Colbert ?" returned the king, astonished.
"Certainly, sire; M.Colbert is an excellent accountant." At this commendation, bestowed by the traduced on the traducer, the king felt himself penetrated with confidence and admiration.

There was not, moreover, either in Fouquet's voice or look, anything which injuriously affected a single syllable of the remark he had made; he did not pass one eulogium, as it were, in order to acquire the right of making two reproaches.

The king comprehended him, and yielding to so much generosity and address, he said, "You praise M.Colbert, then ?" "Yes, sire, I praise him; for, besides being a man of merit, I believe him to be devoted to your majesty's interests." "Is that because he has often interfered with your own views ?" said the king, smiling.
"Exactly, sire." "Explain yourself." "It is simple enough.

I am the man who is needed to make the money come in; he is the man who is needed to prevent it leaving." "Nay, nay, monsieur le surintendant, you will presently say something which will correct this good opinion." "Do you mean as far as administrative abilities are concerned, sire ?" "Yes." "Not in the slightest." "Really ?" "Upon my honor, sire, I do not know throughout France a better clerk than M.Colbert." This word "clerk" did not possess, in 1661, the somewhat subservient signification attached to it in the present day; but, as spoken by Fouquet, whom the king had addressed as the superintendent, it seemed to acquire an insignificant and petty character, that at this juncture served admirably to restore Fouquet to his place, and Colbert to his own.
"And yet," said Louis XIV., "it was Colbert, however, that, notwithstanding his economy, had the arrangement of my _fetes_ here at Fontainebleau; and I assure you, Monsieur Fouquet, that in now way has he checked the expenditure of money." Fouquet bowed, but did not reply.
"Is it not your opinion too ?" said the king.
"I think, sire," he replied, "that M.Colbert has done what he had to do in an exceedingly orderly manner, and that he deserves, in this respect, all the praise your majesty may bestow upon him." The word "orderly" was a proper accompaniment for the word "clerk." The king possessed that extreme sensitiveness of organization, that delicacy of perception, which pierced through and detected the regular order of feelings and sensations, before the actual sensations themselves, and he therefore comprehended that the clerk had, in Fouquet's opinion, been too full of method and order in his arrangements; in other words, that the magnificent _fetes_ of Fontainebleau might have been rendered more magnificent still.

The king consequently felt that there was something in the amusements he had provided with which some person or another might be able to find fault; he experienced a little of the annoyance felt by a person coming from the provinces to Paris, dressed out in the very best clothes which his wardrobe can furnish, only to find that the fashionably dressed man there looks at him either too much or not enough.