THERE are some spots on the earth which seem marked out as the scene of extraordinary events, and which, without any peculiar beauty, or other intrinsic quality to recommend them, acquire a transcendent interest, as the theatre of great actions. Such is Chantilly, the history of whose walls might furnish many a lay to the poet, and many a moral to the sage; and even now, by its magnificence and its decay, it offers a new comment on the vanity of splendour, and proves, by the forgotten greatness of its lords, how the waves of time are the true waters of oblivion.

Be that as it may, Montmorency, Conde, are names so woven in the web of history, that nothing can tear them out, and these were the lords of Chantilly. But amongst all that its roof has sheltered, no one, perhaps, is more worthy of notice than Louis the Thirteenth: the son of Henry the Fourth and Mary de Medicis, born to an inheritance of high talents and high fortune, with the inspiring incitement of a father’s glory, and the powerful support of a people’s love.

It is sad that circumstance—that stumbling block of great minds—that confounder of deep-laid schemes—that little, mighty, unseen controller of all man’s actions, should find pleasure in bending to its will, that which Nature originally seemed to place above its sway. Endued with all the qualities a throne requires, brave, wise, clear-sighted, and generous; with his mother’s talents and his father’s courage, the events of his early life quelled every effort of Louis’s mind, and left him but the slave of an ambitious minister! a monarch but in name! the shadow of a King! How it was so, matters not to this history—it is recorded on a more eloquent page. But at the time of my tale, the brighter part of life had passed away from King Louis; and now that it had fallen into the sear, he seemed to have given it up as unworthy a farther effort. He struggled not even for that appearance of Royal state which his proud Minister was unwilling to allow him; and, retired at Chantilly, passed his time in a thousand weak amusements, which but served to hurry by the moments of a void and weary existence.

It was at this time, that the first news of the Cardinal de Richelieu’s illness began to be noised abroad. His health had long been declining; but so feared was that redoubtable Minister, that though many remarked the increased hollowness of his dark eye, and the deepening lines upon his pale cheek, no one dared to whisper what many hoped—that the tyrant of both King and people was falling under the sway of a still stronger hand.

The morning was yet in its prime. The grey mist had hardly rolled away from the old towers and battlements of the Chateau of Chantilly, which, unlike the elegant building afterwards erected on the same spot, offered then little but strong fortified walls and turrets.—The heavy night-dew lay still sparkling upon the long grass in the avenues of the Park, when two gentlemen were observed walking near the Palace, turning up and down the alley, then called the Avenue de Luzarches, with that kind of sauntering pace which indicated their conversation to be of no very interesting description.

Perhaps, in all that vast variety of shapes which Nature has bestowed upon mankind, and in all those innate differences by which she has distinguished man’s soul, no two figures or two minds could have been found more opposite than those of the two men thus keeping a willing companionship—the Count de Fontrailles, and the Marquis de Cinq Mars, Grand Ecuyer, or, as it may be best translated, Master of the Horse.

Cinq Mars, though considerably above the common height of men, was formed in the most finished and elegant proportion, and possessed a native dignity of demeanour, which characterized even those wild gesticulations in which the excess of a bright and enthusiastic mind often led him to indulge.

On the other hand, Fontrailles, short in stature, and mean in appearance, was in countenance equally unprepossessing. He had but one redeeming feature, in the quick grey eye, that, with the clear keenness of its light, seemed to penetrate the deepest thoughts of those upon whom it was turned.

Such is the description that history yields of these two celebrated men; and I will own that my hankering after physiognomy has induced me to transcribe it here, inasmuch as the mind of each was like his person.

In the heart of Cinq Mars dwelt a proud nobility of spirit, which, however he might be carried away by the fiery passions of his nature, ever dignified his actions with something of great and generous. But the soul of Fontrailles, ambitious, yet mean, wanted all the wild ardour of his companion, but wanted also all his better qualities; possessing alone that clear, piercing discernment, which, more like instinct than judgment, showed him always the exact moment of danger, and pointed out the means of safety.

And yet, though not friends, they were often (as I have said) companions; for Cinq Mars was too noble to suspect, and Fontrailles too wary to be known—besides, in the present instance, he had a point to carry, and therefore was doubly disguised.

“You have heard the news, doubtless, Cinq Mars,” said Fontrailles, leading the way from the great Avenue de Luzarches into one of the smaller alleys, where they were less liable to be watched; for he well knew that the conversation he thus broached would lead to those wild starts and gestures in his companion, which might call upon them some suspicion, if observed. Cinq Mars made no reply, and he proceeded. “The Cardinal is ill!” and he fixed his eye upon the Master of the Horse, as if he would search his soul. But Cinq Mars still was silent, and, apparently deeply busied with other thoughts, continued beating the shrubs on each side of the path with his sheathed sword, without even a glance towards his companion. After a moment or two, however, he raised his head with an air of careless abstraction: “What a desert this place has become!” said he; “look how all these have grown up, between the trees. One might really be as well in a forest as a royal park now-a-days.”

“But you have made me no answer,” rejoined Fontrailles, returning perseveringly to the point on which his companion seemed unwilling to touch: “I said, the Cardinal is ill.”

“Well, well! I hear,” answered Cinq Mars, with a peevish start, like a restive horse forced forward on a road he is unwilling to take. “What is it you would have me say?—That I am sorry for it? Well, be it so—I am sorry for it—sorry that a trifling sickness, which will pass away in a moon, should give France hopes of that liberation, which is yet far off.”

“But, nevertheless, you would be sorry were this great man to die,” said Fontrailles, putting it half as a question, half as an undoubted proposition, and looking in the face of the Marquis, with an appearance of hesitating uncertainty.

Cinq Mars could contain himself no more. “What!” cried he vehemently, “sorry for the peace of the world!—sorry for the weal of my country!—sorry for the liberty of my King! Why, I tell thee, Fontrailles, should the Cardinal de Richelieu die, the people of France would join in pulling down the scaffolds and the gibbets, to make bonfires of them!”

“Who ever dreamed of hearing you say so?” said his companion. “All France agrees with you, no doubt; but we all thought that the Marquis de Cinq Mars either loved the Cardinal, or feared him, too much to see his crimes.”

“Fear him!” exclaimed Cinq Mars, the blood mounting to his cheek, as if the very name of fear wounded his sense of honour. He then paused, looked into his real feelings, shook his head mournfully, and after a moment’s interval of bitter silence added, “True! true! Who is there that does not fear him? Nevertheless, it is impossible to see one’s country bleeding for the merciless cruelty of one man, the prisons filled with the best and bravest of the land to quiet his suspicions, and the King held in worse bondage than a slave to gratify the daring ambition of this insatiate churchman, and not to wish that Heaven had sent it otherwise.”

“It is not Heaven’s fault, Sir,” replied Fontrailles; “it is our own, that we do suffer it. Had we one man in France who, with sufficient courage, talent, and influence, had the true spirit of a patriot, our unhappy country might soon be freed from the bondage under which she groans.”

“But where shall we find such a man?” asked the Master of the Horse, either really not understanding the aim of Fontrailles, or wishing to force him to a clearer explanation of his purpose. “Such an undertaking as you hint at,” he continued, “must be well considered, and well supported, to have any effect. It must be strengthened by wit—by courage—and by illustrious names.—It must have the power of wealth, and the power of reputation.—It must be the rousing of the lion with all his force, to shake off the toils by which he is encompassed.”

“But still there must be some one to rouse him,” said Fontrailles, fixing his eyes on Cinq Mars with a peculiar expression, as if to denote that he was the man alluded to. “Suppose this were France,” he proceeded, unbuckling his sword from the belt, and drawing a few lines on the ground with the point of the sheath: “show me a province or a circle that will not rise at an hour’s notice to cast off the yoke of this hated Cardinal. Here is Normandy, almost in a state of revolt;—here is Guienne, little better;—here is Sedan, our own;—here are the Mountains of Auvergne, filled with those whom his tyranny has driven into their solitude for protection; and here is Paris and its insulted Parliament, waiting but for opportunity.”

“And here,” said Cinq Mars, with a melancholy smile, following the example of his companion, and pointing out with his sword, as if on a map, the supposed situations of the various places to which he referred—“And here is Peronne, and Rouen, and Havre, and Lyons, and Tours, and Brest, and Bordeaux, and every town or fortress in France, filled with his troops and governed by his creatures; and here is Flanders, with Chaunes and Mielleray, and fifteen thousand men, at his disposal; and here is Italy, with Bouillon, and as many more, ready to march at his command!”

“But suppose I could show,” said Fontrailles, laying his hand on his companion’s arm, and detaining him as he was about to walk on—“but suppose I could show, that Mielleray would not march,—that Bouillon would declare for us,—that England would aid us with money, and Spain would put five thousand men at our command,—that the King’s own brother—”

Cinq Mars waved his hand: “No! no! no!” said he, in a firm, bitter tone: “Gaston of Orleans has led too many to the scaffold already. The weak, wavering Duke is ever the executioner of his friends. Remember poor Montmorency!”

“Let me proceed,” said Fontrailles; “hear me to an end, and then judge. I say, suppose that the King’s own brother should give us his name and influence, and the King himself should yield us his consent.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Cinq Mars, pausing abruptly.—The idea of gaining the King had never occurred to him; and now it came like a ray of sunshine through a cloud, brightening the prospect which had been before in shadow. “Think you the King would consent?”

“Assuredly!” replied his companion. “Does he not hate the Cardinal as much as any one? Does not his blood boil under the bonds he cannot break? And would he not bless the man who gave him freedom? Think, Cinq Mars!” he continued, endeavouring to throw much energy into his manner, for he knew that the ardent mind of his companion wanted but the spark of enthusiasm to inflame—“think, what a glorious object! to free alike the people and their sovereign, and to rescue the many victims even now destined to prove the tyrant’s cruelty!—Think, think of the glorious reward, the thanks of a King, the gratitude of a nation, and the blessings of thousands saved from dungeons and from death!”

It worked as he could have wished. The enthusiasm of his words had their full effect on the mind of his companion. As the other went on, the eye of Cinq Mars lightened with all the wild ardour of his nature; and striking his hand upon the hilt of his sword, as if longing to draw it in the inspiring cause of his Country’s liberty, “Glorious indeed!” he exclaimed,—“glorious indeed!”

But immediately after, fixing his glance upon the ground, he fell into meditation of the many circumstances of the times; and as his mind’s eye ran over the difficulties and dangers which surrounded the enterprise, the enthusiasm which had beamed in his eye, like the last flash of an expiring fire, died away, and he replied with a sigh, “What you have described, Sir, is indeed a glorious form—But it is dead—it wants a soul. The King, though every thing great and noble, has been too long governed now to act for himself. The Duke of Orleans is weak and undecided as a child. Bouillon is far away—”

“And where is Cinq Mars?” demanded Fontrailles,—“where is the man whom the King really loves? If Cinq Mars has forgot his own powers, so has not France; and she now tells him—though by so weak a voice as mine—that he is destined to be the soul of this great body to animate this goodly frame, to lead this conspiracy, if that can be so called which has a King at its head, and Princes for its support.”

In these peaceable days, when we are taught to pray against privy conspiracy, both as a crime and misfortune, the very name is startling to all orthodox ears; but at the time I speak of, it had no such effect. Indeed, from the commencement of the wars between Henri Quatre and the League, little else had existed but a succession of conspiracies, which one after another had involved every distinguished person in the country, and brought more than one noble head to the block. Men’s minds had become so accustomed to the sound, that the explosion of a new plot scarcely furnished matter for a day’s wonder, as the burghers of a besieged city at length hardly hear the roaring of the cannon against their walls; and so common had become the name of conspirator, that there were very few men in the realm who had not acquired a just title to such an appellation.

The word “conspiracy,” therefore, carried nothing harsh or disagreeable to the mind of Cinq Mars. What Fontrailles proposed to him, bore a plausible aspect. It appeared likely to succeed; and, if it did so, offered him that reward for which, of all others, his heart beat—Glory! But there was one point on which he paused: “You forget,” said he,—“you forget that I owe all to Richelieu,—you forget that, however he may have wronged this country, he has not wronged me; and though I may wish that such a being did not exist, it is not for me to injure him.”

“True, most true!” replied his wily companion, who knew that the appearance of frank sincerity would win more from Cinq Mars than aught else: “if he has done as you say, be still his friend. Forget your country in your gratitude—though in the days of ancient virtue patriotism was held paramount. We must not hope for such things now—so no more of that. But if I can show that this proud Minister has never served you; if I can prove that every honour which of late has fallen upon you, far from being a bounty of the Cardinal, has proceeded solely from the favour of the King, and has been wrung from the hard Churchman as a mere concession to the Monarch’s whim; if it can be made clear that the Marquis Cinq Mars would now have been a Duke and Constable of France, had not his kind friend the Cardinal whispered he was unfit for such an office:—then will you have no longer the excuse of friendship, and your Country’s call must and shall be heard.”

“I can scarce credit your words, Fontrailles,” replied Cinq Mars. “You speak boldly,—but do you speak truly?”

“Most truly, on my life!” replied Fontrailles. “Think you, Cinq Mars, if I did not well know that I could prove each word I have said, that thus I would have placed my most hidden thoughts in the power of a man who avows himself the friend of Richelieu?”

“Prove to me,—but prove to me, that I am not bound to him in gratitude,” cried Cinq Mars vehemently,—“take from me the bonds by which he has chained my honour, and I will hurl him from his height of power, or die in the attempt.”

“Hush!” exclaimed Fontrailles, laying his finger on his lip as they turned into another alley, “we are no longer alone. Govern yourself, Cinq Mars, and I will prove every tittle of what I have advanced ere we be two hours older.”

This was uttered in a low tone of voice; for there was indeed another group in the same avenue with themselves. The party, which was rapidly approaching, consisted of three persons, of whom one was a step in advance, and, though in no degree superior to the others in point of dress, was distinguished from them by that indescribable something which constitutes the idea of dignity. He was habited in a plain suit of black silk with buttons of jet, and every part of his dress, even to the sheath and hilt of his couteau de chasse, corresponding. On his right hand he wore a thick glove, of the particular kind generally used by the sportsmen of the period, but more particularly by those who employed themselves in the then fashionable sport of bird-catching; and the nets and snares of various kinds carried by the other two, seemed to evince that such had been the morning’s amusement of the whole party.

The King, for such was the person who approached, was rather above the middle height, and of a spare habit. His complexion was very pale; and his hair, which had one time been of the richest brown, was now mingled throughout with grey. But still there was much to interest, both in his figure and countenance. There was a certain air of easy self-possession in all his movements; and even when occupied with the most trivial employment, which was often the case, there was still a degree of dignity in his manner, that seemed to show his innate feeling of their emptiness, and his own consciousness of how inferior they were, both to his situation and his talents. His features at all times appeared handsome, but more especially when any sudden excitement called up the latent animation of his dark-brown eye, recalling to the minds of those who remembered the days gone before, that young and fiery Prince who could not brook the usurped sway even of his own highly talented mother, but who had now become the slave of her slave. The consciousness of his fallen situation, and of his inability to call up sufficient energy of mind to disengage himself, generally cast upon him an appearance of profound sadness: occasionally, however, flashes of angry irritability would break across the cloud of melancholy which hung over him, and show the full expression of his countenance, which at other times displayed nothing but the traces of deep and bitter thought, or a momentary sparkle of weak, unthinking merriment. So frequent, however, were the changes to be observed in the depressed Monarch, that some persons even doubted whether they were not assumed to cover deeper intentions. It might be so, or it might not; but at all events, between the intervals of these natural or acquired appearances, would often shine out strong gleams of his mother’s unyielding spirit, or his father’s generous heart.

The rapid pace with which he always proceeded, soon brought the King close to Cinq Mars and Fontrailles. “Good-morrow, Monsieur de Fontrailles,” said he, as the Count bowed low at his approach. “Do not remain uncovered. ’Tis a fine day for forest sports, but not for bare heads; though I have heard say, that if you were in the thickest mist of all Holland, you would see your way through it.—What! mon Grand Ecuyer,” he continued, turning to Cinq Mars; “as sad as if thou hadst been plotting, and wert dreaming even now of the block and axe?” And with a kind and familiar air, he laid his hand upon his favourite’s arm: who on his part started, as if the Monarch had read his thoughts and foretold his doom.

A single word has sometimes lost or won an empire. Even less than a single word, if we may believe the history of Darius’s horse, who, being a less loquacious animal than Balaam’s ass, served his master without speaking. However, Fontrailles fixed his eye on Cinq Mars, and seeing plainly the effect of Louis’s speech, he hastened to wipe it away. “To calculate petty dangers in a great undertaking,” said he, “were as weak as to think over all the falls one may meet with in the chase, before we get on horseback.”

Both Cinq Mars and the King were passionately fond of the noble forest sport, so that the simile of Fontrailles went directly home, more especially to the King, who, following the idea thus called up, made a personal application of it to him who introduced it. “Jesu, that were folly indeed!” he exclaimed, in answer to the Count’s observation. “But you are not fond of the chase either, Monsieur de Fontrailles, if I think right; I never saw you follow boar or stag, that I can call to mind.”

“More my misfortune than my fault, Sire,” replied Fontrailles. “Had I ever been favoured with an invitation to follow the royal hounds, your Majesty would have found me as keen of the sport as even St. Hubert is said to have been of yore.”

“Blessed be his memory!” cried the King. “But we will hunt to-day; we will see you ride, Monsieur de Fontrailles. What say you, Cinq Mars? The parties who went out to turn a stag last night (I remember now) presented this morning, that in the bosquet at the end of the forest, near Argenin, is quartered a fat stag of ten, and another by Boisjardin; but that by Argenin will be the best, for he has but one refuite by the long alley.—Come, gentlemen, seek your boots,—seek your boots; and as our Grand Veneur is not at Chantilly, you, Cinq Mars, shall superintend the chase. Order the Maitre valet de chiens to assemble the old pack and the relais at the Carrefour d’Argenin, and then we will quickly to horse.” So saying, he turned away to prepare for his favourite sport; but scarcely had gone many paces ere he slackened his pace, and allowed the two gentlemen to rejoin him. “What think you, friend?” said he, addressing Cinq Mars; “they tell me, the Cardinal is sick. Have you heard of it?”

“I have heard a vague report of the kind,” replied Cinq Mars, watching his master’s countenance, “but as yet nothing certain. May I crave what information your Majesty possesses?”

“Why, he is sick, very sick,” replied Louis, “and perchance may die. May his soul find mercy! Perchance he may die, and then—” And the King fell into deep thought.

It is possible that at that moment his mind was engaged in calculating all that such an event as the death of Richelieu would produce; for, gradually, as if he dreamed of ruling for himself, and as hope spread out before him many a future year of power and greatness, his air became more dignified, his eye flashed with its long repressed fire, and his step acquired a new degree of firmness and majesty.

Fontrailles watched the alteration of the King’s countenance, and, skilful at reading the mind’s workings by the face, he added, as if finishing the sentence which Louis had left unconcluded,—but taking care to blend what he said with an air of raillery towards the Master of the Horse, lest he should offend the irritable Monarch—“And then,” said he, “Cinq Mars shall be a Duke. Is it not so, Sire?”

Louis started. His thoughts had been engaged in far greater schemes; and yet rewarding his friends and favourites, always formed a great part of the pleasure he anticipated in power, and he replied, without anger, “Most likely it will be so—Indeed,” he added, “had my wishes, as a man, been followed,”—and he turned kindly towards the Master of the Horse,—”it should have been so long ago, Cinq Mars. But Kings, you know, are obliged to yield their private inclinations to what the State requires.”

Fontrailles glanced his eye towards the Grand Ecuyer, as if desiring him to remark the King’s words. Cinq Mars bent his head, in token that he comprehended, and replied to the King: “I understand your Majesty; but, believe me, Sire, no honour or distinction could more bind Cinq Mars to his King, than duty, gratitude, and affection do at this moment.”

“I believe thee, friend,—I believe thee, from my soul,” said Louis. “God forgive us that we should desire the death of any man! and surely do not I that of the Cardinal, for he is a good Minister, and a man of powerful mind. But, withal, we may wish that he was more gentle and forgiving. Nevertheless, he is a great man. See how he thwarts and rules half the Kings in Europe—See how he presses the Emperor, and our good brother-in-law, Philip of Spain; while the great Gustavus, this northern hero, is little better than his general.”

“He is assuredly a great man, Sire,” replied Cinq Mars. “But permit me to remark, that a great bad man is worse than one of less talents, for he has the extended capability of doing harm; and perhaps, Sire, if this Minister contented himself with thwarting Kings abroad, he would do better than by opposing the will of his own Sovereign at home.”

The time, however, was not yet come for Louis to make even an attempt toward liberating himself from the trammels to which he had been so long accustomed. Habit in this had far more power over his mind than even the vast and aspiring talents of Richelieu. No man in France, perhaps, more contemned or hated the Cardinal than the royal slave whom he had so long subjugated to his burdensome sway. Yet Louis, amidst all his dreams for the future, looked with dread upon losing the support of a man whom he detested, but upon whose counsels and abilities he had been accustomed to rely with confidence and security.

Cinq Mars saw plainly the state of his master’s mind; and as he entered the Palace, he again began to doubt whether he should at all lend himself to the bold and dangerous measures which Fontrailles had suggested.