career he was pleading his own cause, rather than that of his constituents. In the first place he urged the King to retain in power the queen mother, his immediate patroness, and in the next, complained that none of the clergy were employed in the Royal council.

He was next offered the embassy to Spain, but it was given to another just as he had fixed his hopes upon it. Following in the train of the queen mother until he could maintain himself by his own strength, he showed, by banishing her when she opposed him, that gratitude is, after all, but a lively sense of future favors. By the force of talent he placed himself on the highest level, and when he had reached that point by an iron will, an untiring energy, and a watchful vigilance, inaugurated the policy of strengthening the power of the crown, and extending in every way the external relations of his native country. The measures he took were sometimes unscrupulous, often cruel, but they were generally such as his own position and the exigencies of the case required. The brother of the king, the Duke d'Orleans, was at once desirous of ruling, and incapable of grasping power. Incited by favorites anxious through him to reach their ends, he was continually conspiring, and yet frightened into subjection when he might have succeeded. A natural melancholy on the part of the king, and an aversion to the queen, fostered by the prime minister, threw all power into the hands of the latter. Time after time the arm of the assassin was raised to take his life, but a happy accident, or the dread of sacrilegiously attacking one of his sacred character, saved him from the impending blow. Most inexcusable was the part he took in hastening the fall of royalty in England. It is said that Cromwell had an interview with him previously to commencing his revolutionary career, and was by him encouraged in his schemes. It is certain that these two great men entertained a just appreciation of each other's powers. He who was so anxious to crush the Huguenots in France, had no hesitation in encouraging the Protestant Swedish monarch to descend into Germany, and attack the house of Austria. His sole confidant in his great designs was a priest, named Father Joseph, and distinguished among the courtiers as "His Grey Eminence," in contradistinction to the real cardinal.

As death approached, Richelieu seems to have desired to leave the world with the reputation of having subjugated the outward symbols of royalty as well as real power. He demanded of the king, what no one could with impunity have asked of any other prince, that for the future, on his visits to the sovereign, his own guards should be introduced, and be allowed to mix in equal number with those of the king. This prince, who believed that all the success of his armies and negotiations was due to the minister, and who was accustomed from long habit to pay him every respect, received calmly a proposition which in another would have been treason. Richelien, acquainted with the character of his master, and anxious to prove his own importance, feigned a desire to be released from the cares of state, and desirous, as he declared, of retiring, refused foreign ministers access to his person. The king was informed of this, and feared lest the intention of the minister should be really to quit a post for the maintenance of which he had severed so many heads and committed such injustice, that more deaths occurred during the eighteen years of his ministry than in several reigns.

Given up by his physicians, Richelieu, to stay the hand of death, employed an empiric named Le Ferre, who undertook to cure him with pills and mineral waters. An apparent improvement took place, but on the 4th of December, 1642, exclaiming "In manus tuos, Domine," he breathed his last, and his immense wealth descended to his nephew Armand de Mailli, Duke of Richelieu. His remains, decked in the cardidal's robes, were exposed for three days on a bed covered with brocade. At his feet on one side lay the ducal crown, on the other the mantle emblem of that rank; at the foot of the bed shone the cross, illumined by hundreds of wax lights. On the 13th of December the body was carried in state to the church of the Sorbonne upon a car covered with a black velvet pall, lined with white satin, and embroidered with his arms; the car was drawn by six horses with hanging cloths of rich velvet, alongside marched his pages, lighted candles of white wax in their hands; thousands on foot, in coaches and on horseback, followed the hearse. On the 28th of January a solemn service was performed for him at Notre Dame, to which the sovereigns of Europe were invited in the following terms:

"Nobles et devotes personnes priez pour l'ame de tres haut et tres puisant tres vertueux Illustrissime et eminentissime seigneur monseigneur ARMAND JEAN DU-PLESSIS, Cardinal de Richelieu. Duc Pair, Grand Maitre et Intendant de la Navigation et Commerce de France, l'un des Prelats commandeurs de l'Ordre du S. Esprit, Chef du Conseil, et principal Ministre de l'Etat du Roi, pour l'ame duquel se feront les services et Prieres dans l'Eglis de Paris, auquel lieu Lundi prochain apres midi, seront dites vepres et vigiles des morts, pour y etre le lendmain mardi a dix heures du matin, celebré son service solemne, Priez Dieu qu'il en ait L'Ame."

Such was the death, such the obsequies of Cardinal Richelieu. In appearance he was pleasing though thin, tall and wellshaped; his complexion, naturally pale, was rendered more so by severe study. His intellect was quick and clear, and plunged at once to the bottom of state secrets. His judgment was solid and profound; he could not endure an affront, and nothing gave him such pleasure as vengeance. He was proud and irritable, at the same time affable and full of suavity in his manner; he spoke with ease and eloquence, a talent acquired and cultivated by long study and constant practice. He was not without learning, but the press of business prevented his acquiring what he otherwise would have. In affairs of state he was bold and intrepid of danger; in his own, cautious to a degree. Discouraged and cast down by misfortune, he was proud and insolent with success; excessively fond of flattery, the grossest compliments were alone acceptable to him. Three of his sayings are worthy of preservation. He observed that in affairs of great importance weakest people often propose the best expedients. 2. That resolutions taken in anger never succeed. 3. That the great should dread the presence of servants, who often discover their secrets by a word or a sign.

It is to the glory of Richelieu that, when he ended his days, he had so far carried out his great ideas and shaped his policy as to leave France in a condition far superior to that in which he found her at his accession. The great fiefs had formerly distracted the kingdom. Each province had its parliament, and territorial titles implied sovereign power in their possessor. The Cardinal commenced by breaking down all these rights and bringing the whole realm under a single head. To resist the crown had been the habit alike of the nobles and the Parliament; and a state of affairs similar to the present boasted freedom of England then existed in France, with the exception that each party, on being beaten, took up arms and engaged in contests about as bloody as the riots which distinguished London so late as the days of George IVth. The government was, as England's now is, an oligarchy, where connexion with a great family was necessary to obtain the most insignificant governmental posts. Despotism, mild and well regulated, is much nearer Democracy than such a state of affairs. When the ruler is so raised above all that all are as dust under his feet, shades of distinction are of no value in his eyes, and he seeks to foster real merit, that he may shine in its reflected beams. But when a few rich families close the avenue to power, the account given by the graphic Dickens of the Circumlocution Office is the best commentary on the government. Few sovereigns would have dared, as did Richelieu, to imprison the great Condé, first prince of the blood. Few would have had the ingenuity, industry, and courage necessary to reduce Rochelle, the stronghold of Protestantism, by building a sea-wall across her harbor, which shut out the English fleet coming to her aid. Still his position was truly discouraging: everybody conspired against him. The King was neutral and the Princes hostile; the people murmured, and the treasury was empty; yet, sustained by the force of his own views, the great Cardinal knew no fatigue, yielded to no difficulties. The policy pursued by him, and carried out by his successor, gave to Louis XIV. a kingdom which is thus described :

"France was now, beyond all doubt, the greatest power in Europe. Her resources have, since those days, absolutely increased, but have not increased so fast as those of England. Her territory was not, in the days of Louis the Fourteenth, quite so extensive as at present, but it was large, compact, fertile, well placed, both for attack and defence, situated in a happy climate, and inhabited by a brave, active, and ingenious people. The government was now a despotism, but at least, in its dealing with the upper classes, a mild and generous despotism, tempered by courteous manners and chivalrous sentiments. The means at the disposal of the sovereign were, for that age, truly formidable. His revenue, raised, it is true, by severe and unequal taxation, which pressed heavily on the cultivators of the soil, far exceeded that of any other potentate. His army, excellently disciplined, and commanded by the greatest general then living, already consisted of more than a hundred and twenty thousand men. Such an array of regular troops had not been seen in Europe since the downfall of the Roman Empire. Of maritime powers France was not the first, but though she had some rivals on the sea, she had not yet a superior."

As a Frenchman and a French statesman, it was natural that Richelieu should seek to humble and divide the British nation. The character of the English is odious to the other nations of the world. With prejudices and self-esteem only equalled by their stupidity and ignorance, they are boasting always of a freedom they do not possess, of a power which the next shock of armies will cause to crumble to pieces. But France especially has the memory of a thousand insults, wantonly inflicted by them, to avenge, and the consciousness of being able to accomplish the result. A succeeding generation will probably see him who, besides the power of Richelieu, has in his steam navy of iron vessels a power which can laugh at those wooden walls so long the bulwark of the proud Queen of the Isles, and in two hours convey across the channel 400,000 men, penetrating into their homes at the head of his army, and feasting in the halls of Gog and Magog, as the second conqueror England has received from France. To Richelieu the house of Austria was the most formidable rival he had to encounter. The boundary of the Rhine has been the pet dream of every French ruler, but the family ties uniting Spain and Austria formed a girdle to exclude the French from this object and from the tempting fields of Italy, which only war could break through. Italy has ever been fatal to France. Charles VIII., Louis XII., Francis I., and Napoleon I., have there all achieved great victories and temporary conquests, which have faded away like leaves in the autumnal blast, leaving no mark behind them. Napoleon embellished his capital with the works of art transported from the tribune of Florence, and the galleries of Milan and Venice; yet even these material proofs of his conquest soon found their way back to their former homes, and adorn again the walls whence he removed them.

The house of Austria still reigns triumphant over the peninsula. Whilst they, who look into the future, predict that another great contest is soon to arise, and the blood of Frenchmen again water her soil. The language used on the first day of the year, by the Emperor of France to the Austrian ambassador, is said to be of deep meaning. On that occasion empty compliments are generally exchanged, and when one so cautious steps aside from the prudent path to give vent to reproach, the corps of diplomacy, like astonished schoolboys, tremble at the suspended rod. When great nations quarrel, smaller ones thrive, and it is to a judicious taking advantage of the periodical wars between France and Austria that the little Dukedom of Savoy has expanded into the respectable Kingdom of Sardinia. Always siding with the stronger party, her rulers have at each treaty of peace obtained some little advantage, some small accession of territory. Charles Albert, alone, an exception to the prudence of his predecessors, thinking that the time for Italian emancipation had arrived in 1848, undertook to make war single-handed against Austria; the interference of England saved his kingdom, but he paid the penalty of his rashness by dying as an exile in Portugal. His son, Victor-Emanuel, more prudent, courts the aid of France, and under her protection asserts his independence, in a manner which unaided he could not attempt.

One of the strong points in Richelieu's character was that he always proportioned his means to the ends he had in view, and when he struck his blow was always decisive; he fascinated his victims until they exposed their plans, and crushed them before they had matured them. There is one mysterious circumstance in history supposed to date back to his time, and connected with the reign of his successor, Mazarin, and Louis XV., which has given a fertile theme to the writers of romance. The Bastile was from the earliest times till the revolution a prison, to which any one could be hurried by those in power, without trial or condemnation. In its impenetrable recesses, those whom the state wished to sequester from active life, spent