“In that grey-bearded, dull-eyed phantom with the delicate thin hands, history recognises the grandson of Henry the Third’s provost who shot Guise.” [N.B.--Richelieu was the Provost’s son, and the Provost did not shoot Guise.] [Illustration: CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU FROM A PORTRAIT BY PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAGNE] “He comes towards you. You are not reassured. The personage has an air of life. But is it really a man? A spirit? Yes, certainly an intelligence, firm, clear, luminous shall I say, or of sinister brilliancy? If he made a few steps forward, we should be face to face. I have no wish for it. I fear that strong head means nothing within--no heart, no bowels. I have seen too much, in my studies of sorcery, of those evil spirits who will not remain below, but return, and once again move the world. “What contrasts in him! So hard, so supple, so entire, so broken! By what tortures must he have been ground down, made and unmade, or let us say, _désarticulé_, to have become this eminently artificial thing which walks and does not walk, which advances without apparent sight or sound, as if gliding over a noiseless carpet ... then, arrived, overturns all. “He gazes on you from the depth of his mystery, the sphinx in the red robe. I dare not say, from the depth of his knavery. For, contrary to the ancient Sphinx, who dies if divined, this man seems to say: ‘Quiconque me devine en mourra.’” * * * * * Richelieu was now a Prince of the Church, equal to the greatest in the land. One of the ends of his “sfrenata ambizione” was gained, but he still had to wait till the incapacity of the Ministers of France compelled Louis XIII., half willingly, half unwillingly, for he admired the Cardinal’s talents while he feared his dominating character, to summon him to supreme political power.