“If I am guilty, I place myself in your majesty’s hands.”
“Ah! Monsieur Fouquet, it was not that I meant,” returned the king, sorry to have shown the bitterness of his thought in such a manner. “Well! I assure you that, notwithstanding the mask with which the villain covered his face, I had something like a vague suspicion that he was the very man. But with this chief of the enterprise there was a man of prodigious strength, the one who menaced me with a force almost herculean; what is he?”
“It must be his friend the Baron du Vallon, formerly one of the musketeers.”
“The friend of D’Artagnan? the friend of the Comte de la Fere? Ah!” exclaimed the king, as he paused at the name of the latter, “we must not forget the connection that existed between the conspirators and M. de Bragelonne.”
“Sire, sire, do not go too far. M. de la Fere is the most honorable man in France. Be satisfied with those whom I deliver up to you.”
“With those whom you deliver up to me, you say? Very good, for you will deliver up those who are guilty to me.”
“What does your majesty understand by that?” inquired Fouquet.
“I understand,” replied the king, “that we shall soon arrive at Vaux with a large body of troops, that we will lay violent hands upon that nest of vipers, and that not a soul shall escape.”
“Your majesty will put these men to death!” cried Fouquet.
“To the very meanest of them.”