e state, does not think them worthy of death, and
there will be few who, having knowledge of their rank and their fine
natural qualities, will not mourn their sad fate."

[Illustration: Cinq-Mars and De Thou going to Execution----215]

"Now that I make not a single step which does not lead me to death, I am
more capable than anybody else of estimating the value of the things of
the world," wrote Cinq-Mars to his mother, the wife of Marshal d'Effiat.
"Enough of this world; away to Paradise!" said M. de Thou, as he marched
to the scaffold. Chalais and Montmorency had used the same language. At
the last hour, and at the bottom of their hearts, the frivolous courtier
and the hare-brained conspirator, as well as the great soldier and the
grave magistrate, had recovered their faith in God.

CHAPTER XXXIX.----LOUIS XIII., CARDINAL RICHELIEU, AND THE PROVINCES.

The story has been told of the conspiracies at court and the repeated
checks suffered by the great lords in their attempts against Cardinal
Richelieu. With the exception of Languedoc, under the influence of its
governor the Duke of Montmorency, the provinces took no part in these
enterprises; their opposition was of another sort; and it is amongst the
parliaments chiefly that we must look for it.

"The king's cabinet and his bed-time business (_petit coucher_) cause me
more embarrassment than the whole of Europe causes me," said the cardinal
in the days of the great storms at court; he would often have had less
trouble in managing the parliaments and the Parliament of Paris in
particular, if the latter had not felt itself supported by a party at
court. For a long time past a pretension had been put forward by that
great body to give the king advice, and to replace towards him the
vanished states-general. "We hold the place in council of the princes
and barons, who from time immemorial were near the person of the kings,"
was the language used, in 1615, in the representations of the Parliament,
which had dared, without the royal order, to summon the princes, dukes,
peers, and officers of the crown to deliberate upon what was to be done
for the service of the king, the good of the state, and the relief of the
people.

This pretension on the part of the parliaments was what Cardinal
Richelieu was continually fighting against. He would not allow the
intervention of the magistrates in the government of the state. When he
took the power into his hands, nine