-Mornay wrote to one
of his friends at court, "If you do not get the queen along with you, you
have done nothing at all; distrust will increase with absence; the
malcontents will multiply; and the honest servants of the king will have
no little difficulty in managing to live between them."

How to live between mother and son without being committed to one or the
other, was indeed the question. A difficult task. For three months the
courtiers were equal to it; from May to July, 1619, the court and the
government were split in two; the king at Paris or at Tours, the
queen-mother at Angers or at Blois. Two eminent men, Richelieu amongst
the Catholics and Du Plessis-Mornay amongst the Protestants, advised
them strongly and incessantly to unite again, to live and to govern
together. "Apply yourself to winning the king's good graces," said
Richelieu to the queen-mother: "support on every occasion the interests
of the public without speaking of your own; take the side of equity
against that of favor, without attacking the favorites and without
appearing to envy their influence." Mornay used the same language to
the Protestants. "Do not wear out the king's patience," he said to
them: "there is no patience without limits." Louis XIII. listened to
them without allowing himself to be persuaded by them; the warlike
spirit was striving within the young man; he was brave, and loved war as
war rather than for political reasons. The grand provost of Normandy
was advising him one day not to venture in person into his province,
saying, "You will find there nothing but revolt and disagreeables."
"Though the roads were all paved with arms," answered the king, "I would
march over the bellies of my foes, for they have no cause to declare
against me, who have offended nobody. You shall have the pleasure of
seeing it; you served the late king my father too well not to rejoice at
it." The queenmother, on her side, was delighted to see herself
surrounded at Angers by a brilliant court; and the Dukes of Longueville,
of La Tremoille, of Retz, of Rohan, of Mayenne, of Epernon, and of
Nemours, promised her numerous troops and effectual support. She might,
nevertheless, have found many reasons to doubt and wait for proofs. The
king moved upon Normandy; and his quartermasters came to assign quarters
at Rouen. "Where have you left the king?" asked the Duke of
Longueville. "At Pontoise, my lord; but he is by this time far
advanced, and is t