Ten Years Later

MP3 Audio CD. Ten Years Later

Chapter I. In which D’Artagnan finishes by at Length placing his Hand
upon his Captain’s Commission.

The reader guesses beforehand whom the usher preceded in announcing
the courier from Bretagne. This messenger was easily recognized. It was
D’Artagnan, his clothes dusty, his face inflamed, his hair dripping with
sweat, his legs stiff; he lifted his feet painfully at every step, on
which resounded the clink of his blood-stained spurs. He perceived
in the doorway he was passing through, the superintendent coming out.
Fouquet bowed with a smile to him who, an hour before, was bringing him
ruin and death. D’Artagnan found in his goodness of heart, and in his
inexhaustible vigor of body, enough presence of mind to remember
the kind reception of this man; he bowed then, also, much more from
benevolence and compassion, than from respect. He felt upon his lips the
word which had so many times been repeated to the Duc de Guise: “Fly.”
But to pronounce that word would have been to betray his cause; to speak
that word in the cabinet of the king, and before an usher, would have
been to ruin himself gratuitously, and could save nobody. D’Artagnan
then, contented himself with bowing to Fouquet and entered. At this
moment the king floated between the joy the last words of Fouquet had
given him, and his pleasure at the return of D’Artagnan. Without being a
courtier, D’Artagnan had a glance as sure and as rapid as if he had been
one. He read, on his entrance, devouring humiliation on the countenance
of Colbert. He even heard the king say these words to him:--

“Ah! Monsieur Colbert; you have then nine hundred thousand livres at
the intendance?” Colbert, suffocated, bowed but made no reply. All this
scene entered into t