Chapter 16

Chapter XVI
Jealousy
The torches to which we have just referred, the eager attention which every one displayed, and the new ovation paid to the King by Fouquet arrived in time to suspend the effect of a resolution which La Valliere had already considerably shaken in Louis XIV’s heart. He looked at Fouquet with a feeling almost of gratitude for having given La Valliere an opportunity of showing herself so generously disposed, so powerful in the influence she exercised over his heart. The moment of the last and greatest display had arrived. Hardly had Fouquet conducted the King towards the château, when a mass of fire burst from the dome of Vaux with a prodigious uproar, pouring a flood of dazzling light on every side, and illumining the remotest corners of the gardens. The fireworks began. Colbert, at twenty paces from the King, who was surrounded and feted by the masters of Vaux, seemed, by the obstinate persistence of his gloomy thoughts, to do his utmost to recall Louis’s attention, which the magnificence of the spectacle was already, in his opinion, too easily diverting.

Suddenly, just as Louis was on the point of holding his hand out to Fouquet, he perceived in it the paper which, as he believed, La Valliere had dropped at his feet as she hurried away. The still stronger magnet of love drew the young King’s attention to the souvenir of his idol; and by the brilliant light, which increased momentarily in beauty, and drew forth from the neighboring villages loud exclamations of admiration, the King read the letter, which he supposed was a loving and tender epistle that La Valliere had destined for him. But as he read it, a deathlike pallor stole over his face, and an expression of deep-seated wrath, illumined by the many-colored fires, produced a terrible spectacle, which every one would have shuddered at, could they only have read his heart, which was torn by the most stormy passions. For him there was no more truce with jealousy and rage. From the moment when the dark truth was revealed to him, every gentler feeling disappeared,- piety, kindness, the religion of hospitality. In the bitter pang which wrung his heart, still too weak to hide his sufferings, he was almost on the point of uttering a cry of alarm, and calling his guards to gather round him. This letter which Colbert had thrown down at the King’s feet, the reader has doubtless guessed, was the same that had disappeared with the porter Toby, at Fontainebleau, after the attempt which Fouquet had made upon La Valliere’s heart. Fouquet saw the King’s pallor, and was far from guessing the evil. Colbert saw the King’s anger, and rejoiced inwardly at the approach of the storm.

Fouquet’s voice drew the young King from his wrathful reverie. “What is the matter, Sire?” inquired the superintendent, with an expression of graceful interest.

Louis made a violent effort over