“You are a philosopher,” said the Italian sarcastically.

“I had need be one,” was the calm retort; “when I consider how I have been used.”

Concini reported the ill-success of his mission, but Marie, unfortunately blinded by those about her to her real interests, was indifferent to the just resentment of an able and faithful servant. “Non lo faro mai,” was her only remark; and one of the most efficient and zealous of her ministers was carelessly cast off.[110]

Meanwhile the jealous dissensions of the nobles continued to increase, and constant quarrels took place between the Cardinal de Joyeuse, the Comte de Soissons, and the Duc d’Epernon.  The latter was, at this period, detested by all other aspirants to royal favour; his rapid success at Court had made him insolent; and he advanced such preposterous claims, and arrogated to himself such an indefeasible right to the gratitude and indulgence of the Regent, that the Princes of the Blood took the alarm, and the Prince de Conde and the Comte de Soissons resolved to effect his disgrace.  Concini, as we have already shown, had long nourished the most bitter resentment against one whom he considered as a formidable rival in the good graces of the Queen, and he was consequently induced without difficulty to join in the conspiracy; his vanity suffering bitterly from the contempt with which he was ostentatiously treated by the Duke, who was, as the Italian asserted, a mere gentleman of fortune like himself, until raised to his present rank by the favour of Henri III, a favour as ill-gained as it was unbecomingly exhibited.  M. d’Epernon, with an absence of tact as astonishing as it was lamentable in a man whose ambition was unbounded, and who had no party to support his pretensions against the Princes of the Blood, lent himself meanwhile by his puerile and headstrong folly to their enmity, by affecting to brave it; and after a sharp altercation with M. de Soissons, who did not conceal his intention of insulting him whenever and wherever they might meet, the infatuated Duke, on the pretext that he considered his personal safety endangered by the menaces of the Prince, paraded the streets of Paris with a retinue of seven or eight hundred mounted followers; and occasionally proceeded on foot to the Louvre, with his guards ranged in order of battle, and in such force that the van had frequently reached the gates of the palace before the rear had quitted those of the Hotel d’Epernon, a distance of two thousand paces.[111]

This external affectation of almost regal state did not, however, prevent him from experiencing the most bitter mortification at his exclusion from all public affairs.  He still considered that as he had been the first to swear fealty, and to place his services at the command of the Regent, he had a right to retain the supremacy which he had then assumed; and this arrogant pretension enabled him for a time to support the daily affronts to which he was subjected; but it soon became apparent that his position must ere long prove untenable.