have erred through ignorance; and a perfect reconciliation
took place which overthrew all the half-fledged projects of the
disappointed courtiers.

Two circumstances alone tended to mitigate the satisfaction of the
Marquis d'Ancre. The representations of the ministers had succeeded in
so thoroughly awakening the apprehensions of the Regent, that she had,
at their first interview, strictly forbidden him thenceforward to
attempt the accomplishment of his anticipated alliance with the House of
Bourbon; while he had found himself compelled to apologize to the Comte
de Soissons for the excesses in which he had indulged in Picardy, and
which had drawn down upon the Prince the resentment, not only of the
Queen herself, but of the whole Council, by whom he was accused of
having upheld the pretensions of the Italian in order to aggrandize his
own daughter.

In the month of July Marie de Medicis bestowed great happiness upon the
whole nation by remitting the arrears of taxes which had remained unpaid
from the year 1597, until that of 1603; while she also, at the same
period, decreed the abolition of the gaming academies to which allusion
was made in the preceding volume; and, finally, ascertaining that the
edict against duelling issued by the late King had been evaded by
certain sophistical observances, she published a declaration setting
forth that all hostile meetings, however arranged, would not only
entail the penalties already denounced against them, but henceforward be
regarded as acts of assassination. This wholesome and well-timed
declaration was verified by the Parliament on the 11th of July, and
great hopes were entertained that so stringent a measure would
effectually terminate an abuse which, during the reign of the late King,
had deprived France of several thousand of her best chivalry.[118]

Throughout the autumn, notwithstanding the gravity of the affairs then
pending, the Court at Fontainebleau was one ceaseless scene of
dissipation. High play still formed a prominent feature in the
amusements of the palace, and the extent to which it was carried may be
estimated by the fact that Concini, before his return to the capital,
had lost at cards and dice the enormous sum of twenty-six thousand
pistoles;[119] and while the _branle_ and the gaming-table occupied the
night, the day was devoted to hunting, a diversion in which the Queen
constantly participated, accompanied by the Princesses and ladies of the
Court, and