hose who knew his character better detected bitter
rage lurking under this apparent moderation, and knew that he was never
satisfied until he had got the hostile book condemned by the parliament
to be burned in the Place de Greve, as "injurious to the King, in the
person of his minister, the most illustrious Cardinal," as we read in
the decrees of the time, and that his only regret was that the author
was not in the place of his book--a satisfaction he gave himself
whenever he could, as in the case of Urbain Grandier.

It was his colossal pride which he thus avenged, without avowing it even
to himself--nay, laboring for a length of time, sometimes for a whole
twelvemonth together, to persuade himself that the interest of the State
was concerned in the matter. Ingenious in connecting his private affairs
with the affairs of France, he had convinced himself that she bled
from the wounds which he received. Joseph, careful not to irritate
his ill-temper at this moment, put aside and concealed a book entitled
'Mystres Politiques du Cardinal de la Rochelle'; also another,
attributed to a monk of Munich, entitled 'Questions quolibetiques,
ajustees au temps present, et Impiete Sanglante du dieu Mars'. The
worthy advocate Aubery, who has given us one of the most faithful
histories of the most eminent Cardinal, is transported with rage at the
mere title of the first of these books, and exclaims that "the great
minister had good reason to glorify himself that his enemies, inspired
against their will with the same enthusiasm which conferred the gift of
rendering oracles upon the ass of Balaam, upon Caiaphas and others,
who seemed most unworthy of the gift of prophecy, called him with good
reason Cardinal de la Rochelle, since three years after their writing
he reduced that town; thus Scipio was called Africanus for having
subjugated that PROVINCE!" Very little was wanting to make Father
Joseph, who had necessarily the same feelings, express his indignation
in the same terms; for he remembered with bitterness the ridiculous part
he had played in the siege of Rochelle, which, though not a province
like Africa, had ventured to resist the most eminent Cardinal, and into
which Father Joseph, piquing himself on his military skill, had proposed
to introduce the troops through a sewer. However, he restrained himself,
and had time to conceal the libel in the pocket of his brown robe ere
the minister had dismissed his young courier and returne