“I do not deny it, sir,” said Henriette with dignity; “but since my royal brother will not consent to listen to any solicitations in favour of the Queen my mother, my husband and myself have conceived that the only alternative which remains to her is to compel an explanation with his ministers, with the participation of the several European Courts in which she may see fit to reside.”

Again M. de Bellievre declared his utter inability to meet the wishes of the persecuted Marie; upon which Charles, coldly bending his head to the French envoy, offered a hand to each of the agitated Queens, and led them from the gallery.

Despite all his professions of neutrality, however, Bellievre, as Marie de Medicis had predicted, lost no time in communicating all the details of the interview to Richelieu,[222] who forthwith dictated a private despatch, to which he obtained the signature of Louis, to repulse the demand of the Queen-mother.  The Cardinal had passed the Rubicon.  He could no longer hope that his persecuted benefactress would ever again place confidence in his protestations, or quietly permit him to exert the authority which he had so arrogantly assumed; and thus he readily persuaded the weak monarch—­who had, moreover, long ceased to reason upon the will of his all-powerful minister—­that the return of the ill-fated Marie to France would be the signal of intestine broil and foreign aggression.  In vain did Henrietta of England address letter after letter to her royal brother, representing the evil impression which so prolonged a persecution of their common parent had produced upon the minds of all the European princes; the fiat of Richelieu had gone forth; and the only result obtained by the filial anxiety of the English Queen was a series of plausible replies, in which she was complimented upon her good intentions, but at the same time requested not to interfere in the private arrangements of the King her brother.

Desirous, nevertheless, of escaping the odium of so unnatural and revolting an abandonment of his royal benefactress, the Cardinal caused a council to be assembled to consider her demand, and to deliberate upon the measures to be adopted in consequence; declaring his own intention to maintain a strict neutrality, and instructing the several members to deliver to him their opinions in writing.  All had, however, been previously concerted; before the meeting assembled Richelieu informed his coadjutors that the King had voluntarily declared that no reliance was to be placed upon the professions of the Queen-mother, as she had on many previous occasions acted with great dissimulation, and that it was not in her nature long to remain satisfied with any place in which she might take up her abode; that she could not make herself happy in France, where she was both powerful and honoured; that she had been constantly discontented in Flanders, although she had adopted that country as her own; that she had lived in perpetual hostility with the Duc d’Orleans after having induced him to quit the kingdom; and that she was even then at variance with the Princesse Marguerite, although she had countenanced her marriage with Monsieur in opposition to the will of the sovereign; that she had not gone to Holland without some hostile motive to himself and his kingdom; and that she was already becoming weary of England.