l events
and all passions with a geometrical exactitude. There is no doubt that to
this positive and immovable mind we must attribute all the misfortunes of
her regency. The sombre reply of Cinq-Mars; his arrest; his trial--all
had been concealed from the Princesse Marie, whose first fault, it is
true, had been a movement of self-love and a momentary forgetfulness.

However, the Queen by nature was good-hearted, and had bitterly repented
her precipitation in writing words so decisive, and whose consequences
had been so serious; and all her endeavors had been applied to mitigate
the results. In reflecting upon her conduct in reference to the happiness
of France, she applauded herself for having thus, at one stroke, stifled
the germ of a civil war which would have shaken the State to its very
foundations. But when she approached her young friend and gazed on that
charming being whose happiness she was thus destroying in its bloom, and
reflected that an old man upon a throne, even, would not recompense her
for the eternal loss she was about to sustain; when she thought of the
entire devotion, the total abnegation of himself, she had witnessed in a
young man of twenty-two, of so lofty a character, and almost master of
the kingdom--she pitied Marie, and admired from her very soul the man
whom she had judged so ill.

She would at least have desired to explain his worth to her whom he had
loved so deeply, and who as yet knew him not; but she still hoped that
the conspirators assembled at Lyons would be able to save him, and once
knowing him to be in a foreign land she could tell all to her dear Marie.

As to the latter, she had at first feared war. But surrounded by the
Queen's people, who had let nothing reach her ear but news dictated by
this Princess, she knew, or thought she knew, that the conspiracy had not
taken place; that the King and the Cardinal had returned to Paris nearly
at the same time; that Monsieur, relapsed for a while, had reappeared at
court; that the Duc de Bouillon, on ceding Sedan, had also been restored
to favor; and that if the 'grand ecuyer' had not yet appeared, the reason
was the more decided animosity of the Cardinal toward him, and the
greater part he had taken in the conspiracy. But common sense and natural
justice clearly said that having acted under the order of the King's
brother, his pardon ought to follow that of this Prince.

All then, had calmed the first uneasiness of her heart, while n