“I can qualify it myself. Tell it.”
“A great sin, Reverend Father!”
“We shall judge, Monseigneur.”
“You cannot fail to have heard of certain relations which I have had—with Her Majesty the queen-mother—the malevolent—”
“The malevolent, my lord, are fools. Was it not necessary for the good of the state and the interests of the young king, that you should live in good intelligence with the queen? Pass on, pass on!”
“I assure you,” said Mazarin, “you remove a terrible weight from my breast.”
“These are all trifles!—look for something serious.”
“I have had much ambition, Father.”
“That is the march of great minds and things, my lord.”
“Even the longing for the tiara?”
“To be pope is to be the first of Christians. Why should you not desire that?”
“It has been printed that, to gain that object, I had sold Cambria to the Spaniards.”
“You have, perhaps, yourself written pamphlets without severely persecuting pamphleteers.”
“Then, Reverend Father, I have truly a clean breast. I feel nothing remaining but slight peccadilloes.”
“What are they?”
“Play.”
“That is rather worldly: but you were obliged by the duties of greatness to keep a good house.”
“I like to win.”
“No player plays to lose.”
“I cheated a little.”
“You took your advantage. Pass on.”
“Well! Reverend Father, I feel nothing else upon my conscience. Give me absolution, and my soul will be able, when God shall please to call it, to mount without obstacle to the throne—”
The Théatin moved neither his arms nor his lips. “What are you waiting for, Father?” said Mazarin.
“I am waiting for the end.”
“The end of what?”
“Of the confession, Monsieur.”
“But I have ended.”
“Oh, no; Your Eminence is mistaken.”
“Not that I know of.”
“Search diligently.”
“I have searched as well as possible.”
“Then I shall assist your memory.”
“Do.”
The Théatin coughed several times. “You have said nothing of avarice, another capital sin, nor of those millions,” said he.
“What millions, Father?”
“Why, those you possess, my lord.”
“Father, that money is mine, why should I speak to you about that?”
“Because, you see, our opinions differ. You say that money is yours, whilst I—I believe it is rather the property of others.”
Mazarin lifted his cold hand to his brow, which was beaded with perspiration. “How so?” stammered he.
“This way. Your excellency had gained much wealth—in the service of the king.”
“Hum! much—that is, not too much.”
“Whatever it may be, whence came that wealth?”
“From the state.”
“The state; that is the king.”
“But what do you conclude from that, Father?” said Mazarin, who began to tremble.
“I cannot conclude without seeing a list of the riches you possess. Let us reckon a little, if you please. You have the bishopric of Metz?”
“Yes.”
“The abbeys of St. Clement, St. Arnould, and St. Vincent, all at Metz?”
“Yes.”
“You have the abbey of St. Denis, in France, magnificent property?”
“Yes, Father.”
“You have the abbey of Cluny, which is rich?”
“I have.”
“That of St. Médard at Soissons, with a revenue of one hundred thousand livres?”
“I cannot deny it.”
“That of St. Victor, at Marseilles—one of the best in the south?”
“Yes, Father.”
“A good million a year. With the emoluments of the cardinalship and the ministry, I say too little when I say two millions a year.”
“Eh!”
“In ten years that is twenty millions—and twenty millions put out at fifty percent give, by progression, twenty-three millions in ten years.”
“How well you reckon for a Théatin!”
“Since Your Eminence placed our order in the convent we occupy, near St. Germain des Prés, in 1644, I have kept the accounts of the society.”
“And mine likewise, apparently, Father.”
“One ought to know a little of everything, my lord.”
“Very well. Conclude, at present.”
“I conclude that your baggage is too heavy to allow you to pass through the gates of Paradise.”
“Shall I be damned?”
“If you do not make restitution, yes.”
Mazarin uttered a piteous cry. “Restitution!—but to whom, good God?”
“To the owner of that money—to the king.”
“But the king did not give it all to me.”
“One moment—does not the king sign the ordonances?”
Mazarin passed from sighs to groans. “Absolution! absolution!” cried he.
“Impossible, my lord. Restitution! restitution!” replied the Théatin.
“But you absolve me from all other sins, why not from that?”
“Because,” replied the father, “to absolve you for that motive would be a sin for which the king would never absolve me, my lord.”
Thereupon the confessor quitted his penitent with an air full of compunction. He then went out in the same manner he had entered.
“Oh, good God!” groaned the cardinal. “Come here, Colbert, I am very, very ill indeed, my friend.”
46
The Donation
Colbert reappeared beneath the curtains.
“Have you heard?” said Mazarin.
“Alas! yes, my lord.”
“Can he be right? Can all this money be badly acquired?”
“A Théatin, Monseigneur, is a bad judge in matters of finance,” replied Colbert, coolly. “And yet it is very possible that, according to his theological views, Your Eminence has been, in a certain degree, in the wrong. People generally find they have been so—when they die.”
“In the first place, they commit the wrong of dying, Colbert.”
“That is true, my lord. Against whom, however, did the Théatin make out that you had committed these wrongs? Against the king?”
Mazarin shrugged his shoulders. “As if I had not saved both his state and his finances.”
“That admits of no contradiction, my lord.”
“Does it? Then I have received a merely legitimate salary, in spite of the opinion of my confessor?”
“That is beyond doubt.”
“And I might fairly keep for my own family, which is so needy, a good fortune—the whole, even, of which I have earned?”
“I see no impediment to that, Monseigneur.”
“I felt assured that in consulting you, Colbert, I should have good advice,” replied Mazarin, greatly delighted.
Colbert resumed his pedantic look. “My lord,” interrupted he, “I think it would be quite as well to examine whether what the Théatin said is not a snare.”
“Oh! no; a snare? What for? The Théatin is an honest man.”
“He believed Your Eminence to be at death’s door, because Your Eminence consulted him. Did I not hear him say—‘Distinguish that which the king has given you from that which you have given yourself.’ Recollect, my lord, if he did not say something a little like that to you?—that is quite a theatrical speech.”
“That is
