THE PALAIS ROYAL. AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE. BY JOHN H. MANCUR, AUTHOR OF "HENRI QUATRE; OR, THE DAYS OF THE LEAGUE," Apprends à te connoitre, et descends en toi-même. CORNEILLE. NEW-YORK: WILLIAM H. COLYER, No. 5 HAGUE-STREET. AL 2431.5.25 HARVARD COLLEGE APR 27 1917 LIONARY G. F. Parkinan fund Entered according to an Act of Congress, by WILLIAM H. COLYER, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York, in the year 1845 Stereotyped by Vincent L. Dill, Sun Building, N. Y. THE PALAIS ROYAL. CHAPTER I. "Qu'il peigne de Paris les tristes orabarras !" VOLTAIRE. ABOUT the middle of the seventeenth century, Paris was fast hastening to a crisis of social anarchy, through the obstinacy of the queen-regent in supporting a favourite minister against the united wish of the nation for his expulsion from office and banishment. Cardinal Mazarin had indeed the posthumous suffrage of the renowned Richelieu in his favour, who dying, recommended his pliant Italian secretary as a man able in affairs of state, and deserving the confidence of his sovereign. And with this passport to office, the cardinal became prime minister; served the unfortunate Louis XIII during the few remaining months of that monarch's life-secretly espoused the cause of the queen, who was at variance with her royal consort-intrigued so adroitly, as even to extort (his own agency unseen) the royal signature to a will declaring her majesty the future guardian of her infant son, and regent of the kingdom-and lastly, as the crowning of his hopes, found himself sole confidant of a widowed queen, mistress of a mighty kingdom. For a man who, ir earlier life, had lived an adventurer at Rome-been cudgelled in the streets for cheating at play-and served the base offices of parasite and panderer to a Roman prelate, this was exaltation loftier than his ambition could have dreamed of. Some men are tried in their ascent to power; the trial of others awaits their elevation; and in the latter predicament was Mazarin. His predecessor, Richelieu, he of the iron sceptre, who had subjected alike to his will, his master, the nation, and, in a measure, all Europe, had humbled not crushed the wild spirit and turbulence of the French nobility. They awaited with impatience the death of the king to share the rich spoils of the long-looked-for minority of the succeeding reign; and were chagrined and disgusted to find themselves thwarted by the crafty Italian, who, mean and avaricious by nature, failings the least likely to be forgiven by the French, |