'
'Hear me! Bless me, was I talking to myself! I only was thinking
that the poor old gentleman there is not long for this world. But
maybe your mother would not call him a gentleman. Ha! What have
they got written up there about the Cardinal?'
I read her the placard, and let her lead me away from the subject. I
could not talk about it to any one, and how I longed for Eustace!
However, I believe terror was what most ailed the old gentleman (not
that the French would call him so). He must always have been
chicken-hearted, for he had changed his religion out of fear. His
wife was all sincerity, but the dear good woman was religious for
both of them!
And as time went on his alarms could not but increase. The
Parliament really might have prevailed if it had any constancy, for
all the provincial Parliaments were quite ready to take part with it,
and moreover the Duke of Bouillon had brought over his brother, the
Vicomte de Turenne, to refuse to lead his army against them, or to
keep back the Spaniards. The Queen-Regent might really have been
driven to dismiss the Cardinal and repeal the taxes if the city had
held out a little longer, but in the midst the First President Mole
was seized with patriotic scruples. He would not owe his success to
the foreign enemies of his country, and the desertion of the army,
and he led with him most of his compeers. I suppose he was right---I
know Clement thought so---but the populace were sorely disappointed
when negotiations were opened with the Queen and Court, and it became
evident that the city was to submit without any again but some
relaxation of the tax.
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