against Mazarin. The memoirs of
the time, and especially those of De Retz and La Rochefoucauld, make us
sufficiently well acquainted with their names and characters. The former
mistress of Chalais found little difficulty in acquiring sole sway over
a faction composed of second-rate talents. She caressed it skilfully;
and, with the art of an experienced conspirator, she fomented every germ
of false honour, of quintessential devotedness, and extravagant
rashness. Mazarin, who, like Richelieu, had an admirable police,
forewarned of Madame de Chevreuse's machinations, fully comprehended the
danger with which he was menaced. No one could have been better informed
as to his exact position than the Cardinal: and the plans of the Duchess
and the chiefs of the _Importants_ developed themselves clearly under
Mazarin's sharp-sightedness--either by their incessant and
elaborately-concerted intrigues with the Queen, to force her to abandon
a minister to whose policy she had not yet openly declared her adhesion,
or, should it prove necessary, treat that minister as De Luynes had done
the last Queen-mother's favourite d'Ancre, and as Montresor, Barriere,
and Saint-Ybar would have served Richelieu. The first plan not having
succeeded, they began to think seriously about carrying out the second,
and Madame de Chevreuse, the strongest mind of the party, proposed with
some show of reason to act before the return of the young hero of
Rocroy, the Duke d'Enghien; for that victorious soldier once in Paris
would unquestionably shield Mazarin. It became necessary, therefore, to
profit by his absence in order to strike a decisive blow. Success seemed
certain, and even easy. They were sure of having the people with them,
who, exhausted by a long war and groaning under taxation, would
naturally welcome with delight the hope of peace and repose. They might
reckon on the declared support of the parliament, burning to recover
that importance in the State of which it had been deprived by Richelieu,
and which was then a matter of dispute with Mazarin. They had all the
secret, even overt sympathy of the episcopate, which, with Rome,
detested the Protestant alliance, and demanded the restoration of that
of Spain. The eager concurrence of the aristocracy could not be doubted
for a moment; which ever regretted its old and turbulent independence,
and whose most illustrious representatives, the Vendomes, the Guises,
the Bouillons, and the La Rochefoucaulds wer