Mazarin, when on his death-bed, is said to have awakened the fears and suspicions of Louis against Fouquet; and, to deepen the impression which he had made, he left behind him two deadly foes of the superintendant. These foes were Le Tellier and Colbert, of whom the latter was the most inveterate and the most dangerous. When Louis formed the resolution of being his own prime minister, Fouquet, who evidently wished to succeed to the power of Richelieu and Mazarin, essayed to turn the monarch from his purpose, by daily heaping on him a mass of dry, intricate, and erroneous financial statements. He failed in his attempt. These papers the king every evening examined, with the secret assistance of Colbert, whose acuteness and practised skill instantly unravelled their artful tangles, and exposed their errors. It was not alone the squandering of the royal treasure that irritated Louis; though that would have been a sufficiently exciting cause to a man whose own lavish habits required large supplies. He asserted, and might perhaps believe, that the offender aspired to sovereignty. In a long conversation with the president Lamoignon, he said, “Fouquet wished to make himself duke of Britanny, and king of the neighbouring isles; he won over every body by his profusion: there was not a single soul in whom I could put confidence.” So much was he impressed with this idea, that he repeated it over and over to the president. For this absurd fear there was no other ground than that the superintendant had purchased and fortified Belleisle; a measure which was prompted by patriotic motives, it being his design to make that island an emporium of commerce. There is said to have been another and a not less powerful cause for the monarch’s hatred of Fouquet; the superintendant had been imprudent enough to attempt to include La Vallière in the long catalogue of his mistresses, and this was an offence not to be pardoned by the proudest and vainest of kings.