ed to talk of her. Besides, the only
person with whom he could speak about her at his ease was Saint-Aignan,
and Saint-Aignan had, therefore, become indispensable to him.

"Ah! is that you, comte?" he exclaimed, as soon as he perceived him,
doubly delighted, not only to see him again, but also to get rid of
Colbert, whose scowling face always put him out of humor. "So much the
better. I am very glad to see you; you will make one of the traveling
party, I suppose?"

"Of what traveling party are you speaking, sire?" inquired Saint-Aignan.

"The one we are making up to go to the fete the surintendant is about to
give at Vaux. Ah! Saint-Aignan, you will, at last, see a fete, a royal
fete, by the side of which all our amusements at Fontainebleau are
petty, contemptible affairs."

"At Vaux! the surintendant going to give a fete in your majesty's honor?
Nothing more than that!"

"'Nothing more that that,' do you say! It is very diverting to find you
treating it with so much disdain. Are you, who express such an
indifference on the subject, aware, that as soon as it is known that M.
Fouquet is going to receive me at Vaux next Sunday week, people will be
striving their very utmost to get invited to the fete. I repeat,
Saint-Aignan, you shall be one of the invited guests."

"Very well, sire; unless I shall, in the meantime, have undertaken a
longer and less agreeable journey."

"What journey do you allude to?"

"The one across the Styx, sire."

"Bah!" said Louis XIV., laughing.

"No, seriously, sire," replied Saint-Aignan, "I am invited there; and in
such a way, in truth, that I hardly know what to say, or how to act, in
order to refuse it."

"I do not understand you. I know that you are in a poetical vein; but
try not to sink from Apollo to Phoebus."

"Very well; if your majesty will deign to listen to me, I will not put
your mind on the rack any longer."

"Speak."

"Your majesty knows the Baron de Valon?"

"Yes, indeed; a good servant to my father, the late king, and an
admirable companion at table; for, I think, you are referring to the one
who dined with us at Fontainebleau?"

"Precisely so; but you have omitted to add to his other qualifications,
sire, that he is a most charming killer of other people."

"What! does M. de Valon wish to kill you?"

"Or to get me killed, which is the same thing."

"The deuce!"

"Do not laugh, sire, for I am not saying a word that is not the exact
truth."

"And you