be master, and to bear no rival near the
throne, no matter of how secondary or trifling a nature the rivalry
might be.

Fouquet had been deep in Mazarin's confidence, his agent and partner in
those sharp financial operations which had brought so much profit to the
Cardinal and so little to the Crown. One of their jobs was to buy up, at
an enormous discount, old and discredited claims against the Treasury,
dating from the Fronde, which, when held by the right parties, were paid
in full,--a species of fraud known by various euphemisms in the purest
of republics. All the checks and balances of our enlightened system of
administration, whether federal, state, or municipal, do not prevent
skilful officials from perverting vast sums of money to their own uses.
In France, demoralized by years of civil war, the official facilities
for plundering were concentrated in the hands of one clever man. We can
easily understand that his wealth was enormous, and his power
correspondingly great.

When the late Cardinal, surfeited with spoils, was drawing near his end,
scruples of conscience, never felt before, led him to advise the King to
keep a strict watch upon the Surintendant. He recommended for that
purpose his steward, Colbert, of whose integrity and knowledge of
business he had the highest opinion. Colbert was made Under-Secretary of
State, and Fouquet's dismissal from office determined upon from that
time.

The Surintendant had no previsions of danger. With his usual boldness,
he laid the financial "situation" of the kingdom before his new master,
confessed frankly what it was impossible to conceal, laid the blame of
all irregularities upon Mazarin, or upon the exigencies of the times,
and ended by imploring an amnesty for the past, and promising thrift and
economy for the future. The King appeared satisfied, and granted a full
pardon. Fouquet, more confident than ever, dashed on in the old way,
while Colbert and his clerks were quietly digging the pit into which he
was soon to fall. Colbert was reinforced by Seguier, the Chancellor, and
by Le Tellier, a Secretary of State, who had an energetic son, Louvois,
in the War Department. All three hated the Surintendant, and each hoped
to succeed him. Fouquet's ostentation and haughtiness had made him
enemies among the old nobility. Many of them were eager to see the proud
and prosperous man humiliated,--merely to gratify that wretched feeling
of envy and spite so inherent in poor hu