Perhaps the alteration was caused by the cancer which had begun to consume her breast. "Yes, madame," said the king; "yes, M. de Mazarin is very ill." "And it would be a great loss to the kingdom if God were to summon his eminence away. Is not that your opinion as well as mine, my son?" said the queen. "Yes, madame; yes, certainly, it would be a great loss for the kingdom," said Louis, coloring; "but the peril does not seem to me to be so great; besides, the cardinal is still young." The king had scarcely ceased speaking when an usher lifted the tapestry, and stood with a paper in his hand, waiting for the king to speak to him. "What have you there?" asked the king. "A message from M. de Mazarin," replied the usher. "Give it to me," said the king; and he took the paper. But at the moment he was about to open it, there was a great noise in the gallery, the ante- chamber, and the court. "Ah, ah," said Louis XIV., who doubtless knew the meaning of that triple noise. "How could I say there was but one king in France! I was mistaken, there are two." As he spoke or thought thus, the door opened, and the superintendent of finances, Fouquet, appeared before his nominal master. It was he who made the noise in the ante-chamber, it was his horse that made the noise in the courtyard. In addition to all this, a loud murmur was heard along his passage, which did not die away till some time after he had passed. It was this murmur which Louis XIV. regretted so deeply not hearing as he passed, and dying away behind him. "He is not precisely a king, as you fancy," said Anne of Austria to her son; "he is only a man who is much too rich - that is all." Whilst saying these words, a bitter feeling gave to these words of the queen a most hateful expression; whereas the brow of the king, calm and self-possessed, on the contrary, was without the slightest wrinkle. He nodded, therefore, familiarly to Fouquet, whilst he continued to unfold the paper given to him by the usher. Fouquet perceived this movement, and with a politeness at once easy and respectful, advanced towards the queen, so as not to disturb the king. Louis had opened the paper, and yet he did not read it. He listened to Fouquet paying the most charming compliments to the queen upon her hand and arm. Anne of Austria's frown relaxed a little, she even almost smiled. Fouquet perceived that the king, instead of reading, was looking at him; he turned half round, therefore, and while continuing his conversation with the queen, faced the king. "You know, Monsieur Fouquet," said Louis, "how ill M. Mazarin is?" "Yes, sire, I know that," said Fouquet; "in fact, he is very ill. I was at my country-house of Vaux when the news reached me; and the affair seemed so pressing that I left at once." "You left Vaux this evening, monsieur?" "An hour and a half ago, yes, your majesty," said Fouquet, consulting a watch, richly ornamented with diamonds. "An hour and a half!" said the king, still able to restrain his anger, but not to conceal his astonishment. "I understand you, sire. Your majesty doubts my word, and you have reason to do so; but I have really come in that time, though it is wonderful! I received from England three pairs of very fast horses, as I had been assured. They were placed at distances of four leagues apart, and I tried them this evening. They really brought me from Vaux to the Louvre in an hour and a half, so your majesty sees I have not been cheated." The queen-mother smiled with something like secret envy. But Fouquet caught her thought. "Thus, madame," he promptly said, "such horses are made for kings, not for subjects; for kings ought never to yield to any one in anything." The king looked up. "And yet," interrupted Anne of Austria, "you are not a king, that I know of, M. Fouquet." "Truly not, madame; therefore the horses only await the orders of his majesty to enter the royal stables; and if I allowed myself to try them, it was only for fear of offering to the king anything that was not positively wonderful." The king became quite red. "You know, Monsieur Fouquet," said the queen, "that at the court of France it is not the custom for a subject to offer anything to his king." Louis started. "I hoped, madame," said Fouquet, much agitated, "that my love for his majesty, my incessant desire to please him, would serve to compensate the want of etiquette. It was not so much a present that I permitted myself to offer, as the tribute I paid." "Thank you, Monsieur Fouquet," said the king politely, "and I am gratified by your intention, for I love good horses; but you know I am not very rich; you, who are my superintendent of finances, know it better than any one else. I am not able, then, however willing I may be, to purchase such a valuable set of horses." Fouquet darted a haughty glance at the queen-mother, who appeared to triumph at the false position in which the minister had placed himself, and replied: - "Luxury is the virtue of kings, sire: it is luxury which makes them resemble God; it is by luxury they are more than other men. With luxury a king nourishes his subjects, and honors them. Under the mild heat of this luxury of kings springs the luxury of individuals, a source of riches for the people. His majesty, by accepting the gift of these six incomparable horses, would stimulate the pride of his own breeders, of Limousin, Perche, and Normandy; and this emulation would have been beneficial to all. But the king is silent, and consequently I am condemned." During this speech, Louis was, unconsciously, folding and unfolding Mazarin's paper, upon which he had not cast his eyes. At length he glanced upon it, and uttered a faint cry at reading the first line. "What is the matter, my son?" asked the queen, anxiously, and going towards the king. "From the cardinal," replied the king, continuing to read; "yes, yes, it is really from him." "Is he worse, then?" "Read!" said the king, passing the parchment to his mother, as if he thought that nothing less than reading would convince Anne of Austria of a thing so astonishing as was conveyed in that paper. Anne of Austria read in turn, and as she read, her eyes sparkled with joy all the greater from her useless endeavor to hide it, which attracted the attention of Fouquet. "Oh! a regularly drawn up deed of gift," said she. "A gift?" repeated Fouquet. "Yes," said the king, replying pointedly to the superintendent of finances, "yes, at the point of death, monsieur le cardinal makes me a donation of all his wealth." "Forty millions," cried the queen. "Oh, my son! this is very noble on the part of his eminence, and will silence all malicious rumors; forty millions scraped together slowly, coming back all in one heap to the treasury! It is the act of a faithful subject and a good Christian." And having once more cast her eyes over the act, she restored it to Louis XIV., whom the announcement of the sum greatly agitated. Fouquet had taken some steps backwards and remained silent. The king looked at him, and held the paper out to him, in turn. The superintendent only bestowed a haughty look of a second upon it; then bowing, - "Yes, sire," said he, "a donation, I see." "You must reply to it, my son," said Anne of Austria; "you must reply to it, and immediately." "But how, madame?" "By a visit to the cardinal." "Why, it is but an hour since I left his eminence," said the king. "Write, then, sire." "Write!" said the young king, with evident repugnance. "Well!" replied Anne of Austria, "it seems to me, my son, that a man who has just made such a present, has a good right to expect to be thanked for it with some degree of promptitude." Then turning towards Fouquet: "Is not that likewise your opinion, monsieur?" "That the present is worth the trouble? Yes, madame," said Fouquet, with a lofty air that did not escape the king. "Accept, then, and thank him," insisted Anne of Austria. "What says M. Fouquet?" asked Louis XIV. "Does your majesty wish to know my opinion?" "Yes." "Thank him, sire - " "Ah!" said the queen. "But do not accept," continued Fouquet. "And why not?" asked the queen. "You have yourself said why, madame," replied Fouquet; "because kings cannot and ought not to receive presents from their subjects." The king remained silent between these two contrary opinions. "But forty millions!" said Anne of Austria, in the same tone as that in which, at a later period, poor Marie Antoinette replied, "You will tell me as much!" "I know," said Fouquet, laughing, "forty millions makes a good round sum, - such a sum as could almost tempt a royal conscience." "But, monsieur," said Anne of Austria, "instead of persuading the king not to receive this present, recall to his majesty's mind, you, whose duty it is, that these forty millions are a fortune to him." "It is precisely, madame, because these forty millions would be a fortune that I will say to the king, 'Sire, if it be not decent for a king to accept from a subject six horses, worth twenty thousand livres, it would be disgraceful for him to owe a fortune to another subject, more or less scrupulous in the choice of the materials which contributed to the building up of that fortune.'" "It ill becomes you, monsieur, to give your king a lesson," said Anne of Austria; "better procure for him forty millions to replace those you make him lose." "The king shall have them whenever he wishes," said the superintendent of finances, bowing. "Yes, by oppressing the people," said the queen. "And were they not oppressed, madame," replied Fouquet, "when they were made to sweat the forty millions given by this deed? Furthermore, his majesty has asked my opinion, I have given it; if his majesty ask my concurrence, it will be the same." "Nonsense! accept, my son, accept," said Anne of Austria. "You are above reports and interpretations." "Refuse, sire," said Fouquet. "As long as a king lives, he has no other measure but his conscience, - no other judge than his own desires; but
Other sites:
db3nf.com
screen-capture.net
floresca.net
simonova.net
flora-source.com
flora-source.com
sourcecentral.com
sourcecentral.com
geocities.com