What is a letter?
A rag.

May not a rag be forgotten?
And look, my lord, look if I was not right.

Your clerks have forgotten the rag; the letter is not in the packet." "You are an insolent fellow, and you have not looked," cried Mazarin, very angrily; "begone and wait my pleasure." Whilst saying these words, with perfectly Italian subtlety he snatched the packet from the hands of Colbert, and re-entered his apartments.
But this anger could not last so long as to be replaced in time by reason.

Mazarin, every morning, on opening his closet door, found the figure of Colbert like a sentinel behind the bench, and this disagreeable figure never failed to ask him humbly, but with tenacity, for the queen-mother's letter.

Mazarin could hold out no longer, and was obliged to give it up.