“Dishonest, monsieur!”
“Sire, you entered into a treaty with Cromwell.”
“Yes, and in that very treaty Cromwell signed his name above mine.”
“Why did you sign yours so low down, sire? Cromwell found a good place, and he took it; that was his custom. I return, then, to M. Cromwell. You have a treaty with him, that is to say, with England, since when you signed that treaty M. Cromwell was England.”
“M. Cromwell is dead.”
“Do you think so, sire?”
“No doubt he is, since his son Richard has succeeded him, and has abdicated.”
“Yes, that is it exactly. Richard inherited after the death of his father, and England at the abdication of Richard. The treaty formed part of the inheritance, whether in the hands of M. Richard or in the hands of England. The treaty is, then, still as good, as valid as ever. Why should you evade it, sire? What is changed? Charles wants to-day what we were not willing to grant him ten years ago; but that was foreseen and provided against. You are the ally of England, sire, and not of Charles II. It was doubtless wrong, from a family point of view, to sign a treaty with a man who had cut off the head of the king your father’s brother-in-law, and to contract an alliance with a parliament which they call yonder the Rump Parliament; it was unbecoming, I acknowledge, but it was not unskillful from a political point of view, since, thanks to that treaty, I saved your majesty, then a minor, the trouble and danger of a foreign war, which the Fronde—you remember the Fronde sire?”—the young king hung his head—“which the Fronde might have fatally complicated. And thus I prove to your majesty that to change our plan now; without warning our allies, would be at once unskillful and dishonest. We should make war with the aggression on our side, we should make it, deserving to have it made against us, and we should have the appearance of fearing it whilst provoking it, for a permission granted to five hundred men, to two hundred men, to fifty men, to ten men, is still a permission. One Frenchman, that is the nation; one uniform, that is the army. Suppose, sire, for example, that, sooner or later, you should have war with Holland, which, sooner or later, will certainly happen; or with Spain, which will perhaps ensue if your marriage fails” (Mazarin stole a furtive glance at the king), “and there are a thousand causes that might yet make your marriage fail,—well, would you approve of England’s sending to the United Provinces or to Spain a regiment, a company, a squadron even, of English gentlemen? Would you think that they kept within the limits of their treaty of alliance?”
Louis listened; it seemed so strange to him that Mazarin should invoke good faith, and he the author of so many political tricks, called Mazarinades. “And yet,” said the king, “without any manifest authorization, I cannot prevent gentlemen of my states from passing over into England, if such should be their good pleasure.”
“You should compel them to return, sire, or at least protest against their presence as enemies in an allied country.”