Library / Literature & Fiction
Cinq Mars — Volume 5
- Pages
- about 77
- Category
- Literature & Fiction
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 84 min at 250 wpm
From the opening
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."
A short sample. Read the whole book
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