not cease
to be very tall. As for me, who am already very short, nothing could be
taken off me without inconveniencing me and making me cut the poorest
figure in the world. You will be good enough, if you please, to let me
get out of the way of edge tools."

The minor parties to the conspiracy, with the exception of the prudent
Fontrailles, were in custody. The most guilty of all, the king's
brother, was at large. What part was he to play in the drama of
retribution? Flight, or treachery to his accomplices, alone remained to
him. He chose the latter, sending an agent to the king, who had just
joined the cardinal at Tarascon, with directions to confess everything
and implore for him the pardon of his royal brother. The cardinal
questioned this agent, the Abbe de la Riviere, with unrelenting
severity, made him write and sign everything, and was inclined to make
the prince-duke appear as a witness at the trial, and yield up his
accomplices in the face of the world. This final disgrace, however, was
omitted at the wish of Louis, and an order of exile was sent from the
king to his brother, which bore this note in the cardinal's hand,--

"Monsieur will have in his place of exile twelve thousand crowns a
month, the same sum that the king of Spain had promised to give him."

The dying cardinal had triumphed over all his foes. He had, from his bed
at Tarascon, dictated to the king the course to be pursued, entailing
dishonor to the Duke of Orleans and death to the grand equerry of
France. The king then took his way back to Fontainebleau in the litter
of the cardinal, which the latter had lent him. Richelieu did not
remain long behind him. He was conveyed to his house in Lyons in a
litter shaped like a square chamber, covered with red damask, and borne
on the shoulders of eighteen guards. Within, beside his couch, was a
table covered with papers, at which he worked with his ordinary
diligence, chatting pleasantly at intervals with such of his servants as
accompanied him. In the same equipage he left Lyons for the Loire, on
his return to Paris. On the way it was necessary to pull down walls and
bridge ditches that this great litter, in which the greatest man in
France lay in mortal illness, might pass.

What followed needs few words. The Duke of Bouillon confessed
everything, and was pardoned on condition of his delivering up Sedan to
the king. He was kept in prison, however, till after the death of his
accomplices, Cinq-Mars