“Menneville!” cried Colbert, “what, he who killed Rue de la Huchette, a worthy man who wanted a fat fowl?”
“Yes, monsieur; the same.”
“And did this Menneville also cry, ‘Vive Colbert’?”
“Louder than all the rest; like a madman.”
Colbert’s brow grew dark and wrinkled. A kind of ambitious glory which had lighted his face was extinguished, like the light of glow-worms we crush beneath the grass. “Then you say,” resumed the deceived intendant, “that the initiative came from the people? Menneville was my enemy; I would have had him hung, and he knew it well. Menneville belonged to the Abbe Fouquet—the affair originated with Fouquet; does not everybody know that the condemned were his friends from childhood?”
“That is true,” thought D’Artagnan, “and thus are all my doubts cleared up. I repeat it, Monsieur Fouquet may be called what they please, but he is a very gentlemanly man.”
“And,” continued Colbert, “are you quite sure Menneville is dead?”
D’Artagnan thought the time was come for him to make his appearance. “Perfectly, monsieur;” replied he, advancing suddenly.
“Oh! is that you, monsieur?” said Colbert.
“In person,” replied the musketeer with his deliberate tone; “it appears that you had in Menneville a pretty enemy.”