“Can you deny one assertion which I have made?” demanded the Queen impatiently.

“I sympathize in all the trials and troubles of your Majesty,” was the evasive reply.  “I would leave no effort untried to terminate them; a fact of which you have long, I trust, Madame, felt convinced; and thus I cannot see you about to wilfully destroy every chance of happiness, without imploring of you to reflect deeply and calmly before you take so extreme a measure as that which you now contemplate.  The King is already incensed against you; and if spoken words have thus angered him, I dare not contemplate the consequences of such as these before me, written hours after your contention.  I therefore beseech you to suppress this letter; and both for your own sake, and for that of the French nation, rather to seek a reconciliation with His Grace your husband than to increase the ill-feeling which so unhappily exists.”

“You make no allowance for me, Monsieur, as a woman and a wife; you only argue with the Queen.”

“Madame,” persisted Sully, “in this instance it is rather to the woman and the wife that I address myself than to the Queen.  As a woman, the bitterness and invective of this missive,” and he laid his spread hand emphatically upon the paper, “would suffice to cover you with blame and to deprive you of sympathy, while as a mother it would authorize your separation from your children.  Let me entreat of you therefore to forego your purpose.”

Marie de Medicis sat silent for a few moments, and then making a violent effort over herself, she said slowly:  “I will in so far follow your counsel, M. le Duc, that I will destroy this letter, although the saints bear witness that it has cost me both time and care to prepare it, but I will yield no further.  I am weary of being made the puppet of an unfaithful husband and his band of unblushing favourites, who receive, each in succession, some high-sounding title by which they are enabled to thrust themselves and their shame upon me in the very halls of the palace.  I must and will tell the King this.”

“Then, Madame, if such be unfortunately your decision,” said her listener, “at least let me urge you to do it in gentler terms.”

“I am in no humour to temporize.”

Sully made no reply.

“Do not wrap yourself up in silence, Monsieur,” exclaimed the Queen after waiting in vain for his reply.  “I believe that you wish to serve me, and you cannot better do so than by putting these unpalatable truths into a less repulsive form.  Here are the means at hand, but, mark me, I will not suffer one particular to be omitted.”