The news of the extreme illness of the cardinal had already spread, andattracted at least as much attention among the people of the Louvreas the news of the marriage of Monsieur, the king's brother, which hadalready been announced as an official fact. Scarcely had Louis XIV.returned home, with his thoughts fully occupied with the various thingshe had seen and heard in the course of the evening, when an usherannounced that the same crowd of courtiers who, in the morning, hadthronged his levee, presented themselves again at his coucher, aremarkable piece of respect which, during the reign of the cardinal,the court, not very discreet in its preferences, had accorded to theminister, without caring about displeasing the king.
But the minister had had, as we have said, an alarming attack of gout,and the tide of flattery was mounting towards the throne. Courtiers havea marvelous instinct in scenting the turn of events; courtiers possessa supreme kind of science; they are diplomatists in throwing light uponthe unraveling of complicated intrigues, captains in divining the issueof battles, and physicians in curing the sick. Louis XIV., to whom hismother had taught this axiom, together with many others, understood atonce that the cardinal must be very ill.
Scarcely had Anne of Austria conducted the young queen to her apartmentsand taken from her brow the head-dress of ceremony, when she went to seeher son in his cabinet, where, alone, melancholy and depressed, he wasindulging, as if to exercise his will, in one of those terrible inwardpassions--king's passions--which create events when they break out, andwith Louis XIV., thanks to his astonishing command over himself, becamesuch benign tempests, that his most violent, his only passion, thatwhich Saint Simon mentions with astonishment, was that famous fit ofanger which he exhibited fifty years later, on the occasion of a littleconcealment of the Duc de Maine's and which had for result a shower ofblows inflicted with a cane upon the back of a poor valet who had stolena biscuit. The young king then was, as we have seen, a prey to adouble excitement; and he said to himself as he looked in a glass,"O king!--king by name, and not in fact;--phantom, vain phantom artthou!--inert statue, which has no other power than that of provokingsalutations from courtiers, when wilt thou be able to raise thy velvetarm, or clench thy silken hand? when wilt thou be able to open, forany purpose but to sigh, or smile, lips condemned to the motionlessstupidity of the marbles in thy gallery?"
Then, passing his hand over his brow, and feeling the want of air, heapproached a window, and looking down, saw below some horsemen talkingtogether, and groups of timid observers. These horsemen were a fractionof the watch: the groups were busy portions of the people, to whom aking is always a curious thing, the same as a rhinoceros, a crocodile,or a serpent. He struck his brow with his open hand, crying,--"King ofFrance! what title! People of France! what a heap of creatures! I havejust returned to my Louvre; my horses, just unharnessed, are stillsmoking, and I have created interest enough to induce scarcely twentypersons to look at me as I passed. Twenty! what do I say? no; there werenot twenty anxious to see the king of France. There are not even tenarchers to guard my place of residence: archers, people, guards, all areat the Palais Royal! Why, my good God! have not I, the king, the rightto ask of you all that?"
"Because," said a voice, replying to his, and which sounded from theother side of the door of the cabinet, "because at the Palais Royallies all the gold,--that is to say, all the power of him who desires toreign."
Louis turned sharply round. The voice which had pronounced these wordswas that of Anne of Austria. The king started, and advanced towardsher. "I hope," said he, "your majesty has paid no attention to the vaindeclamations which the solitude and disgust familiar to kings suggest tothe happiest dispositions?"
"I only paid attention to one thing, my son, and that was, that you werecomplaining."
"Who! I? Not at all," said Louis XIV.; "no, in truth, you err, madame."
"What were you doing, then?"
"I thought I was under the ferule of my professor, and developing asubject of amplification."
"My son," replied Anne of Austria, shaking her head, "you are wrong notto trust my word; you are wrong not to grant me your confidence. Aday will come, and perhaps quickly, wherein you will have occasion toremember that axiom:--'Gold is universal power; and they alone are kingswho are all-powerful.'"
"Your intention," continued the king, "was not, however, to cast blameupon the rich men of this age, was it?
"No," said the queen, warmly; "no, sire; they who are rich in this age,under your reign, are rich because you have been willing they shouldbe so, and I entertain against them neither malice nor envy; they have,without doubt, served your majesty sufficiently well for your majesty tohave permitted them to reward themselves. That is what I mean to say bythe words for which you reproach me."
"God forbid, madame, that I should ever reproach my mother withanything!"
"Besides," continued Anne of Austria, "the Lord never gives the goodsof this world but for a season; the Lord--as correctives to honor andriches--the Lord has placed sufferings, sickness, and death; and noone," added she, with a melancholy smile, which proved she made theapplication of the funeral precept to herself, "no man can take hiswealth or greatness with him to the grave. It results, therefore, thatthe young gather the abundant harvest prepared for them by the old."
Louis listened with increased attention to the words which Anne ofAustria, no doubt, pronounced with a view to console him. "Madame," saidhe, looking earnestly at his mother, "one would almost say in truth thatyou had something else to announce to me."
"I have absolutely nothing, my son; only you cannot have failed toremark that his eminence the cardinal is very ill."
Louis looked at his mother, expecting some emotion in her voice, somesorrow in her countenance. The face of Anne of Austria appeared a littlechanged, but that was from sufferings of quite a personal character.Perhaps the alteration was caused by the cancer which had begun toconsume her breast. "Yes, madame," said the king; "yes, M. de Mazarin isvery ill."
"And it would be a great loss to the kingdom if God were to summon hiseminence away. Is not that your opinion as well as mine, my son?" saidthe queen.
"Yes, madame; yes, certainly, it would be a great loss for the kingdom,"said Louis, coloring; "but the peril does not seem to me to be so great;besides, the cardinal is still young." The king had scarcely ceasedspeaking when an usher lifted the tapestry, and stood with a paper inhis hand, waiting for the king to speak to him.
"What have you there?" asked the king.
"A message from M. de Mazarin," replied the usher.
"Give it to me," said the king; and he took the paper. But at the momenthe was about to open it, there was a great noise in the gallery, theante-chamber, and the court.
"Ah, ah," said Louis XIV., who doubtless knew the meaning of thattriple noise. "How could I say there was but one king in France! I wasmistaken, there are two."
As he spoke or thought thus, the door opened, and the superintendent ofthe finances, Fouquet, appeared before his nominal master. It was hewho made the noise in the ante-chamber, it was his horses that made thenoise in the courtyard. In addition to all this, a loud murmur was heardalong his passage, which did not die away till some time after he hadpassed. It was this murmur which Louis XIV. regretted so deeply nothearing as he passed, and dying away behind him.
"He is not precisely a king, as you fancy," said Anne of Austria to herson; "he is only a man who is much too rich--that is all."
Whilst saying these words, a bitter feeling gave to these words of thequeen a most hateful expression; whereas the brow of the king, calm andself-possessed, on the contrary, was without the slightest wrinkle. Henodded, therefore, familiarly to Fouquet, whilst he continued to unfoldthe paper given to him by the usher. Fouquet perceived this movement,and with a politeness at once easy and respectful, advanced towards thequeen, so as not to disturb the king. Louis had opened the paper, andyet he did not read it. He listened to Fouquet paying the most charmingcompliments to the queen upon her hand and arm. Anne of Austr
ia's frownrelaxed a little, she even almost smiled. Fouquet perceived that theking, instead of reading, was looking at him; he turned half round,therefore, and while continuing his conversation with the queen, facedthe king.
"You know, Monsieur Fouquet," said Louis, "how ill M. Mazarin is?"
"Yes, sire, I know that," said Fouquet; "in fact, he is very ill. I wasat my country-house of Vaux when the news reached me; and the affairseemed so pressing that I left at once."
"You left Vaux this evening, monsieur?"
"An hour and a half ago, yes, your majesty," said Fouquet, consulting awatch, richly ornamented with diamonds.
"An hour and a half!" said the king, still able to restrain his anger,but not to conceal his astonishment.
"I understand you, sire. Your majesty doubts my word, and you havereason to do so, but I have really come in that time, though it iswonderful! I received from England three pairs of very fast horses, asI had been assured. They were placed at distances of four leagues apart,and I tried them this evening. They really brought me from Vaux tothe Louvre in an hour and a half, so your majesty sees I have not beencheated." The queen-mother smiled with something like secret envy. ButFouquet caught her thought. "Thus, madame," he promptly said, "suchhorses are made for kings, not for subjects; for kings ought never toyield to any one in anything."
The king looked up.
"And yet," interrupted Anne of Austria, "you are not a king, that I knowof, M. Fouquet."
"Truly not, madame; therefore the horses only await the orders of hismajesty to enter the royal stables; and if I allowed myself to trythem, it was only for fear of offering to the king anything that was notpositively wonderful."
The king became quite red.
"You know, Monsieur Fouquet," said the queen, "that at the court ofFrance it is not the custom for a subject to offer anything to hisking."
Louis started.
"I hoped, madame," said Fouquet, much agitated, "that my love for hismajesty, my incessant desire to please him, would serve to compensatethe want of etiquette. It was not so much a present that I permittedmyself to offer, as the tribute I paid."
"Thank you, Monsieur Fouquet," said the king politely, "and I amgratified by your intention, for I love good horses; but you know Iam not very rich; you, who are my superintendent of finances, know itbetter than any one else. I am not able, then, however willing I may be,to purchase such a valuable set of horses."
Fouquet darted a haughty glance at the queen-mother, who appeared totriumph at the false position in which the minister had placed himself,and replied:--
"Luxury is the virtue of kings, sire: it is luxury which makes themresemble God: it is by luxury they are more than other men. With luxurya king nourishes his subjects, and honors them. Under the mild heatof this luxury of kings springs the luxury of individuals, a source ofriches for the people. His majesty, by accepting the gift of these sixincomparable horses, would stimulate the pride of his own breeders,of Limousin, Perche, and Normandy, and this emulation would havebeen beneficial to all. But the king is silent, and consequently I amcondemned."
During this speech, Louis was, unconsciously, folding and unfoldingMazarin's paper, upon which he had not cast his eyes. At length heglanced upon it, and uttered a faint cry at reading the first line.
"What is the matter, my son?" asked the queen, anxiously, and goingtowards the king.
"From the cardinal," replied the king, continuing to read; "yes, yes, itis really from him."
"Is he worse, then?"
"Read!" said the king, passing the parchment to his mother, as if hethought that nothing less than reading would convince Anne of Austria ofa thing so astonishing as was conveyed in that paper.
Anne of Austria read in turn, and as she read, her eyes sparkled witha joy all the greater from her useless endeavor to hide it, whichattracted the attention of Fouquet.
"Oh! a regularly drawn up deed of gift," said she.
"A gift?" repeated Fouquet.
"Yes," said the king, replying pointedly to the superintendent offinances, "yes, at the point of death, monsieur le cardinal makes me adonation of all his wealth."
"Forty millions," cried the queen. "Oh, my son! this is very noble onthe part of his eminence, and will silence all malicious rumors; fortymillions scraped together slowly, coming back all in one heap to thetreasury! It is the act of a faithful subject and a good Christian." Andhaving once more cast her eyes over the act, she restored it to LouisXIV., whom the announcement of the sum greatly agitated. Fouquet hadtaken some steps backwards and remained silent. The king looked at him,and held the paper out to him, in turn. The superintendent only bestoweda haughty look of a second upon it; then bowing,--"Yes, sire," said he,"a donation, I see."
"You must reply to it, my son," said Anne of Austria; "you must reply toit, 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 whohas just made such a present has a good right to expect to be thankedfor 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, witha 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 kingscannot 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 inwhich, at a later period, poor Marie Antoinette replied, "You will tellme as much!"
"I know," said Fouquet, laughing, "forty millions makes a good roundsum,--such a sum as could almost tempt a royal conscience."
"But monsieur," said Anne of Austria, "instead of persuading the kingnot to receive this present, recall to his majesty's mind, you, whoseduty it is, that these forty millions are a fortune to him."
"It is precisely, madame, because these forty millions would be afortune that I will say to the king, 'Sire, if it be not decent for aking 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 contributedto the building up of that fortune.'"
"It ill becomes you, monsieur, to give your king a lesson," said Anneof Austria; "better procure for him forty millions to replace those youmake him lose."
"The king shall have them whenever he wishes," said the superintendentof finances, bowing.
"Yes, by oppressing the people," said the queen.
"And were they not oppressed, madame," replied Fouquet, "when they weremade to sweat the forty millions given by this deed? Furthermore, hismajesty has asked my opinion, I have given it; if his majesty ask myconcurrence, it will be the same."
"Nonsense! accept, my son, accept," said Anne of Austria. "You are abovereports and interpretations."
"Refuse, sire," said Fouquet. "As long as a king lives, he has no othermeasure but his conscience,--no other judge than his own desires; butwhen dead, he has posterity, which applauds or accuses."
"Thank you, mother," replied Louis, bowing respectfully to the queen."Thank you, Monsieur Fouquet," said he, dismissing the superintendentcivilly.
"Do you accept?" asked Anne of Austria, once more.
"I shall consider of it," replied he, looking at Fouquet.
CHAPTER 48. Agony