overn
him. She therefore urged his return with much warmth." Chateauneuf had
already obtained as a royal boon that the "rude and miserable condition"
of close incarceration under which he had groaned for ten years should
be changed for a compulsory residence at one of his country houses.
Mdme. de Chevreuse demanded the termination of this mitigated exile,
that she might once more behold him free who had endured such
extremities for the Queen's sake and her own. Mazarin saw that he must
yield, but only did so tardily, never appearing himself to repulse
Chateauneuf, but always alleging the paramount necessity of conciliating
the Conde family, and especially the Princess, who, as already said,
bore bitter enmity towards him as the judge of her brother, Henri de
Montmorency. Chateauneuf was therefore recalled, but with that
reservation accorded to the last clause of the King's will, that he
should not appear at Court, but reside at his own house of Montrouge,
near Paris, where his friends might visit him.

The next step was to transfer him thence to some ministerial office.
Chateauneuf was no longer a young man, but neither his energy nor his
ambition had deserted him, and Mdme. de Chevreuse made it a point of
honour to reinstate him in the post of Keeper of the Seals, which he had
formerly held and lost through her, and which all Queen Anne's old
friends now saw with indignation occupied by one of the most detested of
Richelieu's creatures, Pierre Seguier. This last, however, was a man of
capacity--laborious, well-informed and full of resources. To these
qualifications he added a remarkable suppleness, which made him very
useful and accommodating to a Prime Minister. He moreover had the
support of friends who stood high in the Queen's favour, and was further
strengthened by the opposition of the Condes and the Bishop of Beauvais
to Chateauneuf. The Duchess perceiving that it was almost impossible to
surmount so powerful an opposition, took another way of arriving at the
same end. She contented herself with asking for the lowest seat in the
cabinet for her friend; well knowing that once installed therein,
Chateauneuf would soon manage all the rest and aggrandise his position.

At the same time that she strove to extricate from disgrace the man upon
whom rested all her political hopes, Madame de Chevreuse, not daring to
attack Mazarin overtly, insensibly undermined the ground beneath his
feet, and step by step prepared his