coachman, in order to at least arrive at Lucon with a decent turn-out.” He purchased second-hand the velvet bed of one Madame de Marconnay, his aunt; he made for himself a muff out of a portion of his uncle the Commander’s martenskins. Silver-plate he was very much concerned about. “I beg you,” he wrote to Madame de Bourges, “to send me word what will be the cost of two dozen silver dishes of fair size, as they are made now; I should very much like to get them for five hundred crowns, for my resources are not great. I am quite sure that for a matter of a hundred crowns more, you would not like me to have anything common. I am a beggar, as you know; in such sort that I cannot do much in the way of playing the opulent; but at any rate, when I have silver dishes, my nobility will be considerably enhanced.” He succeeded, no doubt, in getting his silver dishes and his well-appointed episcopal mansion; for when, in 1614, he was elected to the states-general, he had acquired amongst the clergy and at the court of Louis XIII. sufficient importance to be charged with the duty of speaking, in presence of the king, on the acceptance of the acts of the council of Trent, and on the restitution of certain property belonging to the Catholic church in Warn. He made skilful use of the occasion for the purpose of still further exalting and improving the question and his own position. He complained that for a long time past ecclesiastics had been too rarely summoned to the sovereign’s councils, “as if the honor of serving God,” he said, “rendered them incapable of serving the king;” he took care at the same time to make himself pleasant to the mighty ones of the hour; he praised the young king for having, on announcing his majority, asked his mother to continue to watch over France, and “to add to the august title of mother of the king that of mother of the kingdom.” The post of almoner to the queen-regnant, Anne of Austria, was his reward. He carried still further his ambitious foresight; in February, 1615, at the time when the session of the states-general closed, Marshal d’Ancre and Leonora Galigai were still favorites with the queen-mother; Richelieu laid himself out to be pleasant to them, and received from the marshal in 1616 the post of secretary of state for war and foreign affairs. Marshal d’Ancre was at that time looking out for supports against his imminent downfall. When, in 1617, he fell and was massacred, people were astonished to find Richelieu on good terms with the marshal’s court-rival Albert de Luynes, who pressed him to remain in the council at which he had sat for only five months. To what extent was the Bishop of Lucon at that time on terms of understanding with the victor? There is no saying; but to accept the responsibility of the new favorite’s accession was a compromising act. Richelieu judged it more prudent to remain Bishop of Lucon and to wear the appearance of defeat