Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/152

138 He explicitly declares that there was a project for ridding themselves of Mazarin, and that this project was originated, not by Beaufort, but by Madame de Chevreuse, in concert with Madame de Montbazon. "I believe," says he, "that the duke's design was not prompted by his own private feelings, but by the persuasions of the Duchesses de Chevreuse and De Montbazon, who had entire power over him, and who bore an irreconcilable hatred towards the cardinal. The reason why I say this is that all the while that he was pursuing it, I detected in him a secret repugnance to it, which, if I mistake not, was overruled by the promise that he had probably made these ladies." There had therefore really been a plot, and its true author, as Mazarin asserts and as Campion repeats, was none other than Madame de Chevreuse, for Madame de Montbazon was but a tool for her.

Beaufort, being gained over, persuaded his intimate friend. Count de Beaupuis, son of the Count de Maillé, and ensign in the horse-guards of the queen. Madame de Chevreuse added to them Alexandre de Campion, the eldest brother of Henri, with whom we are already acquainted. "She had much love for him," says Henri de Campion, in a manner which, added to the ambiguous words of Alexandre which we have quoted before, strengthens the suspicion whether he was not at that time really one of the numerous successors of Chalais. He was then thirty-three years of age, and his brother admits that he had contracted the tastes and habits of the faction from the Count de Soissons. Beaupuis and Alexandre de Campion approved the plot which was communicated to them, "the first," says Henri de Campion, "believing it to be a means of attaining higher offices, and my brother seeing therein the advantage of Madame de Chevreuse, and consequently, his own."

Such were the two first accomplices of Beaufort. Soon