t she had encouraged the Prince to
leave the capital; bitterly remarking that she was not so rich in
friends as to desire the absence of any who still remembered that she
was the mother and mother-in-law of the two greatest monarchs in Europe;
that she had given one Queen to England, another to Spain, and a female
sovereign to Savoy; and that she was moreover the widow of Henry
the Great.

Little credence was, however, vouchsafed to these disclaimers; the
Cardinal coldly remarking that Gaston never acted save in conformity
with her will; and Louis loudly declaring that his brother had been
urged to his disobedience entirely by herself, in order to gratify her
hatred of his minister.[145]

The struggle continued. Encouraged by her adherents, and calculating on
the feeble health of the King, who had never rallied from the severe
attack by which he had been prostrated at Lyons, Marie de Medicis still
flattered herself that she should ultimately triumph; an opinion in
which she was confirmed by the astrologers, in whom, as we have already
shown, she placed the most unbounded faith. One of these charlatans had
assured her that at the close of the year 1631 she would be more
powerful and fortunate than she had ever before been; and she had such
perfect confidence in the prophecy that when it was uttered, although at
that period surrounded by difficulty and danger, she had replied with a
calm and satisfied smile: "That is sufficient. I have therefore now only
to be careful of my health."

The retirement of Monsieur to Orleans tended to strengthen these idle
and baseless hopes; and the flatterers of the Queen-mother consequently
found little difficulty in persuading her that ere long half the nation
would rise to avenge her wrongs; that all the great nobles would rally
round the Duc d'Orleans; and that the principal cities, weary of the
despotism of Richelieu, would declare in favour of the heir-presumptive,
in the event of the King still seeking to support his obnoxious
minister.

Misled by these assurances, and consulting only her own passions, Marie
de Medicis no longer hesitated. She refused to acknowledge the authority
of the Cardinal, not only as regarded her own personal affairs, but also
in matters of state; and absented herself from the Council, loudly
declaring that her only aim in life hereafter would be to accomplish his
ruin. The infatuated Princess had ceased to remember that she was
braving no common adversa