“Yes, sire.”

“And yet the cardinal was attached to you?” added the king, ingenuously.

“I had assured his eminence you would by no means accept the gift,” said Colbert, in that same quiet manner we have described, and which, even in the common habits of life, had something solemn in it.

Louis passed his hand over his brow: “Oh! how young I am,” murmured he, “to have command of men.”

Colbert waited the end of this monologue. He saw Louis raise his head. “At what hour shall I send the money to your majesty?” asked he.

“To-night, at eleven o’clock; I desire that no one may know that I possess this money.”