Ten Years Later: Louise de la Valliere by Alexandre Dumas Chapter 49 Page 25

at Vaux, which must hereafter be spoken of as one of the most magnificent productions of your most prosperous days.”

“Are you mad, Chevalier d’Herblay?”

“I! do you think so?”

“What do you mean, then?

Do you not know that a fete at Vaux, one of the very simplest possible character, would cost four or five millions?”

“I do not speak of a fete of the very simplest possible character, my dear superintendent.”

“But, since the fete is to be given to the king,” replied Fouquet, who misunderstood Aramis’s idea, “it cannot be simple.”

“Just so: it ought to be on a scale of the most unbounded magnificence.”