An interloping foreigner, miserly, mean-souled, and Jesuitical, springs up, wins himself into the graces of a foolish, impetuous, wilful queen, and climbs the ladder which she holds for him to the highest position in France.

I allude to Mazarin; this Cardinal who is not a priest; this minister of France who is not a Frenchman; this belittler of nobles who is not a gentleman." "Mort Dieu, Monsieur--" "One moment, M.de Luynes.

This adventurer, not content with the millions which his avaricious talons have dragged from the people for his own benefit, seeks, by means of illustrious alliances, to enrich a pack of beggarly nieces and nephews that he has rescued from the squalor of their Sicilian homes to bring hither.

His nieces, the Mancinis and Martinozzis, he is marrying to Dukes and Princes.

'T is not nice to witness, but 't is the affair of the men who wed them.