The time, however, was not yet come for Louis to make even an attempt toward liberating himself from the trammels to which he had been so long accustomed. Habit in this had far more power over his mind than even the vast and aspiring talents of Richelieu. No man in France, perhaps, more contemned or hated the Cardinal than the royal slave whom he had so long subjugated to his burdensome sway. Yet Louis, amidst all his dreams for the future, looked with dread upon losing the support of a man whom he detested, but upon whose counsels and abilities he had been accustomed to rely with confidence and security. Cinq Mars saw plainly the state of his master's mind; and as he entered the Palace, he again began to doubt whether he should at all lend himself to the bold and dangerous measures which Fontrailles had suggested. CHAPTER VII. In which is shown how a great King hunted a great beast, and what came of the hunting. While the King's mind, as he returned to the Chateau de Chantilly, was agitated by vague hopes and fears, which, like the forms that we trace in the clouds, rolled into a thousand strange and almost palpable shapes before his mind's eye, and yet were but a vapour after all; and while the thoughts of Cinq Mars ran over all the difficulties and dangers of the future prospect, reverted to the obligations Richelieu had once conferred upon him, or scanned the faults and crimes of the Minister, till the struggle of patriotism and gratitude left nothing but doubt behind: the imagination of Fontrailles was very differently occupied. It was not that he pondered the means of engaging more firmly the wavering mind of Cinq Mars. No, for he had marked him for his own; and, from that morning's conversation, felt as sure of his companion as the ant-lion does of the insect he sees tremble on the edge of his pit. Neither did he revolve the probable issue of the dangerous schemes in which he was engaging both himself and others; for he was confident in his powers of disentangling himself, when it should become necessary to his own safety so to do, and he was not a man to distress himself for the danger of his friends. The occupation of his mind as they approached the Castle, was of a more personal nature. The truth is, that so far from discomposing himself upon the score of distant evils, the sole trouble of his thoughts was the hunting-party into which he had entrapped himself. Being by no means a good horseman, and caring not one _sous_ for a pastime which involved far too much trouble and risk to accord in any degree with his idea of pleasure, Fontrailles had professed himself fond of hunting, merely to please the King, without ever dreaming that he should be called upon to give farther proof of his veneration for the Royal sport.