rts to break the
yoke that oppressed her. Mazarin watched and was made acquainted with
all her manoeuvres. He had the comptroller of her household arrested
in Paris, and shortly afterwards even her physician, whilst accompanying
Madame de Chevreuse's daughter in her carriage for an airing. The
Duchess complained bitterly of this latter proceeding in a letter which
she contrived to have handed to the Queen. She asserted that
Mademoiselle de Chevreuse was forced to quit the vehicle, two archers
levelling their pistols at her breast, and shouting all the
while--"Fire! fire!" and they threatened, after the same fashion, the
female attendants who were with her. At the same time that she protested
her own innocence, she did not fail to challenge Anne's sense of
justice, with a view to neutralize the enmity of Mazarin. But the
physician whom he had had arrested, on being flung into the Bastile,
made avowals which opened up traces of very grave matters; and an exempt
of the King's guards was despatched to Madame de Chevreuse with an order
commanding her to retire to Angouleme, and the officer was even charged
to convey her thither. At Angouleme was that strong fortress used as a
state prison, in which her friend Chateauneuf had been confined on her
account for ten long years. This reminiscence, ever present to the
Duchess's imagination, terrified her sorely. She dreaded lest it should
be the same sort of _retreat_ which they now intended for her; and the
active-minded woman, preferring every kind of extremity to being
imprisoned, decided upon renewing the career of a wanderer and an
adventurer, as in 1637, and to tread for the third time the wearisome
paths of exile.

But how greatly were circumstances then changed around her, and how
changed was she also herself! Her first exile from France in 1626, had
proved one continuous triumph. Young, lovely, and adored by every one,
she had quitted Nancy, leaving the Duke de Lorraine a slave
henceforward to the sway of her charms, only to return to Paris and
trouble the mind of the stony, impassive Richelieu. In 1637 her flight
into Spain had, on the contrary, proved a most severe trial to her. She
had been forced to traverse the whole of France disguised in male
attire, brave more than one danger, endure much suffering and privation,
only to struggle in the sequel with five consecutive years of fruitless
agitation. But, at any rate, she then had youth to back her, and the
consciousnes