"Well, monsieur, from that isle to Belle-Isle the way is quite straight.
The sea, broken both above and below, pa.s.ses like a ca.n.a.l--like a mirror between the two isles; the chalands glide along upon it like ducks upon the Loire; that"s how it is."
"It does not signify," said the obstinate M. Agnan; "it is a long way round."
"Ah! yes; but M. Fouquet will have it so," replied, as conclusive, the fisherman, taking off his woolen cap at the enunciation of that respected name.
A look from D"Artagnan, a look as keen and piercing as a sword-blade, found nothing in the heart of the old man but a simple confidence--on his features, nothing but satisfaction and indifference. He said, "M.
Fouquet will have it so," as he would have said, "G.o.d has willed it."
D"Artagnan had already advanced too far in this direction; besides, the chalands being gone, there remained nothing at Piriac but a single bark--that of the old man, and it did not look fit for sea without great preparation. D"Artagnan therefore patted Furet, who, as a new proof of his charming character, resumed his march with his feet in the salt-mines, and his nose to the dry wind, which bends the furze and the broom of this country. They reached Le Croisic about five o"clock.
If D"Artagnan had been a poet, it was a beautiful spectacle: the immense strand of a league or more, the sea covers at high tide, and which, at the reflux, appears gray and desolate, strewed with polypi and seaweed, with pebbles spa.r.s.e and white, like bones in some vast old cemetery. But the soldier, the politician, and the ambitious man, had no longer the sweet consolation of looking towards heaven to read there a hope or a warning. A red sky signifies nothing to such people but wind and disturbance. White and fleecy clouds upon the azure only say that the sea will be smooth and peaceful. D"Artagnan found the sky blue, the breeze embalmed with saline perfumes, and he said: "I will embark with the first tide, if it be but in a nutsh.e.l.l."
At Le Croisic as at Piriac, he had remarked enormous heaps of stone lying along the sh.o.r.e. These gigantic walls, diminished every tide by the barges for Belle-Isle, were, in the eyes of the musketeer, the consequence and the proof of what he had well divined at Piriac. Was it a wall that M. Fouquet was constructing? Was it a fortification that he was erecting? To ascertain that, he must make fuller observations.
D"Artagnan put Furet into a stable; supped, went to bed, and on the morrow took a walk upon the port or rather upon the shingle. Le Croisic has a port of fifty feet; it has a look-out which resembles an enormous brioche (a kind of cake) elevated on a dish. The flat strand is the dish. Hundreds of barrowsful of earth amalgamated with pebbles, and rounded into cones, with sinuous pa.s.sages between, are look-outs and brioches at the same time. It is so now, and it was so two hundred years ago, only the brioche was not so large, and probably there were to be seen to trellises of lath around the brioche, which const.i.tute an ornament, planted like gardes-fous along the pa.s.sages that wind towards the little terrace. Upon the shingle lounged three or four fishermen talking about sardines and shrimps. D"Artagnan, with his eyes animated by a rough gayety, and a smile upon his lips, approached these fishermen.
"Any fishing going on to-day?" said he.
"Yes, monsieur," replied one of them, "we are only waiting for the tide."
"Where do you fish, my friends?"
"Upon the coasts, monsieur."
"Which are the best coasts?"
"Ah, that is all according. The tour of the isles, for example?"
"Yes, but they are a long way off, those isles, are they not?"
"Not very; four leagues."
"Four leagues! That is a voyage."
The fishermen laughed in M. Agnan"s face.
"Hear me, then," said the latter with an air of simple stupidity; "four leagues off you lose sight of land, do you not?"
"Why, not always."
"Ah, it is a long way--too long, or else I would have asked you to take me aboard, and to show me what I have never seen."
"What is that?"
"A live sea-fish."
"Monsieur comes from the province?" said a fisherman.
"Yes, I come from Paris."
The Breton shrugged his shoulders; then:
"Have you ever seen M. Fouquet in Paris?" asked he.
"Often," replied D"Artagnan.
"Often!" repeated the fishermen, closing their circle round the Parisian. "Do you know him?"
"A little; he is the intimate friend of my master."
"Ah!" said the fishermen, in astonishment.
"And," said D"Artagnan, "I have seen all his chateaux of Saint Mande, of Vaux, and his hotel in Paris."
"Is that a fine place?"
"Superb."
"It is not so fine a place as Belle-Isle," said the fisherman.
"Bah!" cried M. d"Artagnan, breaking into a laugh so loud that he angered all his auditors.
"It is very plain that you have never seen Belle-Isle," said the most curious of the fishermen. "Do you know that there are six leagues of it, and that there are such trees on it as cannot be equaled even at Nates-sur-le-Fosse?"
"Trees in the sea!" cried D"Artagnan; "well, I should like to see them."
"That can be easily done; we are fishing at the Isle de Hoedic--come with us. From that place you will see, as a Paradise, the black trees of Belle-Isle against the sky; you will see the white line of the castle, which cuts the horizon of the sea like a blade."
"Oh," said D"Artagnan, "that must be very beautiful. But do you know there are a hundred belfries at M. Fouquet"s chateau of Vaux?"
The Breton raised his head in profound admiration, but he was not convinced. "A hundred belfries! Ah, that may be; but Belle-Isle is finer than that. Should you like to see Belle-Isle?"
"Is that possible?" asked D"Artagnan.
"Yes, with permission of the governor."
"But I do not know the governor."
"As you know M. Fouquet, you can tell your name."
"Oh, my friends, I am not a gentleman."
"Everybody enters Belle-Isle," continued the fisherman in his strong, pure language, "provided he means no harm to Belle-Isle or its master."
A slight shudder crept over the body of the musketeer. "That is true,"
thought he. Then recovering himself, "If I were sure," said he, "not to be sea-sick."
"What, upon her?" said the fisherman, pointing with pride to his pretty round-bottomed bark.