The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz [112]
in which I am now about to address your Majesty. It is well known to you that one of my worst crimes in the Cardinal's opinion is that I foretold all these things, and that I have passed for the author of events of which I was only the prophet. Your Majesty would fain extricate yourself with honour, and you are in the right; but permit me to tell you, as my opinion, that it can never be effected so long as your Majesty entertains any thoughts of reestablishing Mazarin. I should fail in the respect I owe to your Majesty if I pretended to thwart your Majesty's opinion with regard to the Cardinal in any other way than with my most humble remonstrances; but I humbly conceive I do but discharge my bounden duty while I respectfully represent to your Majesty wherein I may be serviceable or useless to you at this critical juncture. Your Majesty has the Prince to cope with, who, indeed, is for the restoration of the Cardinal, but upon condition that you give him such powers beforehand as will enable him to ruin him at pleasure. To resist the Prince you want the Duc d'Orleans, who is absolutely against the Cardinal's reestablishment, and who, provided he be excluded, will do what your Majesty pleases to command him. You will neither satisfy the Prince nor the Duke. I am extremely desirous to serve your Majesty against the one and with the other, but I can do neither the one nor the other without making use of proper means for obtaining those two different ends."
"Come over to me," said she, "and I shall not care a straw for all the Duke can do."
I answered, "Should I do so, and should it appear never so little that I was on terms of reconciliation with the Cardinal, I could serve your Majesty with neither the Duke nor the people, for both would hate me mortally, and I should be as useless to your Majesty as the Bishop of Dole."
At this the Queen was very angry, and said, "Heaven bless my son the King, for he is deserted by all the world! I do all I can for you, I offer you a place in my Council, I offer you the cardinalship; pray what will you do for me?"
I said that I did not come to receive favours, but to try to merit them.
At this the Queen's countenance began to brighten, and she said, very softly, "What is it, then, that you will do?"
"Madame," said I, "I will oblige the Prince, before a week is at an end, to leave Paris; and I will detach the Duke from his interest to-morrow."
The Queen, overjoyed, held out her hand and said, "Give me yours, and I promise you that you shall be cardinal the next day, and the second man in my friendship." She desired also that Mazarin and I might be good friends; but I answered that the least touch upon that string would put me out of tune and render me incapable of doing her any service; therefore I conjured her to let me still enjoy the character of being his enemy.
"Was anything," said the Queen, "ever so strange and unaccountable? Can you not possibly serve me without being the enemy of him in whom I most confide?"
I told her it must needs be so. "Madame," I said, "I humbly beseech your Majesty to let me tell you that, as long as the place of Prime Minister is not filled up, the Prince will increase in power on pretence that it is kept vacant to receive the Cardinal by a speedy restoration."
"You see," said her Majesty, "how the Prince treats me; he has insulted me ever since I disowned my two traitors,--Servien and Lionne." I took the opportunity while she was flushed with anger to make my court to her by saying that before two days were at an end the Prince should affront her no longer. But the tenderness she had for her beloved Cardinal made her unwilling to consent that I should continue to exclaim against his Eminence in Parliament, where one was obliged to handle him very roughly almost every quarter of an hour. She bade me remember that it was the Cardinal who had solicited my nomination. I answered that I was highly obliged to his Eminence upon that score, and that I was ready to give him proofs of my acknowledgment in anything wherein
"Come over to me," said she, "and I shall not care a straw for all the Duke can do."
I answered, "Should I do so, and should it appear never so little that I was on terms of reconciliation with the Cardinal, I could serve your Majesty with neither the Duke nor the people, for both would hate me mortally, and I should be as useless to your Majesty as the Bishop of Dole."
At this the Queen was very angry, and said, "Heaven bless my son the King, for he is deserted by all the world! I do all I can for you, I offer you a place in my Council, I offer you the cardinalship; pray what will you do for me?"
I said that I did not come to receive favours, but to try to merit them.
At this the Queen's countenance began to brighten, and she said, very softly, "What is it, then, that you will do?"
"Madame," said I, "I will oblige the Prince, before a week is at an end, to leave Paris; and I will detach the Duke from his interest to-morrow."
The Queen, overjoyed, held out her hand and said, "Give me yours, and I promise you that you shall be cardinal the next day, and the second man in my friendship." She desired also that Mazarin and I might be good friends; but I answered that the least touch upon that string would put me out of tune and render me incapable of doing her any service; therefore I conjured her to let me still enjoy the character of being his enemy.
"Was anything," said the Queen, "ever so strange and unaccountable? Can you not possibly serve me without being the enemy of him in whom I most confide?"
I told her it must needs be so. "Madame," I said, "I humbly beseech your Majesty to let me tell you that, as long as the place of Prime Minister is not filled up, the Prince will increase in power on pretence that it is kept vacant to receive the Cardinal by a speedy restoration."
"You see," said her Majesty, "how the Prince treats me; he has insulted me ever since I disowned my two traitors,--Servien and Lionne." I took the opportunity while she was flushed with anger to make my court to her by saying that before two days were at an end the Prince should affront her no longer. But the tenderness she had for her beloved Cardinal made her unwilling to consent that I should continue to exclaim against his Eminence in Parliament, where one was obliged to handle him very roughly almost every quarter of an hour. She bade me remember that it was the Cardinal who had solicited my nomination. I answered that I was highly obliged to his Eminence upon that score, and that I was ready to give him proofs of my acknowledgment in anything wherein