rs thrown up, his neck stretched out,
his lips half open, to give vent to unconnected fragments of incoherent
thoughts, he lashed up his courage to the pitch of the undertaking
contemplated, whilst within ten paces of him, separated only by a wall,
his master was being stifled by anguish which drew from him lamentable
cries, thinking no more of the treasures of the earth, or of the joys
of Paradise, but much of all the horrors of hell. Whilst burning-hot
napkins, physic, revulsives, and Guenaud, who was recalled, were
performing their functions with increased activity, Colbert, holding
his great head in both his hands, to compress within it the fever of
the projects engendered by the brain, was meditating the tenor of the
donation he would make Mazarin write, at the first hour of respite his
disease should afford him. It would appear as if all the cries of the
cardinal, and all the attacks of death upon this representative of the
past, were stimulants for the genius of this thinker with the
bushy eyebrows, who was turning already towards the rising sun of a
regenerated society. Colbert resumed his place at Mazarin's pillow at
the first interval of pain, and persuaded him to dictate a donation thus
conceived.

"About to appear before God, the Master of mankind, I beg the king,
who was my master on earth, to resume the wealth which his bounty has
bestowed upon me, and which my family would be happy to see pass
into such illustrious hands. The particulars of my property will be
found--they are drawn up--at the first requisition of his majesty, or at
the last sigh of his most devoted servant,

"Jules, Cardinal de Mazarin."

The cardinal sighed heavily as he signed this; Colbert sealed the
packet, and carried it immediately to the Louvre, whither the king had
returned.

He then went back to his own home, rubbing his hands with the confidence
of a workman who has done a good day's work.

CHAPTER 47. How Anne of Austria gave one Piece of Advice to Louis XIV.,
and how M. Fouquet gave him another.

The news of the extreme illness of the cardinal had already spread, and
attracted at least as much attention among the people of the Louvre
as the news of the marriage of Monsieur, the king's brother, which had
already been announced as an official fact. Scarcely had Louis XIV.
returned home, with his thoughts fully occupied with the various things
he had seen and heard in the course of the evening, when an usher