“And do you think I do not know it, sire?”
“You know what remains for me to say to you?”
“Listen, sire; these are King Charles’s own words — ”
“Oh, impossible!”
“Listen. ‘And if that miserly, beggarly Italian,’ said he — ”
“My lord cardinal!”
“That is the sense, if not the words. Eh! Good heavens! I wish him no ill on that account; one is biased by his passions. He said to you: ‘If that vile Italian refuses the million we ask of him, sire, — if we are forced, for want of money, to renounce diplomacy, well, then, we will ask him to grant us five hundred gentlemen.’“
The