Ratisbon negotiation, Brulart discovered that Joseph would never communicate to him any business till the whole was finally arranged:  the sole object of his pursuit was to find means to gratify the cardinal.  Such free sentiments nearly cost Brulart his head:  for once in quitting the cardinal in warmth, the minister following him to the door, and passing his hand over the other’s neck, observed, that “Brulart was a fine man, and it would be a pity to divide the head from the body.”

One more anecdote of this good father Joseph, the favourite instrument of the most important and covert designs of this minister, has been preserved in the Memorie Recondite of Vittorio Siri,[222] an Italian Abbe, the Procopius of France, but afterwards pensioned by Mazarin.  Richelieu had in vain tried to gain over Colonel Ornano, a man of talents, the governor of Monsieur, the only brother of Louis XIII.; not accustomed to have his offers refused, he resolved to ruin him.  Joseph was now employed to contract a particular friendship with Ornano, and to suggest to him, that it was full time that his pupil should be admitted into the council, to acquire some political knowledge.  The advancement of Ornano’s royal pupil was his own; and as the king had no children, the crown might descend to Monsieur.  Ornano therefore took the first opportunity to open himself to the king, on the propriety of initiating his brother into affairs, either in council, or by a command in the army.  This the king, as usual, immediately communicated to the cardinal, who was well prepared to give the request the most odious turn, and to alarm his majesty with the character of Ornano, who, he said, was inspiring the young prince with ambitious thoughts—­that the next step would be an attempt to share the crown itself with his majesty.  The cardinal foresaw how much Monsieur would be offended by the refusal and would not fail to betray his impatience, and inflame the jealousy of the king.  Yet Richelieu bore still an open face and friendly voice for Ornano, whom he was every day undermining in the king’s favour, till all terminated in a pretended conspiracy, and Ornano perished in the Bastile, of a fever, at least caught there:—­so much for the friendship of Father Joseph!  And by such men and such means the astute minister secretly threw a seed of perpetual hatred between the royal brothers, producing conspiracies often closing in blood, which only his own haughty tyranny had provoked.

Father Joseph died regretted by Richelieu; he was an ingenious sort of a creature, and kept his carriage to his last day, but his name is only preserved in secret histories.  The fate of Father Caussin, the author of the “Cours Sainte,” a popular book among the Catholics for its curious religious stories, and whose name is better known than Father Joseph’s, shows how this minister could rid himself of father confessors who persisted, according to their own notions, to be honest men, in spite of the minister.  This piece of secret history is drawn from a narrative manuscript which Caussin left addressed to the general of the Jesuits.[223]