uis XIV., who looked around him in vain for a
great noble, and found only courtiers. The great rebellion, which, for
nearly two centuries, agitated France, almost entirely disappeared
under the ministry of the cardinal. The Guises, who had touched with
their hand the sceptre of Henry III., the Condes, who had placed their
foot on the steps of the throne of Henry IV., and Gaston, who had
tried upon his brow the crown of Louis XIII.,--all returned, at the
voice of the minister, if not into nothingness, at least into
impotency. All who struggled against the iron will, enclosed in that
feeble body, were broken like glass. And all the struggle which
Richelieu sustained, he did not sustain for his own sake, but for that
of France. All the enemies, against whom he contended, were not his
enemies merely, but those of the kingdom. If he clung tenaciously by
the side of a king, whom he compelled to live a melancholy, unhappy,
and isolated life, whom he deprived successively of his friends, of
his mistresses, and of his family, as a tree is stripped of its
leaves, of its branches, and of its bark, it was because friends,
mistresses, and family exhausted the sap of the expiring royalty,
which had need of all its egotism to prevent it from perishing. For it
was not intestinal struggles merely,--there was also foreign war,
which had connected itself fatally with them. All those great nobles
whom he decimated, all those princes of the blood whom he exiled, were
inviting foreigners to France; and these foreigners, answering eagerly
to the summons, were entering the country on three different
sides,--the English by Guienne, the Spaniards by Roussillon, and the
Austrians by Artois.

[Sidenote: Effects of Richelieu's Policy.]

"He repulsed the English by driving them to the Isle of Re, and by
besieging La Rochelle; the Spaniards, by creating beside them the new
kingdom of Portugal; and the imperialists, by detaching Bavaria from
its alliance, by suspending their treaty with Denmark, and by sowing
dissensions in the Catholic league. His measures were cruel, but not
uncalled for. Chalais fell, but he had conspired with Lorraine and
Spain; Montmorency fell, but he had entered France with arms in his
hand; Cinq-Mars fell, but he had invited foreigners into the kingdom.
Bred a simple priest, he became not only a great statesman, but a
great general. And when La Rochelle fell before those measures to
which Schomberg and Bassompierre were comp