“What else?” said Fouquet.

“You will please to remark,” said the abbe, humbly, “that I have asked nothing for myself.”

“That is delicate, monsieur,” replied Fouquet; “so, as you see, I wait.”

“And I ask nothing, oh! no, — it is not for want of need, though, I assure you.”

The minister reflected for a minute. “Twelve hundred pistoles to the tailor; that seems a great deal for clothes,” said he.

“I maintain a hundred men,” said the abbe, proudly; “that is a charge, I believe.”

“Why a hundred men?” said Fouquet. “Are you a Richelieu or a Mazarin, to require a hundred men as a guard? What use do you make of these men? —