“Not at all.”

“Have you never heard speak of a prosecution being instituted for an embezzlement, or appropriation rather, of public funds?”

“Yes, a hundred, nay, a thousand times.

Ever since I have been engaged in public matters I have hardly heard of anything else. It is precisely your own case, when, as a bishop, people reproach you for impiety; or, as a musketeer, for your cowardice; the very thing of which they are always accusing ministers of finance is the embezzlement of public funds.”

“Very good; but take a particular instance, for the duchesse asserts that M. de Mazarin alludes to certain particular instances.”

“What are they?”