,
it appears, was very averse to receive De Retz, or avail herself of his
services; she detested him almost as much as she did Conde, well knowing
that they were the two most dangerous enemies of him without whom she
did not believe that she could really reign. Mazarin exhorted her
himself to flatter De Retz's ambition, and, marvellously understanding
each other at a distance--almost as well as when in each other's
presence,--they composed and played out in the most perfect manner a
comedy of which De Retz himself seems to have been the dupe, and of
which Conde was very nearly being the victim.

Madame de Chevreuse has already been depicted both in good and evil, in
her natural intelligence, quickness, keen introspection, and political
genius, in her indomitable courage and audacity, and all that she was
capable of undertaking in order to attain her objects. It will now be
necessary to thoroughly understand De Retz's character, in order to
perceive clearly the peril with which Conde was menaced.

By nature yet more restless than ambitious, a bad priest, impatient of
his condition and having long struggled to emancipate himself from it,
Paul de Gondi had prepared himself for cabals by composing or
translating the life of a celebrated conspirator. Then, passing quickly
from theory to practice, he had entered into one of the most sinister
plots framed against Richelieu, and for his first experiment he had
accepted the task, he, a young abbe, of assassinating the Cardinal at
the altar during the ceremony of Mademoiselle de Montpensier's baptism.
In 1643, he had not hesitated to throw himself into the arms of the
_Importants_; but the title of Coadjutor of Paris, which had just been
conferred upon him as a recompense for the virtues and services of his
father, arrested him. The Fronde seemed created altogether expressly for
him. He shared the parentage of it along with La Rochefoucauld. In vain
in his Memoirs does he studiedly put forward general considerations:
like La Rochefoucauld, he was only working for himself, and at least had
the candour to own it. Compelled to remain in the Church, De Retz
desired to rise in it as high as possible. He aspired to a cardinal's
hat, and soon obtained it, thanks to his inscrutable manoeuvring; but
his supreme object was the post of prime minister, and to reach it, he
played that double game which he so craftily concerted and so skilfully
played out. Seeing that Mazarin and Conde were n