obtain something in the nature of a proof that the Queen was not
as innocent as Louis insisted upon believing.

Now it happened that one of his London agents informed him, among
other matters connected with the Duke's private life, that he had
a bitter and secret enemy in the Countess of Carlisle, between
whom and himself there had been a passage of some tenderness too
abruptly ended by the Duke. Richelieu, acting upon this
information, contrived to enter into correspondence with Lady
Carlisle, and in the course of this correspondence he managed her
so craftily--says La Rochefoucauld--that very soon she was,
whilst hardly realizing it, his Eminence's most valuable spy near
Buckingham. Richelieu informed her that he was mainly concerned
with information that would throw light upon the real relations
of Buckingharn and the Queen of France, and he persuaded her that
nothing was too insignificant to be communicated. Her resentment
of the treatment she had received from Buckingham, a resentment
the more bitter for being stifled--since for her reputation's
sake she dared not have given it expression--made her a very
ready instrument in Richelieu's hands, and there was no scrap of
gossip she did not carefully gather up and dispatch to him. But
all was naught until one day at last she was able to tell him
something that set his pulses beating more quickly than their
habit.

She had it upon the best authority that a set of diamond studs
constantly worn of late by the Duke was a love-token from the
Queen of France sent over to Buckingham by a messenger of her
own. Here, indeed, was news. Here was a weapon by which the Queen
might be destroyed. Richelieu considered. If he could but obtain