r represented boldness,
ambition, activity, the element of chance and undreamed-of good luck.
In spite of appearances, the merchant was the weaker vessel, and it
was the wife who really had the patience and courage. So it had come
to pass that a timid mediocrity, without education, knowledge, or
strength of character, a being who could in nowise have succeeded in
the world's most slippery places, was taken for a remarkable man, a
man of spirit and resolution, thanks to his instinctive uprightness
and sense of justice, to the goodness of a truly Christian soul, and
love for the one woman who had been his.

ALFRED DE VIGNY

Born in 1799, died in 1863; entered the army in 1815,
becoming a captain in 1823; published a volume of verse in
1822; "Cinq-Mars," his famous historical novel, published in
1826; made translations from Shakespeare and wrote original
historical dramas; admitted to the French Academy in 1845.

RICHELIEU'S WAY WITH HIS MASTER[56]

The latter [Cardinal de Richelieu], attired in all the pomp of a
cardinal, leaning upon two young pages, and followed by his captain of
the guards and more than five hundred gentlemen attached to his house,
advanced toward the King slowly and stopping at each step, as if
forcibly arrested by his sufferings, but in reality to observe the
faces before him. A glance sufficed.

[Footnote 56: From "Cinq-Mars; or the Conspiracy Under Louis XIII."
Translated by William C. Hazlitt. The Marquis de Cinq-Mars was a
favorite of Louis XIII, grand-master of the wardrobe and the horse,
and aspired to a seat in the royal council and to the hand of Maria de
Gonzaga, Princess of Mantua. Having been refused by Richelieu a place
in the council, he formed a conspiracy against the cardinal and
entered into a treasonable correspondence with Spain. The conspiracy
being discovered, he was beheaded at Lyons in 1642. Bulwer's popular
play "Richelieu," tho founded on this episode, diverges radically in
several details.]

His suite remained at the entrance of the royal tent; of all those
within it not one was bold enough to salute him, or to look toward
him. Even La Vallette feigned to be deeply occupied in a conversation
with Montresor; and the King, who desired to give him an unfavorable
reception, greeted him lightly and continued a conversation aside in a
low voice with the Duc de Beaufort.

The cardinal was therefore forced, after the first salute, to st