Within an hour not only was the Queen-mother a prisoner in her own apartments, but the seals were restored to M. du Vair, and Barbin was in the Bastille in the most rigorous confinement.[284] These precautionary measures taken, Louis proceeded to the grand gallery leaning upon the arm of De Luynes; and on perceiving M. de Brienne, who with many other nobles had hastened to present his respects and congratulations (!) to the young monarch, he was so little able to control his delight that, without awaiting the salutation of the Count, he exclaimed triumphantly, “I am now a King, and no one can take precedence of me.” [285]

Shortly afterwards the King encountered the Bishop of Lucon-Richelieu, whose confident deportment betokened his conviction of a gracious reception, as he prepared to pay his court in his turn; but the compliments of the prelate were abruptly broken in upon by an imperative command to quit the palace, and the announcement of his discontinuance in office.  No wonder that Richelieu murmured under his breath at this unlooked-for severity; for he had in truth that very morning striven to merit the royal smile—­striven against conscience, however, and all the holiest and most sacred feelings of humanity.  One of the friends of Concini, alarmed by the ominous proceedings at the Louvre, and instinctively persuaded that the life of the Italian was threatened, had hurriedly despatched a letter to Richelieu, in which he stated his reasons for the apprehensions he expressed; and urged the prelate, in memory of the many services for which he was indebted to the intended victim, to interpose his influence in his behalf, and to endeavour to avert the blow.  The Bishop, who had not yet left his bed, glanced over the missive, thrust it beneath his pillow, desired the messenger to withdraw, and remained quietly in his chamber until he was apprised by the tumult without that all was over.  Then, and not till then, he hastened to the Louvre; where we have already stated the nature of his reception.

As the throng of nobles increased, and crowded about the King so as considerably to inconvenience him, he was lifted upon a billiard-table, from which extraordinary eminence he received their compliments and congratulations upon the murder to which he had been accessory only an hour before; and which the First President of the Parliament of Paris (whose extreme haste to pay his court to his new master was such that, being unable immediately to procure a carriage, he proceeded to the Louvre on foot) designated his happy deliverance.[286] Nothing, in short, but plumed hats sweeping the marble floor, flexile forms bending to the earth, and lips wreathed in smiles, was to be seen in the kingly hall in which Henri IV had loved to discuss grave topics with his sturdy minister, the Duc de Sully, and which Marie de Medicis, in her day of pride and power, had enriched with the glorious productions of her immortal protege, Rubens the painter-prince, as she was wont to call him.  None cared to remember at that moment that Henry the Great was in his grave, and that his royal widow had been sacrificed to the insatiable ambition and the quenchless hate of a low-born minion.