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CHAPTER XVII. High Treason.
The ungovernable fury which took possession of the king at the sight and at the perusal
of Fouquet's letter to La Valliere by degrees subsided into a feeling of pain and
extreme weariness.
Youth, invigorated by health and lightness of spirits, requiring soon that what it
loses should be immediately restored--youth knows not those endless, sleepless nights
which enable us to realize the fable of the
vulture unceasingly feeding on Prometheus.
In cases where the man of middle life, in his acquired strength of will and purpose,
and the old, in their state of natural exhaustion, find incessant augmentation of
their bitter sorrow, a young man, surprised
by the sudden appearance of misfortune, weakens himself in sighs, and groans, and
tears, directly struggling with his grief, and is thereby far sooner overthrown by the
inflexible enemy with whom he is engaged.
Once overthrown, his struggles cease.
Louis could not hold out more than a few minutes, at the end of which he had ceased
to clench his hands, and scorch in fancy with his looks the invisible objects of his
hatred; he soon ceased to attack with his
violent imprecations not M. Fouquet alone, but even La Valliere herself; from fury he
subsided into despair, and from despair to prostration.
After he had thrown himself for a few minutes to and fro convulsively on his bed,
his nerveless arms fell quietly down; his head lay languidly on his pillow; his
limbs, exhausted with excessive emotion,
still trembled occasionally, agitated by muscular contractions; while from his
breast faint and infrequent sighs still issued.
Morpheus, the tutelary deity of the apartment, towards whom Louis raised his
eyes, wearied by his anger and reconciled by his tears, showered down upon him the
sleep-inducing poppies with which his hands
are ever filled; so presently the monarch closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Then it seemed to him, as it often happens in that first sleep, so light and gentle,
which raises the body above the couch, and the soul above the earth--it seemed to him,
we say, as if the god Morpheus, painted on
the ceiling, looked at him with eyes resembling human eyes; that something shone
brightly, and moved to and fro in the dome above the sleeper; that the crowd of
terrible dreams which thronged together in
his brain, and which were interrupted for a moment, half revealed a human face, with a
hand resting against the mouth, and in an attitude of deep and absorbed meditation.
And strange enough, too, this man bore so wonderful a resemblance to the king
himself, that Louis fancied he was looking at his own face reflected in a mirror; with
the exception, however, that the face was
saddened by a feeling of the profoundest pity.
Then it seemed to him as if the dome gradually retired, escaping from his gaze,
and that the figures and attributes painted by Lebrun became darker and darker as the
distance became more and more remote.
A gentle, easy movement, as regular as that by which a vessel plunges beneath the
waves, had succeeded to the immovableness of the bed.
Doubtless the king was dreaming, and in this dream the crown of gold, which
fastened the curtains together, seemed to recede from his vision, just as the dome,
to which it remained suspended, had done,
so that the winged genius which, with both its hand, supported the crown, seemed,
though vainly so, to call upon the king, who was fast disappearing from it.
The bed still sunk.
Louis, with his eyes open, could not resist the deception of this cruel hallucination.
At last, as the light of the royal chamber faded away into darkness and gloom,
something cold, gloomy, and inexplicable in its nature seemed to infect the air.
No paintings, nor gold, nor velvet hangings, were visible any longer, nothing
but walls of a dull gray color, which the increasing gloom made darker every moment.
And yet the bed still continued to descend, and after a minute, which seemed in its
duration almost an age to the king, it reached a stratum of air, black and chill
as death, and then it stopped.
The king could no longer see the light in his room, except as from the bottom of a
well we can see the light of day. "I am under the influence of some atrocious
dream," he thought.
"It is time to awaken from it. Come! let me wake."
Every one has experienced the sensation the above remark conveys; there is hardly a
person who, in the midst of a nightmare whose influence is suffocating, has not
said to himself, by the help of that light
which still burns in the brain when every human light is extinguished, "It is nothing
but a dream, after all."
This was precisely what Louis XIV. said to himself; but when he said, "Come, come!
wake up," he perceived that not only was he already awake, but still more, that he had
his eyes open also.
And then he looked all round him.
On his right hand and on his left two armed men stood in stolid silence, each wrapped
in a huge cloak, and the face covered with a mask; one of them held a small lamp in
his hand, whose glimmering light revealed
the saddest picture a king could look upon.
Louis could not help saying to himself that his dream still lasted, and that all he had
to do to cause it to disappear was to move his arms or to say something aloud; he
darted from his bed, and found himself upon the damp, moist ground.
Then, addressing himself to the man who held the lamp in his hand, he said:
"What is this, monsieur, and what is the meaning of this jest?"
"It is no jest," replied in a deep voice the masked figure that held the lantern.
"Do you belong to M. Fouquet?" inquired the king, greatly astonished at his situation.
"It matters very little to whom we belong," said the phantom; "we are your masters now,
that is sufficient."
The king, more impatient than intimidated, turned to the other masked figure.
"If this is a comedy," he said, "you will tell M. Fouquet that I find it unseemly and
improper, and that I command it should cease."
The second masked person to whom the king had addressed himself was a man of huge
stature and vast circumference. He held himself erect and motionless as any
block of marble.
"Well!" added the king, stamping his foot, "you do not answer!"
"We do not answer you, my good monsieur," said the giant, in a stentorian voice,
"because there is nothing to say."
"At least, tell me what you want," exclaimed Louis, folding his arms with a
passionate gesture. "You will know by and by," replied the man
who held the lamp.
"In the meantime tell me where I am." "Look."
Louis looked all round him; but by the light of the lamp which the masked figure
raised for the purpose, he could perceive nothing but the damp walls which glistened
here and there with the slimy traces of the snail.
"Oh--oh!--a dungeon," cried the king. "No, a subterranean passage."
"Which leads--?"
"Will you be good enough to follow us?" "I shall not stir from hence!" cried the
king.
"If you are obstinate, my dear young friend," replied the taller of the two, "I
will lift you up in my arms, and roll you up in your own cloak, and if you should
happen to be stifled, why--so much the worse for you."
As he said this, he disengaged from beneath his cloak a hand of which Milo of Crotona
would have envied him the possession, on the day when he had that unhappy idea of
rending his last oak.
The king dreaded violence, for he could well believe that the two men into whose
power he had fallen had not gone so far with any idea of drawing back, and that
they would consequently be ready to proceed to extremities, if necessary.
He shook his head and said: "It seems I have fallen into the hands of a couple of
assassins.
Move on, then." Neither of the men answered a word to this
remark.
The one who carried the lantern walked first, the king followed him, while the
second masked figure closed the procession.
In this manner they passed along a winding gallery of some length, with as many
staircases leading out of it as are to be found in the mysterious and gloomy palaces
of Ann Radcliffe's creation.
All these windings and turnings, during which the king heard the sound of running
water over his head, ended at last in a long corridor closed by an iron door.
The figure with the lamp opened the door with one of the keys he wore suspended at
his girdle, where, during the whole of the brief journey, the king had heard them
rattle.
As soon as the door was opened and admitted the air, Louis recognized the balmy odors
that trees exhale in hot summer nights.
He paused, hesitatingly, for a moment or two; but the huge sentinel who followed him
thrust him out of the subterranean passage.
"Another blow," said the king, turning towards the one who had just had the
audacity to touch his sovereign; "what do you intend to do with the king of France?"
"Try to forget that word," replied the man with the lamp, in a tone which as little
admitted of a reply as one of the famous decrees of Minos.
"You deserve to be broken on the wheel for the words that you have just made use of,"
said the giant, as he extinguished the lamp his companion handed to him; "but the king
is too kind-hearted."
Louis, at that threat, made so sudden a movement that it seemed as if he meditated
flight; but the giant's hand was in a moment placed on his shoulder, and fixed
him motionless where he stood.
"But tell me, at least, where we are going," said the king.
"Come," replied the former of the two men, with a kind of respect in his manner, and
leading his prisoner towards a carriage which seemed to be in waiting.
The carriage was completely concealed amid the trees.
Two horses, with their feet fettered, were fastened by a halter to the lower branches
of a large oak.
"Get in," said the same man, opening the carriage-door and letting down the step.
The king obeyed, seated himself at the back of the carriage, the padded door of which
was shut and locked immediately upon him and his guide.
As for the giant, he cut the fastenings by which the horses were bound, harnessed them
himself, and mounted on the box of the carriage, which was unoccupied.
The carriage set off immediately at a quick trot, turned into the road to Paris, and in
the forest of Senart found a relay of horses fastened to the trees in the same
manner the first horses had been, and without a postilion.
The man on the box changed the horses, and continued to follow the road towards Paris
with the same rapidity, so that they entered the city about three o'clock in the
morning.
They carriage proceeded along the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and, after having called out
to the sentinel, "By the king's order," the driver conducted the horses into the
circular inclosure of the Bastile, looking
out upon the courtyard, called La Cour du Gouvernement.
There the horses drew up, reeking with sweat, at the flight of steps, and a
sergeant of the guard ran forward.
"Go and wake the governor," said the coachman in a voice of thunder.
With the exception of this voice, which might have been heard at the entrance of
the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, everything remained as calm in the carriage as in the
prison.
Ten minutes afterwards, M. de Baisemeaux appeared in his dressing-gown on the
threshold of the door. "What is the matter now?" he asked; "and
whom have you brought me there?"
The man with the lantern opened the carriage-door, and said two or three words
to the one who acted as driver, who immediately got down from his seat, took up
a short musket which he kept under his
feet, and placed its muzzle on his prisoner's chest.
"And fire at once if he speaks!" added aloud the man who alighted from the
carriage.
"Very good," replied his companion, without another remark.
With this recommendation, the person who had accompanied the king in the carriage
ascended the flight of steps, at the top of which the governor was awaiting him.
"Monsieur d'Herblay!" said the latter.
"Hush!" said Aramis. "Let us go into your room."
"Good heavens! what brings you here at this hour?"
"A mistake, my dear Monsieur de Baisemeaux," Aramis replied, quietly.
"It appears that you were quite right the other day."
"What about?" inquired the governor.
"About the order of release, my dear friend."
"Tell me what you mean, monsieur--no, monseigneur," said the governor, almost
suffocated by surprise and terror.
"It is a very simple affair: you remember, dear M. de Baisemeaux, that an order of
release was sent to you." "Yes, for Marchiali."
"Very good! we both thought that it was for Marchiali?"
"Certainly; you will recollect, however, that I would not credit it, but that you
compelled me to believe it."
"Oh! Baisemeaux, my good fellow, what a word to make use of!--strongly recommended,
that was all."
"Strongly recommended, yes; strongly recommended to give him up to you; and that
you carried him off with you in your carriage."
"Well, my dear Monsieur de Baisemeaux, it was a mistake; it was discovered at the
ministry, so that I now bring you an order from the king to set at liberty Seldon,--
that poor Seldon fellow, you know."
"Seldon! are you sure this time?" "Well, read it yourself," added Aramis,
handing him the order.
"Why," said Baisemeaux, "this order is the very same that has already passed through
my hands." "Indeed?"
"It is the very one I assured you I saw the other evening.
Parbleu! I recognize it by the blot of ink."
"I do not know whether it is that; but all I know is, that I bring it for you."
"But then, what about the other?" "What other?"
"Marchiali."
"I have got him here with me." "But that is not enough for me.
I require a new order to take him back again."
"Don't talk such nonsense, my dear Baisemeaux; you talk like a child!
Where is the order you received respecting Marchiali?"
Baisemeaux ran to his iron chest and took it out.
Aramis seized hold of it, coolly tore it in four pieces, held them to the lamp, and
burnt them.
"Good heavens! what are you doing?" exclaimed Baisemeaux, in an extremity of
terror.
"Look at your position quietly, my good governor," said Aramis, with imperturbable
self-possession, "and you will see how very simple the whole affair is.
You no longer possess any order justifying Marchiali's release."
"I am a lost man!"
"Far from it, my good fellow, since I have brought Marchiali back to you, and all
accordingly is just the same as if he had never left."
"Ah!" said the governor, completely overcome by terror.
"Plain enough, you see; and you will go and shut him up immediately."
"I should think so, indeed."
"And you will hand over this Seldon to me, whose liberation is authorized by this
order. Do you understand?"
"I--I--"
"You do understand, I see," said Aramis. "Very good."
Baisemeaux clapped his hands together.
"But why, at all events, after having taken Marchiali away from me, do you bring him
back again?" cried the unhappy governor, in a paroxysm of terror, and completely
dumbfounded.
"For a friend such as you are," said Aramis--"for so devoted a servant, I have
no secrets;" and he put his mouth close to Baisemeaux's ear, as he said, in a low tone
of voice, "you know the resemblance between that unfortunate fellow, and--"
"And the king?--yes!"
"Very good; the first use that Marchiali made of his liberty was to persist--Can you
guess what?" "How is it likely I should guess?"
"To persist in saying that he was king of France; to dress himself up in clothes like
those of the king; and then pretend to assume that he was the king himself."
"Gracious heavens!"
"That is the reason why I have brought him back again, my dear friend.
He is mad and lets every one see how mad he is."
"What is to be done, then?"
"That is very simple; let no one hold any communication with him.
You understand that when his peculiar style of madness came to the king's ears, the
king, who had pitied his terrible affliction, and saw that all his kindness
had been repaid by black ingratitude,
became perfectly furious; so that, now--and remember this very distinctly, dear
Monsieur de Baisemeaux, for it concerns you most closely--so that there is now, I
repeat, sentence of death pronounced
against all those who may allow him to communicate with any one else but me or the
king himself. You understand, Baisemeaux, sentence of
death!"
"You need not ask me whether I understand." "And now, let us go down, and conduct this
poor devil back to his dungeon again, unless you prefer he should come up here."
"What would be the good of that?"
"It would be better, perhaps, to enter his name in the prison-book at once!"
"Of course, certainly; not a doubt of it." "In that case, have him up."
Baisemeaux ordered the drums to be beaten and the bell to be rung, as a warning to
every one to retire, in order to avoid meeting a prisoner, about whom it was
desired to observe a certain mystery.
Then, when the passages were free, he went to take the prisoner from the carriage, at
whose breast Porthos, faithful to the directions which had been given him, still
kept his musket leveled.
"Ah! is that you, miserable wretch?" cried the governor, as soon as he perceived the
king. "Very good, very good."
And immediately, making the king get out of the carriage, he led him, still accompanied
by Porthos, who had not taken off his mask, and Aramis, who again resumed his, up the
stairs, to the second Bertaudiere, and
opened the door of the room in which Philippe for six long years had bemoaned
his existence.
The king entered the cell without pronouncing a single word: he faltered in
as limp and haggard as a rain-struck lily.
Baisemeaux shut the door upon him, turned the key twice in the lock, and then
returned to Aramis.
"It is quite true," he said, in a low tone, "that he bears a striking resemblance to
the king; but less so than you said."
"So that," said Aramis, "you would not have been deceived by the substitution of the
one for the other?" "What a question!"
"You are a most valuable fellow, Baisemeaux," said Aramis; "and now, set
Seldon free." "Oh, yes.
I was going to forget that.
I will go and give orders at once." "Bah! to-morrow will be time enough."
"To-morrow!--oh, no. This very minute."
"Well; go off to your affairs, I will go away to mine.
But it is quite understood, is it not?" "What 'is quite understood'?"
"That no one is to enter the prisoner's cell, expect with an order from the king;
an order which I will myself bring." "Quite so.
Adieu, monseigneur."
Aramis returned to his companion. "Now, Porthos, my good fellow, back again
to Vaux, and as fast as possible."
"A man is light and easy enough, when he has faithfully served his king; and, in
serving him, saved his country," said Porthos.
"The horses will be as light as if our tissues were constructed of the wind of
heaven. So let us be off."
And the carriage, lightened of a prisoner, who might well be--as he in fact was--very
heavy in the sight of Aramis, passed across the drawbridge of the Bastile, which was
raised again immediately behind it.