The voice which had pronounced these words was that of Anne of Austria.

The king started, and advanced towards her.

"I hope," said he, "your majesty has paid no attention to the vain declamations which the solitude and disgust familiar to kings suggest to the happiest dispositions ?" "I only paid attention to one thing, my son, and that was, that you were complaining." "Who! I?
Not at all," said Louis XIV.; "no, in truth, you err, madame." "What were you doing, then ?" "I thought I was under the ferule of my professor, and developing a subject of amplification." "My son," replied Anne of Austria, shaking her head, "you are wrong not to trust my word; you are wrong not to grant me your confidence.

A day will come, and perhaps quickly, wherein you will have occasion to remember that axiom:--'Gold is universal power; and they alone are kings who are all-powerful.'" "Your intention," continued the king, "was not, however, to cast blame upon the rich men of this age, was it ?" "No," said the queen, warmly; "no, sire; they who are rich in this age, under your reign, are rich because you have been willing they should be so, and I entertain against them neither malice nor envy; they have, without doubt, served your majesty sufficiently well for your majesty to have permitted them to reward themselves.

That is what I mean to say by the words for which you reproach me." "God forbid, madame, that I should ever reproach my mother with anything!" "Besides," continued Anne of Austria, "the Lord never gives the goods of this world but for a season; the Lord--as correctives to honor and riches--the Lord has placed sufferings, sickness, and death; and no one," added she, with a melancholy smile, which proved she made the application of the funeral precept to herself, "no man can take his wealth or greatness with him to the grave.