Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/168

154 conversing together, he said to them, "Ladies, you see that the queen arrests me." "The next morning," continues Madame de Motteville, "while the queen was at her toilette, she did two of her maids and myself the honor to say to us that two or three days before, being at Vincennes, where M. de Chavigny had given her a magnificent collation, she had seen the Duke de Beaufort in a very merry mood, and that a thought of pity had suddenly crossed her mind, and she had said to herself involuntarily, 'Alas! in three days, perhaps, this poor boy will be here again, a prisoner, when he will not laugh.' And Filandre, the first waiting-maid, has assured me that the queen wept that evening on retiring." The good maid of honor, always careful to conceal or to deny all that might injure her mistress, and to point out every thing that may place her in a favorable light, delights here in displaying her gentleness and her humanity. We see above all a profound dissimulation in the conduct of Anne of Austria which even Madame de Motteville cannot fail to remark. It is evident that every thing was concerted in advance between the queen and Mazarin; and if the tears which she shed on this occasion showed how much it cost her to imprison an old friend, they also proved how dear the new friend must have been to have obtained such a sacrifice.

The next morning, the Duke de Beaufort was conducted a prisoner to that same château of Vincennes where he had been but a few days before to promenade and to partake of a collation with the queen. The people of Paris, always friends to bold enterprises when successful, were in nowise excited by the disgrace of him whom they would one day adore; and on seeing the future king of the faubourgs and the market places pass on the road to Vincennes, they applauded, much to Mazarin's satisfaction, and cried with exultation, "Here is the man who tried to disturb our peace." The most dangerous