nds when
Mazarin became prime minister? Either that the government of Brittany,
which his father, Henry the Fourth, had destined for him, and that his
father-in-law, Philibert Emmanuel of Lorraine, held; or that the
Admiralty, one of the highest posts in the state, should be given him.
Mazarin had repulsed these pretensions in 1643, but looked upon them
favourably in 1652; he therefore made the Duke High-Admiral, even
conferred upon him the title of State Minister, with a seat at the
council-board, after being assured that Vendome, having secured that
which he had always sought to attain, would serve him as firmly as he
had formerly opposed him. He had an infallible pledge for his fidelity.
The Duke's eldest son, the loyal and pious Duke de Mercoeur, had
married one of the Cardinal's nieces, the amiable and virtuous Laura
Mancini, so that the house of Vendome was interested in and inseparably
united to Mazarin's fortunes. Therefore, on the 3rd of February, 1653,
the High-Admiral Caesar de Vendome, engaged in pursuing the Spanish fleet
in the sea of Gascony, entered the Gironde, and threatened the relics of
the Fronde at Bordeaux. On his part, the Duke de Mercoeur, named
governor of Provence, watched over that important province for the King
and Mazarin, whilst the Duke de Beaufort, who earlier had been desirous
of laying violent hands on the Cardinal, and who yet quite recently had
shown himself as his implacable enemy, covered and protected by the
services of his father and brother, retired to Anet, without being the
least in the world disquieted; satisfied with beholding Madame de
Montbazon satisfied because plenty of money had been given her, and
awaited quietly the moment at which he should succeed his father in the
command of the fleet, and shed his blood in the service of his King.

The Bouillons were of little less importance than the Vendomes. The
Duke was a politician and a soldier of the first class, capable of
conducting a government or leading an army, and who had only one
sentiment or thought in heart and head--the aggrandisement of his house.
Already sovereign prince of Sedan, urged by his wife, still more
ambitious than himself, he had in 1641, in the hope of securing fresh
territorial acquisitions, treated with Spain, taken part in the revolt
of the Count de Soissons, and won the battle of La Marfee against the
royal army. In 1642, he had entered into the conspiracy of the Duke
d'Orleans and Cinq Mars, a