d been
oppressed by as terrible a system of taxation as human nature could
endure and live. With the sums thus extorted, he had not only
maintained the army, and supported the voluptuousness of the court,
but he had also appropriated vast sums, without the slightest right to
do so, to his own private enrichment. He was now dying. The thought of
going to the bar of God with his hands full of this stolen gold
tortured him. Constrained by the anguish of a death-bed, he sent for a
Theatine monk to act as his confessor, and to administer, in his last
hours, the services of the Church.

The virtuous monk was quite startled when the cardinal, with pale and
trembling lips, informed him that he had accumulated a fortune of over
forty millions of francs--$8,000,000. Mazarin allowed that he
considered it a sin that he had by such means accumulated such vast
wealth. His pious confessor boldly declared that the cardinal would
peril his eternal salvation if he did not, before his death, make
restitution of all his ill-gotten gains, reserving only that for which
he was indebted to the bounty of the king.

The dying sinner, trembling in view of the judgment, replied in
faltering accents, "In that case I must relinquish all. I have
received nothing from the king. My family must be left in utter
beggary."

The confessor was deeply moved by the aspect of despair presented by
the cardinal. Embarrassed by the difficulties of the position, he sent
for a distinguished member of the court, M. Colbert, to confer with
upon the situation.

The shrewd courtier, after a little deliberation, suggested that, as
it would be manifestly impossible to restore the money to the
different individuals, scattered all over the realm, from whom it had
been gathered in the ordinary collection of the taxes, the cardinal
should make a transfer of it, as a donation, to the sovereign. "The
king," added M. Colbert, "will, without any question, annul so
generous an act, and restore the property to you. It will then be
yours by royal grant."

The cardinal, who had lived, and moved, and had his being in the midst
of trickery and intrigue, highly approved of the suggestion. The
papers were immediately made out, transferring the property to the
king. It was the 3d of March, 1661. Three days passed, and there was
no response of rejection--no recognition of the gift. The cardinal was
terror-stricken. As he sat bolstered in his chair, he wrung his hands
in agony, oft