Cinq-Mars; an Historical Romance

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 edition. Excerpt: … part the second. chapter xiv. the emeute. “Le danger, sire, est pressant et universel, et au dela de tous les calculs de la prudence humaine.”–Mikareau, Adresse au Soi. “Thus with imagiu’d wing our swift scene flies, In motion of no less celerity Than that of thought,” exclaims the immortal Shakspere in the chorus of one of his tragedies: “Suppose that you have seen The well-appointed king Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning. behold, And follow.” “With this poetic movement he traverses time and space, and transports, at will, the attentive assembly to the theatre of his sublime scenes. We shall avail ourselves of the same privilege, though without the same genius. No more than he will we seat ourselves upon the tripod of the unities, but merely casting our eyes upon Paris and the old dark palace of the Louvre, we will at once pass over the space of two hundred leagues, and the period of two years. Two years! what changes may they not have upon men, upon their families, and above all in that great and so troublous family of nations, whose long alliances a single day suffices to destroy, whose wars are ended by a birth, whose peace is broken by a death. We ourselves have beheld kings returning to their dwelling on a spring day; that same day a vessel sailed for a voyage of two years; the navigator returned; the kings were seated upon their throne; nothing seemed to have taken place in his absence, and yet God had deprived those kings of a hundred days of their reign. But nothing was changed for France in 1642, the epoch to which we turn, except her fears and her hopes. The future alone had changed its aspect. Before again beholding our personages we must contemplate at large the state of…