would the imperious minister do? Where would a
man stop who had already dared so much? Accustomed to wield the sceptre,
who would prevent him from still holding it, and from subscribing his
name alone to laws which he alone would dictate? These fears agitated
all minds. The people in vain looked throughout the kingdom for those
pillars of the nobility, at the feet of whom they had been wont to
find shelter in political storms. They now only saw their recent tombs.
Parliament was dumb; and men felt that nothing could be opposed to the
monstrous growth of the Cardinal's usurping power. No one was entirely
deceived by the affected sufferings of the minister. None was touched
with that feigned agony which had too often deceived the public hope;
and distance nowhere prevented the weight of the dreaded 'parvenu' from
being felt.

The love of the people soon revived toward the son of Henri IV. They
hastened to the churches; they prayed, and even wept. Unfortunate
princes are always loved. The melancholy of Louis, and his mysterious
sorrow interested all France; still living, they already regretted
him, as if each man desired to be the depositary of his troubles ere
he carried away with him the grand mystery of what is suffered by men
placed so high that they can see nothing before them but their tomb.

The King, wishing to reassure the whole nation, announced the temporary
reestablishment of his health, and ordered the court to prepare for a
grand hunting party to be given at Chambord--a royal domain, whither his
brother, the Duc d'Orleans, prayed him to return.

This beautiful abode was the favorite retreat of Louis, doubtless
because, in harmony with his feelings, it combined grandeur with
sadness. He often passed whole months there, without seeing any one
whatsoever, incessantly reading and re-reading mysterious papers,
writing unknown documents, which he locked up in an iron coffer, of
which he alone had the key. He sometimes delighted in being served by
a single domestic, and thus so to forget himself by the absence of his
suite as to live for many days together like a poor man or an exiled
citizen, loving to figure to himself misery or persecution, in order the
better to enjoy royalty afterward. Another time he would be in a more
entire solitude; and having forbidden any human creature to approach
him, clothed in the habit of a monk, he would shut himself up in the
vaulted chapel. There, reading the life of Charles V,