This young noble, who was the son of an old and tried friend of the Cardinal, had appeared at Court under his auspices, and consequently regarded him as the patron of his future fortunes; a conviction which tended to give to the relative position of the parties a peculiar and confidential character well suited to the views of the astute minister. Cinq-Mars, like all youths of his age, was dazzled by the brilliancy of the Court, and eager for advancement; while he was at the same time reckless, unscrupulous, and even morbidly ambitious; but these defects were concealed beneath an exterior so prepossessing, manners so specious, and acquirements so fascinating; there was such a glow and glitter in his scintillating writ and uncontrollable gaiety, that few cared to look beyond the surface, and all were loud in their admiration of the handsome and accomplished page. [Illustration: CINQ-MARS.] Such was the tool selected by Richelieu to fashion out his purposes, and he found a ready and a willing listener in the son of his friend, when, with warm protestations of his esteem for his father and his attachment to himself, he declared his intention of placing the ardent youth about the person of his sovereign under certain conditions, which were at once accepted by Cinq-Mars. These conditions, divested of the courtly shape in which they were presented to _protégé_, were simply that while the page devoted himself to the amusement of his royal master, he should carefully report to the Cardinal, not only the actions of the King, but also the private conversations which might take place in his presence, and the share maintained by the sovereign in each. Had Cinq-Mars been less aspiring than he was, it is probable that although yet a mere youth he would have shrunk with disgust from so humiliating a proposition; but he remembered the career of De Luynes, and he disregarded in the greatness of the end the unworthiness of the means by which it was to be obtained. The brilliant page was accordingly presented to the unsuspicious monarch by the minister, and, as the latter had anticipated, at once captivated the fancy of Louis, who having satisfied himself that Cinq-Mars possessed a sufficient knowledge of those sports in which he himself delighted, at once consented to receive him into his household. For a time the page served with equal assiduity both the King and the Cardinal, to the former of whom he so soon rendered himself essential that although the confidential friends of Louis were occasionally startled to find their most secret words known to the minister, and did not scruple to express their suspicion that they were betrayed by Cinq-Mars, Louis, too indolent and too selfish to risk the displeasure of Richelieu, or to deprive himself of an agreeable associate, merely laughed at the absurdity of such a supposition, and continued to treat the page with the same confidence and condescension as heretofore.