in," said he, with a half-smile,
sad beneath its irony; "the Mesdemoiselles de Mancini will lose, in
losing you, their most precious good; but they shall none the less be
the richest heiresses of France; and since you have been kind enough to
give me their dowry"--the cardinal was panting--"I restore it to
them," continued Louis, drawing from his breast and holding towards the
cardinal's bed the parchment which contained the donation that, during
two days, had kept alive such tempests in the mind of Mazarin.

"What did I tell you, my lord?" murmured in the alcove a voice which
passed away like a breath.

"Your majesty returns my donation!" cried Mazarin, so disturbed by joy
as to forget his character of a benefactor.

"Your majesty rejects the forty millions!" cried Anne of Austria, so
stupefied as to forget her character of an afflicted wife, or queen.

"Yes, my lord cardinal; yes, madame," replied Louis XIV., tearing
the parchment which Mazarin had not yet ventured to clutch; "yes,
I annihilate this deed, which despoiled a whole family. The wealth
acquired by his eminence in my service is his own wealth and not mine."

"But, sire, does your majesty reflect," said Anne of Austria, "that you
have not ten thousand crowns in your coffers?"

"Madame, I have just performed my first royal action, and I hope it will
worthily inaugurate my reign."

"Ah! sire, you are right!" cried Mazarin; "that is truly great--that is
truly generous which you have just done." And he looked, one after the
other, at the pieces of the act spread over his bed, to assure himself
that it was the original and not a copy that had been torn. At
length his eyes fell upon the fragment which bore his signature, and
recognizing it, he sunk back on his bolster in a swoon. Anne of Austria,
without strength to conceal her regret, raised her hands and eyes toward
heaven.

"Oh! sire," cried Mazarin, "may you be blessed! My God! May you be
beloved by all my family. Per Baccho! If ever any of those belonging to
me should cause your displeasure, sire, only frown, and I will rise from
my tomb!"

This pantalonnade did not produce all the effect Mazarin had counted
upon. Louis had already passed to considerations of a higher nature, and
as to Anne of Austria, unable to bear, without abandoning herself to the
anger she felt burning within her, the magnanimity of her son and the
hypocrisy of the cardinal, she arose and left the chamber, heedless
of thus bet