RICHELIEU, A TALE OF FRANCE. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY, Dorset Street, Fleet Street. RICHELIEU, A TALE OF FRANCE. I advise you that you read The Cardinal's malice and his potency Together: to consider further, that What his high hatred would effect, wants not A minister in his power. SHAKSPEARE. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1829. DEDICATION. TO MY DEAR SIR, YOUR name is too great a one to be trifled with, and therefore, I do not put it at the head of this page. Should your anticipations in favour of this work be realized, and its success be equal to my utmost hopes, I dedicate it to you in testimony both of my gratitude for your kindness, and my admiration for your genius; but should the hand of criticism cut it short hereafter, or the frost of neglect wither it in the bud, I take a humbler tone, and beg you only to accept my thanks for your good wishes and kind encouragement. If it should succeed, you will, I am sure, receive the work with some pleasure on my account;--if it fail, you will still accept it as the only means I have of expressing my feeling of obligation towards you; and, at all events, you will understand my motive for not prefixing your name to the Dedication of a book, the fate of which is yet doubtful. THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. DEARLY BELOVED READER, ALTHOUGH I call the following pages _mine_, and upon the strength of them write myself Author, yet I must in truth confess, that I have very little to do with them, and still less to do with the story they record; and therefore I am fain to treat the world with something of my own exclusive composition, in the shape of a preface. The facts of the case are as follow: I one day possessed myself of a bundle of manuscript notes--no matter when or how, so that they were honestly come by, for that is all that you, or I, or Sir Richard Birnie, have to do with the matter. Now I say they were honestly come by, and the _onus probandi_ must rest upon the other party. So no more of that.