Fortunately for him, a great event was at hand, which marvellously changed the aspect of political affairs. The queen, after twenty-two years of childlessness, was in a situation of promise to give an heir to the throne. Then Richelieu relaxed la Porte’s durance so far as to permit his retiring to Saumur, where he remained till the queen recalled him, on the death of the cardinal, now shadowing in, bringing with it the terrible tragedy which was the last act and deed of his hand.
CHAPTER VII
Mélusine—Cinq-Mars—An Ill-advised Marriage—The Conspiracy—The Revenge—The Scaffold—A Cry from the Bastille—The Lady’s Man—“The Cardinal’s Hangman”—Finis—Louis’s Evensong—A Little Oversight—The King’s Nightcap—Mazarin—Ninon’s Hero.
Some few miles from Tours, along the banks of the Loire, at one of its most beautiful parts above Saumur, stands the little town of St Médard, better known as Cinq-Mars. A ruined castle crowns the heights above. It was the ancestral home of the d’Effiats, a noble family of long lineage; and before their coming, tradition told of its being the dwelling of Mélusine the fée, the beautiful snake-woman, who was the wife of Raymond, Count de Lusignan, placed under the terrible spell of transformation into a snake, from the waist downwards, every seventh night, for having immured her father in a rock-bound cavern, for cruelty to her mother. Disobeying Mélusine’s command, never to intrude upon her on those fatal Saturday nights, Raymond discovered the appalling reason for it, and in his rage cast her forth. The despairing cry that broke from her then, is still to be heard of stormy nights above the river; and it may be, mingles with the lamentations of the mourners over the deed of blood which was enacted in after centuries when Louis the Just was king.
The young lord of the castle then, was the son of the Maréchal Cinq-Mars. He was scarcely more than a youth; for he was but nineteen when Richelieu introduced him at Court, loading him with favours, causing him to be made the royal master of the horse, and otherwise specially recommending him to the notice of Louis, who conceived so vast a liking for him, that it was even touched with some real warmth; and Cinq-Mars, handsome, gallant, distinguished, brave, and not a little spoiled by the splendour of his existence, but amiable and generous-hearted, beloved by his friends—of whom a dear one was de Thou, the son of the great historian—basked in all the full sunshine of his young life. The pale, stern cardinal, attenuated by bodily suffering, and more than ever soured by care, was hardly likely to win much love from a gay butterfly of a creature like the young marquis, and before long Cinq-Mars came to know from Louis’s own lips, that he privately hated Richelieu, a hate nourished by his deadly fear of him.
Meanwhile, Cinq-Mars had cast amorous eyes upon Marion Delorme, the cardinal’s protégée. Marion, still beautiful, though no longer young—being in fact double the age of this her latest admirer—returned his passionate affection, and, dazzled by the prospect of being his wife—for his infatuation impelled him to seek her as such—she braved the consequences of her protector’s wrath, and the two were secretly married. Richelieu, from whom nothing could long be hidden, was furious; he had planned a brilliant alliance for the king’s young favourite, who had shortly before leagued himself with the queen’s party; Gaston d’Orléans, the Duc de Bouillon—burning to supplant the cardinal-minister—and others—and they entered into correspondence with Olivarez, the Spanish prime-minister, which resulted in a treaty of alliance between him and the conspiring enemies of the cardinal. Louis had for some time past treated Richelieu with coldness; and Richelieu, suspecting the cause of it, left Paris, and went to Tarascon, to lie in wait till his spies were able to place him in full possession of every detail of the plot, and of a copy of the treaty. Then, disabled by illness and infirmity, he desired to see the king, who travelled for the interview from Perpignan, where he was then staying, and all the thunder of the cardinal’s reproaches and wrath was flung upon him. Apparently with justice, Louis succeeded in justifying himself, on the plea of ignorance, and the king departed again, enjoining everybody to obedience to Richelieu as if he were himself.
After their marriage, Marion and Cinq-Mars went to the castle on the Loire, where they spent a brief period of delight. Only the servants of the household were there, and Cinq-Mars was their lord. They showed willing, even delighted, obedience to all his behests; but the marquise his mother returned home somewhat unexpectedly, and her anger at the stolen marriage equalled in its way that of Richelieu himself. Doubtless this fomented the affair to a yet speedier issue, and Cinq-Mars was arrested, and along with him, his friend de Thou, who was entirely innocent of complicity in the plot. The two were taken into the presence of Richelieu at Tarascon (a place old stories tell named after one Tarasque, “a fearful dragon who infested the borders of the Rhone, preying upon human flesh, to the universal terror and disturbance”), and hence his dying Eminence—for death was very near—commanded them to be placed, tied and bound, in a boat fastened behind his own, in which he was returning to Paris by the waterway of the Rhone, as far as Lyons. There, being disembarked, the two young victims were led immediately to a hastily-erected scaffold, and there bravely they met their fate by the headsman’s axe—de Thou guilty of refusing to betray his friend, and Cinq-Mars’ crime not proved, suffering mainly from the cowardly depositions laid against him by the Duke of Orléans. Then Richelieu continued his triumphal way to Paris, where in his magnificent palace he died; and during his last agonies, the king was seen to smile at what he called “Death’s master-stroke of policy.”
There was a letter, written three days before the cardinal’s death, found among his papers. It was dated from the Bastille, and it consisted of one bitter reproach of his injustice to the writer, in keeping him immured in the terrible place for eleven years. It was a letter of some length, and an eloquently written appeal for release. “There is a time, my lord,” it began, “when man ceases to be barbarous and unjust; it is when his approaching dissolution compels him to descend into the gloom of his conscience, and to deplore the cares, griefs, pains and misfortunes which he has caused to his fellow-creatures. Had I,” the unhappy man, whose name was Dessault, goes on to say, “performed your order, it would have condemned my soul to eternal torment, and made me pass into eternity with blood-stained hands.... I implore you, my lord, order my chains to be broken before your death-hour comes,—permit yourself to be moved by the most humble prayer of a man who has ever been a loyal subject to the king.”
This letter bore date of December 1st; on December 4th, the cardinal died. It is not known whether he ever saw it. After his death, it came into the hands of those on whom the power now devolved, and Dessault, far from gaining his release, was kept in the Bastille till the year of 1692, after being a prisoner for sixty-one years. Such remnant of life as may have remained to him, is one too forlorn and dreary to contemplate.