Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/113

Rh of even this modified exile, and that she might again see him who had suffered so deeply for the queen and for herself. Mazarin perceived that it was necessary to grant this, but he yielded slowly, without seeming of himself to repulse Châteauneuf, yet urging the necessity of managing the Condés, especially Madame the Princess, who, as we have already said, hated him as the judge of Henri de Montmorenci. Châteauneuf was therefore recalled, but with this reserve, professedly accorded to the last wishes of the king, that he should not appear at court, but remain at his estate of Montrouge, near Paris, where his friends could visit him.

The question was how to transfer him thence to the ministry. Châteauneuf was old, it is true, but neither his energy nor his ambition had abandoned him. and Madame de Chevreuse regarded it as a debt of honor which she owed him to replace him in the office of keeper of the seals, which he had formerly filled and had lost for her sake, and which all the former friends of the queen saw with indignation in the hands of one of the most servile of the creatures of Richelieu, Pierre Séguier. Séguier was a very capable man, laborious, well-informed, full of resources, and with no character of his own, whose suppleness, joined with his ability, rendered him a convenient and useful tool for a prime minister. His conduct in the trial of De Thou had made him odious. He had forced Monsieur to submit to an interrogation in this same affair;