A queen’s country is where her throne is
     All that he said, I had already thought
     Always the first word which is the most difficult to say
     Dare now to be silent when I have told you these things
     Daylight is detrimental to them
     Friendship exists only in independence and a kind of equality
     I have burned all the bridges behind me
     In pitying me he forgot himself
     In times like these we must see all and say all
     Reproaches are useless and cruel if the evil is done
     Should be punished for not having known how to punish
     Tears for the future
     The great leveller has swung a long scythe over France
     The most in favor will be the soonest abandoned by him
     This popular favor is a cup one must drink
     This was the Dauphin, afterward Louis XIV

CINQ MARS

By ALFRED DE VIGNY

BOOK 5.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SECRET

De Thou had reached home with his friend; his doors were carefully shut, and orders given to admit no one, and to excuse him to the refugees for allowing them to depart without seeing them again; and as yet the two friends had not spoken to each other.

The counsellor had thrown himself into his armchair in deep meditation.  Cinq-Mars, leaning against the lofty chimneypiece, awaited with a serious and sorrowful air the termination of this silence.  At length De Thou, looking fixedly at him and crossing his arms, said in a hollow and melancholy voice: 

“This, then, is the goal you have reached!  These, the consequences of your ambition!  You are are about to banish, perhaps slay, a man, and to bring then, a foreign army into France; I am, then, to see you an assassin and a traitor to your country!  By what tortuous paths have you arrived thus far?  By what stages have you descended so low?”

“Any other than yourself would not speak thus to me twice,” said Cinq-Mars, coldly; “but I know you, and I like this explanation.  I desired it, and sought it.  You shall see my entire soul.  I had at first another thought, a better one perhaps, more worthy of our friendship, more worthy of friendship—­friendship, the second thing upon earth.”

He raised his eyes to heaven as he spoke, as if he there sought the divinity.

“Yes, it would have been better.  I intended to have said nothing to you on the subject.  It was a painful task to keep silence; but hitherto I have succeeded.  I wished to have conducted the whole enterprise without you; to show you only the finished work.  I wished to keep you beyond the circle of my danger; but shall I confess my weakness?  I feared to die, if I have to die, misjudged by you.  I can well sustain the idea of the world’s malediction, but not of yours; but this has decided me upon avowing all to you.”