"Can it be so?" exclaimed Charles II.
"My brother," said Louis, sinking his voice, "I have undergone miseries with which my poorest gentlemen are unacquainted. If my poor Laporte were here, he would tell you that I have slept in ragged sheets, through the holes of which my legs have passed; he would tell you that afterwards, when I asked for carriages, they brought me conveyances half-destroyed by the rats of the coach-houses; he would tell you that when I asked for my dinner, the servants went to the cardinal's kitchen to inquire if there were any dinner for the king. And look! to-day, this very day even, when I am twenty-two years of age,--to-day, when I have attained the grade of the majority of kings,--to-day, when I ought to have the key of the treasury, the direction of the policy, the supremacy in peace and war,--cast your eyes around me, see how I am left! Look at this abandonment--this disdain--this silence!--Whilst yonder--look yonder! View the bustle, the lights, the homage! There!--there you see the real king of France, my brother!"
"In the cardinal's apartments?"
"Yes, in the cardinal's apartments."
"Then I am condemned, sire?"
Louis XIV. made no reply.
"Condemned is the word; for I will never solicit him who left my mother and sister to die with cold and hunger--the daughter and grand-daughter of Henry IV.--as surely they would have if M. de Retz and the parliament had not sent them wood and bread."
"To die?" murmured Louis XIV.
"Well!" continued the king of England, "poor Charles II., grandson of Henry IV., as you are, sire having neither parliament nor Cardinal de Retz to apply to, will die of hunger, as his mother and sister had nearly done."
Louis knitted his brow, and twisted violently the lace of his ruffles.
This prostration, this immobility, serving as a mark to an emotion so visible, struck Charles II., and he took the young man's hand.
"Thanks!" said he, "my brother. You pity me, and that is all I can require of you in your present situation."
"Sire," said Louis XIV., with a sudden impulse, and raising his head, "it is a million you require, or two hundred gentlemen, I think you say?"
"Sire, a million would be quite sufficient."
"That is very little."
"Offered to a single man it is a great deal. Convictions have been purchased at a much lower price; and I should have nothing to do but with venalities."