perament of Marie could not fail to betray her into the
power of De Luynes, and with her would fall his own fortunes; whereas
time must necessarily calm her first exultation and render her more
tenacious of her power. Thus, then, Richelieu jealously watched every
change in her mood, excited her distrust, aggravated her animosities,
and, finally, convinced her that her strength existed only in opposition
to the King's will. Marie, naturally suspicious, lent herself readily to
this specious reasoning; she had sufficient knowledge of the character
of her son to feel that his eager desire to obliterate the past was
produced by no feeling of affection towards herself, but might simply be
attributed to his anxiety to weaken a faction which had become
formidable, and by depriving her adherents of a pretext for opposing his
authority, to rid himself of a danger which augmented from day to day.
Too readily the prey of her passions, Marie de Medicis exulted in this
conviction; and had Louis and his ministers been wise enough to accept
her reluctance as a refusal to return to Court, and abandoned all
attempts to change her determination, it is probable that this simulated
indifference, and the powerlessness to which it must ere long have
reduced both herself and her followers, would have caused her immediate
compliance; but, bent upon compelling her obedience, they, by successive
endeavours to overcome her disinclination to resign the comparative
independence to which she had attained, only played into the hands of
the astute Bishop, by strengthening her resolution to resist.

Shortly after the departure of the Princes of Savoy, the Capuchin Father
Joseph du Tremblay,[36] the confidential friend of Richelieu, was
ordered to proceed in his turn to Angouleme, and to endeavour to induce
Marie de Medicis, with whom the courtly monk was known to be a
favourite, to resume the position to which she was entitled as the widow
of one sovereign and the mother of another; and as a preliminary step,
to meet the King according to his expressed wish, before his return to
the capital. This was, however, only another false step on the part of
De Luynes, as the reverend father felt by no means disposed to thwart
the measures of the man to whom he looked for his own future
advancement; and his mission, in consequence, so signally failed that
the suspicions of the Court party were once more aroused against
Richelieu, although they were unable wholly t