Still did the fatal disease which was preying upon the vitals of the Cardinal silently work its insidious way, and reveal its baneful power by sleepless nights, burning fever, and sharp bodily pain; but his powerful mind and insatiable ambition enabled him to strive successfully against these enervating influences; and Saint-Preuil was scarcely laid in his dishonoured grave ere the remorseless minister sought around him for more victims.  The Comte de Soissons, who had been exiled from the Court for resenting the arrogance of the Cardinal, had found an asylum with the Duc de Bouillon at Sedan,[231] where it had, after considerable difficulty, been conceded that he should be permitted to remain unmolested for the space of four years, after which time he was to remove to some other residence selected by the King, or in point of fact, by Richelieu himself.  The period named had now expired; and the Cardinal, anxious still further to humiliate the great nobles, to whom, as he was bitterly aware, his own obscure extraction was continually matter of contemptuous comment, exacted from the timid and yielding monarch that he should forthwith issue his commands to M. de Bouillon to deliver up his cousin De Soissons to the keeping of his Majesty; or that both Princes should humbly ask forgiveness of the Cardinal-Minister for the affronts which they had put upon him.

The receipt of this offensive order at once determined the conduct of the two friends.  That the Comte de Soissons, a member of the haughty house of Conde, and the Duc de Bouillon, the independent sovereign of Sedan, both Princes of the Blood, should condescend to bend the knee, and to entreat the clemency of Armand du Plessis, was an extent of humiliation which neither the one nor the other could be brought to contemplate for an instant; and thus it was instantly decided between them that they would resist the mandate of the King even to the death; while their opposition was strengthened by the impetuous vituperations of the young Duc de Guise, who had, after a misunderstanding with the minister, also claimed the hospitality of M. de Bouillon, and who welcomed with enthusiasm so favourable an opportunity of revenging himself upon his adversary.

The animosity of M. de Guise had grown out of his jealousy, which had been excited by the ostentatious attentions paid by Richelieu to the Princesse Gonzaga de Nevers, to whom he was himself tenderly attached, and who was, moreover, the idol of the whole Court.  Eagerly, therefore, did he enter into the views of his aggrieved associates; and, as their determination to resist the presumption of the haughty minister necessarily involved precautionary measures of no ordinary character, they lost no time in despatching a secret messenger to solicit the support of the Archduke and the Spanish agents.  With Don Miguel of Salamanca they found little difficulty in concluding a treaty; and this desirable object attained, they effected a second with the Court of Vienna; while Jean Francois