Part 28

— Guénaud, said he, rising to his feet, you will surely allow me to appeal from your judgment. I wish to gather the most learned men of Europe, I wish to consult them... I wish to live, finally, by virtue of any remedy whatsoever.

— Your Highness does not suppose, said Guénaud, that I have the presumption of having pronounced alone upon a life as precious as your own; I have already assembled all the good physicians and practitioners of France and of Europe... they were twelve.

— And they said...?

— They said that Your Eminence was afflicted with a mortal disease; I have the signed consultation in my portfolio. If Your Eminence wishes to examine it, you will see the name of all the incurable maladies that we have discovered. There is first...

— No! no! cried Mazarin, pushing the paper away. No, Guénaud, I yield, I yield!

And a profound silence, during which the cardinal recovered his senses and repaired his strength, succeeded the agitations of this scene.

— There is something else, murmured Mazarin; there are the empirics, the charlatans. In my country, those whom the physicians abandon run the chance of a seller of quack medicines, who ten times kills them, but who a hundred times saves them.

— For a month, has not Your Eminence noticed that I have changed your remedies ten times?

— Yes... Well?

— Well! I have spent fifty thousand livres buying the secrets of all those rogues: the list is exhausted; my purse also. You are not cured, and without my art you would be dead.

— It is finished, murmured the cardinal; it is finished.

He cast a dark glance around him upon his riches.

— I must leave all this! he sighed. I am dead, Guénaud! I am dead!

— Oh! not yet, my lord, said the physician.

Mazarin seized his hand.

— In how long? he asked, fixing two great staring eyes upon the face of the physician.

— My lord, one never says that.

— To ordinary men, be it so; but to me... to me whose every minute is worth a treasure, tell me, Guénaud, tell me!

— No, no, my lord.

— I wish it, I tell you. Oh! give me a month, and for each of those thirty days, I will pay you a hundred thousand livres.

— My lord, replied Guénaud in a firm voice, it is God who grants you days of grace and not I. God therefore gives you but fifteen days!

The cardinal uttered a painful sigh and fell back upon his pillow, murmuring:

— Thank you, Guénaud, thank you!

The physician was about to withdraw; the dying man raised himself:

— Silence, he said, with eyes of flame, silence!

— My lord, I have known this secret for two months; you see that I have kept it well.

— Go, Guénaud, I will provide for your fortune; go, and tell Brienne to send me a clerk; let M. Colbert be summoned. Go.

Chapter XLIV — Colbert

Colbert was not far off.

During the whole evening, he had stayed in a corridor, talking with Bernouin, with Brienne, and commenting, with the ordinary skill of courtiers, on the news that took shape like air-bubbles upon the water on the surface of every event. It is time, no doubt, to sketch, in a few words, one of the most interesting portraits of that century, and to sketch it with perhaps as much truth as the contemporary painters were able to do. Colbert was a man over whom the historian and the moralist have an equal right.

He was thirteen years older than Louis XIV, his future master.

Of medium height, rather lean than stout, he had sunken eyes, a lowering countenance, coarse, black, and sparse hair, which, say the biographers of his time, made him take to the skullcap early. A glance full of severity, even of hardness; a sort of stiffness which, toward inferiors, was pride, toward superiors, an affectation of worthy virtue; arrogance in all things, even when he was alone looking at himself in a mirror: such was the exterior of the personage.

In mind, they praised the depth of his talent for accounts, his ingenuity in making even sterility yield profit. Colbert had imagined forcing the governors of frontier towns to feed the garrisons without pay from what they drew in contributions. So precious a quality gave M. the cardinal Mazarin the idea of replacing Joubert, his intendant who had just died, with M. Colbert, who pared down the rations so well.

Colbert gradually launched himself at court, despite the mediocrity of his birth, for he was the son of a man who sold wine like his father, who afterward had sold cloth, then silk fabrics. Colbert, destined first for commerce, had been a clerk with a merchant of Lyon, whom he had left to come to Paris to the office of a procureur at the Châtelet named Biterne. It was thus that he learned the art of drawing up an account and the more precious art of entangling it.

This stiffness of Colbert did him the greatest good, so true is it that fortune, when she has a caprice, resembles those women of Antiquity whom nothing in the physical and moral nature of things and of men rebuffs in their fancy.

Colbert, placed with Michel Letellier, secretary of state in 1648, by his cousin Colbert, lord of Saint-Pouange, who favored him, received one day from the minister a commission for the cardinal Mazarin. His Eminence the cardinal then enjoyed a flourishing health, and the bad years of the Fronde had not yet counted triple and quadruple for him. He was at Sedan, much embarrassed by a court intrigue in which Anne of Austria seemed willing to desert his cause.

This intrigue, Letellier held the threads of it. He had just received a letter from Anne of Austria, a letter most precious to him and most compromising for Mazarin; but as he already played the double role that served him so well, and always managed two enemies to profit from one and the other, either by embroiling them more than they were, or by reconciling them, Michel Letellier wished to send Anne of Austria's letter to Mazarin, so that he might take cognizance of it, and consequently so that he might be grateful for a service so gallantly rendered. To send the letter was easy; to recover it after communication was the difficulty.

Letellier cast his eyes around him, and seeing the black and lean clerk who was scribbling, his brow furrowed, in his offices, he preferred him to the best man-at-arms for the execution of this design. Colbert was to set out for Sedan with the order to communicate the letter to Mazarin and to bring it back to Letellier. He listened to his instructions with scrupulous attention, had the tenor repeated twice, insisted on the question of whether bringing it back was as necessary as communicating it, and Letellier said to him: — More necessary.

Then he departed, traveled like a courier without care for his body, and delivered to Mazarin, first a letter from Letellier which announced to the cardinal the sending of the precious letter, then that letter itself. Mazarin blushed deeply on seeing Anne of Austria's letter, gave Colbert a gracious smile and dismissed him.

— When the reply, my lord? said the courier humbly.

— Tomorrow.

— Tomorrow morning?

— Yes, sir.

The clerk turned on his heel and attempted his noblest bow.

The next day he was at his post from seven o'clock. Mazarin made him wait until ten. Colbert did not flinch in the antechamber; his turn come, he entered.

Mazarin then handed him a sealed packet. On the envelope of this packet were written these words: "To M. Michel Letellier, etc."

Colbert looked at the packet with much attention; the cardinal made a charming face and pushed him toward the door.

— And the letter of the queen mother, my lord? asked Colbert.

— It is with the rest, in the packet, said Mazarin.

— Ah! very well, replied Colbert.

And, placing his hat between his knees, he began to unseal the packet.

Mazarin uttered a cry.

— What are you doing! he said brutally.

— I am unsealing the packet, my lord.

— Do you distrust me, Mr. Clerk? Has one ever seen such impertinence!

— Oh! my lord, do not be angry with me! It is certainly not the word of Your Eminence that I call in question, God forbid.

— What then?

— It is the exactness of your chancellery, my lord. What is a letter? A scrap. Can a scrap not be forgotten?... And see, my lord, see, whether I was wrong! Your clerks forgot the scrap: the letter is not in the packet.

— You are an insolent fellow and you have seen nothing! cried Mazarin, irritated; withdraw and await my pleasure!

In saying these words, with an altogether Italian subtlety, he snatched the packet from Colbert's hands and withdrew into his apartments. But this anger could not last so long that it was not one day replaced by reasoning.

Mazarin, each morning, on opening the door of his cabinet, found Colbert's face on sentinel behind the bench, and this disagreeable face humbly asked him, but with tenacity, for the letter of the queen mother.

Mazarin could not bear it and had to return it. He accompanied this restitution with one of the roughest lectures, during which Colbert contented himself with examining, re-taking, even sniffing the paper, the characters and the signature, no more and no less than if he had had to do with the last forger in the kingdom. Mazarin treated him still more roughly, and Colbert, impassive, having acquired certainty that the letter was the true one, departed as if he had been deaf.

This conduct later won him Joubert's post, for Mazarin, instead of bearing a grudge, admired him and wished to attach such fidelity to himself.

One sees by this single story what the mind of Colbert was. Events, unfolding little by little, will leave all the springs of that mind to function freely. Colbert was not long in insinuating himself into the cardinal's good graces: he even became indispensable to him. All his accounts, the clerk knew them, without the cardinal ever having spoken to him of them. This secret between them, the two alone, was a powerful bond, and that is why, near to appearing before the master of another world, Mazarin wished to take a course and good counsel for disposing of the wealth he was forced to leave in this world here.

After Guénaud's visit, he therefore called Colbert, had him sit and said to him:

— Let us talk, Mr. Colbert, and seriously, for I am ill and it could be that I should come to die.

— Man is mortal, replied Colbert.

— I have always remembered that, Mr. Colbert, and I have worked in that expectation... You know that I have amassed a little wealth...

— I know it, my lord.

— At about how much do you estimate this wealth, Mr. Colbert?

— At forty million five hundred sixty thousand two hundred livres nine sous and eight deniers, answered Colbert.

The cardinal uttered a great sigh and looked at Colbert with admiration; but he permitted himself a smile.

— Known money, added Colbert in response to this smile.

The cardinal gave a start in his bed.

— What do you mean by that? said he.

— I mean, said Colbert, that besides these forty million five hundred sixty thousand two hundred livres nine sous eight deniers there are thirteen other millions that are not known.

— Ouf! sighed Mazarin, what a man!

At that moment Bernouin's head appeared in the doorway.

— What is it, he asked, and why am I disturbed?

— The father Theatin, director of His Eminence, had been summoned for this evening; he could not return to My Lord until the day after tomorrow.

Mazarin looked at Colbert, who at once took his hat saying: — I will return, my lord.

Mazarin hesitated.

— No, no, said he, I have as much need of you as of him. Besides, you are my other confessor, you... and what I say to one, the other may hear. Stay there, Colbert.

— But, my lord, if there is no secret of penance, will the director consent?

— Do not trouble yourself about that, step into the alcove.

— I can wait outside, my lord.

— No, no, better that you hear the confession of an honest man.

Colbert bowed and passed into the alcove.

— Show in the father Theatin, said Mazarin, closing the curtains.

Chapter XLV — Confession of an Honest Man

The Theatin entered deliberately, without too much wonder at the noise and movement that anxieties over the cardinal's health had raised in his house.

— Come, my reverend, said Mazarin after a last glance at the alcove; come and relieve me.

— It is my duty, my lord, replied the Theatin.

— Begin by seating yourself comfortably, for I am going to begin with a general confession; you will give me at once a good absolution, and I shall feel more tranquil.

— My lord, said the reverend, you are not so ill that a general confession is urgent... And it will be quite fatiguing, take care!

— You suppose there is much of it, my reverend?

— How believe it could be otherwise, when one has lived as fully as Your Eminence?

— Ah! it is true... Yes, the account may be long.

— The mercy of God is great, nasalled the Theatin.

— See, said Mazarin, there it is, I begin to frighten myself at having let pass so many things that the Lord might reprove.

— Is it not so? said naively the Theatin, moving his fine and pointed face, like that of a mole, away from the lamp. Sinners are like that: forgetful before, then scrupulous when it is too late.

— Sinners? replied Mazarin. Do you say that word with irony and to reproach me for all the genealogies that I have let be made concerning my account... myself, son of a fisherman, in truth?

— Hum! made the Theatin.

— That is a first sin, my reverend; for after all, I suffered that they should make me descend from the old consuls of Rome, T. Geganius Macerinus I, Macerinus II and Proculus Macerinus III, of whom Haolander's chronicle speaks... From Macerinus to Mazarin, the proximity was tempting. Macerinus, diminutive, means somewhat lean. Oh! my reverend, Mazarini may signify today, augmentatively, lean as a Lazarus. See!

And he showed his fleshless arms and his legs devoured by fever.

— That you were born of a family of fishermen, resumed the Theatin, I see nothing distressing in it for you... for after all, Saint Peter was a fisherman, and if you are a prince of the Church, my lord, he was its supreme head. Let us pass, if you please.

— All the more that I threatened with the Bastille a certain Bounet, priest of Avignon, who wished to publish a genealogy of Casa Mazarini much too marvelous.

— To be plausible? replied the Theatin.

— Oh! then, had I acted in that idea, my reverend, it was a vice of pride... another sin.

— It was an excess of wit, and never can one reproach anyone with those sorts of abuses. Let us pass, let us pass.

— I was at pride... You see, my reverend, I am going to try to divide this by capital sins.

— I like well-made divisions.

— I am glad of it. You must know that in 1630... alas! there are thirty-one years!

— You were twenty-nine years old, my lord.

— A boiling age. I cut a figure as a soldier by throwing myself at Casal into the arquebusade, to show that I rode a horse as well as an officer. It is true that I brought peace to the Spaniards and the French. That redeems a little my sin.

— I see not the least sin in showing that one rides a horse, said the Theatin, it is perfect taste, and it honors our cloth. In my quality as Christian, I approve that you prevented the shedding of blood; in my quality as religious, I am proud of the bravery a colleague showed.

Mazarin made a humble salute with his head.

— Yes, said he, but the consequences!

— What consequences?

— Eh! that damned sin of pride has endless roots... Since I had thrown myself thus between two armies, had sniffed powder and traversed soldiers' lines, I looked with a little pity upon the generals.

— Ah!

— There is the evil... So that I have found not one of them tolerable since that time.

— The fact is, said the Theatin, that the generals we had were not strong.

— Oh! cried Mazarin, there was M. the prince... I tormented him well, that one!

— He is not to be pitied, he has acquired enough glory and enough wealth.

— Granted for M. the prince; but M. de Beaufort, for example... whom I made suffer so much in the donjon of Vincennes?

— Ah! but he was a rebel, and the safety of the State required that you make the sacrifice... Let us pass.

— I believe I have exhausted pride. There is another sin that I fear to qualify...

— I will qualify it, I... Say on.

— A very great sin, my reverend.

— We shall see, my lord.

— You cannot fail to have heard tell of certain relations that I should have had... with Her Majesty the queen mother... The malevolent...

— The malevolent, my lord, are fools... Was it not necessary, for the good of the State and for the interest of the young king, that you live in good intelligence with the queen? Let us pass, let us pass.

— I assure you, said Mazarin, that you lift from my breast a terrible weight.

— Trifles, all that!... Seek the serious things.

— There is much ambition, my reverend...

— It is the march of great things, my lord.

— Even that velleity of the tiara?...

— To be pope is to be the first of Christians... Why should you not have desired it?

— It has been printed that I had, to arrive there, sold Cambrai to the Spaniards.

— You have perhaps yourself made pamphlets without too much persecuting the pamphleteers?

— Then, my reverend, I truly have a very clear heart. I feel no longer but slight peccadilloes.

— Say.

— Gaming.

— It is a little worldly; but after all, you were obliged, by the duty of greatness, to keep house.

— I liked to win...

— There is no player who plays to lose.

— I cheated a little...

— You took your advantage. Let us pass.

— Well! my reverend, I feel nothing at all more upon my conscience. Give me absolution, and my soul shall be able, when God calls it, to rise without obstacle to his throne.

The Theatin moved neither arms nor lips.

— What are you waiting for, my reverend, said Mazarin.

— I am waiting for the end.

— The end of what?

— Of the confession, my lord.

— But I have finished.

— Oh! no! Your Eminence is mistaken.

— Not that I know.

— Search well.

— I have searched as well as possible.

— Then I am going to aid your memory.

— Let us see.

The Theatin coughed several times.

— You do not speak to me of avarice, another capital sin, nor of those millions, said he.

— What millions, my reverend?

— But those you possess, my lord.

— My father, that money is mine, why should I speak to you of it?

— It is that, you see, our two opinions differ. You say that this money is yours, and, I, I believe it is a little others'.

Mazarin raised a cold hand to his brow beaded with sweat.

— How so? stammered he.

— Here. Your Eminence acquired much wealth in the service of the king...

— Hum! much... it is not too much.

— Be that as it may, whence came this wealth?

— From the State.

— The State is the king.

— But what do you conclude, my reverend? said Mazarin, who began to tremble.

— I cannot conclude without a list of the goods you have. Let us count a little, if you please: you have the bishopric of Metz.

— Yes.

— The abbeys of Saint-Clément, of Saint-Arnoud and of Saint-Vincent, still at Metz.

— Yes.

— You have the abbey of Saint-Denis, in France, a fine estate.

— Yes, my reverend.

— You have the abbey of Cluny, which is so rich.

— I have it.

— That of Saint-Médard, at Soissons, a hundred thousand livres of revenue.

— I do not deny it.

— That of Saint-Victor, at Marseille, one of the best of the South.

— Yes, my father.

— A good million a year. With the emoluments of the cardinalate and of the ministry, that is perhaps two millions a year.

— Eh!

— For ten years, that is twenty millions... and twenty millions placed at fifty per cent give, by progression, twenty other millions in ten years.

— How you count, for a Theatin!

— Since Your Eminence placed our order in the convent we occupy near Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in 1644, it is I who does the accounts of the society.

— And mine, it seems, my reverend.

— One must know a little of everything, my lord.

— Well! conclude now.

— I conclude that the baggage is too heavy for you to pass through the gate of paradise.

— I shall be damned?

— If you do not make restitution, yes.

Mazarin uttered a pitiable cry.

— Restitution! but to whom, good God!

— To the master of that money, to the king!

— But it is the king who gave me everything!...

— A moment! the king does not sign the ordinances!

Mazarin passed from sighs to moans.

— Absolution, said he.

— Impossible, my lord... Restitute, restitute, replied the Theatin.

— But, finally, you absolve me of all the sins; why not of that one?

— Because, answered the reverend, to absolve you for that motive is a sin of which the king would never absolve me, my lord.

Thereupon, the confessor left his penitent with a countenance full of compunction, then he went out with the same step as he had entered.

— Hola! my God, groaned the cardinal... Come here, Colbert; I am very ill, my friend!

Chapter XLVI — The Donation

Colbert reappeared from behind the curtains.

— Did you hear? said Mazarin.

— Alas! yes, my lord.

— Is he right? Is all that money ill-acquired wealth?

— A Theatin, my lord, is a poor judge in matters of finance, replied Colbert coldly. However it could be that, according to his theological ideas, Your Eminence had certain wrongs. One has always had them... when one is dying.

— One has first that of dying, Colbert.

— That is true, my lord. Toward whom, however, would the Theatin have found you at fault? Toward the king.

Mazarin shrugged his shoulders.

— As if I had not saved his State and his finances!

— That suffers no controversy, my lord.

— Is it not so? Therefore, I should have very legitimately earned a salary, despite my confessor?

— It is beyond doubt.

— And I could keep for my family, so needy, a good part... the whole even of what I have earned!

— I see no impediment to it, my lord.

— I was quite sure, in consulting you, Colbert, of having a wise opinion, replied Mazarin, quite joyful.

Colbert made his pedant's grimace.

— My lord, interrupted he, it would be well however to see whether what the Theatin said is not a snare.

— A snare... why? The Theatin is an honest man.

— He believed Your Eminence at the gates of the tomb, since Your Eminence consulted him... Did I not hear you say: "Distinguish what the king gave you from what you gave yourself..." Search well, my lord, whether he did not somewhat say that to you, it is quite a Theatin's word.

— It would be possible.

— In which case, my lord, I should regard you as put on notice by the religious...

— To restitute? cried Mazarin, all heated.

— Eh! I do not say no.

— To restitute all! You are not thinking... You speak like the confessor.

— To restitute a part, that is to say to make the king's share, and that, my lord, may have dangers. Your Eminence is too able a politician to ignore that at this hour the king possesses not a hundred fifty thousand livres net in his coffers.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”