Anne blushed and buried her face in her hands.

“What am I to do?” she said, bowed down beneath the voice of her tyrant.

“Endeavor to remember the names of those faithful servants who crossed the Channel, in spite of Monsieur de Richelieu, tracking the roads along which they passed by their blood, to bring back to your majesty certain jewels given by you to Buckingham.”

Anne arose, full of majesty, and as if touched by a spring, and looking at the cardinal with the haughty dignity which in the days of her youth had made her so powerful: “You are insulting me!” she said.

“I wish,” continued Mazarin, finishing, as it were, the speech this sudden movement of the queen had cut;