Let me beseech you, madame, with all submission, to call now to mind the commands you were pleased to honour me with a little before your departure from Paris, that I should give you a precise account of every circumstance and accident of my life, and conceal nothing. You see, by what I have already related, that my ecclesiastical occupations were diversified and relieved, though not disfigured, by other employments of a more diverting nature. I observed a decorum in all my actions, and where I happened to make a false step some good fortune or other always retrieved it. All the ecclesiastics of the diocese wished to see me succeed my uncle in the archbishopric of Paris, but Cardinal de Richelieu was of another mind; he hated my family, and most of all my person, for the reasons already mentioned, and was still more exasperated for these two which follow.
I once told the late President de Mesmes what seems now to me very probable, though it is the reverse of what I told you some time ago, that I knew a person who had few or no failings but what were either the effect or cause of some good qualities. I then said, on the contrary, to M. de Mesmes, that Cardinal de Richelieu had not one great quality but what was the effect or cause of some greater imperfection. This, which was only ‘inter nos’, was carried to the Cardinal, I do not know by whom, under my name. You may judge of the consequences. Another thing that angered him was because I visited the President Barillon, then prisoner at Amboise, concerning remonstrances made to the Parliament, and that I should do it at a juncture which made my journey the more noticeable. Two miserable hermits and false coiners, who had some secret correspondence with M. de Vendome, did, upon some discontent or other, accuse him very falsely of having proposed to them to assassinate the Cardinal, and to give the more weight to their depositions they named all those they thought notorious in that country; Montresor and M. Barillon were of the number. Early notice of this being given me, the great love I had for the President Barillon made me take post that night to acquaint him with his danger and get him away from Amboise, which was very feasible; but he, insisting upon his innocence, rejected my proposals, defied both the accusers and their accusations, and was resolved to continue in prison. This journey of mine gave a handle to the Cardinal to tell the Bishop of Lisieux that I was a cordial friend to all his enemies.
“True enough,” said the Bishop; “nevertheless you ought to esteem him; you have no reason to complain of him, because those men whom you mean were all his true friends before they became your enemies.”
“If it be so,” replied the Cardinal, “then I am very much misinformed.”
The Bishop at this juncture did me all the kind offices imaginable, and if the Cardinal had lived he would undoubtedly have restored me to his favour; for his Eminence was very well disposed, especially when the Bishop assured him that, though I knew myself ruined at Court to all intents and purposes, yet I would never come into the measures of M. le Grand.—[M. de Cinq-Mars, Henri Coeffier, otherwise called Ruze d’Effial, Master of the Horse of France; he was beheaded September 12, 1642.]—I was indeed importuned by my friend M. de Thou to join in that enterprise, but I saw the weakness of their foundation, as the event has shown, and therefore rejected their proposals.
The Cardinal de Richelieu died in 1642, before the good Bishop had made my peace with him, and so I remained among those who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the Ministry. At first this character was very prejudicial to my interest. Although the King was overjoyed at his death, yet he carefully observed all the appearances of respect for his deceased minister, confirmed all his legacies, cared for his family, kept all his creatures in the Ministry, and affected to frown upon all who had not stood well with the Cardinal; but I was the only exception to this general rule. When the Archbishop of Paris presented me to the King, I was treated with such distinguishing marks of royal favour as surprised all the Court. His Majesty talked of my studies and sermons, rallied me with an obliging freedom, and bade me come to Court once every week. The reasons of these extraordinary civilities were utterly unknown to us until the night before his death, when he told them to the Queen. I passed them by in silence before as having no bearing on my history, but I am obliged to insert them here because they have been, in their consequences, more fortunate than I seemed to have any just claim to expect.
A short time after I left the college, my governor’s valet de chambre found, at a poor pin-maker’s house, a niece of hers but fourteen years old, who was surprisingly beautiful. After I had seen her he bought her for me for 150 pistoles, hired a little house for her, and placed her sister with her; when I went to see her I found her in great heaviness of mind, which I attributed to her modesty. I next day found what was yet more surprising and extraordinary than her beauty; she talked wisely and religiously to me, and yet without passion. She cried only when she could not help it. She feared her aunt to a degree that made me pity her. I admired her wit first, and then her virtue, for trial of which I pressed her as far as was necessary, until I was even ashamed of myself. I waited till night to get her into my coach, and then carried her to my aunt De Maignelai, who put her into a convent, where she died eight or ten years after, in great reputation for piety. My aunt, to whom this young creature confessed that the menaces of the pin-maker had terrified her so much that she would have done whatsoever I wished, was so affected with my behaviour that she went to tell it to the Bishop of Lisieux, who told it to the King.
This second adventure was not of the same nature, but it made as great an impression on the King’s mind. It was a duel I had with Coutenau, captain of a company of the King’s Light-horse, brave, but wild, who, riding post from Paris as I was going there, made the ostler take off my saddle and put on his. Upon my telling him I had hired the horse, he gave me a swinging box on the ear, which fetched blood. I instantly drew my sword, and so did he. While making our first thrusts his foot slipped, and his sword dropped out of his hand as he fell to the ground. I retired a little and bade him pick it up, which he did, but it was by the point, for he presented me the handle and begged a thousand pardons. He told this little story afterwards to the King, with whom he had great freedom. His Majesty was pleased with it, and remembered both time and place, as you will see hereafter.
The good reception I found at Court gave my relatives some grounds to hope that I might have the coadjutorship of Paris. At first they found a great deal of difficulty in my uncle’s narrowness of spirit, which is always attended with fears and jealousies; but at length they prevailed upon him, and would have then carried our point, if my friends had not given it out, much against my judgment, that it was done by the consent of the Archbishop of Paris, and if they had not suffered the Sorbonne, the cures, and chapter to return him their thanks. This affair made too much noise in the world for my interest. For Cardinal Mazarin, De Noyers, and De Chavigni thwarted me, and told his Majesty that the chapter should not be entrusted with the power of nominating their own archbishop. And the King was heard to say that I was yet too young.
But we met with a worse obstacle than all from M. de Noyers, Secretary of State, one of the three favourite ministers, who passed for a religious man, and was suspected by some to be a Jesuit in disguise. He had a secret longing for the archbishopric of Paris, which would shortly be vacant, and therefore thought it expedient to remove me from that city, where he saw I was extremely beloved, and provide me with some post suitable to my years. He proposed to the King by his confessor to nominate me Bishop of Agde. The King readily granted the request, which confounded me beyond all expression. I had no mind to go to Languedoc, and yet so great are the inconveniences of a refusal that not a man had courage to advise me to it. I became, therefore, my own counsellor, and having resolved with myself what course to take, I waited upon his Majesty, and thanked him for his gracious offer, but said I dreaded the weight of so remote a see, and that my years wanted advice, which it is difficult to obtain in provinces so distant. I added to this other arguments, which you may guess at. I was in this adventure also more happy than wise. The King continued to treat me very kindly. This circumstance, and the retreat of M. de Noyers, who fell into the snare that Chavigni had laid