“Your eminence has misunderstood me. I did not, the least in
the world, pretend that his majesty ought to spend your
money.”
“You said so clearly, it seems to me, when you advised me to
give it to him.”
“Ah,” replied Colbert, “that is because your eminence,
absorbed as you are by your disease, entirely loses sight of
the character of Louis XIV.”
“How so?”
“That character, if I may venture to express myself thus,
resembles that which my lord confessed just now to the
Theatin.”
“Go on — that is?”
“Pride! Pardon me, my lord, haughtiness, nobleness; kings
have no pride, that is a human passion.”
“Pride, — yes, you are right. Next?”
“Well, my lord, if I have divined rightly, your eminence has
but to give all your money to the king, and that
immediately.”
“But for what?” said Mazarin, quite bewildered.
“Because the king will not accept of the whole.”
“What, and he a young man, and devoured by ambition?”
“Just so.”
“A young man who is anxious for my death —- ”
“My lord!”
“To inherit, yes, Colbert, yes; he is anxious for my death
in order to inherit. Triple fool that I am! I would prevent
him!”
“Exactly: if the donation were made in a certain form he
would refuse it.”
“Well, but how?”
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“That is plain enough. A young man who has yet done nothing
— who burns to distinguish himself — who burns to reign
alone, will never take anything ready built, he will
construct for himself. This prince, monseigneur, will never
be content with the Palais Royal, which M. de Richelieu left
him, nor with the Palais Mazarin, which you have had so
superbly constructed, nor with the Louvre, which his
ancestors inhabited; nor with St. Germain, where he was
born. All that does not proceed from himself, I predict, he
will disdain.”
“And you will guarantee, that if I give my forty millions to
the king —- ”
“Saying certain things to him at the same time, I guarantee
he will refuse them.”
“But those things — what are they?”
“I will write them, if my lord will have the goodness to
dictate them.”
“Well, but, after all, what advantage will that be to me?”
“An enormous one. Nobody will afterwards be able to accuse
your eminence of that unjust avarice with which pamphleteers
have reproached the most brilliant mind of the present age.”
“You are right, Colbert, you are right; go, and seek the
king, on my part, and take him my will.”
“Your donation, my lord.”
“But, if he should accept it; if he should even think of
accepting it!”
“Then there would remain thirteen millions for your family,
and that is a good round sum.”
“But then you would be either a fool or a traitor.”
“And I am neither the one nor the other, my lord. You appear
to be much afraid that the king will accept; you have a deal
more reason to fear that he will not accept.”
“But, see you, if he does not accept, I should like to
guarantee my thirteen reserved millions to him — yes, I
will do so — yes. But my pains are returning, I shall
faint. I am very, very ill, Colbert; I am very near my end!”
Colbert started. The cardinal was indeed very ill; large
drops of sweat flowed down upon his bed of agony, and the
frightful pallor of a face streaming with water was a
spectacle which the most hardened practitioner could not
have beheld without compassion. Colbert was, without doubt,
very much affected, for he quitted the chamber, calling
Bernouin to attend the dying man and went into the corridor.
There, walking about with a meditative expression, which
almost gave nobility to his vulgar head, his shoulders
thrown up, his neck stretched out, his lips half open, to
give vent to unconnected fragments of incoherent thoughts,
he lashed up his courage to the pitch of the undertaking
contemplated, whilst within ten paces of him, separated only
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by a wall, his master was being stifled by anguish which
drew from him lamentable cries, thinking no more of the