Part 53 (1/2)
”Let us understand one another, Monsieur Fouquet,” said the king, haughtily ”We no longer live in times when assassination was the only and the last resource kings held in reservation at extremity No, Heaven be praised! I have parliae in my name, and I have scaffolds on which supreme authority is carried out”
Fouquet turned pale ”I will take the liberty of observing to yourthese nity of the throne The august name of Anne of Austria must never be allowed to pass the lips of the people accompanied by a smile”
”Justice must be done, however, monsieur”
”Good, sire; but royal blood must not be shed upon a scaffold”
”The royal blood! you believe that!” cried the king with fury in his voice, staround ”This double birth is an invention; and in that invention, particularly, do I see M d'Herblay's crime It is the crime I wish to punish rather than the violence, or the insult”
”And punish it with death, sire?”
”With death; yes, monsieur, I have said it”
”Sire,” said the surintendant, with firmness, as he raised his head proudly, ”your majesty will take the life, if you please, of your brother Philippe of France; that concerns you alone, and you will doubtless consult the queen-mother upon the subject Whatever she may command will be perfectly correct I do not wish to mix myself up in it, not even for the honor of your crown, but I have a favor to ask of you, and I beg to subree agitated by his minister's last words ”What do you require?”
”The pardon of M d'Herblay and of M du Vallon”
”My assassins?”
”Two rebels, sire, that is all”
”Oh! I understand, then, you ask ive your friends”
”My friends!” said Fouquet, deeply wounded
”Your friends, certainly; but the safety of the state requires that an exeuilty”
”I will not permit myself to remind your majesty that I have just restored you to liberty, and have saved your life”
”Monsieur!”
”I will not allow myself to remind your majesty that had M d'Herblay wished to carry out his character of an assassin, he could very easily have assassinated yourin the forest of Senart, and all would have been over” The king started
”A pistol-bullet through the head,” pursued Fouquet, ”and the disfigured features of Louis XIV, which no one could have recognized, would be M
d'Herblay's co turned pale and giddy at the bare idea of the danger he had escaped
”If M d'Herblay,” continued Fouquet, ”had been an assassin, he had no occasion to infor, it would have been iuess the false And if the usurper had been recognized by Anne of Austria, he would still have been--her son The usurper, as far as Monsieur d'Herblay's conscience was concerned, was still a king of the blood of Louis XIII Moreover, the conspirator, in that course, would have had security, secrecy, impunity A pistol-bullet would have procured hiiveness”
The king, instead of being touched by the picture, so faithfully drawn in all details, of Araenerosity, felt himself most painfully and cruelly humiliated His unconquerable pride revolted at the idea that a er the thread of his royal life Every word that fell frohthis friend's pardon, seemed to pour another drop of poison into the already ulcerated heart of Louis XIV
Nothing could bend or soften hi himself to Fouquet, he said, ”I really don't know, monsieur, why you should solicit the pardon of thesethat which can be obtained without solicitation?”
”I do not understand you, sire”