"What does that mean, Gourville?"
"It is the king coming, monseigneur."
"The king!"
"The king, who has ridden double stages, who has killed horses, and who is eight hours in advance of your calculation."
"We are lost?" murmured Fouquet. "Brave D'Artagnan, all is over, thou hast spoken to me too late!"
The king, in fact, was entering the city, which soon resounded with the cannon from the ramparts, and from a vessel which replied from the lower parts of the river. Fouquet's brow darkened; he called his valets-de-chambre, and dressed in ceremonial costume. From his window, behind the curtains, he could see the eagerness of the people, and the movement of a large troop, which had followed the prince, without its being to be guessed how. The king was conducted to the castle with great pomp, and Fouquet saw him dismount under the portcullis, and speak something in the ear of D'Artagnan, who held his stirrup. D'Artagnan, when the king had passed under the arch, directed his steps toward the house Fouquet was in; but so slowly, and stopping so frequently to speak to his musketeers, drawn up as a hedge, that it might be said he was counting the seconds or the steps, before accomplishing his message. Fouquet opened the window to speak to him in the court.
"Ah!" cried D'Artagnan, on perceiving him, "are you still there, monseigneur?"
And that word still completed the proof to Fouquet of how much information, and how many useful counsels were contained in the first visit the musketeer had paid him. The surintendant sighed deeply. "Good heavens! yes, monsieur," replied he. "The arrival of the king has interrupted me in the projects I had formed."
"Oh! then you know that the king is arrived?"
"Yes, monsieur, I have seen him; and this time you come from him—"