ent will be accomplished; and that you will keep under
your hand your creation of yesterday."

"Undeceive yourself, monseigneur," replied the bishop. "I should not
take the trouble to play this terrible game with your royal highness, if
I had not a double interest in gaining it. The day you are elevated, you
are elevated forever; you will overturn the footstool, as you rise, and
will send it rolling so far, that not even the sight of it will ever
again recall to you its right to simple gratitude."

"Oh, monsieur!"

"Your movement, monseigneur, arises from an excellent disposition.
I thank you. Be well assured, I aspire to more than gratitude! I am
convinced that, when arrived at the summit, you will judge me still more
worthy to be your friend; and then, monseigneur, we two will do such
great deeds, that ages hereafter shall long speak of them."

"Tell me plainly, monsieur--tell me without disguise--what I am to-day,
and what you aim at my being to-morrow."

"You are the son of King Louis XIII., brother of Louis XIV., natural
and legitimate heir to the throne of France. In keeping you near him,
as Monsieur has been kept--Monsieur, your younger brother--the king
reserved to himself the right of being legitimate sovereign. The doctors
only could dispute his legitimacy. But the doctors always prefer the
king who is to the king who is not. Providence has willed that you
should be persecuted; this persecution to-day consecrates you king of
France. You had, then, a right to reign, seeing that it is disputed; you
had a right to be proclaimed seeing that you have been concealed; and
you possess royal blood, since no one has dared to shed yours, as that
of your servants has been shed. Now see, then, what this Providence,
which you have so often accused of having in every way thwarted you, has
done for you. It has given you the features, figure, age, and voice
of your brother; and the very causes of your persecution are about
to become those of your triumphant restoration. To-morrow, after
to-morrow--from the very first, regal phantom, living shade of Louis
XIV., you will sit upon his throne, whence the will of Heaven, confided
in execution to the arm of man, will have hurled him, without hope of
return."

"I understand," said the prince, "my brother's blood will not be shed,
then."

"You will be sole arbiter of his fate."

"The secret of which they made an evil use against me?"

"You will employ it against him. What d