r Colbert, and Colbert had
arrived. The conversation began between them by the king according to
him one of the highest favors that he had ever done; it was true the
king was alone with his subject. "Colbert," said he, "sit down."

The intendant, overcome with delight, for he feared he was about to be
dismissed, refused this unprecedented honor.

"Does he accept?" said Aramis.

"No, he remains standing."

"Let us listen, then." And the future king and the future pope listened
eagerly to the simple mortals they held under their feet, ready to crush
them when they liked.

"Colbert," said the king, "you have annoyed me exceedingly to-day."

"I know it, sire."

"Very good; I like that answer. Yes, you knew it, and there was courage
in the doing of it."

"I ran the risk of displeasing your majesty, but I risked, also, the
concealment of your best interests."

"What! you were afraid of something on _my_ account?"

"I was, sire, even if it were nothing more than an indigestion," said
Colbert; "for people do not give their sovereigns such banquets as the
one of to-day, unless it be to stifle them beneath the burden of good
living." Colbert awaited the effect this coarse jest would produce upon
the king; and Louis XIV., who was the vainest and the most fastidiously
delicate man in his kingdom, forgave Colbert the joke.

"The truth is," he said, "that M. Fouquet has given me too good a meal.
Tell me, Colbert, where does he get all the money required for this
enormous expenditure,--can you tell?"

"Yes, I do know, sire."

"Will you be able to prove it with tolerable certainty?"

"Easily; and to the utmost farthing."

"I know you are very exact."

"Exactitude is the principal qualification required in an intendant of
finances."

"But all are not so."

"I thank you majesty for so flattering a compliment from your own lips."

"M. Fouquet, therefore, is rich--very rich, and I suppose every man
knows he is so."

"Every one, sire; the living as well as the dead."

"What does that mean, Monsieur Colbert?"

"The living are witnesses of M. Fouquet's wealth,--they admire and
applaud the result produced; but the dead, wiser and better informed
than we are, know how that wealth was obtained--and they rise up in
accusation."

"So that M. Fouquet owes his wealth to some cause or other."

"The occupation of an intendant very often favors those who practice
it."

"You have something to say to me more confidenti