“And you are going to show those letters to M. Fouquet?”
“I prefer to talk about them with you, instead.”
“You must be in sad want of money, my poor friend, to think of such things as these—you, too, who held M. de Mazarin’s prose effusions in such indifferent esteem.”
“The fact is, I am in want of money.”
“And then,” continued Aramis, in cold accents, “it must have been very distressing to you to be obliged to have recourse to such a means. It is cruel.”
“Oh! if had wished to do harm instead of good,” said Madame de Chevreuse, “instead of asking the general of the order, or M. Fouquet, for the five hundred thousand francs I require, I—”
“Five hundred thousand francs!”
“Yes; no more. Do you think it much? I require at least as much as that to restore Dampierre.”
“Yes, madame.”
“I say, therefore, that instead of asking for this amount, I should have gone to see my old friend the queen-mother; the letters from her husband, Signor Mazarini, would have served me as an introduction, and I should have begged this mere trifle of her, saying to her, ‘I wish, madame, to have the honor of receiving you at Dampierre. Permit me to put Dampierre in a fit state for that purpose.’”