that
I can cast my eyes confidently over the map of Europe, when all my
interests are concentrated in his narrow cabinet, and its few feet of
space give me more trouble to govern than the whole country besides?
See, then, what it is to be a prime minister! Envy me, my guards, if you
can."

His features were so distorted as to give reason to fear some accident;
and at the same moment he was seized with a long and violent fit of
coughing, which ended in a slight hemorrhage. He saw that Father Joseph,
alarmed, was about to seize a gold bell that stood on the table, and,
suddenly rising with all the vivacity of a young man, he stopped him,
saying:

"'Tis nothing, Joseph; I sometimes yield to these fits of depression;
but they do not last long, and I leave them stronger than before. As for
my health, I know my condition perfectly; but that is not the business
in hand. What have you done at Paris? I am glad to know the King has
arrived in Bearn, as I wished; we shall be able to keep a closer watch
upon him. How did you induce him to come away?"

"A battle at Perpignan."

"That is not bad. Well, we can arrange it for him; that occupation will
do as well as another just now. But the young Queen, what says she?"

"She is still furious against you; her correspondence discovered, the
questioning to which you had subjected her--"

"Bah! a madrigal and a momentary submission on my part will make her
forget that I have separated her from her house of Austria and from the
country of her Buckingham. But how does she occupy herself?"

"In machinations with Monsieur. But as we have his entire confidence,
here are the daily accounts of their interviews."

"I shall not trouble myself to read them; while the Duc de Bouillon
remains in Italy I have nothing to fear in that quarter. She may have
as many petty plots with Gaston in the chimney-corner as she pleases; he
never got beyond his excellent intentions, forsooth! He carries nothing
into effect but his withdrawal from the kingdom. He has had his third
dismissal; I will manage a fourth for him whenever he pleases; he is not
worth the pistol-shot you had the Comte de Soissons settled with, and
yet the poor Comte had scarce more energy than he."

And the Cardinal, reseating himself in his chair, began to laugh gayly
enough for a statesman.

"I always laugh when I think of their expedition to Amiens. They had me
between them, Each had fully five hundred gentlemen with him, armed