"Humph!" thought Mazarin, "he is going to restore me some scraps; let us get the largest piece we can."
"The king is going to be foolishly affected and play generous," thought the queen; "he must not be allowed to impoverish himself; such an opportunity for getting a fortune will never occur again."
"Sire," said the cardinal, aloud, "my family is very numerous, and my nieces will be destitute when I am gone."
"Oh," interrupted the queen, eagerly, "have no uneasiness with respect to your family, dear Monsieur Mazarin; we have no friends dearer than your friends; your nieces shall be my children, the sisters of his majesty; and if a favor be distributed in France, it shall be to those you love."
"Smoke!" thought Mazarin, who knew better than any one the faith that can be put in the promises of kings. Louis read the dying man's thought in his face.
"Be comforted, my dear Monsieur Mazarin," said he, with a half-smile, sad beneath its irony; "the Mesdemoiselles de Mancini will lose, in losing you, their most precious good; but they shall none the less be the richest heiresses of France; and since you have been kind enough to give me their dowry" - the cardinal was panting - "I restore it to them," continued Louis, drawing from his breast and holding towards the cardinal's bed the parchment which contained the donation that, during two days, had kept alive such tempests in the mind of Mazarin.
"What did I tell you, my lord?" murmured in the alcove a voice which passed away like a breath.
"Your majesty returns my donation!" cried Mazarin, so disturbed by joy as to forget his character of a benefactor.
"Your majesty rejects the forty millions!" cried Anne of Austria, so stupefied as to forget her character of an afflicted wife, or queen.
"Yes, my lord cardinal; yes, madame," replied Louis XIV., tearing the parchment which Mazarin had not yet ventured to clutch; "yes, I annihilate this deed, which despoiled a whole family. The wealth acquired by his eminence in my service is his own wealth and not mine."
"But, sire, does your majesty reflect," said Anne of Austria, "that you have not ten thousand crowns in your coffers?"
"Madame, I have just performed my first royal action, and I hope it will worthily inaugurate my reign."
"Ah! sire, you are right!" cried Mazarin; "that is truly great - that is truly generous which you have just done." And he looked, one after the other, at the pieces of the act spread over his bed, to assure himself that it was the original and not a copy that had been torn. At length his eyes fell upon the fragment which bore his signature, and recognizing it, he sunk back on his bolster in a swoon. Anne of Austria, without strength to conceal her regret, raised her hands and eyes towards heaven.
"Oh! sire," cried Mazarin, "may you be blessed! My God! May you be beloved by all my family. _Per Baccho!_ If ever any of those belonging to me should cause your displeasure, sire, only frown, and I will rise from my tomb!"