t admit," continued the queen, "that it was not without trouble I
rendered it to your eminence."

"Ah, peste! I believe that. Oh! oh!"

"Good God! what is the matter?"

"I am burning!"

"Do you suffer much?"

"As much as one of the damned."

Colbert would have liked to sink through the floor.

"So, then," resumed Mazarin, "your majesty thinks that the king----" he
stopped several seconds--"that the king is coming here to offer me some
small thanks?"

"I think so," said the queen. Mazarin annihilated Colbert with his last
look.

At that moment the ushers announced that the king was in the
ante-chambers, which were filled with people. This announcement produced
a stir of which Colbert took advantage to escape by the door of the
ruelle. Anne of Austria arose, and awaited her son, standing. Louis IV.
appeared at the threshold of the door, with his eyes fixed upon the
dying man, who did not even think it worth while to notice that majesty
from whom he thought he had nothing more to expect. An usher placed
an armchair close to the bed. Louis bowed to his mother, then to the
cardinal, and sat down. The queen took a seat in her turn.

Then, as the king looked behind him, the usher understood that look and
made a sign to the courtiers who filled up the doorway to go out,
which they instantly did. Silence fell upon the chamber with the velvet
curtains. The king, still very young, and very timid in the presence of
him who had been his master from his birth, still respected him much,
particularly now, in the supreme majesty of death. He did not dare,
therefore, to begin the conversation, feeling that every word must have
its weight not only upon things of this world, but of the next. As to
the cardinal, at that moment he had but one thought--his donation. It
was not physical pain which gave him that air of despondency, and that
lugubrious look; it was the expectation of the thanks that were about
to issue from the king's mouth, and cut off all hope of restitution.
Mazarin was the first to break the silence. "Is your majesty come to
make any stay at Vincennes?" said he.

Louis made an affirmative sign with his head.

"That is a gracious favor," continued Mazarin, "granted to a dying man,
and which will render death less painful to him."

"I hope," replied the king, "I am come to visit, not a dying man, but a
sick man, susceptible of cure."

Mazarin replied by a movement of the head.

"Your majesty is very kind; b