es, my lord."

"Can he be right? Can all this money be badly acquired?"

"A Theatin, monseigneur, is a bad judge in matters of finance," replied
Colbert, coolly. "And yet it is very possible that, according to his
theological ideas, your eminence has been, in a certain degree, in the
wrong. People generally find they have been so,--when they die."

"In the first place, they commit the wrong of dying, Colbert."

"That is true, my lord. Against whom, however, did the Theatin make out
that you had committed these wrongs? Against the king?!"

Mazarin shrugged his shoulders. "As if I had not saved both his state
and his finances."

"That admits of no contradiction, my lord."

"Does it? Then I have received a merely legitimate salary, in spite of
the opinion of my confessor?"

"That is beyond doubt."

"And I might fairly keep for my own family, which is so needy, a good
fortune,--the whole, even, of which I have earned?"

"I see no impediment to that, monseigneur."

"I felt assured that in consulting you, Colbert, I should have good
advice," replied Mazarin, greatly delighted.

Colbert resumed his pedantic look. "My lord," interrupted he, "I think
it would be quite as well to examine whether what the Theatin said is
not a snare."

"Oh! no; a snare? What for? The Theatin is an honest man."

"He believed your eminence to be at death's door, because your eminence
consulted him. Did not I hear him say--'Distinguish that which the king
has given you from that which you have given yourself.' Recollect, my
lord, if he did not say something a little like that to you?--that is
quite a theatrical speech."

"That is possible."

"In which case, my lord, I should consider you as required by the
Theatin to----"

"To make restitution!" cried Mazarin, with great warmth.

"Eh! I do not say no."

"What, of all! You do not dream of such a thing! You speak just as the
confessor did."

"To make restitution of a part,--that is to say, his majesty's part; and
that, monseigneur, may have its dangers. Your eminence is too skillful a
politician not to know that, at this moment, the king does not possess a
hundred and fifty thousand livres clear in his coffers."

"That is not my affair," said Mazarin, triumphantly; "that belongs to M.
le Surintendant Fouquet, whose accounts I gave you to verify some months
ago."

Colbert bit his lips at the name of Fouquet. "His majesty," said he,
between his teeth, "has no money but that w