Sam Vaknin - "The Labor Divide"

J. L. Cherry - "Life and Remains of John Clare"

Voltaire - "L'Ingenu"

Wm. H. Maher - "A Man of Samples"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Man in the Iron Mask

A >> Alexandre Dumas, Pere >> The Man in the Iron Mask




D'Artagnan, after this broadside, quietly caressed his mustache; M.
Colbert's large head seemed to become larger and larger than ever.
D'Artagnan, seeing how ugly anger made him, did not stop half-way. The
orator still went on with his speech, while the king's color was visibly
increasing.

"_Mordioux!_" said the musketeer, coolly, "the king is going to have an
attack of determination of blood to the head. Where the deuce did you
get hold of that idea, Monsieur Colbert? You have no luck."

"Monsieur," said the financier, drawing himself up, "my zeal for the
king's service inspired me with the idea."

"Bah!"

"Monsieur, Melun is a city, an excellent city, which pays well, and which
it would be imprudent to displease."

"There, now! I, who do not pretend to be a financier, saw only one idea
in your idea."

"What was that, monsieur?"

"That of causing a little annoyance to M. Fouquet, who is making himself
quite giddy on his donjons yonder, in waiting for us."

This was a home-stroke, hard enough in all conscience. Colbert was
completely thrown out of the saddle by it, and retired, thoroughly
discomfited. Fortunately, the speech was now at an end; the king drank
the wine which was presented to him, and then every one resumed the
progress through the city. The king bit his lips in anger, for the
evening was closing in, and all hope of a walk with La Valliere was at an
end. In order that the whole of the king's household should enter Vaux,
four hours at least were necessary, owing to the different arrangements.
The king, therefore, who was boiling with impatience, hurried forward as
much as possible, in order to reach it before nightfall. But, at the
moment he was setting off again, other and fresh difficulties arose.

"Is not the king going to sleep at Melun?" said Colbert, in a low tone of
voice, to D'Artagnan.

M. Colbert must have been badly inspired that day, to address himself in
that manner to the chief of the musketeers; for the latter guessed that
the king's intention was very far from that of remaining where he was.
D'Artagnan would not allow him to enter Vaux except he were well and
strongly accompanied; and desired that his majesty would not enter except
with all the escort. On the other hand, he felt that these delays would
irritate that impatient monarch beyond measure. In what way could he
possibly reconcile these difficulties? D'Artagnan took up Colbert's
remark, and determined to repeated it to the king.

"Sire," he said, "M. Colbert has been asking me if your majesty does not
intend to sleep at Melun."

"Sleep at Melun! What for?" exclaimed Louis XIV. "Sleep at Melun! Who,
in Heaven's name, can have thought of such a thing, when M. Fouquet is
expecting us this evening?"

"It was simply," replied Colbert, quickly, "the fear of causing your
majesty the least delay; for, according to established etiquette, you
cannot enter any place, with the exception of your own royal residences,
until the soldiers' quarters have been marked out by the quartermaster,
and the garrison properly distributed."

D'Artagnan listened with the greatest attention, biting his mustache to
conceal his vexation; and the queens were not less interested. They were
fatigued, and would have preferred to go to rest without proceeding any
farther; more especially, in order to prevent the king walking about in
the evening with M. de Saint-Aignan and the ladies of the court, for, if
etiquette required the princesses to remain within their own rooms, the
ladies of honor, as soon as they had performed the services required of
them, had no restrictions placed upon them, but were at liberty to walk
about as they pleased. It will easily be conjectured that all these
rival interests, gathering together in vapors, necessarily produced
clouds, and that the clouds were likely to be followed by a tempest. The
king had no mustache to gnaw, and therefore kept biting the handle of his
whip instead, with ill-concealed impatience. How could he get out of
it? D'Artagnan looked as agreeable as possible, and Colbert as sulky as
he could. Who was there he could get in a passion with?

"We will consult the queen," said Louis XIV., bowing to the royal
ladies. And this kindness of consideration softened Maria Theresa's
heart, who, being of a kind and generous disposition, when left to her
own free-will, replied:

"I shall be delighted to do whatever your majesty wishes."

"How long will it take us to get to Vaux?" inquired Anne of Austria, in
slow and measured accents, placing her hand upon her bosom, where the
seat of her pain lay.

"An hour for your majesty's carriages," said D'Artagnan; "the roads are
tolerably good."

The king looked at him. "And a quarter of an hour for the king," he
hastened to add.

"We should arrive by daylight?" said Louis XIV.

"But the billeting of the king's military escort," objected Colbert,
softly, "will make his majesty lose all the advantage of his speed,
however quick he may be."

"Double ass that you are!" thought D'Artagnan; "if I had any interest or
motive in demolishing your credit with the king, I could do it in ten
minutes. If I were in the king's place," he added aloud, "I should, in
going to M. Fouquet, leave my escort behind me; I should go to him as a
friend; I should enter accompanied only by my captain of the guards; I
should consider that I was acting more nobly, and should be invested with
a still more sacred character by doing so."

Delight sparkled in the king's eyes. "That is indeed a very sensible
suggestion. We will go to see a friend as friends; the gentlemen who are
with the carriages can go slowly: but we who are mounted will ride on."
And he rode off, accompanied by all those who were mounted. Colbert hid
his ugly head behind his horse's neck.

"I shall be quits," said D'Artagnan, as he galloped along, "by getting a
little talk with Aramis this evening. And then, M. Fouquet is a man of
honor. _Mordioux!_ I have said so, and it must be so."

And this was the way how, towards seven o'clock in the evening, without
announcing his arrival by the din of trumpets, and without even his
advanced guard, without out-riders or musketeers, the king presented
himself before the gate of Vaux, where Fouquet, who had been informed of
his royal guest's approach, had been waiting for the last half-hour, with
his head uncovered, surrounded by his household and his friends.


Chapter XIII:
Nectar and Ambrosia.

M. Fouquet held the stirrup of the king, who, having dismounted, bowed
most graciously, and more graciously still held out his hand to him,
which Fouquet, in spite of a slight resistance on the king's part,
carried respectfully to his lips. The king wished to wait in the first
courtyard for the arrival of the carriages, nor had he long to wait, for
the roads had been put into excellent order by the superintendent, and a
stone would hardly have been found of the size of an egg the whole way
from Melun to Vaux; so that the carriages, rolling along as though on a
carpet, brought the ladies to Vaux, without jolting or fatigue, by eight
o'clock. They were received by Madame Fouquet, and at the moment they
made their appearance, a light as bright as day burst forth from every
quarter, trees, vases, and marble statues. This species of enchantment
lasted until their majesties had retired into the palace. All these
wonders and magical effects which the chronicler has heaped up, or rather
embalmed, in his recital, at the risk of rivaling the brain-born scenes
of romancers; these splendors whereby night seemed vanquished and nature
corrected, together with every delight and luxury combined for the
satisfaction of all the senses, as well as the imagination, Fouquet did
in real truth offer to his sovereign in that enchanting retreat of which
no monarch could at that time boast of possessing an equal. We do not
intend to describe the grand banquet, at which the royal guests were
present, nor the concerts, nor the fairy-like and more than magic
transformations and metamorphoses; it will be enough for our purpose to
depict the countenance the king assumed, which, from being gay, soon wore
a very gloomy, constrained, and irritated expression. He remembered his
own residence, royal though it was, and the mean and indifferent style of
luxury that prevailed there, which comprised but little more than what
was merely useful for the royal wants, without being his own personal
property. The large vases of the Louvre, the older furniture and plate
of Henry II., of Francis I., and of Louis XI., were but historic
monuments of earlier days; nothing but specimens of art, the relics of
his predecessors; while with Fouquet, the value of the article was as
much in the workmanship as in the article itself. Fouquet ate from a
gold service, which artists in his own employ had modeled and cast for
him alone. Fouquet drank wines of which the king of France did not even
know the name, and drank them out of goblets each more valuable than the
entire royal cellar.

What, too, was to be said of the apartments, the hangings, the pictures,
the servants and officers, of every description, of his household? What
of the mode of service in which etiquette was replaced by order; stiff
formality by personal, unrestrained comfort; the happiness and
contentment of the guest became the supreme law of all who obeyed the
host? The perfect swarm of busily engaged persons moving about
noiselessly; the multitude of guests, - who were, however, even less
numerous than the servants who waited on them, - the myriad of
exquisitely prepared dishes, of gold and silver vases; the floods of
dazzling light, the masses of unknown flowers of which the hot-houses had
been despoiled, redundant with luxuriance of unequaled scent and beauty;
the perfect harmony of the surroundings, which, indeed, was no more than
the prelude of the promised _fete_, charmed all who were there; and they
testified their admiration over and over again, not by voice or gesture,
but by deep silence and rapt attention, those two languages of the
courtier which acknowledge the hand of no master powerful enough to
restrain them.

As for the king, his eyes filled with tears; he dared not look at the
queen. Anne of Austria, whose pride was superior to that of any creature
breathing, overwhelmed her host by the contempt with which she treated
everything handed to her. The young queen, kind-hearted by nature and
curious by disposition, praised Fouquet, ate with an exceedingly good
appetite, and asked the names of the strange fruits as they were placed
upon the table. Fouquet replied that he was not aware of their names.
The fruits came from his own stores; he had often cultivated them
himself, having an intimate acquaintance with the cultivation of exotic
fruits and plants. The king felt and appreciated the delicacy of the
replies, but was only the more humiliated; he thought the queen a little
too familiar in her manners, and that Anne of Austria resembled Juno a
little too much, in being too proud and haughty; his chief anxiety,
however, was himself, that he might remain cold and distant in his
behavior, bordering lightly the limits of supreme disdain or simple
admiration.

But Fouquet had foreseen all this; he was, in fact, one of those men who
foresee everything. The king had expressly declared that, so long as he
remained under Fouquet's roof, he did not wish his own different repasts
to be served in accordance with the usual etiquette, and that he would,
consequently, dine with the rest of society; but by the thoughtful
attention of the surintendant, the king's dinner was served up
separately, if one may so express it, in the middle of the general table;
the dinner, wonderful in every respect, from the dishes of which was
composed, comprised everything the king liked and generally preferred to
anything else. Louis had no excuse - he, indeed, who had the keenest
appetite in his kingdom - for saying that he was not hungry. Nay, M.
Fouquet did even better still; he certainly, in obedience to the king's
expressed desire, seated himself at the table, but as soon as the soups
were served, he arose and personally waited on the king, while Madame
Fouquet stood behind the queen-mother's armchair. The disdain of Juno
and the sulky fits of temper of Jupiter could not resist this excess of
kindly feeling and polite attention. The queen ate a biscuit dipped in a
glass of San-Lucar wine; and the king ate of everything, saying to M.
Fouquet: "It is impossible, monsieur le surintendant, to dine better
anywhere." Whereupon the whole court began, on all sides, to devour the
dishes spread before them with such enthusiasm that it looked as though a
cloud of Egyptian locusts was settling down on green and growing crops.

As soon, however, as his hunger was appeased, the king became morose and
overgloomed again; the more so in proportion to the satisfaction he
fancied he had previously manifested, and particularly on account of the
deferential manner which his courtiers had shown towards Fouquet.
D'Artagnan, who ate a good deal and drank but little, without allowing it
to be noticed, did not lose a single opportunity, but made a great number
of observations which he turned to good profit.

When the supper was finished, the king expressed a wish not to lose the
promenade. The park was illuminated; the moon, too, as if she had placed
herself at the orders of the lord of Vaux, silvered the trees and lake
with her own bright and quasi-phosphorescent light. The air was
strangely soft and balmy; the daintily shell-gravelled walks through the
thickly set avenues yielded luxuriously to the feet. The _fete_ was
complete in every respect, for the king, having met La Valliere in one of
the winding paths of the wood, was able to press her hand and say, "I
love you," without any one overhearing him except M. d'Artagnan, who
followed, and M. Fouquet, who preceded him.

The dreamy night of magical enchantments stole smoothly on. The king
having requested to be shown to his room, there was immediately a
movement in every direction. The queens passed to their own apartments,
accompanied by them music of theorbos and lutes; the king found his
musketeers awaiting him on the grand flight of steps, for M. Fouquet had
brought them on from Melun and had invited them to supper. D'Artagnan's
suspicions at once disappeared. He was weary, he had supped well, and
wished, for once in his life, thoroughly to enjoy a _fete_ given by a man
who was in every sense of the word a king. "M. Fouquet," he said, "is
the man for me."

The king was conducted with the greatest ceremony to the chamber of
Morpheus, of which we owe some cursory description to our readers. It
was the handsomest and largest in the palace. Lebrun had painted on the
vaulted ceiling the happy as well as the unhappy dreams which Morpheus
inflicts on kings as well as on other men. Everything that sleep gives
birth to that is lovely, its fairy scenes, its flowers and nectar, the
wild voluptuousness or profound repose of the senses, had the painter
elaborated on his frescoes. It was a composition as soft and pleasing in
one part as dark and gloomy and terrible in another. The poisoned
chalice, the glittering dagger suspended over the head of the sleeper;
wizards and phantoms with terrific masks, those half-dim shadows more
alarming than the approach of fire or the somber face of midnight, these,
and such as these, he had made the companions of his more pleasing
pictures. No sooner had the king entered his room than a cold shiver
seemed to pass through him, and on Fouquet asking him the cause of it,
the king replied, as pale as death:

"I am sleepy, that is all."

"Does your majesty wish for your attendants at once?"

"No; I have to talk with a few persons first," said the king. "Will you
have the goodness to tell M. Colbert I wish to see him."

Fouquet bowed and left the room.


Chapter XIV:
A Gascon, and a Gascon and a Half.

D'Artagnan had determined to lose no time, and in fact he never was in
the habit of doing so. After having inquired for Aramis, he had looked
for him in every direction until he had succeeded in finding him.
Besides, no sooner had the king entered Vaux, than Aramis had retired to
his own room, meditating, doubtless, some new piece of gallant attention
for his majesty's amusement. D'Artagnan desired the servants to announce
him, and found on the second story (in a beautiful room called the Blue
Chamber, on account of the color of its hangings) the bishop of Vannes
in company with Porthos and several of the modern Epicureans. Aramis
came forward to embrace his friend, and offered him the best seat. As it
was after awhile generally remarked among those present that the
musketeer was reserved, and wished for an opportunity for conversing
secretly with Aramis, the Epicureans took their leave. Porthos, however,
did not stir; for true it is that, having dined exceedingly well, he was
fast asleep in his armchair; and the freedom of conversation therefore
was not interrupted by a third person. Porthos had a deep, harmonious
snore, and people might talk in the midst of its loud bass without fear
of disturbing him. D'Artagnan felt that he was called upon to open the
conversation.

"Well, and so we have come to Vaux," he said.

"Why, yes, D'Artagnan. And how do you like the place?"

"Very much, and I like M. Fouquet, also."

"Is he not a charming host?"

"No one could be more so."

"I am told that the king began by showing great distance of manner
towards M. Fouquet, but that his majesty grew much more cordial
afterwards."

"You did not notice it, then, since you say you have been told so?"

"No; I was engaged with the gentlemen who have just left the room about
the theatrical performances and the tournaments which are to take place
to-morrow."

"Ah, indeed! you are the comptroller-general of the _fetes_ here, then?"

"You know I am a friend of all kinds of amusement where the exercise of
the imagination is called into activity; I have always been a poet in one
way or another."

"Yes, I remember the verses you used to write, they were charming."

"I have forgotten them, but I am delighted to read the verses of others,
when those others are known by the names of Moliere, Pelisson, La
Fontaine, etc."

"Do you know what idea occurred to me this evening, Aramis?"

"No; tell me what it was, for I should never be able to guess it, you
have so many."

"Well, the idea occurred to me, that the true king of France is not Louis
XIV."

"_What!_" said Aramis, involuntarily, looking the musketeer full in the
eyes.

"No, it is Monsieur Fouquet."

Aramis breathed again, and smiled. "Ah! you are like all the rest,
jealous," he said. "I would wager that it was M. Colbert who turned that
pretty phrase." D'Artagnan, in order to throw Aramis off his guard,
related Colbert's misadventures with regard to the _vin de Melun_.

"He comes of a mean race, does Colbert," said Aramis.

"Quite true."

"When I think, too," added the bishop, "that that fellow will be your
minister within four months, and that you will serve him as blindly as
you did Richelieu or Mazarin - "

"And as you serve M. Fouquet," said D'Artagnan.

"With this difference, though, that M. Fouquet is not M. Colbert."

"True, true," said D'Artagnan, as he pretended to become sad and full of
reflection; and then, a moment after, he added, "Why do you tell me that
M. Colbert will be minister in four months?"

"Because M. Fouquet will have ceased to be so," replied Aramis.

"He will be ruined, you mean?" said D'Artagnan.

"Completely so."

"Why does he give these _fetes_, then?" said the musketeer, in a tone so
full of thoughtful consideration, and so well assumed, that the bishop
was for the moment deceived by it. "Why did you not dissuade him from
it?"

The latter part of the phrase was just a little too much, and Aramis's
former suspicions were again aroused. "It is done with the object of
humoring the king."

"By ruining himself?"

"Yes, by ruining himself for the king."

"A most eccentric, one might say, sinister calculation, that."

"Necessity, necessity, my friend."

"I don't see that, dear Aramis."

"Do you not? Have you not remarked M. Colbert's daily increasing
antagonism, and that he is doing his utmost to drive the king to get rid
of the superintendent?"

"One must be blind not to see it."

"And that a cabal is already armed against M. Fouquet?"

"That is well known."

"What likelihood is there that the king would join a party formed against
a man who will have spent everything he had to please him?"

"True, true," said D'Artagnan, slowly, hardly convinced, yet curious to
broach another phase of the conversation. "There are follies, and
follies," he resumed, "and I do not like those you are committing."

"What do you allude to?"

"As for the banquet, the ball, the concert, the theatricals, the
tournaments, the cascades, the fireworks, the illuminations, and the
presents - these are well and good, I grant; but why were not these
expenses sufficient? Why was it necessary to have new liveries and
costumes for your whole household?"

"You are quite right. I told M. Fouquet that myself; he replied, that if
he were rich enough he would offer the king a newly erected chateau, from
the vanes at the houses to the very sub-cellars; completely new inside
and out; and that, as soon as the king had left, he would burn the whole
building and its contents, in order that it might not be made use of by
any one else."

"How completely Spanish!"

"I told him so, and he then added this: 'Whoever advises me to spare
expense, I shall look upon as my enemy.'"

"It is positive madness; and that portrait, too!"

"What portrait?" said Aramis.

"That of the king, and the surprise as well."

"What surprise?"

"The surprise you seem to have in view, and on account of which you took
some specimens away, when I met you at Percerin's." D'Artagnan paused.
The shaft was discharged, and all he had to do was to wait and watch its
effect.

"That is merely an act of graceful attention," replied Aramis.

D'Artagnan went up to his friend, took hold of both his hands, and
looking him full in the eyes, said, "Aramis, do you still care for me a
very little?"

"What a question to ask!"

"Very good. One favor, then. Why did you take some patterns of the
king's costumes at Percerin's?"

"Come with me and ask poor Lebrun, who has been working upon them for the
last two days and nights."

"Aramis, that may be truth for everybody else, but for me - "

"Upon my word, D'Artagnan, you astonish me."

"Be a little considerate. Tell me the exact truth; you would not like
anything disagreeable to happen to me, would you?"

"My dear friend, you are becoming quite incomprehensible. What suspicion
can you have possibly got hold of?"

"Do you believe in my instinctive feelings? Formerly you used to have
faith in them. Well, then, an instinct tells me that you have some
concealed project on foot."

"I - a project?"

"I am convinced of it."

"What nonsense!"

"I am not only sure of it, but I would even swear it."

"Indeed, D'Artagnan, you cause me the greatest pain. Is it likely, if I
have any project in hand that I ought to keep secret from you, I should
tell you about it? If I had one that I could and ought to have revealed,
should I not have long ago divulged it?"

"No, Aramis, no. There are certain projects which are never revealed
until the favorable opportunity arrives."

"In that case, my dear fellow," returned the bishop, laughing, "the only
thing now is, that the 'opportunity' has not yet arrived."

D'Artagnan shook his head with a sorrowful expression. "Oh, friendship,
friendship!" he said, "what an idle word you are! Here is a man who, if
I were but to ask it, would suffer himself to be cut in pieces for my
sake."

"You are right," said Aramis, nobly.

"And this man, who would shed every drop of blood in his veins for me,
will not open up before me the least corner in his heart. Friendship, I
repeat, is nothing but an unsubstantial shadow - a lure, like everything
else in this bright, dazzling world."

"It is not thus you should speak of _our_ friendship," replied the
bishop, in a firm, assured voice; "for ours is not of the same nature as
those of which you have been speaking."

"Look at us, Aramis; three out of the old 'four.' You are deceiving me;
I suspect you; and Porthos is fast asleep. An admirable trio of friends,
don't you think so? What an affecting relic of the former dear old
times!"

"I can only tell you one thing, D'Artagnan, and I swear it on the Bible:
I love you just as I used to do. If I ever suspect you, it is on account
of others, and not on account of either of us. In everything I may do,
and should happen to succeed in, you will find your fourth. Will you
promise me the same favor?"

"If I am not mistaken, Aramis, your words - at the moment you pronounce
them - are full of generous feeling."