nd in 1641 had been compelled to flee to England through
suspicion of being implicated in an attempt to assassinate Richelieu. He
did not dare return to France until after the Cardinal's death; and, as
may well be imagined, he came back breathing the direst vengeance.
Against the ambition of the Vendomes Mazarin skilfully opposed that of
the Condes, who were inimical to the aggrandisement of a house too
nearly rivalling their own. But it was very difficult to retain Brittany
in the hands of its newly-appointed governor, the Marshal La Meilleraie,
in face of the claim of a son of Henry the Great, who had formerly held
it, and demanded it back as a sort of heirloom. Mazarin therefore
resigned himself to the sacrifice of La Meilleraie, but he lightened it
as much as possible. He persuaded the Queen to assume to herself the
government of Brittany, and have only a lieutenant-general over it--a
post, of course, beneath the dignity of the Vendomes, and which would,
therefore, remain in La Meilleraie's hands. The latter could not take
offence at being second in power therein to the Queen; and to arrange
everything to the entire satisfaction of a person of such importance,
Mazarin solicited for him soon afterwards the title of duke, which the
deceased King had, in fact, promised the Marshal, and the reversion of
the post of Grand Master of the Artillery for his son--that same son on
whom subsequently Mazarin bestowed, with his own name, the hand of his
niece, the beautiful Hortense.

Mazarin was so much the less inclined to favour the house of Vendome
from having encountered a dangerous rival in the Queen's good graces, in
Vendome's youngest son, Beaufort, a young, bold, and flourishing
gallant, who displayed ostentatiously all the exterior signs of loyalty
and chivalry, and affected for Anne of Austria a passionate devotion not
likely to be displeasing. "He was tall, well-made, dexterous, and
indefatigable in all warlike exercises," says La Rochefoucauld, "but
artificial withal, and wanting in truthfulness of character. Mentally he
was heavy and badly cultivated; nevertheless he attained his objects
cleverly enough through the blunt coarseness of his manners. He was of
high but unsteady courage, and was not a little envious and
malignant."[4] De Retz does not, like La Rochefoucauld, accuse Beaufort
of artificiality, but represents him as presumptuous and of thorough
incapacity. His portrait of him, though over-coloured, like mos