oped only that one thing might happen; namely, that
the madman Marchiali might be mad enough to hang himself to the canopy
of his bed, or to one of the bars of the window. In fact, the prisoner
was anything but a profitable investment for M. Baisemeaux, and became
more annoying than agreeable to him. These complications of Seldon
and Marchiali--the complications first of setting at liberty and then
imprisoning again, the complications arising from the strong likeness in
question--had at last found a very proper _denouement_. Baisemeaux
even thought he had remarked that D'Herblay himself was not altogether
dissatisfied with the result.

"And then, really," said Baisemeaux to his next in command, "an ordinary
prisoner is already unhappy enough in being a prisoner; he suffers quite
enough, indeed, to induce one to hope, charitably enough, that his death
may not be far distant. With still greater reason, accordingly, when the
prisoner has gone mad, and might bite and make a terrible disturbance
in the Bastile; why, in such a case, it is not simply an act of mere
charity to wish him dead; it would be almost a good and even commendable
action, quietly to have him put out of his misery."

And the good-natured governor thereupon sat down to his late breakfast.

Chapter XIX. The Shadow of M. Fouquet.

D'Artagnan, still confused and oppressed by the conversation he had just
had with the king, could not resist asking himself if he were really in
possession of his senses, if he were really and truly at Vaux; if he,
D'Artagnan, were really the captain of the musketeers, and M. Fouquet
the owner of the chateau in which Louis XIV. was at that moment
partaking of his hospitality. These reflections were not those of a
drunken man, although everything was in prodigal profusion at Vaux, and
the surintendant's wines had met with a distinguished reception at the
_fete_. The Gascon, however, was a man of calm self-possession; and no
sooner did he touch his bright steel blade, than he knew how to adopt
morally the cold, keen weapon as his guide of action.

"Well," he said, as he quitted the royal apartment, "I seem now to
be mixed up historically with the destinies of the king and of the
minister; it will be written, that M. d'Artagnan, a younger son of a
Gascon family, placed his hand on the shoulder of M. Nicolas Fouquet,
the surintendant of the finances of France. My descendants, if I have
any, will flatter themselves with the dist