Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/165

Rh indisposed by reason of his labors and cares, and suffering from the jaundice, wrote this line which is very short, but which furnishes food enough for thought: "The jaundice, fruit of extreme love."

Madame de Motteville was on duty near Queen Anne, when, at the report of the abortive attempt at assassination, the courtiers hastened to the Louvre to protest their devotion. The queen, greatly excited, said to her, "You shall see before twice twenty-four hours have passed, how I will avenge myself for the tricks which these false friends have played on me." "Never," says Madame de Motteville, "will the memory of these few words be effaced from my mind; I saw at that moment from the fire which burned in the eyes of the queen, and from the things which happened in truth on the same evening and the next day, what a sovereign is when she is in anger, and how capable she is of doing all that she wills." If the faithful maid of honor had been less discreet, she might have added: especially when the sovereign is a woman, and in love.

Mazarin had said: "The plots against me will never cease so long as my enemies see near her Majesty a powerful party declared against me, and capable of gaining the mind of the queen if any defeat should happen to me." The overthrow of this party was demanded by Mazarin and granted by Anne of Austria, and the most energetic measures were immediately resolved on.

That which was of all others the most pressing, and which could not be deferred for a single day, was to screen himself from all new assassins, and to profit by the first burst of