The naturally confident and noble nature of Henry, and his old attachment for the sharer in all his fortunes, triumphed however over his weaknesses and illusions, and he determined to pay Sully a visit and to excuse himself for his late coldness. With these amiable intentions the King left his palace, and was on his way to the Arsenal in an open carriage, when he was stabbed to the heart by the fanatic Ravaillac. On the death of Henry IV. Sully would have continued his valuable services under the Queen-widow, Mary de’ Medici, who was appointed Regent, but that Princess resigning herself and the government of the state to intriguing Italians, headed by the unpopular Concini, the honest and indignant minister quitted office and the court for ever, and retired to his estates. The life Sully led in his retreat was most rational and dignified. Unmoved by the ingratitude of the court, of which he was continually receiving fresh proofs, he continued to love the country he had so long governed; and though a zealous Protestant to the last, he would never join in the intrigues of the Hugonots, which he dreaded might renew the horrors of civil war. To find occupation for his active mind he dictated his Memoirs to four secretaries, whom, for many years, he retained in his service, and who, in the ‘Economies Royales,’ better known under the title of ‘Mémoires de Sully,’ preserved not only the most interesting details of the life of their noble master and of Henry IV., but the fullest account of the history and policy, manners and customs, of the age in which Sully lived. Neither the occupations of war nor of politics, in which he had been absorbed for thirty-four years, had eradicated his original taste for polite literature; and in his retirement he composed many pieces not only in prose but in verse. One of his poetical compositions, which is a parallel between Henry IV. and Julius Cæsar, was translated into Latin and much admired throughout Europe. After having lived thirty years in this retirement, the great Sully expired at his Château of Villebonne, in the eighty-second year of his age, on the 22d December, 1641—the same year in which Lord Strafford, the minister of Charles I., was beheaded in London, and in which the grave closed over the widow of Henry IV., Mary de’ Medici, who died at Cologne in obscurity and great poverty. It is to be regretted that no author has yet produced a life of Sully worthy of the subject. The ‘Economies Royales’ is the great storehouse of information, but its prolixity and singularity of style render it little attractive to the general reader. The following works, however, may be consulted:—’Les Vies des Hommes Illustres de la France,’ by M. D’Auvigny, and the memoir in the ‘Biographie Universelle.’ [Illustration] [Illustration: _Engraved by J. Posselwhite._ N. POUSSIN. _From the original Picture by himself in the Gallery of the Louvre._