When Chalais, in his prison, heard of the marriage, he undoubtedly conceived some hope of a pardon, for he exclaimed, as the cardinal himself says, “That is a mighty sharp trick, to have not only scattered a great faction, but, by removing its object, to have annihilated all hopes of re-uniting it.  Only the sagacity of the king and his minister could have made such a hit; it was well done to have caught Monsieur between touch-and-go (entre bond et volee).  The prince, when he knows of this, will be very vexed, though he do not say so, and the count (of Soissons, nephew of Conde) will weep over it with his mother.”

The hopes of Chalais were deceived.  He had written to the king to confess his fault.  “I was only thirteen days in the faction,” he said; but those thirteen days were enough to destroy him.  In vain did his friends intercede passionately for him; in vain did his mother write to the king the most touching letter.  “I gave him to you, sir, at eight years of age; he is a grandson of Marshal Montluc and President Jeannin; his family serve you daily, but dare not throw themselves at your feet for fear of displeasing you; nevertheless, they join with me in begging of you the life of this wretch, though he should have to end his days in perpetual imprisonment, or in serving you abroad.”  Chalais was condemned to death on the 18th of August, 1626, by the criminal court established at Nantes for that purpose; all the king’s mercy went no farther than a remission of the tortures which should have accompanied th execution.  He sent one of his friends to assure his mother of his repentance.  “Tell him,” answered the noble lady, that I am very glad to have the consolation he gives me of, his dying in God; if I did not think that the sight of me would be too much for him, I would go to him and not leave him until his head was severed from his body; but, being unable to be of any help to him in that way, I am going to pray God for him.”  And she returned into the church of the nuns of Sainte-Claire.  The friends of Chalais had managed to have the executioner carried off, so as to retard his execution; but an inferior criminal, to whom pardon had been granted for the performance of this service, cut off the unfortunate culprit’s head in thirty-one strokes. [Memoires d’un Favori du Duc d’ Orleans (Archives curieuses de l’Histoire de France), 2d series, t. iii.] “The sad news was brought to the Duke of Orleans, who was playing abbot; he did not leave the game, and went on as if instead of death he had heard of deliverance.”  An example of cruelty which might well have discouraged the friends of the Duke of Orleans “from dying a martyr’s death for him” like the unhappy Chalais.

It has been said that Richelieu was neither meddlesome nor cruel, but that he was stern and pitiless; and he gave proof of that the following year, on an occasion when his personal interests were not in any way at stake.  At the outset of his ministry, in 1624, he had obtained from the king a severe ordinance against duels—­a fatal custom which was at that time decimating the noblesse.