He has just risen from his bed. He reposes in a chair on wheels, in which he is rolled from frescoed gallery to marble vestibule; from corridors of pictures to precious libraries; from dainty retiring-rooms to painted pavilions, from guard-room saloon—those superb saloons where he received the Court.
He even penetrates to the stables, and surveys his priceless stud; he ventures into the magnificent gardens which surround his palace, to feast his eyes on all his vast possessions. Returning again, greatly fatigued, to the picture-gallery, he bids his attendants pause. He rests, absorbed in thought, under a Holy Family, by Raphael, a work beyond price, now in the Louvre. Here he desires his attendants to leave him. His secretary, who is never beyond call, he commands to wait his pleasure in the anteroom, behind the thick silken hangings that veil the door. Inadvertently this door is left ajar, and the secretary, curious to know what his master is doing, looks through a chink in the curtain, and watches him. The Cardinal, when he has glanced round carefully—to be sure he is alone—lays hold of a crutch placed ready to his hand, and with the utmost difficulty struggles to his feet, for they are swollen, and almost useless from gout. After many efforts he disengages himself from the chair, and reaches the ground, then, balancing himself upon the crutch and any object near at hand, he moves a few steps, stopping for lack of breath. (The secretary doubts if he should not rush in before he falls, so uncertain and tottering are Mazarin's movements, but he forbears, fearful of angering the Cardinal, whom suffering has made irritable.)
Mazarin sighs deeply as he limps on from picture to picture, and surveys his favourite works.
"I feel better," he says, speaking aloud. "If I could only get my breath, I should recover. Diamine! I shall—I will recover. I cannot leave my pictures—such a collection,"—and he turns round with difficulty, and surveys the galleries—"not yet complete—to pass into other hands. No, no—it cannot be; I feel stronger already. I—alone in my gallery—without those spies always about me to see my weakness—I can breathe." And he draws a long breath. The long breath ends in a groan. "That divine Raffaello!" and again he sighs, and turns to the gem of his collection, a Nativity. "Raffaello is my religion. Credo in Raffaello! What anima! That exquisite Virgin! and the Christ nestling in her arms! I wonder who sat for that virgin? She must have been a perfect creature! I salute her di cuore. That picture came to me from the King of Spain—a bribe. Who cares? I never refuse a present. The King knows my taste. He sent me word there were many more to come if I concluded a peace. I did conclude a peace; I took that picture and others; but Sangue di Dio, I was faithful to France. Ah, ha! I was too sharp for him—a dull king! That torso there, dug up at Portici—what stalwart limbs! what grand proportions! How finely the shadows fall upon the thigh from that passing cloud. Aha! my foot!" (and he shakes on his crutches so violently the secretary's head and shoulders are inside the room, only the Cardinal does not see him). "I am better now," falters Mazarin, "much better"; then, taking a few steps onwards, he pauses before a Titian. "Venus, my Goddess!—Laus Veneri. Oh, the warmth of the flesh tints, the turn of that head and neck—divine! I gave a great price for that picture; but, Cospetto! it was not my own money," and he laughs feebly. "It will sell for double! That Paolo Veronese and that Tintoretto yonder came from the sale of Charles I. of England, after his execution—those English ruffians! What supple forms, what classic features!—like my native Romans in the Imperial city, where the very beggars think themselves equal to kings; and so they are, per Dio. Glorious Italy! Ah, cielo!" and he creeps on to a favourite landscape by Caracci, lit, as it were, by the living sunshine of the south. "Ah, that sun—I feel it—wonderful! wonderful!—a gem of the eclectic school of Bologna, given to me by the Archbishop. Poor man, he was not, like me, satisfied with art—ha, ha!"—his laugh ends in a severe fit of coughing. "He liked nature. He could not stand inquiry.—I helped him. Oh, my foot!" (And he totters so helplessly, that the secretary, watching him with curious eyes, again nearly rushes in; for if Mazarin dies his salary ceases.) Recovering, however, he steadies himself against the pedestal of a marble group just arrived from Rome, "Leda and the Swan." He drags himself with difficulty into the recess where it was placed, shifting his position, in order to catch the precise light in which to view the rounded limbs of the figure. "What grace, what abandon, in that female form!—a trifle leste for the gallery of a prelate—presented, too, by a lady—a woman of taste, above prejudices. No one has seen it. I must invite the Court—the Queen-mother will be scandalised. Ha, ha! the Queen-mother!" and he feebly winks and laughs; his laugh brings on another fit of convulsive coughing. (The secretary is on the threshold.) "I must not die before I have disposed of my pictures," Mazarin mutters, breathing again; "I cannot bear to die!—now, too, that I have triumphed over all my enemies." The Cardinal sighs heavily, shakes his head, and casts a longing glance round the painted walls. He tries to move onwards; but his strength fails him, suddenly his hands are cramped, the crutch falls on the floor, he groans, sinks into a chair, and faintly calls for assistance.
The secretary is with him in an instant, and summons the attendants. Weary, and utterly exhausted, they lay him on his bed, where he weeps and groans, as much from anguish of mind as from bodily pain. He feels that nothing can amuse or delight him more, neither singing men nor singing women, the wonders of art, or the flattery of Courts. From henceforth to him the world must evermore be mute; the flowers in the gardens he has created shall no longer fling their scented blossoms at his feet; to him the birds are dumb in the groves he has planted, the fruits cease to be luscious, and the sun is already darkened by the shadow of death. His face turns of an ashy hue, and he feebly calls for his physician.
One of the many attendants that hover about his bed (each one hoping to be remembered in that will of his, of which all Paris has heard), flies to fetch him. He appears in the person of Guénaud, the Court doctor of that day.
Mazarin has revived a little. He is propped up on pillows, to relieve his breathing, which, by reason of the oppression on his chest, is laboured and difficult. At the sight of Guénaud he trembles; his teeth chatter. He has summoned the leech, and now he dares not hear what he has to say. Mazarin, with his sensuous Italian temperament, clings wildly to life. He shrinks from the dark horrors of the grave—he, who adores sunshine, warmth, open air, and beauty.
"Well, Guénaud, well. You are in haste to come to me."
"Your eminence sent for me," replied the physician gravely, bowing to the ground; then he contemplates the Cardinal with that all-seeing eye for obvious symptoms and for remote details, that makes the glance of a doctor so awful to the sick.