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Luckily, Laura's large estates in Italy are all-sufficient to make you a very rich man yet. So give me authority to act for you; I will go at once and take possession, while you arrange your affairs at home, and then follow me to Italy." "He thinks of nothing but wealth," murmured Louvois; "he has no shame for loss of reputation or good name."
"If you are not afraid of me, so much the worse for you; I should have thought that you had learned from your mother, how Barbesieur de Louvois nurses his hate, and how it blossoms into misery for those on whom he bestows it." Laura's eyes filled with tears, and her voice faltered. "I did learn it from her martyrdom; but she was not like me. She submitted where I would resist."
Le Tellier had been chancellor since 1677; peace still reigned; the all-powerful minister occupied himself in building Trianon, bringing the River Eure to Versailles, and establishing unity of religion in France. "The counsel of constraining the Huguenots by violent means to become Catholics was given and carried out by the Marquis of Louvois," says an anonymous letter of the time.
The day after, Louvois distributed largesses among his household, and bestowed princely sums upon the poor, all in honor of the happy event! For a whole week I could neither eat nor sleep for grief and anger. I can never recover from this blow.
"What can we expect otherwise," said he, "with Louis the Fourteenth for king and Louvois for his minister, and Père la Chaise for his confessor, and Madame de Maintenon for his confidante and adviser? A storm is gathering overhead, but never mind there is a heaven higher than all." These words checked us; but youthful spirits soon rise, and the impression did not last long.
"Luck, in spite of us, has as much to do as wisdom and more with the choice of our ministers," he says in his Memoires, "and, in respect of what wisdom may have to do therewith, genius is far more effectual than counsel." It was their genius which made the fortunes and the power of Louis XIV.'s two great ministers, Colbert and Louvois.
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.
Casal, moreover, at this time was openly ceded to Louis XIV., and Mattioli could not have told the world more than it already knew. But, for some inscrutable reason, the secret which Dauger knew, or was suspected of knowing, became more and more a source of anxiety to Louvois and Louis. What can he have known? The charges against his master, Roux de Marsilly, had been publicly proclaimed.
You would not believe how infatuated all these people were, and are still, about the Prince of Orange, his authority, Holland, England, and the Protestants of Germany. I should never end if I were to recount all the foolish and impertinent proposals they have made to me." M. de Tesse did not tell Louvois that he was obliged to have the pastors of Orange seized and carried off.
The two enemies were alone, face to face; and they surveyed each other as two lions might do on the eve of a deathly contest. "It has pleased you to make an attempt to beg a commission in the army, and to address yourself directly to the king," said Louvois, after a pause. "And you presumed to do so without the intervention of his majesty's minister of war."
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