CHAPTER LIV.
MADAME DE BELLIERE'S PLATE AND DIAMONDS.
Hardly had Fouquet dismissed Vanel, than he began to reflect for a few moments: "A man never can do too much for the woman he has once loved. Marguerite wishes to be the wife of a procureur-general—and why not confer this pleasure upon her? And now that the most scrupulous and sensitive conscience will be unable to reproach me with anything, let my thoughts be bestowed on her who has shown so much devotion for me. Madame de Belliere ought to be there by this time," he said, as he turned toward the secret door.
After he had locked himself in, he opened the subterranean passage, and rapidly hastened toward the means of communicating between the house at Vincennes and his own residence. He had neglected to apprise his friend of his approach by ringing the bell, perfectly assured that she would never fail to be exact at the rendezvous; as, indeed, was the case, for she was already waiting. The noise the surintendant made aroused her; she ran to take from under the door the letter that he had thrust there, and which simply said, "Come, marquise; we are waiting supper for you." With her heart filled with happiness Madame de Belliere ran to her carriage in the Avenue de Vincennes, and in a few minutes she was holding out her hand to Gourville, who was standing at the entrance, where, in order the better to please his master, he had stationed himself to watch her arrival. She had not observed that Fouquet's black horses had arrived at the same time, smoking and covered with foam, having returned to Saint-Mandé with Pellisson and the very jeweler to whom Madame de Belliere had sold her plate and her jewels. Pellisson introduced the goldsmith into the cabinet, which Fouquet had not yet left. The surintendant thanked him for having been good enough to regard as a simple deposit in his hands the valuable property which he had had every right to sell; and he cast his eyes on the total of the account, which amounted to thirteen hundred thousand francs. Then, going for a few moments to his desk, he wrote an order for fourteen hundred thousand francs, payable at sight, at his treasury, before twelve o'clock the next day.
"A hundred thousand francs profit!" cried the goldsmith. "Oh, monseigneur, what generosity!"
"Nay, nay, not so, monsieur," said Fouquet, touching him on the shoulder; "there are certain kindnesses which can never be repaid. The profit is about that which you would have made; but the interest of your money still remains to be arranged." And, saying this, he unfastened from his sleeve a diamond button, which the goldsmith himself had often valued at three thousand pistoles. "Take this," he said to the goldsmith, "in remembrance of me. And farewell; you are an honest man."
"And you, monseigneur," cried the goldsmith, completely overcome, "are the noblest man that ever lived."
Fouquet let the worthy goldsmith pass out of the room by a secret door, and then went to receive Madame de Belliere, who was already surrounded by all the guests. The marquise was always beautiful, but now her loveliness was more dazzling than ever. "Do you not think, gentlemen," said Fouquet, "that madame is more than usually beautiful this evening? And do you happen to know why?"
"Because madame is really the most beautiful of all women," said some one present.
"No; but because she is the best. And yet—"