It appears to have been about this time that there was published a bitter satire upon the cardinal, for which an unlucky author, who had no concern with it, was conveyed to the Bastile. The satire bore the title of “The Milliad,” from its consisting of a thousand lines. One edition is intituled, “The Present Government, or the Eulogy of the Cardinal.” It was attributed to Charles de Beys, a now-forgotten author, who wrote three plays and some verses, and was lauded as a rival of Malherbe, by a few of his ill-judging contemporaries. It must have been some mischievous joker that ascribed “The Milliad” to him, for Beys was not the sort of man to meddle with political satire, especially on such a dangerous subject; he was of an indolent, convivial disposition, and spent the largest portion of his time in enjoying the pleasures of the table. He was, nevertheless, pent up in the Bastile, as the libeller of the all-potent cardinal. Fortunately for him, he was able to prove his innocence, was set at liberty, and continued to follow his former course of life, till his constitution gave way, and he died, in 1659, at the age of forty. In the winter of 1642, Richelieu, who had so largely fed the prisons and scaffolds of France, terminated his career of ambition and blood. There is extant a letter which, while the cardinal was on his death bed, was written to him by one of his victims, named Dussault. The letter bears date on the first of December, three days previous to the decease of the minister, and it seems never to have reached him. What was the offence of Dussault is not known; from a broad hint which is given in his epistle, it appears that he suffered for having refused to execute some sanguinary order given to him by Richelieu. When he penned the following lines, he had been more than eleven years an inmate of the Bastile.