"Alexandre Dumas. Twenty Years After." - читать интересную книгу автора

wore a splendid ring, set with diamonds, given him by his royal mistress,
whilst I-I have nothing but a simple circlet of gold, with a cipher on it
and a date; but that ring has been blessed in the chapel of the Palais
Royal,* so they will never ruin me, as they long to do, and whilst they
shout, `Down with Mazarin!' I, unknown, and unperceived by them, incite
them to cry out, `Long live the Duke de Beaufort' one day; another, `Long
live the Prince de Conde;' and again, `Long live the parliament!'" And at
this word the smile on the cardinal's lips assumed an expression of hatred,
of which his mild countenance seemed incapable. "The parliament! We shall
soon see how to dispose," he continued, "of the parliament! Both Orleans
and Montargis are ours. It will be a work of time, but those who have begun
by crying out: Down with Mazarin! will finish by shouting out, Down with
all the people I have mentioned, each in his turn.
* It is said that Mazarin, who, though a cardinal, had not taken such
vows as to prevent it, was secretly married to Anne of Austria.-La Porte's
Memoirs.
"Richelieu, whom they hated during his lifetime and whom they now
praise after his death, was even less popular than I am. Often he was
driven away, oftener still had he a dread of being sent away. The queen
will never banish me, and even were I obliged to yield to the populace she
would yield with me; if I fly, she will fly; and then we shall see how the
rebels will get on without either king or queen.
"Oh, were I not a foreigner! were I but a Frenchman! were I but of
gentle birth!"
The position of the cardinal was indeed critical, and recent events
had added to his difficulties. Discontent had long pervaded the lower ranks
of society in France. Crushed and impoverished by taxation-imposed by
Mazarin, whose avarice impelled him to grind them down to the very dust-the
people, as the Advocate-General Talon described it, had nothing left to
them except their souls; and as those could not be sold by auction, they
began to murmur. Patience had in vain been recommended to them by reports
of brilliant victories gained by France; laurels, however, were not meat
and drink, and the people had for some time been in a state of discontent.
Had this been all, it might not, perhaps, have greatly signified; for
when the lower classes alone complained, the court of France, separated as
it was from the poor by the intervening classes of the gentry and the
bourgeoisie, seldom listened to their voice; but unluckily, Mazarin had had
the imprudence to attack the magistrates and had sold no less than twelve
appointments in the Court of Requests, at a high price; and as the officers
of that court paid very dearly for their places, and as the addition of
twelve new colleagues would necessarily lower the value of each place, the
old functionaries formed a union amongst themselves, and, enraged, swore on
the Bible not to allow of this addition to their number, but to resist all
the persecutions which might ensue; and should any one of them chance to
forfeit his post by this resistance, to combine to indemnify him for his
loss.
Now the following occurrences had taken place between the two
contending parties.
On the seventh of January between seven and eight hundred tradesmen
had assembled in Paris to discuss a new tax which was to be levied on house