Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/147

Rh The Pope could not at first forbear, for form's sake at least, from placing Beaupuis in the Chateau Saint-Ange. But he was soon liberated, and a private lodging given him where he could receive almost every one he chose. Mazarin loudly complained of such an indulgence. "All is arranged," says he, "so that if necessary he may be able to escape, or if not for this, to furnish the Duke de Vendôme with every facility for causing him to be poisoned, so that with Beaupuis may be destroyed the principal proof of the treason of his son. If all this happened in Barbary, how indignant we should be! Yet this passes at Rome, in the capital of Christendom, under the eyes and by the order of a pope!" Mazarin had sent a devoted agent named Gueffier to Rome, to receive Beaupuis from the hands of the holy father, with orders to take every imaginable means for preventing the escape of his prisoner on the way from Rome to Civita Vecchia, to put him on board a French vessel, and to bring him to France. He even went so far as to menace the protectors of Beaupuis with the vengeance of the young king, "who, though but seven years of age, has nevertheless very long arms." Mazarin did not cease his pursuit until the close of the year 1645, when he was clearly convinced that the new pope. Innocent X., who had succeeded to Urban VIII., as well as Pamphile, the cardinal-nephew, and Pancirolle, the secretary of state, belonged wholly to the Spanish party, and that France could expect neither favor nor justice from the pontifical court.

In default of Beaupuis, Mazarin would have been very glad to lay hands on one of the brothers Campion, who were intimately connected with Beaufort and with Madame de Chevreuse, and who stood too high in the confidence of both not to possess all their secrets. But he complains, as we have seen, of being very badly seconded. And then he had to deal with skilful conspirators, practiced in the art of sheltering themselves and hiding their tracks; with the active and indefatigable Duchess de Chevreuse, and with the Duke de Vendôme,