e--"

"I will press him to sign."

"Be most careful to do nothing of the kind; do not speak of signatures
with M. Fouquet, nor of deeds, nor even ask him to pass his word.
Understand this, otherwise you will lose everything. All you have to do
is to get M. Fouquet to give you his hand on the matter. Go, go."

CHAPTER L.

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE QUEEN-MOTHER.

The queen-mother was in her bedroom at the Palais Royal, with Madame de
Motteville and the Senora Molina. The king, who had been impatiently
expected the whole day, had not made his appearance; and the queen, who
had grown quite impatient, had often sent to inquire about him. The
whole atmosphere of the court seemed to indicate an approaching storm;
the courtiers and the ladies of the court avoided meeting in the
antechambers and the corridors, in order not to converse on compromising
subjects. Monsieur had joined the king early in the morning for a
hunting-party; Madame remained in her own apartments, cool and distant
to every one: and the queen-mother, after she had said her prayers in
Latin, talked of domestic matters with her two friends, in pure
Castilian. Madame de Motteville, who understood the language perfectly,
answered her in French. When the three ladies had exhausted every form
of dissimulation and politeness, as a circuitous mode of expressing
that the king's conduct was making the queen and the queen-mother pine
away from sheer grief and vexation, and when, in the most guarded and
polished phrases, they had fulminated every variety of imprecation
against Mademoiselle de la Valliere, the queen-mother terminated her
attack by an exclamation indicative of her own reflections and
character.

"Estos hijos!" said she to Molina--which means, "These children!" words
full of meaning in a mother's lips--words full of terrible significance
in the mouth of a queen who, like Anne of Austria, hid many curious and
dark secrets in her soul.

"Yes," said Molina, "these children! for whom every mother becomes a
sacrifice."

"Yes," replied the queen; "a mother has sacrificed everything,
certainly." She did not finish her phrase; for she fancied, when she
raised her eyes toward the full-length portrait of the pale Louis XIII.,
that light had once more flashed from her husband's dull eyes, and that
his nostrils were inflated by wrath. The portrait seemed animated by a
living expression--speak it did not, but it seemed to menace. A profound
silence succee