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Updated: May 26, 2025
But under her breath and deep in her soul Sybilla de Thouars was still praying as before. And this which follows was her prayer: "O God, his devil is surely departed from him. I thank thee, God of truth, for helping me to lie." "It is well," said Gilles de Retz, standing erect with a satisfied air. "All is well. The three Scots who sought my life are gone to their destruction.
"The Parliament growled over the tariff-edict," says Cardinal de Retz; "and no sooner had it muttered than everybody awoke. People went groping as it were after the laws; they were no longer to be found.
"Well!" continued the king of England, "poor Charles II., grandson of Henry IV. as you are, sire, having neither parliament nor Cardinal de Retz to apply to, will die of hunger, as his mother and sister had nearly done." Louis knitted his brow, and twisted violently the lace of his ruffles.
This latter match having been broken off in a manner the most outrageous to her feelings, Madame de Chevreuse had separated from Condé with éclat; and, too experienced to ally herself with the sort of tiers-parti which Retz had proposed, but allowing herself to be gently and skilfully guided by the Marquis de Laignes, whom Mazarin with his usual adroitness had known how to win over, she had returned to the side of her early friend, Anne of Austria, and became resigned to the power of a man who at any rate knew his own mind, and whose robust ambition never wavered at the breath of vanity or the gust of momentary passion.
What if the Grande Mademoiselle again headed that comic revolution, the Fronde, as in the old days when she climbed the walls at Orléans and assumed command against the forces of the king? What if Monsieur de Retz issued orders from the Palais Royal, using the same-pen with which Mazarin had demanded his resignation as Archbishop of Paris?
It shifted in its stand and turned over. A tremor like that of an earthquake shook all the castle to its foundations. The solid keep itself rocked like a vessel in a stormy sea. The great image overturned, and by its fall Gilles de Retz was stricken senseless to the earth.
"Get to your beds both of you, and that supperless, for uproar and conduct ill becoming two youths who worship God all day in his sanctuary, and are maintained at grievous expense by our most devout and worthy lord, Messire Gilles of Laval and Retz, Seigneur and Lord!" "And do you, Master Laurence, perform your vigil of the night upon the pavement of the chapel.
Now listen, my friend. To-morrow at Court, as a stranger and a man introduced by Rambouillet, you will be the cynosure of all eyes. Bear yourself bravely. Pay court to the women, but attach yourself to no one in particular. Keep aloof from Retz and the Spanish faction, but beware especially of Bruhl. He alone will have your secret, and may suspect your design.
That is certainly what neither De Retz could know, who was only aware of what passed in parliament, in the Palais d'Orléans, and the Hôtel de Chevreuse; nor the Duchess de Nemours and Madame de Motteville, who were not in the confidence of the Hôtel de Condé: they could only repeat hereupon what they had heard said in the Court circle, and they must be considered solely as the echoes of reports which it suited the Queen to spread.
Marechal de La Meilleraye was so amazed at my escape that he threatened to destroy the whole country with fire and sword, for which reason I was an unwelcome guest to Madame de Retz and her father, who rallied me very uncharitably on my disobedience to the King.
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