“My noble Maestro!” exclaimed Marie de Medicis; “I would with confidence trust my life in your hands.  My sorrows have at least not alienated your generous heart:  and there still remains one being upon earth who can be faithful when my gratitude is all that I can offer in return.  Listen to me, Rubens.  Even yet I am convinced that Louis loves me; a conviction which is shared by Richelieu; and therefore it is that he condemns me to exile.  He fears my influence over the mind of the King my son, and has injured me too deeply to place any faith in my forgiveness.  Our mutual struggle has extended over long years, and I have become its victim.  Yet would I fain make another effort.  I am old and heart-broken, and I pine to terminate my wretched existence on the soil of France.  Surely this is not too much to ask, and more I will not seek to obtain.  You were born under a fortunate constellation, Pietro Paolo; and I have confidence in your success.  Go then, and may God guide and prosper you:  but—­beware of the Cardinal!”

“Fear not, Madame,” said the painter, as he rose from his knee, and placed writing materials before the agitated Queen.  “In so righteous a cause I shall be protected; but as further delay might prove fatal to our hopes, I would venture to implore your Majesty to lose no time in preparing the despatch of which I am to be the bearer.”

“It shall be done,” replied Marie, forcing a painful smile.  “It will in all probability be my last appeal; for should you fail, Rubens, I shall feel that all is indeed lost!”

The artist bowed profoundly, and left the room in order to give the necessary orders for his immediate departure; while his royal guest seized a pen, and with a trembling hand, and in almost illegible characters, wrote the following affecting letter:—­

“Sire—­During many years I have been deprived of your dear presence, and have implored your clemency without any reply.  God and the Holy Virgin are my witnesses that my greatest suffering throughout that period has proceeded less from exile, poverty, and humiliation, than from the estrangement of a son, and the loss of his dear presence.  Meanwhile I am becoming aged, and feel that each succeeding hour is bringing me more rapidly to the grave.  Thus, Sire, would it not be a cruel and an unnatural thing that a mother should expire without having once more seen her beloved son, without having heard one word of consolation from his lips, without having obtained his pardon for the involuntary wrongs of which she may have been guilty towards him?  I do not ask of you, Sire, to return to France as a powerful Queen; should such be your good pleasure, I will not even appear again at Court, and will finish my life in any obscure town which you may see fit to select as my residence; but, in the name of God and all the Saints, I adjure you not to allow me to die out of the kingdom of France; or to suffer me any longer to drag my sorrows and my misery from one foreign