“Go!” said the King; “but have you men enough?”
“Do you suppose I am going to take a whole host to help me? To arrest M. Fouquet is so easy that a child might do it! It is like drinking a glass of bitters: one makes an ugly face, and that is all.”
“If he defends himself?”
“He! not at all likely. Defend himself when such extreme harshness as you are going to practise makes him king and martyr! Nay, I am sure that if he has a million livres left, which I very much doubt, he would be willing enough to give it in order to have such a termination as this. But what does that matter? It shall be done at once.”
“Stay!” said the King; “do not make his arrest a public affair.”
“That will be more difficult.”
“Why so?”
“Because nothing is easier than to go up to M. Fouquet in the midst of a thousand enthusiastic guests who surround him, and say ‘In the King’s name, I arrest you.’ But to go up to him, to turn him first one way and then another, to drive him up into one of the corners of the chessboard in such a way that he cannot escape, to take him away from his guests and keep him a prisoner for you without one of them, alas! having heard anything about it,- that, indeed, is a real difficulty,- the greatest of all, in truth; and I hardly see how it is to be done.”
“You had better say it is impossible, and you will have finished much sooner. Mon Dieu! I seem to be surrounded by people who prevent my doing what I wish.”
“I do not prevent your doing anything. Are you decided?”
“Take care of M. Fouquet until I shall have made up my mind by tomorrow morning.”
“That shall be done, Sire.”
“And return, when I rise in the morning, for further orders; and now leave me to myself.”
“You do not even want M. Colbert, then?” said the musketeer, firing this last shot as he was leaving the room.
The King started. With his whole mind fixed on the thought of revenge, he had forgotten the cause and substance of the offence. “No, no one,” he said; “no one here. Leave me!”
D’Artagnan quitted the room. The King closed the door with his own hands, and began to walk up and down his apartment at a furious pace, like a wounded bull in an arena who drags after him the colored streamers and iron darts. At last he began to take comfort in the expression of his violent feelings.
“Miserable wretch that he is! not only does he squander my finances, but with his ill-gotten plunder he corrupts secretaries, friends, generals, artists, and all; he even takes from me my mistress. Ah, that is the reason why that perfidious girl so boldly took his part! Gratitude! and who can tell whether it was not a stronger feeling,- love itself?”
He gave himself up for a moment to his bitter reflections. “A satyr!” he thought, with that abhorrent hate with which young men regard those more advanced in life, who still think of love. “A faun who pursues a course of gallantry and has never met resistance; a man for silly women, who lavishes his gold and jewels in every direction, and who retains his staff of painters in order to take the portraits of his mistresses in the costume of goddesses!” The King trembled with passion as he continued: “He pollutes and profanes everything that belongs to me; he destroys everything that is mine; he will be my death at last! That man is too much for me; he is my mortal enemy, and he shall fall! I hate him,- I hate him,- I hate him!” and as he pronounced these words, he struck the arm of the chair in which he was sitting, violently over and over again, and then rose, like one in an epileptic fit. “To-morrow! tomorrow! oh, happy day!” he murmured; “when the sun rises, no other rival will that bright orb have but me. That man shall fall so low that when people look at the utter ruin which my anger shall have wrought, they will be forced to confess, at least, that I am indeed greater than he.”