When the king left the apartment of the maids of honor, he found Colbert awaiting him to receive his directions with regard to the next day's ceremony, as the king was then to receive the Dutch and Spanish ambassadors. Louis XIV. had serious causes of dissatisfaction with the Dutch; the States had already been guilty of many mean shifts, and evasions with France, and without perceiving or without caring about the chances of a rupture, they again abandoned the alliance with his Most Christian Majesty, for the purpose of entering into all kinds of plots with Spain. Louis XIV. at his accession, that is to say, at the death of Cardinal Mazarin, had found this political question roughly sketched out; the solution was difficult for a young man, but as, at that time, the king represented the whole nation, anything that the head resolved upon, the body would be found ready to carry out. Any sudden impulse of anger, the reaction of young and hot blood to the brain, would be quite sufficient to change an old form of policy and to create another and new system altogether. The part that diplomatists had to play in those days was that of arranging among themselves the different _coups-d'etat_ which their sovereign masters might wish to effect. Louis was not in that calm state of mind which could make him capable of determining upon a wise course of policy. Still much agitated from the quarrel he had just had with La Valliere, he walked hastily into his cabinet, exceedingly desirous of finding an opportunity of producing an explosion after he had controlled himself for so long a time. Colbert, as he saw the king enter, knew the position of affairs at a glance, understood the king's intentions, and resolved therefore to maneuver a little. When Louis requested to be informed what it would be necessary to say on the morrow, Colbert began by expressing his surprise that his majesty had not been properly informed, by M. Fouquet. "M. Fouquet," he said, "is perfectly acquainted with the whole of this Dutch affair, he receives the dispatches himself direct." The king, who was accustomed to hear M. Colbert speak in not overscrupulous terms of M. Fouquet, allowed this remark to pass by unanswered, and merely listened. Colbert noticed the effect it had produced, and hastened to back out, saying that M. Fouquet was not on all occasions as blamable as at the first glance might seem to be the case, inasmuch as at that moment he was greatly occupied. The king looked up. "What do you allude to?" he said. "Sire, men are but men, and M. Fouquet has his defects as well as his great qualities." "Ah! defects, who is without them, M. Colbert?" "Your majesty is not," said Colbert, boldly; for he knew how to convey a good deal of flattery in a light amount of blame, like the arrow which cleaves the air notwithstanding its weight, thanks to the light feathers which bear it up. The king smiled. "What defect has M. Fouquet, then?" he said.