nderstood by giddy-pated younger men, he was compelled to
banish his master's mother and terrify the Queen, after having tried to
make each fall in love with him, though he was not cut out to be loved
by queens.

Do what we will, always, in the course of an ambitious life, we find
a woman in the way just when we least expect such an obstacle. However
great a political man may be, he always needs a woman to set against
a woman, just as the Dutch use a diamond to cut a diamond. Rome at
the height of its power yielded to this necessity. And observe how
immeasurably more imposing was the life of Mazarin, the Italian
cardinal, than that of Richelieu, the French cardinal. Richelieu met
with opposition from the great nobles, and he applied the axe; he died
in the flower of his success, worn out by this duel, for which he had
only a Capuchin monk as his second. Mazarin was repulsed by the citizen
class and the nobility, armed allies who sometimes victoriously put
royalty to flight; but Anne of Austria's devoted servant took off no
heads, he succeeded in vanquishing the whole of France, and trained
Louis XIV., who completed Richelieu's work by strangling the nobility
with gilded cords in the grand Seraglio of Versailles. Madame de
Pompadour dead, Choiseul fell!

Had Herrera soaked his mind in these high doctrines? Had he judged
himself at an earlier age than Richelieu? Had he chosen Lucien to be his
Cinq-Mars, but a faithful Cinq-Mars? No one could answer these questions
or measure this Spaniard's ambition, as no one could foresee what his
end might be. These questions, asked by those who were able to see
anything of this coalition, which was long kept a secret, might have
unveiled a horrible mystery which Lucien himself had known but a few
days. Carlos was ambitious for two; that was what his conduct made plain
to those persons who knew him, and who all imagined that Lucien was the
priest's illegitimate son.

Fifteen months after Lucien's reappearance at the opera ball, which led
him too soon into a world where the priest had not wished to see him
till he should have fully armed him against it, he had three fine horses
in his stable, a coupe for evening use, a cab and a tilbury to drive
by day. He dined out every day. Herrera's foresight was justified; his
pupil was carried away by dissipation; he thought it necessary to effect
some diversion in the frenzied passion for Esther that the young man
still cherished in his heart.