“Very well, I say no more about it,” exclaimed Louis XIV.
“Have I at least convinced you, sire?” placing his hand upon
that of the young king.
“Perfectly.”
“If there be anything else, ask it, sire, I shall be most
happy to grant it to you, having refused this.”
“Anything else, my lord?”
“Why yes, am I not devoted body and soul to your majesty?
Hola! Bernouin! — lights and guards for his majesty! His
majesty is returning to his own chamber.”
“Not yet, monsieur: since you place your good-will at my
disposal, I will take advantage of it.”
“For yourself, sire?” asked the cardinal, hoping that his
niece was at length about to be named.
“No, monsieur, not for myself,” replied Louis, “but still
for my brother Charles.”
The brow of Mazarin again became clouded, and he grumbled a
few words that the king could not catch.
CHAPTER 11
Mazarin’s Policy
Instead of the hesitation with which he had accosted the
cardinal a quarter of an hour before, there might be read in
the eyes of the young king that will against which a
struggle might be maintained, and which might be crushed by
its own impotence, but which, at least, would preserve, like
a wound in the depth of the heart, the remembrance of its
defeat.
“This time, my lord cardinal, we have to deal with something
more easily found than a million.”
“Do you think so, sire?” said Mazarin, looking at the king
with that penetrating eye which was accustomed to read to
the bottom of hearts.
“Yes, I think so; and when you know the object of my request
—- ”
“And do you think I do not know it, sire?”
“You know what remains for me to say to you?”
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Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
“Listen, sire; these are King Charles’s own words —- ”
“Oh, impossible!”
“Listen. `And if that miserly, beggarly Italian,’ said he
—- ”
“My lord cardinal!”
“That is the sense, if not the words. Eh! Good heavens! I
wish him no ill on that account, one is biased by his
passions. He said to you: `If that vile Italian refuses the
million we ask of him, sire, — if we are forced, for want
of money, to renounce diplomacy, well, then, we will ask him
to grant us five hundred gentlemen.'”
The king started, for the cardinal was only mistaken in the
number.
“Is not that it, sire?” cried the minister, with a
triumphant accent. “And then he added some fine words: he
said, `I have friends on the other side of the channel, and
these friends only want a leader and a banner. When they see
me, when they behold the banner of France, they will rally
round me, for they will comprehend that I have your support.
The colors of the French uniform will be worth as much to me
as the million M. de Mazarin refuses us,’ — for he was
pretty well assured I should refuse him that million. — `I
shall conquer with these five hundred gentlemen, sire, and
all the honor will be yours.’ Now, that is what he said, or
to that purpose, was it not? — turning those plain words
into brilliant metaphors and pompous images, for they are
fine talkers in that family! The father talked even on the
scaffold.”
The perspiration of shame stood upon the brow of Louis. He
felt that it was inconsistent with his dignity to hear his
brother thus insulted, but he did not yet know how to act
with him to whom every one yielded, even his mother. At last
he made an effort.
“But,” said he, “my lord cardinal, it is not five hundred
men, it is only two hundred.”
“Well, but you see I guessed what he wanted.”
“I never denied that you had a penetrating eye, and that was
why I thought you would not refuse my brother Charles a
thing so simple and so easy to grant him as what I ask of
you in his name, my lord cardinal, or rather in my own.”
“Sire,” said Mazarin, “I have studied policy thirty years;
first, under the auspices of M. le Cardinal de Richelieu;