Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/155

Rh He granted me these two things, professing to esteem me the more for them, and adding that he should certainly be at the execution in order to authorize it by his presence."

The plan was to attack the cardinal in the street while he was making calls in his carriage, at which time he usually had with him but a few ecclesiastics, together with five or six lackeys. They were to appear suddenly with an armed force, surround the carriage and strike Mazarin. For this, it was necessary that a certain number of adherents of the house of Vendôme should be found every day in the cabarets around the residence of the cardinal, which was then in the hôtel de Clèves, near the Louvre. Henri de Campion names Ganseville positively as among the followers who had not been admitted into the secret. To these he adds "MM. d'Avancourt and de Brassy, the Picardians, both determined men and intimate friends of Lié." They gave as a pretext that the Condés intending to offer an affront to Madame de Montbazon, the Duke de Beaufort wished to have a troop of armed and mounted gentlemen at his command to defend her. The characters were distributed in advance. Some were to stop the coachman of the cardinal; others were to open the doors and strike the fatal blow; while the duke was to be there on horseback with Beaupuis, Henri de Campion and others, to oppose and disperse all who attempted to resist them. Alexandre de Campion was to remain near the Duchess de Chevreuse and subject to her orders, while she was to be more than usually assiduous about the queen, to pave the way for her friends, and in case of success, to win her over to the side of the victors. Several favorable occasions for executing this plan presented themselves. At one time, Henri de Campion being with his retinue in the little Rue du Champ-Fleury, one end of which issues into the Rue Saint-Honoré, and the other, near the Louvre, he saw the cardinal leave the hôtel de Clèves in a carriage with the Abbé de Bentivoglio, nephew of the celebrated cardinal of that name, together with some monks and a few