“Not at all, I assure you.”
“How do you know it, then?”
“By a very simple means.
I heard M. Fouquet himself say so to the king.”
“Say what to the king?”
“That he fortified Belle-Isle on his majesty’s account, and that he had made him a present of Belle Isle.”
“And you heard M. Fouquet say that to the king?”
“In those very words. He even added: ‘Belle-Isle has been fortified by an engineer, one of my friends, a man of a great deal of merit, whom I shall ask your majesty’s permission to present to you.’