omwell signed his name above mine."

"Why did you sign yours so lo down, sire? Cromwell found a good place,
and he took it; that was his custom. I return, then, to M. Cromwell.
You have a treaty with him, that is to say, with England, since when you
signed that treaty M. Cromwell was England."

"M. Cromwell is dead."

"Do you think so, sire?"

"No doubt he is, since his son Richard has succeeded him, and has
abdicated."

"Yes, that is it exactly. Richard inherited after the death of his
father, and England at the abdication of Richard. The treaty formed part
of the inheritance, whether in the hands of M. Richard or in the hands
of England. The treaty is, then, still as good, as valid as ever. Why
should you evade it, sire? What is changed? Charles wants to-day what we
were not willing to grant him ten years ago; but that was foreseen and
provided against. You are the ally of England, sire, and not of Charles
II. It was doubtless wrong, from a family point of view, to sign a
treaty with a man who had cut off the head of the king your father's
brother-in-law, and to contract an alliance with a parliament which they
call yonder the Rump Parliament; it was unbecoming, I acknowledge, but
it was not unskillful from a political point of view, since, thanks to
that treaty, I saved your majesty, then a minor, the trouble and danger
of a foreign war, which the Fronde--you remember the Fronde, sire?"--the
young king hung his head--"which the Fronde might have fatally
complicated. And thus I prove to your majesty that to change our
plan now, without warning our allies, would be at once unskillful and
dishonest. We should make war with the aggression on our side; we should
make it, deserving to have it made against us; and we should have the
appearance of fearing it whilst provoking it, for a permission granted
to five hundred men, to two hundred men, to fifty men, to ten men, is
still a permission. One Frenchman, that is the nation; one uniform, that
is the army. Suppose, sire, for example, that you should have war with
Holland, which, sooner or later, will certainly happen; or with Spain,
which will perhaps ensue if your marriage fails" (Mazarin stole a
furtive glance at the king), "and there are a thousand causes that
might yet make your marriage fail,--well, would you approve of England's
sending to the United Provinces or to Spain a regiment, a company, a
squadron even, of English gentlemen? Would you think that they kept