Page:The Vicomte de Bragelonne 2.djvu/309

 "Ah," replied Colbert, "that is because your eminence, absorbed as you are by your disease, entirely loses sight of the character of Louis XIV."

"How so?"

"That character, if I may venture to express myself thus, resembles that which monseigneur confessed just now to the Theatin."

"Go on— that is?"

"Pride! Pardon me, monseigneur, haughtiness, noble. Hess; kings have no pride, that is a human passion."

"Pride, yes, you are right. Next?"

"Well, monseigneur, if I have divined rightly, your em inence has but to give all your money to the king, and that
 * mmediately."

"But for what?" said Mazarin, quite bewildered.

"Because the king will not accept of the whole."

"What, and he a young man, and devoured by ambition?*'

"Just so."

"A young man who is anxious for my death!"

"Monseigneur!"

"To inherit, yes, Colbert, yes; he is anxious for my death, in order to inherit. Triple fool that I am! I would pre- vent him!"

"Exactly; if the donation were made in a certain form, he would refuse it."

"Well; but how?"

"That is plain enough. A young man who has yet done nothing — who burns to distinguish himself — who burns to reign alone, will never take anything ready built, he will construct for himself. This prince, monseigneur, will never be content with the Palais Boyal, which Monsieur de Kichelieu left him; nor with the Palais Mazarin, which you have caused to be so superbly constructed; nor with the Louvre, which his ancestors inhabited; nor with St. Germains, where he was born. All that does not proceed from himself, I predict he will disdain."

"And you will guarantee that if I give my forty millions to the king "

"Saying certain things to him at the same time, I guaran tee he will refuse them."

"But those things — what are they?"

"I will write them, if monseigneur will have the good' ness to dictate them."

"Well, but, after all, what advantage will that be to me?"

"An enormous one. Nobody will afterward be able to accuse your eminence oL that uniust avarice with whi^'