ween the King and Madame de Verneuil, and
during the continuance of his estrangement from his wife, it soon became
known that the favourite had re-assumed her empire. In vain did the
mortified minister protest against this new weakness, and assure his
royal master that it could not fail to increase the anger and
indignation of Marie de Medicis; Henry only replied by asserting that
when Sully should have succeeded in inducing the Queen to change her
humour and to exert herself to please him, instead of persisting in
closeting herself with her foreign followers, and permitting them to
criticise his conduct and to aggravate his defects, he would forthwith
relinquish his _liaison_ with the Marquise. Such an answer, however, did
not check the zeal of his anxious adviser; who, fearful lest this last
schism should prove more important than those by which it had been
preceded, and undeterred even by the impatience with which the King
listened to his representations, persisted in assailing him with
arguments, remonstrances, and warnings, peculiarly unpalatable at all
times, but especially so at the very moment in which he had effected a
reconciliation with the favourite that promised a renewal of the
entertaining intercourse whence he derived so much gratification.

"You have now, Sire," resolutely urged the undaunted counsellor, "an
admirable opportunity of terminating in a manner worthy of your exalted
rank the difficulty by which you are beset, and of ensuring your own
future tranquillity. Assume the authority which appertains to you as a
sovereign; compel the Queen to silence; above all, strictly forbid her
any longer to indulge in public in those idle murmurs and lamentations
by which your dignity suffers so severely in the eyes of your subjects;
and visit with the most condign punishment every disrespectful word of
which others may be guilty either towards yourself or her. This effort,
Sire, will be insignificant beside others which you have made, and in
which your personal tranquillity was not involved; be no less courageous
in your own cause, and do not suffer your reputation to be tarnished by
a weakness incomprehensible in so great and powerful a monarch. By
exacting the consideration and obedience which are your due, you are
guilty of no tyranny; for it is the indisputable privilege of every
crowned head to enforce both. Let me then entreat of your Majesty at
once to assert yourself, and thus put a period to the domest