But memory held wider stores than these; and who can doubt that throughout that first long night of captivity they were probed to their very depths!  What palace-pageants—­what closet-conspiracies—­what struggles for pre-eminence and power—­what heart-burnings at defeat, and exultation at success—­must have swept hurricane-like across her awakened soul, to be forgotten in their turn as she recalled the childish sports of her early and hopeful years, under the sunny sky and among the orange-groves of her native Florence, where, with her royal playmate, she chased the hours along as though they were made only for the happy!

Did she sleep the weary and outworn sleep of the wretched while those sweet and soothing visions were still busy at her heart?  And if so, breathes there one who would have roused her, whatever may have been her faults, from such a slumber?

FOOTNOTES: 

[263] Richelieu, Unpublished MSS.

[264] Mezeray, vol. xi. p. 134.

[265] Bassompierre, Mem. p. 123.

[266] Bassompierre, Mem. p. 126.  D’Estrees, Mem. p. 418.

[267] Richelieu, Mem. book viii. p. 411.

[268] Deageant was a man of considerable talent, but crafty and ambitious; his whole career was one of deceit and truckling.  After numerous vicissitudes he was committed to the Bastille, where he beguiled the weariness of captivity by composing his Memoirs.

[269] Sismondi, vol. xxii. pp. 391, 392.  Le Vassor, vol. i. p. 583.  Richelieu, Unpublished MSS.

[270] Siri, Mem.  Rec. vol. iv. pp. 29-31. Mercure Francais, 1617.

[271] Henri de Schomberg was the representative of an ancient family of Meissen established in France.  He succeeded his father, Gaspard de Schomberg, in the government of La Marche, and in 1617 served in Piedmont.  He was also one of the generals of Louis XIII, in 1621 and 1622, and in 1625 was created Marshal of France.  He distinguished himself by defeating the English in the battle of the Isle de Rhe in 1627, and in forcing the defile of Susa in 1629.  In the following year he took Pignerol.  He was then despatched to Languedoc against the rebels, and in 1632 gained the battle of Castelnaudary, at which the Duc de Montmorency was made prisoner.  For this victory he was invested with the government of Languedoc.  He died in 1633.

[272] In his History of the Parliament of Paris, Voltaire, whose party-spirit was ever too ready to betray his judgment, and to obscure his genius, has not hesitated, in allusion to the arrogant boast of the Italian adventurer, to express himself thus:—­“This Concini, at this very time, performed an action which merited a statue.  Enriched by the liberality of Marie de Medicis, he raised at his own expense an army of between five and six thousand men against the rebels; he supported France as though she had been his native country.”  It is impossible to dwell upon the career of Concini, and not be startled by so extraordinary an encomium.