hen he went so far as to suggest to me that the cardinal must be got
rid of, and offered to carry it out himself, I conceived a horror of his
evil thoughts, and held them in detestation. Although I have only to say
so for you to believe it, there is nobody who can deem but that it must
have been so; for, otherwise, what motive would he have had for joining
himself to Spain against me, if I had approved of what he desired?"

The trial was a foregone conclusion; the king and his brother made common
cause in order to overwhelm the accused, "an earnest of a peace which was
not such as God announced with good will to man on Christmas day," writes
Madame de Motteville, "but such as may exist at court and amongst
brothers of royal blood."

The cardinal did not think it necessary to wait for the sentence. He had
arrived at his house at Lyons, in a sort of square chamber, covered with
red damask, and borne on the shoulders of eighteen guards; there,
stretched upon his couch, a table covered with papers beside him, he
worked and chatted with whomsoever of his servants he had been pleased to
have as his companion on the road. It was in the same equipage that he
left Lyons to gain the Loire and return to Paris. On his passage, it was
necessary to pull down lumps of wall and throw bridges over the fosses to
make way for this vast litter and the indomitable man that lay dying
within it.

It was on the 12th of September, 1642, that the accused appeared before
the commission; there were now but two of them; the Duke of Bouillon had
made his private arrangement with the cardinal, confessing everything,
and requesting "to have his life spared in order that he might employ it
to preserve to the Catholic church five little children whom his death
would leave to persons of the opposite religion." In consideration of
this pardon, a demand was made upon him to give up Sedan to the king,
"though it were easy to gain possession of-it by investment." The duke
consented to all, and he awaited in his dungeon at Pierre-Bncise the
execution of his accomplices who had no town to surrender. Their death
was to be the signal of his liberation.

The two accused denied nothing. M. de Thou merely maintained that he had
not been in any way mixed up with the conspiracy, proving that he had
blamed the treaty with Spain, and that his only crime was not having
revealed it. "He believed me to be his friend, his one faithful friend,"
said he, speaking