A number of years passed before a new plot was hatched against the cardinal. Then a conspiracy was organized which threatened not only his power but his life. It was in 1636. The king's headquarters were then at the castle of Demuin. The Duke of Orleans, who had been recently in armed rebellion against the king, and had been pardoned for his treason, determined, in common with the Count of Soissons, that their enemy, the cardinal, should die. There were others in this plot of assassination, two of the duke's gentlemen, Montresor and Saint Ibal, being chosen to deal the fatal blow. They were to station themselves at the foot of the grand stairway, meet Richelieu at his exit from the council, and strike him dead. The duke was to give the signal for the murderous assault. The door of the council chamber opened. The king and the cardinal came out together and descended the stairs in company, Richelieu attending Louis until he had reached the foot of the stairway, and gone into an adjoining room. The cardinal turned to ascend again, without a moment's suspicion that the two gentlemen at the stair-foot clutched hidden daggers in their hands, ready, at a signal from the duke, who stood near by, to plunge them in his breast. The signal did not come. At the last moment the courage of Gaston of Orleans failed him. Whether from something in Richelieu's earnest and dignified aspect, or some sudden fear of serious consequences to himself, the chief conspirator turned hastily away, without speaking the fatal word agreed upon. What the duke feared to do, the count dared not do. The two chosen assassins stood expectant, greeting the cardinal as he passed, and waiting in nervous impatience for the promised signal. It failed to come. Their daggers remained undrawn. Richelieu calmly ascended the stairs to his rooms, without a dream of the deadly peril he had run. The conspiracy against the cardinal which has attained the greatest historical notoriety is that associated with the name of Cinq-Mars, the famous favorite of Louis XIII. Brilliant and witty, a true type of the courtiers of the time, this handsome youth so amused and interested the king that, when he was only nineteen years of age, Louis made him master of the wardrobe and grand equerry of France. M. Le Grand he was called, and grand enough he seemed, in his independent and capricious dealings with the king. Louis went so far as to complain to Richelieu of the humors of his youthful favorite.