"Oh, I hardly dare accept such a sum."
"You would be wrong if you did not. Besides, a hundred thousand francs is really not much. I know but too well that you never set a right value upon your silence and your secrecy. Push that table a little toward me, duchesse, and I will write you an order on M. Colbert; no, on M. Fouquet, who is a far more courteous and obliging man."
"Will he pay it, though?"
"If he will not pay it, I will; but it will be the first time he will have refused me."
The queen wrote and handed the duchesse the order, and afterward dismissed her with a warm and cheerful embrace.
CHAPTER LII.
HOW JEAN DE LA FONTAINE WROTE HIS FIRST TALE.
All these intrigues are exhausted; the human mind, so variously complicated, has been enabled to develop itself at its ease in the three outlines with which our recital has supplied it. It is not unlikely that, in the future we are now preparing, a question of politics and intrigues may still arise, but the springs by which they work will be so carefully concealed that no one will be able to see aught but flowers and paintings, just as at a theater, where a Colossus appears upon the scene walking along moved by the small legs and slender arms of a child concealed within the framework.
We now return to Saint-Mandé, where the surintendant was in the habit of receiving his select society of epicureans. For some time past the host had met with some terrible trials. Every one in the house was aware of and felt the minister's distress. No more magnificent or recklessly improvident reunions. Money had been the pretext assigned by Fouquet, and never was any pretext, as Gourville said, more fallacious, for there was not the slightest appearance of money.