied La Valliere, with such an accent that the heart of the young King was powerfully affected by it. “I love him so deeply that the whole world is aware of it, so purely that the King himself does not doubt my love. He is my King and my master; I am the humblest of his servants. But he who touches his honor touches my life. Now, I repeat that they dishonor the King who advise him to arrest M. Fouquet under his own roof.”
Colbert hung down his head, for he felt that the King had abandoned him. However, as he bent his head, he murmured, “Mademoiselle, I have only one word to say.”
“Do not say it, then, Monsieur; for I would not listen to it. Besides, what could you have to tell me? That M. Fouquet has been guilty of certain crimes? I know he has, because the King has said so; and from the moment the King said, ‘I believe,’ I have no occasion for other lips to say, ‘I affirm.’ But were M. Fouquet the vilest of men, I should say aloud, ‘M. Fouquet’s person is sacred to the King because he is the King’s host. Were his house a den of thieves, were Vaux a cave of coiners or robbers, his home is sacred, his palace is inviolable, since his wife is living in it; and it is an asylum which even executioners would not dare to violate.'”
La Valliere paused, and was silent. In spite of himself, the King could not but admire her; he was overpowered by the passionate energy of her voice, by the nobleness of the cause she advocated. Colbert yielded, overcome by the inequality of the struggle. At last the King breathed again more freely, shook his head, and held out his hand to La Valliere. “Mademoiselle,” he said gently, “why do you decide against me? Do you know what this wretched fellow will do, if I give him time to breathe again?”
“Is he not a prey which will always be within your grasp?”
“And if he escapes, and takes to flight?” exclaimed Colbert.
“Well, Monsieur, it will always remain on record, to the King’s eternal honor, that he allowed M. Fouquet to flee; and the more guilty he may have been, the greater will the King’s honor and glory appear, when compared with such misery and such shame.”
Louis kissed La Valliere’s hand, as he knelt before her.
“I am lost!” thought Colbert; then suddenly his face brightened up again. “Oh, no, no, not yet!” he said to himself.
And while the King, protected from observation by the thick covert of an enormous lime, pressed La Valliere to his breast with all the ardor of ineffable affection, Colbert tranquilly looked among the papers in his pocketbook, and drew out of it a paper folded in the form of a letter, slightly yellow, perhaps, but which must have been very precious, since the intendant smiled as he looked at it; he then bent a look full of hatred upon the charming group which the young girl and the King formed together,- a group which was revealed for a moment as the light of the approaching torches shone upon it.