The Italian was pale with indignation, but he dared not resent the insult, as a crowd was rapidly collecting from whom he was aware that he could expect no mercy; and he accordingly restrained himself sufficiently to despatch a messenger for an order of egress, which promptly arrived.  His southern blood, however, beat and burnt in his veins, and he awaited only an opportunity of revenge.  A few days subsequently, unable any longer to control his rage, he desired his equerry to proceed to the residence of Picard with two valets, and to repay his insolence by a sound cudgelling; an order which was so implicitly obeyed that the unfortunate shoemaker narrowly escaped with his life; while a mob, attracted by the uproar, seized the two serving-men—­who, confiding in the power of their master, treated their menaces with contempt—­and hanged them before the door of the house in which they had committed the outrage.  The equerry, who had also fallen into the hands of the populace, was put upon his trial, and it was only by means of a heavy bribe that the discomfited Marechal, alarmed by what had taken place, was enabled to induce Picard to withdraw his accusation against him.[224]

At the close of the Conference of Loudun the Court returned to Paris, where the reception of their Majesties was enthusiastic, while that of Marie de Medicis was cold and constrained, although it was well known that M. de Conde had all but obtained the presidency of the Council, and that the Queen-mother had made other concessions which she had previously repelled with considerable haughtiness at Tours; such as granting to the Duc de Longueville the exclusive authority in Picardy, which deprived the Marechal d’Ancre of his cherished fortresses; while on the other hand, despite the advantages which they had reaped from the weakness of the Government, the discontented nobles had separated in no better spirit.  The Ducs de Rohan and de Sully loudly complained that they had been deceived by the Prince; M. de Longueville, who had vainly sought to obtain the government of Normandy, and who was afraid to return to Picardy until convinced that he had nothing to fear from the resentment of the Marechal d’Ancre, considered himself aggrieved; and such, in short, was the general jealousy and distrust exhibited by the lately coalesced nobles that, with the exception of the Duc de Mayenne and the Marechal de Bouillon, who found themselves involved in one common interest—­that of destroying the influence of the Ducs d’Epernon and de Bellegarde—­the whole of the late cabal appeared by mutual consent to have become inimical to each other.[225]