“For your assistance, that is to say, not only for that which kings owe to each other, but that which simple Christians owe to each other—your assistance, sire, either in money or men. Your assistance, sire, and within a month, whether I oppose Lambert to Monk, or Monk to Lambert, I shall have reconquered my paternal inheritance, without having cost my country a guinea, or my subjects a drop of blood, for they are now all drunk with revolutions, protectorates, and republics, and ask nothing better than to fall staggering to sleep in the arms of royalty. Your assistance, sire, and I shall owe you more than I owe my father,—my poor father, who bought at so dear a rate the ruin of our house! You may judge, sire, whether I am unhappy, whether I am in despair, for I accuse my own father!” And the blood mounted to the pale face of Charles II., who remained for an instant with his head between his hands, and as if blinded by that blood which appeared to revolt against the filial blasphemy. The young king was not less affected than his elder brother; he threw himself about in his fauteuil, and could not find a single word of reply. Charles II., to whom ten years in age gave a superior strength to master his emotions, recovered his speech the first. “Sire,” said he, “your reply? I wait for it as a criminal waits for his sentence. Must I die?” “My brother,” replied the French prince, “you ask me for a million—me, who was never possessed of a quarter of that sum! I possess nothing. I am no more king of France than you are king of England. I am a name, a cipher dressed in fleur-de-lised velvet,—that is all. I am upon a visible throne; that is my only advantage over your majesty. I have nothing—I can do nothing.” “Can it be so?” exclaimed Charles II. “My brother,” said Louis, sinking his voice, “I have undergone miseries with which my poorest gentlemen are unacquainted. If my poor Laporte were here, he would tell you that I have slept in ragged sheets, through the holes of which my legs have passed; he would tell you that afterwards, when I asked for carriages, they brought me conveyances half-destroyed by the rats of the coach-houses; he would tell you that when I asked for my dinner, the servants went to the cardinal’s kitchen to inquire if there were any dinner for the king. And look! to-day, this very day even, when I am twenty-two years of age,—to-day, when I have attained the grade of the majority of kings,—to-day, when I ought to have the key of the treasury, the direction of the policy, the supremacy in peace and war,—cast your eyes around me, see how I am left! Look at this abandonment—this disdain—this silence!—Whilst yonder—look yonder! View the bustle, the lights, the homage! There!—there you see the real king of France, my brother! “In the cardinal’s apartments?” “Yes, in the cardinal’s apartments.” “Then I am condemned, sire?” Louis XIV. made no reply.