e crime! committed by M. Fouquet!"

"Nothing less. It is rather strange, M. Colbert, but your face, which
just now was cold and indifferent, is now positively the very reverse."

"A crime!"

"I am delighted to see it makes an impression upon you."

"It is because that word, madame, embraces so many things."

"It embraces the post of surintendant of finance for yourself, and a
letter of exile, or the Bastille, for M. Fouquet."

"Forgive me, Madame la Duchesse, but it is almost impossible that M.
Fouquet can be exiled; to be imprisoned or disgraced, that is already a
great deal."

"Oh, I am perfectly aware of what I am saying," returned Madame de
Chevreuse, coldly. "I do not live at such a distance from Paris as not
to know what takes place there. The king does not like M. Fouquet, and
he would willingly sacrifice M. Fouquet if an opportunity were only
given him."

"It must be a good one, though."

"Good enough, and one I estimate to be worth five hundred thousand
francs."

"In what way?" said Colbert.

"I mean, monsieur, that holding this opportunity in my own hands, I will
not allow it to be transferred to yours except for a sum of five hundred
thousand francs."

"I understand you perfectly, madame. But since you have fixed a price
for the sale, let me now see the value of the articles to be sold."

"Oh, a mere trifle; six letters, as I have already told you, from M. de
Mazarin; and the autographs will most assuredly not be regarded as too
highly priced, if they establish, in an irrefutable manner, that M.
Fouquet has embezzled large sums of money from the treasury and
appropriated them to his own purposes."

"In an irrefutable manner, do you say?" observed Colbert, whose eyes
sparkled with delight.

"Perfectly so; would you like to read the letters?"

"With all my heart! Copies, of course?"

"Of course, the copies," said the duchesse, as she drew from her bosom a
small packet of papers, flattened by her velvet bodice. "Read," she
said.

Colbert eagerly snatched the papers and devoured them.

"Excellent!" he said.

"It is clear enough, is it not?"

"Yes, madame, yes; M. Mazarin must have handed the money to M. Fouquet,
who must have kept it for his own purposes; but the question is, what
money?"

"Exactly--what money; if we come to terms, I will join to these six
letters a seventh, which will supply you with the fullest particulars."

Colbert reflected. "And the originals of these letters?