sted in their turn, and conveyed to the citadel of Amboise. The
Comte de Soissons, the second Prince of the Blood, fled the Court in
alarm, and took refuge in Savoy; while edict after edict was fulminated
against the nobles, which threatened all their old and long-cherished
privileges. The costume of each separate class was determined with a
minuteness of detail which exasperated the magnificent courtiers, who
had been accustomed to attire themselves in embroidery and cloth of
gold, in rich laces, and plumed and jewelled hats, and who suddenly
found themselves reduced to a sobriety of costume repugnant to their
habits; the Comte de Bouteville, of the haughty house of Montmorency,
who had dared to disregard the revived law against duelling, lost his
head upon the scaffold; and all castles, to whomsoever belonging, which
could not aid in the protection of the frontiers, or of the towns near
which they were situated, were ordered to be demolished.

The reign of Richelieu had commenced.

Meanwhile the Court had taken up its residence at Fontainebleau; where
Louis, deaf to the murmurs of his great nobles, passed his time in
hunting, a sport of which he was passionately fond; while Marie de
Medicis and the Cardinal endeavoured, by every species of dissipation,
to lull him into acquiescence with the perilous measures they
were adopting.

Always sickly and querulous, Louis was a prey to dark thoughts and
fearful anticipations of early dissolution; and even while he suffered
himself to be amused by the hawking, dancing, and feasting so lavishly
provided for his entertainment, he was never at fault, during his
frequent fits of moroseness and ill-humour, for subjects of complaint.
His brother, Gaston d'Anjou, whom he at once feared and hated, was a
constant theme of distrust; while the Comte de Soissons, the Duc de
Montmorency, and the Prince de Chalais, his sworn adherents, were at
times equally obnoxious to the suspicious and gloomy young sovereign.
Then he bewailed the treachery of the Queen, whom he believed, through
the agency of Richelieu, to be engaged in an intrigue with Spain
dangerous to his own interests; mourned over himself because he had
weakly suffered his authority to be usurped by a subject, and had not
moral courage to redeem the error; and in his most confidential moments
even inveighed against Richelieu with the bitterness of a sullen
schoolboy, declaring that it was he who had poisoned the mind of his
broth