Chapter 15

Chapter XV
Colbert
History will tell us, or rather history has told us, of the various events of the following day,- of the splendid fetes given by the superintendent to his sovereign. There was nothing but amusement and delight throughout the whole of the following day: there was a promenade, a banquet, a comedy, in which to his great amazement Porthos recognized “M. Coquelin de Voliere” as one of the actors, in the piece called “Les Facheux.”

Full of preoccupation after the scene of the previous evening, and hardly recovered from the effects of the poison which Colbert had then administered to him, the King during the whole of the day, so brilliant in its effects, so full of unexpected and startling novelties, in which all the wonders of the “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments” seemed to be reproduced for his especial amusement,- the King, we say, showed himself cold, reserved, and taciturn. Nothing could smooth the frowns upon his face; every one who observed him noticed that a deep feeling of resentment, of remote origin, increased by slow degrees, as the source becomes a river, thanks to the thousand threads of water which increase its body, was keenly alive in the depths of the King’s heart. Towards the middle of the day only did he begin to resume a little serenity of manner, by that time he had, in all probability, made up his mind. Aramis, who followed him step by step in his thoughts as in his walk, concluded that the event which he was expecting would soon occur.

This time Colbert seemed to walk in concert with the Bishop of Vannes; and had he received for every annoyance which he inflicted on the King a word of direction from Aramis, he could not have done better. During the whole of the day the King, who in all probability wished to free himself from some of the thoughts which disturbed his mind, seemed to seek La Valliere’s society as actively as he sought to avoid that of M. Colbert or M. Fouquet.

The evening came. The King had expressed a wish not to walk in the park until after cards in the evening. In the interval between supper and the promenade, cards and dice were introduced. The King won a thousand pistoles, and having won them put them in his pocket, and then rose, saying, “And now, gentlemen, to the park.” He found the ladies of the court already there. The King, we have before observed, had won a thousand pistoles, and had put them in his pocket. But M. Fouquet had somehow contrived to lose ten thousand; so that among the courtiers there was still left a hundred and ninety thousand livres’ profit to divide,- a circumstance which made the countenances of the courtiers and the officers of the King’s household the most joyous in the world. It was not the same, however, with the King’s face; for notwithstanding his success at play, to which he was by no means insensible, there still