“Has not your eminence observed, that during the last month I have changed my remedies ten times?”
“Yes. Well?”
“Well, I have spent fifty thousand crowns in purchasing the secrets of all these fellows: the list is exhausted, and so is my purse. You are not cured; and but for my art, you would be dead.”
“That ends it!” murmured the cardinal; “that ends it.” And he threw a melancholy look upon the riches which surrounded him. “And must I quit all that?” sighed he. “I am dying, Guenaud! I am dying!”
“Oh! not yet, my lord,” said the physician.
Mazarin seized his hand. “In what time?” asked he, fixing his two large eyes upon the impassible countenance of the physician.
“My lord, we never tell that.”
“To ordinary men, perhaps not;—but to me—to me, whose every minute is worth a treasure. Tell me, Guenaud, tell me!”
“No, no, my lord.”
“I insist upon it, I tell you. Oh! give me a month and for every one of those thirty days I will pay you a hundred thousand crowns.”