that the highest head in the realm might fall under an accusation of
treason; and that, powerful as each might be in his own province or his
own government, he was still responsible to the monarch for the manner
in which he used that power, and answerable to the laws of his country
should he be rash enough to abuse it.

That Henry felt and understood that such must necessarily be the effect
produced by the fate of the Marechal there can be little doubt, as well
as that he was still further induced to impress so wholesome a
conviction upon the minds of his haughty aristocracy by the probability
of a minority, during which the disorders incident to so many
conflicting and imaginary claims could not fail to convulse the kingdom
and to endanger the stability of the throne; while it is no less evident
that, once having forced upon their reason a conviction of his own
ability to compel obedience where his authority was resisted, and to
assert his sovereign privilege where he felt it to be essential to the
preservation of the realm, he evinced no desire to extend his severity
beyond its just limits. Thus, as we have seen, with the exception of
the Baron de Fontenelles, who had drawn down upon himself the terrible
expiation of a cruel death, rather by a long succession of crime than by
his association in the conspiracy of Biron, all the other criminals
already judged had escaped the due punishment of their treason; while
the Comte d'Auvergne, after having been detained during a couple of
months in the Bastille, was restored to liberty at the intercession of
his sister, Madame de Verneuil, who pledged herself to the monarch that
he was guilty only in so far as he had been faithful to the trust
reposed in him by the Marechal, and had forborne to betray his secret,
while he had never actively participated in the conspiracy. She moreover
assured Henry, who was only anxious to find an opportunity of pardoning
the Count--an anxiety which the tears and supplications of the Marquise,
as well as his own respect for the blood of the Valois inherited by
D'Auvergne from his royal father, tended naturally to increase--that the
prisoner was prepared, since the death of Biron had freed him from all
further necessity for silence, to communicate to his Majesty every
particular of which he was cognizant. The concession was accepted; the
Count made the promised revelations; and his liberation was promptly
followed by a renewal of the King's favou