The rose, and advanced in haste to receive the queen of England. He showed the more respect to this queen, deprived of every mark of pomp and stripped of , as he felt some self-reproach for his own want of heart and his . But supplicants for favor know how to accommodate the expression of their features, and the daughter of Henry IV. smiled as she advanced to meet a man she hated and despised.  
“Ah!” said Mazarin to himself, “what a sweet face; does she come to borrow money of me?”
 
And he threw an uneasy glance at his strong box; he even turned inside the bevel of the magnificent diamond ring, the brilliancy of which drew every eye upon his hand, which indeed was white and handsome.
 
“Your ,” said the august visitor, “it was my first intention to speak of the matters that have brought me here to the queen, my sister, but I have reflected that political affairs are more especially the concern of men.”

“Madame,” said Mazarin, “your overwhelms me with flattering distinction.”
 
“He is very gracious,” thought the queen; “can he have guessed my errand?”
 
“Give,” continued the cardinal, “your commands to the most respectful of your servants.”
 
“Alas, sir,” replied the queen, “I have lost the habit of commanding and have adopted instead that of making petitions. I am here to petition you, too happy should my prayer be favorably heard.”
 
“I am listening, madame, with the greatest interest,” said Mazarin.
 
“Your eminence, it concerns the war which the king, my husband, is now sustaining against his subjects. You are perhaps ignorant that they are fighting in England,” added she, with a smile, “and that in a short time they will fight in a much more fashion than they have done hitherto.”
 
“I am completely ignorant of it, madame,” said the cardinal, accompanying his words with a slight of the shoulders; “alas, our own wars quite absorb the time and the mind of a poor, , infirm old minister like me.”
 
“Well, then, your eminence,” said the queen, “I must inform you that Charles I., my husband, is on the eve of a decisive engagement. In case of a check” (Mazarin made a slight movement), “one must foresee everything; in the case of a check, he desires to retire into France and to live here as a private individual. What do you say to this project?”

The cardinal had listened without permitting a single fibre of his face to betray what he felt, and his smile remained as it ever was--false and flattering; and when the queen finished speaking, he said:
 
“Do you think, madame, that France, and disturbed as it is, would be a safe retreat for a dethroned king? How will the crown, which is scarce firmly set on the head of Louis XIV., support a double weight?”
 
“The weight was not so heavy when I was in peril,” interrupted the queen, with a sad smile, “and I ask no more for my husband than has been done for me; you see that we are very , sir.”
 
“............