their hand the sceptre of Henry III., the Condes, who had placed their foot on the steps of the throne of Henry IV., and Gaston, who had tried upon his brow the crown of Louis XIII.,--all returned, at the voice of the minister, if not into nothingness, at least into impotency. All who struggled against the iron will, enclosed in that feeble body, were broken like glass. And all the struggle which Richelieu sustained, he did not sustain for his own sake, but for that of France. All the enemies, against whom he contended, were not his enemies merely, but those of the kingdom. If he clung tenaciously by the side of a king, whom he compelled to live a melancholy, unhappy, and isolated life, whom he deprived successively of his friends, of his mistresses, and of his family, as a tree is stripped of its leaves, of its branches, and of its bark, it was because friends, mistresses, and family exhausted the sap of the expiring royalty, which had need of all its egotism to prevent it from perishing. For it was not intestinal struggles merely,--there was also foreign war, which had connected itself fatally with them. All those great nobles whom he decimated, all those princes of the blood whom he exiled, were inviting foreigners to France; and these foreigners, answering eagerly to the summons, were entering the country on three different sides,--the English by Guienne, the Spaniards by Roussillon, and the Austrians by Artois. [Sidenote: Effects of Richelieu's Policy.] "He repulsed the English by driving them to the Isle of Re, and by besieging La Rochelle; the Spaniards, by creating beside them the new kingdom of Portugal; and the imperialists, by detaching Bavaria from its alliance, by suspending their treaty with Denmark, and by sowing dissensions in the Catholic league. His measures were cruel, but not uncalled for. Chalais fell, but he had conspired with Lorraine and Spain; Montmorency fell, but he had entered France with arms in his hand; Cinq-Mars fell, but he had invited foreigners into the kingdom. Bred a simple priest, he became not only a great statesman, but a great general. And when La Rochelle fell before those measures to which Schomberg and Bassompierre were compelled to bow, he said to the king, 'Sire, I am no prophet, but I assure your majesty that if you will condescend to act as I advise you, you will pacificate Italy in the month of May, subjugate Languedoc in the month of July, and be on your return in the month of August.' And each of these prophecies he accomplished in its time and place, and in such wise that, from that moment, Louis XIII. vowed to follow forever the counsels of a man by which he had so well profited. Finally, he died, as Montesquieu asserts, after having made the monarch enact the secondary character in the monarchy, but the first in Europe; after having abased the king, but after having made his reign illustrious; and after having mowed down rebellion so close to the soil, that the descendants of