responsibility, twelve
thousand livres from the receiver-general of the province for the
payment of his garrison.

Such an unprecedented disregard of the royal prerogative had never
before occurred in France; and it no sooner became known to the
ministers than they hastened to represent it in its most heinous aspect
to the Queen, impressing upon her in no measured terms the danger of
such a precedent, which could not fail to bring contempt upon her
authority, and to introduce disorder into the finances of the nation;
and entreating her to remember that should she sanction an alliance
between the imprudent favourite and a Prince of the Blood, she could no
longer hope to restrain his extravagances. Marie de Medicis was jealous
of her dignity, and moreover fully conscious of the fault which had
been committed by Concini, and her anger was consequently unbounded. In
the first burst of her indignation she refused to see Madame d'Ancre,
whom she accused of having incited her husband to these demonstrations
of disrespect towards herself; and her wrath was skilfully increased by
the Princesse de Conti, who looked upon the favour of the low-born
Leonora with impatience and disgust, and could not desire a more ready
means of ensuring her discredit than that of following up the arguments
of the ministers, of dwelling upon the little respect which had been
shown to the person and privileges of her royal mistress, and of
expatiating on the ruinous effect of so pernicious an example upon the
discontented nobility.

The effect of these frequent and confidential conversations may be
imagined; the mind of the Queen became more and more excited against her
former favourites, while she clung with the tenacity of helplessness to
Madame de Conti, through whose medium the Princes began to hope that
they should at length triumph over the detested Italian. But the sun of
Concini was not destined to set so soon; and although he had fierce
enemies, he still possessed zealous friends; the more zealous, perhaps,
because they had accurately read the character of the Tuscan Princess,
and were well aware that she had so long leant upon others that she had
at last become incapable of perfect self-reliance. Through the medium of
those friends, but undoubtedly still more from the daily and hourly
_ennui_ experienced by Marie herself while thus deprived of the society
of her foster-sister, the pardon of Concini was finally obtained. He was
declared to