Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/50

36 the queen had before confessed, protesting that this was all he knew. The Cardinal de Richelieu was confounded and the king satisfied. La Porte, who is a worthy and honest man, has assured me that, having seen the letters in question, and knowing their contents, he was astonished that accusations could be formed from them against the queen, as they simply consisted of sarcasms against the Cardinal de Richelieu, and certainly said nothing against the king or the state." La Porte, in his Memoires, confirms this recital of Madame de Motteville; he declares that there was no "finesse" in the correspondence of the queen and Madame de Chevreuse, and that the whole affair was concerted, in order "to entangle Madame de Chevreuse in it, and to make the public believe it was a dangerous cabal against the state; for it was the custom of his eminence to make trifling matters pass for great conspiracies."

It remains to be discovered whether these were, in truth, "but trifling matters," as La Porte asserts. We have listened to the testimony of friends of the queen and of Madame de Chevreuse, but we must also hear Richelieu; above all, we must hear those witnesses which are more reliable than all the "Memoirs;" namely, the original and authentic documents of which Richelieu has written, and which have escaped all the historians except Père Griffet, who, in this affair as in that of Châteauneuf, gathered every thing, sifted every thing, and then, with the documents in his hand, justified the cardinal. Thanks to these documents, which we too have studied,