Chapter 36

Chapter XXXVI
In the Carriage of M. Colbert
As Gourville had seen, the King’s Musketeers were mounting and following their captain. The latter, who did not like to be confined in his proceedings, left his brigade under the orders of a lieutenant, and set off upon post-horses, recommending his men to use all diligence. However rapidly they might travel, they could not arrive before him. He had time, in passing along the Rue des Petits-Champs, to see a thing which afforded him much food for thought. He saw M. Colbert coming out from his house to get into a carriage which was stationed before the door. In this carriage d’Artagnan perceived the hoods of two women, and being rather curious, he wished to know the names of the women concealed beneath these hoods. To get a glimpse at them, for they kept themselves closely covered up, he urged his horse so near to the carriage that he drove him against the step with such force as to give a shock to the entire equipage and those whom it contained. The terrified women uttered, the one a faint cry, by which d’Artagnan recognized a young woman, the other an imprecation, by which he recognized the vigor and self-possession which half a century bestows. The hoods were thrown back; one of the women was Madame Vanel, the other was the Duchesse de Chevreuse. D’Artagnan’s eyes were quicker than those of the ladies; he had seen and known them, while they did not recognize him. And as they laughed at their fright, pressing each other’s hands, “Humph!” said d’Artagnan, “the old duchess is not more difficult in her friendships than she was formerly. She pays court to the mistress of M. Colbert! Poor M. Fouquet! that presages you nothing good!”

He rode on. M. Colbert got into his carriage, and this noble trio began a sufficiently slow pilgrimage towards the wood of Vincennes. Madame de Chevreuse set down Madame Vanel at her husband’s house; and left alone with M. Colbert, she chatted upon affairs while continuing her ride. She had an inexhaustible fund of conversation, had that dear duchess, and as she always talked for the ill of others, always with a view to her own good, her conversation amused her interlocutor, and did not fail to make a favorable impression.

She taught Colbert, who, poor man, was ignorant of it, how great a minister he was, and how Fouquet would soon become nothing. She promised to rally around him, when he should become superintendent, all the old nobility of the kingdom, and questioned him as to the degree of importance it would be proper to assign to La Valliere. She praised him; she blamed him; she bewildered him. She showed him the inside of so many secrets that for a moment Colbert feared he must have to do with the devil. She proved to him that she held in her hand the Colbert of to-day, as she had held the Fouquet of yesterday; and as he asked her, very simply, the reason