f resolution which we have recorded, Louis had once more
relapsed into vacillation and inertness. He still wept, but he no longer
threatened; and it became necessary yet further to excite his
indignation and hatred of Concini, in order to induce him to follow up
the design which he had so eagerly formed against his liberty.

Means were not wanting. The young King was reminded by those about him
of the niggardly spirit in which the Italian had supplied his wants
during his boyhood, after having obtained the sanction of the Regent to
regulate the expenses of his little Court. How often he had been
compelled to ask as a favour that which was his own by right, while
Concini was himself daily risking thousands of pistoles at the
gaming-table, all of which had been drawn from the royal treasury! How
insolently the Marechal had, upon an occasion when he was engaged at
billiards with his Majesty, requested the royal permission to resume his
plumed cap, and had replaced it on his head before that permission was
expressed; with a hundred other trifling but mortifying incidents which
made the blood of Louis boil in his veins, and placed him wholly in the
power of his insidious associates.[276]

In order to hasten the resolution of the King De Luynes next resolved to
impress upon his mind that his former warning was about to be realized,
and that ere long he would find himself a prisoner in his own capital;
while, with a view to render this declaration plausible, he took means
to have it reported to Marie de Medicis that Louis was about to escape
from Paris, to cast off her authority, and to form a coalition with the
insurgent Princes. In consequence of this information the counsellors of
the Queen-mother induced her to double the guard at the Louvre, and to
prevent the King from passing the city gates, either for the purpose of
hunting, or of visiting, as he was frequently in the habit of doing, the
suburban palaces. This was a crowning triumph for the cunning favourite,
who thus saw his royal master reduced to seek all his recreation in the
gardens of the Tuileries; and he soon became convinced that his project
had succeeded. For a few days Louis was too indignant to make any
comment upon the treatment to which he was subjected, and he even
affected to derive amusement from constructing miniature fortresses,
bird-hunting, and other similar pursuits; but it was not long ere he
became disgusted with these compulsory pastimes, and w