“Our excellent Queen has gone to rest from her troubles and her journeys; and I, madame, am going to rest not long after her, having worn out my strength on great things that are as nothing.”

The Marquis de Seignelay, eldest son of this minister, counted on succeeding to the principal offices of his father.  He made a mistake.  The place of secretary of state and controller-general passed to the President Pelletier, who had been chosen by M. Colbert himself; and the superintendence of buildings, gardens, and works went to swell the numerous functions of the Marquis de Louvois, who wished for and counted on it.

Mm. de Blainville and Seignelay had good posts, proportioned to their capacity; the King never ceased to look upon them as the children of his dear M. Colbert.

[It mast be remembered that the young Marquis de Seignelay was already Minister of Marine, an office which remained with him.—­Ed.]

Before his death, this minister saw his three daughters become duchesses.  The King, who had been pleased to make these marriages, had given each of them a dowry of a million in cash.

As for the Abbe Colbert, already promoted to the Bishopric of Montpellier (to which three important abbeys were joined), he had the Archbishopric of Toulouse, with an immense revenue.  It is true that he took a pleasure in rebuilding his archiepiscopal palace and cathedral out of a huge and ancient treasure, which he discovered whilst pulling down some old ruin to make a salon.

One might say that there was some force of attraction attached to this family and name of Colbert.  Treasures arose from the earth to give themselves up and obey them.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Mesdemoiselles de Mazarin.—­The Age of Puberty.—­Madame de
Beauvais.—­Anger of the Queen-mother.—­The Cardinal’s Policy.—­First
Love.—­Louis de Beauvais.—­The Abbe de Rohan-Soubise.—­The Emerald’s
Lying-in.—­The Handsome Musketeer.—­The Counterfeit of the King.

At the time when the King, still very young, was submitting without impatience to the authority of the Queen, his mother, and his godfather, the Cardinal, his strength underwent a sudden development, and this lad became, all at once, a man.  The numerous nieces of Cardinal Mazarin, who were particularly dear to the Queen, were as much at the Louvre as at their own home.  Anne of Austria, naturally affable, gladly released them from the etiquette which was imposed upon every one else.  These young ladies played and laughed, sang or frolicked, after the manner of their years, and the young King lived frankly and gaily in their midst, as one lives with agreeable sisters, when one is happy enough to have such.  He lived fraternally with these pretty Italian girls, but his intimacy stopped there, since the Cardinal and the governess watched night and day over a young man who was greatly subject to surveillance.