This treaty was no sooner completed than Marie de Medicis wrote to her son to express the joy which she experienced at their reconciliation; and she entrusted her letter to the Comte de Brienne, with instructions to deliver it into the hands of the King, who had removed with his Court to Tours, ostensibly for the purpose of a more speedy meeting with the Queen-mother.  The result proved, however, that Marie could not have selected a worse messenger, as De Brienne, who was young and arrogant, soon gave offence both to Louis and his favourite.  Having declared that he would not, under any circumstances, show the most simple courtesy to De Luynes, he did not remove his hat when he met him in the royal ante-room; a want of respect which excited the displeasure of the monarch, who was easily led to believe that he had been instructed by his mistress to affect this contempt towards an individual with whom he himself condescended to live on the most familiar terms; and, consequently, when De Brienne next presented himself to receive the reply of his Majesty to his despatches, he was desired not to thrust himself into the presence of the King, who would select an envoy less wanting in reverence to his sovereign when he should deem it advisable to forward his own missive to Angouleme.  The ill-advised equerry of Marie was therefore compelled to retire without his credentials, and the Queen-mother was subjected to the mortification of offering an ample apology to Louis, through the medium of the messenger whom he in his turn despatched to her, for the arrogance and discourtesy of her follower.[33]

Meanwhile Marie de Medicis once more saw herself at the head of a Court nearly equal in numbers and magnificence to that of the King himself, and daily presided over festivities which satisfied even her thirst for splendour and display.  It sufficed that any noble felt himself aggrieved by the presumption, or disappointed by the want of generosity of the favourite, to induce him to offer his services to the Queen—­mother, who welcomed every accession of strength with a suavity and condescension rendered doubly acceptable from the contrast which it exhibited with the morose indifference of the King, and the insolent haughtiness of De Luynes.  Thus constant arrivals afforded a pretext for perpetual gaieties; and the Due d’Epernon received the new allies of his royal mistress with a profusion and recklessness of expenditure which excited universal astonishment.

De Luynes had considered it expedient to offer his congratulations to the Queen-mother and M. d’Epernon upon the reconciliation which had taken place, and in order to evince his respect for Marie had caused M. de Brantes his brother to accompany the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld to Angouleme for this purpose, where both were received with a splendour, and feasted with a pomp and elegance, to which they had been long unaccustomed at the Court of Paris.