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Rh LOUISE DE LA VALLIERB. 303 "Because," said the duchess, "knowing me to be in dis- grace, no one would lend me the hundred thousand francs which I require to put Dampierre into a state of repair. But when it is known that I require that sum for the pur- pose of receiving your majesty at Dampierre properly, all the money in Paris will be at my disposal.*' "Ah!" said the queen, gently nodding her head in sign of intelligence, "a hundred thousand francs! you want a hundred thousand francs to put Dampierre into repair?" "Quite as much as that." "And no one will lend you them?" "No one." "I will lend them to you, if you like, duchess." "Oh, I hardly dare accept such a sum." "You would be wrong if you did not. Besides, a hun- dred thousand francs is really not much. I know but too well that you never set a right value upon your silence and your secrecy. Push that table a little toward me, duchess, and I will write you an order on Monsieur Colbert; no, on Monsieur Fouquet, who is a far more courteous and oblig- ing man." "Will he pay it, though?" "If he will not pay it, I will; but it will be the first time he will have refused me." The queen wrote and handed the duchess the order, and afterward dismissed her with a warm and cheerful embrace. CHAPTER XLV. HOW JEAN DE LA FONTAIKE WROTE HIS FIRST TALE. All these intrigues are exhausted; the human mind, so variously complicated, has been enabled to develop itself at its ease in the three outlines with which our recital has supplied it. It is not unlikely that, in the future we are now preparing, a question of politics and intrigues may still arise, but the springs by which they work will be so care- fully concealed that no one will be able to see aught but flowers and paintings, just as at a theater, where a colossus appears upon the scene walking along moved by the small legs and slender arms of a child concealed within the frame- work. We now return to St. Mande, where the surintendant was in the habit of receiving his select society of epicureans.