was left alone, a prey to suffering
which he could no longer dissemble. "Bernouin! Bernouin!" cried he in a
broken voice.

"What does monseigneur want?"

"Guenaud--let Guenaud be sent for," said his eminence. "I think I'm
dying."

Bernouin, in great terror, rushed into the cabinet to give the order,
and the _piqueur_, who hastened to fetch the physician, passed the
king's carriage in the Rue Saint Honore.

Chapter XLIII. Guenaud.

The cardinal's order was pressing; Guenaud quickly obeyed it. He found
his patient stretched on his bed, his legs swelled, his face livid, and
his stomach collapsed. Mazarin had a severe attack of gout. He suffered
tortures with the impatience of a man who has not been accustomed to
resistances. On seeing Guenaud: "Ah!" said he; "now I am saved!"

Guenaud was a very learned and circumspect man, who stood in no need of
the critiques of Boileau to obtain a reputation. When facing a disease,
if it were personified in a king, he treated the patient as a Turk
treats a Moor. He did not, therefore, reply to Mazarin as the minister
expected: "Here is the doctor; good-bye disease!" On the contrary, on
examining his patient, with a very serious air:

"Oh! oh!" said he.

"Eh! what! Guenaud! How you look at me!"

"I look as I should on seeing your complaint, my lord; it is a very
dangerous one."

"The gout--oh! yes, the gout."

"With complications, my lord."

Mazarin raised himself upon his elbow, and, questioning by look and
gesture: "What do you mean by that? Am I worse than I believe myself to
be?"

"My lord," said Guenaud, seating himself beside the bed; "your eminence
has worked very hard during your life; your eminence has suffered much."

"But I am not old, I fancy. The late M. de Richelieu was but seventeen
months younger than I am when he died, and died of a mortal disease. I
am young, Guenaud: remember, I am scarcely fifty-two."

"Oh! my lord, you are much more than that. How long did the Fronde
last?"

"For what purpose do you put such a question to me?"

"For a medical calculation, monseigneur."

"Well, some ten years--off and on."

"Very well; be kind enough to reckon every year of the Fronde as three
years--that makes thirty; now twenty and fifty-two makes seventy-two
years. You are seventy-two, my lord; and that is a great age."

Whilst saying this, he felt the pulse of his patient. This pulse
was full of such fatal indications, that the physician continued,