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The Vicomte De Bragelonne 149 at Prostate Health
joys of Paradise, but muchof all the horrors of hell. Whilst burning-hot napkins,physic, revulsives, and Guenaud, who was recalled, wereperforming their functions with increased activity, Colbert,holding his great head in both his hands, to compress withinit the fever of the projects engendered by the brain, wasmeditating the tenor of the donation he would make Mazarinwrite, at the first hour of respite his disease shouldafford him. It would appear as if all the cries of thecardinal, and all the attacks of death upon thisrepresentative of the past, were stimulants for the geniusof this thinker with the bushy eyebrows, who was turningalready towards the rising sun of a regenerated society.Colbert resumed his place at Mazarins pillow at the firstinterval of pain, and persuaded him to dictate a donationthus conceived."About to appear before God, the Master of mankind, I begthe king, who was my master on earth, to resume the wealthwhich his bounty has bestowed upon me, and which my familywould be happy to see pass into such illustrious hands. Theparticulars of my property will be found -- they are drawnup -- at the first requisition of his majesty, or at thelast sigh of his most devoted servant,Jules, Cardinal de Mazarin."The cardinal sighed heavily as he signed this; Colbertsealed the packet, and carried it immediately to the Louvre,whither the king had returned.He then went back to his own home, rubbing his hands withthe confidence of a workman who has done a good days work.CHAPTER 47How Anne of Austria gave one Piece of Adviceto Louis XIV., and how M. Fouquet gave him anotherThe news of the extreme illness of the cardinal had alreadyspread, and attracted at least as much attention among thepeople of the Louvre as the news of the marriage ofMonsieur, the kings brother, which had already beenannounced as an official fact. Scarcely had Louis XIV.returned home, with his thoughts fully occupied with thevarious things he had seen and heard in the course of theevening, when an usher announced that the same crowd ofcourtiers who, in the morning, had thronged his lever,presented themselves again at his coucher, a remarkablepiece of respect which, during the reign of the cardinal,the court, not very discreet in its preferences, hadaccorded to the minister, without caring about displeasingthe king.But the minister had had, as we have said, an alarmingattack of gout, and the tide of flattery was mountingtowards the throne. Courtiers have a marvelous instinct inscenting the turn of events; courtiers possess a supremekind of science; they are diplomatists in throwing lightupon the unraveling of complicated intrigues, captains indivining the issue of battles, and physicians in curing thesick. Louis XIV., to whom his mother had taught this axiom,together with many others, understood at once that thecardinal must be very ill.Scarcely had Anne of Austria conducted the young queen toher apartments and taken from her brow the head-dress ofceremony, when she went to see her son in his cabinet,where, alone, melancholy and depressed, he was indulging, asif to exercise his will, in one of those terrible inwardpassions -- kings passions -- which create events when theybreak out, and with Louis XIV., thanks to his astonishingcommand over himself, became such benign tempests, that hismost violent, his only passion, that which Saint Simonmentions with astonishment, was that famous fit of angerwhich he exhibited fifty years later, on the occasion of alittle concealment of the Duc de Maines. and which had forresult a shower of blows inflicted with a cane upon the backof a poor valet who had stolen a biscuit. The young kingthen was, as we have seen, a prey to a double excitement;and he said to himself as he looked in a glass, "O king! --king by name, and not in fact; -- phantom, vain phantom artthou! -- inert statue, which has no other power than that ofprovoking salutations from courtiers, when wilt thou be ableto raise thy velvet arm, or clench thy silken hand? whenwilt thou be able to open, for any purpose but to sigh, orsmile, lips condemned to the motionless stupidity of themarbles in thy gallery?"Then, passing his hand over his brow, and feeling the wantof air, he approached a window, and looking down, saw belowsome horsemen talking together, and groups of timidobservers. These horsemen were a
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