Cardinal Richelieu's Ward
Summary
In the candle-dripping corridors of the Louvre, Julie de Mortemar—ward, pawn, and reluctant constellation—orbits between three suns: a soldier whose armor clangs like broken bells, a monarch whose affection curdles into possession, and a cardinal who shuffles kingdoms like marked cards. Richelieu, scent of parchment and incense, binds her to Adrian de Mauprat in a midnight ceremony that feels more exorcism than wedding; the King’s annulment arrives swifter than a guillotine shadow, inked by Baradas, the favorite whose smile never reaches the scar under his left eye. Poison drifts through Versailles’ salons—arsenic in a goblet, rumor in a whisper—until Adrian believes his new wife’s guardian is the author of every misfortune since birth. The conspiracy coils: Gaston d’Orléans, the spare prince with a falcon’s laugh, promises a throne carved from cardinal-red marble; Baradas promises Julie, though he secretly covets the King’s panic the way a gambler covets a rival’s trembling hand. In the hush before dawn Adrian slips into Richelieu’s chamber, blade trembling like tuning fork, only to find the old fox waiting with candle, mirror, and a parchment that reveals the lie: Baradas forged the letters, cuckooed Adrian’s memories, turned love’s dagger toward his own heart. Together they stage a strangulation so convincing that when the conspirators burst in they see only a corpse-like lump beneath velvet; outside, hoofbeats carry the seditious roster toward Baradas at the frontier. Richelieu’s spies—lace-cuffed assassins, laundresses with photographic memories—intercept the courier, and by twilight the cardinal stands again at the King’s right hand, while Adrian, absolved, kneels to a marriage no parchment can dissolve.
Synopsis
Julie de Mortemar, the ward of Cardinal Richelieu, is in love with Adrian de Mauprat, a soldier of fortune. Louis the Thirteenth is in love with her himself, as is also his favorite, Count de Baradas. Cardinal Richelieu, in order to protect his ward from the King, marries her to de Mauprat. Under the influence of Baradas, King Louis issues an order for the annulment of the marriage and demands that she return to court. Baradas conspires with Gaston, Duke d'Orleans, a brother of Louis the Thirteenth, to dethrone the King and murder his prime minister, Cardinal Richelieu. Baradas poisons de Mauprat's mind against Richelieu and induces him to join in the conspiracy against the King. The conspirators attempt to murder Richelieu. De Mauprat enters his chambers at night, but he meets Richelieu, who proves to de Mauprat that Baradas has lied to him in showing that the Cardinal was de Mauprat's enemy. The conspirators are at the door to murder Richelieu, but the Cardinal and de Mauprat trick him by pretending that Richelieu has been strangled in his sleep. The conspirators have sent a document to Count de Baradas, who, at the head of his army, is on the French frontier. This document contains the names of all concerned in the conspiracy. Richelieu, by the aid of his spies, obtains possession of that document, exposes the conspirators to the monarch and assumes his old position at court as the Prime Minister of Louis Thirteenth. The husband of his ward is made to have no regrets for his loyalty in the Cardinal's great time of need.
