ourites of Louis, whose puerile
tastes rendered him as dependent upon others for mere amusement as he
was for assistance and support in the government of his kingdom. We have
already seen the projects of the haughty Cardinal at times traversed by
the equally arrogant and ambitious De Luynes, who was succeeded in the
favour and intimacy of the sovereign by M. de Saint-Simon,[233] from
whom the minister experienced equal annoyance; while the platonic
attachment of the King for Mademoiselle de Hautefort, whose energetic
habits and far-seeing judgment had involved him in still greater
difficulties, determined him to select such a companion for Louis as,
while he ministered to the idleness and _ennui_ of his royal master,
should at the same time subserve his own interests. To this end,
Richelieu, after mature deliberation, selected as the new favourite a
page named Cinq-Mars,[234] whose extraordinarily handsome person and
exuberant spirits could not fail, as he rightly imagined, to attract the
fancy and enliven the leisure of the moody sovereign.

This young noble, who was the son of an old and tried friend of the
Cardinal, had appeared at Court under his auspices, and consequently
regarded him as the patron of his future fortunes; a conviction which
tended to give to the relative position of the parties a peculiar and
confidential character well suited to the views of the astute minister.
Cinq-Mars, like all youths of his age, was dazzled by the brilliancy of
the Court, and eager for advancement; while he was at the same time
reckless, unscrupulous, and even morbidly ambitious; but these defects
were concealed beneath an exterior so prepossessing, manners so
specious, and acquirements so fascinating; there was such a glow and
glitter in his scintillating writ and uncontrollable gaiety, that few
cared to look beyond the surface, and all were loud in their admiration
of the handsome and accomplished page.

[Illustration: CINQ-MARS.]

Such was the tool selected by Richelieu to fashion out his purposes, and
he found a ready and a willing listener in the son of his friend, when,
with warm protestations of his esteem for his father and his attachment
to himself, he declared his intention of placing the ardent youth about
the person of his sovereign under certain conditions, which were at once
accepted by Cinq-Mars. These conditions, divested of the courtly shape
in which they were presented to _protege_, were simply that while