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288 THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE. tainly not your eminence's word I place in doubt, God for- bid!" "What then?" "It is the carefulness of your chancery, monseigneur. What is a letter? A rag. May not a rag be forgotten? And, look, monseigneur, look if I was not right. Your clerks have forgotten the rag; the letter is not in the packet." "You are an insolent fellow, and you have not looked," cried Mazarin very angrily. "Be gone, and wait my pleasure," While saying these words, with subtlety perfectly Italian, he snatched the packet from the hands of Colbert, and re- entered his apartments. But this anger could not last so long as not to be replaced in time by reason. Mazarin, every morning, on opening his closet door, found the figure of Colbert as a sentinel be- hind the bench, and this disagreeable figure never failed to ask him humbly, but with tenacity, for the queen-mother's letter. Mazarin could hold out no longer, and was obliged to give it up. He accompanied this restitution with a most severe reprimand, during which Colbert contented himself with examining, feeling, even smelling, as it were, the paper, the characters, and the signature, neither more nor less than if he had to do with the greatest forger in the king- dom. Mazarin behaved more rudely still to him, but Col- bert, still impassible, having obtained a certainty that the letter was the true one, went off as if he had been deaf. This conduct afterward was worth the post of Joubert to him; for Mazarin, instead of bearing malice, admired him, and was desirous of attaching so much fidelity to himself. It may be judged by this single anecdote what the char- acter of Colbert was. Events, developing themselves, by degrees allowed all the powers of his friend to act freely. Colbert was not long in insinuating himself into the good graces of the cardinal; he became even indispensable to him. The clerk was acquainted with all his accounts, with- out the cardinal's ever having spoken to him about them. This secret between them was a powerful tie, and this was why, when about to appear before the Master of another world, Mazarin was desirous of taking good counsel in dis- posing of the wealth he was so unwillingly obliged to leave in this world. After the visit to Guenaud, he therefore sent for Colbert, desired him to sit down, and said to him "Let us converse, Monsieur Colbert, and seriously, for I am very sick, and I may chance tc die t "