ot, have I not proved to you, that friendship holds the place
of every passion in my heart? Can I survive the least of your
misfortunes, far less your death. Still, let me influence you not to
strike France. Oh, my friend! my only friend! I implore you on my knees,
let us not thus be parricides; let us not assassinate our country! I say
us, because I will never separate myself from your actions. Preserve to
me my self-esteem, for which I have labored so long; sully not my life
and my death, which are both yours."

De Thou had fallen at the feet of his friend, who, unable to preserve his
affected coldness, threw himself into his arms, as he raised him, and,
pressing him to his heart, said in a stifled voice:

"Why love me thus? What have you done, friend? Why love me? You who are
wise, pure, and virtuous; you who are not led away by an insensate
passion and the desire for vengeance; you whose soul is nourished only by
religion and science--why love me? What has my friendship given you but
anxiety and pain? Must it now heap dangers on you? Separate yourself from
me; we are no longer of the same nature. You see courts have corrupted
me. I have no longer openness, no longer goodness. I meditate the ruin of
a man; I can deceive a friend. Forget me, scorn me. I am not worthy of
one of your thoughts; how should I be worthy of your perils?"

"By swearing to me not to betray the King and France," answered De Thou.
"Know you that the preservation of your country is at stake; that if you
yield to Spain our fortifications, she will never return them to us; that
your name will be a byword with posterity; that French mothers will curse
it when they shall be forced to teach their children a foreign
language--know you all this? Come."

And he drew him toward the bust of Louis XIII.

"Swear before him (he is your friend also), swear never to sign this
infamous treaty."

Cinq-Mars lowered his eyes, but with dogged tenacity answered, although
blushing as he did so:

"I have said it; if they force me to it, I will sign."

De Thou turned pale, and let fall his hand. He took two turns in his
room, his arms crossed, in inexpressible anguish. At last he advanced
solemnly toward the bust of his father, and opened a large book standing
at its foot; he turned to a page already marked, and read aloud:

"I think, therefore, that M. de Ligneboeuf was justly condemned to death
by the Parliament of Rouen, for not having revealed the conspirac