ould send him to join
the dethroned king. Strongly impressed with this idea, he gave certain
sealed orders on his route, while fresh horses were being harnessed
to his carriage. These orders were addressed to M. d'Artagnan and to
certain others whose fidelity to the king was far above suspicion.

"In this way," said Fouquet to himself, "prisoner or not, I shall have
performed the duty that I owe my honor. The orders will not reach them
until after my return, if I should return free, and consequently they
will not have been unsealed. I shall take them back again. If I am
delayed; it will be because some misfortune will have befallen me; and
in that case assistance will be sent for me as well as for the king."

Prepared in this manner, the superintendent arrived at the Bastile;
he had traveled at the rate of five leagues and a half the hour. Every
circumstance of delay which Aramis had escaped in his visit to the
Bastile befell Fouquet. It was useless giving his name, equally useless
his being recognized; he could not succeed in obtaining an entrance.
By dint of entreaties, threats, commands, he succeeded in inducing a
sentinel to speak to one of the subalterns, who went and told the major.
As for the governor they did not even dare disturb him. Fouquet sat in
his carriage, at the outer gate of the fortress, chafing with rage and
impatience, awaiting the return of the officers, who at last re-appeared
with a sufficiently sulky air.

"Well," said Fouquet, impatiently, "what did the major say?"

"Well, monsieur," replied the soldier, "the major laughed in my face. He
told me that M. Fouquet was at Vaux, and that even were he at Paris, M.
Fouquet would not get up at so early an hour as the present."

"_Mordieu!_ you are an absolute set of fools," cried the minister,
darting out of the carriage; and before the subaltern had time to shut
the gate, Fouquet sprang through it, and ran forward in spite of the
soldier, who cried out for assistance. Fouquet gained ground, regardless
of the cries of the man, who, however, having at last come up with
Fouquet, called out to the sentinel of the second gate, "Look out, look
out, sentinel!" The man crossed his pike before the minister; but
the latter, robust and active, and hurried away, too, by his passion,
wrested the pike from the soldier and struck him a violent blow on the
shoulder with it. The subaltern, who approached too closely, received a
share of the blows as well. Both of