CINQ-MARS.
Such was the tool selected by Richelieu to fashion out his purposes, and he found a ready and a willing listener in the son of his friend, when, with warm protestations of his esteem for his father and his attachment to himself, he declared his intention of placing the ardent youth about the person of his sovereign under certain conditions, which were at once accepted by Cinq-Mars. These conditions, divested of the courtly shape in which they were presented to protégé, were simply that while the page devoted himself to the amusement of his royal master, he should carefully report to the Cardinal, not only the actions of the King, but also the private conversations which might take place in his presence, and the share maintained by the sovereign in each.
Had Cinq-Mars been less aspiring than he was, it is probable that although yet a mere youth he would have shrunk with disgust from so humiliating a proposition; but he remembered the career of De Luynes, and he disregarded in the greatness of the end the unworthiness of the means by which it was to be obtained. The brilliant page was accordingly presented to the unsuspicious monarch by the minister, and, as the latter had anticipated, at once captivated the fancy of Louis, who having satisfied himself that Cinq-Mars possessed a sufficient knowledge of those sports in which he himself delighted, at once consented to receive him into his household.
For a time the page served with equal assiduity both the King and the Cardinal, to the former of whom he so soon rendered himself essential that although the confidential friends of Louis were occasionally startled to find their most secret words known to the minister, and did not scruple to express their suspicion that they were betrayed by Cinq-Mars, Louis, too indolent and too selfish to risk the displeasure of Richelieu, or to deprive himself of an agreeable associate, merely laughed at the absurdity of such a supposition, and continued to treat the page with the same confidence and condescension as heretofore.
Gradually did Cinq-Mars meanwhile weary of the complicated rôle which he was called upon to perform. He saw the health of the Cardinal failing day by day; and he detected, from the querulous complaints in which Louis constantly indulged against his imperious minister, that although he was feared by his sovereign there was no tie of affection between them. At this period the young courtier began for the first time to reflect; and the result of his reflections was to free himself unostentatiously and gradually, but nevertheless surely, from the thrall of his first patron. This resolution, however, was one which it required more tact and self-government than he yet possessed to reduce to practice, and accordingly the quick eye of Richelieu soon detected in the decreased respect of his bearing, and the scantiness of his communications, the nature of the feelings by which he was actuated.
Nevertheless, the minister was conscious of one advantage over the self-centred monarch of which he resolved to avail himself in order to fix the wavering fidelity of the page. Louis, while jealous of the devotion of those about him, was careless in recompensing their services; while Richelieu, with a more intimate knowledge of human nature, and, above all, of the nature of courts, deemed no sacrifice too great which ensured the stability of his influence, and the fidelity of his adherents. Thus, affecting not to remark the falling-off of affection in his agent, he intermingled his discourse to the ambitious young man with regrets that the monarch had not rewarded his zeal by some appointment in the royal household which would give him a more definite position than that which he then held. This was a subject which never wearied the attention of Cinq-Mars, who with flashing eyes and a heightened colour listened eagerly; and the Cardinal no sooner perceived that by his quasi-condolences he had regained in a great degree his former influence, than he bade the page serve him faithfully, and he would himself atone for the negligence of the King. Nor was the promise an idle one, as within the short space of two years he caused the new favourite to be appointed both Master of the Wardrobe and Grand Equerry.
This promotion proved, however, too rapid for the vanity of Cinq-Mars: who no sooner saw himself in a position so brilliant as to excite the envy of half the Court than, with a self-confidence fatal to the interests of Richelieu, he once more sought deliverance from the yoke of his priest-patron, and devoted himself so earnestly to the service of Louis that ere long the King found his companionship indispensable. When by chance he absented himself for a few hours from Fontainebleau, in order to exchange the monotony of that palace for the dissipation of the capital, the King no sooner became aware of the fact than after having impatiently reiterated more than once, "Cinq-Mars! Where is Cinq-Mars?" he despatched a courier to Paris to recall him: and the pleasure-loving young man was compelled to return upon the instant to attend his royal master in a stag-hunt, or to parade his satins and velvets among the hounds whom Louis delighted to feed and fondle; until he began to be weary of the honours which he had so lately coveted, and to sigh for unrestrained intercourse with his former associates.
With still less patience, however, did he endure the imperious chidings of the Cardinal, who could not brook that one who owed his advancement to his favour should seek to emancipate himself from his control; and the spoiled child of fortune, when he occasionally passed from the perfumed boudoir of some haughty Court beauty by whom he had been flattered and caressed to the closet of the minister where he was greeted by a stern brow and the exclamation of "Cinq-Mars, Cinq-Mars, you are forgetting yourself!" found considerable difficulty in controlling his impetuosity; but it was even worse when to this rebuke Richelieu at times added in a contemptuous tone: "Remember to whom you owe your fortune, and that it will be quite as easy for me to divest you of the high-sounding titles which have turned your brain as it was to procure them for you. Be warned, therefore; for if you do not conduct yourself with more propriety, and evince more respect for my authority, I will have you turned out of the palace like a lackey."
The constant repetition of these taunts made the impetuous blood of the haughty youth boil in his veins; while the lingering remnant of affection which he had hitherto retained for the friend of his father and his own benefactor became gradually changed to hate, and impelled him to redouble his zeal about the person of the sovereign, in order that he might one day secure sufficient influence over the latter's mind to enable him to revenge the insults offered to his pride.