Part 22 (2/2)
”How much do you want?”
”Be easy on that score; a roundish sum, it is true, but not too exorbitant”
”Tell me the amount”
”Fifty thousand francs”
”Oh! aOf course one has always fifty thousand francs Why the deuce cannot that knave Colbert be as easily satisfied as you are-and I should give myself far less trouble than I do When do you need this su; but you wish to know its destination?”
”Nay, nay, chevalier, I need no explanation”
”To-morrow is the first of June”
”Well?”
”One of our bonds becomes due”
”I did not knoe had any bonds”
”Certainly, to-morroe pay our last third instalment”
”What third?”
”Of the one hundred and fifty thousand francs to Baiseovernor of the Bastile”
”Yes, I rerounds am I to pay one hundred and fifty thousand francs for that man”
”On account of the appointment which he, or rather we, purchased froue recollection of the h, for you have so many affairs to attend to However, I do not believe you have any affair in the world of greater importance than this one”
”Tell me, then, e purchased this appointment”
”Why, in order to render him a service in the first place, and afterwards ourselves”
”Ourselves? You are joking”
”Monseigneur, the tiovernor of the Bastile may prove a very excellent acquaintance”
”I have not the good fortune to understand you, D'Herblay”
”Monseigneur, we had our own poets, our own engineer, our own architect, our own musicians, our own printer, and our own painters; we needed our own governor of the Bastile”
”Do you think so?”
”Let us not deceive ourselves,the Bastile a visit,” added the prelate, displaying, beneath his pale lips, teeth which were still the same beautiful teeth so much admired thirty years previously by Marie Michon
”And you think it is not too much to pay one hundred and fifty thousand francs for that? I thought you generally put out money at better interest than that”
”The day will come when you will admit your mistake”
”My dear D'Herblay, the very day on which a er protected by his past”
”Yes, he is, if the bonds are perfectly regular; besides, that good fellow Baisemeaux has not a courtier's heart I arateful for thatinto account, I repeat, that I retain the acknowledgee affair! usury in a matter of benevolence”
”Do not neur; if there be usury, it is I who practice it, and both of us reap the advantage froue, D'Herblay?”
”I do not deny it”
”And Baisemeaux an accomplice in it?”
”Why not?-there are worse accomplices than he May I depend, then, upon the five thousand pistoles to-?”
”It would be better, for I wish to start early; poor Baiseine what has be become of me, and must be upon thorns”
”You shall have the amount in an hour Ah, D'Herblay, the interest of your one hundred and fifty thousand francs will never pay neur?”
”Good-night, I have business to transact with ht's rest, s that are impossible”
”Shall I have ?”
”Yes”
”Go to sleep, then, in perfect safety-it is I who tell you to do so”
Notwithstanding this assurance, and the tone in which it was given, Fouquet left the rooh
Chapter XXIII M Baisemeaux de Montlezun's Accounts