The Man in the Iron Mask

“Oh! sire, if I be indeed so, and if my eyes are indeed full of tears, I am sorrowful only at the sadness which seems to oppress your majesty.”

“My sadness? You are mistaken, mademoiselle; no, it is not sadness I experience.”

“What is it, then, sire?”

“Humiliation.”

“Humiliation? oh! sire, what a word for you to use!”

“I mean, mademoiselle, that wherever I may happen to be, no one else ought to be the master. Well, then, look round you on every side, and judge whether I am not eclipsed – I, the king of France – before the monarch of these wide domains. Oh!” he continued, clenching his hands and teeth, “when I think that this king – ”

“Well, sire?” said Louise, terrified.

“ – That this king is a faithless, unworthy servant, who grows proud and self-sufficient upon the strength of property that belongs to me, and which he has stolen. And therefore I am about to change this impudent minister’s fete into sorrow and mourning, of which the nymph of Vaux, as the poets say, shall not soon lose the remembrance.”

“Oh! your majesty – ”

“Well, mademoiselle, are you about to take M. Fouquet’s part?” said Louis, impatiently.

“No, sire; I will only ask whether you are well informed. Your majesty has more than once learned the value of accusations made at court.”

Louis XIV. made a sign for Colbert to approach. “Speak, Monsieur Colbert,” said the young prince, “for I almost believe that Mademoiselle de la Valliere has need of your assistance before she can put any faith in the king’s word. Tell mademoiselle what M. Fouquet has done; and you, mademoiselle, will perhaps have the kindness to listen. It will not be long.”

Why did Louis XIV. insist upon it in such a manner? A very simple reason – his heart was not at rest, his mind was not thoroughly convinced; he imagined there lay some dark, hidden, tortuous intrigue behind these thirteen millions of francs; and he wished that the pure heart of La Valliere, which had revolted at the idea of theft or robbery, should approve – even were it only by a single word – the resolution he had taken, and which, nevertheless, he hesitated before carrying into execution.

“Speak, monsieur,” said La Valliere to Colbert, who had advanced; “speak, since the king wishes me to listen to you. Tell me, what is the crime with which M. Fouquet is charged?”

“Oh! not very heinous, mademoiselle,” he returned, “a mere abuse of confidence.”

“Speak, speak, Colbert; and when you have related it, leave us, and go and inform M. d’Artagnan that I have certain orders to give him.”

“M. d’Artagnan, sire!” exclaimed La Valliere; “but why send for M. d’Artagnan? I entreat you to tell me.”

“Pardieu! in order to arrest this haughty, arrogant Titan who, true to his menace, threatens to scale my heaven.”

“Arrest M. Fouquet, do you say?”

“Ah! does that surprise you?”

“In his own house!”

“Why not? If he be guilty, he is as guilty in his own house as anywhere else.”

“M. Fouquet, who at this moment is ruining himself for his sovereign.”

“In plain truth, mademoiselle, it seems as if you were 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 are defending me?”

“Sire, you would dishonor yourself if you were to give such an order.”

“Dishonor myself!” murmured the king, turning pale with anger. “In plain truth, mademoiselle, you show a strange persistence in what you say.”

“If I do, sire, my only motive is that of serving your majesty,” replied the noble-hearted girl: “for that I would risk, I would sacrifice my very life, without the least reserve.”

Colbert seemed inclined to grumble and complain. La Valliere, that timid, gentle lamb, turned round upon him, and with a glance like lightning imposed silence upon him. “Monsieur,” she said, “when the king acts well, whether, 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, monseigneur, 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 affection. He is my king and my master; I am the least of all his servants. But whoso touches his honor assails my life. Therefore, 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 believe he has, because the king has said so; and, from the moment the king said, ‘I think so,’ I have no occasion for other lips to say, ‘I affirm it.’ 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 guest of M. Fouquet. 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 that 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?”

“Should he escape, and take 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, compared with such unnecessary misery and 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, aha, old fox! – 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 fumbled among the papers in his pocket-book and drew out of it a paper folded in the form of a letter, somewhat yellow, perhaps, but one that must have been most 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 revealed but for a moment, as the light of the approaching torches shone upon it. Louis noticed the light reflected upon La Valliere’s white dress. “Leave me, Louise,” he said, “for some one is coming.”

“Mademoiselle, mademoiselle, some one is coming,” cried Colbert, to expedite the young girl’s departure.

Louise disappeared rapidly among the trees; and then, as the king, who had been on his knees before the young girl, was rising from his humble posture, Colbert exclaimed, “Ah! Mademoiselle de la Valliere has let something fall.”

“What is it?” inquired the king.

“A paper – a letter – something white; look there, sire.”

The king stooped down immediately and picked up the letter, crumpling it in his hand, as he did so; and at the same moment the torches arrived, inundating the blackness of the scene with a flood of light as bight as day.

Chapter XVI. Jealousy

The torches we have just referred to, the eager attention every one displayed, and the new ovation paid to the king by Fouquet, arrived in time to suspend the effect of a resolution which La Valliere had already considerably shaken in Louis XIV.‘s heart. He looked at Fouquet with a feeling almost of gratitude for having given La Valliere an opportunity of showing herself so generously disposed, so powerful in the influence she exercised over his heart. The moment of the last and greatest display had arrived. Hardly had Fouquet conducted the king towards the chateau, when a mass of fire burst from the dome of Vaux, with a prodigious uproar, pouring a flood of dazzling cataracts of rays on every side, and illumining the remotest corners of the gardens. The fireworks began. Colbert, at twenty paces from the king, who was surrounded and feted by the owner of Vaux, seemed, by the obstinate persistence of his gloomy thoughts, to do his utmost to recall Louis’s attention, which the magnificence of the spectacle was already, in his opinion, too easily diverting. Suddenly, just as Louis was on the point of holding it out to Fouquet, he perceived in his hand the paper which, as he believed, La Valliere had dropped at his feet as she hurried away. The still stronger magnet of love drew the young prince’s attention towards the souvenir of his idol; and, by the brilliant light, which increased momentarily in beauty, and drew from the neighboring villages loud cheers of admiration, the king read the letter, which he supposed was a loving and tender epistle La Valliere had destined for him. But as he read it, a death-like pallor stole over his face, and an expression of deep-seated wrath, illumined by the many-colored fire which gleamed so brightly, soaringly around the scene, produced a terrible spectacle, which every one would have shuddered at, could they only have read into his heart, now torn by the most stormy and most bitter passions. There was no truce for him now, influenced as he was by jealousy and mad passion. From the very moment when the dark truth was revealed to him, every gentler feeling seemed to disappear; pity, kindness of consideration, the religion of hospitality, all were forgotten. In the bitter pang which wrung his heart, he, still too weak to hide his sufferings, was almost on the point of uttering a cry of alarm, and calling his guards to gather round him. This letter which Colbert had thrown down at the king’s feet, the reader has doubtlessly guessed, was the same that had disappeared with the porter Toby at Fontainebleau, after the attempt which Fouquet had made upon La Valliere’s heart. Fouquet saw the king’s pallor, and was far from guessing the evil; Colbert saw the king’s anger, and rejoiced inwardly at the approach of the storm. Fouquet’s voice drew the young prince from his wrathful reverie.

“What is the matter, sire?” inquired the superintendent, with an expression of graceful interest.