are petty, contemptible affairs."

"At Vaux! the superintendent going to give a _fete_ in your majesty's
honor? Nothing more than that!"

"'Nothing more than that,' do you say? It is very diverting to find
you treating it with so much disdain. Are you who express such an
indifference on the subject, aware, that as soon as it is known that M.
Fouquet is going to receive me at Vaux next Sunday week, people will
be striving their very utmost to get invited to the _fete?_ I repeat,
Saint-Aignan, you shall be one of the invited guests."

"Very well, sire; unless I shall, in the meantime, have undertaken a
longer and a less agreeable journey."

"What journey do you allude to?"

"The one across the Styx, sire."

"Bah!" said Louis XIV., laughing.

"No, seriously, sire," replied Saint-Aignan, "I am invited; and in such
a way, in truth, that I hardly know what to say, or how to act, in order
to refuse the invitation."

"I do not understand you. I know that you are in a poetical vein; but
try not to sink from Apollo to Phoebus."

"Very well; if your majesty will deign to listen to me, I will not keep
your mind on the rack a moment longer."

"Speak."

"Your majesty knows the Baron du Vallon?"

"Yes, indeed; a good servant to my father, the late king, and an
admirable companion at table; for, I think, you are referring to the
gentleman who dined with us at Fontainebleau?"

"Precisely so; but you have omitted to add to his other qualifications,
sire, that he is a most charming polisher-off of other people."

"What! Does M. du Vallon wish to polish you off?"

"Or to get me killed, which is much the same thing."

"The deuce!"

"Do not laugh, sire, for I am not saying one word beyond the exact
truth."

"And you say he wishes to get you killed."

"Such is that excellent person's present idea."

"Be easy; I will defend you, if he be in the wrong."

"Ah! There is an 'if'!"

"Of course; answer me as candidly as if it were some one else's affair
instead of your own, my poor Saint-Aignan; is he right or wrong?"

"Your majesty shall be the judge."

"What have you done to him?"

"To him, personally, nothing at all; but, it seems, to one of his
friends, I have."

"It is all the same. Is his friend one of the celebrated 'four'?"

"No. It is the son of one of the celebrated 'four,' though."

"What have you done to the son? Come, tell me."

"Why, it seems that I have helped some one to take his mistress from