f M. de Crequy, governor of the
town and citadel of Amiens, having taken place, a great number of the
nobles were ambitious to succeed to the vacant dignity, among whom was
the Marquis d'Ancre, whose insatiable ambition grasped at every
opportunity of acquiring honour and advancement. Having confided his
wish upon this subject to M. de Soissons, he was encouraged in his
pretensions by that Prince; and having obtained the royal permission to
absent himself for a time from the Court, he hastened to Picardy,
attended by a hundred horsemen, in order to negotiate the affair with
the entire sanction of the Queen; where, although opposed by the
ministers who were anxious to curb his daily increasing power, he
ultimately succeeded in his attempt.

Nevertheless the objections raised by the Council, not only to his
acquirement of the government, but also to the marriage of his son with
the daughter of M. de Soissons, which had been communicated to them by
the Marquis de Rambouillet,[117] embittered his temper, and determined
him to discover some means of revenging what he considered as an undue
interference with his personal affairs. The extraordinary imprudence of
which he was soon afterwards guilty rendered him, however, for a time
unable to indulge his vindictiveness, and even threatened to involve him
in the disgrace which he was so anxious to see visited upon his
adversaries. In the first place, intoxicated by his newly acquired
dignities, he affected the utmost attachment for M. de Soissons, who had
exerted all his influence in his behalf; and remarked that the
proposition lately made to him by the Prince for an alliance between
their families was no longer so unequal as it had then appeared,
although he was still aware that it would be a great honour conferred
upon himself; but that as the Duc de Longueville was about to marry
another daughter of the Prince, and that their governments were
contiguous, the union of his own son with the sister of the bride might
prove a mutual advantage, and of considerable service to M. de Soissons
himself. This unseemly boast he followed up by a still more flagrant
proof of presumption; for, being anxious to assert his entire authority
over the citadel of Amiens, he entered into a financial treaty with M.
de Rouillac the lieutenant, and M. de Fleury the ensign of the fortress,
and replaced them by adherents of his own, without the sanction of the
Regent; after which he borrowed, on his own