They were his devices for
preventing the nobility from combining against him. He set one cabal
to watch another, and there was never a conspiracy entered into that
he did not prepare a similar conspiracy through his numerous secret
agents and thus split into harmless nothings and weak attempts what
would have been fatal to a continuance of his power. His tricks were
nothing but the ordinary everyday methods of the modern ward
politician making the dear people believe he is doing one thing when
he is doing another. The stern man pitted one antagonist against
another until both sued for peace and pardon. The nobility were honest
in their likes and dislikes, but they did not understand double
dealings and therefore the craft of Richelieu was not even suspected.
Soon he corrupted by his secret intrigues the fidelity of the nobles
and destroyed the integrity of the people. Then it was, as Cyrano
says: "The world saw billows of scum vomited upon the royal purple and
upon that of the church." Vile rhyming poets, without merit or virtue,
sold their villainous productions to the enemies of the state to be
used in goading the people to riot.
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