Chapter 22

Chapter XXII
How the Countersign Was Respected at the Bastille
Fouquet tore along as fast as his horses could drag him. On the way he trembled with horror at the idea of what had just been revealed to him. “What must have been,” he thought, “the youth of those extraordinary men, who, even as age is stealing fast upon them, still are able to conceive such plans, and to carry them out without flinching!”

At one moment he asked himself whether all that Aramis had just been recounting to him was not a dream only, and whether the fable itself was not the snare; so that when he should arrive at the Bastille he might find an order of arrest, which would send him to join the dethroned King. Strongly impressed with this idea, he gave certain sealed orders on his route, while fresh horses were harnessed to his carriage. These orders were addressed to M. d’Artagnan and to certain others whose fidelity to the King was far above suspicion.

“In this way,” said Fouquet to himself, “prisoner or not, I shall have performed the duty which I owe to my honor. The orders will not reach them until after my return, if I should return free, and consequently they will not have been unsealed. I shall then take them back again. If I am delayed, it will be because some misfortune will have befallen me; and in that case assistance will be sent for me as well as for the King.”

Prepared in this manner, the superintendent arrived at the Bastille; he had travelled at the rate of five leagues and a half an hour. Every circumstance of delay which Aramis had escaped in his visit to the Bastille befell Fouquet. It was in vain that he gave his name, in vain that he endeavored to be recognized; he could not succeed in obtaining an entrance. By dint of entreaties, threats, and commands, he succeeded in inducing a sentinel to speak to one of the subalterns, who went and told the major. As for the governor, they did not even dare disturb him. Fouquet sat in his carriage, at the outer gate of the fortress, chafing with rage and impatience, awaiting the return of the officer, who at last reappeared with a somewhat sulky air.

“Well,” said Fouquet, impatiently, “what did the major say?”

“Well, Monsieur,” replied the soldier, “the major laughed in my face. He told me that M. Fouquet was at Vaux, and that even were he at Paris, M. Fouquet would not rise at so early an hour as the present.”

“Mordieu! you are a set of fools,” cried the minister, darting out of the carriage; and before the subaltern had had time to shut the gate, Fouquet sprang through it, and ran forward in spite of the soldier, who cried out for assistance. Fouquet gained ground, regardless of the cries of the man, who however, having at last come up with Fouquet, called out to the sentinel of the second gate,