aid he,
"a donation, I see."

"You must reply to it, my son," said Anne of Austria; "you must reply to
it, and immediately."

"But how, madame?"

"By a visit to the cardinal."

"Why, it is but an hour since I left his eminence," said the king.

"Write, then, sire."

"Write!" said the young king, with evident repugnance.

"Well!" replied Anne of Austria, "it seems to me, my son, that a man who
has just made such a present, has a good right to expect to be thanked
for it with some degree of promptitude." Then turning towards Fouquet:
"Is not that likewise your opinion, monsieur?"

"That the present is worth the trouble? Yes, madame," said Fouquet, with
a lofty air that did not escape the king.

"Accept, then, and thank him," insisted Anne of Austria.

"What says M. Fouquet?" asked Louis XIV.

"Does your majesty wish to know my opinion?"

"Yes."

"Thank him, sire--"

"Ah!" said the queen.

"But do not accept," continued Fouquet.

"And why not?" asked the queen.

"You have yourself said why, madame," replied Fouquet; "because kings
cannot and ought not to receive presents from their subjects."

The king remained silent between these two contrary opinions.

"But forty millions!" said Anne of Austria, in the same tone as that in
which, at a later period, poor Marie Antoinette replied, "You will tell
me as much!"

"I know," said Fouquet, laughing, "forty millions makes a good round
sum,--such a sum as could almost tempt a royal conscience."

"But, monsieur," said Anne of Austria, "instead of persuading the king
not to receive this present, recall to his majesty's mind, you, whose
duty it is, that these forty millions are a fortune to him."

"It is precisely, madame, because these forty millions would be a
fortune that I will say to the king, 'Sire, if it be not decent for a
king to accept from a subject six horses, worth twenty thousand livres,
it would be disgraceful for him to owe a fortune to another subject,
more or less scrupulous in the choice of the materials which contributed
to the building up of that fortune.'"

"It ill becomes you, monsieur, to give your king a lesson," said Anne
of Austria; "better procure for him forty millions to replace those you
make him lose."

"The king shall have them whenever he wishes," said the superintendent
of finances, bowing.

"Yes, by oppressing the people," said the queen.

"And were they not oppressed, madame," replied Fouquet, "when they were
ma