Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/96

82 distrust of the future regent, placed royalty in some sort in commission, was not sufficient. Louis XIII. believed that he could only insure the tranquillity of his kingdom, after his death, by confirming and perpetuating, as far as was in his power, the exile of Madame de Chevreuse. In his pious aversion toward the active and enterprising duchess, he was accustomed to call her le Dialle. He scarcely loved more, and he feared almost as much, the former keeper of the seals, Châteauneuf, who was imprisoned in the citadel of Angoulême. As if the shade of the cardinal still governed him on his deathbed, before expiring, he inscribed in his last will and testament, in the royal declaration of April 21, this extraordinary clause concerning Châteauneuf and Madame de Chevreuse: "Inasmuch, says the king, as for grave reasons, important to the good of our service, we have been obliged to deprive the Sieur de Châteauneuf of the office of Keeper of the Seals of France, and to cause him to be conducted to the citadel of Angoulême, where he has since remained by our orders, we will and require that the said Sieur de Châteauneuf shall remain in the same state in which he is at the present time in the said citadel of Angoulême, until after the peace shall be concluded and executed; with the proviso, however, that he shall not then be liberated except by the order of the Dame-Regent, together with the advice of the council, which shall prescribe a plan for his retreat either in the kingdom or out of the kingdom, as it shall deem best. And, as it is our design to provide against all the subjects who may in any manner disturb the judicious arrangement which we have made in order to preserve the repose and tranquillity of our state, the knowledge which we possess of the rebellious conduct of Madame de Chevreuse, of the artifices which she has used to excite dissension in our kingdom, and of the factions and the correspondence which she maintains abroad with our enemies, causes us to deem it proper to forbid her, as we do forbid her, the entrance to our kingdom during the war; willing, also, that