Part 7

— I have already told you that I never ask, replied Louis with a pride that made the King of England turn pale.

And as the latter, like a wounded man, made a movement of retreat:

— Pardon, my brother, he resumed: I have no mother, no sister who suffers; my throne is hard and bare, but I sit firm upon my throne. Pardon, my brother, do not reproach me with that word: it is the word of a selfish man; I shall therefore atone for it by a sacrifice. I am going to find Monsieur the Cardinal. Wait for me, I pray you. I shall return.

Chapter X — The Arithmetic of Monsieur de Mazarin

While the king was rapidly making his way toward the wing of the castle occupied by the cardinal, taking with him only his valet de chambre, the officer of the musketeers came out, breathing like a man who has been forced to hold his breath for a long time, from the small cabinet of which we have already spoken and which the king believed to be empty. This small cabinet had formerly formed part of the bedchamber; it was separated from it only by a thin partition. The result was that this separation, which existed only for the eyes, allowed even the least indiscreet ear to hear all that passed in that room.

There was therefore no doubt that this lieutenant of the musketeers had heard all that had taken place in His Majesty's presence. Warned by the young king's last words, he therefore left it in time to salute him as he passed and to follow him with his gaze until he had disappeared down the corridor.

Then, when he had disappeared, he shook his head in a manner that belonged to him alone, and in a voice which forty years spent outside of Gascony had not been able to deprive of its Gascon accent:

— Sad service! said he; sad master!

Then, these words spoken, the lieutenant resumed his place in his armchair, stretched out his legs, and closed his eyes like a man who sleeps or meditates. During this short monologue and the staging that had followed it, while the king, through the long corridors of the old castle, made his way to Monsieur de Mazarin, a scene of another sort was taking place at the cardinal's.

Mazarin had gone to bed somewhat tormented by the gout, but as he was a man of order who turned even pain to account, he forced his wakefulness to be the very humble servant of his work. Accordingly, he had had Bernouin, his valet de chambre, bring him a small traveling desk, so that he might write in his bed. But the gout is not an adversary to be so easily vanquished, and as, at every movement he made, the dull pain became acute:

— Is not Brienne there? he asked Bernouin.

— No, my lord, replied the valet de chambre. Monsieur de Brienne, on your leave, has gone to bed; but if it is the desire of Your Eminence, he can perfectly well be awakened.

— No, it is not worth the trouble. Let us see, however. Accursed figures!

And the cardinal fell to dreaming while counting on his fingers.

— Oh! figures! said Bernouin. Good! if Your Eminence plunges into his calculations, I promise him for tomorrow the finest migraine! and with that, Monsieur Guénaud is not here.

— You are right, Bernouin. Well! you shall replace Brienne, my friend. Truly, I ought to have brought Monsieur de Colbert with me. That young man does well, Bernouin, very well. A man of order!

— I know not, said the valet de chambre, but I do not like his face, I, your young man who does well.

— That will do, that will do, Bernouin! Your opinion is not needed. Sit there, take the pen, and write.

— Here I am, my lord. What am I to write?

— There, that is well, following the two lines already traced.

— Here I am.

— Write. Seven hundred sixty thousand livres.

— It is written.

— On Lyon...

The cardinal seemed to hesitate.

— On Lyon, repeated Bernouin.

— Three million nine hundred thousand livres.

— Very good, my lord.

— On Bordeaux, seven million.

— Seven, repeated Bernouin.

— Eh! yes, said the cardinal with ill humor, seven.

Then, correcting himself:

— Eh! my lord, whether it be to spend or to collect, little do I care, since all those millions are not mine.

— Those millions are the king's; it is the king's money that I am reckoning. Let us see, where were we?... You are always interrupting me!

— Seven million, on Bordeaux.

— Ah! yes, that is true. On Madrid, four. I explain to you well to whom this money belongs, Bernouin, seeing that everyone is foolish enough to believe me rich in millions. I, for my part, reject the folly. A minister has nothing of his own, besides. Let us see, continue. General receipts, seven million. Properties, nine million. Have you written, Bernouin?

— Yes, my lord.

— Purse, six hundred thousand livres; sundry values, two million. Ah! I was forgetting: furnishings of the various castles...

— Are the crown pieces to be included? asked Bernouin.

— No, no, useless; it is understood. Have you written, Bernouin?

— Yes, my lord.

— And the figures?

— Are aligned one below another.

— Add them up, Bernouin.

— Thirty-nine million two hundred sixty thousand livres, my lord.

— Ah! said the cardinal with an expression of vexation, there is not yet forty million!

Bernouin began the addition again.

— No, my lord, there lacks seven hundred forty thousand livres.

Mazarin asked for the account and reviewed it attentively.

— It is equal, said Bernouin, thirty-nine million two hundred sixty thousand livres, that makes a pretty penny.

— Ah! Bernouin, that is what I should like to see in the king.

— His Eminence was telling me that this money was His Majesty's.

— No doubt, but very clear, very liquid. Those thirty-nine million are pledged, and far beyond.

Bernouin smiled in his fashion, that is to say like a man who believes only what he wills to believe, while preparing the cardinal's night drink and straightening his pillow.

— Oh! said Mazarin when the valet de chambre had gone out, not yet forty million! Yet I must arrive at that figure of forty-five million which I have set myself.

"But who knows if I shall have the time! I am declining, I am going, I shall not arrive. Yet, who knows if I shall not find two or three million in the pockets of our good friends the Spaniards? They discovered Peru, those people, and, the devil! something of it must remain to them.

As he thus spoke, wholly occupied with his figures and thinking no more of his gout, driven off by a preoccupation which, in the cardinal, was the most powerful of all preoccupations, Bernouin rushed into his room in great alarm.

— Well! said the cardinal, what is the matter?

— The king! My lord, the king!

— How, the king! said Mazarin, rapidly hiding his paper. The king here! the king at this hour! I thought him long since abed. What then is the matter?

Louis XIV was able to hear these last words and to see the alarmed gesture of the cardinal raising himself in his bed, for he was entering the room at that moment.

— There is nothing, Monsieur the Cardinal, or at least nothing that need alarm you; it is an important communication which I had need to make this very evening to Your Eminence, that is all.

Mazarin at once thought of that marked attention which the king had given to his words touching Mlle de Mancini, and the communication appeared to him to come from that source. He brightened therefore on the instant and assumed his most charming air, a change of countenance of which the young king felt an extreme joy, and when Louis had seated himself:

— Sire, said the cardinal, I should certainly listen to Your Majesty standing, but the violence of my pain...

— No ceremony between us, dear Monsieur the Cardinal, said Louis affectionately; I am your pupil and not the king, you know it well, and this evening especially, since I come to you as a petitioner, as a suitor, and even as a suitor most humble and most desirous of being well received.

Mazarin, seeing the king's reddening, was confirmed in his first idea, that is to say that there was a thought of love beneath all those fair words. This time, the cunning politician, cunning as he was, was mistaken: this reddening was caused not by the bashful impulses of a youthful passion, but only by the painful contraction of royal pride.

Like a good uncle, Mazarin disposed himself to facilitate the confidence.

— Speak, said he, Sire, and since Your Majesty is pleased for an instant to forget that I am your subject in order to call me your master and your tutor, I protest to Your Majesty all my devoted and tender sentiments.

— Thanks, Monsieur the Cardinal, replied the king. What I have to ask of Your Eminence is besides of little account for you.

— So much the worse, replied the cardinal, so much the worse, Sire. I could wish that Your Majesty asked of me something important and even a sacrifice... but, whatever you may ask of me, I am ready to relieve your heart by granting it, my dear Sire.

— Well! here is what it concerns, said the king with a beating of the heart which had for equal in precipitation only the beating of the minister's heart: I have just received the visit of my brother the King of England.

Mazarin bounded in his bed as if he had been put in contact with the Leyden jar or the Voltaic pile, at the same time that a surprise or rather a manifest disappointment lit his face with such a flash of anger that Louis XIV, little diplomat as he was, saw well that the minister had hoped to hear something quite other.

— Charles II! cried Mazarin with a raucous voice and a disdainful movement of the lips. You have received the visit of Charles II!

— Of King Charles II, resumed Louis XIV, granting with affectation to the grandson of Henri IV the title which Mazarin forgot to give him. Yes, Monsieur the Cardinal, that unhappy prince touched my heart in recounting his misfortunes. His distress is great, Monsieur the Cardinal, and it seemed painful to me, who have seen my throne disputed, who was forced, in days of turmoil, to leave my capital; to me, in short, who knows misfortune, to leave without support a dispossessed and fugitive brother.

— Eh! said the cardinal with vexation, had he not, like you, Sire, a Jules Mazarin near him! his crown would have been kept intact for him.

— I know all that my house owes to Your Eminence, replied the king proudly, and believe well that for my part, Monsieur, I shall never forget it. It is precisely because my brother the King of England has not near him the powerful genius which saved me, it is for that, I say, that I would conciliate for him the aid of that same genius, and pray your arm to extend over his head, well assured, Monsieur the Cardinal, that your hand, in but touching him, would know to replace upon his brow his crown, fallen at the foot of his father's scaffold.

— Sire, replied Mazarin, I thank you for your good opinion of me, but we have nothing to do there: they are madmen who deny God and cut off the heads of their kings. They are dangerous, you see, Sire, and foul to touch since they have wallowed in royal blood and in covenanting mud. That policy has never suited me, and I reject it.

— Also you can help us to substitute another for it.

— Which?

— The restoration of Charles II, for example.

— Eh! my God! replied Mazarin, would the poor Sire flatter himself with that chimera?

— But yes, replied the young king, alarmed at the difficulties which the so sure eye of his minister seemed to foresee in this project; he asks even for that but a single million.

— That is all. A little million, if you please? said the cardinal ironically, forcing his Italian accent. A little million, if you please, my brother? Beggar family, indeed!

— Cardinal, said Louis XIV, raising his head, that beggar family is a branch of my family.

— Are you rich enough to give millions to others, Sire? have you millions?

— Oh! replied Louis XIV with a supreme pain which he nevertheless forced, by dint of will, not to burst forth upon his face; oh! yes, Monsieur the Cardinal, I know that I am poor, but in fine the crown of France is well worth a million, and to do a good deed, I shall pawn, if need be, my crown. I shall find Jews who will lend me a million well enough?

— Thus, Sire, you say that you have need of a million? asked Mazarin.

— Yes, Monsieur, I say it.

— You are much mistaken, Sire, and you have need of far more than that. Bernouin!... You shall see, Sire, of how much you have need in reality... Bernouin!

— What now! cardinal, said the king, you are going to consult a lackey upon my affairs?

— Bernouin! cried again the cardinal, without seeming to remark the humiliation of the young prince. Come here, and tell me the figure which I asked you just now, my friend.

— Cardinal, cardinal, have you not heard me? said Louis, paling with indignation.

— Sire, do not be angry; I treat the affairs of Your Majesty in full daylight, I. All France knows it, my books are up to date. What was I having you do just now, Bernouin?

— Your Eminence was having me make an addition.

— You made it, did you not?

— Yes, my lord.

— To establish the sum of which His Majesty had need at this moment? Was I not saying that to you? Be frank, my friend.

— Your Eminence was saying it to me.

— Well! what sum did I desire?

— Forty-five million, I believe.

— And what sum should we find in uniting all our resources?

— Thirty-nine million two hundred sixty thousand francs.

— That is well, Bernouin, that is all I wished to know; leave us now, said the cardinal, fixing his brilliant gaze upon the young king, mute with stupor.

— But however... stammered the king.

— Ah! you still doubt! Sire, said the cardinal. Well! here is the proof of what I told you. And Mazarin drew from beneath his bolster the paper covered with figures, which he presented to the king, who turned away his eyes, so deep was his grief.

— Thus, as it is a million that you desire, Sire, that million not being entered there, it is therefore of forty-six million that Your Majesty has need. Well! there are no Jews in the world who lend such a sum, even upon the crown of France. The king, clenching his fists beneath his ruffles, pushed back his armchair.

— That is well, said he, my brother the King of England shall therefore die of hunger.

— Sire, replied Mazarin in the same tone, recall to mind that proverb which I give you here as the expression of the soundest policy: "Rejoice to be poor when your neighbor is poor also."

Louis meditated some moments, while casting a curious glance upon the paper of which one end passed under the bolster.

— Then, said he, there is impossibility of granting my request for money, Monsieur the Cardinal?

— Absolute, Sire.

— Think that this will make me an enemy later if he mounts again to the throne without me.

— If Your Majesty fears only that, let her be at peace, said the cardinal quickly.

— That is well, I insist no further, said Louis XIV.

— Have I convinced you, at least, Sire? said the cardinal, placing his hand upon that of the king.

— Perfectly.

— Anything else, ask it, Sire, and I shall be happy to grant it you, having refused you this one.

— Anything else, Monsieur?

— Eh! yes, am I not body and soul at the service of Your Majesty? Ho there! Bernouin, torches, guards for His Majesty! His Majesty returns to his apartments.

— Not yet, Monsieur, and since you put your good will at my disposal, I shall make use of it.

— For you, Sire? asked the cardinal, hoping that it was at last to be a question of his niece.

— No, Monsieur, not for me, replied Louis, but for my brother Charles always.

The face of Mazarin darkened, and he muttered some words which the king could not hear.

Chapter XI — The Politics of Monsieur de Mazarin

Instead of the hesitation with which he had a quarter of an hour before approached the cardinal, one could read then in the eyes of the young king that will against which one may struggle, which one will perhaps break by one's own impotence, but which at least will keep, like a wound at the bottom of the heart, the memory of its defeat.

— This time, Monsieur the Cardinal, it concerns a thing easier to find than a million.

— You believe that, Sire? said Mazarin, looking at the king with that cunning eye which read to the bottom of hearts.

— Yes, I believe it, and when you shall know the object of my request...

— And do you believe then that I do not know it, Sire?

— You know what remains for me to say to you?

— Listen, Sire, here are the very words of King Charles...

— Oh! indeed!

— Listen. And if that miser, that craven Italian, has he said...

— Monsieur the Cardinal!...

— There is the sense, if not the words. Eh! my God! I bear him no ill will for that, Sire; each sees with his passions.

"He has therefore said: And if that craven Italian refuses you the million we ask of him, Sire; if we are forced, for lack of money, to renounce diplomacy, well! we shall ask him for five hundred gentlemen...

The king started, for the cardinal had erred only as to the figure.

— Is it not so, Sire, that that is it? cried the minister with a triumphant accent; then he added fine words, he said: I have friends on the other side of the strait; these friends lack only a chief and a banner.

"When they see me, when they see the banner of France, they will rally to me, for they will understand that I have your support. The colors of the French uniform will be worth to me near as much as the million which Monsieur de Mazarin will have refused us.

"(For he knew well that I should refuse it, that million.) I shall conquer with those five hundred gentlemen, Sire, and all the honor shall be yours. That is what he said, or thereabouts, is it not? enveloping these words in brilliant metaphors, in pompous images, for they are talkative in that family! The father spoke even upon the scaffold.

The sweat of shame flowed upon the brow of Louis. He felt that it was beneath his dignity to hear his brother thus insulted, but he knew not yet how one wished, above all in face of him before whom he had seen all bow, even his mother. At length he made an effort.

— But, said he, Monsieur the Cardinal, it is not five hundred men, it is two hundred.

— You see well that I had guessed what he asked.

— I have never denied, Monsieur, that you had not a deep eye, and it is for that I thought that you would not refuse my brother Charles a thing as simple and as easy to grant as that which I ask you in his name, Monsieur the Cardinal, or rather in my own.

— Sire, said Mazarin, it is thirty years that I make politics. I made it first with Monsieur the Cardinal de Richelieu, then all alone.

"This politics has not always been very honest, it must be owned; but it has never been clumsy. Now, that which is proposed at this moment to Your Majesty is dishonest and clumsy at once.

— Dishonest, Monsieur!

— Sire, you made a treaty with Mr. Cromwell.

— Yes; and in that very treaty Mr. Cromwell signed above me.

— Why did you sign so low, Sire? Mr. Cromwell found a good place, he took it; it was quite his habit. I return therefore to Mr. Cromwell. You made a treaty with him, that is to say with England, since when you signed that treaty Mr. Cromwell was England.

— Mr. Cromwell is dead.

— You believe that, Sire?

— But doubtless, since his son Richard succeeded him and even abdicated.

— Well! there it is exactly! Richard inherited at the death of Cromwell, and England at the abdication of Richard. The treaty formed part of the inheritance, whether it were in the hands of Mr. Richard or in the hands of England. The treaty is therefore good always, valid as ever. Why would you elude it, Sire? What is changed? Charles II wishes today what we would not wish ten years ago; but that is a foreseen case. You are the ally of England, Sire, and not of Charles II. It is dishonest, no doubt, from the point of view of the family, to have signed a treaty with a man who had the head cut off of the brother-in-law of the king your father, and to have contracted an alliance with a Parliament which they call there a Rump Parliament; it is dishonest, I grant, but it was not clumsy from the point of view of politics, since, thanks to that treaty, I saved for Your Majesty, still a minor, the troubles of an external war, which the Fronde... you recall the Fronde, Sire (the young king lowered his head), which the Fronde would have fatally complicated. And that is how I prove to Your Majesty that to change route now without warning our allies would be at once clumsy and dishonest. We should make war putting the wrongs on our side; we should make it, deserving that it be made upon us, and we should seem to fear it, all while provoking it; for a permission to five hundred men, to two hundred men, to fifty men, to ten men, is still a permission. A Frenchman, that is the nation; a uniform, that is the army. Suppose, for example, Sire, that you have war with Holland, which sooner or later will certainly happen, or with Spain, which will perhaps happen if your marriage fails (Mazarin looked deeply at the king), and there are a thousand causes which may make your marriage fail; well! would you approve of England's sending to the United Provinces or to the Infanta a regiment, a company, even a squad of English gentlemen? Would you find that she kept honestly within the limits of her treaty of alliance?

Louis listened; it seemed strange to him that Mazarin should invoke good faith, he the author of so many political tricks which were called mazarinades.

— But in fine, said the king, without manifest authorization, I cannot prevent gentlemen of my State from crossing into England if such is their good pleasure.

— You ought to constrain them to return, Sire, or at least protest against their presence as enemies in an allied country.

— But in fine, let us see, you, Monsieur the Cardinal, you a genius so profound, let us seek a means of aiding that poor king without compromising ourselves.

— And that is just what I do not wish, my dear Sire, said Mazarin. England would act according to my desires that she could not act better; I would direct from here the politics of England that I would not direct otherwise.

"Governed as she is governed, England is for Europe an eternal nest of quarrels. Holland protects Charles II: let Holland do it; they will anger each other, they will fight; they are the two sole maritime powers; let them destroy their navies one by the other; we shall build ours with the wreckage of their ships, and again when we have money to buy nails.

— Oh! how poor and mean is all that you tell me there, Monsieur the Cardinal!

“Stories of the world, in your language.”