s always a curious thing, the same as a rhinoceros, a crocodile,
or a serpent. He struck his brow with his open hand, crying,--"King of
France! what title! People of France! what a heap of creatures! I have
just returned to my Louvre; my horses, just unharnessed, are still
smoking, and I have created interest enough to induce scarcely twenty
persons to look at me as I passed. Twenty! what do I say? no; there were
not twenty anxious to see the king of France. There are not even ten
archers to guard my place of residence: archers, people, guards, all are
at the Palais Royal! Why, my good God! have not I, the king, the right
to ask of you all that?"

"Because," said a voice, replying to his, and which sounded from the
other side of the door of the cabinet, "because at the Palais Royal
lies all the gold,--that is to say, all the power of him who desires to
reign."

Louis turned sharply round. The voice which had pronounced these words
was that of Anne of Austria. The king started, and advanced towards
her. "I hope," said he, "your majesty has paid no attention to the vain
declamations which the solitude and disgust familiar to kings suggest to
the happiest dispositions?"

"I only paid attention to one thing, my son, and that was, that you were
complaining."

"Who! I? Not at all," said Louis XIV.; "no, in truth, you err, madame."

"What were you doing, then?"

"I thought I was under the ferule of my professor, and developing a
subject of amplification."

"My son," replied Anne of Austria, shaking her head, "you are wrong not
to trust my word; you are wrong not to grant me your confidence. A
day will come, and perhaps quickly, wherein you will have occasion to
remember that axiom:--'Gold is universal power; and they alone are kings
who are all-powerful.'"

"Your intention," continued the king, "was not, however, to cast blame
upon the rich men of this age, was it?

"No," said the queen, warmly; "no, sire; they who are rich in this age,
under your reign, are rich because you have been willing they should
be so, and I entertain against them neither malice nor envy; they have,
without doubt, served your majesty sufficiently well for your majesty to
have permitted them to reward themselves. That is what I mean to say by
the words for which you reproach me."

"God forbid, madame, that I should ever reproach my mother with
anything!"

"Besides," continued Anne of Austria, "the Lord never gives the goods
of this world