Page:The Vicomte de Bragelonne 2.djvu/332

 "Well, but yet, monsieur, the money is somewhere."

"Yes, sire, and even as a beginning. I bring your majesty a note of funds which Monsieur le Cardinal Mazarin was not willing to set down in his testament, neither in any act whatever, but which he confided to me."

"To you?"

"Yes, sire, with an injunction to remit it to your majesty."

"What! besides the forty millions of the testament?"

"Yes, sire."

"Monsieur de Mazarin had still other funds?"

Colbert bowed.

"Why, that man was a gulf!" murmured the king. "Monsieur de Mazarin on one side, Monsieur Fouquet on the other — more than a hundred millions, perhaps, between them! No wonder my coffers should be empty!"

Colbert waited without stirring.

"And is the sum you bring me worth the trouble?" asked the king.

"Yes, sire, it is a round sum."

"Amounting to how much?"

"To thirteen millions of livres, sire."

"Thirteen millions!" cried Louis, trembling with joy, "do you say thirteen millions, Monsieur Colbert?"

"I said thirteen millions, yes, your majesty."

"Of which everybody is ignorant?"

"Of which everybody is ignorant."

"Which are in your hands?"

"In my hands, yes, sire."

"And which I can have?"

"Within two hours, sire."

"But where are they, then?"

"In the cellar of a house which the cardinal possessed in the city, and which he was so kind as to leave me by a particular clause of his will."

"You are acquainted with the cardinal's will, then?"

"I have a duplicate of it, signed by his hand."

"A duplicate?"

"Yes, sire, and here it is." Colbert drew the deed quietly from his pocket, and showed it to the king. The king read the article relative to the donation of the house.

"But," said he, "there is no question here but of the house; there is nothing said of the money."

"Your pardon, she, it is in my conscience."

"And Monsieur Mazarin has in-trusted it to you?"