speak ill of poor Marguerite, Monsieur Fouquet, for she still
loves you."

"Bah! indeed? That is scarcely credible. I thought little Colbert, as
you said just now, had passed over that love, and left the impression
upon it of a spot of ink or a stain of grease."

"Fouquet! Fouquet! Is this the way you always treat the poor creatures
you desert?"

"Why, you surely are not going to undertake the defense of Madame
Vanel?"

"Yes, I will undertake it: for, I repeat, she loves you still, and the
proof is she saves you."

"But your interposition, marquise; that is very cunning on her part. No
angel could be more agreeable to me, or could lead me more certainly to
salvation. But, let me ask you do you know Marguerite?"

"She was my convent friend."

"And you say that she has informed you that Monsieur Colbert was named
intendant?"

"Yes, she did."

"Well, enlighten me, marquise; granted Monsieur Colbert is intendant--so
be it. In what can an intendant, that is to say my subordinate, my
clerk, give me umbrage or injure me, even if he is Monsieur Colbert?"

"You do not reflect, monsieur, apparently," replied the marquise.

"Upon what?"

"This: that Monsieur Colbert hates you."

"Hates me?" cried Fouquet. "Good heavens! marquise, whence do you come?
where can you live? Hates me! why all the world hates me, he, of course
as others do."

"He more than others."

"More than others--let him."

"He is ambitious."

"Who is not, marquise?"

"'Yes, but with him ambition has no bounds."

"I am quite aware of that, since he made it a point to succeed me with
Madame Vanel."

"And obtained his end; look at that."

"Do you mean to say he has the presumption to hope to pass from
intendant to superintendent?"

"Have you not yourself already had the same fear?"

"Oh! oh!" said Fouquet, "to succeed with Madame Vanel is one thing, to
succeed me with the king is another. France is not to be purchased so
easily as the wife of a maitre des comptes."

"Eh! monsieur, everything is to be bought; if not by gold, by intrigue."

"Nobody knows to the contrary better than you, madame, you to whom I
have offered millions."

"Instead of millions, Fouquet, you should have offered me a true, only
and boundless love: I might have accepted that. So you see, still,
everything is to be bought, if not in one way, by another."

"So, Colbert, in your opinion, is in a fair way of bargaining for
my place of superintendent. Make yourse