For the rest, we shall see and know well if the King does anything for his musketeer.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The Young Nobility and the Turks.—­Private Correspondence.—­The Unlucky Minister and the Page of Strasburg.—­The King Judged and Described in All the Documents.—­The King Humiliated in His Affections.—­Scandal at Court.—­Grief of Fathers at Having Given Life to Such Children.—­Why Prince Eugene Was Not a Bishop.—­Why He Was Not a Colonel of France.—­Death of the Prince de Conti.

As France was at peace at the moment when the three hundred thousand Turks swarmed over Hungary and threatened Vienna, our young princes, and a fairly large number of nobles of about the same age, took it into their heads to go and exhibit their bravery in Germany; they asked permission of M. de Louvois to join the Imperialists.  This permission was granted to some amongst them, but refused to others.  Those whom it was thought fit to restrain took no notice of the words of the minister, and departed as resolutely as though the King had fallen asleep.  They were arrested on the road; but his Majesty, having reflected on the matter, saw that these special prohibitions would do harm to the intentions which he had with regard to his deference for Germany, and they were all allowed to go their own way.

A little later, it was discovered that there was a regular and active correspondence between these young people in Germany and others who had remained in Paris or at the Court.  The first minister had a certain page, one of the most agile, pursued; he was caught up with at Strasburg; his valise was seized.  The Marquis de Louvois, desiring to give the King the pleasure of himself opening these mysterious letters, handed him the budget, the seals intact, and his Majesty thanked him for this attention.  These thanks were the last that that powerful minister was destined to receive from his master; his star waned from that hour, never again to recover its lustre; all his credit failed and crashed to the ground.  This correspondence—­spied on with so much zeal, surprised and carried off with such good fortune—­informed the astonished monarch that, in the Louvois family, in his house and circle, his royal character, his manners, his affections, his tastes, his person, his whole life, were derisively censured.  The beloved son-in-law of the minister, speaking with an open heart to his friends, who were travelling, and absent, represented the King to them as a sort of country-gentleman, given up now to the domestic and uniform life of the manor-house, more than ever devoted to his dame bourgeoise, and making love ecstatically at the feet of this young nymph of fifty seasons.