“There is a great collection of books to be sold there next week. The library of your old admirer, Nicolas Fouquet, whom you knew in his splendour, but who has been a prisoner at Pignerol for a year and a half.”
“Poor wretch!” cried De Malfort, “I was at the Chamber with Madame de Sévigné very often during his long tedious trial. Mon dieu! what courage, what talent he showed in defending himself! Every safeguard of the law was violated in order to silence him and prove him guilty; his papers seized in his absence, no friend or servant allowed to protect his interest, no inventory taken—documents suppressed that might have served for his defence, forgeries inserted by his foes. He had an implacable enemy, and he the highest in the land. He was the scapegoat of the past, and had to answer for a system of plunder that made Mazarin the richest man in France.”
“I don’t wonder that Louis was angry with a servant who had the insolence to entertain his Majesty with a splendour that surpassed his own,” said Lady Fareham. “I should like to have been at those fêtes at Vaux. But although Fareham talks so lightly of travelling to Paris to choose a few dusty books, he has always discouraged me from going there to see old friends, and my own house—which I grieve to think of—abandoned to the carelessness of servants.”
“Dearest, the cleverest woman in the world cannot be in two places at once; and it seems to me you have ever had your days here so full of agreeable engagements that you can have scarcely desired to leave London,” answered Fareham, with his grave smile.
“To leave London—no! But there have been long moping months in Oxfordshire when it would have been a relief to change the scene.”
“Then, indeed, had you been very earnest in wanting such a change, I am sure you would have taken it. I have never forbidden your going to Paris, nor refused to accompany you there. You may go with me to-morrow, if you can be ready.”
“Which you know I cannot, or you would scarce make so liberal an offer.”
“Très chère, you are pleased to be petulant. But I repeat my question. Is there anything you want at Paris?”
“Anything? A million things! Everything! But they are things which you would not be able to choose—except, perhaps, some of the new lace. I might trust you to buy that, though I’ll wager you will bring me a hideous pattern—and some white Cypress powder—and a piece of the ash-coloured velvet Madame wore last winter. I have friends who can choose for you, if I write to them; and you will have but to bring the goods, and see they suffer no harm on the voyage. And you can go to the Rue de Tourain and see whether my servants are keeping the house in tolerable order.”
“With your ladyship’s permission I will lodge there while I am in Paris, which will be but long enough to attend the sale of books, and see some old friends. If I am detained it will be by finding my friends out of town, and having to make a journey to see them. I shall not go beyond Fontainebleau at furthest.”