Page 146 of 1118

The Count Duke, gentlemen," pursued he, with the wind still in

his favour, and much wondering at not meeting with opposition,

"the Count Duke is an old fox-speaking with due respect-who would

make any one lose his track: when he appears to go to the right,

it would be safest to follow him to the left: no one can boast of

knowing his designs; they who are to execute them, they who write

the despatches, know nothing of them. I speak from authority, for

the keeper of the castle deigns to confide in me. The Count Duke

knows well enough how the pot boils in all the courts in Europe;

and these politicians have hardly laid a plan, but he begins to

frustrate it. That poor man, the Cardinal Richelieu, attempts and

dissembles, toils and strives; and what does it all produce? When

he has dug the mine, he finds a countermine already prepared by

the Count Duke--"