and also from other sources, we learn
the lines upon which he schemed to remodel the map of Europe. The
Memoirs are not written by Sully himself, and have been tampered with.
The Grand Design was never executed, never even attempted, and need
not be discussed. Henry boasted to the Spanish ambassador that he
would lose no time over Italy; that he would breakfast at Milan, hear
mass at Rome, and dine at Naples. "Then," said the Spaniard, "you will
be in time for vespers in Sicily." Before starting for his expedition
Henry had his queen crowned, that she might act as regent in his
absence. On his way to arrange the ceremony of her entrance into
Paris he met his death. Rumours of a plot had reached him and made
him nervous. While the conspirators were watching for him to pass, a
solitary fanatic, Ravaillac, drove a knife between his ribs, and gave
a respite to the House of Austria.

Henry's institutions broke down immediately after his death. His
widow, Mary of Medici, was unequal to the task of continuing a policy
of independent action, relying on no group of friends and on no
established force of opinion. The clergy influenced her as they had
never influenced her husband. The princes of the blood, the great
nobles, the Protestants, became turbulent; and the states-general,
summoned for the last time before Lewis XVI, afforded no assistance:
The queen gave her confidence to Concini, a Florentine like herself,
whom she created a marshal of France. Her son, Lewis XIII, ordered
him to be killed in the courtyard of the palace; and his wife, the
queen's foster-sister, was put to death by complaisant judges. The
young king's favourite, Luynes, governed for a time, until the queen
obtained the first post for an adviser of her own, who was the
strongest Frenchman of the old regime.

With Richelieu, as with all great men, we do well to ascertain
low-water mark, that praise and admiration may not be carried too far.
He was not a good administrator, for he considered the general
interest, not that of any number of individual men. Every Frenchman
had felt the benefit of Henry's appeasing wisdom, and a season of
prosperity had ensued. But no individual was the better for
Richelieu's eighteen years of supreme office. He wasted the treasure
of ambitious enterprises, and sacrificed the happiness of the people
to the greatness of the king. No man was richer in sagacious maxims,
or in experience of mankind; but he was dest