As she drew near the city Marie was met by the Cardinal de Retz[38] and the Pere Arnoux, accompanied by a numerous train of gentlemen, by whom she was conducted to the Chateau de Montbazon, where she was to pass the night; and on the following morning the newly-made Duc de Luynes arrived to pay his respects to the mother of his sovereign.  The Queen devoured her mortification, and received her unwelcome guest with great affability; but he had not been long in her presence ere he renewed all her suspicions of his duplicity.

The Prince de Conde, who feared that a reconciliation between Louis and the Queen-mother would militate against his release, had exerted himself to the utmost to procure his liberty before they should have time to meet; and aware that it was only through the influence of De Luynes that he could accomplish his object, he did not hesitate to bribe the favourite by an offer of the hand of his sister Eleonore de Bourbon, the widow of Philip, Prince of Orange, for his brother Cadenet.  De Luynes was dazzled:  an alliance with the first Prince of the Blood exceeded all his hopes; while the liberation of M. de Conde, was, moreover, essential to his own interests; as should he secure the friendship of so powerful a noble, he would be better able to oppose not only the Duc d’Epernon, but also all the leaders of the Queen-mother’s faction.  It was, however, no part of his policy to betray his consciousness of this necessity to the illustrious captive; whose imprisonment he nevertheless rendered less irksome by according to him sundry relaxations from which he had hitherto been debarred.  A serious indisposition by which M. de Conde was at this period attacked, moreover, greatly assisted his projects; and the medical attendants of the Prince having declared that they entertained but slight hopes of his recovery, De Luynes hastened to entreat of the King that he would hold out to the invalid a prospect of deliverance, which could not fail to produce a beneficial effect upon his health.  Nor did he experience any difficulty in inducing Louis to comply with his request, as personally the King bore no animosity to the Prince, whose arrest had not been caused by himself.  The royal physicians were forthwith despatched to Vincennes, with orders to exert all their skill in alleviating his sufferings; and a few days subsequently the Marquis de Cadenet followed with the sword of the Prince, which he was commissioned to restore to its owner, accompanied by the assurance that so soon as his Majesty should have restored order in the kingdom, he would hasten to set him at liberty; but that, meanwhile, he begged him to take courage, and to be careful of his health.[39]

Cadenet was welcomed as his brother had anticipated; and was profuse in his expressions of his own respect and regard for the illustrious prisoner, and in his protestations of the untiring perseverance with which the favourite was labouring to effect his release; while Conde was equally energetic in his acknowledgments, declaring that should he owe his liberty to De Luynes, he would prove not only to the latter, but to every member of his family, his deep sense of so important a service.