ake a general
confession urgent--and it will be very fatiguing--take care."

"You suspect, then, that it may be long, father?"

"How can I think it otherwise, when a man has lived so completely as
your eminence has done?"

"Ah! that is true!--yes--the recital may be long."

"The mercy of God is great," snuffled the Theatin.

"Stop," said Mazarin; "there I begin to terrify myself with having
allowed so many things to pass which the Lord might reprove."

"Is that not always so?" said the Theatin naively, removing further from
the lamp his thin pointed face, like that of a mole. "Sinners are so
forgetful beforehand, and scrupulous when it is too late."

"Sinners?" replied Mazarin. "Do you use that word ironically, and to
reproach me with all the genealogies I have allowed to be made on my
account--I--the son of a fisherman, in fact?"

[This is quite untranslatable--it being a play upon the words _pecheur_
(with a grave over the first e), a sinner, and _pecheur_ (with an
accent circumflex over the first e), a fisherman. It is in very bad
taste.--TRANS.]

"Hum!" said the Theatin.

"That is a first sin, father; for I have allowed myself made to descend
from two old Roman consuls, S. Geganius Macerinus 1st, Macerinus 2d, and
Proculus Macerinus 3d, of whom the Chronicle of Haolander speaks.
From Macerinus to Mazarin the proximity was tempting. Macerinus, a
diminutive, means leanish, poorish, out of case. Oh! reverend father!
Mazarini may now be carried to the augmentative _Maigre_, thin as
Lazarus. Look!"--and he showed his fleshless arms.

"In your having been born of a family of fishermen I see nothing
injurious to you; for--St. Peter was a fisherman; and if you are a
prince of the church, my lord, he was the supreme head of it. Pass on,
if you please."

"So much the more for my having threatened with the Bastile a certain
Bounet, a priest of Avignon, who wanted to publish a genealogy of the
Casa Mazarini much too marvelous."

"To be probable?" replied the Theatin.

"Oh! if I had acted up to his idea, father, that would have been the
vice of pride--another sin."

"It was an excess of wit, and a person is not to be reproached with such
sorts of abuses. Pass on, pass on!"

"I was all pride. Look you, father, I will endeavor to divide that into
capital sins."

"I like divisions, when well made."

"I am glad of that. You must know that in 1630--alas! that is thirty-one
years ago--"

"You were then twenty