It falling to my turn to make the speech at the breaking up of the assembly of the clergy at Paris, I had the good luck to please both the clergy and the Court.  Cardinal Mazarin took me to supper with him alone, seemed to be clear of all prejudices against me, and I verily believe was fully persuaded that he had been imposed upon.  But I was too much beloved in Paris to continue long in favour at Court.  This was a crime that rendered me disagreeable in the eyes of a refined Italian statesman, and which was the more dangerous from the fact that I lost no opportunity of aggravating it by a natural and unaffected expense, to which my air of negligence gave a lustre, and by my great alms and bounty, which, though very often secret, had the louder echo; whereas, in truth, I had acted thus at first only in compliance with inclination and out of a sense of duty.  But the necessity I was under of supporting myself against the Court obliged me to be yet more liberal.  I do but just mention it here to show you that the Court was jealous of me, when I never thought myself capable of giving them the least occasion, which made me reflect that a man is oftener deceived by distrusting than by being overcredulous.

Cardinal Mazarin, who was born and bred in the Pope’s dominions, where papal authority has no limits, took the impetus given to the regal power by his tutor, the Cardinal de Richelieu, to be natural to the body politic, which mistake of his occasioned the civil war, though we must look much higher for its prime cause.

It is above 1,200 years that France has been governed by kings, but they were not as absolute at first as they are now.  Indeed, their authority was never limited by written laws as are the Kings of England and Castile, but only moderated by received customs, deposited, as I may say, at first in the hands of the States of the kingdom, and afterwards in those of the Parliament.  The registering of treaties with other Crowns and the ratifications of edicts for raising money are almost obliterated images of that wise medium between the exorbitant power of the Kings and the licentiousness of the people instituted by our ancestors.  Wise and good Princes found that this medium was such a seasoning to their power as made it delightful to their people.  On the other hand, weak and vicious Kings always hated it as an obstacle to all their extravagances.  The history of the Sire de Joinville makes it evident that Saint Louis was an admirer of this scheme of government, and the writings of Oresme, Bishop of Lisieux, and of the famous Juvenal des Ursins, convince us that Charles V., who merited the surname of Wise, never thought his power to be superior to the laws and to his duty.  Louis XI., more cunning than truly wise, broke his faith upon this head as well as all others.  Louis XII. would have restored this balance of power to its ancient lustre if the ambition of Cardinal Amboise,—­[George d’Amboise, the first of the name, in 1498 Minister to Louis XII., deceased 1510.]—­who governed him absolutely, had not opposed it.