“Paid, by whom?”
“By monsieur le surintendant.”
Colbert grew pale.
“Explain yourself,” said he, in a stifled voice—“if you are paid why do you show me that paper?”
“In consequence of the word of order of which you spoke to me so ingeniously just now, dear M. Colbert; the king told me to take a quarter of the pension he is pleased to make me.”
“Of me?” said Colbert.
“Not exactly. The king said to me: ‘Go to M. Fouquet; the superintendent will, perhaps, have no money, then you will go and draw it of M. Colbert.’”
The countenance of M. Colbert brightened for a moment; but it was with his unfortunate physiognomy as with a stormy sky, sometimes radiant, sometimes dark as night, according as the lightening gleams or the cloud passes. “Eh! and was there any money in the superintendent’s coffers?” asked he.
“Why, yes, he could not be badly off for money,” replied D’Artagnan—“it may be believed, since M. Fouquet, instead of paying me a quarter or five thousand livres—”
“A quarter or five thousand livres!” cried Colbert, struck, as Fouquet had been, with the generosity of the sum for a soldier’s pension, “why, that would be a pension of twenty thousand livres?”