t?"

"I do not accuse, sire, I verify."

"That is well; make out your accounts, and present them to me. There is
a deficit, you say? A deficit may be temporary; credit returns and funds
are restored."

"No, sire."

"Upon this year, perhaps, I understand that; but upon next year?"

"Next year is eaten as bare as the current year."

"But the year after, then?"

"Will be just like next year."

"What do you tell me, Monsieur Colbert?"

"I say there are four years engaged beforehand."

"They must have a loan, then."

"They must have three, sire."

"I will create offices to make them resign, and the salary of the posts
shall be paid into the treasury."

"Impossible, sire, for there have already been creations upon creations
of offices, the provisions of which are given in blank, so that the
purchasers enjoy them without filling them. That is why your majesty
cannot make them resign. Further, upon each agreement M. Fouquet has
made an abatement of a third, so that the people have been plundered,
without your majesty profiting by it."

The king started. "Explain me that, M. Colbert," he said.

"Let your majesty set down clearly your thought, and tell me what you
wish me to explain."

"You are right, clearness is what you wish, is it not?"

"Yes, sire, clearness. God is God above all things, because He made
light."

"Well, for example," resumed Louis XIV., "if to-day, the cardinal being
dead, and I being king, suppose I wanted money?"

"Your majesty would not have any."

"Oh! that is strange, monsieur! How! my superintendent would not find me
any money?"

Colbert shook his large head.

"How is that?" said the king; "is the income of the state so much in
debt that there is no longer any revenue?"

"Yes, sire."

The king frowned and said, "If it be so, I will get together the
_ordonnances_ to obtain a discharge from the holders, a liquidation at a
cheap rate."

"Impossible, for the _ordonnances_ have been converted into bills, which
bills, for the convenience of return and facility of transaction,
are divided into so many parts that the originals can no longer be
recognized."

Louis, very much agitated, walked about, still frowning. "But, if this
is as you say, Monsieur Colbert," said he, stopping all at once, "I
shall be ruined before I begin to reign."

"You are, in fact, sire," said the impassible caster-up of figures.

"Well, but yet, monsieur, the money is somewhere?"

"Yes, sire, and