wife, or queen.

"Yes, my lord cardinal; yes, madame," replied Louis XIV., tearing
the parchment which Mazarin had not yet ventured to clutch; "yes,
I annihilate this deed, which despoiled a whole family. The wealth
acquired by his eminence in my service is his own wealth and not mine."

"But, sire, does your majesty reflect," said Anne of Austria, "that you
have not ten thousand crowns in your coffers?"

"Madame, I have just performed my first royal action, and I hope it will
worthily inaugurate my reign."

"Ah! sire, you are right!" cried Mazarin; "that is truly great--that is
truly generous which you have just done." And he looked, one after the
other, at the pieces of the act spread over his bed, to assure himself
that it was the original and not a copy that had been torn. At
length his eyes fell upon the fragment which bore his signature, and
recognizing it, he sunk back on his bolster in a swoon. Anne of Austria,
without strength to conceal her regret, raised her hands and eyes
towards heaven.

"Oh! sire," cried Mazarin, "may you be blessed! My God! May you be
beloved by all my family. _Per Baccho!_ If ever any of those belonging
to me should cause your displeasure, sire, only frown, and I will rise
from my tomb!"

This _pantalonnade_ did not produce all the effect Mazarin had counted
upon. Louis had already passed to considerations of a higher nature, and
as to Anne of Austria, unable to bear, without abandoning herself to the
anger she felt burning within her, the magnanimity of her son and the
hypocrisy of the cardinal, she arose and left the chamber, heedless
of thus betraying the extent of her grief. Mazarin saw all this, and
fearing that Louis XIV. might repent his decision, in order to draw
attention another way he began to cry out, as, at a later period, Scapin
was to cry out, in that sublime piece of pleasantry with which the
morose and grumbling Boileau dared to reproach Moliere. His cries,
however, by degrees, became fainter; and when Anne of Austria left the
apartment, they ceased altogether.

"Monsieur le cardinal," said the king, "have you any recommendations to
make me?"

"Sire," replied Mazarin, "you are already wisdom itself, prudence
personified; of your generosity I shall not venture to speak; that which
you have just done exceeds all that the most generous men of antiquity
or of modern times have ever done."

The king received this praise coldly.

"So you confine yourself," said he