"Assuredly!" replied his companion. "Does he not hate the Cardinal as much as any one? Does not his blood boil under the bonds he cannot break? And would he not bless the man who gave him freedom? Think, Cinq Mars!" he continued, endeavouring to throw much energy into his manner, for he knew that the ardent mind of his companion wanted but the spark of enthusiasm to inflame--"think, what a glorious object! to free alike the people and their sovereign, and to rescue the many victims even now destined to prove the tyrant's cruelty!--Think, think of the glorious reward, the thanks of a King, the gratitude of a nation, and the blessings of thousands saved from dungeons and from death!" It worked as he could have wished. The enthusiasm of his words had their full effect on the mind of his companion. As the other went on, the eye of Cinq Mars lightened with all the wild ardour of his nature; and striking his hand upon the hilt of his sword, as if longing to draw it in the inspiring cause of his Country's liberty, "Glorious indeed!" he exclaimed,--"glorious indeed!" But immediately after, fixing his glance upon the ground, he fell into meditation of the many circumstances of the times; and as his mind's eye ran over the difficulties and dangers which surrounded the enterprise, the enthusiasm which had beamed in his eye, like the last flash of an expiring fire, died away, and he replied with a sigh, "What you have described, Sir, is indeed a glorious form--But it is dead--it wants a soul. The King, though every thing great and noble, has been too long governed now to act for himself. The Duke of Orleans is weak and undecided as a child. Bouillon is far away--" "And where is Cinq Mars?" demanded Fontrailles,--"where is the man whom the King really loves? If Cinq Mars has forgot his own powers, so has not France; and she now tells him--though by so weak a voice as mine--that he is destined to be the soul of this great body to animate this goodly frame, to lead this conspiracy, if that can be so called which has a King at its head, and Princes for its support." In these peaceable days, when we are taught to pray against privy conspiracy, both as a crime and misfortune, the very name is startling to all orthodox ears; but at the time I speak of, it had no such effect. Indeed, from the commencement of the wars between Henri Quatre and the League, little else had existed but a succession of conspiracies, which one after another had involved every distinguished person in the country, and brought more than one noble head to the block. Men's minds had become so accustomed to the sound, that the explosion of a new plot scarcely furnished matter for a day's wonder, as the burghers of a besieged city at length hardly hear the roaring of the cannon against their walls; and so common had become the name of conspirator, that there were very few men in the realm who had not acquired a just title to such an appellation.