Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/132

118 there are so many incensed against me that it is impossible for me to avoid some great misfortune." He declares that he would retire willingly, if, by so doing, he believed that he could cause the storm to cease. "Ah!" exclaims he, "if the sea could be appeased by my sacrifice, I would cast myself into it as Jonah cast himself into the mouth of the whale." He philosophizes sadly on the extreme difficulty of governing men, and especially Frenchmen, by reason and by the love of the public good. He consoles himself with the thought that he has not served France badly. In the beginning of his ministry, on the twenty-third of May, he had said to the queen: "Let her Majesty trust me during three months, and then let her do as she chooses." Three months had not yet passed by, and France, victorious at Rocroy, was on the point of wresting from Austria the town which guarded the passage of the Rhine. Beyond the Alps, she was the arbiter of the differences of the Italian princes; the Pope himself recognized her mediation, despite the opposition of Spain; and in England, the king and parliament alike addressed themselves to her, to obtain her support. Yet the chief author of this prosperity was calumniated, outraged, and menaced; and he knew not whether some officer of the guards or some one of