Cinq-Mars entered the King's service under the auspices of the Cardinal. When the King saw the new face in his apartment he retired into his darkest humour.
Cinq-Mars was very patient; he was attentive and modest, but the sound of his voice and the sight of his face irritated the sickly monarch. Days passed before the King addressed his new Master of the Robes. One day he caught the long appealing look of the gentle eyes; he answered it with a stare,—frowned, and looked again. That night he could not sleep; he longed for the morning. When Cinq-Mars entered the bed-chamber the King drew him to his side "and suddenly he loved him violently and fatally, as in former times he loved young Baradas."
The courtiers were accustomed to the King's fancies, but his passion for Cinq-Mars astonished them; it surpassed all that had preceded it.
It was an appalling and jealous love; exacting, suspicious, bitter, stormy, and fruitful in tears and quarrels. Louis XIII. overwhelmed his favourite with tokens of his tenderness; had it been possible he would have chained the boy to his side. When Cinq-Mars was away from him he was miserable.
Cinq-Mars was obliged to assist him in his new trade (he was learning to be a carpenter), to stand at the bench holding tools and taking measurements; and to listen to long harangues on dogs and on bird-training. The King and his new favourite were seen together constantly, driving the foxes to their holes and running in the snowy fields catching blackbirds in the King's sweep-net; they hunted with a dozen sportsmen who were said to be "low people and very bad company."
When they returned to the palace the King supped; when he had finished his supper he went to bed, and then Cinq-Mars, "fatigued to exasperation by the puerile duties of the day, cared for nothing but to escape from his gloomy prison, and to forget the long, yellow face and the interminable torrent of hunting stories." Stealing from the château, he mounted his horse and hurried to Paris. He passed the night as he pleased and returned to the château early in the morning, worn out, haggard, and with nerves unstrung. Although he left the château after the King retired to his bed, and returned from Paris early in the morning, before the King awoke, Louis XIII. knew where he had been and what he had been doing. Louis employed spies who watched and listened. He was particularly jealous of Cinq-Mars's young friends; he "made scenes" and reproached Cinq-Mars and the tormented boy answered him hotly; then with cries, weeping bitterly, they quarrelled, and the King went to Richelieu to complain of "M. le Grand." Richelieu was State Confidant, and to him the King entrusted the reconciliations. In 1639 (27th November) Louis wrote to the Cardinal:
You will see by the certificate that I send you, in what condition is the reconciliation that you effected yesterday. When you put your hand to an affair it cannot but go well. I give you good-day.
The certificate read as follows:
We, the undersigned, certify to all to whom these presents may come, that we are very glad and well-satisfied with one another, and that we have never been in such perfect unison as at present. In faith of which we have signed the present certificate.
(signed) Louis; and by my order:
(signed) Effiat de Cinq-Mars.