Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/86

72 imagine if the state of your affairs should oblige you to make a tour hither, or if her own should compel her to take the road to Sedan; but if you will believe me, you will not have so flattering an opinion of me, since I constantly regard these superior deities with respect and veneration; and as they take care never to descend to me, I am careful never to raise my pretensions to them. Having spoken to you frankly, I venture to hope that you will both spare me for the future, and her who charges herself with advancing your affairs as if they were her own." But without ascribing to her more private reasons, Madame de Chevreuse was ready to serve with zeal in an enterprise directed against the common enemy. She wrote to the Count-Duke Olivares, and strongly enforced on him the demands of the Count de Soissons, and the Duke de Bouillon. At Brussels, she won over Don Antonio Sarmiento, and she gave to Campion, as well as to the Abbé de Merci, the intriguing agent in the service of Spain, letters to the Duke of Lorraine, in which she urged him not to lose this excellent occasion for repairing his past misfortunes, and for striking Richelieu a mortal blow. Charles IV., urged on at once by Madame de Chevreuse, by his relative, the Duke de Guise, by the Spanish minister, and, most of all, by his own restless and adventurous ambition, broke the solemn alliance which he had but recently contracted with France, entered into a treaty with Spain and with the Count de Soissons, and made haste to go to the aid of Sedan. General Lamboy and Colonel Metternich hastened from Flanders with six thousand imperialists, while, at the same time, Madame de Chevreuse and the exiles moved all the springs which were in their hands. France and Europe were in anxious expectation. Never had Richelieu been in greater danger; and the loss of the battle of the Marfée would have been fatal to him, had not the Count de Soissons met death in his triumph.

Did Madame de Chevreuse remain a stranger in 1642 to the new conspiracy of Monsieur, Cinq-Mars, and the Duke de