"A friend—you!" repeated Louis, gnashing his teeth in a manner which betrayed his hate and desire for speedy vengeance.
"The most respectful of your servants," added Fouquet, throwing himself on his knees. The king let the rude weapon fall from his grasp. Fouquet approached him, kissed his knees, and took him in his arms with inconceivable tenderness.
"My king, my child," he said, "how you must have suffered!"
Louis, recalled to himself by the change of situation, looked at himself, and ashamed of the disordered state of his apparel, ashamed of his conduct, and ashamed of the air of pity and protection that was shown toward him, drew back. Fouquet did not understand this movement; he did not perceive that the king's feeling of pride would never forgive him for having been a witness of such an exhibition of weakness.
"Come, sire," he said, "you are free."
"Free?" repeated the king. "Oh! you set me at liberty, then, after having dared to lift up your hand against me."
"You do not believe that!" exclaimed Fouquet, indignantly; "you cannot believe me to be guilty of such an act."
And rapidly, warmly even, he related the whole particulars of the intrigue, the details of which are already known to the reader. While the recital continued, Louis suffered the most horrible anguish of mind; and when it was finished, the magnitude of the danger he had run struck him far more than the importance of the secret relative to his twin brother.
"Monsieur," he said suddenly to Fouquet, "this double birth is a falsehood; it is impossible—you cannot have been the dupe of it."
"Sire!"