Henry de Montmorency was the last of the ducal branch of his house, and was only thirty-seven.

It was a fine opportunity for Monsieur to once more break his engagements.  Shame and anxiety drove him equally.  He was universally reproached with Montmorency’s death; and he was by no means easy on the subject of his marriage, of which no mention had been made in the arrangements.  He quitted Tours and withdrew to Flanders, writing to the king to complain of the duke’s execution, saying that the life of the latter had been the tacit condition of his agreement, and that, his promise being thus not binding, he was about to seek a secure retreat out of the kingdom.  “Everybody knows in what plight you were, brother, and whether you could have done anything else,” replied the king.

“What think you, gentlemen, was it that lost the Duke of Montmorency his head?” said Cardinal Zapata to Bautru and Barrault, envoys of France, whom he met in the antechamber of the King of Spain.  “His crimes,” replied Bautru.  “No,” said the cardinal, “but the clemency of his Majesty’s predecessors.”  Louis XIII. and Cardinal Richelieu have assuredly not merited that, reproach in history.

So many and such terrible examples were at last to win the all-powerful minister some years of repose.  Once only, in 1636, a new plot on the part of Monsieur and the Count of Soissons threatened not only his power, but his life.  The king’s headquarters were established at the castle of Demuin; and the princes, urged on by Montresor and Saint-Ibal, had resolved to compass the cardinal’s death.  The blow was to be struck at the exit from the council.  Richelieu conducted the king back to the bottom of the staircase.

[Illustration:  The King and the Cardinal——­204]

The two gentlemen were awaiting the signal; but Monsieur did not budge, and retired without saying a word.  The Count of Soissons dared not go any further, and the cardinal mounted quietly to his own rooms, without dreaming of the extreme peril he had run.  Richelieu was rather lofty than proud, and too clear-sighted to mistake the king’s feelings towards him.  Never did he feel any confidence in his position; and never did he depart from his jealous and sometimes petty watchfulness.  Any influence foreign to his own disquieted him in proximity to a master whose affairs he governed altogether, without ever having been able to get the mastery over his melancholy and singular mind.

Women filled but a small space in the life of Louis XIII.  Twice, however, in that interval of ten years which separated the plot of Montmorency from that of Cinq-Mars, did the minister believe himself to be threatened by feminine influence; and twice he used artifice to win the monarch’s heart and confidence from two young girls of his court, Louise de La Fayette and Marie d’Hautefort.  Both were maids of honor to the queen.  Mdlle. d’Hautefort was fourteen years old when, in 1630,