cried Fouquet. “How is it that that name rises upon all occasions to torment my ears, during the last two or three days? You make so trifling a subject of too much importance, Gourville. Let M. Colbert appear, I will face him; let him raise his head, I will crush him; but you understand, there must be an outline upon which my look may fall, there must be a surface upon which my feet may be placed.”

“Patience, monseigneur; for you do not know what Colbert is — study him quickly; it is with this dark financier as it is with meteors, which the eye never sees completely before their disastrous invasion; when we feel them we are dead.”

“Oh! Gourville, this is going too far,” replied Fouquet, smiling; “allow me, my friend, not to be so easily