to exchange his chamber
in the Bastille for a less stringent captivity in the Chateau de
Dampierre.[207] Such was the lenient punishment of the last of the
conspirators; and it was assuredly a clever stroke of policy in the
monarch thus to cast a shade of ridicule over the close of the cabal,
which, having commenced with a tragedy, had by his contemptuous
forbearance almost terminated in an epigram.

The Court, after having passed a portion of the summer at St. Germain,
removed in the commencement of August to Fontainebleau, the advanced
pregnancy of the Queen having rendered her anxious to return to that
palace. But any gratification which she might have promised herself, in
this her favourite place of residence, was cruelly blighted by the
legitimation of the son of Madame de Verneuil, which was formally
registered at this period. Nor was this the only vexation to which she
was exposed, the notoriety of the King's intrigues becoming every day
more trying alike to her temper and to her health; while the new
concession which had been made to the vanity--or, as the Marquise
herself deemed it, to the honour--of the favourite, induced the latter
to commit the most indecent excesses, and to increase, if possible, the
almost regal magnificence of her attire and her establishment, at the
same time that her deportment towards the Queen was marked by an
insolent disrespect which involved the whole Court in perpetual
misunderstandings.

As it had already become only too evident that the unfortunate Marie de
Medicis possessed but little influence over the affections of her
husband, however he might be compelled to respect the perfect propriety
and dignity of her character, the cabal of the favourite daily increased
in importance; and the measure of the Queen's mortification overflowed,
when, soon after the royal visit to Fontainebleau, Henry took leave of
her in order to visit Calais, and she ascertained that he had on his way
stopped at the Chateau de Verneuil, whither he had been accompanied by
the Marquise. It was in vain that M. de Sully--to whom the King had
given strict charge to endeavour by every method in his power to
reconcile the Queen to his absence, and to provide for her amusement
every diversion of which she was in a condition to partake--exerted
himself to obey the command of the monarch; Marie was too deeply wounded
to derive any consolation from such puerile sources, nor was it until
the return of her royal co