Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas Chapter 81 Page 6

of Buckingham, the only man whom she had ever really loved, and the heroism of those obscure champions who had saved her from the double hatred of Richelieu and the king.

Mazarin looked at her, and whilst she deemed herself alone and freed from the world of enemies who sought to spy into her secret thoughts, he read her thoughts in her countenance, as one sees in a transparent lake clouds pass — reflections, like thoughts, of the heavens.

“Must we, then,” asked Anne of Austria, “yield to the storm, buy peace, and patiently and piously await better times?”

Mazarin smiled sarcastically at this speech, which showed that she had taken the minister’s proposal seriously.

Anne’s head was bent down —