Cinq-Mars
HENRI COIFFIER DE RUZÉ (sank-märs), MARQUIS DE, a , a French courtier; born in 1620. At the age of 18 he was presented at court by Cardinal de Richelieu, and soon obtained the favor of Louis XIII., to whom he became Master of the Horse. Chafing at the restraint under which Richelieu held him, and ambitious of political power, he framed a conspiracy to overthrow the cardinal, of which the King himself, and his brother Gaston, Duke d'Orléans, were members. But Louis was weak and fickle, Gaston perfidious, and Richelieu not the man to be put down by a youth just turned of 20. Cinq- Mars was livered up to the cardinal, and beheaded at Lyons, along with his friend, the councillor De Thou, Sept. 12, 1642. Cinq- Mars is the hero of a historical novel by Alfred de Vigny and of an opera by Gounod. de-