but--shall I say it to you?--such vague projects for the perfecting of
corrupt societies seem to me to crawl far below the devotion of love.
When the whole soul vibrates with that one thought, it has no room for
the nice calculation of general interests; the topmost heights of earth
are far beneath heaven."

De Thou shook his head.

"What can I answer?" he said. "I do not understand you; your reasoning
unreasons you. You hunt a shadow."

"Nay," continued Cinq-Mars; "far from destroying my strength, this inward
fire has developed it. I have calculated everything. Slow steps have
led me to the end which I am about to attain. Marie drew me by the hand;
could I retreat? I would not have done it though a world faced me.
Hitherto, all has gone well; but an invisible barrier arrests me. This
barrier must be broken; it is Richelieu. But now in your presence I
undertook to do this; but perhaps I was too hasty. I now think I was so.
Let him rejoice; he expected me. Doubtless he foresaw that it would be
the youngest whose patience would first fail. If he played on this
calculation, he played well. Yet but for the love that has urged me on,
I should have been stronger than he, and by just means."

Then a sudden change came over the face of Cinq-Mars. He turned pale and
red twice; and the veins of his forehead rose like blue lines drawn by an
invisible hand.

"Yes," he added, rising, and clasping together his hands with a force
which indicated the violent despair concentred in his heart, "all the
torments with which love can tear its victims I have felt in my breast.