“And you will guarantee, that if I give my forty millions to the king — ”

“Saying certain things to him at the same time, I guarantee he will refuse them.”

“But those things — what are they?”

“I will write them, if my lord will have the goodness to dictate them.”

“Well, but, after all, what advantage will that be to me?”

“An enormous one. Nobody will afterwards be able to accuse your eminence of that unjust avarice with which pamphleteers have reproached the most brilliant mind of the present age.”

“You are right, Colbert, you are right; go, and seek the king, on my part, and take him my will.”