he
ministry, I say too little when I say two millions a year."

"Eh!"

"In ten years that is twenty millions--and twenty millions put out
at fifty per cent. give, by progression, twenty-three millions in ten
years."

"How well you reckon for a Theatin!"

"Since your eminence placed our order in the convent we occupy, near St.
Germain des Pres, in 1644, I have kept the accounts of the society."

"And mine likewise, apparently, father."

"One ought to know a little of everything, my lord."

"Very well. Conclude, at present."

"I conclude that your baggage is too heavy to allow you to pass through
the gates of Paradise."

"Shall I be damned?"

"If you do not make restitution, yes."

Mazarin uttered a piteous cry. "Restitution!--but to whom, good God?"

"To the owner of that money,--to the king."

"But the king did not give it all to me."

"One moment,--does not the king sign the _ordonances_?"

Mazarin passed from sighs to groans. "Absolution! absolution!" cried he.

"Impossible, my lord. Restitution! restitution!" replied the Theatin.

"But you absolve me from all other sins, why not from that?"

"Because," replied the father, "to absolve you for that motive would be
a sin for which the king would never absolve me, my lord."

Thereupon the confessor quitted his penitent with an air full of
compunction. He then went out in the same manner he had entered.

"Oh, good God!" groaned the cardinal. "Come here, Colbert, I am very,
very ill indeed, my friend."

Chapter XLVI. The Donation.

Colbert reappeared beneath the curtains.

"Have you heard?" said Mazarin.

"Alas! yes, my lord."

"Can he be right? Can all this money be badly acquired?"

"A Theatin, monseigneur, is a bad judge in matters of finance," replied
Colbert, coolly. "And yet it is very possible that, according to his
theological views, your eminence has been, in a certain degree, in the
wrong. People generally find they have been so,--when they die."

"In the first place, they commit the wrong of dying, Colbert."

"That is true, my lord. Against whom, however, did the Theatin make out
that you had committed these wrongs? Against the king?"

Mazarin shrugged his shoulders. "As if I had not saved both his state
and his finances."

"That admits of no contradiction, my lord."

"Does it? Then I have received a merely legitimate salary, in spite of
the opinion of my confessor?"

"That is beyond doubt."

"And I might fairly kee