Shadow of the Bastille
Being the Fourth Part of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne
By Alexandre Dumas
Edited and Translated by Lawrence Ellsworth
In Last Week’s Episode
At Monsieur Fouquet’s estate in Saint-Mandé just outside Paris, La Fontaine informed Fouquet, after a humorous interlude, that he’d discovered a buyer for the minister’s position of attorney general, and Fouquet needed the money badly enough to agree to the deal.
Chapter XXXVIII
Madame de Bellière’s Diamonds and Plate
Fouquet had scarcely dismissed Vanel when he thought for a moment. “One can’t do too much for a woman whom one once has loved,” he said to himself. “If Marguerite Vanel wants to be the wife of an attorney general, why not give her that pleasure? There! Now that the most scrupulous conscience couldn’t find fault regarding the woman who once loved me, let’s think of the woman who loves me now. Madame de Bellière must be here for this.”
He touched the button that opened the study’s secret door. Passing through and locking it from within, he went down, into, and through the underground passage that connected his manor with the nearby house in Vincennes. He hadn’t bothered to warn his lover with the remote bell, so confident was he that she would be there on time—and in fact, the marquise had already arrived and was waiting. A noise at the secret entrance alerted her, and she ran to receive the note he slipped under the door: Come, Marquise. We are expecting you for supper.
Quickly and happily, Madame de Bellière rushed to her carriage in the Avenue de Vincennes and shortly thereafter extended her hand on the steps of Saint-Mandé to Gourville, who, to please his master, had awaited her in the courtyard.
She was a few minutes too late to see Fouquet’s team of black horses enter, steaming and flecked with foam, returning with Pellisson and the very goldsmith to whom Madame de Bellière had sold her plate and jewelry.
“Oh!” cried the guests upon her entry. “One can say without fear of contradiction that here is the woman with the most beautiful diamonds in Paris.”
“Well?” said Fouquet in a low voice to Pellisson.
“Well! I got everything, and it’s all here.”
“Delightful,” said the superintendent, smiling.
Fouquet was back in his office when Pellisson came in with his man. The superintendent thanked the goldsmith for having held as a deposit the wealth that he’d had a right to sell. The minister glanced at the total value of the account, which amounted to thirteen hundred thousand livres. Then, sitting at his desk, he wrote out a voucher for fourteen hundred thousand livres, payable by his cashier at noon the next day.
“A hundred thousand livres profit!” cried the goldsmith. “Ah, Monseigneur! What generosity!”
“Not at all, Monseiur, not at all,” said Fouquet, patting him on the shoulder. “There are certain favors that can never be repaid. The profit is about what you would have made from a sale, but there’s still the interest on your money to consider.” And saying this, he detached from his cuff a diamond button that this same goldsmith had often appraised at three thousand pistoles. “Take this in memory of me,” he said to the goldsmith, “and farewell; you’re an honest man.”
“And you,” said the goldsmith, moved, “you are a most noble lord.”
Fouquet let the worthy goldsmith out a side door, and then went to greet Madame de Bellière, whom his guests had already surrounded.
The marquise was always beautiful, but on that day, she glowed. “Don’t you think, Messieurs, that madame is incomparably lovely tonight?” said Fouquet. “Can you guess why?”
“Because madame is the most beautiful of all women,” someone said.
“No, because she’s the best. However….”
“However?” said the marquise, smiling.
“However, every gem she’s wearing tonight is an imitation.”
She blushed.
And just then, “Monseigneur is served,” Vatel announced majestically.
The stream of guests flowed with more deliberation than at most ministerial events into the dining room, where a magnificent spectacle awaited them. On the buffet, the sideboards, and the table, amid flowers and lights, shone to dazzling the richest gold and silver plate most had ever seen, magnificent relics of the time there had still been gold in France, when Florentine artists, brought in by the Médicis, had sculpted, chiseled, and cast tableware and flower vases. These marvels, hidden during the civil wars, had timidly reappeared during truces in that civilized civil war called the Fronde,74 when nobles fighting nobles had killed but not plundered each other. Every item was marked with the arms of Madame de Bellière.
“Look here,” cried La Fontaine, “the house initials, a P and a B.”
But most impressive was the table setting for the marquise at the place assigned her by Fouquet, for near it rose a pyramid of diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and antique cameos; sardonyx stones cut by the ancient Greeks of Asia Minor mounted in gold from Mysia, curious mosaics from old Alexandria set in silver, and massive bracelets from Cleopatra’s Egypt strewn on a Palissy plate supported on a tripod of gilded bronze sculpted by Benvenuto Cellini.
The marquise paled when she saw these things she’d never expected to see again. A deep silence, the precursor to strong emotion, hushed the throng in the room.
Fouquet did not even make a gesture to dismiss the liveried valets who buzzed like busy bees around the vast buffets and sideboards. “Messieurs,” he said, “this tableware you see before you belonged to Madame de Bellière, who one day, seeing a friend in financial embarrassment, sent all this gold and silver to a goldsmith to raise funds for him. This beautiful act of friendship should be appreciated by comrades like you. Happy is the man who sees himself loved in such a way! Let us drink to the health of Madame de Bellière.”
A resounding cheer followed these words, and the poor woman, her senses swimming, swooned breathless in her seat, like the exhausted birds of Greece that had crossed the sky to the arena of Olympus.
“And next,” added Pellisson, as ever moved by virtue and charmed by beauty, “let’s also raise a glass to him who inspired Madame’s loving gesture, for such a man must be worthy of being loved.”
Then it was the marquise’s turn. She stood, pale and smiling, lifted her glass with a trembling hand, the fingers of which brushed Fouquet’s fingers, while her brimming eyes sought from his all the love that burned in his generous heart.
Begun in this heroic fashion, the supper quickly became a fête. No one worked at being witty, for wit flowed naturally from all. La Fontaine forgot his Gorgny wine and allowed Vatel to educate him about the wines of the Rhône and of Spain. Abbot Fouquet became so affable that Gourville said to him, “Watch out, Monsieur l’Abbé! If you get any more tender, we’ll eat you.”
The hours passed joyously, bringing roses to all the guests’ cheeks. Breaking his usual habit, the superintendent didn’t leave the table until the last dessert was served. He was grinning at his circle of friends, drunk as one is when the heart is intoxicated before the head, until finally he looked at the clock and noticed the time.
Suddenly a carriage rolled into the courtyard, its rattle and clatter strangely resounding even over the chatter and songs. Fouquet pricked up his ears and turned his eyes toward the antechamber. He seemed to hear a footstep approaching that trod as heavily upon his heart as on the floorboards. Instinctively he withdrew the foot that had been resting on Madame de Bellière’s for two hours.
“Monsieur d’Herblay, Bishop of Vannes,” announced the usher.
And the somber, pensive face of Aramis appeared on the threshold between the hanging strands of a broken garland, one end of which was carelessly kindling in a candelabrum.
Chapter XXXIX
Mazarin’s Receipt
Fouquet would have uttered a cry of joy upon the arrival of another friend if Aramis’s icy glare and distracted expression hadn’t chilled him. “Will you join us for dessert?” he asked. Then he added, “Or would our loud revelries upset your ecclesiastical dignity?”
“Monseigneur,” replied Aramis respectfully, “first let me apologize for disturbing your celebration. When it’s over, please allow me a moment to talk business.”
As the word business caught the attention of some of the Epicureans, Fouquet rose and said, “Business before all, Monsieur d’Herblay. We’re just happy that it didn’t arrive before the end of the repast.”
And with that, he took Madame de Bellière by the hand, who looked at him anxiously, and led her with the most refined of his friends into an adjacent salon where he entrusted her to their company. Then, taking Aramis by the arm, they went to Fouquet’s office.
Once there, Aramis forgot etiquette to the extent of speaking first, saying, “Do you know who I’ve seen tonight?”
“My dear Chevalier, whenever you begin like that, I know I’m about to hear something unpleasant.”
“And as usual, you aren’t wrong, dear friend,” replied Aramis.
“Don’t leave me hanging,” said Fouquet calmly.
“Well! I saw Madame de Chevreuse.”
“The old duchess?”
“Yes.”
“Or was it her ghost?”
“She lives yet, and is still fierce as a wolf.”
“But toothless now?”
“Defanged, perhaps, but not without claws.”
“Very well. What’s that to me? I’ve never been ungenerous to wanton women, even after they’ve lost the means to incite love.”
“Madame de Chevreuse is well aware of your generosity, since she wants to dip her hands in your coffers.”
“Fine! On what pretext?”
“Oh, she’s never short of pretexts. Here’s the latest.”
“I’m listening.”
“It appears that the duchess possesses several letters from Monsieur de Mazarin.”
“That isn’t surprising, the cardinal was gallant enough.”
“Yes, but these letters have nothing to do with the cardinal’s love affairs. They’re said to deal with financial matters.”
“That’s even less interesting.”
“You don’t suspect why I’m telling you this?”
“Not at all.”
“Have you never heard of an accusation of embezzlement?”
“A hundred times! A thousand times! Since I’ve been in finance, my dear d’Herblay, I’ve heard of almost nothing but that. It’s just like when you, as a bishop, are accused of impiety, or as a musketeer, of cowardice. A finance minister is perpetually accused of embezzlement.”
“Fine, but let’s consider exactly what the duchess says Monsieur de Mazarin’s letters refer to.”
“What, exactly?”
“Something about a sum of thirteen million, the use of which you would be unable to explain.”
“Thirteen million!” said the superintendent, leaning back in his chair the better to stare at the ceiling. “Thirteen million… ah, dame, where would I find such a sum among all the millions I’ve been accused of stealing?”
“Don’t laugh, my dear Minister, this is serious. There’s no doubt the duchess has the letters, and they must be genuine, or she wouldn’t try to sell them for five hundred thousand livres.”
“One can concoct a very pretty accusation for that amount of money,” replied Fouquet. “Ah! Now I remember.” And Fouquet began to laugh heartily.
“So much the better,” said Aramis, somewhat reassured.
“The story of that thirteen million comes back to me. I’ve got it now.”
“I’m delighted to hear it. What’s the story?”
“Imagine, mon cher, that Signor Mazarini, God rest his soul, one day made a profit of thirteen million on a land concession in the Valtelline.75 He crossed it out in the register of income and had the money sent to me for war expenses.”
“Good. So, the transfer was duly documented.”
“More or less; the cardinal had the money put in my name and sent me a receipt.”
“You have this receipt?”
“Naturally!” said Fouquet, calmly turning to the drawers in his vast desk of ebony inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl.
“What I admire in you,” said Aramis, charmed, “is first of all your memory, and then your self-possession, and finally the perfect order you maintain in your administration—you, the poet.”
“Yes,” said Fouquet, “I maintain order out of a spirit of laziness, so I don’t have to search for anything. Thus, I know that Mazarin’s receipt is filed in the third drawer under M, and I can open that drawer and put my fingers right onto it. I could find it in the dark.”
And he riffled with a steady hand through the papers stacked in the open drawer.
“Moreover,” he continued, “I remember that sheet as if I saw it yesterday: paper thick and a little coarse, browning a bit on the edges, with an ink blot where Mazarin had corrected the date. Hmm, the little sheet has been feeling neglected and is hiding from me to be stubborn.”
The superintendent stared into the drawer. “That’s strange,” he said.
“Your memory is failing you, dear friend. Look in another stack.”
Fouquet picked up the pile and went through it again, then turned pale.
“Don’t keep looking in the same place,” said Aramis. “Try somewhere else.”
“Pointless; I never make that kind of mistake, and no one but me sorts these files. I’m the only one who opens this drawer, and I’m the only one who knows what’s in it.”
“What do you conclude from that?” said Aramis, agitated.
“That Mazarin’s receipt has been stolen. Which means that the duchess was right, Chevalier, I have embezzled public funds. I stole thirteen million from the State’s coffers; Without that receipt, I’m a thief, Monsieur d’Herblay.”
“Monsieur! Don’t say that, you’re getting overexcited.”
“Why shouldn’t I get excited, Chevalier? This is no laughing matter. A trial, a sentence, and your friend the superintendent will follow his predecessors Enguerrand de Marigny and Semblançay76 to the gallows at Montfaucon.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said Aramis, smiling.
“Not get ahead of ourselves! What do you suppose Madame de Chevreuse will do with those letters? You did refuse to buy them, didn’t you?”
“Oh, indeed, I refused outright. I imagine she’s gone to sell them to Monsieur Colbert.”
“There! You see?”
“I said I imagine, but I could say I’m sure, for I had her followed. After leaving me she went home, then left by a back door and went to the intendant’s house in Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs.”
“A trial, then, with scandal and dishonor striking like lightning, blind, brutal, and ruthless.”
Aramis approached Fouquet, who was shaking in his chair next to the open drawer. The bishop put a hand on his shoulder affectionately and said, “You must remember that the position of Monsieur Fouquet can’t be compared to that of Samblançay or Marigny.”
“Why not, by God?”
“Because those minsters’ trials were predetermined and their sentences inevitable. That can’t happen to you.”
“I say again, why not? A finance minister is assumed to be guilty.”
“A minister with a safe haven is in no danger.”
“A safe haven? Shall I flee?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. You forget that trials of this sort are conducted in parliament by the attorney general… and you are the attorney general. So, unless you want to condemn yourself….”
“Dame!” cried Fouquet suddenly, slamming his fist on the desk.
“What? What is it?”
“I am no longer the attorney general.”
Aramis, in his turn, went pale and then livid. He clenched his fist until the knuckles cracked, glared at Fouquet with a wild eye, and repeated, each syllable tolling like a bell: “You are no longer the attorney general?”
“No.”
“Since when?”
“Since four or five hours ago.”
“Be calm,” said Aramis coldly. “I believe, my friend, that your wits must be wandering. Recover them.”
“I am telling you,” replied Fouquet, “that someone came with one of my friends to offer me fourteen hundred thousand livres for the office, and I sold it to him.”
Aramis was dumbfounded. His intelligent, sardonic face took on an expression of dismal dread that hit the superintendent harder than words ever could. “Did you need the money that badly?” he finally said.
“Yes, to settle a debt of honor.” And he told Aramis briefly of Madame de Bellière’s generosity and how he thought to repay her for it.
“Yes,” said Aramis, “that was an exemplary deed. And it cost you…?”
“Exactly the fourteen hundred thousand livres for my position.”
“And you took the money, just like that? Oh, my imprudent friend!”
“I don’t have it yet, I’ll receive it tomorrow.”
“So, the deal isn’t done yet?”
“It’s as good as done since I gave the goldsmith a voucher for the money payable at noon, in cash that I’ll receive at six or seven in the morning.”
“God be praised!” cried Aramis, clapping his hands together. “The bargain isn’t made since you don’t yet have the money.”
“But the goldsmith?”
“You’ll get the fourteen hundred thousand livres from me at a quarter to twelve.”
“Impossible! I hand over the position at six in the morning.”
“And I’m telling you that you will not hand it over.”
“I gave my word, Chevalier.”
“You’ll just have to take it back.”
“What are you saying to me?” cried Fouquet, on the verge of indignation. “Take back my word when my name is Fouquet!”
Aramis responded to the minister’s stern gaze with an angry look. “Monsieur,” he said, “I think I deserve to be called an honest man, don’t you? In my soldier’s uniform, I risked my life five hundred times; under the priest’s cassock, I’ve rendered greater services still, to God, to the State, and to my friends. A word is worth what the man who gave it is worth. When he chooses to keep it, it’s a thing of pure gold; but when he does not, it’s a two-edged sword. He then defends himself with his word as with a weapon of honor, for if he doesn’t keep that word when in danger of death, he risks more than his opponent is liable to gain. Then, Monsieur, we appeal to God and justice.”
Fouquet lowered his head. “I am,” he said, “just a poor Breton, vulgar and stubborn. I’m not saying I keep my word out of virtue; say, if you like, that I merely do it from habit. But common men have come to admire this habit, and since it’s my only virtue, let me keep whatever honor it confers.”
“So tomorrow you will confirm the sale of this position, your only armor against your enemies?”
“I will confirm it.”
“You will turn yourself in, bound hand and foot, to maintain a pretense of honor that even a cheap lawyer would disdain?”
“I will confirm it.”
Aramis gave a deep sigh, and then glanced around impatiently like a man looking for something he could break. Finally, he said, “There’s one last resort, and I hope you’ll let me use it.”
“Of course, so long as it’s honest… like everything you propose, dear friend.”
“I know of nothing more honest than a waiver from your purchaser. Is he a friend of yours?”
“Certainly… but….”
“But… if you will allow me to handle this, then don’t despair.”
“Oh, I’ll leave it all up to you!”
“Who did you make the deal with? What kind of man is he?”
“I don’t know how familiar you are with the parliament.”
“Tolerably so. Is he one of the presidents?”
“No, a simple councilor.”
“Ah!”
“His name is Vanel.”
Aramis turned purple. “Vanel!” he cried, leaping to his feet. “Vanel! Marguerite Vanel’s husband?”
“Exactly.”
“Your former mistress?”
“Yes, mon cher; she wants to be Madame Attorney General. I owe that to poor Vanel, and moreover it will please his wife.”
Aramis bent over Fouquet and took his hand. “Do you know,” he said with icy calm, “the name of Madame Vanel’s new lover?”
“She has a new lover? I had no idea, and faith, I certainly don’t know his name.”
“His name is Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Intendant of Finance; he lives in Rue Croix-des-Petit-Champs, where Madame de Chevreuse went tonight with the letters from Mazarin she wants to sell.”
“My God!” murmured Fouquet, wiping his forehead as it broke out in cold sweat. “My God!”
“You begin to understand, don’t you?”
“That I am quite lost, yes.”
“Do you still think it’s worthwhile to hold like Regulus77 to your word?”
“Yes,” said Fouquet.
These stubborn people, thought Aramis. Somehow, they still manage to contrive it so we admire them.
Fouquet gripped his hand and shook it.
At that moment, a rich tortoiseshell clock with gold inlay that stood on the mantel struck six in the morning.
A door opened down the hall.
“Monsieur Vanel,” said Gourville from outside the office door, “wishes to know if Monseigneur will receive him.”
Fouquet looked away from Aramis and said, “Send Monsieur Vanel in.”
Notes on the Text of Shadow of the Bastille
74. THE FRONDE: A number of social and political conflicts combined in France to cause the messy and intermittent rebellion of the Fronde from 1648 to 1652. King Louis XIV, still in his minority, was too young to rule, and the realm was ruled by a queen regent and her foreign-born prime minister, a leadership regarded as weak by the opportunistic grands of the high nobility.
75. THE VALTELLINE: A strategically important valley in northern Italy much contested by France, the Hapsburgs, and the Swiss in the early 17th century, as through it passed the so-called Spanish Road, a safe land route for the passage of supplies and troops between Italy and the Spanish Netherlands.
76. MARIGNY AND SEMBLANÇAY: Enguerrand de Marigny, Baron Le Portier (1260-1315) and Jacques de Beaune, Baron de Semblançay (1465-1527) were ministers of France convicted of embezzlement of the royal finances and executed.
77. REGULUS: Marcus Atilius Regulus (307? BCE—250? BCE) was a Roman statesman and general who fought successfully against Carthage but was captured and released on parole on condition that he negotiate a peace with Rome. However, Regulus instead counseled the Romans to refuse the peace proposal and then, true to his word, returned to Carthage where he was executed.
ALEXANDRE DUMAS’ MUSKETEERS CYCLE
Shadow of the Bastille is part of a series. Everyone has heard of The Three Musketeers and its heroes d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, but what’s less well known nowadays is that Dumas followed up his greatest novel with a series of sequels that are just as great. Your Cheerful Editor Lawrence Ellsworth has been compiling all-new contemporary translations of these novels, and the entire series, when complete, will fill nine volumes:
- The Three Musketeers, Book One
- The Red Sphinx, Book Two
- Twenty Years After, Book Three
- Blood Royal, Book Four
- Between Two Kings, Book Five
- Court of Daggers, Book Six
- Devil’s Dance, Book Seven
- Shadow of the Bastille, Book Eight
- The Man in the Iron Mask, Book Nine
Volumes one through seven are already in print, the first five from Pegasus Books, while Books Six, Court of Daggers, and Seven, Devil’s Dance, are available as independent publications. Each week now brings a new episode in the serialization of Book Eight, Shadow of the Bastille. Early 2025 will see the publication of the final volume, The Man in the Iron Mask.
If you’re interested in my work, you can learn more about it at swashbucklingadventure.net. Also, be sure to check out my parallel Substack, cinemaofswords.substack.com.
Welcome, fellow cavaliers, and enjoy the ride!
—Lawrence Ellsworth
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