o sleep to-night at Magny." "Where do you mean to
quarter him here?" asked the duke. "In the house where you are, my
lord." "It is right that I yield him place," said the duke, and the
very same evening took the road back to the district of Caux. It was
under this aspect of public feeling that an embassy from the king and a
pacific mission from Rome came, without any success, to Rangers, and
that on the 4th of July, 1619, a fresh civil war between the king and
the partisans of the queen-mother was declared.

It was short and not very bloody, though pretty vigorously contested.
The two armies met at Ponts de Ce; they had not, either of them, any
orders or any desire to fight; and pacific negotiations were opened at La
Fleche. The queen-mother declared that she had made up her mind to live
henceforth at her son's court, and that all she desired was to leave
honorably the party with which she was engaged. That was precisely the
difficulty. The king also declared himself resolved to receive his
mother affectionately; but he required her to abandon the lords of her
party, and that was what she could not make up her mind to do. In the
unpremeditated conflict that took place at Ponts de Ce, the troops of the
queen-mother were beaten. "They had two hundred men killed or drowned,"
says Bassompierre, "and about as many taken prisoners." This reverse
silenced the queen's scruples; there was clearly no imperative cause for
war between her and the king, and the queen's partisans could not be
blind to the fact that, if the struggle were prolonged, they would be
beaten.

The kingship had the upper hand in the country, and a consent was given
to the desired arrangements. "Assure the king that I will go and see him
to-morrow at Brissac," said the queen-mother. "I am perfectly satisfied
with him, and all I think of is to please him, and pray God for him
personally, and for the prosperity of his kingdom." A treaty was
concluded at Angers on the 10th of August, 1620; the queen-mother
returned to Paris; and the civil war at court was evidently, not put an
end to never to recur, but stricken with feebleness and postponed.

Two men of mark, Albert de Luynes and Richelieu, came out of this crisis
well content. The favorite felicitated himself on the king's victory
over the queen-mother, for he might consider the triumph as his own; he
had advised and supported the king's steady resistance to his mother's
enterprises. Besides,