“So much the worse!” replied the cardinal, “so much the worse! Sire, I should wish your majesty to ask of me something of importance, even a sacrifice; but whatever it may be that you ask me, I am ready to set your heart at rest by granting it, my dear sire.” “Well, this is what brings me here,” said the king, with a beating of the heart that had no equal except the beating of the heart of the minister; “I have just received a visit from my brother, the king of England.” Mazarin bounded in his bed as if he had been put in relation with a Leyden jar or a voltaic pile, at the same time that a surprise, or rather a manifest disappointment, inflamed his features with such a blaze of anger, that Louis XIV., little diplomatist as he was, saw that the minister had hoped to hear something else. “Charles II.?” exclaimed Mazarin, with a hoarse voice and a disdainful movement of his lips. “You have received a visit from Charles II.?” “From King Charles II.,” replied Louis, according in a marked manner to the grandson of Henry IV. the title which Mazarin had forgotten to give him. “Yes, monsieur le cardinal, that unhappy prince has touched my heart with the relation of his misfortunes. His distress is great, monsieur le cardinal, and it has appeared painful to me, who have seen my own throne disputed, who have been forced in times of commotion to quit my capital,—to me, in short, who am acquainted with misfortune,—to leave a deposed and fugitive brother without assistance.” “Eh!” said the cardinal, sharply; “why had he not, as you have, a Jules Mazarin by his side? His crown would then have remained intact.” “I know all that my house owes to your eminence,” replied the king, haughtily, “and you may believe well that I, on my part, shall never forget it. It is precisely because my brother the king of England has not about him the powerful genius who has saved me, it is for that, I say, that I wish to conciliate the aid of that same genius, and beg you to extend your arm over his head, well assured, monsieur le cardinal, that your hand, by touching him only, would know how to replace upon his brow the crown which fell at the foot of his father’s scaffold.” “Sire,” replied Mazarin, “I thank you for your good opinion with regard to myself, but we have nothing to do yonder: they are a set of madmen who deny God, and cut off the heads of their kings. They are dangerous, observe, sire, and filthy to the touch after having wallowed in royal blood and covenantal murder. That policy has never suited me,—I scorn it and reject it.” “Therefore you ought to assist in establishing a better.” “What is that?” “The restoration of Charles II., for example.” “Good heavens!” cried Mazarin, “does the poor prince flatter himself with that chimera?”