children, the sisters of his majesty; and if a favor be
distributed in France, it shall be to those you love.”
“Smoke!” thought Mazarin, who knew better than any one the
faith that can be put in the promises of kings. Louis read
the dying man’s thought in his face.
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“Be comforted, my dear Monsieur Mazarin,” said he, with a
half-smile, sad beneath its irony; “the Mesdemoiselles de
Mancini will lose, in losing you, their most precious good;
but they shall none the less be the richest heiresses of
France; and since you have been kind enough to give me their
dowry” — the cardinal was panting — “I restore it to
them,” continued Louis, drawing from his breast and holding
towards the cardinal’s bed the parchment which contained the
donation that, during two days, had kept alive such tempests
in the mind of Mazarin.
“What did I tell you, my lord?” murmured in the alcove a
voice which passed away like a breath.
“Your majesty returns my donation!” cried Mazarin, so
disturbed by joy as to forget his character of a benefactor.
“Your majesty rejects the forty millions!” cried Anne of
Austria, so stupefied as to forget her character of an
afflicted wife, or queen.
“Yes, my lord cardinal; yes, madame,” replied Louis XIV.,
tearing the parchment which Mazarin had not yet ventured to
clutch; “yes, I annihilate this deed, which despoiled a
whole family. The wealth acquired by his eminence in my
service is his own wealth and not mine.”
“But, sire, does your majesty reflect,” said Anne of
Austria, “that you have not ten thousand crowns in your
coffers?”
“Madame, I have just performed my first royal action, and I
hope it will worthily inaugurate my reign.”
“Ah! sire, you are right!” cried Mazarin; “that is truly
great — that is truly generous which you have just done.”
And he looked, one after the other, at the pieces of the act
spread over his bed, to assure himself that it was the
original and not a copy that had been torn. At length his
eyes fell upon the fragment which bore his signature, and
recognizing it, he sunk back on his bolster in a swoon. Anne
of Austria, without strength to conceal her regret, raised
her hands and eyes toward heaven.
“Oh! sire,” cried Mazarin, “may you be blessed! My God! May
you be beloved by all my family. Per Baccho! If ever any of
those belonging to me should cause your displeasure, sire,
only frown, and I will rise from my tomb!”
This pantalonnade did not produce all the effect Mazarin had
counted upon. Louis had already passed to considerations of
a higher nature, and as to Anne of Austria, unable to bear,
without abandoning herself to the anger she felt burning
within her, the magnanimity of her son and the hypocrisy of
the cardinal, she arose and left the chamber, heedless of
thus betraying the extent of her grief. Mazarin saw all
this, and fearing that Louis XIV. might repent his decision,
in order to draw attention another way he began to cry out,
as, at a later period, Scapin was to cry out, in that
sublime piece of pleasantry with which the morose and
grumbling Boileau dared to reproach Moliere. His cries,
however, by degrees, became fainter; and when Anne of
Austria left the apartment, they ceased altogether.
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Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
“Monsieur le cardinal,” said the king, “have you any
recommendations to make to me?”
“Sire,” replied Mazarin, “you are already wisdom itself,
prudence personified; of your generosity I shall not venture
to speak; that which you have just done exceeds all that the
most generous men of antiquity or of modern times have ever
done.”
The king received this praise coldly.
“So you confine yourself,” said he, “to your thanks — and
your experience, much more extensive than my wisdom, my
prudence, or my generosity, does not furnish you with a
single piece of friendly advice to guide my future.”
Mazarin reflected for a moment. “You have just done much for
me, sire,” said he, “that is, for my family.”
“Say no more about that,” said the king.
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