The hatred of the serf-mastering caste toward their new ruler grew blacker and blacker; but he never flinched.  The two brothers Marillac, proud of birth, high in office, endeavored to stir revolt as in their good days of old.  The first, who was Keeper of the Seals, Richelieu threw into prison; with the second, who was a Marshal of France, Richelieu took another course.  For this Marshal had added to revolt things more vile and more insidiously hurtful:  he had defrauded the Government in army-contracts.  Richelieu tore him from his army and put him on trial.  The Queen-Mother, whose pet he was, insisted on his liberation.  Marillac himself blubbered, that it “was all about a little straw and hay, a matter for which a master would not whip a lackey.”  Marshal Marillac was executed.  So, when statesmen rule, fare all who take advantage of the agonies of a nation to pilfer a nation’s treasure.

To crown all, the Queen-Mother began now to plot against Richelieu, because he would not be her puppet,—­and he banished her from France forever.

The high nobles were now exasperate.  Gaston tied the country, first issuing against Richelieu a threatening manifesto.  Now awoke the Duke of Montmorency.  By birth he stood next the King’s family:  by office, as Constable of France, he stood next the King himself.  Montmorency was defeated and taken.  The nobles supplicated for him lustily:  they looked on crimes of nobles resulting in deaths of plebeians as lightly as the English House of Lords afterward looked on Lord Mohun’s murder of Will Mountfort, or as another body of lords looked on Matt Ward’s murder of Professor Butler:  but Montmorency was executed.  Says Richelieu, in his Memoirs, “Many murmured at this act, and called it severe; but others, more wise, praised the justice of the King, who preferred the good of the State to the vain reputation of a hurtful clemency.”

Nor did the great minister grow indolent as he grew old.  The Duke of Epernon, who seems to have had more direct power of the old feudal sort than any other man in France, and who had been so turbulent under the Regency,—­him Richelieu humbled completely.  The Duke of La Valette disobeyed orders in the army, and he was executed as a common soldier would have been for the same offence.  The Count of Soissons tried to see if he could not revive the good old turbulent times, and raised a rebel army; but Richelieu hunted him down like a wild beast.  Then certain Court nobles,—­pets of the King,—­Cinq-Mars and De Thou, wove a new plot, and, to strengthen it, made a secret treaty with Spain; but the Cardinal, though dying, obtained a copy of the treaty, through his agent, and the traitors expiated their treason with their blood.