tion to the absent Princes;
but to the Comte de Soissons it was nevertheless only the herald of more
important concessions on the part of the Regent. In his temporary
retirement he had dwelt at leisure on his imaginary wrongs; his hatred
of the ministers had increased; and, above all, he had vowed the ruin of
the Chancellor. In his nephew the Prince de Conde he found a willing
listener and an earnest coadjutor; but from a very different impulse. M.
de Soissons panted for power, and loathed every impediment to the
gratification of his ambition; while the young Prince, less firm of
purpose, and more greedy of pleasure and ostentation, was wearied by the
obscurity of his existence, and the tedium of his self-imposed exile.

Concini, with admirable tact, played upon the weaknesses of both
Princes, and augmented their discontent; while he was at the same time
careful to exonerate the Regent from all blame. Conscious that without
her support he could not sustain for an hour the factitious power to
which he had attained, he laboured incessantly to throw the whole odium
of the disunion upon the ministers, who were fully as obnoxious to
himself as to the Princes.

"They it is," he continually repeated, "who are the true cause of your
estrangement. The Queen is, as I know, well disposed towards all the
Princes of the Blood; but Sillery, Villeroy, and Jeannin are constantly
representing to her the danger of allowing you to become too powerful.
Your real enemies are the ministers who are fearful of affording you the
opportunity of overbalancing their influence."

This assurance was too flattering to the self-love of the Princes to be
repulsed; they forgot that Concini himself had been as eager as those
whom he now inculpated to destroy their importance, and to limit their
power; they saw the great nobles, whose ambition was disappointed, or
whose vanity was wounded, successively espouse their cause, and they
were easily induced to believe that the time was not far distant when
they should triumph over their opponents, and be repaid for all their
mortifications. This was precisely the frame of mind into which Concini
had endeavoured to bring them; and so ably did he avail himself of his
advantage that at length, when on one occasion he found himself in
company with the Prince de Conde, the Comte de Soissons, and the
Marechaux de Bouillon and de Lesdiguieres, he induced them to unite with
him in attempting the ruin of the ministers