He discovers that Carlos is the son of a King of Aragon. His extraordinary merit is explained and consistency is satisfied. On the whole Corneille did nothing but develop the maxims and idealise the models offered to his observation on all sides; as much may be said of the plots of his great plays. His subjects were suggested by the events of the day. Had there been no Mme. de Chevreuse and no conspiracies against Richelieu there could have been no Cinna. And it is possible that there might not have been such a work as Polyeucte had there been no Jansenism.[72]

Corneille did not understand actuality as we understand it. His tragedy is never a report of real occurrences, that is evident. But he was besieged, encompassed, possessed, by the life around him, and it left impressions in his mind which worked out and mingled with every subject upon which he entered. He was guided by his impressions,—though he did not know it,—and by their influence he was enabled to find a powerful tragedy in a few indifferent lines dropped by a mediocre historian, or by an inferior narrator of insignificant events. His surroundings furnished him with precise representations, made real to his mind by the vague abstractions of history. In the forms and conditions of the present he saw and felt all the past.[73]

His constant contact with the world of his times favoured the action of his mind upon the minds of his auditors. He exhibited to them their passions, their thoughts, their feelings, their different ways of looking upon social duty, upon politics, and upon the part played, or to be played, by the aristocracy in the general movement. The people of Paris loved the play because it exhibited openly, in different, but always favourable lights, everything in which they had any interest. In it they saw their own life, their aims, their needs, their longing to be great and admirable in all things.[74] They saw depicted all that they had dreamed of being, all that they had wished to be; and something more vital than love of literature animated their transports and lighted the fond glances fixed on the magic mirror reflecting the ideals they so ardently caressed. The people listened to Corneille's plays and trembled as they now tremble at the sound of La Marseillaise. It has been said that they did not understand Racine; if they did not, their lack of comprehension was natural. Racine was of another generation, and he was not in sympathy with his forerunner. Mme. de Sévigné was accused of false judgment in her criticism of Bejazet,[75] but she also was of another school. She had little sympathy for Racine's heroes. She understood Corneille's heroes, and could not listen to his verses without the tremor of the heart which we all feel when something recalls the generous fancies of our youth. The general impression was that Corneille was inspired by the image of Mlle. de Montpensier when he wrote Pulcherie (1672), an heroic comedy in which an empress stifles the cries of her heart that she may listen to the voice of glory.

The throne lifts the soul above all tenderness.

It is not impossible that Corneille had some such thought in his mind. Certainly Mademoiselle was a model close at hand. One day when her bold poltroon of a father told her, in the course of a sharp reproof, that she was compromising her house for the pleasure of "playing the heroine," she answered haughtily and truthfully:

"I do not know what it is to be anything but a heroine! I am of birth so high that no matter what I might do, I never could be anything but great and noble. And they may call it what they like, I call it following my inclination and taking my own road. I was born to take no other!"

Given such inclinations, and living in the Louvre, where Corneille's plays were constantly enacted by Queen Anne's order, Mademoiselle was accustomed to regard certain actions as the reverse of common and ignoble, and to consider certain other actions "illustrious."

The justice of super-exalted sentiments was proclaimed by nobility, and they who were disposed to closely imitate the examples set by the literary leader of the day ran the risk of losing all sense of proportions and of substance. Mademoiselle did lose that sense, nor was she the only one to do so among all the children of quality who were permitted to abuse their right to see the play. Through the imprudent fashion of taking young children to the theatre, the honest Corneille, who taught the heroism of duty, the poetry of sacrifice, the value of strong will and self-control, was not absolutely innocent of the errors in judgment and in moral sense by which the wars of the Fronde were made possible. When he attempted to lift the soul of France above its being, he vitiated a principle in the unformed national brain.

III

Mademoiselle had grown tall. She had lost her awkward ways; she was considered pretty—although the Bourbon type might, at any moment, become too pronounced. She had remained simple and insignificantly innocent and childish, in a world where even the children discussed politics and expressed opinions on the latest uprising. Side by side with all her infantine pleasures were two serious cares which had accompanied her from her cradle, one: her marriage; the other, the honour of her house. The two cares were one, as the two objects were one, because in that day a princess knew her exalted duty and accepted her different forms of servitude without a frown, and certainly the most painful of all those forms was the marriage in which the wife was less than nothing; a being helpless in her inferiority, so situated that she was unable to claim any share of the general domestic happiness. The noble princesses had consented to drink their cup to the dregs because it was part of their caste to do so, and many were they who went to the altar as Racine's "Iphigénie" went to the sacrifice. The idea that woman is a creature possessing a claim upon herself, with the right to love, to be happy, and to seat herself upon the steps of the throne, or even upon the throne, is a purely modern conception. The day when that mediocre thought first germinated in the brain of the noblewoman marked a date in the history of royalty, and it may be that no surer sign was given to warn the nations of contemporary Europe of the decay of the monarchical idea.

La Grande Mademoiselle had faith in the old traditions. She had always been used to the idea that life would be full enough when she had accomplished her high destiny and perpetuated the noble name borne by her ancestors and she was fully satisfied with the idea that her husband should see in her nothing but the "granddaughter of France," and accept her and her princely estates as he would accept any of the other gifts directly bestowed on noblemen by Divine Providence. Her husband had been ordained her husband from all time; and she was prepared to yield her all to him without a murmur. What though he should be ugly, gouty, doddering—or a babe in arms, "brutal," or an "honest man"? Such details were for the lower orders, they were puerile; unworthy of the attention of a great Princess. He would be the husband of Mlle. de Montpensier, niece of Louis XIII., and that would be enough. But in spite of herself she felt a lurking curiosity as to who he should be. What was to be his name.... His Majesty, was he to be a king, "His Highness," or simply "Monseigneur?" there lay the root of the whole matter.

Of what rank were the wives whose right it was to remain seated in the King's presence, ... and on what did they sit, arm-chairs or armless seats?

That was the question, the only consideration of any importance.

We should prefer to think that Mademoiselle mourned because she was reduced by her condition to forget that however princely a marriage may be it must entail a husband, but we are the slaves of truth, we must take our history as we find it, and be the fact pleasing or painful,—here it is: Mademoiselle knew that she should marry the first princely aspirant to her hand, and she was well content to let it be so.

The first to arouse her imagination was one of her mother's ancient lovers, Comte de Soissons, a brilliant soldier, but a man of very ordinary intellect. "M. le Comte" had not only aspired to the favour of Anne-Marie's mother, but he had also addressed her cousin Marie, Duchesse de Montpensier, and so lively had been the wooing that there had been some talk of an abduction. Then Gaston had entered the field and carried off the Duchess, and, gnawed by spite and jealous fury, Soissons had quarrelled with him.

Less than a year later the unexpected death of Madame brought about a reconciliation between the rivals. Monsieur, wifeless, charged with an infant daughter, who was the sole heiress to almost incalculable wealth, clasped hands with Soissons, under circumstances favourable to the brightest dreams. Madame's timely death had restored intact a flattering prospect. M. le Comte again and for the third time announced pretensions to the hand of a Montpensier, and Gaston smiled approval. He considered it all very natural; given a like occasion, he would have followed a like course.

So, as far back as her youthful memory could travel, Mlle. Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans found along her route traces of the assiduous attentions of the even-then ripe cousin, who had regaled her with sugared almonds through the medium of a gentleman named Campion, accredited and charged with the mission of rendering his master pleasing to Mademoiselle, the infant Princess of the Tuileries. M. le Comte sent Campion to Court with sugared almonds, because he, the Comte de Soissons, rarely set foot in Paris at any time, and at the time which we are now considering a private matter of business (an assassination which he and Gaston had planned together), had definitely retired him from Court.

All this happened about the year 1636. Gaston was living in an obscure way, not to say in hiding; for it would have been difficult to hide so notable a personage,—nor would there have been any logic in hiding him, after all that had passed,—but he was living a sheltered, and, so to speak, a harmless life. He was supposed to be in Blois, but he was constantly seen gliding about the Louvre, tolerated by the King, who practised his dancing steps with him, and treated by Richelieu with all the contempt due to his character. The Cardinal made free with Gaston's rights; he changed and dismissed his servants without consulting their master; and more than one of the fine friends of Monsieur learned the way to the Bastille.

At times Richelieu gave Gaston presents, hoping to tempt the light-minded Prince to reflect upon the advantages attending friendly relations with the Court. Richelieu had tried in vain to force Gaston to consent to the dissolution of his marriage with Marguerite de Lorraine. He had never permitted Gaston to present his wife at Court, but Gaston had always hoped to obtain the permission and the anxious lady had remained just outside of France awaiting the signal to enter. She was generally supposed to be within call of her husband.

The time has come when justice of a new kind must be done to Monsieur, and probably it is the only time when a creditable fact will be recorded in his history. He stood firm in his determination to maintain his marriage. Try as the Cardinal might, and by all the means familiar to him from habitual use, he could not force Monsieur to relax his fidelity to his consort. D'Orléans was virtuous on this one point, but his manner of virtue was the manner of Gaston; there are different ways of sustaining the marriage vows, and Monsieur's way was not praiseworthy. His experience had passed as a veil blown away by the wind. His passion for intrigue still held sway, he always had at least one plot in process of infusion, and his results were fatal to his assistants. In the heat of his desire to rid himself of the Cardinal, he simulated change of heart so well that the Cardinal was deceived. Suspicious at first of the sincerity of Gaston's professions, after long and close observation he became convinced that the Prince was, in truth, repentant. It was at that epoch, when free exercise of an undisciplined will was made possible by Richelieu's conviction of his own security, that Monsieur laid his plan of assassination with de Soissons; at that time there was but opinion in France—de Richelieu was a tyrant, there could be no hope of pleasure while he lived. Let him die, let France hear that he was dead, and all the world could be happy and free to act, not according to the dogmas of an egotist by the grace of God, but by the rule of the greatest good to the greatest number.

The conspirators had found a time and a place favourable to their enterprise. It was during the siege of Corbie. The King was there attended by his Minister. Monsieur and the Count were there; so were the men whom they had engaged to kill the Cardinal. Culpable as the two scoundrels had always been, when the whole country was in arms it was impossible to find a reasonable excuse for refusing them commands, so they were at the front with all the representative men of the country, and they had good reason for supposing that one murder—a movement calculated to relieve the nation—might pass unnoticed in the general noise and motion of the siege. The time was ripe; Monsieur and Soissons had put their heads together and decided that the moment had come to strike the blow and rid the country of the Cardinal.

Their plans were well laid. A council of war had been called. De Richelieu was to pass a certain staircase on his way to it; de Soissons was to accompany Richelieu and distract his attention; Gaston was to be waiting at the foot of the stairs to give the signal to the assassins. But Monsieur had not changed since the days of Chalais, and he could not control his nerves. He was a slave to ungovernable panics. According to his plans the part which he had to play was easy. He had nothing to do but to give the signal; all the accomplices were ready; the assassins were awaiting the word; he himself was at his post; but when the Cardinal passed, haughty and calm, to take his place in his carriage, terror seized Monsieur and he turned and sprang up the stairway. As he fled one of his accomplices, thinking to hold him back, seized him by his cloak, and Gaston, rushing forward, dragged him after him.

The affrighted Prince and his astonished follower reached the first landing with the speed of lightning; and then, carried away by emotion, Monsieur, still dragging his companion, fled into an inner room, where he stopped, dazed; he did not know where he was, nor what he was doing, and when he tried to speak he babbled incoherent words which died in his throat. De Soissons was waiting in the courtyard; he had spoken so calmly that Richelieu had passed on unconscious of the unusual excitement among the courtiers.

Though the plot had failed, there had been no exposure; but the fact that the accomplices held the secret and that they had much to gain from the Cardinal by a denunciation of their principals made it unsafe for the conspirators to remain in Paris; before the Cardinal's policemen were warned they fled, Monsieur to Blois and de Soissons to Sedan. Not long after their flight the story was in the mouths of the gossips, and Mademoiselle knew that she could not hope for the Cardinal's assistance in the accomplishment of her marriage; so the child of the Tuileries advanced to maidenhood while her ambitious cousin (Soissons) turned grey at Sedan. When Anne-Marie-Louise reached her fourteenth year the Comte thought that the time had come to bring matters to a crisis. He was not a coward, and as there was no reason for hypocrisy or secrecy, he boldly joined the enemies of his country and invaded France with the armies of de Bouillon and de Guise. Arrived in France, he charged one of his former mistresses, Mme. de Montbazon, to finish the work begun by Campion. Mme. de Montbazon lent her best energies to the work, and right heartily.

I took great interest in M. le Comte de Soissons, [wrote Mademoiselle]; his health was failing. The King went to Champagne to make war upon him; and while he was on the journey, Mme. de Montbazon—who loved the Count dearly and who was dearly loved by him—used to come to see me every day, and she spoke of him with much affection; she told me that she should feel extreme joy if I would marry him, that they would never be lonely or bored at the Hôtel de Soissons were I there; that they would not think of anything but to amuse me, that they would give balls in my honour, that we should take fine walks, and that the Count would have unparalleled tenderness and respect for me. She told me everything that would be done to render my condition happy, and of all that could be done to make things pleasant for a personage of my age. I listened to her with pleasure and I felt no aversion for the person of M. le Comte.... Aside from the difference between my age and his my marriage with him would have been feasible. He was a very honest man, endowed with grand qualities; and although he was the youngest of his house he had been accorded[76] with the Queen of England.

Having been unable to acquire the mother, de Soissons turned his attention to the daughter. Mademoiselle recorded:

M. le Comte sent M. le Comte de Fiesque to Monsieur to remind him of the promise that he had made concerning me, and to remind him that affairs were then in such a condition that they might be terminated. M. le Comte de Fiesque very humbly begged Monsieur to find it good that de Soissons should abduct me, because in that way only could the marriage be accomplished. Monsieur would not consent to that expedient at all, and so the answer that M. le Comte de Fiesque carried back touched M. le Comte very deeply.

Not long after this episode the Comte de Soissons was killed at Marfée (6th July, 1641), and Mademoiselle's eyes were opened to the fact that she and M. le Comte "had not been created for each other." She wrote of his death as follows:

"I could not keep from weeping when he died, and when I went to see Madame his mother at Bagnolet, M. and Mlle. de Longueville and the whole household did nothing but manifest their grief by their continual cries."

Mademoiselle had desired with earnest sincerity to become the Comtesse de Soissons; it is difficult to imagine why,—unless, perhaps, because at her age girls build air-castles with all sorts of materials.

M. le Comte had been wept over and buried and sentiment had nothing more to do with Mademoiselle's dreams of establishment. Her fancy hovered over Europe and swooped down upon the princes who were bachelors or widowers, and upon the married nobles who were in a fair way to become widowers; more than once she was seen closely following the current reports when some princess was taken by sickness; and she abandoned or developed her projects, according to the turn taken by the diseases of the unfortunate ladies. The greater number of the hypothetical postulants upon whom she successively fixed her mind were strangers whom she had never seen, and among them were several who had never thought of her, and who never did think of her at any time; but she pursued her way with unflagging zeal, permitting indiscreet advances when she did not encourage them; she considered herself more or less the Queen or the Empress of France, of Spain, or of Hungary, as the prospect of the speedy bereavement of the incumbents of the different thrones brightened. La Grande Mademoiselle had not entered the world as the daughter of a degenerate with impunity; there were subjects upon which she was incapable of reasoning; in the ardour of her faith in the mystical virtues of the Blood she surpassed Corneille. She believed that the designs of princes ranked with the designs of God, and that they should be regarded as the devout regard the mysteries of religion. To quote her own words: "The intuitions of the great are like the mysteries of the Faith; it is not for men to fathom them! they ought to revere them; they ought to know that the thoughts of the great are given to their possessors for the well-being and for the salvation of the country."

Mademoiselle surpassed the Corneille of Tragedy in her disdainful rejection of love; Corneille was content to station love in the rear rank, and he placed it far below the manly passions in his classification of "the humanities." It will be remembered that by his listings the "manly passions" were Ambition, Vengeance, Pride of Blood, and "Glory." Mademoiselle believed that love could not exist between married people of rank; she considered it one of the passions of the inferior classes.

When we examine the subject we see that it was not remarkable that Mademoiselle recognised illegitimate love, although her own virtue was unquestionable. She liked lovers, and accepted the idea of love in the abstract; she repudiated the idea of love legalised because she was logical; she thought that married love proclaimed false ideas and gave a bad example. If married people loved each other and were happy together because of their common love, young noble girls would long to marry for love and to be happy in marriage because of love, and the time would come when there would be no true quality, because the nobles would have followed their desires or their weaker sentiments and formed haphazard unions brought about by natural selection. Man or maid would "silence the voice of glory in order to listen to the voice of love," should the dignity of hierarchical customs be brought down to the level of the lower passions. So Mademoiselle reasoned, and from her mental point of view her reasoning was sound. She was strong-minded; she realised the danger of permitting the heart to interfere in the marriage of the Elect.

The year 1641 was not ended when Mademoiselle appeared in spiritual mourning for a suitor who seems to us to have been nothing but a vision, the first vision of a series. Anne of Austria had never forgotten the Cardinal's cruel rebuke when he found Mademoiselle playing at man and wife with a child in long clothes. She had tried to console the little girl, and her manner had always been motherly and gentle. "It is true," she had said, "the Cardinal told the truth; my son is too small; you shall marry my brother!" When she had spoken thus she had referred to the Cardinal Infant,[77] who was in Flanders acting as Captain-General of the country and commanding the armies of the King of Spain.

The Prince was Archbishop of Toledo. He had not received Holy Orders. In that day it was not considered necessary to take orders before entering the Episcopate. "They taxed revenues, they delegated vicars-general for judicial action, and when the power of the Church was needed they delegated bishops. There were many prelates who were not priests." Henri de Lorraine II., Duc de Guise (born in 1614), was only fifteen years old when he received the Archbishopric of Rheims; he never received Holy Orders. In priestly vestments he presented every appearance of the most pronounced type of the ecclesiastical hybrid; he was an excellent Catholic, and a gallant and dashing pontiff-cavalier. His life as layman was far from religious. When he was twenty-seven years old he met a handsome widow, Mme. de Bossut. He married her on the spot without drum or cannon; and then, because some formality had been omitted, the marriage was confirmed by the Archbishop of Malines. The Church saw no obstacle to the marriage. Nicolas-François de Lorraine, Bishop of Toul, and Cardinal, was another example; "without being engaged in orders" he became "Duc de Lorraine" (1634) by the abdication of his brother Charles. He had political reasons for marrying his cousin "Claude" without delay, but he was stopped by an obstacle which did not emanate from his bishopric. Claude was his own cousin, and the prohibitions of the Church made it necessary for him to get a dispensation from Rome.

François visited his cousin and made his proposals. As a layman he needed a publication of his bans, and as a Catholic, in order to marry his cousin, he needed a dispensation from the Pope. Therefore he re-assumed the character of Bishop and issued a dispensation eliminating his bans, then, in the name of the Pope, he issued a dispensation making it spiritually lawful for him to marry his cousin to himself; that accomplished, he cast off the character of Bishop and was married by a regularly ordained priest like an ordinary mortal. In those days there was no abyss between the Church and the world. At most there was only a narrow ditch which the great lords crossed and recrossed at will, as caprice or interest moved them. In their portraits this species of oscillation, which was one of their distinguishing movements, is distinctly recorded and made evident even to the people of this century.

In the gallery of the Louvre we see a picture due to the brush of the Le Nain brothers, entitled, Procession in a Church. That part of the procession which is directly in front of the spectator is composed of members of the clergy, vested with all their churchly ornaments. The superb costumes are superbly worn by men of proud and knightly bearing. The portraits betray the true characters of their originals. These men are courtiers, utterly devoid of the collected and meditative tranquillity found in the legions of the Church. In the Le Nain brothers' picture the most notable figures are two warlike priests, who stand, like Norse kings, at the head of the procession, transfixing us with their look of bold assurance. No priests in ordinary, these, but natural soldiers, ready to die for a word or an idea! Their curled moustachios are light as foam; their beards are trimmed to a point, and under the embroidered dalmatica the gallant mien of the worldling frets as visibly as a lion in its cage. It is impossible to doubt it: these are soldiers; cavaliers who have but assumed the habit; who will take back the doublet and the sword, and with them the customs and the thoughts of men of war. Whatever their rank in the Church, hazard and birth alone have placed them there; and thus are they working out the sentence imposed by the ambition of their families; giving the lie to a calling for which they have neither taste nor capacity. The will of a strong man can defeat even pre-natal influences, and, knowing it, they make no hypocritical attempt to hide their character. They were not meant for priests, and every look and every action shows it.

The Cardinal-Infant, Archbishop of Toledo, was only a deacon, so there was nothing extraordinary in the thought that he might marry. I cannot say that he ever thought of marrying Mademoiselle; I have never found any proof that he entertained such a thought; the only thing absolutely certain in the whole affair is that Mademoiselle never doubted that he intended, or had intended, to marry her. Here is her own account of it, somewhat abridged and notably incoherent:

The Cardinal-Infant died of a tertian fever (9th November 1641), which had not hindered his remaining in the army all through the campaign.... His malady had not appeared very dangerous; nevertheless he died a few days after he came back from Brussels; which made them say that the Spaniards had poisoned him because they were afraid that by forming an alliance with France he would render himself master of Flanders,[78] and, in fact, that was his design. The Queen told me that after the King died she found in his strong-box memoranda showing that my marriage with that Prince had been decided upon. She told me nothing but that ... when this loss came upon them the King said to the Queen ... and he said it very rudely—"Your brother is dead." That news, so coarsely announced, added to her grief ... and for my own part, when I reflected upon my interests I was very deeply grieved; because that would have been the most agreeable establishment in the world for me, because of the beauty of the country, lying as it does so near this country, and because of the way in which they live there. As for the qualities of his person, though I esteemed him much, that was the least that I thought of.

The disappearance of the Cardinal-Infant was followed by events so tragic and so closely connected with Mademoiselle's life that her mind was distracted from her hunt for a husband. Despite her extreme youth, the affair Cinq-Mars constrained her to judge her father, and to the child to whom nothing was as dear as honour the revelation of his treachery was crushing.

IV

The death of Cinq-Mars was the dénouement of a great and tragic passion. Henry d'Effiat, Marquis de Cinq-Mars, was described as a handsome youth with soft, caressing eyes, marvellously graceful in all his movements.[79]

His mother was ambitious; she knew that men had risen to power by the friendship of kings. Richelieu's schemes required a thousand complicated accessories. So it was decided by the Cardinal and by Cinq-Mars's mother to present the child to the King and to place him in the royal presence to minister to the King's pleasure for an hour, as a beautiful flower is given to be cherished for a time, then cast away. The King was capricious and childish and, as Richelieu said, "he must always have his toy"; but elderly children, like very young children, soon tire of their toys and when they tire of them they destroy them; Louis XIII. had broken everything that he had played with, and his admiration inspired terror. Cinq-Mars was determined that he would not be a victim. Though very young, he knew the ways of the world and he had formed plans for his future. He was fond of the world and fond of pleasure. He was a natural lover, always sighing at the feet of women. He was brave and he had counted upon a military career. The thought of imprisonment in the Château of Saint Germain with a grumbling invalid whose ennui no one could vanquish was appalling; but after two years of resistance he yielded and entered the royal apartment as officer nearest to the King. It has been said that he lacked energy, but as he resisted two whole years before he gave up the struggle, and as the will which he opposed was the will of Richelieu, it is difficult to believe that he was not energetic.

History tells us that he was very nervous and that, although his will was feeble, he was subject to fits of anger. In 1638 he was in the King's household as Master of the Robes. He was eighteen years old. It was his business to select and order the King's garments, and the King was wont to reject whatever the boy selected because it was "too elegant." When Cinq-Mars was first seen in the King's apartment he was silent and very sad; the King's displeasure cowed him; the beautiful and gentle face and the appealing glance of the soft eyes irritated the sickly fancies of the monarch and he never noticed or addressed Cinq-Mars when he could avoid it. Cinq-Mars hated Saint Germain, and, truth to tell, even to an older and graver person, the lugubrious château would have seemed a prison. Sick at heart, weak in mind, tortured by fleshly ills, Louis XIII., sinking deeper into insignificance as the resplendent star of his Prime Minister rose, was but sorry company for any one.

Richelieu was the real ruler of France. Ranke, who used his relations with ambassadors as a means for increasing his store of personal and political data, said:

Dating our observations from the year 1629, we see a crowd of soldiers and other attentive people thronging Richelieu's house and even standing in the doors of his apartments. When he passes in his litter he is saluted respectfully; one kneels, another presents a petition, a third tries to kiss his vestments; all are happy who succeed in obtaining a glance from him. It is as if all the business of the country were already in his hands; he has assumed the highest responsibilities ever borne by a subject....

As time went on his success augmented his power. He lived in absolute seclusion at Rueil. He was difficult of approach, and if an ambassador succeeded in gaining admission to his presence it was because he had been able to prove that he had something to communicate to Richelieu which it was of essential interest to the State, or to the Cardinal personally, to know. All the national business was in his hands. He was the centre of all State interests, the King frequently attended his councils. If Richelieu visited the King he was surrounded by a guard; he hired his guard himself, selecting his men with great care and paying them out of his own pocket, so that he might feel that he was safe from his enemies even in the King's presence.

The officers of his personal service were numerous, young and very exalted nobles. His stables were in keeping with his importance; and his house was more magnificent and his table better served than the King's. When in Paris he lived in the Palais Cardinal (now the Palais Royal) surrounded by princely objects, all treasures in themselves; his train was the train of an emperor. The Louvre, the King's residence, was a simple palace, but the Cardinal's palace, called in Court language the "Hôtel de Richelieu," was the symbol of the luxury and the art of France, toward which the eyes of the people of France and of all other lands were turned. In the Hôtel de Richelieu there were cabinets where the high officials sat in secret discussion, boudoirs for the fair ladies, ball-rooms, treasure galleries where works of art were lavishly displayed, a chapel, and two theatres. The basis of the Cardinal's library was the public library of Rochelle, which had been seized after the siege. The chapel was one of the chief sights of Paris. Everything used in the ceremonial of worship was of solid gold, ornamented with great diamonds. Among the precious objects in use were two church chandeliers,[80] all of massive gold, enamelled and enriched with two thousand five hundred and sixteen diamonds. The vases used in the service of the Mass were of fine, richly enamelled gold, and in them were set two hundred and sixty-two diamonds. The cross, which was between twenty and twenty-one inches high, bore a figure of Christ of massive gold and the crown of thorns and the loin-cloth were studded with diamonds.

The Book of Prayer used by the Cardinal was bound in fine morocco leather; each side of the cover was enwreathed with sprigs of gold. On one side of the cover was a golden medallion, on which the Cardinal was depicted, like an emperor, holding the globe of the world in his hand; from the four corners of the cover angels were descending to crown his head with flowers. Beneath the device ran the Latin inscription, "Cadat." The ceiling of the grand gallery of the palace (destroyed under Louis XIV.) bore one of Philip de Champagne's masterpieces—a picture representing the glorious exploits of the Cardinal. One of the picture galleries called the "Gallery of Illustrious Men" contained twenty-five full-length portraits of the great men of France, chosen according to the Cardinal's estimate of greatness. At the foot of each portrait was a little "key," or historical representation of the principal acts of the original of the portrait, arranged as Fra Angelico and Giotto arranged the portraits of Saint Dominick and Saint François d'Assisi. Richelieu, who was not afflicted with false modesty, had placed his own portrait among the portraits in his gallery of the great men of France. Although he had amassed so many monuments of pride, he had passed a large portion of his life in relative poverty. He had travelled from the humble Episcopate to the steps of the throne of France on an income of 25,000 livres. When he died his income was nearly three millions of livres per annum,—the civil list of a powerful monarch. He was not an expert hoarder of riches, like Mazarin; he scattered money with full hands, while his master, the King, netted game-bags in a corner, cooked, or did other useful work, or gave himself up to his frugal pleasures.

According to Mme. de Motteville:

The King found himself reduced to the most miserable of earthly lives, without a suite, without a Court, without power, and consequently without pleasure and without honour. Thus a part of his life passed at Saint Germain, where he lived like a private individual; and while his enemies captured cities and won battles, he amused himself by catching birds. That Prince was unhappy in all manners, for he had not even the comfort of domestic life; he did not love the Queen at all.... He was jealous of the grandeur of his Minister ... whom he began to hate as soon as he perceived the extreme authority which the Cardinal wielded in the kingdom ... and as he was no happier without him than he was with him, he could not be happy at all.

Cinq-Mars entered the King's service under the auspices of the Cardinal. When the King saw the new face in his apartment he retired into his darkest humour.

Cinq-Mars was very patient; he was attentive and modest, but the sound of his voice and the sight of his face irritated the sickly monarch. Days passed before the King addressed his new Master of the Robes. One day he caught the long appealing look of the gentle eyes; he answered it with a stare,—frowned, and looked again. That night he could not sleep; he longed for the morning. When Cinq-Mars entered the bed-chamber the King drew him to his side "and suddenly he loved him violently and fatally, as in former times he loved young Baradas."

The courtiers were accustomed to the King's fancies, but his passion for Cinq-Mars astonished them; it surpassed all that had preceded it.

It was an appalling and jealous love; exacting, suspicious, bitter, stormy, and fruitful in tears and quarrels. Louis XIII. overwhelmed his favourite with tokens of his tenderness; had it been possible he would have chained the boy to his side. When Cinq-Mars was away from him he was miserable.

Cinq-Mars was obliged to assist him in his new trade (he was learning to be a carpenter), to stand at the bench holding tools and taking measurements; and to listen to long harangues on dogs and on bird-training. The King and his new favourite were seen together constantly, driving the foxes to their holes and running in the snowy fields catching blackbirds in the King's sweep-net; they hunted with a dozen sportsmen who were said to be "low people and very bad company."

When they returned to the palace the King supped; when he had finished his supper he went to bed, and then Cinq-Mars, "fatigued to exasperation by the puerile duties of the day, cared for nothing but to escape from his gloomy prison, and to forget the long, yellow face and the interminable torrent of hunting stories." Stealing from the château, he mounted his horse and hurried to Paris. He passed the night as he pleased and returned to the château early in the morning, worn out, haggard, and with nerves unstrung. Although he left the château after the King retired to his bed, and returned from Paris early in the morning, before the King awoke, Louis XIII. knew where he had been and what he had been doing. Louis employed spies who watched and listened. He was particularly jealous of Cinq-Mars's young friends; he "made scenes" and reproached Cinq-Mars and the tormented boy answered him hotly; then with cries, weeping bitterly, they quarrelled, and the King went to Richelieu to complain of "M. le Grand." Richelieu was State Confidant, and to him the King entrusted the reconciliations. In 1639 (27th November) Louis wrote to the Cardinal:

You will see by the certificate that I send you, in what condition is the reconciliation that you effected yesterday. When you put your hand to an affair it cannot but go well. I give you good-day.

The certificate read as follows:

We, the undersigned, certify to all to whom these presents may come, that we are very glad and well-satisfied with one another, and that we have never been in such perfect unison as at present. In faith of which we have signed the present certificate.

(signed) Louis; and by my order:
(signed) Effiat de Cinq-Mars.

The laboured reconciliations were not durable; the months which followed the signing of the certificate were one long tempest. The objects of the King's bitterest jealousy were young men who formed a society called Les messieurs du Marais because they met every evening at Mme. de Rohan's in the Palais Royal (the King then lived at the Louvre). Louis could not be silent; he exposed his spite on all occasions. January 5, 1640, he wrote to the Cardinal:

I am sorry to have to tell you again of the ill-humour of M. le Grand. On his return from Rueil he gave me the packet which you sent to me. I opened it and read it. Then I said to him:

"Monsieur, the Cardinal informs me that you have manifested great desire to please me in all things; nevertheless you evince no wish to please me in regard to that which I begged the Cardinal to speak of: namely, your laziness." He answered that you did speak to him of it, but that he could not change his character, and that in that respect he should not do any better than he had been in the habit of doing. That discourse angered me. I said to him that a man of his condition ought to take some steps toward rendering himself worthy to command armies (since he had told me that it was his intention to lead armies). I told him that laziness was contrary to military action. He answered me brusquely that he had never had such an intention and that he had never pretended to have it. I answered, "Que si! You have!" I did not wish to go any deeper into the discourse (you know well what I mean). I then took up the discourse on laziness. I told him that vice renders a man incapable of doing anything good, and that he is good for nothing but the society of the people of the Marais where he was nourished,—people who have given themselves up to pleasure! I told him that if he wishes to continue the life that he is now living among his old friends, he may return to the place whence he came. He answered arrogantly that he should be quite ready to do so!

I answered him: "If I were not wiser than you I know what I should answer to that!" ... After that I said to him that he ought not to speak to me in such fashion. He answered after the manner of his usual discourse that at present his only duty appeared to be to do good to me and to be agreeable to me and that as to such business he could get along very well without it! He said that he would as willingly be Cinq-Mars as to be M. le Grand; and that as to changing his ways and his manner of life, he could not do it! ... And so it went! he pecking at me and I pecking at him until we reached the courtyard; when I said to him that as he was in such a humour he would do me pleasure if he would refrain from showing himself before me any more. He bore witness that he would do that same right willingly! I have not seen him since then.

Precisely as I have told you all that passed, in the presence of Gordes.

Louis.

Post-Scriptum:

I have shown Gordes this memorandum before sending it, and he has told me that there is nothing in it but the truth, exactly as he heard it and saw it pass.

Cinq-Mars sulked and the King sulked, and as the quarrel promised to endure indefinitely, Richelieu bestirred himself, left his quiet home in Rueil and travelled to the house of the King to make peace between the ill-assorted pair.