“Oh, sire, I had rather die!”

“You swear it?”

“As I hope for salvation!”

“Hum!  There is one among these which I see is from your own son.”

Louvois changed colour, and stammered as he looked at the envelope.  “Your Majesty will find that he is as loyal out of your presence as in it, else he is no son of mine,” said he.

“Then we shall begin with his.  Ha! it is but ten lines long.  ’Dearest Achille, how I long for you to come back!  The court is as dull as a cloister now that you are gone.  My ridiculous father still struts about like a turkey-cock, as if all his medals and crosses could cover the fact that he is but a head lackey, with no more real power than I have.  He wheedles a good deal out of the king, but what he does with it I cannot imagine, for little comes my way.  I still owe those ten thousand livres to the man in the Rue Orfevre.  Unless I have some luck at lansquenet, I shall have to come out soon and join you.’  Hem!  I did you an injustice, Louvois.  I see that you have not looked over these letters.”

The minister had sat with a face which was the colour of beetroot, and eyes which projected from his head, while this epistle was being read.  It was with relief that he came to the end of it, for at least there was nothing which compromised him seriously with the king; but every nerve in his great body tingled with rage as he thought of the way in which his young scape-grace had alluded to him.  “The viper!” he cried.  “Oh, the foul snake in the grass!  I will make him curse the day that he was born.”

“Tut, tut, Louvois!” said the king.  “You are a man who has seen much of life, and you should be a philosopher.  Hot-headed youth says ever more than it means.  Think no more of the matter.  But what have we here?  A letter from my dearest girl to her husband, the Prince de Conti.  I would pick her writing out of a thousand.  Ah, dear soul, she little thought that my eyes would see her artless prattle!  Why should I read it, since I already know every thought of her innocent heart?” He unfolded the sheet of pink scented paper with a fond smile upon his face, but it faded away as his eyes glanced down the page, and he Sprang to his feet with a snarl of anger, his hand over his heart and his eyes still glued to the paper.  “Minx!” he cried, in a choking voice.  “Impertinent, heartless minx!  Louvois, you know what I have done for the princess.  You know she has been the apple of my eye.  What have I ever grudged her?  What have I ever denied her?”

“You have been goodness itself, sire,” said Louvois, whose own wounds smarted less now that he saw his master writhing.