The Court, after having passed a portion of the summer at St. Germain, removed in the commencement of August to Fontainebleau, the advanced pregnancy of the Queen having rendered her anxious to return to that palace.  But any gratification which she might have promised herself, in this her favourite place of residence, was cruelly blighted by the legitimation of the son of Madame de Verneuil, which was formally registered at this period.  Nor was this the only vexation to which she was exposed, the notoriety of the King’s intrigues becoming every day more trying alike to her temper and to her health; while the new concession which had been made to the vanity—­or, as the Marquise herself deemed it, to the honour—­of the favourite, induced the latter to commit the most indecent excesses, and to increase, if possible, the almost regal magnificence of her attire and her establishment, at the same time that her deportment towards the Queen was marked by an insolent disrespect which involved the whole Court in perpetual misunderstandings.

As it had already become only too evident that the unfortunate Marie de Medicis possessed but little influence over the affections of her husband, however he might be compelled to respect the perfect propriety and dignity of her character, the cabal of the favourite daily increased in importance; and the measure of the Queen’s mortification overflowed, when, soon after the royal visit to Fontainebleau, Henry took leave of her in order to visit Calais, and she ascertained that he had on his way stopped at the Chateau de Verneuil, whither he had been accompanied by the Marquise.  It was in vain that M. de Sully—­to whom the King had given strict charge to endeavour by every method in his power to reconcile the Queen to his absence, and to provide for her amusement every diversion of which she was in a condition to partake—­exerted himself to obey the command of the monarch; Marie was too deeply wounded to derive any consolation from such puerile sources, nor was it until the return of her royal consort, when his evident anxiety and increased tenderness once more led her to believe that she might finally wean him from his excesses and attach him to herself, that she once more became calm.

On the 11th of November the anticipated event took place, and the Queen gave birth to her eldest daughter[208] in the same oval chamber in which the Dauphin first saw the light.[209] The advent of Elisabeth de France was not, however, hailed with the same delight by Marie as had been that of her first-born; on the contrary, her disappointment was extreme on ascertaining the sex of the infant, from the fact of her having placed the most entire confidence in the assurances of a devotee named Soeur Ange, who had been recommended to her notice and protection by the Sovereign-Pontiff, and who had, before she herself became cognizant of the negotiations for her marriage, foretold that she would one day be Queen of France.  This woman, who still