the _Importants_. They thought
themselves humiliated and enfeebled, and there were no violent or
extreme measures which they did not contemplate. The Duke de Beaufort,
smitten at once in his influence and his love, uttered loud
denunciations, and it was reported that a plot had been formed against
the life of Mazarin.

CHAPTER III.

THE IMPORTANTS.

IT is necessary, at this juncture, to have a just idea of the general
position of political affairs in France, as well as of the attitude of
the faction known as the _Importants_, who were then most active in
opposing the government of Mazarin, in order to understand clearly the
gravity of an incident which otherwise in itself might seem to be of
little consequence.

La Rochefoucauld, the historian of that party, has made us tolerably
familiar with the men who composed it. They were a band of eccentric and
mischievous spirits, bold of heart, ready of hand, and of boundless
fidelity to one another. Professing to hold the most outrageous maxims,
incessantly invoking Brutus and old Rome, and intermingling gallant with
political intrigues, they suffered themselves to be hurried beyond the
bounds of reason through a Quixotic idea of always pleasing the ladies.
They had all been more or less fellow-sufferers with Anne of Austria
during the period of her affliction and persecution by Richelieu, and
from the commencement of her Regency, these returning exiles and
liberated prisoners had been gathering round her until at last, formed
into a faction, they gave themselves out as the Queen's party, and by
adopting a high-flown, turgid, and mysterious style of phraseology, and
assuming bombastic and braggart airs of authority, coupled with an
affectation of capacity and profundity, obtained for themselves from the
wits of the Court and city the nickname of _The Importants_, under which
they figured until absorbed a few years later in the more general and
popular designation of _Frondeurs_. Their favourite chief was the Duke
de Beaufort, of whom we have already spoken as possessing very nearly
the same characteristics as the rest--at once artificial and
extravagant, with great pretensions to loyalty and patriotism,
professing to be a man of independent action, but in fact wholly ruled
by Madame de Montbazon, who, in her turn, was swayed by the Duchess de
Chevreuse.

On the sudden disappearance from Paris of one of the most distinguished
of the lady leaders of the _Importa