shall fail in it."

"Why, then, not stop? What is the use of intellect in the business of
the world?"

"None; unless, indeed, it be to tell us the cause of our fall, and to
enable us to foresee the day on which we shall fall. I can not now
recede. When a man is confronted with such an enemy as Richelieu, he
must overcome him or be crushed by him. Tomorrow I shall strike the last
blow; did I not just now, in your presence, engage to do so?"

"And it is that very engagement that I would oppose. What confidence
have you in those to whom you thus abandon your life? Have you not read
their secret thoughts?"

"I know them all; I have read their hopes through their feigned rage;
I know that they tremble while they threaten. I know that even now they
are ready to make their peace by giving me up; but it is my part to
sustain them and to decide the King. I must do it, for Marie is my
betrothed, and my death is written at Narbonne. It is voluntarily, it is
with full knowledge of my fate, that I have thus placed myself between
the block and supreme happiness. That happiness I must tear from the
hands of Fortune, or die on that scaffold. At this instant I experience
the joy of having broken down all doubt. What! blush you not at having
thought me ambitious from a base egoism, like this Cardinal--ambitious
from a puerile desire for a power which is never satisfied? I am
ambitious, but it is because I love. Yes, I love; in that word all is
comprised. But I accuse you unjustly. You have embellished my secret
intentions; you have imparted to me noble designs (I remember them), high
political conceptions. They are brilliant, they are grand, doubtless;