.

"I will not say another word, then."

"M. Fouquet, I was observing, the minister of the reigning sovereign,
was suddenly taken into the greatest aversion, and menaced with the
ruin of his fortune, loss of liberty, loss of life even, by intrigue and
personal hatred, to which the king gave too readily an attentive ear.
But Heaven permits (still, however, out of consideration for the unhappy
prince who had been sacrificed) that M. Fouquet should in his turn have
a devoted friend who knew this state secret, and felt that he possessed
strength and courage enough to divulge this secret, after having had the
strength to carry it locked up in his own heart for twenty years.

"Go no farther," said Fouquet, full of generous feelings. "I understand
you, and can guess everything now. You went to see the king when the
intelligence of my arrest reached you; you implored him, he refused to
listen to you; then you threatened him with that secret, threatened to
reveal it, and Louis XIV., alarmed at the risk of its betrayal, granted
to the terror of your indiscretion what he refused to your generous
intercession. I understand, I understand; you have the king in your
power; I understand."

"You understand _nothing_--as yet," replied Aramis, "and again you
interrupt me. Then, too, allow me to observe that you pay no attention
to logical reasoning, and seem to forget what you ought most to
remember."

"What do you mean?"

"You know upon what I laid the greatest stress at the beginning of our
conversation?"

"Yes, his majesty's hate, invincible hate for me; yes, but what feeling
of hate could resist the threat of such a revelation?"

"Such a revelation, do you say? that is the very point where your logic
fails you. What! do you suppose that if I had made such a revelation to
the king, I should have been alive now?"

"It is not ten minutes ago that you were with the king."

"That may be. He might not have had the time to get me killed outright,
but he would have had the time to get me gagged and thrown in a dungeon.
Come, come, show a little consistency in your reasoning, _mordieu!_"

And by the mere use of this word, which was so thoroughly his old
musketeer's expression, forgotten by one who never seemed to forget
anything, Fouquet could not but understand to what a pitch of exaltation
the calm, impenetrable bishop of Vannes had wrought himself. He
shuddered.

"And then," replied the latter, after having mastered his feeli