Cinque-Mars.

Cinque-Mars. HENRI COIFFIER DE RUZÉ, MARQUIS DE, an ill-fated favourite of Louis XIII., was the second son of the Marquis d'Effiat, Marshal of France, and was born in 1620. While yet a boy he was placed at court by Cardinal Richelieu, and here his handsome figure and fascinating manners soon secured him the warm affection of the royal household. At nineteen he was chief-equerry to the king, but his ambition could not brook the delay of waiting for the further stages of the most rapid promotion, but already in his dreams he was a duke and peer of France, and husband of the Princess Maria of Gonzaga. Finding his ambitious projects merely derided by Richelieu, he joined with the king's brother, Duke Gaston of Orleans, in a plot to murder the great cardinal. With this was combined a wider plot with Spain for the destruction of the cardinal's power by arms. The conspiracy was discovered, and Cinque-Mars, with his friend De Thou, was executed at Lyons, 12th September 1642. His story was woven by De Vigny into the well-known romance Cinq-Mars (1826).