Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/151

Rh medium—his assertions are such that they must be implicitly believed, or, if their truth is doubted, he must be considered as the basest of villains. No interest could have guided his pen; for he composed, or at all events completed his memoirs shortly after the death of Mazarin, without thinking therefore of making court to him by tardy revelations, and scarcely two years before his own death, which took place in 1663. Truly, he may be said to have written in the fear of God and under the sole inspiration of his own conscience.

Now open his memoirs and you will see there all the details which fill the Garnets of Mazarin confirmed point by point. Nothing is wanting; every thing is in accordance with them; they correspond marvellously. It seems in truth as if Mazarin, in writing his notes, must have had before his eyes the memoirs of Henri de Campion, or as if Henri de Campion had copied verbatim from the Carnets of Mazarin—so well does he both complete and recapitulate them.

His brother Alexandre, in his letters, written during the month of August, lets fall more than one mysterious sentence. He writes thus to the Duchess de Montbazon, "You must not despair, madame; there are half a dozen honest men who have not yet yielded. Your illustrious friend will not forsake you. If it be necessary to renounce your friendship to be considered sane, there are some who will choose rather to pass for madmen all their lives." Like Montrésor, he does not once say that no plot had been formed against Mazarin, which is a sort of tacit avowal of it; and when the storm bursts, he resolves to conceal himself, counsels Beaupuis to do the same, and concludes with these significant words, "We cannot engage in the affairs of the court and be masters of their results, and as we profit by the good, we must also resolve to endure the evil." Henri de Campion lifts this already transparent veil.