The Cardinal, left sole master of the court, concentrated all its homage; but it was observed that he no longer received it with his former presence of mind.  He inquired frequently what time it was, and exhibited an anxiety which was not assumed; his hard, unquiet glances turned toward the smaller tent.  It suddenly opened; the King appeared alone, and stopped on the threshold.  He was paler than usual, and trembled in every limb; he held in his hand a large letter with five black seals.

“Gentlemen,” said he, in a loud but broken voice, “the Queen has just died at Cologne; and I perhaps am not the first to hear of it,” he added, casting a severe look toward the impassible Cardinal, “but God knows all!  To horse in an hour, and attack the lines!  Marechals, follow me.”  And he turned his back abruptly, and reentered his cabinet with them.

The court retired after the minister, who, without giving any sign of sorrow or annoyance, went forth as gravely as he had entered, but now a victor.

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CINQ MARS

By ALFRED DE VIGNY

BOOK 3.

CHAPTER IX

THE SIEGE

There are moments in our life when we long ardently for strong excitement to drown our petty griefs—­times when the soul, like the lion in the fable, wearied with the continual attacks of the gnat, earnestly desires a mightier enemy and real danger.  Cinq-Mars found himself in this condition of mind, which always results from a morbid sensibility in the organic constitution and a perpetual agitation of the heart.  Weary of continually turning over in his mind a combination of the events which he desired, and of those which he dreaded; weary of calculating his chances to the best of his power; of summoning to his assistance all that his education had taught him concerning the lives of illustrious men, in order to compare it with his present situation; oppressed by his regrets, his dreams, predictions, fancies, and all that imaginary world in which he had lived during his solitary journey-he breathed freely upon finding himself thrown into a real world almost as full of agitation; and the realizing of two actual dangers restored circulation to his blood, and youth to his whole being.

Since the nocturnal scene at the inn near Loudun, he had not been able to resume sufficient empire over his mind to occupy himself with anything save his cherished though sad reflections; and consumption was already threatening him, when happily he arrived at the camp of Perpignan, and happily also had the opportunity of accepting the proposition of the Abbe de Gondi—­for the reader has no doubt recognized Cinq-Mars in the person of that young stranger in mourning, so careless and so melancholy, whom the duellist in the cassock invited to be his second.