belief of the public, you say, is that they proceed from me,
an unhappy foreigner, who has been unable to please the
French. Alas! I have never been understood, and no wonder. I
succeeded a man of the most sublime genius that ever upheld
the sceptre of France. The memory of Richelieu annihilates
me. In vain — were I an ambitious man — should I struggle
against such remembrances as he has left; but that I am not
ambitious I am going to prove to you. I own myself
conquered. I shall obey the wishes of the people. If Paris
has injuries to complain of, who has not some wrongs to be
redressed? Paris has been sufficiently punished; enough
blood has flowed, enough misery has humbled a town deprived
of its king and of justice. ‘Tis not for me, a private
individual, to disunite a queen from her kingdom. Since you
demand my resignation, I retire.”
“Then,” said Aramis, in his neighbor’s ear, “the conferences
are over. There is nothing to do but to send Monsieur
Mazarin to the most distant frontier and to take care that
he does not return even by that, nor any other entrance into
France.”
“One instant, sir,” said the man in a gown, whom he
addressed; “a plague on’t! how fast you go! one may soon see
that you’re a soldier. There’s the article of remunerations
and indemnifications to be discussed and set to rights.”
“Chancellor,” said the queen, turning to Seguier, our old
acquaintance, “you will open the conferences. They can take
place at Rueil. The cardinal has said several things which
have agitated me, therefore I will not speak more fully now.
As to his going or staying, I feel too much gratitude to the
cardinal not to leave him free in all his actions; he shall
do what he wishes to do.”
A transient pallor overspread the speaking countenance of
the prime minister; he looked at the queen with anxiety. Her
face was so passionless, that he, as every one else present,
was incapable of reading her thoughts.
“But,” added the queen, “in awaiting the cardinal’s decision
let there be, if you please, a reference to the king only.”
The deputies bowed and left the room.
“What!” exclaimed the queen, when the last of them had
quitted the apartment, “you would yield to these limbs of
the law — these advocates?”
“To promote your majesty’s welfare, madame,” replied
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Mazarin, fixing his penetrating eyes on the queen, “there is
no sacrifice that I would not make.”
Anne dropped her head and fell into one of those reveries so
habitual with her. A recollection of Athos came into her
mind. His fearless deportment, his words, so firm, yet
dignified, the shades which by one word he had evoked,
recalled to her the past in all its intoxication of poetry
and romance, youth, beauty, the eclat of love at twenty
years of age, the bloody death of Buckingham, the only man
whom she had ever really loved, and the heroism of those
obscure champions who had saved her from the double hatred
of Richelieu and the king.
Mazarin looked at her, and whilst she deemed herself alone
and freed from the world of enemies who sought to spy into
her secret thoughts, he read her thoughts in her
countenance, as one sees in a transparent lake clouds pass
— reflections, like thoughts, of the heavens.
“Must we, then,” asked Anne of Austria, “yield to the storm,
buy peace, and patiently and piously await better times?”
Mazarin smiled sarcastically at this speech, which showed
that she had taken the minister’s proposal seriously.
Anne’s head was bent down — she had not seen the Italian’s
smile; but finding that her question elicited no reply she
looked up.
“Well, you do not answer, cardinal, what do you think about
it?”
“I am thinking, madame, of the allusion made by that
insolent gentleman, whom you have caused to be arrested, to
the Duke of Buckingham — to him whom you allowed to be
assassinated — to the Duchess de Chevreuse, whom you
suffered to be exiled — to the Duc de Beaufort, whom you