Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/144

130 "Madame de Chevreuse has brought in the brothers Campion."

"A host of men are brought in daily."

"Some enterprise is certainly on foot. They talk of surprising me in the Faubourg Saint Germain. They pretend to sell their horses in public and buy them in again in private.

"Plessis Besançon (a distinguished officer, commissary of stores and counsellor of state, and attached to Mazarin) says that more than forty armed men have been seen about the hôtel de Vendôme."

"M. de Bellegarde assures me that if I had not been in the carriage of his royal highness on my return from Maisons, Beaufort would have had me assassinated. The domestics of the Count d'Orval have seen twelve or fifteen men, armed with pistols, placed on three or four consecutive evenings between the hôtel de Créqui and their own in such a manner as easily to surprise and surround me."

"They have proposed to the Duke de Guise and his sons to assassinate me, but they would not listen to the proposal"

"L'Argentin met Beaufort and Beaupuis (the Count de Beaupuis, only son of the Count de Maillé) as they were returning from the Louvre, which the first had quitted when the queen retired to her oratory. 'My masters, there must certainly be some quarrel brewing,' said L'Argentin to them, 'for I just now met fifteen or twenty gentlemen on horseback, well mounted and armed with pistols.' 'Well, what have I to do with it?' answered Beaufort, shrugging his shoulders.—I have been warned that they mean to surprise me as I am going in my carriage to the palace of the Duke d'Orleans in the Faubourg Saint Germain, (the Duke d'Orleans had resided at the Luxembourg since the death of his mother, Marie de Medicis.)—On Wednesday, the Duke de Vendôme exclaimed twice while talking with the Marshal d'Estrées, 'I wish that my son Beaufort were dead. '"