D’Artagnan had set off; Fouquet likewise was gone, and with a rapidity
which doubled the tender interest of his friends. The first moments of
this journey, or better say, this flight, were troubled by a ceaseless
dread of every horse and carriage to be seen behind the fugitive. It was
not natural, in fact, if Louis XIV. was determined to seize this prey,
that he should allow it to escape; the young lion was already accustomed
to the chase, and he had bloodhounds sufficiently clever to be trusted.
But insensibly all fears were dispersed; the surintendant, by hard
traveling, placed such a distance between himself and his persecutors,
that no one of them could reasonably be expected to overtake him. As
to his position, his friends had made it excellent for him. Was he not
traveling to join the king at Nantes, and what did the rapidity prove
but his zeal to obey? He arrived, fatigued, but reassured, at Orleans,
where he found, thanks to the care of a courier who had preceded him,
a handsome lighter of eight oars. These lighters, in the shape of
gondolas, somewhat wide and heavy, containing a small chamber, covered
by the deck, and a chamber in the poop, formed by a tent, then acted as
passage-boats from Orleans to Nantes, by the Loire, and this passage,
a long one in our days, appeared then more easy and convenient than the
high-road, with its post-hacks and its ill-hung carriages. Fouquet went
on board this lighter, which set out immediately. The rowers, knowing
they had the honor of conveying the surintendant of the finances, pulled
with all their strength, and that magic word, the _finances_, promised
them a liberal gratification, of which they wished to prove themselves
worthy. The lighter seemed to leap the mimic waves of the Loire.
Magnificent weather, a sunrise that empurpled all the landscape,
displayed the river in all its limpid serenity. The current and the
rowers carried Fouquet along as wings carry a bird, and he arrived
before Beaugency without the slightest accident having signalized the
voyage. Fouquet hoped to be the first to arrive at Nantes; there he
would see the notables and gain support among the principal members of
the States; he would make himself a necessity, a thing very easy for a
man of his merit, and would delay the catastrophe, if he did not succeed
in avoiding it entirely. “Besides,” said Gourville to him, “at Nantes,
you will make out, or we will make out, the intentions of your enemies;
we will have horses always ready to convey you to Poitou, a bark in
which to gain the sea, and when once upon the open sea, Belle-Isle is
your inviolable port. You see, besides, that no one is watching you, no
one is following.” He had scarcely finished when they discovered at
a distance, behind an elbow formed by the river, the masts of a huge
lighter coming down. The rowers of Fouquet’s boat uttered a cry of
surprise on seeing this galley.
“What is the matter?” asked Fouquet.
“The matter is, monseigneur,” replied the patron of the bark, “that it
is a truly remarkable thing--that lighter comes along like a hurricane.”
Gourville started, and mounted to the deck, in order to obtain a better
view.
Fouquet did not go up with him, but said to Gourville, with restrained
mistrust: “See what it is, dear friend.”
The lighter had just passed the elbow. It came on so fast, that behind
it might be plainly seen the white wake illumined with the fires of the
day.
“How they go,” repeated the skipper, “how they go! They must be well
paid! I did not think,” he added, “that oars of wood could behave better
than ours, but yonder oarsmen prove the contrary.”
“Well they may,” said one of the rowers, “they are twelve, and we but
eight.”
“Twelve rowers!” replied Gourville, “twelve! impossible.”
The number of eight rowers for a lighter had never been exceeded, even
for the king. This honor had been paid to monsieur le surintendant, more
for the sake of haste than of respect.
“What does it mean?” said Gourville, endeavoring to distinguish beneath
the tent, which was already apparent, travelers which the most piercing
eye could not yet have succeeded in discovering.
“They must be in a hurry, for it is not the king,” said the patron.
Fouquet shuddered.
“By what sign do you know that it is not the king?” said Gourville.
“In the first place, because there is no white flag with fleurs-de-lis,
which the royal lighter always carries.”
“And then,” said Fouquet, “because it is impossible it should be the
king, Gourville, as the king was still in Paris yesterday.”
Gourville replied to the surintendant by a look which said: “You were
there yourself yesterday.”
“And by what sign do you make out they are in such haste?” added he, for
the sake of gaining time.
“By this, monsieur,” said the patron; “these people must have set out a
long while after us, and they have already nearly overtaken us.”
“Bah!” said Gourville, “who told you that they do not come from
Beaugency or from Moit even?”
“We have seen no lighter of that shape, except at Orleans. It comes from
Orleans, monsieur, and makes great haste.”
Fouquet and Gourville exchanged a glance. The captain remarked their
uneasiness, and, to mislead him, Gourville immediately said:
“Some friend, who has laid a wager he would catch us; let us win the
wager, and not allow him to come up with us.”
The patron opened his mouth to say that it was quite impossible, but
Fouquet said with much _hauteur_,--“If it is any one who wishes to
overtake us, let him come.”
“We can try, monseigneur,” said the man, timidly. “Come, you fellows,
put out your strength; row, row!”
“No,” said Fouquet, “on the contrary; stop short.”
“Monseigneur! what folly!” interrupted Gourville, stooping towards his
ear.
“Pull up!” repeated Fouquet. The eight oars stopped, and resisting the
water, created a retrograde motion. It stopped. The twelve rowers in the
other did not, at first, perceive this maneuver, for they continued
to urge on their boat so vigorously that it arrived quickly within
musket-shot. Fouquet was short-sighted, Gourville was annoyed by the
sun, now full in his eyes; the skipper alone, with that habit and
clearness which are acquired by a constant struggle with the elements,
perceived distinctly the travelers in the neighboring lighter.
“I can see them!” cried he; “there are two.”
“I can see nothing,” said Gourville.
“You will not be long before you distinguish them; in twenty strokes of
their oars they will be within ten paces of us.”
But what the patron announced was not realized; the lighter imitated
the movement commanded by Fouquet, and instead of coming to join its
pretended friends, it stopped short in the middle of the river.
“I cannot comprehend this,” said the captain.
“Nor I,” cried Gourville.
“You who can see so plainly the people in that lighter,” resumed
Fouquet, “try to describe them to us, before we are too far off.”
“I thought I saw two,” replied the boatman. “I can only see one now,
under the tent.”
“What sort of man is he?”
“He is a dark man, broad-shouldered, bull-necked.”
A little cloud at that moment passed across the azure, darkening the
sun. Gourville, who was still looking, with one hand over his eyes,
became able to see what he sought, and all at once, jumping from the
deck into the chamber where Fouquet awaited him: “Colbert!” said he, in
a voice broken by emotion.
“Colbert!” repeated Fouquet. “Too strange! but no, it is impossible!”
“I tell you I recognized him, and he, at the same time, so plainly
recognized me, that he is just gone into the chamber on the poop.
Perhaps the king has sent him on our track.”
“In that case he would join us, instead of lying by. What is he doing
there?”
“He is watching us, without a doubt.”
“I do not like uncertainty,” said Fouquet; “let us go straight up to
him.”
“Oh! monseigneur, do not do that, the lighter is full of armed men.”
“He wishes to arrest me, then, Gourville? Why does he not come on?”
“Monseigneur, it is not consistent with your dignity to go to meet even
your ruin.”
“But to allow them to watch me like a malefactor!”
“Nothing yet proves that they are watching you, monseigneur; be
patient!”
“What is to be done, then?”
“Do not stop; you were only going so fast to appear to obey the king’s
order with zeal. Redouble the speed. He who lives will see!”
“That is better. Come!” cried Fouquet; “since they remain stock-still
yonder, let us go on.”
The captain gave the signal, and Fouquet’s rowers resumed their task
with all the success that could be looked for from men who had rested.
Scarcely had the lighter made a hundred fathoms, than the other, that
with the twelve rowers, resumed its rapid course. This position lasted
all day, without any increase or diminution of distance between the two
vessels. Towards evening Fouquet wished to try the intentions of his
persecutor. He ordered his rowers to pull towards the shore, as if to
effect a landing. Colbert’s lighter imitated this maneuver, and steered
towards the shore in a slanting direction. By the merest chance, at
the spot where Fouquet pretended to wish to land, a stableman, from
the chateau of Langeais, was following the flowery banks leading three
horses in halters. Without doubt the people of the twelve-oared lighter
fancied that Fouquet was directing his course to these horses ready
for flight, for four or five men, armed with muskets, jumped from the
lighter on to the shore, and marched along the banks, as if to gain
ground on the horseman. Fouquet, satisfied of having forced the enemy to
a demonstration, considered his intention evident, and put his boat
in motion again. Colbert’s people returned likewise to theirs, and the
course of the two vessels was resumed with fresh perseverance. Upon
seeing this, Fouquet felt himself threatened closely, and in a prophetic
voice--“Well, Gourville,” said he, whisperingly, “what did I say at our
last repast, at my house? Am I going, or not, to my ruin?”
“Oh! monseigneur!”
“These two boats, which follow each other with so much emulation, as if
we were disputing, M. Colbert and I, a prize for swiftness on the
Loire, do they not aptly represent our fortunes; and do you not believe,
Gourville, that one of the two will be wrecked at Nantes?”
“At least,” objected Gourville, “there is still uncertainty; you are
about to appear at the States; you are about to show what sort of man
you are; your eloquence and genius for business are the buckler and
sword that will serve to defend you, if not to conquer with. The Bretons
do not know you; and when they become acquainted with you your cause
is won! Oh! let M. Colbert look to it well, for his lighter is as much
exposed as yours to being upset. Both go quickly, his faster than yours,
it is true; we shall see which will be wrecked first.”
Fouquet, taking Gourville’s hand--“My friend,” said he, “everything
considered, remember the proverb, ‘First come, first served!’ Well! M.
Colbert takes care not to pass me. He is a prudent man is M. Colbert.”
He was right; the two lighters held their course as far as Nantes,
watching each other. When the surintendant landed, Gourville hoped he
should be able to seek refuge at once, and have the relays prepared.
But, at the landing, the second lighter joined the first, and Colbert,
approaching Fouquet, saluted him on the quay with marks of the
profoundest respect--marks so significant, so public, that their result
was the bringing of the whole population upon La Fosse. Fouquet was
completely self-possessed; he felt that in his last moments of greatness
he had obligations towards himself. He wished to fall from such a height
that his fall should crush some of his enemies. Colbert was there--so
much the worse for Colbert. The surintendant, therefore, coming up to
him, replied, with that arrogant semi-closure of the eyes peculiar to
him--“What! is that you, M. Colbert?”
“To offer you my respects, monseigneur,” said the latter.
“Were you in that lighter?”--pointing to the one with twelve rowers.
“Yes, monseigneur.”
“Of twelve rowers?” said Fouquet; “what luxury, M. Colbert. For a moment
I thought it was the queen-mother.”
“Monseigneur!”--and Colbert blushed.
“This is a voyage that will cost those who have to pay for it
dear, Monsieur l’Intendant!” said Fouquet. “But you have, happily,
arrived!--You see, however,” added he, a moment after, “that I, who had
but eight rowers, arrived before you.” And he turned his back towards
him, leaving him uncertain whether the maneuvers of the second lighter
had escaped the notice of the first. At least he did not give him
the satisfaction of showing that he had been frightened. Colbert, so
annoyingly attacked, did not give way.
“I have not been quick, monseigneur,” he replied, “because I followed
your example whenever you stopped.”
“And why did you do that, Monsieur Colbert?” cried Fouquet, irritated by
the base audacity; “as you had a superior crew to mine, why did you not
either join me or pass me?”
“Out of respect,” said the intendant, bowing to the ground.
Fouquet got into a carriage which the city had sent to him, we know not
why or how, and he repaired to _la Maison de Nantes_, escorted by a vast
crowd of people, who for several days had been agog with expectation of
a convocation of the States. Scarcely was he installed when Gourville
went out to order horses on the route to Poitiers and Vannes, and a boat
at Paimboef. He performed these various operations with so much mystery,
activity, and generosity, that never was Fouquet, then laboring under an
attack of fever, more nearly saved, except for the counteraction of that
immense disturber of human projects,--chance. A report was spread during
the night, that the king was coming in great haste on post horses, and
would arrive in ten or twelve hours at the latest. The people, while
waiting for the king, were greatly rejoiced to see the musketeers, newly
arrived, with Monsieur d’Artagnan, their captain, and quartered in the
castle, of which they occupied all the posts, in quality of guard of
honor. M. d’Artagnan, who was very polite, presented himself, about
ten o’clock, at the lodgings of the surintendant to pay his respectful
compliments; and although the minister suffered from fever, although
he was in such pain as to be bathed in sweat, he would receive M.
d’Artagnan, who was delighted with that honor, as will be seen by the
conversation they had together.