preserve, like a wound in the depth of the heart, the remembrance of its
defeat.

"This time, my lord cardinal, we have to deal with something more easily
found than a million."

"Do you think so, sire?" said Mazarin, looking at the king with that
penetrating eye which was accustomed to read to the bottom of hearts.

"Yes, I think so; and when you know the object of my request - "

"And do you think I do not know it, sire?"

"You know what remains for me to say to you?"

"Listen, sire; these are King Charles's own words - "

"Oh, impossible!"

"Listen. 'And if that miserly, beggarly Italian,' said he - "

"My lord cardinal!"

"That is the sense, if not the words. Eh! Good heavens! I wish him no
ill on that account; one is biased by his passions. He said to you: 'If
that vile Italian refuses the million we ask of him, sire, - if we are
forced, for want of money, to renounce diplomacy, well, then, we will ask
him to grant us five hundred gentlemen.'"

The king started, for the cardinal was only mistaken in the number.