“I know you are very exact.”
“Exactitude is the principal qualification required in an intendant of finances.”
“But all are not so.”
“I thank you majesty for so flattering a compliment from your own lips.”
“M. Fouquet, therefore, is rich—very rich, and I suppose every man knows he is so.”
“Every one, sire; the living as well as the dead.”
“What does that mean, Monsieur Colbert?”
“The living are witnesses of M. Fouquet’s wealth,—they admire and applaud the result produced; but the dead, wiser and better informed than we are, know how that wealth was obtained—and they rise up in accusation.”
“So that M. Fouquet owes his wealth to some cause or other.”
“The occupation of an intendant very often favors those who practice it.”