Page:The Vicomte de Bragelonne 2.djvu/501

Rh THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE. 489 a considerable time. They then put on him clean linen, and placed him in a well-warmed bed — the whole with efforts and pains which might have roused a dead man, but which did not make Porthos open an eye, or interrupt for a second the formidable organ of his snoring. Aramis wished, on his part, with a dry, nervous nature, armed with extra- ordinary courage, to outbrave fatigue, and employ himself with Gourville and Pellisson, but he fainted in the chair, iu which he had persisted to remain. He was carried into the adjoining room, where the repose cf bed soon calmed his throbbing brain. CHAPTER L'XXV. IN WHICH MONSIEUR FOUQUET ACTS. In the meantime Fouquet was hastening to the Louvre at the best speed of his English horses. The king was at work with Colbert. All at once the king became thought- ful. The two sentences of death he had signed on mount- ing his throne sometimes recurred to his memory; they were two black spots which he saw with his eyes open; two spots of blood which he saw when his eyes were closed. "Monsieur," said he, rather sharply, to the intendant, "it sometimes seems to me that those two men you made me condemn were not very great culprits." "Sire, they were picked out from the herd of the farmers of the financiers, which wanted decimating." "Picked out by whom?" "By necesity, sire," replied Colbert coldly. "Necessity! a great word," murmured the young king. iC A great goddess, sire." "They were devoted friends of the surintendant, were they not?" "Yes, sire; friends who would have given their lives to Monsieur .Fouquet." "They have given them, monsieur," said the king. "That is true; but uselessly, by good luck, which was not their intention." "How much money had these men fraudulently ob- tained?" "Ten millions, perhaps: of «'hich six have been con- fiscated."