The count de la Châtre, in his Memoirs, relates a circumstance respecting the liberation of Vitry and his fellow prisoners. The anecdote shows, among other things, to what an extent Louis XIII. was infected with what Byron calls the “good old gentlemanly vice” of avarice. “The cardinal (Mazarin) and M. de Chavigny,” says la Châtre, “solicited the king for the deliverance of the marshals Vitry and Bassompierre, and the count de Cramail. The means which they employed on this occasion deserve to be recorded, as being rather pleasant; for, finding that the king was not very willing to comply, they attacked him on his weak side, and represented to him that these three prisoners cost him an enormous sum to keep them in the Bastile, and that, as they were no longer able to raise cabals in the kingdom, they might as well be at home, where they would cost him nothing. This indirect mode succeeded, this prince being possessed by such extraordinary avarice, that whoever asked him for money was an insufferable burthen to him; so far did he carry this, that, after the return of Treville, Beaupuy, and others, whom the violence of the late cardinal (Richelieu) had, when he was dying, forced him to abandon, he sought occasion to give a rebuff to each of them, that he might prevent them from hoping to be rewarded for what they had suffered for him.” Here we see a king beginning his reign by prompting his servants to commit murder, and ending it by displaying cold-blooded ingratitude to those who had been faithful to him—fit end for such a beginning! From a noble, who stained his hands with blood, to win the favour of a king, we gladly turn to a plebeian, who risked his life, rather than violate his fidelity to the neglected and ill-used consort of that monarch. Peter de la Porte was this plebeian, who, though his trials were not carried to such a dreadful extent as those of the chevalier de Jars, has a legitimate claim, as far as regards probity and firmness of mind, to be placed in the same class with that distinguished character. La Porte was born in 1603, and entered into the service of Anne of Austria at the age of eighteen, as one of her cloak-bearers. It being suspected that he was trusted by the queen, he was deprived of his office in 1626, when a desperate attempt was made by the minister to implicate her in the conspiracy of La Chalais. He then entered into her body guards. In 1631, he was, however, allowed to resume his former situation.