Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/133

Rh the enthusiasts whom Madame de Chevreuse held at her disposal, was not reserving for him the fate of the Marshal d'Ancre. At the end of the month of June, he speaks in a letter to his friend, the Cardinal Bichy, just as he soliloquizes in the Carnets. "Every one sees," says he, "that I spare no fatigue, and that the crown has no more zealous, faithful, and disinterested subject than myself; yet I still think of returning to my own country when I can do so without being untrue to myself, to my duties, or to France; for although all my designs are good, although I protest that there is not one which has not for its object the glory of her Majesty, yet I unceasingly encounter a thousand obstacles and foresee greater ones yet in the future, the French having no real attachment to the good of the state, and holding all those in abhorrence who place it above their private interests. Thus, I confess it to your eminence, I pass a most unhappy life, and were it not for the goodness of the queen, who gives me a thousand proofs of affection, I would endure it no longer."

Nothing was changed at the end of July and in the beginning of the month of August, 1643, or rather, every thing was aggravated; the violence of the Importants increased daily; and though the queen defended her minister, yet she also treated with his enemies, and hesitated to take the decided attitude which Mazarin demanded of her, not only for his private interest, but also for that of the government. All at once an incident, seemingly insignificant at first, but gradually growing in importance, hastened the inevitable crisis, and forced the queen openly to declare herself, and Madame de Chevreuse to plunge still deeper into the fatal enterprise which had already entered her mind—we speak of the quarrel of Madame de Montbazon and Madame de Longueville.