Oppressive measures of the cardinal.
Mazarin, as we have mentioned, had acquired enormous wealth. The resources of the kingdom had been in his hands. The poor had been oppressed by as terrible a system of taxation as human nature could endure and live. With the sums thus extorted, he had not only maintained the army, and supported the voluptuousness of the court, but he had also appropriated vast sums, without the slightest right to do so, to his own private enrichment. He was now dying. The thought of going to the bar of God with his hands full of this stolen gold tortured him. Constrained by the anguish of a death-bed, he sent for a Theatine monk to act as his confessor, and to administer, in his last hours, the services of the Church.
Confession of Mazarin.
The virtuous monk was quite startled when the cardinal, with pale and trembling lips, informed him that he had accumulated a fortune of over forty millions of francs—$8,000,000. Mazarin allowed that he considered it a sin that he had by such means accumulated such vast wealth. His pious confessor boldly declared that the cardinal would peril his eternal salvation if he did not, before his death, make restitution of all his ill-gotten gains, reserving only that for which he was indebted to the bounty of the king.
The dying sinner, trembling in view of the judgment, replied in faltering accents, "In that case I must relinquish all. I have received nothing from the king. My family must be left in utter beggary."
The confessor was deeply moved by the aspect of despair presented by the cardinal. Embarrassed by the difficulties of the position, he sent for a distinguished member of the court, M. Colbert, to confer with upon the situation.
Advice of M. Colbert.
The shrewd courtier, after a little deliberation, suggested that, as it would be manifestly impossible to restore the money to the different individuals, scattered all over the realm, from whom it had been gathered in the ordinary collection of the taxes, the cardinal should make a transfer of it, as a donation, to the sovereign. "The king," added M. Colbert, "will, without any question, annul so generous an act, and restore the property to you. It will then be yours by royal grant."
Suspense of the cardinal.