ts
rulers--were treated with disdain and contumely; but beneath all the
workings of his government (or rather the government of his minister,
for the son of Marie de Medicis was a monarch only in name), may be
traced the undercurrent of popular indignation and discontent, which,
gradually swelling and rising during the two succeeding reigns, finally
overthrew with its giant waves the last frail barrier which still
upreared itself before a time-honoured throne.

The incapacity of the King, the venality of the Princes, the arrogance
of the hierarchy, the insubordination of the nobles, the licentiousness
of the Court, the despotism of the Government; all the errors and all
the vices of their rulers, were jealously noted and bitterly registered
by an oppressed and indignant people; but it required time to shake off
a yoke which had been so long borne that it had eaten into the flesh;
nor, moreover, were the minds of the masses in that age sufficiently
awakened to a sense of their own collective power to enable them, as
they did in the following century, to measure their strength with those
upon whom they had been so long accustomed to look with fear and awe.

There cannot, moreover, exist the slightest doubt that the wantonness
with which Richelieu, in furtherance of his own private interests,
poured out so freely on the scaffold some of the proudest blood of
France, did much towards destroying that prestige which had hitherto
environed the high nobility. When Biron perished upon the block,
although his death was decreed by the sovereign, and that sovereign,
moreover, was their own idolized Henri IV, the people marvelled and even
murmured; but in after-years they learned through the teaching of the
Cardinal that nobles were merely men; while the exile of the persecuted
Marie de Medicis, and the privations to which she was exposed through
his agency, taught them that even royalty itself was not invulnerable to
the malice or vengeance of its opponents; and unhappily for those by
whom Richelieu was succeeded in power, the lesson brought forth its
fruits in due season.

Thus much premised, I shall confine myself to a brief explanation of the
manner in which I have endeavoured to perform my self-imposed task. For
one wilful, but as I trust excusable, inaccuracy, I throw myself on the
indulgence of my critics. Finding my pages already overloaded with
names, and that they must consequently induce a considerable strain upon
the