Were not this incident recorded by one of the actors in the adventure, it would have been impossible to have related it with any faith in its veracity; as, assuredly, never was the meaning of "secret service" defined more broadly or more unblushingly than in the instance of the sycophantic courtier who divested himself of his brilliant attire to don the tatters of a beggar, and exchanged his velvet-covered couch for the manure-heap of a city street; while as little would it be credited that any man in power would venture to suggest so revolting an expedient to an individual of high birth and position, the companion of princes, and the associate of Court ladies. Nor is it the least singular feature of the tale that the chronicler by whom it is told indulges in no expression of disgust, either at the indelicate selfishness of Richelieu, or the undignified complaisance of his adherent; although he evidently seeks to infer that the Cardinal did not venture to request so monstrous a concession from himself; and dwells with such palpable enjoyment upon all the details of Rochefort's overweening condescension, that it is easy to detect his dread of being suspected by his readers of an equal amount of disgraceful self-abnegation. The arrest and subsequent execution of the ill-fated Cinq-Mars and his friend M. de Thou, together with the cowardly policy of Monsieur, who no sooner found his treason discovered than he once more wrote to demand his pardon from the King, and to renew his promises of future loyalty and devotion,[237] are circumstances of such universal notoriety that we shall not permit ourselves to enlarge upon them. It must suffice, therefore, to say that this new peril had merely served to increase alike the bodily suffering and the irascibility of Richelieu, who, even on the very brink of the grave, was indulging in schemes of vengeance. He saw on all sides only enemies armed against his life; and by a supreme effort, to which a less vigorous intellect than his own must have proved unequal, he rallied all the failing energies of nature to pay back the universal debt of hatred which he was conscious that he had incurred.