Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/156

142 valets. Campion asked one of them where the cardinal was going; he answered, to the hôtel of the Marquis d'Estrées. "I saw," says Campion, "that if I chose to give this intelligence, his death was certain. But I believed that in so doing I should be so culpable both before God and man that the occasion did not tempt me."

The next day it was known that the cardinal was to go to partake of a collation with Madame du Vigean, at her charming villa of La Barre, at the entrance of the valley of Montmorency, at which the queen, who had already departed, together with Madame de Longueville, would be present. The cardinal proceeded thither, having no one in the carriage with him but the Count d'Harcourt. Beaufort commanded Campion to summon his troop and pursue him, but Campion represented to him that if they attacked the cardinal in the company of the Count d'Harcourt, they must decide to kill both, d'Harcourt being too generous to see Mazarin struck down before his eyes without defending him, and that the murder of d'Harcourt would excite all the house of Lorraine against them.

A few days after, they received information that the cardinal and the Duke d'Orleans were going to dine at Maisons with the Marshal d'Estrées. "I persuaded the duke to consent," says Campion, "that if the minister should be in the carriage of his royal highness, the design should not be executed; but he said that, if he were alone, he must die. In the morning, he caused horses to be prepared, and remained in the Capucins with Beaupuis, near the hôtel de Vendôme, posting a footman in the street to inform him when the cardinal should pass, and enjoining on me to stay with the conspirators assembled daily by my orders at the Angel, (the name of a cabaret,)