The Man in the Iron Mask Page 13

  Chapter XIII. Nectar and Ambrosia.

  M. Fouquet held the stirrup of the king, who, having dismounted, bowedmost 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 firstcourtyard for the arrival of the carriages, nor had he long to wait, forthe roads had been put into excellent order by the superintendent, anda stone would hardly have been found of the size of an egg the whole wayfrom Melun to Vaux; so that the carriages, rolling along as though on acarpet, brought the ladies to Vaux, without jolting or fatigue, by eighto'clock. They were received by Madame Fouquet, and at the moment theymade their appearance, a light as bright as day burst forth from everyquarter, trees, vases, and marble statues. This species of enchantmentlasted until their majesties had retired into the palace. All thesewonders and magical effects which the chronicler has heaped up, orrather embalmed, in his recital, at the risk of rivaling the brain-bornscenes of romancers; these splendors whereby night seemed vanquished andnature corrected, together with every delight and luxury combined forthe satisfaction of all the senses, as well as the imagination, Fouquetdid in real truth offer to his sovereign in that enchanting retreat ofwhich no monarch could at that time boast of possessing an equal. We donot intend to describe the grand banquet, at which the royal guestswere present, nor the concerts, nor the fairy-like and more than magictransformations and metamorphoses; it will be enough for our purposeto depict the countenance the king assumed, which, from being gay, soonwore a very gloomy, constrained, and irritated expression. He rememberedhis own residence, royal though it was, and the mean and indifferentstyle of luxury that prevailed there, which comprised but little morethan what was merely useful for the royal wants, without being his ownpersonal property. The large vases of the Louvre, the older furnitureand plate of Henry II., of Francis I., and of Louis XI., were buthistoric monuments of earlier days; nothing but specimens of art, therelics of his predecessors; while with Fouquet, the value of the articlewas as much in the workmanship as in the article itself. Fouquet atefrom a gold service, which artists in his own employ had modeled andcast for him alone. Fouquet drank wines of which the king of France didnot even know the name, and drank them out of goblets each more valuablethan the entire royal cellar.

  What, too, was to be said of the apartments, the hangings, the pictures,the servants and officers, of every description, of his household? Whatof the mode of service in which etiquette was replaced by order;stiff formality by personal, unrestrained comfort; the happiness andcontentment of the guest became the supreme law of all who obeyedthe host? The perfect swarm of busily engaged persons moving aboutnoiselessly; the multitude of guests,--who were, however, evenless numerous than the servants who waited on them,--the myriad ofexquisitely prepared dishes, of gold and silver vases; the floods ofdazzling light, the masses of unknown flowers of which the hot-houseshad been despoiled, redundant with luxuriance of unequaled scent andbeauty; the perfect harmony of the surroundings, which, indeed, wasno more than the prelude of the promised _fete_, charmed all who werethere; and they testified their admiration over and over again, notby voice or gesture, but by deep silence and rapt attention, thosetwo languages of the courtier which acknowledge the hand of no masterpowerful enough to restrain them.

  As for the king, his eyes filled with tears; he dared not look at thequeen. Anne of Austria, whose pride was superior to that of any creaturebreathing, overwhelmed her host by the contempt with which she treatedeverything handed to her. The young queen, kind-hearted by nature andcurious by disposition, praised Fouquet, ate with an exceedingly goodappetite, and asked the names of the strange fruits as they were placedupon the table. Fouquet replied that he was not aware of their names.The fruits came from his own stores; he had often cultivated themhimself, having an intimate acquaintance with the cultivation of exoticfruits and plants. The king felt and appreciated the delicacy of thereplies, but was only the more humiliated; he thought the queen a littletoo familiar in her manners, and that Anne of Austria resembled Junoa little too much, in being too proud and haughty; his chief anxiety,however, was himself, that he might remain cold and distant in hisbehavior, bordering lightly the limits of supreme disdain or simpleadmiration.

  But Fouquet had foreseen all this; he was, in fact, one of those men whoforesee everything. The king had expressly declared that, so long as heremained under Fouquet's roof, he did not wish his own different repaststo be served in accordance with the usual etiquette, and that he would,consequently, dine with the rest of society; but by the thoughtfulattention of the surintendant, the king's dinner was served upseparately, if one may so express it, in the middle of the generaltable; the dinner, wonderful in every respect, from the dishes ofwhich was composed, comprised everything the king liked and generallypreferred to anything else. Louis had no excuse--he, indeed, who had thekeenest appetite in his kingdom--for saying that he was not hungry.Nay, M. Fouquet did even better still; he certainly, in obedience to theking's expressed desire, seated himself at the table, but as soon asthe soups were served, he arose and personally waited on the king, whileMadame Fouquet stood behind the queen-mother's armchair. The disdainof Juno and the sulky fits of temper of Jupiter could not resist thisexcess of kindly feeling and polite attention. The queen ate a biscuitdipped in a glass of San-Lucar wine; and the king ate of everything,saying to M. Fouquet: "It is impossible, monsieur le surintendant, todine better anywhere." Whereupon the whole court began, on all sides, todevour the dishes spread before them with such enthusiasm that it lookedas though a cloud of Egyptian locusts was settling down on green andgrowing crops.

  As soon, however, as his hunger was appeased, the king became moroseand overgloomed again; the more so in proportion to the satisfaction hefancied he had previously manifested, and particularly on account ofthe deferential manner which his courtiers had shown towards Fouquet.D'Artagnan, who ate a good deal and drank but little, without allowingit to be noticed, did not lose a single opportunity, but made a greatnumber of observations which he turned to good profit.

  When the supper was finished, the king expressed a wish not to lose thepromenade. The park was illuminated; the moon, too, as if she had placedherself at the orders of the lord of Vaux, silvered the trees andlake with her own bright and quasi-phosphorescent light. The air wasstrangely soft and balmy; the daintily shell-gravelled walks throughthe thickly set avenues yielded luxuriously to the feet. The _fete_ wascomplete in every respect, for the king, having met La Valliere in oneof the winding paths of the wood, was able to press her hand and say,"I love you," without any one overhearing him except M. d'Artagnan, whofollowed, and M. Fouquet, who preceded him.

  The dreamy night of magical enchantments stole smoothly on. The kinghaving requested to be shown to his room, there was immediately amovement in every direction. The queens passed to their own apartments,accompanied by them music of theorbos and lutes; the king found hismusketeers awaiting him on the grand flight of steps, for M. Fouquet hadbrought them on from Melun and had invited them to supper. D'Artagnan'ssuspicions at once disappeared. He was weary, he had supped well, andwished, for once in his life, thoroughly to enjoy a _fete_ given by aman 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 ofMorpheus, of which we owe some cursory description to our readers. Itwas the handsomest and largest in the palace. Lebrun had painted on thevaulted ceiling the happy as well as the unhappy dreams which Morpheusinflicts on kings as well as on other men. Everything that sleep givesbirth to that is lovely, its fairy scenes, its flowers and nectar, thewild voluptuousness or profound repose of the senses, had the painterelaborated on his frescoes. It was a composition as soft and pleasingin one part as dark and gloomy and terrible in another. The poisonedchalice, the glittering dagger suspended over the head of the sleeper;wizards and phantoms with terrific masks, those half-dim shadows morealarming than the ap
proach of fire or the somber face of midnight,these, and such as these, he had made the companions of his morepleasing pictures. No sooner had the king entered his room than a coldshiver seemed to pass through him, and on Fouquet asking him the causeof 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 youhave the goodness to tell M. Colbert I wish to see him."

  Fouquet bowed and left the room.