Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/139

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need not be very much surprised at such an enterprise on the part of these two women and of a grandson of Henri IV. At this great epoch of our history, between the League and the Fronde, strength and energy were the distinctive traits of the French aristocracy. Court life and an effeminate opulence had not yet enervated them. Every thing there was extreme, vice as well as virtue. They attacked their enemies and defended themselves with the same weapons. The Marshal d'Ancre had been murdered, and the assassination of Richelieu had been more than once attempted, while he never hesitated to erect scaffolds in his turn. Was the trial of the Marshal de Marillac at Ruel under the cardinal's own eyes, his condemnation without conclusive proof, and his cruel execution on the Place de Grêve, any thing else than a judicial assassination? Corneille faithfully portrays the society of the times. His Emilie also enters into an assassination, yet she is represented as none the less perfect a heroine for it. Madame de Chevreuse had long been accustomed to conspiracies; she was fearless and unscrupulous, and she had not leagued herself with Beaupuis, Saint-Ybar, Varicarville, and Campion merely to pass her time in idle conversation. She had not remained a stranger to the designs which they had formerly