er Beaupuis, nor the Campions, nor Lie, nor Brillet
having been arrested, better proof being extant in the full and entire
confession of one of the principal conspirators, with the plan and all
the details of the affair set forth in Memoirs of comparatively recent
publication, but the authenticity of which cannot be contested. We
allude to the precious Memoirs of Henri de Campion,[3] brother of Madame
de Chevreuse's friend, whom that lady had introduced also to the service
of the Duke de Vendome, and more particularly to that of the Duke de
Beaufort. Henri had accompanied the Duke in his flight to England after
the conspiracy of Cinq Mars, and he had returned with him; he possessed
his entire confidence, and he relates nothing in which he himself had
not taken a considerable part. Henri's character was very different to
that of his brother Alexandre. He was a well-educated man, full of
honour and courage, not in the least given to boasting, averse to all
intrigue, and born to make his way through life by the straightest paths
in the career of arms. He wrote these Memoirs in solitude, to which
after the loss of his daughter and his wife he had retired to await
death amidst the exercise of a genuine piety. It is not in such a frame
of mind that a man is disposed to invent fables, and there is no middle
way. What he says is that which we must believe absolutely, or if we
have any doubt that he speaks the truth, he must be considered as the
worst of villains. No interested feeling could have directed his pen,
for he compiled his Memoirs, or at least he finished them, a short time
after Mazarin's death, without thought, therefore, of paying court to
him by making very tardy revelations, and scarcely two years before he
himself died in 1663. Thus it may be fairly inferred that Henri de
Campion wrote strictly under the inspiration of his conscience. One has
only to open his Memoirs to see confirmed, point by point, all the
particulars with which Mazarin's _carnets_ are filled. Nothing is there
wanting, everything coincides, all marvellously corresponds. It appears,
indeed, as though Mazarin in making his notes had had before his eyes de
Campion's Memoirs, or that the latter whilst penning them had Mazarin's
_carnets_ before him: he at once so thoroughly takes up the thread and
completes them.

[3] "Memoires de Henri de Campion, &c.," 1807. Treuttel and Wuertz.
Paris.

His brother Alexandre, in his letters of the month