Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/142

128 that his son, the Duke d'Enghien, would engage in a duel with him, as he wished to do to avenge his sister, during the brief stay which he made in Paris after the capture of Thionville. Finally, Retz says: "The reason why I have never believed in this plot is that neither proof nor deposition indicative of it has ever been seen, although the greater part of the domestics of the household of the Vendômes have long been in prison. Vaumorin and Ganseville, to whom I have spoken of it a hundred times in the Fronde, have sworn to me that nothing could be more false: one of these was a captain of the guards, and the other, the equerry of M. de Beaufort.

We shall presently see these last reasons—the only ones which merit any attention—dissipate of themselves; but let us commence by opposing to the two suspicious opinions of Retz and La Rochefoucauld some most disinterested witnesses, above all, the silence of Montrésor, who, while protesting that neither he nor his friend, the Count de Bethune, had been implicated in the conspiracy imputed to the Duke de Beaufort, says not a single word against the reality of this conspiracy, which he would not have failed to ridicule had he believed it imaginary. Madame de Motteville, who is not in the habit of denouncing the unfortunate, after having related the different rumors of the court with impartiality, recounts some facts which seem authentic and decisive. One of the best informed and most veracious of the contemporary historians does not express here the least doubt: "The Importants," says Monglat, "seeing that they could not expel the cardinal, resolved to rid themselves of him by the sword, and held several councils for this purpose at the hôtel de Vendôme." This