Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/115

Rh sustain Bailleul, who was chancellor of her household, and for whom she had a regard, by placing near him as controller-general the able D'Hemery, who afterwards superseded him. At the same time that she was thus laboring to extricate from disgrace the man on whom all her political hopes depended, Madame de Chevreuse, not daring to attack Mazarin openly, insensibly mined the earth about him and prepared his ruin. Her practised eye enabled her easily to recognize the most favorable point of attack in the assault which was to gain the surrender of the queen, and the watchword which she gave was to maintain and to heighten the general feeling of reprobation which all the exiles, on returning to France, had excited and diffused against the memory of Richelieu. This feeling existed everywhere,—in the noble families, decimated or despoiled, in the Church, too sternly ruled not to be cruelly oppressed, in the parliaments, reduced to a mere judiciary body above which they very much aspired—it was still living in the heart of the queen, who could not forget the deep humiliation to which she had been subjected by Richelieu, and the fate which he had probably held in store for her. These tactics succeeded; a tempest rose on every side against violence and tyranny, and consequently, against the creatures of Richelieu, which Mazarin had much trouble in abating.

Madame de Chevreuse then entreated the queen to repair the long misfortunes of the Vendômes by giving them either the admiralty, to which immense power was attached, or the government of Brittany, which the head of the family, César de Vendôme, had formerly possessed, and which he held by the authority of his father, Henri IV., and by inheritance from his step-father, the Duke de Mercoeur. This was at once demanding the restoration of a friendly house, and the