imagined he heard cries of distress from kings, who appealed to him for
help, and the furious shouts of the populace. He fancied he felt the
territory of France trembling and crumbling beneath his feet. His feeble
and fatigued sight failed him. His weak head was attacked by vertigo,
which threw all his blood back upon his heart.

"Richelieu!" he cried, in a stifled voice, while he rang a bell; "summon
the Cardinal immediately."

And he swooned in an armchair.

When the King opened his eyes, revived by salts and potent essences
which had been applied to his lips and temples, he for one instant
beheld himself surrounded by pages, who withdrew as soon as he opened
his eyes, and he was once more left alone with the Cardinal. The
impassible minister had had his chair placed by that of the King, as a
physician would seat himself by the bedside of his patient, and fixed
his sparkling and scrutinizing eyes upon the pale countenance of Louis.
As soon as his victim could hear him, he renewed his fearful discourse
in a hollow voice:

"You have recalled me. What would you with me?"

Louis, who was reclining on the pillow, half opened his eyes, fixed them
upon Richelieu, and hastily closed them again. That bony head, armed
with two flaming eyes, and terminating in a pointed and grizzly beard,
the cap and vestments of the color of blood and flames,--all appeared to
him like an infernal spirit.

"You must reign," he said, in a languid voice.

"But will you give me up Cinq-Mars and De Thou?" again urged the
implacable minister, bending forward to read in the dull eyes of the
Prince, as an avaricious heir follows up, even to the tomb, the last
glimpses of the will of a dying relative.

"You must reign," repeated the King, turning away his head.

"Sign then," said Richelieu; "the contents of this are, 'This is my
command--to take them, dead or alive.'"

Louis, whose head still reclined on the raised back of the chair,
suffered his hand to fall upon the fatal paper, and signed it. "For
pity's sake, leave me; I am dying!" he said.

"That is not yet all," continued he whom men call the great politician.
"I place no reliance on you; I must first have some guarantee and
assurance. Sign this paper, and I will leave you:

"When the King shall go to visit the Cardinal, the guards of the
latter shall remain under arms; and when the Cardinal shall visit
the King, the guards of the Cardinal shall share the same post with