e smile. "Such
things only happen to me," said the musketeer. "I have passed ten years
under your very beard, while you were rolling about tons of gold. You
were clearing an annual pension of four millions; you never observed me;
and you find out there is such a person in the world, just at the moment
you--"

"Just at the moment I am about to fall," interrupted Fouquet. "That is
true, my dear Monsieur d'Artagnan."

"I did not say so."

"But you thought so; and that is the same thing. Well! if I fall,
take my word as truth, I shall not pass a single day without saying
to myself, as I strike my brow, 'Fool! fool!--stupid mortal! You had a
Monsieur d'Artagnan under your eye and hand, and you did not employ him,
you did not enrich him!'"

"You overwhelm me," said the captain. "I esteem you greatly."

"There exists another man, then, who does not think as M. Colbert
thinks," said the surintendant.

"How this M. Colbert looms up in your imagination! He is worse than
fever!"

"Oh! I have good cause," said Fouquet. "Judge for yourself." And he
related the details of the course of the lighters, and the hypocritical
persecution of Colbert. "Is not this a clear sign of my ruin?"

D'Artagnan became very serious. "That is true," he said. "Yes; it has
an unsavory odor, as M. de Treville used to say." And he fixed on M.
Fouquet his intelligent and significant look.

"Am I not clearly designated in that, captain? Is not the king bringing
me to Nantes to get me away from Paris, where I have so many creatures,
and to possess himself of Belle-Isle?"

"Where M. d'Herblay is," added D'Artagnan. Fouquet raised his head. "As
for me, monseigneur," continued D'Artagnan, "I can assure you the king
has said nothing to me against you."

"Indeed!"

"The king commanded me to set out for Nantes, it is true; and to say
nothing about it to M. de Gesvres."

"My friend."

"To M. de Gesvres, yes, monseigneur," continued the musketeer, whose eye
s did not cease to speak a language different from the language of his
lips. "The king, moreover, commanded me to take a brigade of musketeers,
which is apparently superfluous, as the country is quite quiet."

"A brigade!" said Fouquet, raising himself upon his elbow.

"Ninety-six horsemen, yes, monseigneur. The same number as were employed
in arresting MM. de Chalais, de Cinq-Mars, and Montmorency."

Fouquet pricked up his ears at these words, pronounced without apparent
value. "And what els