On every side she was surrounded by difficulties.  The first Prince of the Blood, and nearly the whole of the high nobility, were not only disaffected, but actually in arms against the Crown.  The Protestants, to whom she had repeatedly promised that she would observe the Edict of Nantes, incensed by her breach of faith, had revolted against her authority; her troops had failed to offer any effective resistance; and meanwhile foreign soldiers had traversed Champagne, and advanced into Berry to join Conde, without any impediment from the royal army.  The intelligence that she received from Paris was equally alarming; scarcely a day passed in which pamphlets and pasquinades of the grossest description were not published and circulated among the population, assigning the most foul and degrading motives for her journey to Guienne under the protection of the Ducs d’Epernon and de Guise; while her anxiety for the Spanish alliance was represented as arising from her desire to conciliate those who were accused of being the assassins of her husband.

Angered as she was by these insults, Marie de Medicis still pined to return to the capital.  She was wearied alike by the exacting and arrogant temper of M. d’Epernon, and by the monotony of the provincial cities, where she saw herself surrounded only by aldermen and citizens with whom she had no feeling or habit in common; and as the several individuals of her circle were equally ill at ease in so novel a position, far from allaying her impatience, they aggravated the ennui which she did not attempt to disguise, until she eventually brought herself to attach all the blame of her own disappointment and mortification upon those who had advised her to leave the capital; and to evince the greatest eagerness to follow the counsels of their adversaries.[211]

The Court left Bordeaux at the close of the year 1615; and in the month of January following proceeded to take up its abode at Tours, there to await the close of a negotiation into which the Queen-mother had entered with the Princes; while at the same time her agents secretly exerted all their efforts to induce the allies of M. de Conde to abandon his cause.  The command of the troops was taken from the Marechal de Bois-Dauphin and conferred upon the Duc de Guise, with the title of lieutenant-general of the King’s army; and an immediate attempt was made to gain over the Duc de Mayenne and the Marechal de Bouillon, as being the most influential of the revolted nobles.  James I offered to Marie de Medicis his services as a mediator on the occasion; they were gratefully accepted, and the English Ambassador was forthwith despatched to the Prince de Conde at St. Jean-d’Angely, with instructions to avert, by every argument in his power, the horrors of a civil war.  Convinced that no better opportunity could possibly occur for securing to himself and his party the advantageous conditions which he coveted, Conde received the royal envoy with great courtesy, declaring that he had acted throughout the whole affair solely in the interests of his country, and that he was ready to write respectfully to his Britannic Majesty, to offer to him the same assurance.