“Upon your cash-box?” asked the musketeer.
“No, monsieur; on that of M. Fouquet.”
D’Artagnan was surprised, but he took the order, which was in the king’s own writing, and was for two hundred pistoles. “What!” thought he, after having politely thanked M. Brienne’s clerk, “M. Fouquet is to pay for the journey, then! Mordioux! that is a bit of pure Louis XI. Why was not this order on the chest of M. Colbert? He would have paid it with such joy.” And D’Artagnan, faithful to his principle of never letting an order at sight get cold, went straight to the house of M. Fouquet, to receive his two hundred pistoles.
Chapter XXXV. The Last Supper.
The superintendent had no doubt received advice of the approaching departure, for he was giving a farewell dinner to his friends. From the bottom to the top of the house, the hurry of the servants bearing dishes, and the diligence of the registres, denoted an approaching change in offices and kitchen. D’Artagnan, with his order in his hand, presented himself at the offices, when he was told it was too late to pay cash, the chest was closed. He only replied: “On the king’s service.”
The clerk, a little put out by the serious air of the captain, replied, that “that was a very respectable reason, but that the customs of the house were respectable likewise; and that, in consequence, he begged the bearer to call again next day.” D’Artagnan asked if he could not see M. Fouquet. The clerk replied that M. le surintendant did not interfere with such details, and rudely closed the outer door in the captain’s face. But the latter had foreseen this stroke, and placed his boot between the door and the door-case, so that the lock did not catch, and the clerk was still nose to nose with his interlocutor. This made him change his tone, and say, with terrified politeness, “If monsieur wishes to speak to M. le surintendant, he must go to the ante-chambers; these are the offices, where monseigneur never comes.”
“Oh! very well! Where are they?” replied D’Artagnan.
“On the other side of the court,” said the clerk, delighted to be free. D’Artagnan crossed the court, and fell in with a crowd of servants.
“Monseigneur sees nobody at this hour,” he was answered by a fellow carrying a vermeil dish, in which were three pheasants and twelve quails.
“Tell him,” said the captain, laying hold of the servant by the end of his dish, “that I am M. d’Artagnan, captain of his majesty’s musketeers.”