. He despatched, therefore, Chavigny in all haste from Narbonne
with irrefragable evidence of the treaty made with Spain. Louis,
thunderstricken, could scarcely believe his own eyes. He sank into a
gloomy reverie, out of which he emerged only to give way to bursts of
indignation against the favourite who could thus abuse his confidence
and conspire with the foreigner. It was needless to inflame his anger,
he was the first to call for an exemplary punishment. Not for a day, not
for an hour, did his heart soften towards the youthful culprit who had
been so dear to him. He thought only of his crime, and signed without an
instant's hesitation his death-warrant. If Louis the Just spared the
Duke de Bouillon, it was merely to acquire Sedan. If he pardoned his
brother Gaston, he at the same time dishonoured him by depriving him of
all authority in the State. Upon a report spread by a servant of
Fontrailles, and which Fontrailles' memoirs fully confirm, his
suspicions were directed towards the Queen; and no one afterwards could
divest his mind of the conviction that in this instance, as in the
affair of Chalais, Anne of Austria had an understanding with his
brother, the Duke d'Orleans. What would he have done had he perused the
statement of Fontrailles, the Duke de Bouillon's memoirs, a letter of
Turenne, and the declaration of La Rochefoucauld? Their united testimony
is so concordant that it is altogether irresistible. The Queen racked
her brains to exorcise this fresh storm, and to persuade the King and
Richelieu of her innocence. Anne went much farther; she did not confine
herself to falsehood and dissimulation. Menaced by imminent danger, she
went so far as to repudiate that courageous friend who had been so long
and steadfastly devoted to her. Had fortune declared in her favour she
would have embraced the Duchess as a deliverer. Vanquished and disarmed,
she abandoned her. As she had protested in terms of horror against the
conspiracy that had failed, her two young, imprudent, and ill-starred
accomplices, Cinq Mars and De Thou, mounted the scaffold without
breathing her name. Finding also both the King and Richelieu violently
exasperated against Mdme. de Chevreuse, and firmly resolved to reject
the renewed entreaties of her family to obtain her recall, Anne of
Austria, far from interceding for her faithful adherent, warmly sided
with her enemies; and further, to indicate the change in her own
sentiments, and seem to applaud t