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Updated: June 29, 2025
After the visit of Guenaud, he therefore sent for Colbert, desired him to sit down, and said to him: "Let us converse, Monsieur Colbert, and seriously, for I am very ill, and I may chance to die." "Man is mortal," replied Colbert. "I have always remembered that, M. Colbert, and I have worked with that end in view. You know that I have amassed a little wealth." "I know you have, monseigneur."
"My lord, I have known this secret two months; you see that I have kept it faithfully." "Go, Guenaud, I will take care of your fortunes, go and tell Brienne to send me a clerk called M. Colbert. Go!" Colbert Colbert was not far off.
He suffered tortures with the impatience of a man who has not been accustomed to resistances. On seeing Guenaud: "Ah!" said he; "now I am saved!" Guenaud was a very learned and circumspect man, who stood in no need of the critiques of Boileau to obtain a reputation. When facing a disease, if it were personified in a king, he treated the patient as a Turk treats a Moor.
He did not, therefore, reply to Mazarin as the minister expected: "Here is the doctor; good-bye disease!" On the contrary, on examining his patient, with a very serious air: "Oh! oh!" said he. "Eh! what! Guenaud! How you look at me!" "I look as I should on seeing your complaint, my lord; it is a very dangerous one." "The gout oh! yes, the gout." "With complications, my lord."
"Is it not?" cried Mazarin, almost joyously; "for, in short, what else would be the use of power, of strength of will? What would the use of genius be your genius, Guenaud? What would be the use of science and art, if the patient, who disposes of all that, cannot be saved from peril?"
The disease, as Guenaud had predicted, had become worse; it was no longer an attack of gout, it was an attack of death; then there was another thing which made that agony more agonizing still, and that was the agitation brought into his mind by the donation he had sent to the king, and which, according to Colbert, the king ought to send back unaccepted to the cardinal.
Guenaud, on his part, preserved profound secrecy; wearied with visits and questions, he answered nothing but "his eminence is still full of youth and strength, but God wills that which He wills, and when He has decided that man is to be laid low, he will be laid low."
Guenaud was about to open his mouth, but Mazarin continued: "Remember," said he, "I am the most confiding of your patients; remember I obey you blindly, and that consequently " "I know all that," said Guenaud. "I shall be cured, then?"
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