When desired to declare his opinion on this difficult question, Richelieu at first affected great unwillingness to interfere, alleging that he was personally interested in the result; but the King having commanded him to speak, he threw off all restraint, and represented the Queen-mother as the focus of all the intrigues both foreign and domestic by which the nation was convulsed; together with the utter impossibility of ensuring the safety of the King so long as she remained at liberty to pursue the policy which she had seen fit to adopt, alike against the sovereign and the state.  In conclusion, he emphatically reminded his hearers that weak remedies only tended to aggravate great evils, which latter on the contrary were overcome by those proportioned to their magnitude; and that consequently, at such a crisis as that under consideration, there was but one alternative:  either to effect a peace with foreign powers on sure and honourable terms, or to conciliate the Queen-mother and the Duc d’Orleans; either to dismiss himself from office, or to remove from about the person of the Queen the individuals by whom she was instigated to opposition against the will of the King and the welfare of the state; and to beg of her to absent herself for some time from the Court, lest, without desiring to do so, she should by her presence induce a continuance of the disorder which it was the object of all loyal subjects to suppress.  He then craftily insisted upon the peculiar character of Marie herself, whom he painted in the most odious colours.  He declared her to be false and revengeful; qualities which he attributed to her Italian origin, and to her descent from the Medici, who never forgave an injury; and, finally, he stated that all which they had to decide was whether it would be most advantageous for the King to dismiss from office a minister who had unfortunately become obnoxious to the whole of the royal family, in order to secure peace in his domestic circle, or to exile the Queen-mother and those who encouraged her in her animosity against him.  As regarded himself, he said proudly, that could his absence from the Court tend to heal the existing dissensions, he was ready to depart upon the instant, and should do so without hesitation or remonstrance; but that it remained to be seen if his retirement would suffice to satisfy the malcontents; or whether they would not, by involving others in his overthrow, endeavour to possess themselves of the supreme authority.

This insinuation, insolent as it was (for it intimated no less than the utter incapacity of Louis to uphold his own prerogative, and the probability that Richelieu once removed, Marie de Medicis would resume all her former power), produced a visible effect upon the King.

“My conviction is therefore,” concluded the Cardinal, “that his Majesty should annihilate the faction sanctioned by the Queen-mother, by requesting her to retire to a distance from the capital, and by removing from about her person the evil counsellors who have instigated her to rebellion; but that this should be done with great consideration, and with all possible respect.  And as by these means the cabal would be dispersed, and my colleagues in the ministry be thus enabled once more to serve the sovereign and the state in perfect security, I humbly solicit of his Majesty the royal permission to tender my resignation.”