This is the substance of what passed in the bald head of the Cardinal before the attack of which we have witnessed a part.  He was stationed on horseback, upon one of the mountains of Salces, north of the city; from this point he could see the plain of Roussillon before him, sloping to the Mediterranean.  Perpignan, with its ramparts of brick, its bastions, its citadel, and its spire, formed upon this plain an oval and sombre mass on its broad and verdant meadows; the vast mountains surrounded it, and the valley, like an enormous bow curved from north to south, while, stretching its white line in the east, the sea looked like its silver cord.  On his right rose that immense mountain called the Canigou, whose sides send forth two rivers into the plain below.  The French line extended to the foot of this western barrier.  A crowd of generals and of great lords were on horseback behind the minister, but at twenty paces’ distance and profoundly silent.

Cardinal Richelieu had at first followed slowly the line of operations, but had later returned and stationed himself upon this height, whence his eye and his thought hovered over the destinies of besiegers and besieged.  The whole army had its eyes upon him, and could see him from every point.  All looked upon him as their immediate chief, and awaited his gesture before they acted.  France had bent beneath his yoke a long time; and admiration of him shielded all his actions to which another would have been often subjected.  At this moment, for instance, no one thought of smiling, or even of feeling surprised, that the cuirass should clothe the priest; and the severity of his character and aspect suppressed every thought of ironical comparisons or injurious conjectures.  This day the Cardinal appeared in a costume entirely martial:  he wore a reddish-brown coat, embroidered with gold, a water-colored cuirass, a sword at his side, pistols at his saddle-bow, and he had a plumed hat; but this he seldom put on his head, which was still covered with the red cap.  Two pages were behind him; one carried his gauntlets, the other his casque, and the captain of his guards was at his side.

As the King had recently named him generalissimo of his troops, it was to him that the generals sent for their orders; but he, knowing only too well the secret motives of his master’s present anger, affected to refer to that Prince all who sought a decision from his own mouth.  It happened as he had foreseen; for he regulated and calculated the movements of that heart as those of a watch, and could have told with precision through what sensations it had passed.  Louis XIII came and placed himself at his side; but he came as a pupil, forced to acknowledge that his master is in the right.  His air was haughty and dissatisfied, his language brusque and dry.  The Cardinal remained impassible.  It was remarked that the King, in consulting him, employed the words of command, thus reconciling his weakness and his power of place, his irresolution and his pride, his ignorance and his pretensions, while his minister dictated laws to him in a tone of the most profound obedience.