The Man In The Iron Mask

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WHILE EVERY ONE AT court was busy with his own affairs, a man mysteriously took up his post behind the Place de Greve, in the house which we once saw besieged by d'Artagnan on the occasion of a riot. The principal entrance of this house was in the Place Baudoyer. The house was tolerably large, surrounded by gardens, enclosed in the Rue St. Jean by the shops of tool-makers, which protected it from prying looks; and was walled in by a triple rampart of stone, noise, and verdure, like an embalmed mummy in its triple coffin.

The man to whom we have just alluded walked along with a firm step, although he was no longer in his early prime. His dark cloak and long sword outlined beneath the cloak plainly revealed a man seeking adventures; and judging from his curling mustaches, his fine and smooth skin, as seen under his sombrero, the gallantry of his adventures was unquestionable. In fact, hardly had the cavalier entered the house, when the clock of St. Gervais struck eight; and ten minutes afterwards a lady, followed by an armed servant, approached and knocked at the same door, which an old woman immediately opened for her. The lady raised her veil as she entered; though no longer a beauty, she was still a woman; she was no longer young, yet she was sprightly and of an imposing carriage. She concealed, beneath a rich toilet of exquisite taste, an age which Ninon de l'Enclos alone could have smiled at with impunity. Hardly had she reached the vestibule, when the cavalier, whose features we have only roughly sketched, advanced towards her, holding out his hand.

"Good-day, my dear Duchess," he said.

"How do you do, my dear Aramis?" replied the duchess.

He led her to an elegantly furnished apartment, on whose high windows were reflected the expiring rays of the setting sun, which filtered through the dark crests of some adjoining firs. They sat down side by side. Neither of them thought of asking for additional light in the room, and they buried themselves thus in the shadow, as if they had wished to bury themselves in forgetfulness.

"Chevalier," said the duchess, "you have never given me a single sign of life since our interview at Fontainebleau; and I confess that your presence there on the day of the Franciscan's death, and your initiation in certain secrets, caused me the liveliest astonishment I ever experienced in my whole life."

"I can explain my presence there to you, as well as my initiation," said Aramis.

"But let us, first of all," replied the duchess, quickly, "talk a little of ourselves, for our friendship is by no means of recent date."

"Yes, Madame; and if Heaven wills it, we shall continue to be friends,- I will not say for a long time, but forever."

"That is quite certain, Chevalier, and my visit is a proof of it."

"Our interests, Madame the Duchess, are no longer the same that they used to be," said Aramis, smiling without reserve in the dim light, which could not show that his smile was less agreeable and less bright than formerly.

"No, Chevalier, at the present day we have other interests. Every period of life brings its own; and as we now understand each other in conversing as perfectly as we formerly did without saying a word, let us talk, if you like."

"I am at your orders, Duchess. Ah! I beg your pardon; how did you obtain my address, and what was your object?"

"You ask me why? I have told you. Curiosity, in the first place. I wished to know what you could have to do with the Franciscan with whom I had certain business, and who died so singularly. You know that on the occasion of our interview at Fontainebleau, in the cemetery, at the foot of the grave so recently closed, we were both so much overcome by our emotions that we omitted to confide anything to each other."

"Yes, Madame."

"Well, then, I had no sooner left you than I repented, and have ever since been most anxious to ascertain the truth. You know that Madame de Longueville and myself are almost one, I suppose?"

"I was not aware of it," said Aramis, discreetly.

"I remembered, then," continued the duchess, "that neither of us said anything to the other in the cemetery; that you did not speak of the relationship in which you stood to the Franciscan, whose burial you had superintended, and that I did not refer to the position in which I stood to him,- all which seemed to me very unworthy of two such old friends as ourselves; and I have sought an opportunity of an interview with you in order to give you proof that I am devoted to you, and that Marie Michon, now no more, has left behind her a ghost with a good memory."

Aramis bowed over the duchess's hand, and pressed his lips upon it. "You must have had some trouble to find me again," he said.

"Yes," answered the duchess, annoyed to find the subject taking a turn which Aramis wished to give it; "but I knew that you were a friend of M. Fouquet, and so I inquired in that direction."

"A friend! Oh," exclaimed the chevalier, "you exaggerate, Madame! A poor priest who has been favored by so generous a protector, and whose heart is full of gratitude and devotion to him, is all that I am to M. Fouquet."

"He made you a bishop?"

"Yes, Duchess."

"So, my fine musketeer, that is your retirement!"

"In the same way that political intrigue is for yourself," thought Aramis. "And so," he said, "you inquired after me at M. Fouquet's?"

"Easily enough. You had been to Fontainebleau with him, and had undertaken a voyage to your diocese,- which is Belle-Isle-en-Mer, I believe."

"No, Madame," said Aramis; "my diocese is Vannes."

"I meant that. I only thought that Belle-Isle-en-Mer-"

"Is a property belonging to M. Fouquet,- nothing more."

"Ah! I had been told that Belle-Isle was fortified; besides, I know that you are a military man, my friend."

"I have forgotten everything of the kind since I entered the church," said Aramis, annoyed.

"Very well. I then learned that you had returned from Vannes, and I sent to one of our friends, M. le Comte de la Fere, who is discretion itself; but he answered that he was not aware of your address."

"So like Athos," thought the bishop; "that which is actually good never alters."

"Well, then, you know that I cannot venture to show myself here, and that the Queen-Mother has always some grievance or other against me."

"Yes, indeed; and I am surprised at it."

"Oh, there are various reasons for it! But, to continue, being obliged to conceal myself, I was fortunate enough to meet with M. d'Artagnan,- one of your old friends, I believe."

"A friend of mine still, Duchess."

"He gave me some information, and sent me to M. de Baisemeaux, the governor of the Bastille."

Aramis started; and a light flashed from his eyes in the darkness of the room which he could not conceal from his keen-sighted friend. "M. de Baisemeaux!" he said; "why did d'Artagnan send you to M. de Baisemeaux?"

"I cannot tell you."

"What can this possibly mean?" said the bishop, summoning all the resources of his mind to his aid, in order to carry on the combat in a befitting manner.

"M. de Baisemeaux is greatly indebted to you, d'Artagnan told me."

"True, he is so."

"And the address of a creditor is as easily ascertained as that of a debtor."

"Also very true; and so Baisemeaux indicated to you-"

"St. Mande, where I forwarded a letter to you-"

"Which I have in my hand, and which is most precious to me," said Aramis, "because I am indebted to it for the pleasure of seeing you."

The duchess, satisfied at having so successfully passed over the various difficulties of so delicate an explanation, began to breathe freely again; which Aramis, however, could not succeed in doing. "We had got as far as your visit to Baisemeaux, I believe?" said he.

"Nay," said the duchess, laughing, "further than that."

"In that case we must have been speaking about your grudge against the Queen-Mother."

"Further still," returned the duchess, "further still; we were talking of the connection-"

"Which existed between you and the Franciscan," said Aramis, interrupting her eagerly; "well, I am listening to you very attentively."

"It is easily explained," returned the duchess, making up her mind. "You know that I am living at Brussels with M. de Laicques?"

"I have heard so, Madame."

"You know that my children have ruined and stripped me of everything?"

"How terrible, dear Duchess!"

"Terrible, indeed! This obliged me to resort to some means of obtaining a livelihood, and particularly to avoid vegetating. I had old hatreds to turn to account, old friendships to serve; I no longer had either credit or protectors."

"You, too, who had extended protection towards so many persons," said Aramis, blandly.

"It is always the case, Chevalier. Well, at that time I saw the King of Spain."

"Ah!" "Who had just nominated a general of the Jesuits, according to the usual custom."

"Is it usual, indeed?"

"Were you not aware of it?"

"I beg your pardon; I was inattentive."

"You must be aware of that,- you who were on such good terms with the Franciscan."

"With the general of the Jesuits, you mean?"

"Exactly. Well, then, I saw the King of Spain, who wished to do me a service, but was unable. He gave me recommendations, however, to Flanders, both for myself and for Laicques, and conferred a pension on me out of the funds of the order."

"Of Jesuits?"

"Yes. The general- I mean the Franciscan- was sent to me; and in order to give regularity to the transaction, in accordance with the statutes of the order, I was reputed to be in a position to render certain services. You are aware that that is the rule?"

"I was not aware of it." Madame de Chevreuse paused to look at Aramis, but it was quite dark. "Well, such is the rule," she resumed. "I ought, therefore, to seem to possess a power of usefulness of some kind or other. I proposed to travel for the order, and I was placed on the list of affiliated travellers. You understand that it was a formality, by means of which I received my pension, which was very convenient for me."

"Good Heavens! Duchess, what you tell me is like a dagger-thrust to me. You obliged to receive a pension from the Jesuits?"

"No, Chevalier; from Spain."

"Ah! except as a conscientious scruple, Duchess, you will admit that it is pretty nearly the same thing."

"No, not at all."

"But, surely, of your magnificent fortune there must remain-"

"Dampierre is all that remains."

"And that is handsome enough."

"Yes; but Dampierre is burdened, mortgaged, and somewhat in ruins, like its owner."

"And can the Queen-Mother see all that without shedding a tear?" said Aramis, with a penetrating look, which encountered nothing but the darkness.

"Yes, she has forgotten everything."

"You have, I believe, Duchess, attempted to get restored to favor?"

"Yes; but, most singularly, the young King inherits the antipathy that his dear father had for me. Ah, you too will tell me that I am indeed a woman to be hated, and that I am no longer one who can be loved."

"Dear Duchess, pray arrive soon at the circumstance which brought you here; for I think we can be of service to each other."

"Such has been my own thought. I came to Fontainebleau, then, with a double object in view. In the first place, I was summoned there by the Franciscan whom you knew. By the by, how did you know him?- for I have told you my story, and have not yet heard yours."

"I knew him in a very natural way, Duchess. I studied theology with him at Parma; we became fast friends, but it happened, from time to time, that business or travels or war separated us from each other."

"You were, of course, aware that he was the general of the Jesuits?"

"I suspected it."

"But by what extraordinary chance did you come to the hotel where the affiliated travellers had met together?"

"Oh," said Aramis, in a calm voice, "it was the merest chance in the world! I was going to Fontainebleau to see M. Fouquet, for the purpose of obtaining an audience of the King. I was passing by, unknown; I saw the poor dying monk in the road, and recognized him. You know the rest,- he died in my arms."

"Yes, but bequeathing to you so vast a power in Heaven and on earth that you issue sovereign orders in his name."

"He did leave me a few commissions to settle."

"And for me?"

"I have told you,- a sum of twelve thousand livres was to be paid to you. I thought I had given you the necessary signature to enable you to receive it. Did you not get the money?"

"Oh, yes, yes! My dear prelate, you give your orders, I am informed, with so much mystery and such august majesty that it is generally believed you are the successor of the beloved dead."

Aramis colored impatiently, and the duchess continued. "I have obtained information," she said, "from the King of Spain himself; and he dispelled my doubts on the point. Every general of the Jesuits is nominated by him, and must be a Spaniard, according to the statutes of the order. You are not a Spaniard, nor have you been nominated by the King of Spain."

Aramis did not reply to this remark, except to say, "You see, Duchess, how greatly you were mistaken, since the King of Spain told you that."

"Yes, my dear Aramis; but there was something else of which I have been thinking."

"What is that?"

"You know that I do a great deal of desultory thinking, and it occurred to me that you know the Spanish language."

"Every Frenchman who has been actively engaged in the Fronde knows Spanish."

"You have lived in Flanders?"

"Three years."

"And have stayed at Madrid?"

"Fifteen months."

"You are in a position, then, to become a naturalized Spaniard when you like."

"Really?" said Aramis, with a frankness which deceived the duchess.

"Undoubtedly. Two years' residence and an acquaintance with the language are indispensable. You have had three years and a half,- fifteen months more than is necessary."

"What are you driving at, my dear lady?"

"At this,- I am on good terms with the King of Spain."

"And I am not on bad terms," thought Aramis to himself.

"Do you wish me to ask the King," continued the duchess, "to confer the succession to the Franciscan's office upon you?"

"Oh, Duchess!"

"You have it already, perhaps?" she said.

"No, upon my honor."

"Very well, then, I can render you that service."

"Why did you not render the same service to M. de Laicques, Duchess? He is a very talented man, and one whom you love."

"Yes, no doubt; but that is not to be considered. At all events, putting Laicques aside, answer me, will you have it?"

"No, I thank you, Duchess."

She paused. "He is nominated," she thought; and then resumed aloud, "If you refuse me in this manner, it is not very encouraging for me to ask anything of you."

"Oh, ask, pray ask!"

"Ask! I cannot do so if you have not the power to grant what I want."

"However limited my power and ability, ask all the same."

"I need a sum of money to restore Dampierre."

"Ah!" replied Aramis, coldly, "money? Well, Duchess, how much would you require?"

"Oh, a tolerably round sum!"

"So much the worse,- you know I am not rich."

"No, you are not; but the order is. And if you had been the general-"

"You know I am not the general."

"In that case you have a friend who must be very wealthy,- M. Fouquet."

"M. Fouquet! He is more than half ruined, Madame."

"So it is said, but I would not believe it."

"Why, Duchess?"

"Because I have, or rather Laicques has, certain letters in his possession from Cardinal Mazarin, which establish the existence of very strange accounts."

"What accounts?"

"Relative to various sums of money borrowed and disposed of. I do not fully remember; but the point is that the superintendent, according to these letters, which are signed by Mazarin, had taken thirty millions from the coffers of the State. The case is a very serious one."

Aramis clinched his hands in anxiety and apprehension. "Is it possible," he said, "that you have such letters, and have not communicated them to M. Fouquet?"

"Ah!" replied the duchess, "I keep such little matters as these in reserve. When the day of need comes, we will take them from the closet."

"And that day has arrived?" said Aramis.

"Yes."

"And you are going to show those letters to M. Fouquet?"

"I prefer instead to talk about them with you."

"You must be in sad want of money, my poor friend, to think of such things as these,- you, too, who held M. de Mazarin's prose effusions in such indifferent esteem."

"The fact is, I am in want of money."

"And then," continued Aramis, in cold accents, "it must have been very distressing to you to be obliged to have recourse to such a means. It is cruel."

"Oh, if I had wished to do harm instead of good," said Madame de Chevreuse, "instead of asking the general of the order or M. Fouquet for the five hundred thousand livres I require-"

"Five hundred thousand livres!"

"Yes; no more. Do you think it much? I require at least as much as that to restore Dampierre."

"Yes, Madame."

"I say, therefore, that instead of asking for this amount I should have gone to see my old friend the Queen-Mother; the letters from her husband, the Signor Mazarini, would have served me as an introduction, and I should have begged this mere trifle of her, saying to her, 'I wish, Madame, to have the honor of receiving your Majesty at Dampierre. Permit me to put Dampierre in a fit state for that purpose.'"

Aramis did not say a single word in reply. "Well," she said, "what are you thinking about?"

"I am making certain additions," said Aramis.

"And M. Fouquet makes subtractions. I, on the other hand, am trying the art of multiplication. What excellent calculators we are! How well we could understand one another!"

"Will you allow me to reflect?" said Aramis.

"No; to such an overture between persons like ourselves, 'Yes' or 'No' should be the reply, and that immediately."

"It is a snare," thought the bishop; "it is impossible that Anne of Austria would listen to such a woman as this."

"Well!" said the duchess.

"Well, Madame, I should be very much astonished if M. Fouquet had five hundred thousand livres at his disposal at the present moment."

"It is of no use speaking of it further, then," said the duchess, "and Dampierre must get restored how it can."

"Oh, you are not embarrassed to such an extent as that, I suppose?"

"No; I am never embarrassed."

"And the Queen," continued the bishop, "will certainly do for you what the superintendent is unable to do."

"Oh, certainly! But tell me, do you not think it would be better that I should speak myself to M. Fouquet about these letters?"

"You will do whatever you please in that respect, Duchess. M. Fouquet either feels or does not feel himself to be guilty. If he really be so, I know that he is proud enough not to confess it; if he be not so, he will be exceedingly offended at your menace."

"As usual, you reason like an angel," said the duchess, rising.

"And so you are going to denounce M. Fouquet to the Queen," said Aramis.

"Denounce? Oh, what a disagreeable word! I shall not denounce, my dear friend. You now know matters of policy too well to be ignorant how easily these affairs are arranged. I shall merely side against M. Fouquet, and nothing more; and in a war of party against party a weapon is a weapon."

"No doubt."

"And once on friendly terms again with the Queen-Mother, I may be dangerous towards some persons."

"You are at perfect liberty to be so, Duchess."

"A liberty of which I shall avail myself, my dear friend."

"You are not ignorant, I suppose, Duchess, that M. Fouquet is on the best terms with the King of Spain?"

"Oh, I suppose so!"

"If, therefore, you begin a party warfare against M. Fouquet, he will reply in the same way; for he too is at perfect liberty to do so, is he not?"

"Oh, certainly!"

"And as he is on good terms with Spain, he will make use of that friendship as a weapon."

"You mean that he will be on good terms with the general of the order of the Jesuits, my dear Aramis."

"That may be the case, Duchess."

"And that, consequently, the pension I have been receiving from the order will be stopped."

"I am greatly afraid it might be."

"Well, I must contrive to console myself; for after Richelieu, after the Frondes, after exile, what is there left for Madame de Chevreuse to fear?"

"The pension, you are aware, is forty-eight thousand livres."

"Alas! I am quite aware of it."

"Moreover, in party contests, you know, the friends of the enemy do not escape."

"Ah! you mean that poor Laicques will have to suffer."

"I am afraid it is almost inevitable, Duchess."

"Oh, he receives only twelve thousand livres' pension."

"Yes, but the King of Spain has some influence left; advised by M. Fouquet, he might get M. Laicques shut up in some fortress."

"I have no great fear of that, my good friend; because, thanks to a reconciliation with Anne of Austria, I will undertake that France shall insist upon Laicques's liberation."

"True. In that case you will have something else to apprehend."

"What can that be?" said the duchess, pretending to be surprised and terrified.

"You will learn- indeed, you must know it already- that having once been an affiliated member of the order, it is not easy to leave it; for the secrets that any particular member may have acquired are unwholesome, and carry with them the germs of misfortune for whoever may reveal them."

The duchess considered for a moment, and then said, "That is more serious; I will think it over."

Notwithstanding the profound obscurity in which he sat, Aramis seemed to feel a burning glance, like a hot iron, escape from his friend's eyes and plunge into his heart.

"Let us recapitulate," said Aramis, determined to keep himself on his guard, and gliding his hand into his breast, where he had a dagger concealed.

"Exactly, let us recapitulate; good accounts make good friends."

"The suppression of your pension-"

"Forty-eight thousand livres and that of Laicques's twelve make together sixty thousand livres; that is what you mean, I suppose?"

"Precisely; and I was trying to find out what would be your equivalent for that."

"Five hundred thousand livres, which I shall get from the Queen."

"Or which you will not get."

"I know a means of procuring them," said the duchess, thoughtlessly.

This remark made the chevalier prick up his ears; and from the moment when his adversary had committed this error, his mind was so thoroughly on its guard that he seemed every moment to gain the advantage more and more, and she, consequently, to lose it. "I will admit, for argument's sake, that you obtain the money," he resumed; "you will lose twice as much, having a hundred thousand livres' pension to receive instead of sixty thousand, and that for a period of ten years."

"Not so, for I shall only be subjected to this diminution of my income during the period of M. Fouquet's remaining in power,- a period which I estimate at two months."

"Ah!" said Aramis.

"I am frank, you see."

"I thank you for it, Duchess; but you would be wrong to suppose that after M. Fouquet's disgrace the order would resume the payment of your pension."

"I know a means of making the order come down with its money, as I know a means of forcing the Queen-Mother to concede what I require."

"In that case, Duchess, we are all obliged to strike our flags to you. The victory is yours, and the triumph also is yours. Be clement, I entreat you!"

"But is it possible," resumed the duchess, without taking notice of the irony, "that you really draw back from a miserable sum of five hundred thousand livres when it is a question of sparing you- I mean your friend- I beg your pardon, I ought rather to say your protector- the disagreeable consequences which a party contest produces?"

"Duchess, I will tell you why. Supposing the five hundred thousand livres were to be given to you, M. de Laicques will require his share, which will be another five hundred thousand livres, I presume; and then, after M. de Laicques's and your own portions, will come the portions for your children, your poor pensioners, and various other persons; and these letters, however compromising they may be, are not worth from three to four millions. Good heavens! Duchess, the Queen of France's diamonds were surely worth more than these bits of waste paper signed by Mazarin; and yet their recovery did not cost a fourth part of what you ask for yourself."

"Yes, that is true; but the merchant values his goods at his own price, and it is for the purchaser to buy or to refuse."

"Stay a moment, Duchess; would you like me to tell you why I will not buy your letters?"

"Pray tell me."

"Because the letters which you say are Mazarin's are false."

"Nonsense!"

"I have no doubt of it; for it would, to say the least, be very singular that after you had quarrelled with the Queen through M. Mazarin's means, you should have kept up any intimate acquaintance with the latter; it would savor of passion, of treachery, of- Upon my word, I do not like to make use of the term."

"Oh pray say it!"

"Of compliance."

"That is quite true; but what is not less so is that which the letter contains."

"I pledge you my word, Duchess, that you will not be able to make use of it with the Queen."

"Oh, yes, indeed; I can make use of everything with the Queen."

"Very good," thought Aramis. "Croak on, old owl! hiss, viper that you are!"

But the duchess had said enough, and advanced a few steps towards the door. Aramis, however, had reserved a humiliation which she did not expect,- the imprecation of the vanquished behind the car of the conqueror. He rang the bell. Candles immediately appeared in the room; and the bishop found himself completely encircled by lights, which shone upon the worn, haggard face of the duchess. Aramis fixed a long and ironical look upon her pale and withered cheeks, upon her dim, dull eyes, and upon her lips, which she kept carefully closed over her blackened and scanty teeth. He, however, had thrown himself into a graceful attitude, with his haughty and intelligent head thrown back; he smiled so as to reveal his teeth, which were still brilliant and dazzling in the candle-light.

The old coquette understood the trick that had been played upon her. She was standing immediately before a large mirror, in which all her decrepitude, so carefully concealed, was only made more manifest by the contrast. Thereupon, without even saluting Aramis, who bowed with the ease and grace of the musketeer of early days, she hurried away with tottering steps, which her very haste only the more impeded. Aramis sprang across the room like a zephyr to lead her to the door. Madame de Chevreuse made a sign to her huge lackey, who resumed his musket; and she left the house where such tender friends had not been able to understand each other only because they had understood each other too well.

---

Wherein May Be Seen That a Bargain Which
Cannot Be Made with One Person
Can Be Carried Out with Another

ARAMIS had been perfectly correct in his supposition. Immediately on leaving the house in the Place Baudoyer, Madame de Chevreuse had proceeded homeward. She was doubtless afraid of being followed, and had sought in this way to cover her steps; but as soon as she had arrived within the door of the hotel, and assured herself that no one who could cause her any uneasiness was on her track, she opened the door of the garden leading into another street, and hurried towards the Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, where M. Colbert resided.

We have already said that evening, or rather night, had closed in,- and it was a dark, thick night. Paris had once more sunk into its calm, quiescent state, enshrouding alike within its indulgent mantle the high-born duchess carrying out her political intrigue, and the simple citizen's wife who having been detained late by a supper in the city was proceeding homewards, on the arm of a lover, by the longest possible route. Madame de Chevreuse had been too well accustomed to nocturnal politics not to know that a minister never denies himself, even at his own private residence, to any young and beautiful woman who may chance to object to the dust and confusion of a public office; or to old women, as full of experience as of years, who dislike the indiscreet echo of official residences. A valet received the duchess under the peristyle, and received her, it must be admitted, with some indifference of manner; he intimated, after having looked at her face, that it was hardly at such an hour that one so advanced in years as herself could be permitted to disturb M. Colbert's important occupations. But Madame de Chevreuse, without disquietude, wrote her name upon a leaf of her tablets,- a blusterous name, which had so often sounded disagreeably in the ears of Louis XIII and of the great cardinal. She wrote her name in the large ill-formed characters of the higher classes of that period, folded the paper in a manner peculiarly her own, and handed it to the valet without uttering a word, but with so haughty and imperious a gesture that the fellow, well accustomed to judge of people from their manners and appearance, perceived at once the quality of the person before him, bowed his head, and ran to M. Colbert's room.

The minister could not control a sudden exclamation as he opened the paper; and the valet, gathering from it the interest with which his master regarded the mysterious visitor, returned as fast as he could to beg the duchess to follow him. She ascended to the first floor of the beautiful new house very slowly, rested herself on the landing-place in order not to enter the apartment out of breath, and appeared before M. Colbert, who with his own hands held open the folding-doors. The duchess paused at the threshold for the purpose of studying well the character of the man with whom she was about to converse. At the first glance the round, large, heavy head, thick brows, and ill-favored features of Colbert, who wore, thrust low down on his head, a cap like a priest's calotte, seemed to indicate that but little difficulty was likely to be met with in her negotiations with him, but also that she was to expect little interest in the discussion of particulars; for there was scarcely any indication that that rude man could be susceptible to the attractions of a refined revenge or of an exalted ambition. But when on closer inspection the duchess perceived the small, piercingly black eyes, the longitudinal wrinkles of his high and massive forehead, the imperceptible twitching of the lips, on which were apparent traces of rough good-humor, she changed her mind and said to herself, "I have found the man I want."

"What has procured me the honor of your visit, Madame?" he inquired.

"The need I have of you, Monsieur," returned the duchess, "and that which you have of me."

"I am delighted, Madame, with the first portion of your sentence; but so far as the second portion is concerned-" Madame de Chevreuse sat down in the arm-chair which M. Colbert placed before her. "M. Colbert, you are the intendant of finances?"

"Yes, Madame."

"And are ambitious of becoming the superintendent?"

"Madame!"

"Nay, do not deny it! That would only unnecessarily prolong our conversation,- it is useless."

"And yet, Madame," replied the intendant, "however well disposed and inclined to show politeness I may be towards a lady of your position and merit, nothing will make me confess that I have ever entertained the idea of supplanting my superior."

"I said nothing about supplanting, M. Colbert. Could I accidentally have made use of that word? I hardly think so. The word 'replace' is less aggressive in its signification, and more grammatically suitable, as M. de Voiture would say. I presume, therefore, that you are ambitious of replacing M. Fouquet."

"M. Fouquet's fortune, Madame, enables him to withstand all attempts. The superintendent in this age plays the part of the Colossus of Rhodes; the vessels pass beneath him, and do not overthrow him."

"I ought to have availed myself of that very comparison. It is true. M. Fouquet plays the part of the Colossus of Rhodes; but I remember to have heard it said by M. Conrart (a member of the Academy, I believe), that when the Colossus of Rhodes fell from its lofty position, the merchant who had cast it down- a merchant, nothing more, M. Colbert- loaded four hundred camels with the ruins. A merchant!- that is considerably less than an intendant of finances."

"Madame, I can assure you that I shall never overthrow M. Fouquet."

"Very good, M. Colbert, since you persist in showing so much sensitiveness with me, as if you were ignorant that I am Madame de Chevreuse, and also that I am somewhat advanced in years,- in other words, that you have to do with a woman who has had political dealings with the Cardinal de Richelieu, and who has no time to lose,- since, I say, you commit that imprudence, I shall go and find others who are more intelligent and more desirous of making their fortunes."

"How, Madame, how?"

"You give me a very poor idea of the negotiations of the present day, Monsieur. I assure you that if in my time a woman had gone to M. de Cinq-Mars, who was not moreover a man of a very high order of intellect, and had said to him about the cardinal what I have just now said to you of M. Fouquet, M. de Cinq-Mars would by this time have put his irons in the fire."

"Nay, Madame, show a little indulgence."

"Well, then, you do really consent to replace M. Fouquet?"

"Certainly, I do, if the King dismisses M. Fouquet."

"Again a word too much; it is quite evident that if you have not yet succeeded in driving M. Fouquet from his post, it is because you have not been able to do so. Therefore I should be a simpleton if in coming to you I did not bring you the very thing you require."

"I am distressed to be obliged to persist, Madame," said Colbert, after a silence which enabled the duchess to sound the depth of his dissimulation; "but I must warn you that for the last six years denunciation after denunciation has been made against M. Fouquet, and he has remained unshaken and unaffected by them."

"There is a time for everything, M. Colbert; those who were the authors of such denunciations were not called Madame de Chevreuse, and they had no proofs equal to the six letters from M. de Mazarin which establish the offence in question."

"The offence!"

"The crime, if you like it better."

"The crime- committed by M. Fouquet!"

"Nothing less. It is rather strange, M. Colbert; but your face, which just now was cold and indifferent, is now all lighted up."

"A crime!"

"I am delighted to see it makes an impression upon you."

"Oh, that is a word, Madame, which embraces so many things!"

"It embraces the post of superintendent of finance for yourself, and a letter of exile or the Bastille for M. Fouquet."

"Forgive me, Madame the Duchess, but it is almost impossible that M. Fouquet can be exiled; to be imprisoned or disgraced, that alone is much."

"Oh, I am perfectly aware of what I am saying!" returned Madame de Chevreuse, coldly. "I do not live at such a distance from Paris as not to know what takes place there. The King does not like M. Fouquet, and he would willingly sacrifice the superintendent if an opportunity were only presented."

"It must be a good one, though."

"Good enough, and one I estimate to be worth five hundred thousand livres."

"In what way?" said Colbert.

"I mean, Monsieur, that holding this opportunity in my own hands I will not allow it to be transferred to yours except for a sum of five hundred thousand livres."

"I understand you perfectly, Madame. But since you have fixed a price for the sale, let me now see the value of the articles to be sold."

"Oh, a mere trifle,- six letters, as I have already told you, from M. de Mazarin; and the autographs will most assuredly not be regarded as too costly, if they establish in an irrefutable manner that M. Fouquet has embezzled large sums of money from the treasury and appropriated them to his own purposes."

"In an irrefutable manner, do you say?" observed Colbert, whose eyes sparkled with delight.

"Irrefutable; would you like to read the letters?"

"With all my heart! Copies, of course?"

"Of course, the copies," said the duchess, as she drew from her bosom a small packet of papers flattened by her velvet bodice. "Read!" she said.

Colbert eagerly snatched the papers and devoured them.

"Wonderful!" he said.

"It is clear enough, is it not?"

"Yes, Madame, yes. M. Mazarin must have handed the money to M. Fouquet, who must have kept it for his own purposes; but the question is, what money?"

"Exactly,- what money; if we come to terms, I will join to these six letters a seventh, which will supply you with the fullest particulars."

Colbert reflected. "And the originals of these letters?"

"A useless question to ask; exactly as if I were to ask you, M. Colbert, whether the money-bags you will give me will be full or empty."

"Very good, Madame."

"Is it concluded?"

"No; for there is one circumstance to which neither of us has given any attention."

"Name it!"

"M. Fouquet can be utterly ruined, under the circumstances you have detailed, only by means of legal proceedings."

"Well?"

"A public scandal."

"Yes, what then?"

"Neither the legal proceedings nor the scandal can be begun against him."

"Why not?"

"Because he is procureur-general of the parliament; because, too, in France, the government, the army, the courts of law, and commerce are intimately connected by ties of good-will, which people call esprit de corps. So, Madame, the parliament will never permit its chief to be dragged before a public tribunal; and never, even if he be dragged there by royal authority, never will he be condemned."

"Ah! ma foi! M. Colbert, that doesn't concern me."

"I am aware of that, Madame; but it concerns me, and it consequently diminishes the value of what you have brought to me. Of what use to bring me a proof of crime, without the possibility of condemnation?"

"Even if he be only suspected, M. Fouquet will lose his post of superintendent."

"That would be a great achievement!" exclaimed Colbert, whose dark, gloomy features were momentarily lighted up by an expression of hate and vengeance.

"Ah, ah! M. Colbert," said the duchess, "forgive me, but I did not think you were so impressionable. Very good; in that case, since you need more than I have to give you, there is no occasion to speak of the matter further."

"Yes, Madame, we will go on talking of it; only, as the value of your commodities has decreased, you must lower your price."

"You are bargaining, then?"

"Every man who wishes to deal loyally is obliged to do so."

"How much will you offer me?"

"Two hundred thousand livres," said Colbert.

The duchess laughed in his face, and then said suddenly, "Wait a moment, I have another arrangement to propose; will you give me three hundred thousand livres?"

"No, no."

"Oh, you can either accept or refuse my terms; besides, that is not all."

"More still? You are becoming too impracticable to deal with, Madame."

"Less so than you think, perhaps, for it is not money I am going to ask you for."

"What is it, then?"

"A service. You know that I have always been most affectionately attached to the Queen, and I am desirous of having an interview with her Majesty."

"With the Queen?"

"Yes, M. Colbert, with the Queen, who is, I admit, no longer my friend, and who has ceased to be so for a long time past, but who may again become so if the opportunity be only given her."

"Her Majesty has ceased to receive any one, Madame. She is a great sufferer, and you may be aware that the paroxysms of her disease occur with greater frequency than ever."

"That is the very reason why I wish to have an interview with her Majesty. In Flanders we have many diseases of that kind."

"Cancers?- a fearful, incurable disorder."

"Do not believe that, M. Colbert. The Flemish peasant is something of a savage; he has not a wife exactly, but a female."

"Well, Madame?"

"Well, M. Colbert, while he is smoking his pipe, the woman works; it is she who draws the water from the well,- she who loads the mule or the ass, and even bears herself a portion of the burden. Taking but little care of herself, she gets knocked about here and there, sometimes is even beaten. Cancers arise from contusions."

"True, true!" said Colbert.

"The Flemish women do not die the sooner on that account. When they are great sufferers from this disease, they go in search of remedies; and the Beguines of Bruges are excellent doctors for every kind of disease. They have precious waters of one sort or another,- specifics of various kinds; and they give a bottle and a wax candle to the sufferer. They derive a profit from the priests, and serve God by the disposal of their two articles of merchandise. I will take the Queen some of this holy water, which I will procure from the Beguines of Bruges; her Majesty will recover, and will burn as many wax candles as she may think fit. You see, M. Colbert, to prevent my seeing the Queen is almost as bad as committing the crime of regicide."

"You are, Madame the Duchess, a woman of great intelligence. You surprise me; still, I cannot but suppose that this charitable consideration towards the Queen covers some small personal interest of your own."

"Have I tried to conceal it, M. Colbert? You spoke, I believe, of a small personal interest. Understand, then, that it is a great interest; and I will prove it to you by resuming what I was saying. If you procure me a personal interview with her Majesty, I will be satisfied with the three hundred thousand livres I have demanded; if not, I shall keep my letters, unless, indeed, you give me on the spot five hundred thousand livres for them."

And rising from her seat with this decisive remark, the old duchess left M. Colbert in a disagreeable perplexity. To bargain any further was out of the question; not to purchase would involve infinite loss. "Madame," he said, "I shall have the pleasure of handing you over a hundred thousand crowns; but how shall I get the actual letters?"

"In the simplest manner in the world, my dear M. Colbert,- whom will you trust?"

The financier began to laugh silently, so that his large eyebrows went up and down like the wings of a bat upon the deep lines of his yellow forehead. "No one," he said.

"You surely will make an exception in your own favor, M. Colbert?"

"How is that, Madame?"

"I mean that if you would take the trouble to accompany me to the place where the letters are, they would be delivered into your own hands, and you would be able to verify and check them."

"Quite true."

"You would bring the hundred thousand crowns with you at the same time?- for I too do not trust any one."

Colbert colored to the tips of his ears. Like all eminent men in the art of figures, he was of an insolent and mathematical probity. "I will take with me, Madame," he said, "two orders for the amount agreed upon, payable at my treasury. Will that satisfy you?"

"Would that the orders on your treasury were for two millions, Monsieur the Intendant! I shall have the pleasure of showing you the way, then?"

"Allow me to order my carriage."

"I have a carriage below, Monsieur."

Colbert coughed like an irresolute man. He imagined for a moment that the proposition of the duchess was a snare; that perhaps some one was waiting at the door; and that she, whose secret had just been sold to Colbert for a hundred thousand crowns, had already offered it to Fouquet for the same sum. As he still hesitated a good deal, the duchess looked at him full in the face.

"You prefer your own carriage?" she said.

"I admit that I do."

"You suppose that I am going to lead you into a snare or trap of some sort or other?"

"Madame the Duchess, you have the character of being somewhat inconsiderate at times; and as I am clothed in a sober, solemn character, a jest or practical joke might compromise me."

"Yes; the fact is, you are afraid. Well, then, take your own carriage, as many servants as you like. Only, consider well,- what we two may arrange between us, we are the only persons who know it; what a third person may witness, we announce to the universe. After all, I do not make a point of it; my carriage shall follow yours, and I shall be satisfied to accompany you in your own carriage to the Queen."

"To the Queen!"

"Have you forgotten that already? Is it possible that one of the clauses of the agreement, of so much importance to me, can have escaped you already? How trifling it seems to you, indeed! If I had known it, I should have doubled my price."

"I have reflected, Madame, and I shall not accompany you."

"Really,- and why not?"

"Because I have the most perfect confidence in you."

"You overpower me. But how do I receive the hundred thousand crowns?"

"Here they are, Madame," said Colbert, scribbling a few lines on a piece of paper, which he handed to the duchess, adding, "You are paid."

"The trait is a fine one, M. Colbert, and I will reward you for it," she said, beginning to laugh. Madame de Chevreuse's laugh had a very sinister sound. Every man who feels youth, faith, love, life itself, throbbing in his heart, would prefer tears to such a lamentable laugh.

The duchess opened the front of her dress and drew forth from her bosom, somewhat less white than it once had been, a small packet of papers, tied with a flame-colored ribbon, and still laughing, she said, "There, M. Colbert, are the originals of Cardinal Mazarin's letters. They are now your own property," she added, refastening the body of her dress. "Your fortune is secured; and now accompany me to the Queen."

"No, Madame; if you are again about to run the chance of her Majesty's displeasure, and it were known at the Palais-Royal that I had been the means of introducing you there, the Queen would never forgive me while she lived. No; there are certain persons at the palace who are devoted to me, who will procure you an admission without my being compromised."

"Just as you please, provided I enter."

"What do you term those religious women at Bruges who cure disorders?"

"Beguines."

"Good; you are a Beguine."

"As you please, but I must soon cease to be one."

"That is your affair."

"Excuse me, but I do not wish to be exposed to a refusal."

"That is again your own affair, Madame. I am going to give directions to the head valet of the gentleman in waiting on her Majesty to allow admission to a Beguine, who brings an effectual remedy for her Majesty's sufferings. You are the bearer of my letter, you will undertake to be provided with the remedy, and will give every explanation on the subject. I admit a knowledge of a Beguine, but I deny all knowledge of Madame de Chevreuse. Here, Madame, then, is your letter of introduction."

---

COLBERT handed the duchess the letter, and gently drew aside the chair behind which she was standing. Madame de Chevreuse, with a very slight bow, immediately left the room. Colbert, who had recognized Mazarin's handwriting and had counted the letters, rang to summon his secretary, whom he enjoined to go in immediate search of M. Vanel, a counsellor of the parliament. The secretary replied that, according to his usual practice, M. Vanel had just at that moment entered the house, in order to render to the intendant an account of the principal details of the business which had been transacted during the day in the sitting of the parliament. Colbert approached one of the lamps, read the letters of the deceased cardinal over again, smiled repeatedly as he recognized the great value of the papers which Madame de Chevreuse had just delivered to him, and burying his head in his hands for a few minutes reflected profoundly. In the mean time a tall, large-made man entered the room; his spare, thin face, steady look, and hooked nose, as he entered Colbert's cabinet with a modest assurance of manner, revealed a character at once supple and decided,- supple towards the master who could throw him the prey; firm towards the dogs who might possibly be disposed to dispute it with him. M. Vanel carried a voluminous bundle of papers under his arm, and placed it on the desk on which Colbert was leaning both his elbows, as he supported his head.

"Good-day, M. Vanel," said the latter, rousing himself from his meditation.

"Good-day, Monseigneur," said Vanel, naturally.

"You should say 'Monsieur,' and not 'Monseigneur,'" replied Colbert, gently.

"We give the title of 'Monseigneur' to ministers," returned Vanel, with extreme self-possession, "and you are a minister."

"Not yet."

"You are so in point of fact, and I call you 'Monseigneur' accordingly; besides, you are my seigneur, and that is sufficient. If you dislike my calling you 'Monseigneur' before others, allow me, at least, to call you so in private."

Colbert raised his head to the height of the lamps, and read, or tried to read, upon Vanel's face how much actual sincerity entered into this protestation of devotion. But the counsellor knew perfectly well how to sustain the weight of his look, even were it armed with the full authority of the title he had conferred. Colbert sighed. He had read nothing in Vanel's face; Vanel might be sincere. Colbert recollected that this man, inferior to himself, was superior to him in having an unfaithful wife. At the moment he was pitying this man's lot, Vanel coolly drew from his pocket a perfumed letter, sealed with Spanish wax, and held it towards Colbert, saying, "A letter from my wife, Monseigneur."

Colbert coughed, took, opened, and read the letter, and then put it carefully away in his pocket; while Vanel, unconcerned, turned over the leaves of the papers he had brought with him.

"Vanel," Colbert said suddenly to his protege, "you are a hard-working man?"

"Yes, Monseigneur."

"Would twelve hours of labor frighten you?"

"I work fifteen hours every day."

"Impossible! A counsellor need not work more than three hours a day in the parliament."

"Oh! I am working up some returns for a friend of mine in the department of accounts; and as I still have time left on my hands, I am studying Hebrew."

"Your reputation stands high in the parliament, Vanel."

"I believe so, Monseigneur."

"You must not grow rusty in your post of counsellor."

"What must I do to avoid it?"

"Purchase a high place. Small ambitions are the most difficult to satisfy."

"Small purses are the most difficult to fill, Monseigneur."

"What post have you in view?" said Colbert.

"I see none,- not one."

"There is one, certainly; but one need be the King himself to be able to buy it without inconvenience; and the King will not be inclined, I suppose, to purchase the post of procureur-general."

At these words Vanel fixed his dull and humble look upon Colbert, who could hardly tell whether Vanel had comprehended him or not. "Why do you speak to me, Monseigneur," said Vanel, "of the post of procureur-general to the parliament? I know no other post than the one M. Fouquet fills."

"Exactly so, my dear counsellor."

"You are not over-fastidious, Monseigneur, but before the post can be bought, it must be offered for sale."

"I believe, M. Vanel, that it will be for sale before long."

"For sale? What! M. Fouquet's post of procureur-general?"

"So it is said."

"The post which renders him inviolable, for sale! Oh, oh!" said Vanel, beginning to laugh.

"Would you be afraid, then, of the post?" said Colbert, gravely.

"Afraid! no; but-"

"Nor desirous of obtaining it?"

"You are laughing at me, Monseigneur," replied Vanel; "is it likely that a counsellor of the parliament would not be desirous of becoming procureur-general?"

"Well, M. Vanel, since I tell you that the post will be shortly for sale-"

"I cannot help repeating, Monseigneur, that it is impossible; a man never throws away the buckler behind which he maintains his honor, his fortune, and his life."

"There are certain men mad enough, Vanel, to fancy themselves out of the reach of all mischances."

"Yes, Monseigneur; but such men never commit their mad acts for the advantage of the poor Vanels of the world."

"Why not?"

"For the very reason that those Vanels are poor."

"It is true that M. Fouquet's post might cost a good round sum. What would you bid for it, M. Vanel?"

"Everything I am worth."

"Which means-"

"Three or four hundred thousand livres."

"And the post is worth-"

"A million and a half, at the very lowest. I know persons who have offered seventeen hundred thousand livres, without being able to persuade M. Fouquet to sell. Besides, supposing it were to happen that M. Fouquet wished to sell,- which I do not believe, in spite of what I have been told-"

"Ah, you have heard something about it, then! Who told you?"

"M. Gourville, M. Pellisson, and others."

"Very good; if, therefore, M. Fouquet did wish to sell-"

"I could not buy it just yet, since the superintendent will only sell for ready money, and no one has a million and a half to throw down at once."

Colbert suddenly interrupted the counsellor by an imperious gesture; he had begun to meditate. Observing his superior's serious attitude, and his perseverance in continuing the conversation on this subject, Vanel awaited the solution without venturing to precipitate it.

"Explain fully to me," said Colbert, at length, "the privileges of the office of procureur-general."

"The right of impeaching every French subject who is not a Prince of the blood; the right of quashing all proceedings taken against any Frenchman who is neither King nor Prince. The procureur-general is the arm of the King to strike the evil-doer,- his arm also to extinguish the torch of justice. M. Fouquet, therefore, will be able, by stirring up the parliament, to maintain himself even against the King; and the King also, by humoring M. Fouquet, can get his edicts registered without opposition. The procureur-general can be a very useful or a very dangerous instrument."

"Vanel, would you like to be procureur-general?" said Colbert, suddenly, softening both his look and his voice.

"I!" exclaimed the latter; "I have already had the honor to represent to you that I want about eleven hundred thousand livres to make up the amount."

"Borrow that sum from your friends."

"I have no friends richer than myself."

"You are an honorable man, Vanel."

"Ah, Monseigneur, if the world were to think as you do!"

"I think so, and that is quite enough; and if it should be needed, I will be your security."

"Remember the proverb, Monseigneur."

"What is that?"

"'The endorser pays.'"

"Let that make no difference."

Vanel rose, quite bewildered by this offer, which had been so suddenly and unexpectedly made to him by a man who treated the smallest affairs in a serious spirit. "You are not trifling with me, Monseigneur?" he said.

"Stay! we must act quickly. You say that M. Gourville has spoken to you about M. Fouquet's post?"

"Yes, and M. Pellisson also."

"Officially or officiously?"

"These were their words: 'These parliamentary people are ambitious and wealthy; they ought to get together two or three millions among themselves, to present to their protector and great luminary, M. Fouquet.'"

"And what did you reply?"

"I said that, for my own part, I would give ten thousand livres if necessary."

"Ah, you like M. Fouquet, then!" exclaimed Colbert, with a look full of hatred.

"No; but M. Fouquet is our chief. He is in debt,- is on the high-road to ruin; and we ought to save the honor of the body of which we are members."

"This explains to me why M. Fouquet will be always safe and sound so long as he occupies his present post," replied Colbert.

"Thereupon," said Vanel, "M. Gourville added: 'If we were to do anything out of charity to M. Fouquet, it could not be otherwise than most humiliating to him; and he would be sure to refuse it. Let the parliament subscribe among themselves to purchase in a proper manner the post of procureur-general. In that case all would go on well; the honor of our body would be saved, and M. Fouquet's pride spared.'"

"That is an opening."

"I considered it so, Monseigneur."

"Well, M. Vanel, you will go at once, and find out either M. Gourville or M. Pellisson. Do you know any other friend of M. Fouquet?"

"I know M. de la Fontaine very well."

"La Fontaine, the rhymester?"

"Yes; he used to write verses to my wife, when M. Fouquet was one of our friends."

"Go to him, then, and try to procure an interview with the superintendent."

"Willingly- but the sum?"

"On the day and hour when you arrange to settle the matter, M. Vanel, you shall be supplied with the money; so do not make yourself uneasy on that account."

"Monseigneur, such munificence! You eclipse kings even,- you surpass M. Fouquet himself."

"Stay a moment! Do not let us mistake each other. I do not make you a present of fourteen hundred thousand livres, M. Vanel, for I have children to provide for; but I will lend you that sum."

"Ask whatever interest, whatever security you please, Monseigneur; I am quite ready. And when all your requisitions are satisfied, I will still repeat that you surpass kings and M. Fouquet in munificence. What conditions do you impose?"

"The repayment in eight years, and a mortgage upon the appointment itself."

"Certainly. Is that all?"

"Wait a moment! I reserve to myself the right of purchasing the post from you at one hundred and fifty thousand livres' profit for yourself, if in your mode of filling the office you do not follow out a line of conduct in conformity with the interests of the King and with my projects."

"Ah! ah!" said Vanel, in a slightly altered tone.

"Is there anything in that which can possibly be objectionable to you, M. Vanel?" said Colbert, coldly.

"Oh, no, no!" replied Vanel, quickly.

"Very good. We will sign an agreement to that effect whenever you like. And now go as quickly as you can to M. Fouquet's friends, and obtain an interview with the superintendent. Do not be too difficult in making whatever concessions may be required of you; and when once the arrangements are all made-"

"I will press him to sign."

"Be most careful to do nothing of the kind; do not speak of signatures with M. Fouquet, nor of deeds, nor even ask him to pass his word. Understand this, otherwise you will lose everything. All you have to do is to get M. Fouquet to give you his hand on the matter. Go, go!"

---

THE Queen-Mother was in her bedroom at the Palais-Royal, with Madame de Motteville and the Senora Molina. The King, who had been impatiently expected the whole day, had not made his appearance; and the Queen, who had grown quite impatient, had often sent to inquire about him. The whole atmosphere of the court seemed to indicate an approaching storm; the courtiers and the ladies of the court avoided meeting in the antechambers and the corridors, in order not to converse on compromising subjects. Monsieur had joined the King early in the morning for a hunting-party; Madame remained in her own apartments, cool and distant to every one; and the Queen-Mother, after she had said her prayers in Latin, talked of domestic matters with her two friends in pure Castilian. Madame de Motteville, who understood the language perfectly, answered her in French. When the three ladies had exhausted every form of dissimulation and politeness to reach at last the charge that the King's conduct was causing grief to the Queen and the Queen-Mother and all his family, and when in guarded phrases they had fulminated every variety of imprecation against Mademoiselle de la Valliere, the Queen-Mother terminated these recriminations by an exclamation indicative of her own reflections and character. "Estos hijos!" said she to Molina (which means, "These children!"- words full of meaning on a mother's lips,- words full of terrible significance in the mouth of a Queen who, like Anne of Austria, hid many curious and dark secrets in her soul).

"Yes," said Molina, "these children! for whom every mother becomes a sacrifice."

"To whom," replied the Queen, "a mother has sacrificed everything."

Anne did not finish her phrase; for she fancied, when she raised her eyes towards the full-length portrait of the pale Louis XIII, that light had once more flashed from her husband's dull eyes, and that his nostrils were inflated by wrath. The portrait became a living being; it did not speak, it threatened.

A profound silence succeeded the Queen's last remark. La Molina began to turn over the ribbons and lace of a large work-table. Madame de Motteville, surprised at the look of mutual intelligence which had been exchanged between the confidante and her mistress, cast down her eyes like a discreet woman, and pretending to be observant of nothing that was passing listened with the utmost attention. She heard nothing, however, but a very significant "Hum!" on the part of the Spanish duenna, who was the image of circumspection, and a profound sigh on the part of the Queen. She looked up immediately. "You are suffering?" she said.

"No, Motteville, no; why do you say that?"

"Your Majesty just groaned."

"You are right; I do suffer a little."

"M. Vallot is not far off; I believe he is in Madame's apartment."

"Why is he with Madame?"

"Madame is troubled with nervous attacks."

"A very fine disorder, indeed!" said the Queen. "M. Vallot is wrong in being there, when another physician might cure Madame." Madame de Motteville looked up with an air of great surprise, as she replied, "Another doctor instead of M. Vallot! Who, then?"

"Occupation, Motteville, occupation! Ah! if any one is really ill, it is my poor daughter."

"And your Majesty too."

"Less so this evening, though."

"Do not believe that too confidently, Madame," said De Motteville.

As if to justify the caution, a sharp pain seized the Queen, who turned deadly pale, and threw herself back in the chair, with every symptom of a sudden fainting-fit. "My drops!" she murmured.

"Ah! ah!" replied Molina, who went without haste to a richly gilded tortoise-shell cabinet, from which she took a large rock-crystal smelling-bottle, and brought it, open, to the Queen, who inhaled from it wildly several times, and murmured, "In that way the Lord will kill me; His holy will be done!"

"Your Majesty's death is not so near at hand," added Molina, replacing the smelling-bottle in the cabinet.

"Does your Majesty feel better now?" inquired Madame de Motteville.

"Much better," returned the Queen, placing her finger on her lips, to impose silence on her favorite.

"It is very strange," remarked Madame de Motteville, after a pause.

"What is strange?" said the Queen.

"Does your Majesty remember the day when this pain attacked you for the first time?"

"I remember only that it was a grievously sad day for me, Motteville."

"But your Majesty had not always regarded that day as a sad one."

"Why?"

"Because twenty-three years before, on that very day, his present Majesty, your own glorious son, was born at the very same hour."

The Queen uttered a loud cry, buried her face in her hands, and seemed utterly lost for some moments. Was it remembrance or reflection, or was it grief? La Molina darted a look at Madame de Motteville almost furious in its reproachfulness. The poor woman, ignorant of its meaning, was about to make inquiries in her own defence, when suddenly Anne of Austria arose and said: "Yes, the 5th of September; my sorrow began on the 5th of September. The greatest joy, one day; the deepest sorrow, the next,- the sorrow," she added in a low voice, "the bitter expiation of a too excessive joy."

And from that moment Anne of Austria, whose memory and reason seemed to have become entirely suspended for a time, remained impenetrable, with vacant look, mind almost wandering, and hands hanging heavily down, as if life had almost departed.

"We must put her to bed," said La Molina.

"Presently, Molina."

"Let us leave the Queen alone," added the Spanish attendant. Madame de Motteville rose. Large and glistening tears were fast rolling down the Queen's pallid face; and Molina, having observed this sign of weakness, fixed her vigilant black eyes upon her.

"Yes, yes," replied the Queen. "Leave us, Motteville; go!"

The word "us" produced a disagreeable effect upon the ears of the French favorite; for it signified that an interchange of secrets or of revelations of the past was about to be made, and that one person was de trop in the conversation which seemed likely to take place.

"Will Molina be sufficient for your Majesty to-night?" inquired the Frenchwoman.

"Yes," replied the Queen. Madame de Motteville bowed in submission, and was about to withdraw, when suddenly an old female attendant, dressed as if she had belonged to the Spanish Court of the year 1620, opened the door and surprised the Queen in her tears, Madame de Motteville in her skilful retreat, and Molina in her strategy. "The remedy!" she cried delightedly to the Queen, as she unceremoniously approached the group.

"What remedy, Chica?" said Anne of Austria.

"For your Majesty's sufferings," the former replied.

"Who brings it?" asked Madame de Motteville, eagerly- "M. Vallot?"

"No; a lady from Flanders."

"From Flanders? Is she Spanish?" inquired the Queen.

"I don't know."

"Who sent her?"

"M. Colbert."

"Her name?"

"She did not mention it."

"Her position in life?"

"She will answer that herself."

"Her face?"

"She is masked."

"Go, Molina; go and see!" cried the Queen.

"It is needless," suddenly replied a voice, at once firm and gentle in its tone, which proceeded from the other side of the tapestry hangings,- a voice which startled the attendants and made the Queen tremble. At the same moment a woman, masked, appeared between the curtains, and before the Queen could speak, added, "I am connected with the order of the Beguines of Bruges, and do indeed bring with me the remedy which is certain to effect a cure of your Majesty's complaint."

No one uttered a sound, and the Beguine did not move a step.

"Speak!" said the Queen.

"I will when we are alone," was the answer.

Anne of Austria looked at her attendants, who immediately withdrew. The Beguine thereupon advanced a few steps towards the Queen, and bowed reverently before her. The Queen gazed with increasing mistrust at this woman, who in her turn fixed a pair of brilliant eyes upon the Queen through openings in the mask.

"The Queen of France must indeed be very ill," said Anne of Austria, "if it is known at the Beguinage of Bruges that she stands in need of being cured."

"Your Majesty, thank God, is not ill beyond remedy."

"But tell me, how do you happen to know that I am suffering?"

"Your Majesty has friends in Flanders."

"And these friends have sent you?"

"Yes, Madame."

"Name them to me."

"Impossible, Madame, since your Majesty's memory has not been awakened by your heart."

Anne of Austria looked up, endeavoring to discover through the concealment of the mask and through her mysterious language the name of this person who expressed herself with such familiarity and freedom; then suddenly, wearied by a curiosity at odds with her pride, she said, "You are ignorant, perhaps, that royal personages are never spoken to with the face masked."

"Deign to excuse me, Madame," replied the Beguine, humbly.

"I cannot excuse you; I will not forgive you if you do not throw your mask aside."

"I have made a vow, Madame, to go to the help of those who are afflicted or suffering, without ever permitting them to behold my face. I might have been able to administer some relief to your body and to your mind; but since your Majesty forbids me, I will take my leave. Adieu, Madame, adieu!"

These words were uttered with a harmony of tone and respect of manner that destroyed the Queen's anger and suspicion, but did not remove her feeling of curiosity. "You are right," she said; "it ill becomes those who are suffering to reject the means of relief which Heaven sends them. Speak, then; and may you indeed be able, as you assert you are, to administer relief to my body. Alas! I think that God is about to make it suffer."

"Let us first speak a little of the mind, if you please," said the Beguine,- "of the mind, which I am sure must also suffer."

"My mind?"

"There are cancers so insidious in their nature that their very pulsation is invisible. Such cancers, Madame, leave the ivory whiteness of the skin untouched, and marble not the firm, fair flesh with their blue tints; the physician who bends over the patient's chest hears not, though he listens, the insatiable teeth of the disease grinding its onward progress through the muscles, as the blood flows freely on; neither iron nor fire has ever destroyed or disarmed the rage of these mortal scourges; their home is in the mind, which they corrupt; they grow in the heart until it breaks. Such, Madame, are these other cancers, fatal to queens: are you free from these evils?"

Anne slowly raised her arm, as dazzling in its perfect whiteness and as pure in its rounded outlines as it was in the time of her earlier days. "The evils to which you allude," she said, "are the condition of the lives of the high in rank upon earth, to whom Heaven has imparted mind. When those evils become too heavy to be borne, the Lord lightens their burden by penitence and confession. Thus we lay down our burden, and the secrets which oppress us. But forget not that the same sovereign Lord apportions their trials to the strength of his creatures; and my strength is not inferior to my burden. For the secrets of others I have enough of the mercy of Heaven; for my own secrets not so much mercy as my confessor."

"I find you, Madame, as courageous as ever against your enemies; I do not find you showing confidence in your friends."

"Queens have no friends. If you have nothing further to say to me, if you feel yourself inspired by Heaven as a prophetess, leave me, I pray; for I dread the future."

"I should have supposed," said the Beguine, resolutely, "that you would dread the past even more."

Hardly had these words escaped the Beguine's lips, when the Queen rose proudly. "Speak!" she cried, in a short, imperious tone of voice; "explain yourself briefly, quickly, entirely; or else-"

"Nay, do not threaten me, your Majesty!" said the Beguine, gently. "I have come to you full of compassion and respect; I have come on the part of a friend."

"Prove it, then! Comfort, instead of irritating me."

"Easily enough; and your Majesty will see who is friendly to you. What misfortune has happened to your Majesty during these twenty-three years past?"

"Serious misfortunes, indeed! Have I not lost the King?"

"I speak not of misfortunes of that kind. I wish to ask you if, since- the birth of the King,- any indiscretion on a friend's part has caused your Majesty distress?"

"I do not understand you," replied the Queen, setting her teeth hard together in order to conceal her emotion.

"I will make myself understood, then. Your Majesty remembers that the King was born on the 5th of September, 1638, at quarter-past eleven o'clock."

"Yes," stammered the Queen.

"At half-past twelve," continued the Beguine, "the Dauphin, who had been baptized by Monseigneur de Meaux in the King's and in your own presence, was acknowledged as the heir of the crown of France. The King then went to the chapel of the old Chateau de St. Germain to hear the Te Deum chanted."

"Quite true, quite true," murmured the Queen.

"Your Majesty's confinement took place in the presence of Monsieur, his Majesty's late uncle, of the princes, and of the ladies attached to the court. The King's physician, Bouvard, and Honore, the surgeon, were stationed in the antechamber; your Majesty slept from three o'clock until seven, I believe?"

"Yes, yes; but you tell me no more than every one else knows as well as you and myself."

"I am now, Madame, approaching that with which very few persons are acquainted. Very few persons, did I say? Alas! I might say two only; for formerly there were but five in all, and for many years past the secret has been assured by the deaths of the principal participators in it. The late King sleeps now with his ancestors; Peronne, the midwife, soon followed him; Laporte is already forgotten."

The Queen opened her lips as though about to reply; she felt beneath her icy hand, with which she touched her face, the beads of perspiration upon her brow.

"It was eight o'clock," pursued the Beguine. "The King was seated at supper, full of joy and happiness; around him on all sides arose wild cries of delight and drinking of healths; the people cheered beneath the balconies; the Swiss Guards, the Musketeers, and the Royal Guard wandered through the city, borne about in triumph by the drunken students. Those boisterous sounds of the general joy disturbed the Dauphin, the future King of France, who was quietly lying in the arms of Madame de Hausac, his nurse, and whose eyes, when he should open them, might have observed two crowns at the foot of his cradle. Suddenly your Majesty uttered a piercing cry, and Dame Peronne flew to your bedside.

"The doctors were dining in a room at some distance from your chamber; the palace, abandoned in the general confusion, was without either sentinels or guards. The midwife, having questioned and examined your Majesty, gave a sudden exclamation of surprise, and taking you in her arms, bewildered, almost out of her senses from sheer distress of mind, despatched Laporte to inform the King that her Majesty the Queen wished to see him in her room.

"Laporte, you are aware, Madame, was a man of the most admirable calmness and presence of mind. He did not approach the King as if he were the bearer of alarming intelligence and, feeling his importance, wished to inspire the terror which he himself experienced; besides, it was not a very terrifying intelligence which awaited the King. At any rate, Laporte, with a smile upon his lips, approached the King's chair, saying to him, 'Sire, the Queen is very happy, and would be still more so to see your Majesty.'

"On that day Louis XIII would have given his crown away to the veriest beggar for a 'God bless you.' Animated, light-hearted, and full of gayety, the King rose from the table, and said to those around him, in a tone that Henry IV might have used, 'Gentlemen, I am going to see my wife.' He came to your bedside, Madame, at the very moment when Dame Peronne presented to him a second Prince, as beautiful and healthy as the former, and said, 'Sire, Heaven will not allow the kingdom of France to fall into the female line.' The King, yielding to a first impulse, clasped the child in his arms, and cried, 'Oh, Heaven, I thank thee!'"

At this part of her recital the Beguine paused, observing how intensely the Queen was suffering. She had thrown herself back in her chair, and with her head bent forward and her eyes fixed, listened without seeming to hear, and her lips moved convulsively, breathing either a prayer to Heaven or imprecations against the woman before her.

"Ah! do not believe that if there has been but one Dauphin in France," exclaimed the Beguine, "if the Queen allowed the second child to vegetate far from the throne,- do not believe that she was an unfeeling mother. Oh, no, no! There are those who know the floods of bitter tears she shed; there are those who have known and witnessed the passionate kisses she imprinted on that innocent creature in exchange for the life of misery and gloom to which State policy condemned the twin brother of Louis XIV."

"Oh, Heaven!" murmured the Queen, feebly.

"It is known," continued the Beguine, quickly, "that when the King perceived the effect which would result from the existence of two sons, both equal in age and pretensions, he trembled for the welfare of France, for the tranquillity of the State. It is known that the Cardinal de Richelieu, by the direction of Louis XIII, thought over the subject with deep attention, and after an hour's meditation in his Majesty's cabinet pronounced the following sentence: 'A King is born, to succeed his Majesty. God has sent another, to succeed the first; but at present we need only the first-born. Let us conceal the second from France, as God has concealed him from his parents themselves. One Prince is peace and safety for the State; two competitors are civil war and anarchy.'"

The Queen rose suddenly from her seat, pale as death, her hands clinched together. "You know too much," she said in a hoarse, thick voice, "since you refer to secrets of State. As for the friends from whom you have acquired this secret, they are false and treacherous. You are their accomplice in the crime which is now committed. Now, throw aside your mask, or I will have you arrested by my captain of the Guards. Do not think that this secret terrifies me! You have obtained it; you shall restore it to me. It will freeze in your bosom; neither your secret nor your life belongs to you from this moment."

Anne of Austria, joining gesture to the threat, advanced two steps towards the Beguine. "Learn," said the latter, "to know and value the fidelity, the honor, and the secrecy of the friends you have abandoned." She then suddenly threw aside her mask.

"Madame de Chevreuse!" exclaimed the Queen.

"With your Majesty, the sole living confidante of the secret."

"Ah," murmured Anne of Austria, "come and embrace me, Duchess! Alas! you kill your friend in thus trifling with her terrible distress."

The Queen, leaning her head upon the shoulder of the old duchess, burst into a flood of bitter tears. "How young you are still!" said the latter, in a hollow voice; "you can weep!"

---

THE Queen looked steadily at Madame de Chevreuse, and said: "I believe you just now made use of the word 'happy' in speaking of me. Hitherto, Duchess, I had thought it impossible that a human creature could anywhere be found less happy than the Queen of France."

"Your afflictions, Madame, have indeed been terrible enough; but by the side of those illustrious misfortunes to which we, two old friends separated by men's malice, were just now alluding, you possess sources of pleasure, slight enough in themselves it may be, but which are greatly envied by the world."

"What are they?" said Anne of Austria, bitterly. "How can you use the word 'pleasure,' Duchess,- you who just now admitted that my body and my mind both are in need of remedies? Madame de Chevreuse collected herself for a moment, and then murmured, "How far removed Kings are from other people!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that they are so far removed from the vulgar herd that they forget that others ever stand in need of the bare necessaries of life. They are like the inhabitant of the African mountain who gazing from the verdant table-land, refreshed by the rills of melted snow, cannot comprehend that the dwellers in the plains below him are perishing from hunger and thirst in the midst of their lands burned up by the heat of the sun."

The Queen slightly colored, for she now began to perceive the drift of her friend's remark. "It was very wrong," she said, "to have neglected you."

"Oh, Madame, the King has inherited, it is said, the hatred his father bore me. The King would dismiss me if he knew I were in the Palais-Royal."

"I cannot say that the King is very well disposed towards you, Duchess," replied the Queen; "but I could- secretly, you know-" The duchess's disdainful smile produced a feeling of uneasiness in the Queen's mind. "Duchess," she hastened to add, "you did perfectly right to come here."

"Thanks, Madame."

"Even were it only to give us the happiness of contradicting the report of your death."

"Has it been said, then, that I was dead?"

"Everywhere."

"And yet my children did not go into mourning."

"Ah! you know, Duchess, the court is very frequently moving about from place to place; we see the gentlemen of Albert de Luynes but seldom, and many things escape our minds in the midst of the preoccupations which constantly engage us."

"Your Majesty ought not to have believed the report of my death."

"Why not? Alas! we are all mortal; and you may perceive how rapidly I- your younger sister, as we used formerly to say- am approaching the tomb."

"If your Majesty had believed me dead, you ought to have been astonished not to have received any communication from me."

"Death not unfrequently takes us by surprise, Duchess."

"Oh, your Majesty, those who are burdened with secrets such as we have just now discussed have always an urgent desire to divulge them, which they must gratify before they die. Among the preparations for eternity is the task of putting one's papers in order." The Queen started. "Your Majesty will be sure to learn in a particular manner the day of my death."

"Why so?"

"Because your Majesty will receive the next day, under several coverings, everything connected with our mysterious correspondence of former times."

"Did you not burn it?" cried Anne, in alarm.

"Traitors only," replied the duchess, "destroy a royal correspondence."

"Traitors, do you say?"

"Yes, certainly; or rather they pretend to destroy, and keep or sell it. The faithful, on the contrary, most carefully secrete such treasures; for it may happen that some day or other they will wish to seek out their Queen in order to say to her: 'Madame, I am getting old; my health is fast failing me. For me there is danger of death; for your Majesty, the danger that this secret may be revealed. Take, therefore, this dangerous paper, and burn it yourself.'"

"A dangerous paper? What one?"

"So far as I am concerned, I have but one, it is true; but that is indeed most dangerous in its nature."

"Oh, Duchess, tell me, tell me!"

"A letter dated Tuesday, the 2d of August, 1644, in which you beg me to go to Noisy-le-Sec to see that unhappy child. In your own handwriting, Madame, there are those words, 'that unhappy child!'"

A profound silence ensued. The Queen's mind was wandering in the past; Madame de Chevreuse was watching the progress of her scheme. "Yes unhappy, most unhappy!" murmured Anne of Austria; "how sad the existence he led, poor child, to finish it in so cruel a manner!"

"Is he dead?" cried the duchess, suddenly, with a curiosity whose sincere accents the Queen instinctively detected.

"He died of consumption, died forgotten, died withered and blighted like the flowers a lover has given to his mistress, which she leaves to die secreted in a drawer where she has hidden them from the world."

"Died?" repeated the duchess, with an air of discouragement which would have afforded the Queen the most unfeigned delight had it not been tempered in some measure by a mixture of doubt. "Died- at Noisy-le-Sec?"

"Yes, in the arms of his tutor,- a poor, honest man who did not long survive him."

"That can be easily understood. It is so difficult to bear up under the weight of such a loss and such a secret," said Madame de Chevreuse, the irony of which reflection the Queen pretended not to perceive. Madame de Chevreuse continued: "Well, Madame, I inquired some years ago at Noisy-le-Sec about this unhappy child. I was told that it was not believed he was dead; and that was my reason for not at once condoling with your Majesty. Oh, certainly, if I had believed it, never should the slightest allusion to so deplorable an event have reawakened your Majesty's legitimate distress."

"You say that it is not believed that the child died at Noisy?"

"No, Madame."

"What did they say about him, then?"

"They said- But no doubt they were mistaken."

"Nay, speak, speak!"

"They said that one evening about the year 1645 a lady, beautiful and majestic in her bearing, which was observed notwithstanding the mask and the mantle which concealed her figure,- a lady of rank, of very high rank no doubt,- came in a carriage to the place where the road branches off,- the very same spot, you know, where I awaited news of the young Prince when your Majesty was pleased to send me there."

"Well, well?"

"That the boy's tutor, or guardian, took the child to this lady."

"Well, what next?"

"That both the child and his tutor left that part of the country the very next day."

"There! you see there is some truth in what you relate, since in point of fact the poor child died from a sudden attack of illness, which up to the age of seven years makes the lives of all children, as doctors say, suspended as it were by a thread."

"What your Majesty says is quite true. No one knows it better than you; no one believes it more than myself. But yet how strange it is-"

"What can it now be?" thought the Queen.

"The person who gave me these details, who had been sent to inquire after the child's health-"

"Did you confide such a charge to any one else? Oh, Duchess!"

"Some one as dumb as your Majesty, as dumb as myself; we will suppose it was myself, Madame. This 'some one,' some months after, passing through Touraine-"

"Touraine!"

"Recognized both the tutor and the child too! I am wrong; he thought he recognized them, both living, cheerful, happy, and flourishing,- the one in a green old age, the other in the flower of his youth. Judge, after that, what truth can be attributed to the rumors which are circulated, or what faith, after that, can be placed in anything that may happen in the world. But I am fatiguing your Majesty; it was not my intention, however, to do so; and I will take my leave of you, after renewing to you the assurance of my most respectful devotion."

"Stay, Duchess! Let us first talk a little about yourself."

"Of myself, Madame? I am not worthy that you should bend your looks upon me."

"Why not, indeed? Are you not the oldest friend I have? Are you angry with me, Duchess?"

"I, indeed! What motive could I have? If I had reason to be angry with your Majesty, should I have come here?"

"Duchess, age is fast creeping on us both; we should be united against that death whose approach threatens us."

"You overpower me, Madame, with the kindness of your language."

"No one has ever loved or served me as you have done, Duchess."

"Your Majesty remembers it?"

"Always. Duchess, give me a proof of your friendship."

"Ah, Madame, my whole being is devoted to your Majesty."

"The proof I require is that you should ask something of me."

"Ask?"

"Oh, I know you well,- no one is more disinterested, more noble, more truly royal."

"Do not praise me too highly, Madame," said the duchess, becoming uneasy.

"I could never praise you as much as you deserve to be praised."

"And yet, age and misfortune effect a great change in people, Madame."

"So much the better; for the beautiful, the haughty, the adored duchess of former days might have answered me ungratefully, 'I do not wish for anything from you.' Blessed be misfortunes, if they have come to you, since they will have changed you, and you will now perhaps answer me, 'I accept.'"

The duchess's look and smile became more gentle; she was under the charm, and no longer concealed her wishes.

"Speak, dearest!" said the Queen; "what do you want?"

"I must first explain to you-"

"Do so unhesitatingly."

"Well, then, your Majesty can confer on me a pleasure unspeakable, a pleasure incomparable."

"What is it?" said the Queen, a little distant in her manner, from an uneasiness of feeling produced by this remark. "But do not forget, my good Chevreuse, that I am quite as much under my son's influence as I was formerly under my husband's."

"I will not be too hard, Madame."

"Call me as you used to do; it will be a sweet echo of our happy youth."

"Well, then, my dear mistress, my darling Anne-"

"Do you know Spanish still?"

"Yes."

"Ask me in Spanish, then."

"Here it is: Will your Majesty do me the honor to pass a few days with me at Dampierre?"

"Is that all?" said the Queen, stupefied.

"Yes."

"Nothing more than that?"

"Good Heavens! Can you possibly imagine that in asking you that, I am not asking you the greatest conceivable favor? If that really be the case, you do not know me. Will you accept?"

"Yes, gladly. And I shall be happy," continued the Queen, with some suspicion, "if my presence can in any way be useful to you."

"Useful," exclaimed the duchess, laughing,- "oh, no, no! agreeable, delicious, delightful,- yes, a thousand times yes! You promise me, then?"

"I swear it," said the Queen, whereupon the Duchess seized her beautiful hand and covered it with kisses. The Queen could not help murmuring to herself, "She is a good-hearted woman, and very generous too."

"Will your Majesty consent to wait a fortnight before you come?"

"Certainly; but why?"

"Because," said the duchess, "knowing me to be in disgrace, no one would lend me the hundred thousand crowns which I require to put Dampierre in a state of repair. But when it is known that I require that sum for the purpose of receiving your Majesty at Dampierre properly, all the money in Paris will be at my disposal."

"Ah!" said the Queen, gently nodding her head with an air of intelligence, "a hundred thousand crowns! you want a hundred thousand crowns to put Dampierre into repair?"

"Quite as much as that."

"And no one will lend them to you?"

"No one."

"I will lend them to you, if you like, Duchess."

"Oh, I shouldn't dare to accept!"

"You would be wrong if you did not. Besides, a hundred thousand crowns is really not much. I know but too well that your discreetness has never been properly acknowledged. Push that table a little towards me, Duchess, and I will write you an order on M. Colbert,- no, on M. Fouquet, who is a far more courteous and obliging man."

"Will he pay it?"

"If he will not pay it, I will; but it will be the first time he will have refused me."

The Queen wrote and handed the duchess the order, and afterwards dismissed her with a warm and cheerful embrace.

---

ALL these intrigues are exhausted; the human mind, so complicated in its exhibitions, has developed itself freely in the three outlines which our recital has afforded. It is not unlikely that in the future we are now preparing, politics and intrigues may still appear; but the springs by which they work will be so carefully concealed that no one will be able to see aught but flowers and paintings,- just as at a theatre, where a Colossus appears upon the scene walking along moved by the small legs and slender arms of a child concealed within the framework.

We now return to St. Mande, where the superintendent was in the habit of receiving his select society of epicureans. For some time past the host had been severely tried. Every one in the house was aware of and felt the minister's distress. No more magnificent and recklessly improvident reunions! Finance had been the pretext assigned by Fouquet; and never was any pretext, as Gourville wittily said, more fallacious, for there was not the slightest appearance of money.

M. Vatel was most resolutely painstaking in keeping up the reputation of the house, and yet the gardeners who supplied the kitchens complained of a ruinous delay. The agents for the supply of Spanish wines frequently sent drafts which no one honored; fishermen, whom the superintendent engaged on the coast of Normandy, calculated that if they were paid all that was due to them, the amount would enable them to retire comfortably for the rest of their lives; fish, which at a later period was to be the cause of Vatel's death, did not arrive at all. However, on the ordinary day of reception, Fouquet's friends flocked in more numerously than ever. Gourville and the Abbe Fouquet talked over money matters,- that is to say, the abbe borrowed a few pistoles from Gourville. Pellisson, seated with his legs crossed, was engaged in finishing the peroration of a speech with which Fouquet was to open the parliament; and this speech was a masterpiece, because Pellisson wrote it for his friend,- that is to say, he inserted everything in it which the latter would most certainly never have taken the trouble to say of his own accord. Presently Loret and La Fontaine would enter from the garden, engaged in a dispute upon the facility of making verses. The painters and musicians, in their turn, also were hovering near the dining-room. As soon as eight o'clock struck, the supper would be announced; for the superintendent never kept any one waiting. It was already half-past seven, and the guests were in good appetite.

As soon as all the guests were assembled, Gourville went straight up to Pellisson, awoke him out of his reverie, and led him into the middle of a room the doors of which he had closed.

"Well," he said, "anything new?"

Pellisson raised his intelligent and gentle face, and said, "I have borrowed twenty-five thousand livres of my aunt, and I have them here in good money."

"Good!" replied Gourville; "we want only one hundred and ninety-five thousand livres for the first payment."

"The payment of what?" asked La Fontaine.

"What! absent-minded as usual? Why, it was you who told us that the small estate at Corbeil was going to be sold by one of M. Fouquet's creditors; and you, also, who proposed that all his friends should subscribe. More than that, too, it was you who said that you would sell a corner of your house at Chateau-Thierry in order to furnish your own proportion; and now you come and ask, 'The payment of what?'" This remark was received with a general laugh, which made La Fontaine blush. "I beg your pardon," he said, "I had not forgotten it,- oh, no! only-"

"Only you remembered nothing about it," replied Loret.

"That is the truth; and the fact is, he is quite right. There is a great difference between forgetting and not remembering."

"Well, then," added Pellisson, "you bring your mite in the shape of the price of the piece of land you have sold?"

"Sold? no!"

"And have you not sold the field, then?" inquired Gourville, in astonishment, for he knew the poet's disinterestedness.

"My wife would not let me," replied the latter, at which there were fresh bursts of laughter.

"And yet you went to Chateau-Thierry for that purpose," said some one.

"Certainly I did, and on horseback."

"Poor fellow!"

"I had eight different horses, and I was almost jolted to death."

"You are an excellent fellow! And you rested yourself when you arrived there!"

"Rested! Oh! of course I did, for I had an immense deal of work to do."

"How so?"

"My wife had been flirting with the man to whom I wished to sell the land. The fellow drew back from his bargain, and so I challenged him."

"Very good; and you fought?"

"It seems not."

"You know nothing about it, I suppose?"

"No; my wife and her relations interfered in the matter. I was kept a quarter of an hour with my sword in my hand; but I was not wounded."

"And the adversary?"

"Neither was the adversary, for he never came on to the field."

"Capital!" cried his friends, from all sides; "you must have been terribly angry."

"Exceedingly so; I had caught cold. I returned home, and then my wife began to quarrel with me."

"In real earnest?"

"Yes, in real earnest; she threw a loaf of bread at my head, a large loaf."

"And what did you do?"

"Oh! I upset the table over her and her guests; and then I got upon my horse again, and here I am."

Every one had great difficulty in keeping his countenance at the relation of this tragic comedy; and when the laughter had somewhat ceased, one of the guests present said to him, "Is that all you have brought us back?"

"Oh, no! I have an excellent idea in my head."

"What is it?"

"Have you noticed that there is a good deal of sportive, jesting poetry written in France?"

"Yes, of course," replied every one.

"And," pursued La Fontaine, "only a very small portion of it is printed."

"The laws are strict, you know."

"That may be; but a rare article is a dear article, and that is the reason why I have written a small poem extremely licentious."

"Oh, oh, dear poet!"

"Extremely obscene."

"Oh! oh!"

"Extremely cynical."

"Oh, the devil!"

"Yes," continued the poet, with cold indifference; "I have introduced in it the greatest freedom of language I could possibly employ."

Peals of laughter again broke forth, while the poet was thus announcing the quality of his wares. "And," he continued, "I have tried to exceed everything that Boccaccio, Aretino and other masters of their craft have written in the same style."

"Good God!" cried Pellisson, "it will be condemned!"

"Do you think so?" said La Fontaine, simply. "I assure you, I did not do it on my own account so much as on M. Fouquet's."

This wonderful conclusion raised the mirth of all present to a climax.

"And I have sold the first edition of this little book for eight hundred livres," exclaimed La Fontaine, rubbing his hands together. "Serious and religious books sell at about half that rate."

"It would have been better," said Gourville, laughing, "to have written two religious books instead!"

"It would have been too long, and not amusing enough," replied La Fontaine, tranquilly. "My eight hundred livres are in this little bag; I offer them as my contribution."

As he said this, he placed his offering in the hands of their treasurer. It was then Loret's turn, who gave a hundred and fifty livres. The others stripped themselves in the same way; and the total sum in the purse amounted to forty thousand livres. Never did more generous coins rattle in the divine balances in which charity weighs good hearts and good intentions against the counterfeit coin of devout hypocrites.

The money was still being counted over when the superintendent noiselessly entered the room. He had heard everything. This man, who had possessed so many millions, who had exhausted all pleasures and all honors, this generous heart, this inexhaustible brain,- Fouquet, who had, like two burning crucibles, devoured the material and moral substance of the first kingdom in the world, crossed the threshold with his eyes filled with tears, and passed his white and slender fingers through the gold and silver. "Poor offering," he said, in a tone tender and filled with emotion, "you will disappear in the smallest corner of my empty purse; but you have filled to overflowing that which nothing can ever exhaust,- my heart. Thank you, my friends,- thank you!" And as he could not embrace everyone present,- all were weeping a little, philosophers though they were,- he embraced La Fontaine, saying to him, "Poor fellow! so you have on my account been beaten by your wife and damned by your confessor?"

"Oh, it is a mere nothing!" replied the poet. "If your creditors will only wait a couple of years, I shall have written a hundred other tales, which at two editions each will pay off the debt."

---

FOUQUET pressed La Fontaine's hand most warmly, saying to him, "My dear poet, write a hundred other tales, not only for the eighty pistoles which each of them will produce you, but still more to enrich our language with a hundred other masterpieces."

"Oh! oh!" said La Fontaine, with a little air of pride, "you must not suppose that I have brought only this idea and the eighty pistoles to the superintendent."

"Oh! indeed!" was the general acclamation from all parts of the room; "M. de la Fontaine is in funds to-day."

"Heaven bless the idea, if it brings me one or two millions," said Fouquet, gayly.

"Exactly," replied La Fontaine.

"Quick, quick!" cried the assembly.

"Take care!" said Pellisson in La Fontaine's ear. "You have had a most brilliant success up to the present moment; do not go too far."

"Not at all, M. Pellisson; and you, who are a man of taste, will be the first to approve of what I have done."

"Is it a matter of millions?" said Gourville.

"I have fifteen hundred thousand livres here, M. Gourville," he replied, striking himself on the chest.

"The deuce take this Gascon from Chateau-Thierry!" cried Loret.

"It is not the pocket you should touch, but the brain," said Fouquet.

"Stay a moment, Monsieur the Superintendent!" added La Fontaine; "you are not procureur-general,- you are a poet."

"True, true!" cried Loret, Conrart, and every person present connected with literature.

"You are, I repeat, a poet and a painter, a sculptor, a friend of the arts and sciences; but acknowledge that you are no lawyer."

"Oh, I do acknowledge it!" replied M. Fouquet, smiling.

"If you were to be nominated at the Academy, you would refuse, I think."

"I think I should, with all due deference to the academicians."

"Very good; if therefore you do not wish to belong to the Academy, why do you allow yourself to form one of the parliament?"

"Oh! oh!" said Pellisson; "we are talking politics."

"I wish to know," persisted La Fontaine, "whether the barrister's gown does or does not become M. Fouquet."

"There is no question of the gown at all," retorted Pellisson, annoyed at the laughter of the company.

"On the contrary, the gown is in question," said Loret.

"Take the gown away from the procureur-general," said Conrart, "and we have M. Fouquet left us still, of whom we have no reason to complain; but as he is no procureur-general without his gown, we agree with M. de la Fontaine, and pronounce the gown to be nothing but a bugbear."

"Fugiunt risus leporesque," said Loret.

"The smiles and the graces," said some one present.

"That is not the way," said Pellisson, gravely, "that I translate lepores."

"How do you translate it?" said La Fontaine.

"Thus: 'The hares run away as soon as they see M. Fouquet.'"

A burst of laughter, in which the superintendent joined, followed this sally.

"But why hares?" objected Conrart, vexed.

"Because the hare will be the very one who will not be over-pleased to see M. Fouquet retaining the elements of strength which belong to his parliamentary position."

"Oh! oh!" murmured the poets.

"Quo non ascendam," said Conrart, "would seem to me impossible with a procureur's gown."

"And it seems so to me without that gown," said the obstinate Pellisson. "What is your opinion, Gourville?"

"I think the gown in question is a very good thing," replied the latter; "but I equally think that a million and a half is far better than the gown."

"And I am of Gourville's opinion," exclaimed Fouquet, stopping the discussion by the expression of his own opinion, which would necessarily bear down all the others.

"A million and a half!" Pellisson grumbled out. "Now I happen to know an Indian fable-"

"Tell it to me," said La Fontaine; "I ought to know it too."

"Tell it, tell it!" said the others.

"There was a tortoise which was as usual well protected by its shell," said Pellisson. "Whenever its enemies threatened it, it took refuge within its covering. One day some one said to it, 'You must feel very hot in such a house as that in the summer, and you are altogether prevented from showing off your graces; here is a snake who will give you a million and a half for your shell."

"Good!" said the superintendent, laughing.

"Well, what next?" said La Fontaine, much more interested in the apologue than in its moral.

"The tortoise sold his shell, and remained naked and defenceless. A vulture happened to see him, and being hungry broke the tortoise's back with a blow of his beak and devoured it. The moral is that M. Fouquet should take very good care to keep his gown."

La Fontaine understood the moral seriously. "You forget AEschylus," he said to his adversary.

"What do you mean?"

"AEschylus was bald-headed; and a vulture- your vulture probably- who was a great lover of tortoises mistook at a distance his head for a block of stone, and let a tortoise which was shrunk up in his shell fall upon it."

"Yes, yes, La Fontaine is right," resumed Fouquet, who had become very thoughtful. "Whenever a vulture wishes to devour a tortoise, he well knows how to break his shell; and but too happy is that tortoise to which a snake pays a million and a half for his envelope. If any one were to bring me a generous-hearted snake like the one in your fable, Pellisson, I would give him my shell."

"Rara avis in terris!" cried Conrart.

"And like a black swan, is he not?" added La Fontaine; "well, then, the bird in question, blac