four times and
a little more as much expense, and make four times as great a display,
as your majesty was able to do at Fontainebleau, where we only spent
three millions altogether, if you remember."

For a blunderer, the _souvenir_ he had evoked was a rather skillfully
contrived piece of baseness; for by the remembrance of his own _fete_
he, for the first time, perceived its inferiority compared with that of
Fouquet. Colbert received back again at Vaux what Fouquet had given him
at Fontainebleau, and, as a good financier, returned it with the best
possible interest. Having once disposed the king's mind in this artful
way, Colbert had nothing of much importance to detain him. He felt that
such was the case, for the king, too, had again sunk into a dull and
gloomy state. Colbert awaited the first words from the king's lips
with as much impatience as Philippe and Aramis did from their place of
observation.

"Are you aware what is the usual and natural consequence of all this,
Monsieur Colbert?" said the king, after a few moments' reflection.

"No, sire, I do not know."

"Well, then, the fact of the appropriation of the thirteen millions, if
it can be proved--"

"But it is so already."

"I mean if it were to be declared and certified, M. Colbert."

"I think it will be to-morrow, if your majesty--"

"Were we not under M. Fouquet's roof, you were going to say, perhaps,"
replied the king, with something of nobility in his demeanor.

"The king is in his own palace wherever he may be--especially in houses
which the royal money has constructed."

"I think," said Philippe in a low tone to Aramis, "that the architect
who planned this dome ought, anticipating the use it could be put to at
a future opportunity, so to have contrived that it might be made to fall
upon the heads of scoundrels such as M. Colbert."

"I think so too," replied Aramis; "but M. Colbert is so very _near the
king_ at this moment."

"That is true, and that would open the succession."

"Of which your younger brother would reap all the advantage,
monseigneur. But stay, let us keep quiet, and go on listening."

"We shall not have long to listen," said the young prince.

"Why not, monseigneur?"

"Because, if I were king, I should make no further reply."

"And what would you do?"

"I should wait until to-morrow morning to give myself time for
reflection."

Louis XIV. at last raised his eyes, and finding Colbert attentively
waiting for his n