ans for him of attaining to a
position of greater importance, and my brother seeing therein Madame de
Chevreuse's advantage and by consequence his own."

Such were the two first accomplices of Beaufort. A little later he
opened his mind on the subject to Henri de Campion, one of his principal
gentlemen; to Lie, captain of his guards; and to Brillet, his equerry.
There the secret rested. Many other gentlemen and domestics of the house
of Vendome were destined to take action in the affair, but were admitted
to no confidence. The project was well conceived and worthy of Madame de
Chevreuse. There were at most five or six conspirators--three capable of
keeping the secret, and who did keep it. Below them, the men of action,
who did not know what they would be called on to do; and in the
background, the men of the morrow, who might be reckoned upon to applaud
the blow, when it had been struck, without it being judged fitting to
admit them to the conspiracy. At least Henri de Campion does not even
name Montresor, Bethune, Fontraille, Varicarville, Saint-Ybar, which
explains wherefore Mazarin, whilst keeping his eye upon them, did not
have them arrested. Neither does Campion speak of Chandenier, La Chatre,
de Treville, the Duke de Bouillon, the Duke de Guise, De Retz, nor La
Rochefoucauld, whose sentiments were not doubtful, but who were not
inclined to go so far as to sully their hands with an assassination. And
that further explains the silence of Mazarin with regard to them in all
that relates to Beaufort's conspiracy, although he did not cherish the
slightest illusion as to their dispositions, and as to the part they
would have taken if the plot had succeeded, or even if a serious
struggle had taken place.

The conspiracy rested for some time between Madame de Chevreuse, Madame
de Montbazon, Beaufort, Beaupuis, and Alexandre de Campion. The final
resolution was only taken at the end of July or in the first days of
August, that is to say, precisely during the height of the quarrel
between Madame de Montbazon and Madame de Longueville, which ushered in
the crisis and opened the door to all the events which followed. It was
then only that Beaufort spoke of it to Henri de Campion, in presence of
Beaupuis. Mazarin's crime was the continuation of Richelieu's system.
"The Duke de Beaufort told me that he thought I had remarked that the
Cardinal Mazarin was re-establishing at court and throughout the kingdom
the tyranny of Cardina