"Dumas, Alexandre - The Man In The Iron Mask" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dumas Alexandre)

"What accounts?"
"Relative to various sums of money borrowed and disposed of. I do
not fully remember; but the point is that the superintendent,
according to these letters, which are signed by Mazarin, had taken
thirty millions from the coffers of the State. The case is a very
serious one."
Aramis clinched his hands in anxiety and apprehension. "Is it
possible," he said, "that you have such letters, and have not
communicated them to M. Fouquet?"
"Ah!" replied the duchess, "I keep such little matters as these in
reserve. When the day of need comes, we will take them from the
closet."
"And that day has arrived?" said Aramis.
"Yes."
"And you are going to show those letters to M. Fouquet?"
"I prefer instead to talk about them with you."
"You must be in sad want of money, my poor friend, to think of
such things as these,- you, too, who held M. de Mazarin's prose
effusions in such indifferent esteem."
"The fact is, I am in want of money."
"And then," continued Aramis, in cold accents, "it must have been
very distressing to you to be obliged to have recourse to such a
means. It is cruel."
"Oh, if I had wished to do harm instead of good," said Madame de
Chevreuse, "instead of asking the general of the order or M. Fouquet
for the five hundred thousand livres I require-"
"Five hundred thousand livres!"
"Yes; no more. Do you think it much? I require at least as much as
that to restore Dampierre."
"Yes, Madame."
"I say, therefore, that instead of asking for this amount I should
have gone to see my old friend the Queen-Mother; the letters from
her husband, the Signor Mazarini, would have served me as an
introduction, and I should have begged this mere trifle of her, saying
to her, 'I wish, Madame, to have the honor of receiving your Majesty
at Dampierre. Permit me to put Dampierre in a fit state for that
purpose.'"
Aramis did not say a single word in reply. "Well," she said, "what
are you thinking about?"
"I am making certain additions," said Aramis.
"And M. Fouquet makes subtractions. I, on the other hand, am
trying the art of multiplication. What excellent calculators we are!
How well we could understand one another!"
"Will you allow me to reflect?" said Aramis.
"No; to such an overture between persons like ourselves, 'Yes' or
'No' should be the reply, and that immediately."
"It is a snare," thought the bishop; "it is impossible that Anne
of Austria would listen to such a woman as this."
"Well!" said the duchess.
"Well, Madame, I should be very much astonished if M. Fouquet had