It so happened that the, Duc de Beauvilliers himself was able to carry this casket to the King, who had the key of it.  M. de Beauvilliers in fact resolved not to trust it out of his own hands, but to wait until he was well enough to take it to the King, so that he might then try to hide my papers from view.  This task was difficult, for he did not know the position in the casket of these dangerous documents, and yet it was our only resource.  This terrible uncertainty lasted more than a fortnight.

On Tuesday, the 1st of March, M. de Beauvilliers carried the casket to the King.  He came to me shortly after, and before sitting down, indicated by signs that there was no further occasion for fear.  He then related to me that he had found the casket full of a mass of documents, finance projects, reports from the provinces, papers of all kinds, that he had read some of them to the King on purpose to weary him, and had succeeded so well that the King soon was satisfied by hearing only the titles; and, at last, tired out by not finding anything important, said it was not worth while to read more, and that there was nothing to do but to throw everything into the fire.  The Duke assured me that he did not wait to be told twice, being all the more anxious to comply, because at the bottom of the casket he had seen some of my handwriting, which he had promptly covered up in taking other papers to read their titles to the King; and that immediately the word “fire” was uttered, he confusedly threw all the papers into the casket, and then emptied it near the fire, betweein the King and Madame de Maintenon, taking good care as he did so that my documents should not be seen,—­even cautiously using the tongs in order to prevent any piece flying away, and not quitting the fireplace until he had seen every page consumed.  We embraced each other, in the relief we reciprocally felt, relief proportioned to the danger we had run.

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: 

A king is made for his subjects, and not the subjects for him
A lingering fear lest the sick man should recover
Danger of inducing hypocrisy by placing devotion too high
For want of better support I sustained myself with courage
Interests of all interested painted on their faces
Never was a man so ready with tears, so backward with grief
Suspicion of a goitre, which did not ill become her
The shortness of each day was his only sorrow