“That is likely enough, for you have so many affairs to
attend to. However, I do not believe you have any affair in
the world of greater importance than this one.”
“Tell me, then, why we purchased this appointment.”
“Why, in order to render him a service in the first place,
and afterwards ourselves.”
“Ourselves? You are joking.”
“Monseigneur, the time may come when the governor of the
Bastile may prove a very excellent acquaintance.”
“I have not the good fortune to understand you, D’Herblay.”
“Monseigneur, we had our own poets, our own engineer, our
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own architect, our own musicians, our own printer, and our
own painters; we needed our own governor of the Bastile.”
“Do you think so?”
“Let us not deceive ourselves, monseigneur; we are very much
opposed to paying the Bastile a visit,” added the prelate,
displaying, beneath his pale lips, teeth which were still
the same beautiful teeth so much admired thirty years
previously by Marie Michon.
“And you think it is not too much to pay one hundred and
fifty thousand francs for that? I thought you generally put
out money at better interest than that.”
“The day will come when you will admit your mistake.”
“My dear D’Herblay, the very day on which a man enters the
Bastile, he is no longer protected by his past.”
“Yes, he is, if the bonds are perfectly regular; besides,
that good fellow Baisemeaux has not a courtier’s heart. I am
certain, my lord, that he will not remain ungrateful for
that money, without taking into account, I repeat, that I
retain the acknowledgments.”
“It is a strange affair! usury in a matter of benevolence.”
“Do not mix yourself up with it, monseigneur; if there be
usury, it is I who practice it, and both of us reap the
advantage from it — that is all.”
“Some intrigue, D’Herblay?”
“I do not deny it.”
“And Baisemeaux an accomplice in it?”
“Why not? — there are worse accomplices than he. May I
depend, then, upon the five thousand pistoles to-morrow?”
“Do you want them this evening?”
“It would be better, for I wish to start early; poor
Baisemeaux will not be able to imagine what has become of
me, and must be upon thorns.”
“You shall have the amount in an hour. Ah, D’Herblay, the
interest of your one hundred and fifty thousand francs will
never pay my four millions for me.”
“Why not, monseigneur.”
“Good-night, I have business to transact with my clerks
before I retire.”
“A good night’s rest, monseigneur.”
“D’Herblay, you wish things that are impossible.”
“Shall I have my fifty thousand francs this evening?”
“Yes.”
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Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
“Go to sleep, then, in perfect safety — it is I who tell
you to do so.”
Notwithstanding this assurance, and the tone in which it was
given, Fouquet left the room shaking his head, and heaving a
sigh.
CHAPTER 98
M. Baisemeaux de Montlezun’s Accounts
The clock of St. Paul was striking seven as Aramis, on
horseback, dressed as a simple citizen, that is to say, in
colored suit, with no distinctive mark about him, except a
kind of hunting-knife by his side, passed before the Rue du
Petit-Muse, and stopped opposite the Rue des Tourelles, at
the gate of the Bastile. Two sentinels were on duty at the
gate; they made no difficulty about admitting Aramis, who
entered without dismounting, and they pointed out the way he
was to go by a long passage with buildings on both sides.
This passage led to the drawbridge, or, in other words, to
the real entrance. The drawbridge was down, and the duty of
the day was about being entered upon. The sentinel at the
outer guardhouse stopped Aramis’s further progress, asking
him, in a rough tone of voice, what had brought him there.
Aramis explained, with his usual politeness, that a wish to
speak to M. Baisemeaux de Montlezun had occasioned his
visit. The first sentinel then summoned a second sentinel,
stationed within an inner lodge, who showed his face at the
grating, and inspected the new arrival most attentively.
Aramis reiterated the expression of his wish to see the
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