Condé aspired to the regency, but his ambitious hopes were disappointed. Chagrined at the failure of some of his subsequent schemes, and the refusal of favours which he sought, the prince, with many of the nobles, took up arms against the court. For this, he and his adherents were declared guilty of treason. A peace was, nevertheless, patched up between the parties, and he returned to Paris in a sort of triumph. Not more than a year elapsed before the obvious intention of Condé, to monopolize all the power of the state, compelled Mary of Medicis to venture upon decisive measures against him. Sully was active in prompting her to this step. The strength of the prince’s party rendered the attempt hazardous; but the business was kept so secret, and was so ably managed, that he was arrested in the Louvre, and conveyed to the Bastile, without opposition. Here, and at Vincennes, he remained for three years, during part of which time he was harshly treated. It was not without much difficulty, and till he had been long confined, that his wife, who had become sincerely attached to him, was allowed to share his prison. His liberation was brought about by the fall of Concini, and he was reinstated in his honours. Thenceforth, he served Louis the thirteenth faithfully in the cabinet and the field. He died in 1646. Voltaire truly says, with respect to him, that his being the father of the great Condé, was his greatest glory. The downfall of Concini, marshal d’Ancre, which opened the gates of the Bastile to let out Condé, opened them also to admit, for a short time, the wife of the murdered marshal. After Concini had been assassinated by Vitry and his accomplices, and his body had been dragged from the grave, and torn into fragments, by an ignorant and savage populace, Leonora, his widow, was hurried to prison. She was a daughter of the female by whom Mary of Medicis was nursed, and had been the playmate of the princess. When Mary became the consort of Henry IV., she took Leonora in her train to Paris. So attached was Mary to her, that Leonora is said, by Mezeray, “to have directed at her pleasure the desires, the affections, and the hatreds of the queen.” Riches were, of course, heaped upon her. She is charged with having fomented the disagreements of Mary and her inconstant husband, by making false statements, to excite the jealousy of her mistress. If she did so, which may be doubted, she was performing a work of supererogation; for Henry rendered falsehood unnecessary, by affording abundant and undisguised cause for complaint. The light of the sun was not more obvious than his conjugal infidelity. It was also objected, that she insolently shut her door against the princesses and nobles, who came to pay court to her in the height of her power. If this be true, it proves only that she had spirit and good sense enough to despise the sycophancy of those by whom she knew herself to be detested. It is