Page:The Man in the Iron Mask.djvu/150

 136 THE MAK IN" THE IRON- MASK.

He looked round him, and saw on the mantel-shelf, just below an enormous crucifix, coarsely painted in fresco on the wall, a rat of enormous size engaged in nibbling a piece of dry bread, but fixing, all the time, an intelligent and in- quiring look upon the new occupant of the cell. The king could not resist a sudden impulse of fear and disgust; he moved back toward the door, uttering a loud cry; and, as if he but needed this cry, which escaped from his breast almost unconsciously, to recognize himself, Louis knew that he was alive and in full possession of his natural senses.

^'A prisoner!'^ he cried. '*I — I, a prisoner!"

He looked round him for a bell to summon some one to him.

^^There are no bells at the Bastile," he said, and it is in the Bastile I am imprisoned. In what way can 1 have been made a prisoner? It must have been owing to a conspirac) of Monsieur Fouquet. I have been drawn to Vaux, as into a snare. Monsieur Fouquet cannot be acting alone in this affair. His agent — That voice that I but just now heard was Monsieur d'Herblay's; I recognized it. Colbert was right then. But what is Fouquet's object? To reign in my place and stead? Impossible! Yet, who knows?" thought the king, relapsing into gloom again. '^Perhaps my brother, the Due d'Orleans, is doing that which my uncle wished to do during the whole of his life against my father. But the queen? My mother, too? And La Val- liere? Oh! La Valliere, she will have been abandoned to madame. Dear, dear girl! Yes, it is — it must be so. They must have shut her up as they have me. We are separated forever!"

And at this idea of separation the poor lover burst into a flood of tears, and sobs, and groans.

'^There is a governor in this place," the king continued, in a fury of passion. *'I will speak to him, I will summon him to me."

He called, but no voice replied to his. He seized hold of his chair, and hurled it against the massive oaken door. The wood resounded against the door, and awakened many a mournful echo in the profound depths of the staircase; but from a human creature, not one.

This was a fresh proof for the king of the slight regard in which he was held at the Bastile. Therefore, when his first fit of anger had passed away, having remarked a barred window though which there passed a stream of light, lozenge-shaped, which must be, he knew, the bright orb of