Ten Years Later: The Man in The Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas Chapter 10 Page 18

debts, and restored the finances to a sound condition, M. Fouquet will be able to remain the sovereign ruler in his little court of poets and painters, — we shall have made him rich.

When that has been done, and I have become your royal highness’s prime minister, I shall be able to think of my own interests and yours.”

The young man looked at his interrogator.

“M. de Richelieu, of whom we were speaking just now, was very much to blame in the fixed idea he had of governing France alone, unaided. He allowed two kings, King Louis XIII. and himself, to be seated on the self-same throne, whilst he might have installed them more conveniently upon two separate and distinct thrones.”

“Upon two thrones?”