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Rh THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE. 209 society. Colbert resumed his place at Mazarin's pillow tit the first interval of pain, and persuaded him to dictate a donation thus conceived. "About to appear before God, the Master of mankind, I beg the king, who was my master on earth, to resume the wealth which his bounty has bestowed upon me, and which my family would be happy to see pass into such illustrious hands. The particulars of my property will be found — they are drawn up — at the first requisition of his majesty, or at the last sight of his most devoted servant. "Jules, Cardinal de Mazarin." The cardinal sighed heavily as he signed this; Colbert sealed the packet, and carried it immediately to the Louvre, whither the king had returned. He then went back to his own home, rubbing his hands with the confidence of a workman who has done a good day's work. CHAPTER XLVII. HOW ANNE OF AUSTRIA GAVE ONE PIECE OF ADVICE TO LOUIS XIV., AND HOW M. FOUQUET GAVE HIM ANOTHER. The news of the extremity into which the cardinal had fallen had already spread, and attracted at least as much attention among the people of the Louvre as the news of the marriage of Monsieur, the king's brother, which had already been announced as an official fact. Scarcely had Louis XIV. returned home, with his thoughts fully occu- pied with the various things he had seen and heard in the course of the evening, when an usher announced that the same crowd of courtiers who, in the morning, had thronged his lever, presented themselves again at his couclier, a re- markable piece of respect which, during the reign of the cardinal, the court, not very discreet in its preferences, had accorded to the minister, without caring about dis- pleasing the king. But the minister had had. as we have said, an alarming attack of gout, and the tide of flattery was mounting toward the throne. Courtiers have a marvelous instinct in scent- ing events beforehand; courtiers possess a supreme kind of science; they are diplomatists to throw a light upon tho