in those days by fair means.  He so tickled Chavigni by his loose Italian stories that he was shortly after introduced to Cardinal de Richelieu, who made him Cardinal with the same view which, it is thought, determined the Emperor Augustus to leave the succession of the Empire to Tiberius.  He was still Richelieu’s obsequious, humble servant, notwithstanding the purple.  The Queen making choice of him, for want of another, his pedigree was immediately derived from a princely family.  The rays of fortune having dazzled him and everybody about him, he rose, and they glorified him for a second Richelieu, whom he had the impudence to ape, though he had nothing of him; for what his predecessor counted honourable he esteemed scandalous.  He made a mere jest of religion.  He promised everything without scruple; at the same time he intended to perform nothing.  He was neither good-natured nor cruel, for he never remembered either good offices or bad ones.  He loved himself too well, which is natural to a sordid soul; and feared himself too little, the true characteristic of those that have no regard for their reputation.  He foresaw an evil well enough, because he was usually timid, but never applied a suitable remedy, because he had more fear than wisdom.  He had wit, indeed, together with a most insinuating address and a gay, courtly behaviour; but a villainous heart appeared constantly through all, to such a degree as betrayed him to be a fool in adversity and a knave in prosperity.  In short, he was the first minister that could be called a complete trickster, for which reason his administration, though successful and absolute, never sat well upon him, for contempt—­the most dangerous disease of any State—­crept insensibly into the Ministry and easily diffused its poison from the head to the members.

You will not wonder, therefore, that there were so many unlucky cross rubs in an administration which so soon followed that of Cardinal de Richelieu and was so different from it.  It is certain that the imprisonment of M. de Beaufort impressed the people with a respect for Mazarin, which the lustre of his purple would never have procured from private men.  Ondedei (since Bishop of Frejus) told me that the Cardinal jested with him upon the levity of the French nation on this point, and that at the end of four months the Cardinal had set himself up in his own opinion for a Richelieu, and even thought he had greater abilities.  It would take up volumes to record all his faults, the least of which were very important in one respect which deserves a particular remark.  As he trod in the steps of Cardinal de Richelieu, who had completely abolished all the ancient maxims of government, he went in a path surrounded with precipices, which Richelieu was aware of and took care to avoid.  But Cardinal Mazarin made no use of those props by which Richelieu kept his footing.  For instance, though Cardinal de Richelieu affected to humble whole