The perspiration of shame stood upon the brow of Louis. He felt that it
was inconsistent with his dignity to hear his brother thus insulted, but
he did not yet know how to act with him to whom every one yielded, even
his mother. At last he made an effort.

"But," said he, "my lord cardinal, it is not five hundred men, it is
only two hundred."

"Well, but you see I guessed what he wanted."

"I never denied that you had a penetrating eye, and that was why I
thought you would not refuse my brother Charles a thing so simple and so
easy to grant him as what I ask of you in his name, my lord cardinal, or
rather in my own."

"Sire," said Mazarin, "I have studied policy thirty years; first, under
the auspices of M. le Cardinal de Richelieu; and then alone. This policy
has not always been over-honest, it must be allowed, but it has never
been unskillful. Now that which is proposed to your majesty is dishonest
and unskillful at the same time."

"Dishonest, monsieur!"

"Sire, you entered into a treaty with Cromwell."

"Yes, and in that very treaty Cromwell signed his name above mine."

"Why did you sign yours so low down, sire? Cromwell found a good place,
and he took it; that was his custom. I return, then, to M. Cromwell.
You have a treaty with him, that is to say, with England, since when you
signed that treaty M. Cromwell was England."

"M. Cromwell is dead."

"Do you think so, sire?"

"No doubt he is, since his son Richard has succeeded him, and has
abdicated."

"Yes, that is it exactly. Richard inherited after the death of his
father, and England at the abdication of Richard. The treaty formed part
of the inheritance, whether in the hands of M. Richard or in the hands
of England. The treaty is, then, still as good, as valid as ever. Why
should you evade it, sire? What is changed? Charles wants to-day what we
were not willing to grant him ten years ago; but that was foreseen and
provided against. You are the ally of England, sire, and not of Charles
II. It was doubtless wrong, from a family point of view, to sign a
treaty with a man who had cut off the head of the king your father's
brother-in-law, and to contract an alliance with a parliament which they
call yonder the Rump Parliament; it was unbecoming, I acknowledge, but
it was not unskillful from a political point of view, since, thanks to
that treaty, I saved your majesty, then a minor, the trouble and danger
of a foreign war, which the Fronde--you rem