Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/116

102 ruin of the two families which had most served Richelieu, and could best sustain Mazarin. The Marshal de La Meilleraie, grand master of the artillery, and recently invested with the government of Brittany, was a warrior of authority, and in possession of several regiments. The Duke Maillé de Brézé, step-brother of Richelieu, was also a marshal, and governor of the important province of Anjou; and his son, Armand de Brézé, then at the head of the admiralty, passed already, despite his youth, for the first sailor of his time. Mazarin warded off the blow aimed at him by the duchess by force of address and patience; never refusing, always eluding, and calling to his aid his great ally, as he styled it, Time. Before the return of Madame de Chevreuse, he had himself endeavored to gain the Vendômes, and to attach them to his interest. At the death of Richelieu, he had contributed much to their recall, and had since made them every kind of advances, but he soon perceived that he could not satisfy them except by ruining himself. The Duke César de Vendôme, son of Henri IV. and the Duchess de Beaufort, had early made the most lofty pretensions, and had shown himself as turbulent and factious as a legitimate prince. His life had been passed in rebellions and conspiracies, and in 1641 he had been forced to fly to England on the charge of an attempt to assassinate Richelieu. He did not return to France until after the death of the cardinal, and, as may well be imagined, he breathed nothing but vengeance against his memory. "He had much spirit," says Madame de Motteville, "and that was all the good that could be said of him." To the ambition of the Vendômes, Mazarin skilfully opposed that of the Condés, who did not wish the aggrandizement of a house too near their own. They also owed it to themselves to sustain the Brézés, who had become their relatives by the marriage of Claire Clemence Maillé de Brézé, daughter of the duke and sister of