ee," she said with a malicious smile, as she pointed towards the lady
with her fan, "there is Madame de Bassompierre."

"That is merely a _nom de guerre_, Madame," was the ready reply, uttered
in a tone sufficiently loud to reach the ears of the person named, who
angrily exclaimed:

"You are a fool, Bassompierre!"

"If I be not," was the quiet rejoinder of the ungallant Lothario, "it
has at least, Madame, not been your fault." [177]

Thus, after his union with the Princesse de Conti, Bassompierre,
although claimed as a husband by two celebrated women, the one of a
family notorious for the profligacy of its members, and the other a
daughter of the proud house of Guise and, moreover, the widow of a
Prince of the Blood, still continued to assume the privileges of a
bachelor; resolutely disowning the one, while the other did not dare
publicly to declare her marriage.[178]

A fortnight after the return of the Court to Paris it was followed by
the Prince de Conde, who had been summoned to attend the sovereign to
Parliament on the termination of his minority, which ended when he
entered his thirteenth year. On the 1st of October, the day preceding
that on which the ceremony of his recognition as actual monarch of
France was to take place, Louis XIII issued a declaration confirmatory
of the edict of pacification previously published, and renewing his
prohibition against duelling and blasphemy. On the following morning the
King ascended his Bed of Justice; and both the procession and the
meeting were conducted with the greatest pomp. He was attended by the
Queen-mother, Monsieur, and the Princes de Conde and de Soissons, the
Ducs de Guise, d'Elboeuf, d'Epernon, de Ventadour, and de Montbazon, and
upwards of eight hundred mounted nobles, all attired in the most
sumptuous manner. On his arrival at the palace the King was received by
two presidents and four councillors, by whom he was conducted to the
great hall; and after all the persons present had taken their places,
his Majesty briefly declared the purpose for which he had convened the
meeting. Marie de Medicis then in her turn addressed the Assembly,
declaring that she had resigned the administration of public affairs
into the hands of the sovereign, who had some days previously attained
his majority; and when she had ceased speaking Louis expressed his
acknowledgments for the valuable services which she had rendered to the
kingdom, his resolution still to be guided by he