“Quite as much as that.”

“And no one will lend you them?”

“No one.”

“I will lend them to you, if you like, duchesse.”

“Oh, I hardly dare accept such a sum.”

“You would be wrong if you did not. Besides, a hundred thousand francs is really not much. I know but too well that you never set a right value upon your silence and secrecy.

Push that table a little towards me, duchesse, and I will write you an order on M. Colbert; no, on M. Fouquet, who is a far more courteous and obliging man.”

“Will he pay it, though?”

“If he will not pay it, I will; but it will be the first time he will have refused me.”

The queen wrote and handed the duchesse the order, and afterwards dismissed her with a warm embrace.