De Preau, however, zealous as he was, made no impression upon the firmness of the Archduke.  The Spanish Cabinet had rendered itself responsible for his opposition, and he defied the menaces of France, a circumstance which decided Henry upon immediate war.  The resolution which he had taken of heading the army in person determined him, before his departure from France, solemnly to invest the Queen with the title of Regent during his absence; but the precautions which he took to name an efficient Council by whom she was to be assisted in the government of the kingdom excited the indignation and resentment of her personal favourites, especially of Concini, who thus saw himself rendered powerless when he had hoped to assert his influence and to improve his fortunes; and under the pressure of this disappointment he hastened to represent to his royal mistress the utter emptiness of the dignity with which Henry proposed to invest her.

“You are an uncrowned Queen,” he said, “and you are about to become a powerless Regent.  Thus, Madame, you will be known by two high-sounding titles, neither of which will in reality appertain to you.  Cause yourself to be crowned, and then you will indeed possess the authority which is your due and the honour of which you have heretofore been unjustly deprived.  Cease to be a puppet in the hands of a faithless husband, and at least compel this coming war, undertaken for the recovery of a new mistress, to be the means of establishing your own rightful position.”

This advice was eagerly accepted by Marie, whose ambition had at length been aroused by a consideration of the failing health and advanced age of the King and the prospect afforded by the extreme youth of the Dauphin of a protracted minority, and she consequently hastened to express to Henry her earnest desire to feel herself in reality Queen of France before his departure from the kingdom, in order that she might not have to apprehend any neglect of her legitimate authority upon the part of the ministers whom he had selected to share with her the burthen of state affairs.  The monarch, who had hitherto refused to listen to every suggestion which had been made to him of the propriety of showing this mark of consideration to his royal consort, was even less inclined to make the concession at this particular moment, when the expenses of his meditated campaign had been estimated at twelve hundred and fifty livres a month for the support of his own troops and an equal sum for those of his allies;[418] and he replied with considerable warmth that she had chosen her time for such a request most injudiciously, since she must be aware that he had neither the time nor the funds necessary to the indulgence of so puerile a vanity.  The Queen, however, urged by her advisers, resolutely returned to the charge, declaring that she could assume no prominent position in the temporary government of the kingdom while her own remained so vague and undefined.  She reminded him, moreover, of the uncomplaining patience with which she had awaited his pleasure upon this particular; a patience which, as she asserted, she could still have exercised had he not been about to cross the frontier, but which, under existing circumstances, she now considered as weak and pusillanimous in the mother of three princes.[419]