he had many rivals as clever and as skilled in courtly arts as
himself. His power must, one thinks, have lain in that strange magnetism
which women seem so powerless to resist in men, and which outweighs all
graces of mind and physical perfections.

The Duc's career, however, was not one unbroken dallying with love.
Thrice, at least, he was sent to cool his ardour within the walls of the
Bastille--on one occasion as the result of a duel with the Comte de
Gace. His lady-loves were desolate at the cruel fate which had overtaken
their idol. They fell on their knees at the Regent's feet, and, with
tears streaming down their pretty cheeks, pleaded for his freedom. Two
of the Royal Princesses, both disguised as Sisters of Charity, visited
the prisoner daily in his dungeon, carrying with them delicacies to
tempt his appetite, and consolation to cheer his captivity.

In vain did Duc and Comte both declare that they had never fought a
duel; and when, in the absence of proof, the Regent insisted that their
bodies should be examined for the convicting wounds, the impish
Richelieu came triumphantly through the ordeal as the result of having
his wounds covered with pink taffeta and skilfully painted!

It was a more serious matter that sent him again to the Bastille in
1718. False to his country as to the victims of his fascinations, he had
been plotting with Spain, France's bitterest enemy, for the seizure of
the Regent and the carrying him off across the Pyrenees; and certain
incriminating letters sent to him by Cardinal Alberoni had been
intercepted, and were in the Regent's hands. The Regent's daughter,
Mademoiselle de Valois, warned her lover of his danger, but too late.
Before he could escape, he was arrested, and with an escort of archers
was safely lodged in the Bastille.

Our Lothario was now indeed in a parlous plight. Lodged in the deepest
and most loathsome dungeon of the Bastille--a dungeon so damp that
within a few hours his clothes were saturated--without even a chair to
sit on or a bed to lie on, with legions of hungry rats for company, he
was now face to face with almost certain death. The Regent, whose love
affairs he had thwarted a score of times, and who thus had no reason to
love the profligate Duc, vowed that his head should pay the price of his
treason.

Once more the Court ladies were reduced to hysterics and despair, and
forgot their jealousies in a common appeal to the Regent for clemency.
Mademoiselle