Александр Дюма
Ten Years Later
CHAPTER 45. Confession of a Man of Wealth
The Theatin entered deliberately, without being too much astonished at the noise and agitation which anxiety for the cardinal's health had raised in his household. "Come in, my reverend father," said Mazarin, after a last look at the ruelle, "come in and console me."
"That is my duty, my lord," replied the Theatin.
"Begin by sitting down, and making yourself comfortable, for I am going to begin with a general confession, you will afterwards give me a good absolution, and I shall believe myself more tranquil."
"My lord," said the father, "you are not so ill as to make a general confession urgent – and it will be very fatiguing – take care."
"You suspect then, that it may be long, father"
"How can I think it otherwise, when a man has lived so completely as your eminence has done?"
"Ah! that is true! – yes – the recital may be long."
"The mercy of God is great," snuffled the Theatin.
"Stop," said Mazarin; "there I begin to terrify myself with having allowed so many things to pass which the Lord might reprove."
"Is not that always so?" said the Theatin naively, removing further from the lamp his thin pointed face, like that of a mole. "Sinners are so forgetful beforehand, and scrupulous when it is too late."
"Sinners?" replied Mazarin. "Do you use that word ironically, and to reproach me with all the genealogies I have allowed to be made on my account – I – the son of a fisherman, in fact?" *
* This is quite untranslatable – it being a play upon the
words pecheur, a sinner, and pecheur, a fisherman. It is in
very bad taste. – TRANS.
"Hum!" said the Theatin.
"That is a first sin, father; for I have allowed myself made to descend from two old Roman consuls, S. Geganius Macerinus 1st, Macerinus 2d, and Proculus Macerinus 3d, of whom the Chronicle of Haolander speaks. From Macerinus to Mazarin the proximity was tempting. Macerinus, a diminutive, means leanish, poorish, out of case. Oh! reverend father! Mazarini may now be carried to the augmentative Maigre, thin as Lazarus. Look!" and he showed his fleshless arms.
"In your having been born of a family of fishermen I see nothing injurious to you; for – St. Peter was a fisherman; and if you are a prince of the church, my lord, he was the supreme head of it. Pass on, if you please."
"So much the more for my having threatened with the Bastile a certain Bounet, a priest of Avignon, who wanted to publish a genealogy of the Casa Mazarini much too marvelous."
"To be probable?" replied the Theatin.
"Oh! if I had acted up to his idea, father, that would have been the vice of pride – another sin."
"It was excess of wit, and a person is not to be reproached with such sorts of abuses. Pass on, pass on!"
"I was all pride. Look you, father, I will endeavor to divide that into capital sins."
"I like divisions, when well made."
"I am glad of that. You must know that in 1630 – alas! that is thirty-one years ago – "
"You were then twenty-nine years old, monseigneur."
"A hot-headed age. I was then something of a soldier, and I threw myself at Casal into the arquebuscades, to show that I rode on horseback as well as an officer. It is true, I restored peace between the French and the Spaniards. That redeems my sin a little."
"I see no sin in being able to ride well on horseback," said the Theatin; "that is in perfect good taste, and does honor to our gown. As a Christian, I approve of your having prevented the effusion of blood; as a monk I am proud of the bravery a monk has exhibited."
Mazarin bowed his head humbly. "Yes," said he, "but the consequences?"
"What consequences?"
"Eh! that damned sin of pride has roots without end. From the time that I threw myself in that manner between two armies, that I had smelt powder and faced lines of soldiers, I have held generals a little in contempt."
"Ah!" said the father.
"There is the evil; so that I have not found one endurable since that time."
"The fact is," said the Theatin, "that the generals we have had have not been remarkable."
"Oh!" cried Mazarin, "there was Monsieur le Prince. I have tormented him thoroughly."
"He is not much to be pitied: he has acquired sufficient glory, and sufficient wealth."
"That may be, for Monsieur le Prince; but M. Beaufort, for example – whom I held suffering so long in the dungeon of Vincennes?"
"Ah! but he was a rebel, and the safety of the state required that you should make a sacrifice. Pass on!"
"I believe I have exhausted pride. There is another sin which I am afraid to qualify."
"I can qualify it myself. Tell it."
"A great sin, reverend father!"
"We shall judge, monseigneur."
"You cannot fail to have heard of certain relations which I have had – with her majesty the queen-mother; – the malevolent – "
"The malevolent, my lord, are fools. Was it not necessary for the good of the state and the interests of the young king, that you should live in good intelligence with the queen? Pass on, pass on!"
"I assure you," said Mazarin, "you remove a terrible weight from my breast."
"These are all trifles! – look for something serious."
"I have had much ambition, father."
"That is the march of great minds and things, my lord."
"Even the longing for the tiara?"
"To be pope is to be the first of Christians. Why should you not desire that?"
"It has been printed that, to gain that object, I had sold Cambria to the Spaniards."
"You have, perhaps, yourself written pamphlets without severely persecuting pamphleteers."
"Then, reverend father, I have truly a clean breast. I feel nothing remaining but slight peccadilloes."
"What are they?"
"Play."
"That is rather worldly: but you were obliged by the duties of greatness to keep a good house."
"I like to win."
"No player plays to lose."
"I cheated a little."
"You took your advantage. Pass on."
"Well! reverend father, I feel nothing else upon my conscience. Give me absolution, and my soul will be able, when God shall please to call it, to mount without obstacle to the throne – "
The Theatin moved neither his arms nor his lips. "What are you waiting for, father?" said Mazarin.
"I am waiting for the end."
"The end of what?"
"Of the confession, monsieur."
"But I have ended."
"Oh, no; your eminence is mistaken."
"Not that I know of."
"Search diligently."
"I have searched as well as possible."
"Then I shall assist your memory."
"Do."
The Theatin coughed several times. "You have said nothing of avarice, another capital sin, nor of those millions," said he.
"What millions, father?"
"Why, those you possess, my lord."
"Father, that money is mine, why should I speak to you about that?"
"Because, see you, our opinions differ. You say that money is yours, whilst I – I believe it is rather the property of others."
Mazarin lifted his cold hand to his brow, which was beaded with perspiration. "How so?" stammered he.
"This way. Your excellency has gained much wealth – in the service of the king."
"Hum! much – that is, not too much."
"Whatever it may be, whence came that wealth?
"From the state."
"The state, that is the king."
"But what do you conclude from that, father?" said Mazarin, who began to tremble.
"I cannot conclude without seeing a list of the riches you possess. Let us reckon a little, if you please. You have the bishopric of Metz?"
"Yes."
"The abbeys of St. Clement, St. Arnould, and St. Vincent, all at Metz?"
"Yes."
"You have the abbey of St. Denis, in France, a magnificent property?"
"Yes, father."
"You have the abbey of Cluny, which is rich?"
"I have."
"That of St. Medard at Soissons, with a revenue of one hundred thousand livres?"
"I cannot deny it."
"That of St. Victor, at Marseilles, – one of the best in the south?"
"Yes, father."
"A good million a year. With the emoluments of the cardinalship and the ministry, I say too little when I say two millions a year."
"Eh!"
"In ten years that is twenty millions, – and twenty millions put out at fifty per cent give, by progression, twenty-three millions in ten years."
"How well you reckon for a Theatin!"
"Since your eminence placed our order in the convent we occupy, near St. Germain des Pres, in 1641, I have kept the accounts of the society."
"And mine likewise, apparently, father."
"One ought to know a little of everything, my lord."
"Very well. Conclude, at present."
"I conclude that your baggage is too heavy to allow you to pass through the gates of Paradise."
"Shall I be damned?"
"If you do not make restitution, yes."
Mazarin uttered a piteous cry. "Restitution! – but to whom, good God?"
"To the owner of that money, – to the king."
"But the king did not give it all to me."
"One moment, – does not the king sign the ordonnances?"
Mazarin passed from sighs to groans. "Absolution! absolution!" cried he.
"Impossible, my lord. Restitution! restitution!" replied the Theatin.
"But you absolve me from all other sins, why not from that?"
"Because," replied the father, "to absolve you for that motive would be a sin for which the king would never absolve me, my lord."
Thereupon the confessor quitted his penitent with an air full of compunction. He then went out in the same manner he had entered.
"Oh, good God!" groaned the cardinal. "Come here, Colbert, I am very, very ill indeed, my friend."
CHAPTER 46. The Donation
Colbert reappeared beneath the curtains.
"Have you heard?" said Mazarin.
"Alas! yes, my lord."
"Can he be right? Can all this money be badly acquired?"
"A Theatin, monseigneur, is a bad judge in matters of finance," replied Colbert, coolly. "And yet it is very possible that, according to his theological ideas, your eminence has been, in a certain degree, in the wrong. People generally find they have been so, – when they die."
"In the first place, they commit the wrong of dying, Colbert."
"That is true, my lord. Against whom, however, did the Theatin make out that you had committed these wrongs? Against the king?!"
Mazarin shrugged his shoulders. "As if I had not saved both his state and his finances."
"That admits of no contradiction, my lord."
"Does it? Then I have received a merely legitimate salary, in spite of the opinion of my confessor?"
"That is beyond doubt."
"And I might fairly keep for my own family, which is so needy, a good fortune, – the whole, even, of which I have earned?"
"I see no impediment to that, monseigneur."
"I felt assured that in consulting you, Colbert, I should have good advice," replied Mazarin, greatly delighted.
Colbert resumed his pedantic look. "My lord," interrupted he, "I think it would be quite as well to examine whether what the Theatin said is not a snare."
"Oh! no; a snare? What for? The Theatin is an honest man."
"He believed your eminence to be at death's door, because your eminence consulted him. Did not I hear him say – 'Distinguish that which the king has given you from that which you have given yourself.' Recollect, my lord, if he did not say something a little like that to you? – that is quite a theatrical speech."
"That is possible."
"In which case, my lord, I should consider you as required by the Theatin to – "
"To make restitution!" cried Mazarin, with great warmth.
"Eh! I do not say no."
"What, of all! You do not dream of such a thing! You speak just as the confessor did."
"To make restitution of a part, – that is to say, his majesty's part; and that, monseigneur, may have its dangers. Your eminence is too skillful a politician not to know that, at this moment, the king does not possess a hundred and fifty thousand livres clear in his coffers."
"That is not my affair," said Mazarin, triumphantly; "that belongs to M. le Surintendant Fouquet, whose accounts I gave you to verify some months ago."
Colbert bit his lips at the name of Fouquet. "His majesty," said he, between his teeth, "has no money but that which M. Fouquet collects: your money, monseigneur, would afford him a delicious banquet."
"Well, but I am not the superintendent of his majesty's finances – I have my purse – surely I would do much for his majesty's welfare – some legacy – but I cannot disappoint my family."
"The legacy of a part would dishonor you and offend the king. Leaving a part to his majesty is to avow that that part has inspired you with doubts as to the lawfulness of the means of acquisition."
"Monsieur Colbert!"
"I thought your eminence did me the honor to ask my advice?"
"Yes, but you are ignorant of the principal details of the question."
"I am ignorant of nothing, my lord; during ten years, all the columns of figures which are found in France have passed in review before me, and if I have painfully nailed them into my brain, they are there now so well riveted, that, from the office of M. Letellier, who is sober, to the little secret largesses of M. Fouquet, who is prodigal, I could recite, figure by figure, all the money that is spent in France from Marseilles to Cherbourg."
"Then, you would have me throw all my money into the coffers of the king!" cried Mazarin, ironically; and from whom, at the same time, the gout forced painful moans. "Surely the king would reproach me with nothing, but he would laugh at me, while squandering my millions, and with good reason."
"Your eminence has misunderstood me. I did not, the least in the world, pretend that his majesty ought to spend your money."
"You said so clearly, it seems to me, when you advised me to give it to him."
"Ah," replied Colbert, "that is because your eminence, absorbed as you are by your disease, entirely loses sight of the character of Louis XIV."
"How so?"
"That character, if I may venture to express myself thus, resembles that which my lord confessed just now to the Theatin."
"Go on – that is?"
"Pride! Pardon me, my lord, haughtiness, nobleness; kings have no pride, that is a human passion."
"Pride, – yes, you are right. Next?"
"Well, my lord, if I have divined rightly, your eminence has but to give all your money to the king, and that immediately."
"But for what?" said Mazarin, quite bewildered.
"Because the king will not accept of the whole."
"What, and he a young man, and devoured by ambition?"
"Just so."
"A young man who is anxious for my death – "
"My lord!"
"To inherit, yes, Colbert, yes; he is anxious for my death in order to inherit. Triple fool that I am! I would prevent him!"
"Exactly: if the donation were made in a certain form he would refuse it."
"Well, but how?"
"That is plain enough. A young man who has yet done nothing – who burns to distinguish himself – who burns to reign alone, will never take anything ready built, he will construct for himself. This prince, monseigneur, will never be content with the Palais Royal, which M. de Richelieu left him, nor with the Palais Mazarin, which you have had so superbly constructed, nor with the Louvre, which his ancestors inhabited; nor with St. Germain, where he was born. All that does not proceed from himself, I predict, he will disdain."
"And you will guarantee, that if I give my forty millions to the king – "
"Saying certain things to him at the same time, I guarantee he will refuse them."
"But those things – what are they?"
"I will write them, if my lord will have the goodness to dictate them."
"Well, but, after all, what advantage will that be to me?"
"An enormous one. Nobody will afterwards be able to accuse your eminence of that unjust avarice with which pamphleteers have reproached the most brilliant mind of the present age."
"You are right, Colbert, you are right; go, and seek the king, on my part, and take him my will."
"Your donation, my lord."
"But, if he should accept it; if he should even think of accepting it!"
"Then there would remain thirteen millions for your family, and that is a good round sum."
"But then you would be either a fool or a traitor."
"And I am neither the one nor the other, my lord. You appear to be much afraid that the king will accept; you have a deal more reason to fear that he will not accept."
"But, see you, if he does not accept, I should like to guarantee my thirteen reserved millions to him – yes, I will do so – yes. But my pains are returning, I shall faint. I am very, very ill, Colbert; I am very near my end!"
Colbert started. The cardinal was indeed very ill; large drops of sweat flowed down upon his bed of agony, and the frightful pallor of a face streaming with water was a spectacle which the most hardened practitioner could not have beheld without compassion. Colbert was, without doubt, very much affected, for he quitted the chamber, calling Bernouin to attend the dying man and went into the corridor. There, walking about with a meditative expression, which almost gave nobility to his vulgar head, his shoulders thrown up, his neck stretched out, his lips half open, to give vent to unconnected fragments of incoherent thoughts, he lashed up his courage to the pitch of the undertaking contemplated, whilst within ten paces of him, separated only by a wall, his master was being stifled by anguish which drew from him lamentable cries, thinking no more of the treasures of the earth, or of the joys of Paradise, but much of all the horrors of hell. Whilst burning-hot napkins, physic, revulsives, and Guenaud, who was recalled, were performing their functions with increased activity, Colbert, holding his great head in both his hands, to compress within it the fever of the projects engendered by the brain, was meditating the tenor of the donation he would make Mazarin write, at the first hour of respite his disease should afford him. It would appear as if all the cries of the cardinal, and all the attacks of death upon this representative of the past, were stimulants for the genius of this thinker with the bushy eyebrows, who was turning already towards the rising sun of a regenerated society. Colbert resumed his place at Mazarin's pillow at the first interval of pain, and persuaded him to dictate a donation thus conceived.
"About to appear before God, the Master of mankind, I beg the king, who was my master on earth, to resume the wealth which his bounty has bestowed upon me, and which my family would be happy to see pass into such illustrious hands. The particulars of my property will be found – they are drawn up – at the first requisition of his majesty, or at the last sigh of his most devoted servant,
"Jules, Cardinal de Mazarin."
The cardinal sighed heavily as he signed this; Colbert sealed the packet, and carried it immediately to the Louvre, whither the king had returned.
He then went back to his own home, rubbing his hands with the confidence of a workman who has done a good day's work.
CHAPTER 47. How Anne of Austria gave one Piece of Advice to Louis XIV., and how M. Fouquet gave him another
The news of the extreme illness of the cardinal had already spread, and attracted at least as much attention among the people of the Louvre as the news of the marriage of Monsieur, the king's brother, which had already been announced as an official fact. Scarcely had Louis XIV. returned home, with his thoughts fully occupied with the various things he had seen and heard in the course of the evening, when an usher announced that the same crowd of courtiers who, in the morning, had thronged his levee, presented themselves again at his coucher, a remarkable piece of respect which, during the reign of the cardinal, the court, not very discreet in its preferences, had accorded to the minister, without caring about displeasing the king.
But the minister had had, as we have said, an alarming attack of gout, and the tide of flattery was mounting towards the throne. Courtiers have a marvelous instinct in scenting the turn of events; courtiers possess a supreme kind of science; they are diplomatists in throwing light upon the unraveling of complicated intrigues, captains in divining the issue of battles, and physicians in curing the sick. Louis XIV., to whom his mother had taught this axiom, together with many others, understood at once that the cardinal must be very ill.
Scarcely had Anne of Austria conducted the young queen to her apartments and taken from her brow the head-dress of ceremony, when she went to see her son in his cabinet, where, alone, melancholy and depressed, he was indulging, as if to exercise his will, in one of those terrible inward passions – king's passions – which create events when they break out, and with Louis XIV., thanks to his astonishing command over himself, became such benign tempests, that his most violent, his only passion, that which Saint Simon mentions with astonishment, was that famous fit of anger which he exhibited fifty years later, on the occasion of a little concealment of the Duc de Maine's and which had for result a shower of blows inflicted with a cane upon the back of a poor valet who had stolen a biscuit. The young king then was, as we have seen, a prey to a double excitement; and he said to himself as he looked in a glass, "O king! – king by name, and not in fact; – phantom, vain phantom art thou! – inert statue, which has no other power than that of provoking salutations from courtiers, when wilt thou be able to raise thy velvet arm, or clench thy silken hand? when wilt thou be able to open, for any purpose but to sigh, or smile, lips condemned to the motionless stupidity of the marbles in thy gallery?"
Then, passing his hand over his brow, and feeling the want of air, he approached a window, and looking down, saw below some horsemen talking together, and groups of timid observers. These horsemen were a fraction of the watch: the groups were busy portions of the people, to whom a king is always a curious thing, the same as a rhinoceros, a crocodile, or a serpent. He struck his brow with his open hand, crying, – "King of France! what title! People of France! what a heap of creatures! I have just returned to my Louvre; my horses, just unharnessed, are still smoking, and I have created interest enough to induce scarcely twenty persons to look at me as I passed. Twenty! what do I say? no; there were not twenty anxious to see the king of France. There are not even ten archers to guard my place of residence: archers, people, guards, all are at the Palais Royal! Why, my good God! have not I, the king, the right to ask of you all that?"
"Because," said a voice, replying to his, and which sounded from the other side of the door of the cabinet, "because at the Palais Royal lies all the gold, – that is to say, all the power of him who desires to reign."
Louis turned sharply round. The voice which had pronounced these words was that of Anne of Austria. The king started, and advanced towards her. "I hope," said he, "your majesty has paid no attention to the vain declamations which the solitude and disgust familiar to kings suggest to the happiest dispositions?"
"I only paid attention to one thing, my son, and that was, that you were complaining."
"Who! I? Not at all," said Louis XIV.; "no, in truth, you err, madame."
"What were you doing, then?"
"I thought I was under the ferule of my professor, and developing a subject of amplification."
"My son," replied Anne of Austria, shaking her head, "you are wrong not to trust my word; you are wrong not to grant me your confidence. A day will come, and perhaps quickly, wherein you will have occasion to remember that axiom: – 'Gold is universal power; and they alone are kings who are all-powerful.'"
"Your intention," continued the king, "was not, however, to cast blame upon the rich men of this age, was it?
"No," said the queen, warmly; "no, sire; they who are rich in this age, under your reign, are rich because you have been willing they should be so, and I entertain against them neither malice nor envy; they have, without doubt, served your majesty sufficiently well for your majesty to have permitted them to reward themselves. That is what I mean to say by the words for which you reproach me."
"God forbid, madame, that I should ever reproach my mother with anything!"
"Besides," continued Anne of Austria, "the Lord never gives the goods of this world but for a season; the Lord – as correctives to honor and riches – the Lord has placed sufferings, sickness, and death; and no one," added she, with a melancholy smile, which proved she made the application of the funeral precept to herself, "no man can take his wealth or greatness with him to the grave. It results, therefore, that the young gather the abundant harvest prepared for them by the old."
Louis listened with increased attention to the words which Anne of Austria, no doubt, pronounced with a view to console him. "Madame," said he, looking earnestly at his mother, "one would almost say in truth that you had something else to announce to me."
"I have absolutely nothing, my son; only you cannot have failed to remark that his eminence the cardinal is very ill."
Louis looked at his mother, expecting some emotion in her voice, some sorrow in her countenance. The face of Anne of Austria appeared a little changed, but that was from sufferings of quite a personal character. Perhaps the alteration was caused by the cancer which had begun to consume her breast. "Yes, madame," said the king; "yes, M. de Mazarin is very ill."
"And it would be a great loss to the kingdom if God were to summon his eminence away. Is not that your opinion as well as mine, my son?" said the queen.
"Yes, madame; yes, certainly, it would be a great loss for the kingdom," said Louis, coloring; "but the peril does not seem to me to be so great; besides, the cardinal is still young." The king had scarcely ceased speaking when an usher lifted the tapestry, and stood with a paper in his hand, waiting for the king to speak to him.
"What have you there?" asked the king.
"A message from M. de Mazarin," replied the usher.
"Give it to me," said the king; and he took the paper. But at the moment he was about to open it, there was a great noise in the gallery, the ante-chamber, and the court.
"Ah, ah," said Louis XIV., who doubtless knew the meaning of that triple noise. "How could I say there was but one king in France! I was mistaken, there are two."
As he spoke or thought thus, the door opened, and the superintendent of the finances, Fouquet, appeared before his nominal master. It was he who made the noise in the ante-chamber, it was his horses that made the noise in the courtyard. In addition to all this, a loud murmur was heard along his passage, which did not die away till some time after he had passed. It was this murmur which Louis XIV. regretted so deeply not hearing as he passed, and dying away behind him.
"He is not precisely a king, as you fancy," said Anne of Austria to her son; "he is only a man who is much too rich – that is all."
Whilst saying these words, a bitter feeling gave to these words of the queen a most hateful expression; whereas the brow of the king, calm and self-possessed, on the contrary, was without the slightest wrinkle. He nodded, therefore, familiarly to Fouquet, whilst he continued to unfold the paper given to him by the usher. Fouquet perceived this movement, and with a politeness at once easy and respectful, advanced towards the queen, so as not to disturb the king. Louis had opened the paper, and yet he did not read it. He listened to Fouquet paying the most charming compliments to the queen upon her hand and arm. Anne of Austria's frown relaxed a little, she even almost smiled. Fouquet perceived that the king, instead of reading, was looking at him; he turned half round, therefore, and while continuing his conversation with the queen, faced the king.
"You know, Monsieur Fouquet," said Louis, "how ill M. Mazarin is?"
"Yes, sire, I know that," said Fouquet; "in fact, he is very ill. I was at my country-house of Vaux when the news reached me; and the affair seemed so pressing that I left at once."
"You left Vaux this evening, monsieur?"
"An hour and a half ago, yes, your majesty," said Fouquet, consulting a watch, richly ornamented with diamonds.
"An hour and a half!" said the king, still able to restrain his anger, but not to conceal his astonishment.
"I understand you, sire. Your majesty doubts my word, and you have reason to do so, but I have really come in that time, though it is wonderful! I received from England three pairs of very fast horses, as I had been assured. They were placed at distances of four leagues apart, and I tried them this evening. They really brought me from Vaux to the Louvre in an hour and a half, so your majesty sees I have not been cheated." The queen-mother smiled with something like secret envy. But Fouquet caught her thought. "Thus, madame," he promptly said, "such horses are made for kings, not for subjects; for kings ought never to yield to any one in anything."
The king looked up.
"And yet," interrupted Anne of Austria, "you are not a king, that I know of, M. Fouquet."
"Truly not, madame; therefore the horses only await the orders of his majesty to enter the royal stables; and if I allowed myself to try them, it was only for fear of offering to the king anything that was not positively wonderful."
The king became quite red.
"You know, Monsieur Fouquet," said the queen, "that at the court of France it is not the custom for a subject to offer anything to his king."
Louis started.
"I hoped, madame," said Fouquet, much agitated, "that my love for his majesty, my incessant desire to please him, would serve to compensate the want of etiquette. It was not so much a present that I permitted myself to offer, as the tribute I paid."
"Thank you, Monsieur Fouquet," said the king politely, "and I am gratified by your intention, for I love good horses; but you know I am not very rich; you, who are my superintendent of finances, know it better than any one else. I am not able, then, however willing I may be, to purchase such a valuable set of horses."
Fouquet darted a haughty glance at the queen-mother, who appeared to triumph at the false position in which the minister had placed himself, and replied: —
"Luxury is the virtue of kings, sire: it is luxury which makes them resemble God: it is by luxury they are more than other men. With luxury a king nourishes his subjects, and honors them. Under the mild heat of this luxury of kings springs the luxury of individuals, a source of riches for the people. His majesty, by accepting the gift of these six incomparable horses, would stimulate the pride of his own breeders, of Limousin, Perche, and Normandy, and this emulation would have been beneficial to all. But the king is silent, and consequently I am condemned."
