“I am glad to perceive this apprehension in you; it may be most salutary,” said De Thou, as they rode on.  “You are about to enter into contact with power.  Before, you did not even conceive it; now you will touch it with your very hand.  You will see what it is, and what hand hurls the lightning.  Heaven grant that that lightning may never strike you!  You will probably be present in those councils which regulate the destiny of nations; you will see, you will perchance originate, those caprices whence are born sanguinary wars, conquests, and treaties; you will hold in your hand the drop of water which swells into mighty torrents.  It is only from high places that men can judge of human affairs; you must look from the mountaintop ere you can appreciate the littleness of those things which from below appear to us great.”

“Ah, were I on those heights, I should at least learn the lesson you speak of; but this Cardinal, this man to whom I must be under obligation, this man whom I know too well by his works—­what will he be to me?”

“A friend, a protector, no doubt,” answered De Thou.

“Death were a thousand times preferable to his friendship!  I hate his whole being, even his very name; he spills the blood of men with the cross of the Redeemer!”

“What horrors are you saying, my friend?  You will ruin yourself if you reveal your sentiments respecting the Cardinal to the King.”

“Never mind; in the midst of these tortuous ways, I desire to take a new one, the right line.  My whole opinion, the opinion of a just man, shall be unveiled to the King himself, if he interrogate me, even should it cost me my head.  I have at last seen this King, who has been described to me as so weak; I have seen him, and his aspect has touched me to the heart in spite of myself.  Certainly, he is very unfortunate, but he can not be cruel; he will listen to the truth.”

“Yes; but he will not dare to make it triumph,” answered the sage De Thou.  “Beware of this warmth of heart, which often draws you by sudden and dangerous movements.  Do not attack a colossus like Richelieu without having measured him.”

“That is just like my tutor, the Abbe Quillet.  My dear and prudent friend, neither the one nor the other of you know me; you do not know how weary I am of myself, and whither I have cast my gaze.  I must mount or die.”

“What! already ambitious?” exclaimed De Thou, with extreme surprise.

His friend inclined his head upon his hands, abandoning the reins of his horse, and did not answer.

“What! has this selfish passion of a riper age obtained possession of you at twenty, Henri?  Ambition is the saddest of all hopes.”

“And yet it possesses me entirely at present, for I see only by means of it, and by it my whole heart is penetrated.”