end. At Nordlingen, in 1634, the Swedes, under Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, were completely routed, and their prestige destroyed. France then stepped in as the champion of Protestantism, and enabled Bernhard to obtain on the Rhine successes so great that they were beginning to excite the jealousy of Richelieu, when Bernhard died, in 1639, at the early age of thirty-five. Sudden death was so frequently the fate of those who stood in the cardinal's way, that strong suspicions were entertained of poison.

During the few years which followed the death of Gustavus, the arms of France were far from successful. Richelieu's mania for centralisation allowed no discretion to his generals, each of whom had an associate who was at the same time a spy. So little was there of national feeling, that the court rejoiced at the discomfiture of the minister.

Foreign affairs were not the only subjects of Richelieu's anxiety. There seemed no end to the plots of the incorrigible queen. M. Michelet thus describes her at this period of her life:

Queen Anne of Austria in 1637 was no longer young. She was of about the same age as the century; but she retained the extreme freshness of her complexion; it was all lilies and roses. Flaxen and Austrian in her early youth, her hair had grown darker; she was becoming more Spanish. But as she was fat, her incomparable fairness had only increased. Flora became Ceres in the full meridian, the royal splendour of summer.

She nursed her beauty a little too much; eat a great deal, and got up very late, either from southern indolence, or for the sake of her complexion. She heard one or two Low Masses, dined copiously at noon, and then visited some convent. Of sanguine temperament, proud and passionate, she yet was weak; her attendants called her toute bonne. She was, especially when young, charitable to the poor; her heart was loving, credulous, unguarded. Mme. de Chevreuse, who knew her well, said to Retz, Put on a dreamy air, forget yourself in admiration of her white skin, her pretty hands, and you may do what you like with her.' Her ignorance and incapacity made her the tool of interested lovers and intriguing women.

She betrayed whilst she flattered. She had drawn nearer to Richelieu ; she asked favours of him; she even visited him at Ruel, and accepted his fêtes and his collations, and his verses.

Richelieu was not quite a dupe; he was uneasy at so great a change; and at this very moment he was planning a little plot which should banish Mdlle, de Hautefort, the queen's advocate-her virtuous spy."

He directed the king's attention towards Mademoiselle de Lafayette, a relation of the Père Joseph. She had not the enchanting loveliness of the Aurora, but she possessed qualities which captivate the affections more securely than mere beauty.

She was dark, slender, and delicate; and her large black eyes were full of tender or lofty feeling. Louis, for the first time, knew what it is to love and be loved. Louise de Lafayette was not dazzled or corrupted; she felt intense pity and sympathy for the man who, betrayed by all who were nearest and dearest to him, was dying of premature old age, alone in his splendid solitude. In her society Louis shook off his reserve, and showed all the better parts of his nature, his high principles and real kindness; he told her all his griefs and cares.

Richelieu could not induce her to betray the secrets of her friend. As she refused to be his instrument, she was to be his victim. Through her confessor he worked upon her scruples, and when Louis, in a transport of passion, urged her to accept an apartment in Versailles, and to become wholly his, she was advised to put an impassable barrier between herself and her royal lover. Soon afterwards she announced to the king her intention of taking the veil. He long combated her resolution, but in vain. She entered the convent; but the struggle ended in a serious illness.

Richelieu triumphed; so did the queen, little knowing that she was on the eve of the most bitter humiliation in her life. One of her letters to Madame de Chevreuse, who was dying of ennui in her exile at Tours, fell into Richelieu's hands. It contained allusions to her correspondence with Spain, Lorraine, and England; it had been written at Val de Grace, and it was said. that a young cavalier strikingly resembling Mme. de Chevreuse rode from time to time from Tours to the convent. Richelieu obtained permission to revisit the queen's apartments at Val de Grace. His emissaries, however, found only books of devotion and instruments of penance. In the hope of extorting evidence, her confidential servant Laporte was thrown into the Bastille.

The queen at first swore before a priest, on the holy communion which she had just received, that she had written only to Mme. de Chevreuse. The cardinal warned her that he knew more; then, sending away all witnesses, alone with Richelieu, she made a partial confession, throwing herself on his mercy, and promising never to offend again; she offered to him her hand, but the cardinal drew back with respectful gravity.

The fear was lest Laporte might tell still more.

To prevent this, Mdlle. de Hautefort, disguised as a grisette, her golden locks well hidden under her cap, procured admission to the Bastille, and contrived to transmit to Laporte a letter, telling how far, but no farther, he might confess. The queen's personal danger was over, but not her humiliation. The king never addressed her, and the courtiers scarcely dared to raise their eyes to the window of her apartment. She was forgiven,

but in disgrace. To reinstate her a miracle was required, and, by the intervention of a saint, a miracle was accomplished.

The intimacy between Louis XIII. and Louise de Lafayette did not cease on the threshold of the convent. From behind the grating of the parlour, she was still permitted to see the king; and her influence became greater than ever. She used it, as she thought, for his happiness. She never ceased to urge him to dismiss the pernicious minister who held him enslaved, and to be reconciled to his wife.

She pleaded so eloquently in behalf of Anne of Austria, that at last she succeeded; and in the following year, on the 5th September 1638, the whole nation went mad with joy on the birth of that sublime mediocrity, the prince who was to carry out the designs of Richelieu without his genius, the future Louis XIV.

Richelieu," says M. Michelet, was speechless. His fate was to be in the hands of the Infanta of Austria, the Spanish regent. In the dry, short compliment which he addressed to the queen, the words stuck in his throat-Madam, great joys are silent.'

The future was dark. Richelieu, it is true, need no longer fear Gaston. But who would be the queen's lovers? That was the question. Hated by her to such an extent, could he induce her to accept a creature of his own? A man without family and without root, a foreigner, a priest, an adventurer without birth, suited him better than any other. This, if I am not mistaken, is the chief reason why he soon after adopted an Italian, whom he presented himself to the queen as resembling Buckingham, the acute, the crafty, the handsome Mazarini. Did Richelieu know the man whom he placed so high in France? Perfectly; he knew him to be base, and therefore he chose him. He had seen him false and ungrateful to his earliest patron the Père Joseph. In the beginning of 1638, Joseph, seconded by his young kinswoman Lafayette, had been working against Richelieu. He had made the king promise to recall the queen-mother, and to ask the pope for a cardinal's hat for himself. The pope dared not. Richelieu opposed the claims of Joseph, and urged against them those of Mazarini. Joseph saw that he was cheated. An attack of apoplexy struck him in May; the world said that he was poisoned. He fled from the cardinal's house to his own convent, received bad news from Rome, and died in two hours after, on the 18th of December 1638.

Mazarini had calculated that, as his excellent patron the Père Joseph was at the point of death, it was advisable to be on the spot, to insinuate himself into the place while it was yet warm. He established himself in the house of his intimate friend Chavigny, whom he afterwards betrayed, as he had betrayed Joseph. He came, he said, to yield himself soul and body to the great master of politics, to study under him. Richelieu, who, in spite of his greatness, had some foibles of pedantry, took him at his word, and made him his pupil. One day, as his niece returned from the theatre, the cardinal said to her, 'Whilst

you are amusing yourself, I am forming a statesman.' Richelieu saw the value of the tool which he was making. He who had known so many men, had never seen one so acute or so mean. Though not to be deceived, he was to be subdued by hope and by fear. He resolved to push him, and at last obtained for him the cardinal's hat."

Such was the first appearance in France of the man who, with neither strong passions nor elevated feelings to interfere with his love of power, with a heart never at variance with his head, though execrated and despised by all, yet beat every rival, oppressed France and its sovereign for fourteen years, and finally died possessed of more absolute power than Richelieu himself.

Soon after the birth of the Dauphin, the cardinal treated the court to a grand fête-the ballet of La Félicité publique: and this when the arms of France in the Netherlands, in Spain, and in Italy, had met with repeated disasters. But Richelieu was not to be dismayed.

In 1640 the scene changed. France turned to good account the revolutions in England, Spain, and Portugal. Arras was wrested from Spain, and soon afterwards General Harcourt entered Turin. At the same time Richelieu's nephew, the young Admiral Brézé, whose career was as glorious as it was short, defeated the Spanish fleet before Cadiz. The rejoicings for these victories were mingled with thanksgivings for a domestic event; a second son, Philippe, duc d'Anjou, was born to Louis XIII. on the 21st September 1640.

The humiliation of the House of Austria seemed at hand. The sun at length pierced the clouds, and prepared the way for the serene evening which was to close the stormy career of the minister. For the present, however, he was not allowed to pursue his policy in peace. His enemies at home were powerful allies to his enemies abroad. Marching steadily forwards, he had trampled on all that impeded his progress. Princes and nobles he had reduced to insignificance; the parliament he had deprived of privileges-usurped indeed, but sanctioned by custom. The people, exhausted by famine and rapine, called aloud for peace. Still no peace could be made till Austria was subdued.

Plot followed plot, detected, punished, and renewed. One after the other, Richelieu condemned to death the Duc de la Valette, the brother-in-law, and the Duc de Vendôme, the brother of the king. A more formidable conspirator, the Comte de Soissons, was killed by an unknown hand at the head of his rebel army.

But the worst of all was to come. Richelieu nourished a serpent in his own bosom. He had at length succeeded in separating Louis XIII. and Louise de Lafayette. He obtained

the banishment of Mdlle. de Hautefort. Thinking female influence too powerful, he presented a new favourite to the king, a handsome boy of seventeen, Cinq Mars, the son of his old friend D'Effiat. The king took a violent fancy to this youth, and the insolence and pretensions of the new favourite knew no bounds. He despised the place of premier écuyer, hitherto granted to the king's companions. "C'était bon," he said, "pour de petits gentilshommes;" for himself, he would be grand écuyer. So he was styled by the court, "M. le Grand." Luxurious and dissipated in his habits, he soon became wearied of the dismal monotony of the king's life, and he made frequent escapes to Marion de Lorme, and to his former jolly companions. These irregularities shocked the grave and decorous Louis XIII., who tried to reform him, and set spies upon his actions. Perpetual quarrels were the result; and the king used to draw up procès verbaux signed by the valets, and submit them to Richelieu, who in turn lectured the unhappy favourite.

Once or twice he intruded on secret conferences between the king and his minister. At last Richelieu crushed his ambition with indignant scorn. From that day he swore the death of the minister.

He had only to look round to find accomplices in every rank. He became the nucleus of a wide-spreading conspiracy, at the head of which was the queen, supported by the Dukes of Orleans and Bouillon. The king himself seemed to desire the death of the tyrant; he repeated that he wished to get rid of him,-" s'en défaire," though he objected to the assassination of a priest. The connecting link, and, from his high character and attainments, one of the chief members of this plot, was François Auguste de Thou, the son of the great Thuanus.

The object of the conspiracy was, that after the king's death, which could not be distant, the regency should be assumed by Anne of Austria. For this purpose it was necessary to kill the cardinal; for it was known that he had the will, and it was believed that he had the power, to prevent it. The governors of the provinces and of the fortresses, and the commanders of the armies, were his creatures, or at least his friends: they might not be able to prevent his assassination, but they would avenge it. Foreign aid was therefore called in; and Fontrailles, a cousin and friend of Cinq Mars, concluded, in the names of Gaston, duke of Orleans, the Duc de Bouillon, and Cinq Mars, a treaty with Olivarès, by which Spain engaged to invade France immediately with 12,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, Spanish or German veterans, and to place in the hands of Gaston all the fortresses that should be taken.

The declared purpose of it was to force a peace between the