The famous peace of Alais, which terminated, during the reign of Louis XIII., the struggles of the Protestants of France for a distinct organization and left them nothing but an insecure toleration, was concluded on the 27th of June, 1629, a few days after the reunion of Edward and Lucette. None can doubt that Richelieu was politically right in asserting and enforcing the sovereign authority over a body of men who had made religious differences a pretext for rebellion and a continual source of exaction and menace. Nor can any one accuse him of having violated his word in any degree to the Huguenots. They were suffered to follow the forms of their religion in peace; their peculiar tenets formed no obstacle to their admission into the highest offices in France; and the Duc de Rohan himself was employed in high and delicate negotiations, and ultimately fell in the military service of the monarch against whom he had so often fought.

A few days after the period to which we have carried our story in the last chapter, the hundred thousand crowns in gold, which were necessary for him, as well to provide for his troops as to repair his own shattered fortunes, were paid to the duke, according to Richelieu's promise; and the Protestant army was immediately disbanded,—glad to escape from the inevitable ruin and disaster which hung over their heads.

The peace concluded at Suza restored those friendly relations with England which had so long been broken off. Spain and Savoy were, at least for the time, cowed by the power of France; and all men, both friends and enemies, saw in the well-directed operations of the French armies and the success of French diplomacy the great military and political genius of Armand du Plessis.

In the mean time, the cardinal kindly left Edward and Lucette to the enjoyment of each other's society; and it was not till some six or seven days after the union which he himself had aided so much to bring about that he visited them at the castle of Bourillaut. Great success, if in the end it makes men haughty and overbearing, seems at first to soften and expand the heart; and Richelieu, at the culminating-point of his fortunes, sat down and conversed with the two young people as their friend. He amused himself somewhat with their love, and expressed, and probably felt, some gratification at their happiness.

"Monsieur Langdale," he said, "a foolish prediction has been made to me, that as you and I were born on the same hour of the same day of the same month, though a number of years apart,—how many I do not remember,—my fate and yours should run together; and, though of course I put no faith in it, that prophecy has as yet proved remarkably true. I am therefore very desirous to attach you to me, now that peace is signed between France and England; and you must tell me, according to a promise which you once made, what post I can give you at the court of France."

Edward and Lucette looked at each other; and then, with his usual frankness, Edward answered, "No post your Eminence can give me can attach me more strongly to you than that which you have already given me,—the husband of this dear lady. Two days ago we had a long consultation with our good friend Clement Tournon, and laid out our plans for life. He is resolved, with the sum he has amassed, to purchase a small and beautiful estate and chateau which he has seen not far from Paris; and Lucette and myself intend to live there a great part of each year as his son and daughter. We shall of course visit England from time to time; but our wish is to avoid courts and cities as much as may be."

"Young people's dreams," said Richelieu, gravely.

"That may be," said Edward, "but I trust it will not prove so. However, if your Eminence were to give me some high post, you would make many of the French nobility dissatisfied, and you might find me ungrateful; but, as it is, I shall be near you the greater part of my days; and, whether I may be in England or in France, if at any time I can serve you with my hand, or my head, or my heart, believe me, I will not forget these happy days are all owing to your great goodness."

"I wish I could dream," said the cardinal, looking down thoughtfully. "It must be a very happy thing to be so confident of the world and of fate and of oneself. But be it so, Monsieur Langdale. Only remember!"

"My lord, have I ever forgotten?" asked Edward.

"No, no," said Richelieu; "and it is for that I have esteemed you. Come and see me when you are near Paris; for when I have a leisure hour I shall love your conversation. We will talk of art, and literature, and science; and I shall banish for that hour the thought of politics, and intrigue, and cabal: oh, how I hate them! And if you have a son," he continued, laying his hand kindly upon that of Lucette as he rose to depart, "you shall call his name Armand."

"And you shall bless him," cried Lucette, warmly, kissing his hand; "and I will tell him that you made his father and myself happy."

Perhaps, in all his career of splendid misery, that was one of the happiest hours that Richelieu had ever experienced.

The Prince de Soubise, as is well known, did not return to France and make his full submission to his king till Edward and Lucette had been married some time. To Edward, whom he met at the court not long after the final fall of Marie de Medici, he was polite and even friendly; but, whether it was that he was naturally of a more haughty disposition than his brother the Duc de Rohan, or that he was never placed under the same pressure of circumstances, he refused to acknowledge, by any authentic act, the legality of the marriage between his young cousin and the son of one of his earliest friends. It made no difference to them, however, nor troubled their peace in the least; and in the end, after witnessing their mutual felicity for many years, both he and his brother the duke, by their own wretched experience, were forced to acknowledge that a marriage of affection has more chance for happiness than a marriage of convenience. Still, however, with the same peculiar obduracy which had characterized his resistance to the crown in the hopeless war of the Protestants against Louis XIII., he refused to sign, on several occasions, the papers which were necessary to enable Lucette to enter fully into possession of her father's estates, saying that he would not recognise her marriage with the second son of a simple English gentleman. But his consent was passed over by certain forms of the Parliament; and as for Madame de Chevreuse, with her usual gay lightness, she signed her approbation of the marriage without a word of opposition,—when she found that opposition would be vain. She was even inclined to be exceedingly kind and intimate with the young pair; but Edward gave no encouragement to her advances, and she satisfied herself by declaring that, like many of his countrymen, he was a handsome man, but somewhat brutal.

In regard to Edward's claim to the estate of Buckley, there was no opposition; and he kept quiet possession during the whole of his life of that fine part of his inheritance. The estates of Langley were suffered to go greatly to decay for several years, the rents accumulating in the hands of the agent without ever being called for or paid over to any one.

How this property reverted to Edward himself, and how the objections of the Prince de Soubise to the marriage of his young cousin with Edward Langdale were at last done away,—what was the ultimate fate of Sir Richard Langdale,—and how an old proverb was verified,—would be too long of telling in the pages which yet remain.

Perhaps, if God spares the life, the health, and the senses of the author of this work, these particulars may all be related in another. At all events, the history of Lord Montagu's Page is completed; for it would be folly to pursue that history in the calm, continued, uninterrupted happiness of his married life. Every one has been unsuccessful in painting happiness with the pen. Dante failed in his Paradiso, Milton in his Paradise Regained; and the writer of these pages is not sufficiently presumptuous to suppose that he could succeed in representing a state as near as this world permits to that which they attempted to picture in vain.

THE END.

STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO.
PHILADELPHIA.

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