"The great tree of the house of Austria was shaken to its very roots, and he had all but felled that trunk which with its two branches covers the North and the West, and throws a shadow over the rest of the earth." [_Lettres de Malherbe,_ t.

iv.] The king, for a moment shaken in his fidelity towards his minister by the intrigues of Cinq-Mars, had returned to the cardinal with all the impetus of the indignation caused by the guilty treaty made by his favorite with Spain.

All Europe thought as the young captain in the guards, afterwards Marshal Fabert, who, when the king said to him, "I know that my army is divided into two factions, royalists and cardinalists; which are you for ?" answered, "Cardinalists, sir, for the cardinal's party is yours." The cardinal and France were triumphing together, but the conqueror was dying; Cardinal Richelieu had just been removed from Ruel to Paris.
For several months past, the cardinal's health, always precarious, had taken a serious turn; it was from his sick-bed that he, a prey to cruel agonies, directed the movements of the army, and, at the same time, the prosecution of Cinq-Mars.

All at once his chest was attacked; and the cardinal felt that he was dying.

On the 2d of December, 1642, public prayers were ordered in all the churches; the king went from St.Germain to see his minister.