oor and the door-case, so that the lock did not catch, and
the clerk was still nose to nose with his interlocutor. This made him
change his tone, and say, with terrified politeness, "If monsieur wishes
to speak to M. le Surintendant, he must go to the antechambers; these
are the offices, where monseigneur never comes."

"Oh! very well! Where are they?" replied D'Artagnan.

"On the other side of the court," said the clerk, delighted at being
free.

D'Artagnan crossed the court, and fell in with a crowd of servants.

"Monseigneur sees nobody at this hour," he was answered by a fellow
carrying a vermeil dish, in which were three pheasants and twelve
quails.

"Tell him," said the captain, laying hold of the servant by the end of
his dish, "that I am M. d'Artagnan, captain of his majesty's
musketeers."

The fellow uttered a cry of surprise and disappeared; D'Artagnan
following him slowly. He arrived just in time to meet M. Pellisson in
the antechamber; the latter, a little pale, came hastily out of the
dining-room to learn what was the matter. D'Artagnan smiled.

"There is nothing unpleasant, Monsieur Pellisson; only a little order to
receive the money for."

"Ah!" said Fouquet's friend, breathing more freely; and he took the
captain by the hand, and, dragging him behind him, led him into the
dining-room, where a number of friends surrounded the surintendant,
placed in the center, and buried in the cushions of a fauteuil. There
were assembled all the Epicureans who so lately at Vaux did the honors
of the mansion of wit and money of M. Fouquet. Joyous friends, for the
most part faithful, they had not fled their protector at the approach of
the storm, and, in spite of the threatening heavens, in spite of the
trembling earth, they remained there, smiling, cheerful, as devoted to
misfortune as they had been to prosperity. On the left of the
surintendant was Madame de Belliere; on his right was Madame Fouquet; as
if braving the laws of the world, and putting all vulgar reasons of
propriety to silence, the two protecting angels of this man united to
offer him, at the moment of the crisis, the support of their intertwined
arms. Madame de Belliere was pale, trembling, and full of respectful
attentions for Madame la Surintendante, who, with one hand on the hand
of her husband, was looking anxiously toward the door by which
Pellisson had gone out to bring in D'Artagnan. The captain entered at
first full of courtesy, and afte