Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/126

112 easy." He remonstrated often and earnestly against the dangers of such an arrangement, which would render useless the sacrifices of France during so many years. "Madame de Chevreuse wishes to ruin France!" he exclaims. He knew that, intimately allied with Monsieur, her former accomplice in every conspiracy plotted against Richelieu, she had persuaded him to the idea of a separate peace by holding out hopes to him of the marriage of his daughter. Mademoiselle de Montpensier, with the archduke, which would have obtained him the government of the Netherlands. He knew that she still retained all her influence over the Duke of Lorraine; and the Marshal de L'Hôpital, who commanded on that frontier, sent him word to distrust all the protestations of the Duke Charles, as he belonged wholly to Madame de Chevreuse. He knew lastly that she boasted of being able to effect a speedy peace through the Queen of Spain, whom she had at her disposal. He therefore entreated Queen Anne to repulse every proposal of Madame de Chevreuse, and to tell her plainly that she would not listen to any private arrangement, that she was determined not to separate herself from her allies, that she should insist on a general peace, that it was for this that she had sent ministers to Munster who were negotiating this important affair, and that it was useless to say any thing further on the subject.

Repulsed at all these different points, Madame de Chevreuse would not yet own herself beaten. Seeing that she had employed insinuation, flattery, artifice, and every ordinary court intrigue in vain, her daring spirit did not recoil from the idea of resorting to other means of success. She continued to use the devotees and the bishops, and carried on her political plots with the chiefs of the Importants, while at the same time she attracted together that little cabal which formed in some sort the vanguard of the party, composed of