Only a short time subsequent to the establishment of the Court at the Louvre, what neither the desire and authority of the King himself nor the arts of his mistress had been able to accomplish, was achieved through the agency of the Queen’s favourite attendant, Leonora Galigai,[138] who had accompanied her royal mistress and foster-sister from Italy at the period of her marriage.  On the formation of the Queen’s household, Henry had, among other appointments, honoured Madame de Richelieu[139] with the post of Mistress of the Robes; but Marie de Medicis having decided on bestowing this charge upon Leonora, refused to permit the Countess to perform the duties of her office, and requested the King to transfer it to her Italian protegee.  This, however, was a concession to which Henry would not consent; and while the Queen persisted in not permitting the services of Madame de Richelieu, her royal bridegroom as pertinaciously negatived the appointment of parvenue lady of honour.  The high-born countess bore the affront thus offered to her with the complacent dignity befitting her proud station; but such was far from being the case with the ambitious and mortified Leonora, who had not been a week at the French Court ere she became aware that all the Italian followers of the Queen were peculiarly obnoxious both to the King and his minister; and who felt that should she fail to push her fortunes upon the instant, she might one day be compelled to leave France as poor and as powerless as she had entered it.  Not contented, therefore, with urging her royal mistress to persevere in her resolution of rejecting the attendance of Madame de Richelieu, she began to speculate upon the most feasible measures to be adopted in order to secure her own succession to the coveted dignity; and after considerable reflection, she became convinced that this could only be accomplished through the assistance of the Marquise de Verneuil.  Once assured of the fact, Leonora did not hesitate; but, instead of avoiding, as she had hitherto done, the advances of the favourite—­who, aware of her unlimited power over the mind of the Queen, had on several occasions treated her with a courtesy by no means warranted by her position at the Court—­she began to court the favour of the Marquise in as marked a manner as she had previously slighted it; and ere long the intrigue of the two favourites was brought to a successful issue.  Each stood in need of the other, and a compact was accordingly entered into between them.  Madame de Verneuil, whose pride was piqued by her exclusion from the royal circle, was desirous to gain at any price the countenance of Marie, and to be admitted to her private assemblies, where alone she could carry out her more extended plan of ambition; while the wily Italian, rendered only the more pertinacious by difficulty, and anxious moreover to secure a post which would at all times enable her to remain about the person of the Queen, thought no price too great, even the dishonour of her royal foster-sister,