The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1894-09-07
Cardinal Richelieu.
rounded on the Play of "RicheIieu,, by
Lord LyttOn.
CHAPTER I.
The Two Sphinxes.

| III Ba6 year Wu0H " do
menaced by leagues of all It's neigh
bors and those undying enemies,
England, Austria, Italy and Spain,
whose secret representa- tives deeply
en- bosomed were within her heart,
there sat two men in profound pom
derings IN the masters cabinet in
that Cardinal palace which we know
as the Palais Royal at present.
The walls were hung with an arras
| depicting scenes where the church
militant had triumphed, the windows
were Theoretically sealed, and the
doors double. These precautions
were not wholly political. for a fire
burnt luridly in the deep mantel I'M
| der marble-piece embossed with a
struggle of centaurs and sea-horses,
though it was summers height, and
any thoughtful observer would have
expected to see in the tenant of the
| chamber one whose term of years
made fire a second life. A large
screen limited at further means of
concealment and the huge brass and
ebony clock was capacious enough
to secrete a man. On the dull green
walls hung a map of La Rochelle,
with the works which Cardinal
RIchelteu was accredited with de-
signing traced in red ink, and, as an
antithesis, there was opposed to it a
plan of the castle where the kings
brother, CASTOR, duke of Orleans,
had planted assassins against the
prime minister, whom he never
dared to face in combat
The table that the two thoughtful
man oh 6o4
cred with papers and charts, walls of
chemicals necessary to revive secret
writing, keys to cipher in binding
furnished with lock and key, and a
small model stage after classical
presidents, which at the moment,
from partially to their weaknesses,
if not Indifference to the object, was
allowed to be a species of kennel for
five or six kittens of different colors;
slumbering pellmell after a tiresome
romp, the mass, all heads, tails and
legs, vaguely suggested one of those
| plates of interviewer animals which
Da Vinci loved to design and Palsy
painted in earthenware.
On the board also was large seal
which bore the device of Richelieu,
the eagle amid clouds, and there
were others which presented tokens
| of his posts as peer, religious chief.
and correspondent with great powers.
! Cheek by-jowl with reliquary
stood against the wall two-handed
sword such as Charles Martel swung
when he drove the Saracen out of
his realm; it had been actually used
| be the duke of Richelieu in a hand
to-hand encounter with the defenders
of La Rochelle, of which a notch in
the blade from shearing a helm re-
manned in honorable witness. A
suit of half-armor, yelled with a ban
ner, seemed to stretch out one pad
ded glove to reach it.
But that heavy falchion was no
longer feather in the tremulous,
slender and bloodless hanQs of that
years. who confronted the other on
his left at the board
1t was Jehan Armand Duplessis,
duke of R1chelieu and Fronsac, a
! bishop at "a, home and war secre-
tary at 80, and later the prelate-
statesman who made his boy master
slave, but an ilIustrious slave,
reckoned the greatest of contem-
| porary monarchs.
A Venitian lace collar, though of
an Isabella hue, seemed white under
his hard, dry, wasted face; hair as
gray as dull steel escaped from the
| velvet cap which covered the ton
sure, and strayed upon the high fore
head; he wore a gray mustache and
| that goats beard which was called
s'the royal cut" in mockery of the
edict which forbade it being worn.
Every body hated him, and every
body had their reasons; the king be-
cause he felt his inferiority beside
him, the mobiles because he had
struck off the highest of their heads
| like another Tarquin, the people be-
cause under him their taxes grew
and still grew again.
But if there were gloom on the
yisage of his red eminence, there
was none on the ivory face of the
second occupant of the statesman's
closet
..His Gray Eminence, y as the wag-
gish tongue warily styled the rever-
end Capuchin father, Joseph du
Tremblay. This alter ego of the
cardinal was an enigma, perhaps
even to him whose friendship he
ever cherished as that of a kind of
divinity. There is no doubt that Du
Tremblay was sincerely religious at
the outset of his career. but never
/ had his superior found more faith
full disciple of Machiavel. He was
reckoned pious courtier, and never
theless, no bribe of the crown. no
charms of the queen, no threats of
the nobility affected the devotion of
RicheIieu's right arm, sole consider
and sustainer against all.
In the end the astute churchman
opened his eyes. and said in voice
weak and husky by hectic cough,
And, so, Joseph, you think this
new conspiracy the craftiest trap vet
laid for the old foxP-a nickname /
like; for, as Plutarch said of the
Greek Lysander. that where the
lions skin fell short, he eked it out
with the fox's. and SO 1 A great
statesman, Joseph, that sa me Lysan-
der.n
Orleans heads the traitors.
"a very wooden head, then! Well.
who's his ieutenant?n
ssReraf7as the favorifa