inherit. Triple fool that I am! I would prevent him!"

"Exactly: if the donation were made in a certain form he would refuse
it."

"Well, but how?"

"That is plain enough. A young man who has yet done nothing--who burns
to distinguish himself--who burns to reign alone, will never take
anything ready built, he will construct for himself. This prince,
monseigneur, will never be content with the Palais Royal, which M. de
Richelieu left him, nor with the Palais Mazarin, which you have had
so superbly constructed, nor with the Louvre, which his ancestors
inhabited; nor with St. Germain, where he was born. All that does not
proceed from himself, I predict, he will disdain."

"And you will guarantee, that if I give my forty millions to the
king----"

"Saying certain things to him at the same time, I guarantee he will
refuse them."

"But those things--what are they?"

"I will write them, if my lord will have the goodness to dictate them."

"Well, but, after all, what advantage will that be to me?"

"An enormous one. Nobody will afterwards be able to accuse your eminence
of that unjust avarice with which pamphleteers have reproached the most
brilliant mind of the present age."

"You are right, Colbert, you are right; go, and seek the king, on my
part, and take him my will."

"Your donation, my lord."

"But, if he should accept it; if he should even think of accepting it!"

"Then there would remain thirteen millions for your family, and that is
a good round sum."

"But then you would be either a fool or a traitor."

"And I am neither the one nor the other, my lord. You appear to be much
afraid that the king will accept; you have a deal more reason to fear
that he will not accept."

"But, see you, if he does not accept, I should like to guarantee my
thirteen reserved millions to him--yes, I will do so--yes. But my pains
are returning, I shall faint. I am very, very ill, Colbert; I am very
near my end!"

Colbert started. The cardinal was indeed very ill; large drops of sweat
flowed down upon his bed of agony, and the frightful pallor of a
face streaming with water was a spectacle which the most hardened
practitioner could not have beheld without compassion. Colbert was,
without doubt, very much affected, for he quitted the chamber, calling
Bernouin to attend the dying man and went into the corridor. There,
walking about with a meditative expression, which almost gave nobility
to his vulgar head, his shoulde