Mazarin, seeing the heightened color of the king, was confirmed in his
first idea; that is to say, that love thoughts were hidden under all
these fine words. This time, political cunning, as keen as it was, made
a mistake; this color was not caused by the bashfulness of a juvenile
passion, but only by the painful contraction of the royal pride.

Like a good uncle, Mazarin felt disposed to facilitate the confidence.

"Speak, sire," said he, "and since your majesty is willing for an instant
to forget that I am your subject, and call me your master and
instructor, I promise your majesty my most devoted and tender
consideration."

"Thanks, monsieur le cardinal," answered the king; "that which I have to
ask of your eminence has but little to do with myself."

"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.