oor M. Fouquet! that presages you nothing good!"

He rode on. M. Colbert got into his carriage and the distinguished trio
commenced a sufficiently slow pilgrimage toward the wood of Vincennes.
Madame de Chevreuse set down Madame Vanel at her husband's house, and,
left alone with M. Colbert, chatted upon affairs whilst continuing her
ride. She had an inexhaustible fund of conversation, that dear duchesse,
and as she always talked for the ill of others, though ever with a view
to her own good, her conversation amused her interlocutor, and did not
fail to leave a favorable impression.

She taught Colbert, who, poor man! was ignorant of the fact, how great
a minister he was, and how Fouquet would soon become a cipher. She
promised to rally around him, when he should become surintendant,
all the old nobility of the kingdom, and questioned him as to the
preponderance it would be proper to allow La Valliere. She praised him,
she blamed him, she bewildered him. She showed him the secret of so many
secrets that, for a moment, Colbert thought he was doing business with
the devil. She proved to him that she held in her hand the Colbert of
to-day, as she had held the Fouquet of yesterday; and as he asked her
very simply the reason of her hatred for the surintendant: "Why do you
yourself hate him?" said she.

"Madame, in politics," replied he, "the differences of system oft bring
about dissentions between men. M. Fouquet always appeared to me to
practice a system opposed to the true interests of the king."

She interrupted him.--"I will say no more to you about M. Fouquet. The
journey the king is about to take to Nantes will give a good account of
him. M. Fouquet, for me, is a man gone by--and for you also."

Colbert made no reply. "On his return from Nantes," continued the
duchesse, "the king, who is only anxious for a pretext, will find
that the States have not behaved well--that they have made too few
sacrifices. The States will say that the imposts are too heavy, and that
the surintendant has ruined them. The king will lay all the blame on M.
Fouquet, and then--"

"And then?" said Colbert.

"Oh! he will be disgraced. Is not that your opinion?"

Colbert darted a glance at the duchesse, which plainly said: "If M.
Fouquet be only disgraced, you will not be the cause of it."

"Your place, M. Colbert," the duchesse hastened to say, "must be a high
place. Do you perceive any one between the king and yourself, after the
fall