“I respectfully await it, sire.”

“Rest yourself, Monsieur Fouquet, do not throw away your strength; the session of the States will be short, and when my secretaries shall have closed it, I do not wish business to be talked of in France for a fortnight.”

“Has the king nothing to say to me on the subject of this assembly of the States?”

“No, Monsieur Fouquet.”

“Not to me, the surintendant of the finances?”

“Rest yourself, I beg you; that is all I have to say to you.”

Fouquet bit his lips and hung his head.

He was evidently busy with some uneasy thought. This uneasiness struck the king.