"May I ask, sir, if your affairs have in any way ameliorated since my departure?"
"Ameliorated!" Fongereues repeated with an angry gesture, "no, quite the contrary. Ruin is approaching with rapid strides, and in a few months I shall be lost!"
"But the favor of His Majesty—"
Fongereues laughed bitterly. "His Majesty cares little for me. Ever since I was unfortunate enough to displease his fair friend, the tide has turned."
"But can nothing be done?"
Fongereues shrugged his shoulders. "What is the use? I am sick of manœuvering and intriguing. I have told the king that his faithful emigrés should be his best counsellors, and that it was his duty as well as his interest to rely on me. But it was of no use.
"They think they have paid us," the Marquis continued, "because they have thrown us, as food to the dogs, a few louis of indemnity. As if France were not ours, as if we had no rights over these people who have assassinated their king and kissed the feet of an adventurer; but they are afraid, and talk of patience. I told His Majesty, one day, of my embarrassments. 'Sir,' he said to me, 'a Fongereues never begs!' and the next day I received four thousand louis. Confound the nonsense!"
Cyprien could not refrain from a smile. Four thousand louis did not seem to him a trifle, nor nonsense.
"But His Majesty is interested in your son."
"My son! These Puritans have much to say about my son. He gambles and he does other shocking things. One would think, to hear them talk, that they were themselves paragons of virtue. As soon as the Vicomte marries and settles down—by the way, what about Mademoiselle de Salves?"