nued to regulate all the affairs
of state, striving to initiate the young king in the government.
"Nobody," Turenne used to say, "works so much as the cardinal, or
discovers so many expedients with great clearness of mind for the
terminating of much business of different sorts." The dying minister
recommended to the king MM. Le Tellier and de Lionne, and he added, "Sir,
to you I owe everything; but I consider that I to some extent acquit
myself of my obligation to your Majesty by giving you M. Colbert." The
cardinal, uneasy about the large possessions he left, had found a way of
securing them to his heirs by making, during his lifetime, a gift of the
whole of them to the king. Louis XIV. at once returned it. The minister
had lately placed his two nieces, the Princess of Conti and the Countess
of Soissons, at the head of the household of two queens; he had married
his niece, Hortensia Mancini, to the Duke of La Meilleraye, who took the
title of Duke of Mazarin. The father of this duke was the relative and
protege of Cardinal Richelieu, for whom Mazarin had always preserved a
feeling of great gratitude. It was to him and his wife that he left the
remainder of his vast possessions, after having distributed amongst all
his relatives liberal bequests to an enormous amount. The pictures and
jewels went to the king, to Monsieur, and to the queens. A considerable
sum was employed for the foundation and endowment of the _College des
Quatre Nations (now the Palais de l'Institut),_ intended for the
education of sixty children of the four provinces re-united to France by
the treaties of Westphalia and the Pyrenees, Alsace, Roussillon, Artois,
and Pignerol. The cardinal's fortune was estimated at fifty millions.

Mazarin had scarcely finished making his final dispositions when his
malady increased to a violent pitch. "On the 5th of March, forty hours'
public prayers were ordered in all the churches of Paris, which is not
generally done except in the case of kings," says Madame de Motteville.
The cardinal had sent for M. Jolt, parish-priest of St. Nicholas des
Champs, a man of great reputation for piety, and begged him not to leave
him. "I have misgivings about not being sufficiently afraid of death,"
he said to his confessor. He felt his own pulse himself, muttering quite
low, "I shall have a great deal more to suffer." The king had left him
on the 7th of March, in the evening. He did not see him again and sent
to summo