orrors! How is it that I have forgotten all this? This man
fascinates me; that's certain. You are my true friend, Cinq-Mars. What
horrors! My reign will be stained by them. What! he prevented the letters
of all the nobility and notables of the district from reaching me! Burn,
burn alive! without proofs! for revenge! A man, a people have invoked my
name in vain; a family curses me! Oh, how unhappy are kings!"

And the Prince, as he concluded, threw aside his papers and wept.

"Ah, Sire, those are blessed tears that you weep!" exclaimed Cinq-Mars,
with sincere admiration. "Would that all France were here with me! She
would be astonished at this spectacle, and would scarcely believe it."

"Astonished! France, then, does not know me?"

"No, Sire," said D'Effiat, frankly; "no one knows you. And I myself, with
the rest of the world, at times accuse you of coldness and indifference."

"Of coldness, when I am dying with sorrow! Of coldness, when I have
immolated myself to their interests! Ungrateful nation! I have sacrificed
all to it, even pride, even the happiness of guiding it myself, because I
feared on its account for my fluctuating life. I have given my sceptre to
be borne by a man I hate, because I believed his hand to be stronger than
my own. I have endured the ill he has done to myself, thinking that he
did good to my people. I have hidden my own tears to dry theirs; and I
see that my sacrifice has been even greater than I thought it, for they
have not perceived it. They have believed me incapable because I was
kind, and without power because I mistrusted my own. But, no matter! God
sees and knows me!"

"Ah, Sire, show yourself to France such as you are; reassume your usurped
power. France will do for your love what she would never do from fear.
Return to life, and reascend the throne."

"No, no; my life is well-nigh finished, my dear friend. I am no longer
capable of the labor of supreme command.'"

"Ah, Sire, this persuasion alone destroys your vigor. It is time that men
should cease to confound power with crime, and call this union genius.
Let your voice be heard proclaiming to the world that the reign of virtue
is about to begin with your own; and hence forth those enemies whom vice
has so much difficulty in suppressing will fall before a word uttered
from your heart. No one has as yet calculated all that the good faith of
a king of France may do for his people--that people who are drawn so
instantaneously t