Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/89

Rh Let us add that she had long been very intimate with De Thou, who had been compromised on her account in some affair, the particulars of which it is impossible for us now to discover, but for which we know that he had great difficulty in obtaining his pardon from the cardinal, as he himself acknowledged in the fatal trial that brought him to the scaffold. A friend of Richelieu, who does not reveal his name, but who seems to be well informed concerning the matter, does not hesitate to place Madame de Chevreuse as well as the queen among those who at that time sought to overthrow him. "M. le Grand," writes he to the cardinal, "has been urged on to his evil design by the queen-mother, her daughter, the queen of France, Madame de Chevreuse, and Lord Montagu, with other of the English papists." Lastly, the cardinal himself, who doubtless for his health, but also for his safety, had withdrawn to Tarascon in the beginning of June, 1642, with his two confidants, Mazarin and Chavigny, and his faithful regiments of guards, feeling himself surrounded by perils, on representing to Louis XIII. the danger of his position, quotes what has been written him concerning Madame de Chevreuse as among its most striking indications. Indeed, what party was it that was