ie, underlined. People never deceive me, I assure you."

"But, Sire--"

"Wait a moment! wait a moment! In the evening you told me the Cardinal
had burned a man unjustly, and out of personal hatred."

"And I repeat it, and maintain it, and will prove it, Sire. It is the
greatest crime of all of that man whom you hesitate to disgrace, and
who renders you unhappy. I myself saw all, heard, all, at Loudun. Urbain
Grandier was assassinated, rather than tried. Hold, Sire, since you have
there all those memoranda in your own hand, merely reperuse the proofs
which I then gave you of it."

Louis, seeking the page indicated, and going back to the journey from
Perpignan to Paris, read the whole narrative with attention, exclaiming:

"What horrors! How is it that I have forgotten all this? This man
fascinates me; that's certain. You are my true friend, Cinq-Mars.
What horrors! My reign will be stained by them. What! he prevented the
letters of all the nobility and notables of the district from reaching
me! Burn, burn alive! without proofs! for revenge! A man, a people have
invoked my name in vain; a family curses me! Oh, how unhappy are kings!"

And the Prince, as he concluded, threw aside his papers and wept.

"Ah, Sire, those are blessed tears that you weep!" exclaimed Cinq-Mars,
with sincere admiration. "Would that all France were here with me! She
would be astonished at this spectacle, and would scarcely believe it."

"Astonished! France, then, does not know me?"

"No, Sire," said D'Effiat, frankly; "no one knows you. And I myself,
with the rest of the world, at times accuse you of coldness and
indifference."

"Of coldness, when I am dying with sorrow! Of coldness, when I
have immolated myself to their interests! Ungrateful nation! I have
sacrificed all to it, even pride, even the happiness of guiding it
myself, because I feared on its account for my fluctuating life. I have
given my sceptre to be borne by a man I hate, because I believed his
hand to be stronger than my own. I have endured the ill he has done to
myself, thinking that he did good to my people. I have hidden my own
tears to dry theirs; and I see that my sacrifice has been even greater
than I thought it, for they have not perceived it. They have believed me
incapable because I was kind, and without power because I mistrusted my
own. But, no matter! God sees and knows me!"

"Ah, Sire, show yourself to France such as you are; reassume your
usurped power.