Man in the Iron Mask by Dumas, Alexandre part two

Chapter LI: The King’s Gratitude

THE two men were on the point of darting towards each other, when they suddenly stopped, as a mutual recognition took place, and each uttered a cry of horror.

“Have you come to assassinate me, Monsieur?” said the King, when he recognized Fouquet.

“The King in this state!” murmured the minister.

Nothing could be more terrible, indeed, than the appearance of Louis at the moment Fouquet had surprised him; his clothes were in tatters; his shirt, open and torn to rags, was stained with sweat, and with the blood which streamed from his lacerated breast and arms. Haggard, pale, foaming, his hair dishevelled, Louis XIV presented a vivid picture of despair, hunger, and fear, combined in one figure. Fouquet was so touched, so affected and disturbed, that he ran to the King with his arms stretched out and his eyes filled with tears. Louis held up the massive piece of wood of which he had made such a furious use.

“Sire,” said Fouquet, in a voice trembling with emotion, “do you not recognize the most faithful of your friends?”

“A friend,- you!” repeated Louis, gnashing his teeth in a manner which betrayed his hate and desire for speedy vengeance.

“The most respectful of your servants,” added Fouquet, throwing himself on his knees. The King let the rude weapon fall from his grasp. Fouquet approached him, kissed his knees, and took him tenderly in his arms. “My King, my child,” he said, “how you must have suffered.”

Louis, recalled to himself by the change of situation, looked at himself, and ashamed of his disordered state, ashamed of his conduct, ashamed of the protection he was receiving, drew back. Fouquet did not understand this movement; he did not perceive that the King’s pride would never forgive him for having been a witness of so much weakness. “Come, Sire,” he said, “you are free.”

“Free?” repeated the King. “Oh! you set me at liberty, then, after having dared to lift up your hand against me?”

“You do not believe that!” exclaimed Fouquet, indignantly; “you cannot believe me to be guilty of such an act.”

And rapidly, warmly even, he related the whole particulars of the intrigue, the details of which are already known to the reader. While the recital continued, Louis suffered the most horrible anguish of mind; and when it was finished, the magnitude of the danger he had run struck him far more than the importance of the secret relating to his twin brother. “Monsieur,” he said suddenly to Fouquet, “this double birth is a falsehood; you cannot have been deceived by it.”

“Sire!”

“It is impossible, I tell you, that the honor, the virtue of my mother can be suspected. And my first minister, has he not already done justice on the criminals?”

“Reflect, Sire, before you are carried away by your anger,” replied Fouquet. “The birth of your brother-”

“I have only one brother; and that is Monsieur. You know it as well as myself. There is a plot, I tell you, beginning with the governor of the Bastille.”

“Be careful, Sire, for this man has been deceived as every one else has by the Prince’s likeness to yourself.”

“Likeness? absurd!” “This Marchiali must, however, be very like your Majesty to be able to deceive every one,” Fouquet persisted.

“Ridiculous!”

“Do not say so, Sire; those who had prepared everything in order to face and deceive your ministers, your mother, your officers of state, the members of your family, must be quite confident of the resemblance between you.”

“There is truth in that,” murmured the King; “but where are these persons, then?”

“At Vaux.”

“At Vaux! and you suffer them to remain there?”

“My most pressing duty seemed to be your Majesty’s release. I have accomplished that duty; and now whatever your Majesty may command, shall be done. I await your orders.”

Louis reflected for a few minutes. “Muster all the troops in Paris,” he said.

“All the necessary orders are given for that purpose,” replied Fouquet.

“You have given orders?” exclaimed the King.

“For that purpose,- yes, Sire! your Majesty will be at the head of ten thousand men in an hour.”

The only reply the King made was to take hold of Fouquet’s hand with such an expression of feeling that it was very easy to perceive how strongly he had until that remark maintained his suspicions of the minister, notwithstanding the latter’s intervention. “And with these troops,” he said, “we shall go at once and besiege in your house the rebels who by this time will have established and intrenched themselves there.”

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