“is one who can bear testimony that the account I have given you of this business is perfectly true.”  The accomplice was quite terrified at hearing this; he thought that Count Horn had confessed his crime, and that there could be no advantage in continuing to deny it; he therefore confessed all that had taken place, and thus the murder was revealed.  The Count was not more than two-and-twenty years of age, and one of the handsomest men in Paris.  Some of the first persons in France solicited in his favour, but the Duke Regent thought it necessary to make an example of him on account of the prevalent excess of crime.  Horn was publicly broken on the wheel with his second accomplice; the other died just before:  they were both gentlemen and of noble families.  When they arrived at the place of punishment, they begged the people to implore the pardon of Heaven upon their sins.  The spectators were affected to tears, but they nevertheless agreed in the just severity of their punishment.  The people said aloud after the execution, “Our Regent has done justice.”

One lady was blaming another, her intimate friend, for loving a very ugly man.  The latter said, “Did he ever speak to you tenderly or passionately?”—­“No,” replied the former.  “Then you cannot judge,” said her friend, “whether I ought to love him or not.”

Madame de Nemours used to say, “I have observed one thing in this country, ‘Honour grows again as well as hair.’”

An officer, a gentleman of talent, whose name was Hautmont, wrote the following verses upon Cardinal Mazarin, for which he was locked up in the Bastille for eighteen months: 

                         Creusons tous le tombeau
                         A qui nous persecute;
                         A ce Jules nouveauu
                         Cherchons un nouveau Brute. 
                         Que le jour serait beau,
                         Si nous voyions sa chute!

The Queen-mother could not endure Boisrobert on account of his impiety; she did not like him to visit her sons, the King and Monsieur, in their youth, but they were very fond of him because he used to amuse them.  When he was at the point of death, the Queen-mother sent some priests to convert him and to prepare him for confession.  Boisrobert appeared inclined to confess.  “Yes, mon Dieu,” said he, devoutly joining his hands, “I sincerely implore Thy pardon, and confess that I am a great sinner, but thou knowest that the Abbe de Villargeau is a much greater sinner than I am.”

Cardinal Mazarin sent him once to compliment the English Ambassador on his arrival.  When he reached the hotel, an Englishman said to him, “Milord, il est pret; my ladi, il n’est pas pret, friselire ses chevaux, prendre patience.”  The late King used to relate stories of this same Boisrobert in a very whimsical manner.