"Immediately."
"With seven hundred thousand livres you can lay the foundation of another fortune," said the Abbe Fouquet. "What is there to prevent our arming corsairs at Belle-Isle?"
"And if necessary, we will go and discover a new world," added La Fontaine, intoxicated with projects and enthusiasm.
A knock at the door interrupted this concert of joy and hope. "A courier from the king," said the master of the ceremonies.
A profound silence immediately ensued, as if the message brought by this courier was nothing but a reply to all the projects given birth to an instant before. Every one waited to see what the master would do. His brow was streaming with perspiration, and he was really suffering from his fever at that instant. He passed into his cabinet to receive the king's message. There prevailed, as we have said, such a silence in the chambers, and throughout the attendance, that from the dining-room could be heard the voice of Fouquet saying, "That is well, monsieur." This voice was, however, broken by fatigue, trembling with emotion. An instant after Fouquet called Gourville, who crossed the gallery amid the universal expectation. At length, he himself reappeared among his guests; but it was no longer the same pale, spiritless countenance they had beheld when he left them; from pale he had become livid; and from spiritless, annihilated. A living specter, he advanced with his arms stretched out, his mouth parched, like a shade that comes to salute friends of former days. On seeing him thus, every one cried out, and every one rushed toward Fouquet. The latter, looking at Pellisson, leaned upon the surintendante, and pressed the icy hand of the Marquise de Belliere.
"Well!" said he, in a voice which had nothing human in it.
"What has happened, my God!" said some one to him.
Fouquet opened his right hand, which was clenched, humid, and displayed a paper, upon which Pellisson cast a terrified glance. He read the following lines, written by the king's hand:
"'Dear and well-beloved Monsieur Fouquet—Give us, upon that which you have left of ours, the sum of seven hundred thousand livres, of which we stand in need to prepare for our departure.
"'And, as we know your health is not good, we pray God to restore you to health, and to have you in His holy keeping.