plain he was getting warm.
"It is just as if you would reproach me, monseigneur, for going to the
Rue Planche Milbray, to fetch, myself, the cider M. Loret drinks when he
comes to dine at your house."

"Loret drinks cider at my house!" cried Fouquet, laughing.

"Certainly he does, monsieur, and that is the reason why he dines there
with pleasure."

"Vatel," cried Fouquet, pressing the hand of his maitre d'hotel, "you
are a man! I thank you, Vatel, for having understood that at my house
M. de la Fontaine, M. Conrart, and M. Loret, are as great as dukes and
peers, as great as princes, greater than myself. Vatel, you are a good
servant, and I double your salary."

Vatel did not even thank his master, he merely shrugged his shoulders a
little, murmuring this superb sentiment: "To be thanked for having done
one's duty is humiliating."

"He is right," said Gourville, as he drew Fouquet's attention, by a
gesture, to another point. He showed him a low-built tumbrel, drawn by
two horses, upon which rocked two strong gibbets, bound together,
back to back, by chains, whilst an archer, seated upon the cross-beam,
suffered, as well as he could, with his head cast down, the comments
of a hundred vagabonds, who guessed the destination of the gibbets,
and were escorting them to the Hotel de Ville. Fouquet started. "It is
decided, you see," said Gourville.

"But it is not done," replied Fouquet.

"Oh, do not flatter yourself, monseigneur; if they have thus lulled your
friendship and suspicions--if things have gone so far, you will be able
to undo nothing."

"But I have not given my sanction."

"M. de Lyonne has ratified for you."

"I will go to the Louvre."

"Oh, no, you will not."

"Would you advise such baseness?" cried Fouquet, "would you advise me to
abandon my friends? would you advise me, whilst able to fight, to throw
the arms I hold in my hand to the ground?"

"I do not advise you to do anything of the kind, monseigneur. Are you in
a position to quit the post of superintendent at this moment?"

"No."

"Well, if the king wishes to displace you----"

"He will displace me absent as well as present."

"Yes, but you will not have insulted him."

"Yes, but I shall have been base; now I am not willing that my friends
should die; and they shall not die!"

"For that it is necessary you should go to the Louvre, is it not?"

"Gourville!"

"Beware! once at the Louvre, you will be forced to defend your friends
o