ace out of Paris, in a house possessed by the
superintendent Fouquet in the village of Saint-Mande. The minister had
just arrived at this country-house, followed by his principal clerk, who
carried an enormous portfolio full of papers to be examined, and
others waiting for signature. As it might be about five o'clock in the
afternoon, the masters had dined: supper was being prepared for twenty
subaltern guests. The superintendent did not stop: on alighting from his
carriage, he, at the same bound, sprang through the doorway, traversed
the apartments and gained his cabinet, where he declared he would shut
himself up to work, commanding that he should not be disturbed for
anything but an order from the king. As soon as this order was given,
Fouquet shut himself up, and two footmen were placed as sentinels at his
door. Then Fouquet pushed a bolt which displaced a panel that walled
up the entrance, and prevented everything that passed in this apartment
from being either seen or heard. But, against all probability, it was
only for the sake of shutting himself up that Fouquet shut himself up
thus, for he went straight to a bureau, seated himself at it, opened
the portfolio, and began to make a choice amongst the enormous mass
of papers it contained. It was not more than ten minutes after he had
entered, and taken all the precautions we have described, when the
repeated noise of several slight equal knocks struck his ear, and
appeared to fix his utmost attention. Fouquet raised his head, turned
his ear, and listened.

The strokes continued. Then the worker arose with a slight movement of
impatience and walked straight up to a glass behind which the blows were
struck by a hand, or by some invisible mechanism. It was a large glass
let into a panel. Three other glasses, exactly similar to it, completed
the symmetry of the apartment. Nothing distinguished that one from the
others. Without doubt, these reiterated knocks were a signal; for, at
the moment Fouquet approached the glass listening, the same noise was
renewed, and in the same measure. "Oh! oh!" murmured the intendent, with
surprise, "who is yonder? I did not expect anybody to-day." And, without
doubt, to respond to that signal, he pulled out a gilded nail near the
glass, and shook it thrice. Then returning to his place, and seating
himself again, "Ma foi! let them wait," said he. And plunging again into
the ocean of papers unrolled before him, he appeared to think of nothi