The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz | Page 7

health declining, the archbishopric of Paris
was now almost within my ken, which, together with other prospects of
good benefices, made me resolve not to fling off the cassock but upon
honourable terms and valuable considerations; but having nothing yet
within my view that I could be sure of, I resolved to distinguish myself
in my own profession by all the methods I could. I retired from the
world, studied very hard, saw but very few men, and had no more
correspondence with any of the female sex, except Madame de -------.
The devil had appeared to the Princesse de Guemenee just a fortnight
before this adventure happened, and was often raised by the
conjurations of M. d'Andilly, to frighten his votary, I believe, into piety,
for he was even more in love with her person than I myself; but he
loved her in the Lord, purely and spiritually. I raised, in my turn, a
demon that appeared to her in a more kind and agreeable form. In six
weeks I got her away from Port Royal; I was very diligent in paying her
my respects, and the satisfaction I had in her company, with some other

agreeable diversions, qualified in a great measure the chagrin which
attended my profession, to which I was not yet heartily reconciled. This
enchantment had like to have raised such a storm as would have given a
new face to the affairs of Europe if fortune had been ever so little on
my side.
M. the Cardinal de Richelieu loved rallying other people, but could not
bear a jest himself, and all men of this humour are always very crabbed
and churlish; of which the Cardinal gave an instance, in a public
assembly of ladies, to Madame de Guemenee, when he threw out a
severe jest, which everybody observed was pointed at me. She was
sensibly affronted, but I was enraged. For at last there was a sort of an
understanding between us, which was often ill-managed, yet our
interests were inseparable. At this time Madame de La Meilleraye, with
whom, though she was silly, I had fallen in love, pleased the Cardinal
to that degree that the Marshal perceived it before he set out for the
army, and rallied his wife in such a manner that she immediately found
he was even more jealous than ambitious. She was terribly afraid of
him, and did not love the Cardinal, who, by marrying her to his cousin,
had lessened his own family, of which he was extremely fond. Besides,
the Cardinal's infirmities made him look a great deal older than he was.
And though all his other actions had no tincture of pedantry, yet in his
amorous intrigues he had the most of it in the world. I had a detail of all
the steps he had made therein, which were extremely ridiculous. But
continuing his solicitation, and carrying her to his country seat at
Ruel,--[The Cardinal de Richelieu's seat, three leagues from
Paris.]--where he kept her a considerable time, I guessed that the lady
had not brains enough to resist the splendour of Court favour, and that
her husband's jealousy would soon give way to his interest, but, above
all, to his blind side, which was an attachment to the Court not to be
equalled. When I was in the hottest pursuit of this passion I proposed to
myself the most exquisite pleasures in triumphing over the Cardinal de
Richelieu in this fair field of battle; but on a sudden I had the
mortification to hear the whole family was changed. The husband
allowed his wife to go to Ruel as often as she pleased, and her
behaviour towards me I suspected to be false and treacherous. In short,
Madame de Guemenee's anger, for a reason I hinted before, my

jealousy of Madame de La Meilleraye, and an aversion to my own
profession, all joined together in a fatal moment and were near
producing one of the greatest and most famous events of our age.
La Rochepot, my first cousin and dear friend, was a domestic of the late
Duc d'Orleans,--[Gaston Jean Baptists de France, born 1608, and died
at Blois, 1660.]--and his great confidant. He mortally hated the
Cardinal de Richelieu, who had persecuted his mother, and had her
hung up in effigy, and kept his father still a prisoner in the Bastille, and
now refused the son a regiment, though Marechal de La Meilleraye,
who very highly esteemed him for his courage, interceded for the
favour. You may imagine that when we came together we did not
forget the Cardinal.
I being crossed in my designs, as I told you, and as full of resentment
as La Rochepot was for the affronts put upon his person and family, we
chimed in our thoughts and