ly
everywhere. Richelieu was prepared to advise a reconciliation between
king and queen-mother, and the king was as much disposed to exert himself
to that end as the queen-mother's friends. At Limoges the Bishop of
Lucon was obliged to carefully avoid Count Schomberg, commandant of the
royal troops, who was not at all in the secret of the negotiation. When
he arrived at Angers a fresh difficulty supervened. The most daring, of
the queen-mother's domestic advisers, Ruccellai, had conceived a hatred
of the bishop, and tried to exclude him from the privy council.
Richelieu let be, "Certain," as he said, "that they would soon fall back
upon him." He was one of the patient as well as ambitious, who can
calculate upon success, even afar off, and wait for it. The Duke of
Epernon supported him; Ruccellai, defeated, left the queen-mother, taking
with him some of her most warmly attached servants. When the
subordinates were gone, recourse was had, accordingly, to Richelieu. On
the 10th of August, 1619, he concluded at Angouleme between the king and
his mother a treaty, whereby the king promised to consign to oblivion all
that had passed since Blois; the queen-mother consented to exchange her
government of Touraine against that of Anjou; and the Duke of Epernon
received from the town of Boulogne fifty thousand crowns in recompense
for what he had done, and he wrote to the king to protest his fidelity.
The queen-mother still hesitated to see her son; but, at his entreaty,
she at last sent off the Bishop of Lucon from Angouleme to make
preparations for the interview, and, five days afterwards, she set out
herself, accompanied by the Duke of Epernon, who halted at the limits of
his own government, not caring to come to any closer quarters with so
recently reconciled a court. The king received his mother, according to
some, in the little town of Cousieres, and, according to others, at Tours
or Amboise. They embraced, with tears. "God bless me, my boy, how you
are grown!" said the queen. "In order to be of more service to you,
mother," answered the king. The cheers of the people hailed their
reconciliation; not without certain signs of disquietude on the part of
the favorite, Albert de Luynes, who was an eye-witness. After the
interview, the king set out for Paris again; and Mary de' Medici returned
to her government of Anjou to take possession of it, promising, she said,
to rejoin her son subsequently at Paris. Du Plessis