m."

"But those things--what are they?"

"I will write them, if my lord will have the goodness to dictate them."

"Well, but, after all, what advantage will that be to me?"

"An enormous one. Nobody will afterwards be able to accuse your eminence
of that unjust avarice with which pamphleteers have reproached the most
brilliant mind of the present age."

"You are right, Colbert, you are right; go, and seek the king, on my
part, and take him my will."

"Your donation, my lord."

"But, if he should accept it; if he should even think of accepting it!"

"Then there would remain thirteen millions for your family, and that is
a good round sum."

"But then you would be either a fool or a traitor."

"And I am neither the one nor the other, my lord. You appear to be much
afraid that the king will accept; you have a deal more reason to fear
that he will not accept."

"But, see you, if he does not accept, I should like to guarantee my
thirteen reserved millions to him--yes, I will do so--yes. But my pains
are returning, I shall faint. I am very, very ill, Colbert; I am near my
end!"

Colbert started. The cardinal was indeed very ill; large drops of sweat
flowed down upon his bed of agony, and the frightful pallor of a
face streaming with water was a spectacle which the most hardened
practitioner could not have beheld without much compassion. Colbert was,
without doubt, very much affected, for he quitted the chamber, calling
Bernouin to attend to the dying man, and went into the corridor. There,
walking about with a meditative expression, which almost gave nobility
to his vulgar head, his shoulders thrown up, his neck stretched out,
his lips half open, to give vent to unconnected fragments of incoherent
thoughts, he lashed up his courage to the pitch of the undertaking
contemplated, whilst within ten paces of him, separated only by a wall,
his master was being stifled by anguish which drew from him lamentable
cries, thinking no more of the treasures of the earth, or of the joys
of Paradise, but much of all the horrors of hell. Whilst burning-hot
napkins, physic, revulsives, and Guenaud, who was recalled, were
performing their functions with increased activity, Colbert, holding
his great head in both his hands, to compress within it the fever of
the projects engendered by the brain, was meditating the tenor of the
donation he would make Mazarin write, at the first hour of respite his
disease should afford him. It would