august travellers were attended
consisted of a thousand horsemen, and the royal bodyguard amounted to
three thousand men, who were placed under the command of the Duc de
Guise, who was also to accompany Madame Elisabeth to the frontier of the
kingdom, and to receive the Infanta, whom he was to conduct to the
capital of Guienne, where their Majesties were to await her. The King
left Paris soon after dawn; the Queen followed some hours subsequently,
having previously caused the arrest of M. Le Jay,[202] in order to
intimidate the Parliament; and finally, in the course of the afternoon,
Madame took leave of the municipal authorities, and departed in her
turn. The Marquise d'Ancre having in vain endeavoured to dissuade her
royal foster-sister from this journey, became so thoroughly dispirited
by the disappointment of her husband, and the evident decline of her own
influence, that she resolved to excuse herself from accompanying the
Court, and to remain in the capital; a project from which she was,
however, dissuaded by MM. de Villeroy and Jeannin, who represented to
her the impolicy of incurring the displeasure of her Majesty, and thus
insuring her own ruin. She was consequently induced to join the royal
suite, but she did so with a heavy heart, and without one hope of
resuming her original empire over the mind of Marie.

The Court reached Orleans on the 20th of August, and Tours on the 30th,
whence their Majesties proceeded to Poitiers, at which city they arrived
on the 9th of September; but the anxieties of Marie de Medicis were not
yet to terminate. Madame was attacked a day or two subsequently with
small-pox, while the Queen herself was confined to her bed by a severe
illness, which compelled the constant attendance of Madame d'Ancre in
her sick-room, where, by her affectionate assiduity, she soon succeeded
in recovering the good graces of her royal mistress. She had secured to
her interests a Jewish physician, in whose astrological talent Marie de
Medicis placed the most implicit confidence; and eager to revenge her
husband upon Sillery, who, as she was well aware, had been the cause of
his losing the coveted command, she instructed this man, whom the Queen
had hastened to consult, to persuade the credulous invalid that she had
been bewitched by the Chevalier de Sillery. Strange as it may appear,
Leonora was perfectly successful; and believing herself to have been the
victim of the Chancellor and his party, Marie enter