nor, moreover, were the minds of the masses in that age sufficiently
awakened to a sense of their own collective power to enable them, as
they did in the following century, to measure their strength with those
upon whom they had been so long accustomed to look with fear and awe.

There cannot, moreover, exist the slightest doubt that the wantonness
with which Richelieu, in furtherance of his own private interests,
poured out so freely on the scaffold some of the proudest blood of
France, did much towards destroying that prestige which had hitherto
environed the high nobility. When Biron perished upon the block,
although his death was decreed by the sovereign, and that sovereign,
moreover, was their own idolized Henri IV, the people marvelled and even
murmured; but in after-years they learned through the teaching of the
Cardinal that nobles were merely men; while the exile of the persecuted
Marie de Medicis, and the privations to which she was exposed through
his agency, taught them that even royalty itself was not invulnerable to
the malice or vengeance of its opponents; and unhappily for those by
whom Richelieu was succeeded in power, the lesson brought forth its
fruits in due season.

Thus much premised, I shall confine myself to a brief explanation of the
manner in which I have endeavoured to perform my self-imposed task. For
one wilful, but as I trust excusable, inaccuracy, I throw myself on the
indulgence of my critics. Finding my pages already overloaded with
names, and that they must consequently induce a considerable strain upon
the memory of such readers as might not chance to be intimately
acquainted with the domestic history of the period under consideration,
I have, from the commencement of the work, designated the Duc de Sully
by the title which he ultimately attained, and by which he is
universally known, rather than confuse the mind of my readers by