The effect was very different upon different people. The great cardinal rejoiced at the success of his well-laid schemes; for he had long known, and watched with a keen eye, the negotiations which had been intrusted to the English nobleman. Perhaps, however, he rejoiced more at the hold which he doubted not the seized papers of the diplomatist would give him upon his own enemies in France itself than upon the means afforded of frustrating all the combinations which had been effected abroad against his country. His mighty mind feared foreign enemies much less than secret cabal at home. In fact, he knew that the fortress of his power was strong enough to resist a cannonade but might not be proof against a mine. Nor was the spirit of the king dissatisfied to learn that Buckingham's agent had fallen into his power, with all his correspondence, compromising probably one-third of the nobility of France. We have not had time, we shall not have space, to dwell upon the character of Louis, though it well merits a treatise entirely to itself. His sports in youth had been cruel, his amusements low. His father had called him "that wicked boy;" and, though he possessed all that father's courage and much of his military skill, he had none of his kindness of heart, his clemency, or his gentleness. It may be that he did not feel pleasure in the shedding of blood, but it is certain that he never objected to shed it; and when his best friends and greatest favorites were condemned, often by unlawful tribunals, he consented to their death with coolness or a jest. But there was one in France who heard of Lord Montagu's capture with very different feelings. Anne of Austria, the unhappy queen, the childless wife of the coldest-hearted monarch that ever lived, received the tidings with terror and confusion. It might be that the tales they tell of certain secret communications between her and the brilliant Duke of Buckingham were founded in truth. It might be that she had connived at schemes for the overthrow of a minister who persecuted her. But it is beyond doubt that she held dangerous correspondence with her own family in Spain, that Buckingham had been negotiating with that court, and that Montagu was his most confidential emissary. What letters might not be upon his person at the moment of his arrest?--what papers which might give a complete triumph to her enemies? and she had many. Happily, however, she had many friends, sincere, devoted, fearless. At the very moment when she was in the most profound agony of terror, one of these was near at hand.