“Shake off this yoke, Sire,” concluded the Jesuit; “exert your royal prerogative, and dismiss the Cardinal-Duke from office.  Be the sovereign of your own nation, and the master of your own actions.  You will have a more tranquil conscience, and a more prosperous reign.”

“You are perhaps right, Father,” replied the King with emotion; “but you must give me time for reflection.”

Caussin obeyed, auguring well of his mission; but his self-gratulation was premature, for he had scarcely left the closet of his penitent when he was succeeded by the Cardinal, who, perceiving the agitation of the King, experienced little difficulty in extorting from him the subject of the conversation in which he had just been engaged; and a few moments sufficed to restore alike the complacency of Louis and his confidence in his minister.

There is sufficient evidence to prove that the French King never bestowed his regard upon Richelieu; as a boy he had evinced towards him an undisguised aversion which he never overcame, but he had learnt to fear him; the feeble mind of the monarch had bowed before the strong intellect of the minister; the sovereign could not contend against the statesman; the crown of France rested upon the brows of the one, but her destinies were poised in the hand of the other; and the strength of Richelieu grew out of the weakness of his master.

As a natural consequence of his imprudence Caussin was shortly afterwards arrested, and banished to Brittany; and the Cardinal no sooner ascertained the complicity of Monod than, despite the reluctance of the Duchess of Savoy to abandon a man who had hazarded his life in her cause, he was, in his turn, condemned to expiate his error by a rigorous captivity.[219]

The unhoped-for pregnancy of Anne of Austria at this period once more revived the hopes of Marie de Medicis, who trusted that on such an occasion a general amnesty would necessarily supervene.  She deceived herself, however; for although Richelieu professed the greatest desire to see her once more in France, he was in reality as earnest as ever in creating obstacles to a reconciliation so inimical to his own interests.  In vain did the unhappy Queen-mother remind him of her advancing age and her increasing necessities; and plead that, whatever might have been her former errors, they must now be considered as expiated by seven weary years of exile; the minister only replied by expressions of his profound regret that the internal politics of the kingdom did not permit him to urge her recall upon the sovereign; and his extreme desire to see her select a residence elsewhere than within the territory of his enemies, where she was subjected to perpetual suspicion; while, should she determine to fix her abode at Florence, his Majesty was prepared to restore all her forfeited revenues, and to confer upon her an establishment suited to her rank and dignity.