absorbed a double quantity of air and sun. Mordioux! what
will it be then, if I double that fortune, and if, instead
of the switch I now hold in my hand, I should ever carry the
baton of a marechal? Then I really don’t know if there will
be, from that moment enough of air and sun for me. In fact,
this is not a dream, who the devil would oppose it, if the
king made me a marechal, as his father, King Louis XIII.,
made a duke and constable of Albert de Luynes? Am I not as
brave, and much more intelligent, than that imbecile De
Vitry? Ah! that’s exactly what will prevent my advancement:
I have too much wit. Luckily, if there is any justice in
this world, fortune owes me many compensations. She owes me
certainly a recompense for all I did for Anne of Austria,
and an indemnification for all she has not done for me.
Then, at the present, I am very well with a king, and with a
king who has the appearance of determining to reign. May God
keep him in that illustrious road! For, if he is resolved to
reign he will want me; and if he wants me, he will give me
what he has promised me — warmth and light; so that I
march, comparatively, now, as I marched formerly, — from
nothing to everything. Only the nothing of to-day is the all
of former days; there has only this little change taken
place in my life. And now let us see! let us take the part
of the heart, as I just now was speaking of it. But in
truth, I only spoke of it from memory.” And the Gascon
applied his hand to his breast, as if he were actually
seeking the place where his heart was.
“Ah! wretch!” murmured he, smiling with bitterness. “Ah!
poor mortal species! You hoped, for an instant, that you had
not a heart, and now you find you have one — bad courtier
as thou art, — and even one of the most seditious. You have
a heart which speaks to you in favor of M. Fouquet. And what
is M. Fouquet, when the king is in question? — A
conspirator, a real conspirator, who did not even give
himself the trouble to conceal his being a conspirator;
therefore, what a weapon would you not have against him, if
his good grace and his intelligence had not made a scabbard
for that weapon. An armed revolt! — for, in fact, M.
Fouquet has been guilty of an armed revolt. Thus, while the
king vaguely suspects M. Fouquet of rebellion, I know it —
I could prove that M. Fouquet had caused the shedding of the
blood of his majesty’s subjects. Now, then, let us see?
Knowing all that, and holding my tongue, what further would
this heart wish in return for a kind action of M. Fouquet’s,
for an advance of fifteen thousand livres, for a diamond
worth a thousand pistoles, for a smile in which there was as
much bitterness as kindness? — I save his life.”
“Now, then, I hope,” continued the musketeer, “that this
imbecile of a heart is going to preserve silence, and so be
fairly quits with M. Fouquet. Now, then, the king becomes my
sun, and as my heart is quits with M. Fouquet, let him
beware who places himself between me and my sun! Forward,
for his majesty Louis XIV.! — Forward!”
Page 382
Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
These reflections were the only impediments which were able
to retard the progress of D’Artagnan. These reflections once
made, he increased the speed of his horse. But, however
perfect his horse Zephyr might be, it could not hold out at
such a pace forever. The day after his departure from Paris,
he was left at Chartres, at the house of an old friend
D’Artagnan had met with in an hotelier of that city. From
that moment the musketeer travelled on post-horses. Thanks
to this mode of locomotion, he traversed the space
separating Chartres from Chateaubriand. In the last of these
two cities, far enough from the coast to prevent any one
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