Alexandre Dumas

Ten Years Later Alexandre Dumas

The reader guesses beforehand whom the usher preceded in announcing thecourier from Bretagne. This messenger was easily recognized. It was D'Artagnan, hisclothes dusty, his face inflamed, his hair dripping with sweat, his legs stiff; he lifted hisfeet painfully at every step, on which resounded the clink of his blood-stained spurs. Heperceived in the doorway he was passing through, the superintendent coming out. Fouquet bowed with a smile to him who, an hour before, was bringing him ruin anddeath. D'Artagnan found in his goodness of heart, and in his inexhaustible vigor ofbody, enough presence of mind to remember the kind reception of this man; he bowedthen, also, much more from benevolence and compassion, than from respect. He feltupon his lips the word which had so many times been repeated to the Duc de Guise: "Fly." But to pronounce that word would have been to betray his cause; to speak thatword in the cabinet of the king, and before an usher, would have been to ruin himselfgratuitously, and could save nobody. D'Artagnan then, contented himself with bowingto Fouquet and entered. At this moment the king floated between the joy the last wordsof Fouquet had given him, and his pleasure at the return of D'Artagnan. Without being acourtier, D'Artagnan had a glance as sure and as rapid as if he had been one. He read, on his entrance, devouring humiliation on the countenance of Colber