nobles, all disaffected to Richelieu (at least in his absence), and endeavouring, but without committing themselves, to strengthen the feeble-minded monarch in his timid half-purposes of breaking with the terrible Cardinal. The King, talking quick and excitedly, and venturing an occasional jest to the nobles around him at the Cardinal's expense, tries to screw up his courage to speak the decisive word. Richelieu's enemies are in joyful expectation, and when the Cardinal enters, he sees in the face and demeanour of every courtier the forecast of his downfal: all shun him save Fabert, the commander of the troops, who with military frankness advances and addresses him—and Mazarin, the supple insinuating man of the world, who gives him a look unseen by all other eyes, expressive of the deepest respect and affliction. Richelieu takes his resolution instantly; he approaches the King, and begs permission to restore into the hands of his sovereign a power of which he had long been weary, and prepare in retirement, by prayer and meditation, for his approaching end. The King, though taken by surprise, yet shocked by some haughty expressions, and feeling that the eyes of all his court are upon him, gives none of his usual signs of weakness and indecision, but coldly, and with a look of dignity, accepts the resignation. Nothing embarrassed by this unexpected stroke, the Cardinal proceeded :

"The only recompense I ask for my services is, that your Majesty will deign to accept as a gift from me the Palais Cardinal" (now Palais Royal), erected in Paris at my expense.'

6

"The King, astonished, gave a nod of consent; a murmur of surprise went through the assembled court.

"I also implore your Majesty to grant me the revocation of a severity of which I was the adviser, and which I, perhaps mistakenly, deemed needful for the repose of the state. There is a personage, Sire, whom, in spite of her faults towards your Majesty, and although for the good of the state I forgot too much my oldest feelings of respect and attachment, I have always loved; one who, notwithstanding her armed enterprises against your person, cannot but be dear to you; to whom, now that I am detached from the world and its interests, I feel that I owe reparation, and whom it is my parting entreaty that you will recall from her exile-Queen Mary de' Medici, your royal mother.'"

The King, who little expected this name, uttered an involuntary cry. The whole fabric of his resolution was overset; his heart was touched, he held out his hand to the Cardinal, and this moment decided the destiny of France. Soon after a courier enters with a packet, sealed with black, to be delivered into the King's own hand; it is the news of his mother's death, known to Richelieu the day before.

A duel follows, under the walls of the besieged town, ending in the storm of an outwork by Cinq-Mars, Gondi, and others; and a battle arranged by Richelieu to amuse the King, without the intention of its leading to any result-an artifice in some danger of being disconcerted by the impetuous valour of Louis himself, whose feebleness (conformably to history) vanishes in the presence of the enemy; and who returns, flushed with victory, to resume his pale and melancholy look under the cold shadow of his minister. Cinq-Mars is presented to the King, taken at once into favour, and accompanies him to Paris; while the Cardinal, now apprised of his attempt to rescue Bassompierre, and of his escapade at Loudun, and discovering that he may be dangerous, lays his plans to ruin him by sending his agent Joseph (already the enemy of Cinq-Mars) to Paris, as a spy upon him. Richelieu himself remains at a distance, that his enemies may be encouraged to put themselves in his power by another, which he knows will be the last, conspiracy. "Wretches," says he, as his tools, Joseph and Laubardemont, each the other's bitter enemy, leave his tent "wretches-go, accomplish a few more of my secret designs, and then be crushed yourselves, impure instruments of my power. Soon the King will sink under the slow malady which consumes him; I shall be Regent-King-I shall have no longer to fear the caprices of his feebleness; I will destroy, without redemption, all those arrogant houses; I will pass the scythe of Tarquin over them. I will be alone above them all, Europe shall tremble-I.." he is interrupted by a gush of blood from his mouth, himself a prey to an incurable disease.

The story here passes over two years, and carries us to the Louvre, where Cinq-Mars is now Grand-Ecuyer, and the soul of a conspiracy, of which the King was tacitly the chief, to which the Queen was privy, to which the King's only brother, Gaston, Duke of Orleans, lent his name, and the Duke de Bouillon, the most powerful of the nobles, and commander of the army in Italy, his counsels. For ten days Cinq-Mars has been, not married, but affianced (by his worthy old preceptor, the Abbé Quillet, the defender of Grandier) to the Princess of Mantua, whom, constantly in attendance on the Queen, he but rarely sees in private, and that in a church and in the presence of the good Abbé, but the love of whom is the sole animating principle of his designs. The Queen, Anne of Austria, in whom our author shows us a pleasing picture of dignity and gentleness in misfortune, is not in the secret of the lovers, but, suspecting it, looks on with a melancholy interest. After an émeute, in which the populace heap execrations on Richelieu, and shout for the King and Cinq-Mars, but which, like all the other proceedings of this un

fortunate cabal, ends in nothing-the Princess speaking hopefully to the Queen of the Cardinal's loss of favour, and the King's attachment to another

"The Queen smiled; she contemplated for awhile in silence the innocent and open countenance of the beautiful Marie, and the look full of ingenuousness which was raised languidly towards her she parted the dark locks which veiled that fair forehead-kissed her cheek, and said: Thou suspectest not, poor child, the sad truth, that the King loves no one, and that those who seem most in his favour are nearest to being abandoned, and flung to the man who swallows up and devours everything.'

"Ah! good heavens, what is it you tell me!'

"Know'st thou how many he has destroyed?' continued the Queen, in a lower voice; know'st thou the end of his favourites? have they told thee of the exile of Baradas, that of Saint Simon, the shame of D'Hautefort, the convent of La Fayette, the death of Chalais? All have fallen before an order from Richelieu to his master; and but for that favour, which thou mistakest for attachment, their lives would have been peaceful; his affection is deadly; they perish like the Semele on that tapestry; it dazzles while it consumes them.'

"But the young Princess was no longer in a condition to listen; her large dark eyes, veiled by tears, remained fixed on the Queen, who held her trembling hands, while her lips quivered convulsively.

"I am very cruel, am I not, Marie ? continued the Queen, in the gentlest voice, caressing her like a child who is to be coaxed into confession, your heart is full, my child; come, tell me what has passed between you and Cinq-Mars?'

"At these words grief forced itself a way, and, still kneeling at the Queen's feet, Marie hid her face and broke out into a deluge of tears, with infantine sobs, and violent convulsive emotions of her head and neck, as if her heart would burst. The Queen waited long for the end of this first gush of emotion, lulling her in her arms to appease her grief, and soothing her with kind expressions. "Ah, Madame, cried she, I am very culpable towards you, but I did not think to find such a heart; I have been very wrong, I shall, perhaps, be cruelly punished for it. But alas! Madame, how could I have dared speak to you? It was not opening my heart that would have been difficult; but confessing to you that I needed that you should read in it.'"

The Queen receives her full confidence, and after some gentle reproaches, continues, as if soliloquizing:

"But the mischief is done, let us think of the future. CinqMars is well in himself, he is brave, accomplished, profound even in his conceptions; I have observed him, he has made much way in two years, and I see that it was for Marie. He conducts himself

well; he is worthy, yes, he is worthy of her in my eyes; but in the eyes of Europe, not. He must rise still higher; the Princess of Mantua must not have married less than a Prince. He must become one. As for me, I can do nothing: I am not the Queen— I am the neglected wife of the King. There is only the Cardinal, the eternal Cardinal, and he is his enemy, and perhaps this émeute-'

"Alas! it is the beginning of war between them, I saw it too plainly this moment.'

"He is lost, then!' cried the Queen, embracing Marie. Forgive me, my child; I am tearing your heart, but we must see all and say all now; he is lost unless he can himself overthrow that wicked man; for the King will not renounce him; force alone' "He will overthrow him, Madame; he will if you assist him. You are the providence of France. Oh! I conjure you, protect the angel against the demon; it is your cause, that of your royal family, of your nation—'

"The Queen smiled. It is thy cause above all, is it not, my child; and as such will I embrace it with all my power; that power is but small, as I have told thee, but the whole of it shall be given to thee; provided, however, that this angel do not stoop to mortal sins,' said she, with a look full of acuteness; I heard his name shouted this night by voices very unworthy of him.”

6

The story developes itself in a narrative rapid and enchaining, crowded with incidents, and with tableaux full of life and character. But we see that the enterprise is not fated to succeed. Of the conspirators, Cinq-Mars alone shows any spirit or conduct; and with him it is a desperate throw for Marie or a scaffold he knows that the poor-spirited chiefs of the conspiracy "tremble while they threaten, and are ready at the first word to make their peace by the sacrifice of him." He does what man can do, but an unseen hand plays with him from two hundred leagues off, like a cat with a mouse: the contest is with a mightier than he, and we see that he is doomed.

One scene, that of the evening rendezvous of Cinq-Mars and Marie in the church of St Eustache, tells the story both of what precedes and of what follows.

"The young and trembling Marie pushed with a timid hand the heavy door of the church; she found there Cinq-Mars, in his accustomed disguise, anxiously waiting for her. Scarcely had she recognized him, when, with a hurried step, she rushed across the church, her velvet mask over her face, and took refuge in a confessional, while Henri carefully closed the door by which she entered. Having made sure that it could not be opened from without, he followed her, to kneel, according to their custom, in the place of penitence. Arrived an hour before her, he had found the door open, the usual sign that the Abbé Quillet, his preceptor, was

waiting in the accustomed place; and joyful at the good abbé's punctuality, without going to thank him, he, in his anxiety to pręvent surprise, remained at the entrance till Marie's arrival.

"The old parish church of St Eustache would have been in total darkness, but for the lamp which was always burning, and four flambeaux of yellow wax, attached to as many principal columns, over the bénitiers, throwing a ruddy light across the grey and black marbles of the deserted temple. This glimmering light scarcely penetrated into the more distant niches in the aisles of the sacred edifice. In one of the most sombre of these was the confessional, all of which, except the little dome and the wooden cross, was masked by a high iron grating, lined with thick planks. Cinq-Mars and Mary of Mantua knelt down on the two sides; they could but just see each other, and they found that, as usual, the abbé, seated between them, had been long waiting. They could see through the little grating the shadow of his camail. Henri d'Effiat had approached slowly; this hour was to fix the remainder of his destiny. He was about to appear, not now before his King, but before a more powerful sovereign, her for whom he had undertaken his immense enterprise. He was about to try her faith, and he trembled.

"He shook still more when his young betrothed knelt face to face with him; the sight of her recalled to him all the happiness he was perhaps about to lose; he dared not be the first to speak, but remained gazing, in the dim light, at that young head, on which rested all his hopes. In spite of all his love, whenever he saw her he could not help feeling a sort of terror at having undertaken so much for a girl whose passion was but a feeble reflection of his, and who, perhaps, had not appreciated all his sacrifices—his character bent, for her sake, to the compliances of a courtier; condemned to the intrigues and sufferings of ambition, to the anxious combinations, the criminal meditations, the dark and violent labours of a conspirator. Hitherto, in their secret and chaste interviews, she had heard every new step in his progress with a child-like joy, asking him with naïveté how soon he should be Constable, and when they should be married, as she might have asked when he would come to the tilt, and if it was fine weather. Till now he had smiled at this inexperience, so pardonable at eighteen, in a child born on a throne and bred in an atmosphere of grandeur; but he now reflected more seriously, and when, after the voices of the conspirators swearing to commence a vast war had scarcely done sounding in his ears, he heard the first words of her for whom that war had been undertaken, he feared, for the first time, that this innocence might be levity, and the childishness might extend to the heart: he resolved to penetrate it.

"O heavens!' said she, 'how afraid I am, Henri! you make me come without carriage or guards; I tremble lest my people should see me as I leave the palace. Shall I have to hide myself