than the confessor,
and Mademoiselle retired to a monastery. Richelieu learned that the king
had paid her a visit of three hours, and he accused Caussin of
encouraging these secret interviews. This was not denied, but it was
adroitly insinuated that it was prudent not abruptly to oppose the
violence of the king's passion, which seemed reasonable to the minister.
The king continued these visits, and the lady, in concert with Caussin,
impressed on the king the most unfavourable sentiments of the minister,
the tyranny exercised over the exiled queen mother and the princes of
the blood;[224] the grinding taxes he levied on the people, his projects
of alliance with the Turk against the Christian sovereigns, &c. His
majesty sighed: he asked Caussin if he could name any one capable of
occupying the minister's place? Our simple politician had not taken such
a consideration in his mind. The king asked Caussin whether he would
meet Richelieu face to face? The Jesuit was again embarrassed, but
summoned up the resolution with equal courage and simplicity.

Caussin went for the purpose: he found the king closeted with the
minister; the conference was long, from which Caussin augured ill. He
himself tells us, that, weary of waiting in the ante-chamber, he
contrived to be admitted into the presence of the king, when he
performed his promise. But the case was altered! Caussin had lost his
cause before he pleaded it, and Richelieu had completely justified
himself to the king. The good father was told that the king would not
perform his devotions that day, and that he might return to Paris. The
next morning the whole affair was cleared up. An order from court
prohibited this voluble Jesuit either from speaking or writing to any
person; and farther, drove him away in an inclement winter, sick in body
and at heart, till he found himself an exile on the barren rocks of
Quimper in Brittany, where, among the savage inhabitants, he was
continually menaced by a prison or a gallows, which the terrific
minister lost no opportunity to place before his imagination; and
occasionally despatched a Paris Gazette, which distilled the venom of
Richelieu's heart, and which, like the eagle of Prometheus, could gnaw
at the heart of the insulated politician chained to his rock.[225]

Such were the contrasted fates of Father Joseph and Father Caussin! the
one, the ingenious _creature_, the other, the simple oppositionist of
this great minister.

THE