he would imagine
himself at St. Just, and chant over himself that mass for the dead which
brought death upon the head of the Spanish monarch.

But in the midst of these very chants and meditations his feeble mind
was pursued and distracted by contrary images. Never did life and the
world appear to him more fair than in such times of solitude among the
tombs. Between his eyes and the page which he endeavored to read passed
brilliant processions, victorious armies, or nations transported with
love. He saw himself powerful, combating, triumphant, adored; and if a
ray of the sun through the large windows fell upon him, suddenly rising
from the foot of the altar, he felt himself carried away by a thirst for
daylight and the open air, which led him from his gloomy retreat. But
returned to real life, he found there once more disgust and ennui, for
the first men he met recalled his power to his recollection by their
homage.

It was then that he believed in friendship, and summoned it to his
side; but scarcely was he certain of its possession than unconquerable
scruples suddenly seized upon his soul-scruples concerning a too
powerful attachment to the creature, turning him from the Creator, and
frequently inward reproaches for removing himself too much from the
affairs of the State. The object of his momentary affection then seemed
to him a despotic being, whose power drew him from his duties; but,
unfortunately for his favorites, he had not the strength of mind
outwardly to manifest toward them the resentment he felt, and thus to
warn them of their danger, but, continuing to caress them, he added by
this constraint fuel to the secret fire of his heart, and was impelled
to an absolute hatred of them. There were moments when he was capable of
taking any measures against them.

Cinq-Mars knew perfectly the weakness of that mind, which could not
keep firmly in any path, and the weakness of a heart which could neither
wholly love nor wholly hate. Thus, the position of favorite, the envy
of all France, the object of jealousy even on the part of the great
minister, was so precarious and so painful that, but for his love, he
would have burst his golden chains with greater joy than a galley-slave
feels when he sees the last ring that for two long years he has been
filing with a steel spring concealed in his mouth, fall to the earth.
This impatience to meet the fate he saw so near hastened the explosion
of that patiently prepared min