The Man in the Iron Mask

“And the king?”

“Knows absolutely nothing.”

“So much the better,” said Fouquet.

This remark seemed to make a great impression on Aramis; he looked at Fouquet with the most anxious expression of countenance.

“I beg your pardon; I interrupted you,” said Fouquet.

“I was saying,” resumed Aramis, “that this poor prince was the unhappiest of human beings, when Heaven, whose thoughts are over all His creatures, undertook to come to his assistance.”

“Oh! in what way? Tell me.”

“You will see. The reigning king – I say the reigning king – you can guess very well why?”

“No. Why?”

“Because both of them, being legitimate princes, ought to have been kings. Is not that your opinion?”

“It is, certainly.”

“Unreservedly?”

“Most unreservedly; twins are one person in two bodies.”

“I am pleased that a legist of your learning and authority should have pronounced such an opinion. It is agreed, then, that each of them possessed equal rights, is it not?”

“Incontestably! but, gracious heavens, what an extraordinary circumstance!”

“We are not at the end of it yet. – Patience.”

“Oh! I shall find ‘patience’ enough.”

“Heaven wished to raise up for that oppressed child an avenger, or a supporter, or vindicator, if you prefer it. It happened that the reigning king, the usurper – you are quite of my opinion, I believe, that it is an act of usurpation quietly to enjoy, and selfishly to assume the right over, an inheritance to which a man has only half a right?”

“Yes, usurpation is the word.”

“In that case, I continue. It was Heaven’s will that the usurper should possess, in the person of his first minister, a man of great talent, of large and generous nature.”

“Well, well,” said Fouquet, “I understand you; you have relied upon me to repair the wrong which has been done to this unhappy brother of Louis XIV. You have thought well; I will help you. I thank you, D’Herblay, I thank you.”

“Oh, no, it is not that at all; you have not allowed me to finish,” said Aramis, perfectly unmoved.

“I will not say another word, then.”

“M. Fouquet, I was observing, the minister of the reigning sovereign, was suddenly taken into the greatest aversion, and menaced with the ruin of his fortune, loss of liberty, loss of life even, by intrigue and personal hatred, to which the king gave too readily an attentive ear. But Heaven permits (still, however, out of consideration for the unhappy prince who had been sacrificed) that M. Fouquet should in his turn have a devoted friend who knew this state secret, and felt that he possessed strength and courage enough to divulge this secret, after having had the strength to carry it locked up in his own heart for twenty years.

“Go no farther,” said Fouquet, full of generous feelings. “I understand you, and can guess everything now. You went to see the king when the intelligence of my arrest reached you; you implored him, he refused to listen to you; then you threatened him with that secret, threatened to reveal it, and Louis XIV., alarmed at the risk of its betrayal, granted to the terror of your indiscretion what he refused to your generous intercession. I understand, I understand; you have the king in your power; I understand.”

“You understand nothing– as yet,” replied Aramis, “and again you interrupt me. Then, too, allow me to observe that you pay no attention to logical reasoning, and seem to forget what you ought most to remember.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know upon what I laid the greatest stress at the beginning of our conversation?”

“Yes, his majesty’s hate, invincible hate for me; yes, but what feeling of hate could resist the threat of such a revelation?”

“Such a revelation, do you say? that is the very point where your logic fails you. What! do you suppose that if I had made such a revelation to the king, I should have been alive now?”

“It is not ten minutes ago that you were with the king.”

“That may be. He might not have had the time to get me killed outright, but he would have had the time to get me gagged and thrown in a dungeon. Come, come, show a little consistency in your reasoning, mordieu!”

And by the mere use of this word, which was so thoroughly his old musketeer’s expression, forgotten by one who never seemed to forget anything, Fouquet could not but understand to what a pitch of exaltation the calm, impenetrable bishop of Vannes had wrought himself. He shuddered.

“And then,” replied the latter, after having mastered his feelings, “should I be the man I really am, should I be the true friend you believe me, if I were to expose you, whom the king already hates so bitterly, to a feeling more than ever to be dreaded in that young man? To have robbed him, is nothing; to have addressed the woman he loves, is not much; but to hold in your keeping both his crown and his honor, why, he would pluck out your heart with his own hands.”

“You have not allowed him to penetrate your secret, then?”

“I would sooner, far sooner, have swallowed at one draught all the poisons that Mithridates drank in twenty years, in order to try and avoid death, than have betrayed my secret to the king.”

“What have you done, then?”

“Ah! now we are coming to the point, monseigneur. I think I shall not fail to excite in you a little interest. You are listening, I hope.”

“How can you ask me if I am listening? Go on.”

Aramis walked softly all round the room, satisfied himself that they were alone, and that all was silent, and then returned and placed himself close to the armchair in which Fouquet was seated, awaiting with the deepest anxiety the revelation he had to make.

“I forgot to tell you,” resumed Aramis, addressing himself to Fouquet, who listened to him with the most absorbed attention – “I forgot to mention a most remarkable circumstance respecting these twins, namely, that God had formed them so startlingly, so miraculously, like each other, that it would be utterly impossible to distinguish the one from the other. Their own mother would not be able to distinguish them.”

“Is it possible?” exclaimed Fouquet.

“The same noble character in their features, the same carriage, the same stature, the same voice.”

“But their thoughts? degree of intelligence? their knowledge of human life?”

“There is inequality there, I admit, monseigneur. Yes; for the prisoner of the Bastile is, most incontestably, superior in every way to his brother; and if, from his prison, this unhappy victim were to pass to the throne, France would not, from the earliest period of its history, perhaps, have had a master more powerful in genius and nobility of character.”

Fouquet buried his face in his hands, as if he were overwhelmed by the weight of this immense secret. Aramis approached him.

“There is a further inequality,” he said, continuing his work of temptation, “an inequality which concerns yourself, monseigneur, between the twins, both sons of Louis XIII., namely, the last comer does not know M. Colbert.”

Fouquet raised his head immediately – his features were pale and distorted. The bolt had hit its mark – not his heart, but his mind and comprehension.

“I understand you,” he said to Aramis; “you are proposing a conspiracy to me?”

“Something like it.”