"There is not a single syllable of sense in all you have just said." "What!" said the superintendent, surprised, "a man like you refuse to view the practical bearing of the case! Do you confine yourself to the childish delight of a political illusion, and neglect the chances of its being carried into execution; in other words, the reality itself, is it possible ?" "My friend," said Aramis, emphasizing the word with a kind of disdainful familiarity, "what does Heaven do in order to substitute one king for another ?" "Heaven!" exclaimed Fouquet--"Heaven gives directions to its agent, who seizes upon the doomed victim, hurries him away, and seats the triumphant rival on the empty throne.

But you forget that this agent is called death.

Oh! Monsieur d'Herblay, in Heaven's name, tell me if you have had the idea--" "There is no question of that, monseigneur; you are going beyond the object in view.

Who spoke of Louis XIV.'s death?
who spoke of adopting the example which Heaven sets in following out the strict execution of its decrees?
No, I wish you to understand that Heaven effects its purposes without confusion or disturbance, without exciting comment or remark, without difficulty or exertion; and that men, inspired by Heaven, succeed like Heaven itself, in all their undertakings, in all they attempt, in all they do." "What do you mean ?" "I mean, my _friend_," returned Aramis, with the same intonation on the word friend that he had applied to it the first time--"I mean that if there has been any confusion, scandal, and even effort in the substitution of the prisoner for the king, I defy you to prove it." "What!" cried Fouquet, whiter than the handkerchief with which he wiped his temples, "what do you say ?" "Go to the king's apartment," continued Aramis, tranquilly, "and you who know the mystery, I defy even you to perceive that the prisoner of the Bastile is lying in his brother's bed." "But the king," stammered Fouquet, seized with horror at the intelligence.
"What king ?" said Aramis, in his gentlest tone; "the one who hates you, or the one who likes you ?" "The king--of--_yesterday_." "The king of yesterday! be quite easy on that score; he has gone to take the place in the Bastile which his victim occupied for so many years." "Great God! And who took him there ?" "I." "You ?" "Yes, and in the simplest way.

I carried him away last night.