NECTAR AND AMBROSIA.
M. Fouquet held the stirrup of the king, who, having dismounted, bowed
most graciously, and more graciously still held out his hand to him,
which Fouquet, in spite of a slight resistance on the king's part,
carried respectfully to his lips. The king wished to wait in the first
courtyard for the arrival of the carriages, nor had he long to wait, for
the roads had been put into excellent order by the surintendant, and a
stone would hardly have been found of the size of an egg the whole way
from Melun to Vaux; so that the carriages, rolling along as though on a
carpet, brought the ladies to Vaux, without jolting or fatigue, by eight
o'clock. They were received by Madame Fouquet, and at the moment these
made their appearance, a light as bright as day burst forth from all the
trees, and vases, and marble statues. This species of enchantment lasted
until their majesties had retired into the palace. All these wonders and
magical effects which the chronicler has heaped up, or rather,
preserved, in his recital, at the risk of rivaling the creations of a
romancist; these splendors whereby night seemed conquered and nature
corrected; together with every delight and luxury combined for the
satisfaction of all the senses, as well as of the mind, Fouquet did in
real truth offer to his sovereign in that enchanting retreat of which no
monarch could at that time boast of possessing an equal. We do not
intend to describe the grand banquet, at which all the royal guests were
present, nor the concerts, nor the fairy-like and magical
transformations and metamorphoses; it will be more than enough for our
purpose to depict the countenance which the king assumed, and which,
from being gay, soon wore a gloomy, constrained, and irritated
expression. He remembered his own residence, royal though it was, and
the mean and indifferent style of luxury which prevailed there, and
which comprised only that which was merely useful for the royal wants,
without being his own personal property. The large vases of the Louvre,
the old furniture and plate of Henry II., of Francis I., of Louis XI.,
were merely historical monuments of earlier days; they were nothing but
specimens of art, the relics of his predecessors; while with Fouquet,
the value of the article was as much in the workmanship as in the
article itself. Fouquet ate from a gold service, which artists in his
own employ had modeled and cast for himself alone. Fouquet drank wines
of which the king of France did not even know the name, and drank them
out of goblets each more precious than the whole royal cellar.
What, too, can be said of the apartments, the hangings, the pictures,
the servants and officers, of every description, of his household? What
can be said of the mode of service in which etiquette was replaced by
order; stiff formality by personal, unrestrained comfort; the happiness
and contentment of the guest became the supreme law of all who obeyed
the host. The perfect swarm of busily engaged persons moving about
noiselessly; the multitude of guests--who were, however, even less
numerous than the servants who waited on them--the myriads of
exquisitely prepared dishes, of gold and silver vases; the floods of
dazzling light, the masses of unknown flowers of which the hot-houses
had been despoiled, and which were redundant with all the luxuriance of
unequaled beauty; the perfect harmony of everything which surrounded
them, and which indeed was no more than the prelude of the promised
fete, more than charmed all who were there, and who testified their
admiration over and over again, not by voice or gesture, but by deep
silence and rapt attention, those two languages of the courtier which
acknowledge the hand of no master powerful enough to restrain them.
As for the king, his eyes filled with tears; he dared not look at the
queen. Anne of Austria, whose pride, as it ever had been, was superior
to that of any creature breathing, overwhelmed her host by the contempt
with which she treated everything handed to her. The young queen,
kind-hearted by nature and curious by disposition, praised Fouquet, ate
with an exceedingly good appetite, and asked the names of the different
fruits which were placed upon the table. Fouquet replied that he was not
aware of their names. The fruits came from his own stores: he had often
cultivated them himself, having an intimate acquaintance with the
cultivation of exotic fruits and plants. The king felt and appreciated
the delicacy of the reply, but was only the more humiliated at it; he
thought that the queen was a little too familiar in her manners, and
that Anne of Austria resembled Juno a little too much, in being too
proud and haughty; his chief anxiety, however, was himself, that he
might remain cold and distant in his behavior, bordering slightly on the
limits of extreme disdain or of simple admiration.
But Fouquet had foreseen all that; he was, in fact, one of those men who
foresee everything. The king had expressly declared that so long as he
remained under M. Fouquet's roof he did not wish his own different
repasts to be served in accordance with the usual etiquette, and that he
would, consequently, dine with the rest of the society; but by the
thoughtful attention of the surintendant, the king's dinner was served
up separately, if one may so express it, in the middle of the general
table; the dinner, wonderful in every respect, from the dishes of which
it was composed, comprised everything the king liked, and which he
generally preferred to anything else. Louis had no excuse--he, indeed,
who had the keenest appetite in his kingdom--for saying that he was not
hungry. Nay, M. Fouquet even did better still; he certainly, in
obedience to the king's expressed desire, seated himself at the table,
but as soon as the soups were served, he rose and personally waited on
the king, while Madame Fouquet stood behind the queen-mother's armchair.
The disdain of Juno and the sulky fits of temper of Jupiter could not
resist this excess of kindly feeling and polite attention. The queen ate
a biscuit dipped in a glass of San-Lucar wine; and the king ate of
everything, saying to M. Fouquet: "It is impossible, Monsieur le
Surintendant, to dine better anywhere." Whereupon the whole court began,
on all sides, to devour the dishes spread before them, with such
enthusiasm that it looked like a cloud of Egyptian locusts settling down
upon the uncut crops.
As soon, however, as his hunger was appeased, the king became dull and
gloomy again; the more so in proportion to the satisfaction he fancied
he had manifested, and particularly on account of the deferential manner
which his courtiers had shown toward Fouquet. D'Artagnan, who ate a good
deal and drank but little, without allowing it to be noticed, did not
lose a single opportunity, but made a great number of observations which
he turned to good profit.
When the supper was finished, the king expressed a wish not to lose the
promenade. The park was illuminated; the moon, too as if she had placed
herself at the orders of the Lord of Vaux, silvered the trees and lakes
with her bright phosphoric light. The air was soft and balmy; the
graveled walks through the thickly set avenues yielded luxuriously to
the feet. The fete was complete in every respect, for the king, having
met La Valliere in one of the winding paths of the wood, was able to
press her by the hand and say, "I love you," without any one overhearing
him except M. d'Artagnan who followed, and M. Fouquet who preceded him.
The night of magical enchantments stole on. The king having requested to
be shown his room, there was immediately a movement in every direction.
The queens passed to their own apartments, accompanied by the music of
theorbos and lutes; the king found his musketeers awaiting him on the
grand flight of steps, for M. Fouquet had brought them on from Melun,
and had invited them to supper. D'Artagnan's suspicions at once
disappeared. He was weary, he had supped well, and wished, for once in
his life, thoroughly to enjoy a fete given by a man who was in every
sense of the word a king. "M. Fouquet," he said, "is the man for me."
The king was conducted with the greatest ceremony to the chamber of
Morpheus, of which we owe some slight description to our readers. It was
the handsomest and the largest in the palace. Lebrun had painted on the
vaulted ceiling the happy, as well as disagreeable, dreams with which
Morpheus affects kings as well as other men. Everything that sleep gives
birth to that is lovely, its perfumes, its flowers and nectar, the wild
voluptuousness or deep repose of the senses, had the painter enriched
with his frescoes. It was a composition as soft and pleasing in one part
as dark and gloomy and terrible in another. The poisoned chalice, the
glittering dagger suspended over the head of the sleeper; wizards and
phantoms with hideous masks, those half dim shadows, more terrific than
the brightness of flame or the blackness of night; these, and such as
these, he had made the companions of his more pleasing pictures. No
sooner had the king entered the room than a cold shiver seemed to pass
through him, and on Fouquet asking him the cause of it, the king
replied, as pale as death:
"I am sleepy, that is all."
"Does your majesty wish for your attendants at once."
"No; I have to talk with a few persons first," said the king. "Will you
have the goodness to tell M. Colbert I wish to see him." Fouquet bowed
and left the room.