ly, who was one of the best and most
faithful servants of the King your father, and who will, I trust,
continue to serve you with the same zeal." [38]

The interview was a lengthy one, and the urbanity of the Queen produced
so powerful an effect upon the mind of the finance minister that he
ceased to apprehend any diminution of his influence, and accordingly
sent to countermand the return of the Duc de Rohan, who had already
advanced a day's march towards the capital.[39]

Meanwhile the Dowager-Princesse de Conde had hastened to inform her son
of the assassination of the King, and to urge his instant return to the
capital; a summons to which he replied by forwarding letters of
condolence both to the King and the Regent, containing the most earnest
assurances of his loyalty and devotion alike to their personal interests
and to those of the nation; and declaring that he only awaited their
commands to return to Court, in order to serve them in any manner which
they might see fit to suggest.

The Comte de Soissons, who had left Paris only a few days before the
coronation of the Queen, for the reason elsewhere stated, and who had
retired to his estate near Chartres, was invited by a messenger
despatched by Marie to return without delay to the capital, where the
interests of the state required his presence. This command he prepared
to obey with alacrity; but his zeal was greatly damped when, on arriving
at St. Cloud, he ascertained that the Queen had been already recognized
by the Parliament as Regent of the kingdom, and that her dignity had
been publicly confirmed by the young sovereign. On first receiving this
intelligence his rage was without bounds; he even questioned the
legality of an arrangement of this description made without his
sanction, he being, during the absence of the Prince de Conde, the first
subject in France after the Queen herself; and then, moderating the
violence of his expressions, he complained that by the precipitation of
the Parliament, he had been deprived of the privilege of signifying his
assent to the nomination, as he had previously pledged himself to do. He
next questioned the right of the Parliament to interfere in so important
a measure; declaring that their fiat was null and void, as the Chambers
had no authority to organize a government, and still less to appoint a
regency, which could only be effectively done by a royal testament, a
declaration made before death, or by an assembly of th