Among the contemporaries of Bassompierre, de Jars, and Cramail, within the walls of the Bastile, there was another of equal rank, but not of an equally noble mind. His hands were stained with blood; his earliest promotion was bought by perpetrating a cowardly murder. This personage was Nicholas de l’Hospital, marquis of Vitry, to whom I have slightly alluded in my notice of the marchioness d’Ancre. He was the degenerate son of a warrior, who was incapable of a dishonourable action. Vitry, who was born in 1611, succeeded his father as captain of the royal guards, and ingratiated himself with Luynes, the minion of Louis XIII. In concert with Luynes, he formed the plan of assassinating marshal d’Ancre, who was obnoxious to the king. Eager to win the marshal’s staff which was held by Concini, Vitry let slip no opportunity of irritating the king against the intended victim, and of pressing for permission to assassinate him. The monarch hesitated for a while, not from virtue but from fear; he ended by granting his sanction, and Vitry lost not a moment in acting upon it. With his brother du Hallier, and an associate named Perray, he waited for Concini at the entrance of the Louvre, and there the three confederates despatched him with pistols, which they had kept concealed beneath their cloaks. When Louis was informed that the deed was done, he had the ineffable baseness to look out at the palace window, and exclaim, “Many thanks to you, Vitry! I am now really king!” It must, however, be owned that the baseness of the monarch was kept in countenance by that of his courtiers and flatterers, who lauded the assassin as profusely as though he had been the saviour of the state. For this disgraceful service, Vitry was rewarded by the great object of his ambition, the rank of marshal. On hearing of this, the duke of Bouillon indignantly declared that he blushed at being a French marshal, now that the marshal’s staff was made the recompense of one who traded in murder. Though, of the two favourites of the queen mother, Vitry had slain the husband with his own hand, and thus been the cause of the wife’s public execution, and though at that time he had treated her with disgusting insolence, yet when, two years afterwards, a feigned reconcilement took place between Mary of Medicis and her son, she allowed Vitry to be presented to her. On this occasion a scene of dissimulation occurred, which has not often been paralleled. Vitry bent to kiss the hem of her garment, but she graciously stretched out her hand to raise him, saying, at the same time, “I have always praised your affectionate zeal in the king’s service.” To which, with equal sincerity, he replied, “it was that consideration alone which induced me to do all that the king desired; without, however, my having had the slightest idea of offending your majesty.” If we cannot praise the parts which these actors played, we must at least admit that they played them skilfully.