Richelieu raised what was then called a perspective glass--a very feeble sort of telescope--to his eye, and gazed toward Rochelle, the long lines of which were becoming more distinct every moment. Edward was silent, seeing that the mind of the great minister was fully occupied; and no one spoke a word for nearly ten minutes. Then occurred one of those phenomena by no means uncommon, and easily accounted for in these days, but to which the superstition of old times lent a significance they do not now possess. Away out to the east the sun began to rise, somewhat pale and sickly in look, and with a whitish glare around him; while in the west, rising over the sea, appeared another sun, exactly of the same aspect and keeping as it ascended the same height in the sky. "Two suns in the same heaven!" exclaimed Richelieu, with an accent of surprise. "Yes, your Eminence," replied Edward. "But one is much brighter than the other, and its light will last after the other has gone out." Richelieu turned suddenly round and gazed in his face with an inquiring look, as if he thought there might be something beneath his words more significant than the words themselves; then, bowing his head with a well-pleased smile, he said, "True, true! one is fading already." Whether Edward had spoken to his thoughts or not must be always a mystery; but it is certain that minds of great fire and eagerness, even without much fancy, will snatch at images supplied by external nature to figure forth without danger thoughts, dreams, purposes in their own hearts which they dare not utter. The parable is always a resource of ambition, and often a resource of love. Certain it is, too, that there were at that time two suns in the sky of France, and that one was already fading into an obscurity becoming darker and more dark till the faint figure of the dying monarch was hardly seen or felt, while the other was destined to go on increasing in splendor and power till it set forever. Here the comparison may be supposed to halt; for some may say that the real sun was fading while the false one was increasing in splendor. But that depends, after all, upon how men appreciate greatness,--whether genius or birth be the real sun.