of the whole extent of the ill-will which she bears towards me, those circumstances do not prevent my feeling the most profound attachment to her person, and the deepest grief at her indisposition.  Do not fail to assure her that I told you this with tears in my eyes.  God grant that I may never impute to so good a Princess all the injury which I have suffered from her friends, nor the calumnies which those about her incessantly propagate against me; although it is certain that so long as she listens to these envenomed tongues I cannot hope that she will be undeceived, nor that she will recognize the uprightness of my intentions.” [197]

It appears marvellous that a man gifted with surpassing genius, and holding in his hand the destinies of Europe, should condescend to such pitiful and puerile hypocrisy; but throughout the whole of the Memoirs attributed to Richelieu himself, the reader is startled by the mass of petty manoeuvres upon which he dilates; as though the dispersion of an insignificant cabal, or the destruction of some obscure individual who had become obnoxious to him, were the most important occupations of his existence.

Not content with insulting his royal victim by words which belied the whole tenor of his conduct, the Cardinal, before he dismissed the envoy, seized the opportunity of adding one more affront to those of which he had already been so lavish, by instructing the royal messenger not to hold the slightest intercourse with any member of her household, and even to turn his back upon them whenever they should address him; a command which he so punctiliously obeyed that when, in the very chamber of Marie de Medicis, one of her gentlemen offered him the usual courtesies of welcome, he retorted by the most contemptuous silence, to the extreme indignation of the Queen, who, in reply to the message of Richelieu, haughtily exclaimed, “Tell the Cardinal that I prefer his persecution to his civility.”

Silenced by this unanswerable assurance, the envoy next proceeded to deliver the despatch with which he had been entrusted by the King.  “I am consoled for my sufferings,” said the unhappy mother, as she extended her trembling and withered hand to receive it, “since I am indebted to them for this remembrance on the part of his Majesty.  I will on this occasion be careful to return my acknowledgments by a person who will not be displeasing to him.”

Such, however, was far from her intention; as, convinced that the insult offered to her attendants had been suggested by the Cardinal, she selected for her messenger the same individual who had formerly delivered to the Parliament of Paris her petition against Richelieu, in order to convince him that should she effect her reconciliation with the monarch on this occasion, she had no inclination to include his minister in the amnesty.  Even past experience, bitter as it was, had not yet taught her that the contest was hopeless.

Her reply to the letter of her son ran thus: