Chapter 48 - Page 2

embezzlement, or appropriation rather, of public funds?"

"Yes, a hundred, nay, a thousand times. Ever since I have been engaged
in public matters I have hardly heard of anything else. It is precisely
your own case, when, as a bishop, people reproach you for impiety; or, as
a musketeer, for your cowardice; the very thing of which they are always
accusing ministers of finance is the embezzlement of public funds."

"Very good; but take a particular instance, for the duchesse asserts that
M. de Mazarin alludes to certain particular instances."

"What are they?"

"Something like a sum of thirteen millions of francs, of which it would
be very difficult for you to define the precise nature of the employment."

"Thirteen millions!" said the superintendent, stretching himself in his
armchair, in order to enable him the more comfortably to look up towards
the ceiling. "Thirteen millions - I am trying to remember out of all
those I have been accused of having stolen."

"Do not laugh, my dear monsieur, for it is very serious. It is positive
that the duchesse has certain letters in her possession, and that these
letters must be as she represents them, since she wished to sell them to
me for five hundred thousand francs."

"Oh! one can have a very tolerable calumny got up for such a sum as
that," replied Fouquet. "Ah! now I know what you mean," and he began to
laugh very heartily.

"So much the better," said Aramis, a little reassured.

"I remember the story of those thirteen millions now. Yes, yes, I
remember them quite well."

"I am delighted to hear it; tell me about them."

"Well, then, one day Signor Mazarin, Heaven rest his soul! made a profit
of thirteen millions upon a concession of lands in the Valtelline; he
canceled them in the registry of receipts, sent them to me, and then made
me advance them to him for war expenses."

"Very good; then there is no doubt of their proper destination."

"No; the cardinal made me invest them in my own name, and gave me a
receipt."

"You have the receipt?"

"Of course," said Fouquet, as he quietly rose from his chair, and went to
his large ebony bureau inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gold.

"What I most admire in you," said Aramis, with an air of great
satisfaction, "is, your memory in the first place, then your self-
possession, and, finally, the perfect order which prevails in your
administration; you, of all men, too, who are by nature a poet."

"Yes," said Fouquet, "I am orderly out of a spirit of idleness, to save
myself the trouble of looking after things, and so I know that Mazarin's
receipt is in the third drawer under the letter M; I open the drawer, and
place my hand upon the very paper I need. In