mly that Louis endeavoured to restore peace by commanding that it
should be presented by his brother the Duc d'Anjou. But although the two
angry Princes were compelled to yield the object of contention, he could
not reduce them to silence; and this absurd dissension immediately
split the Court into two factions; the Duc de Guise and the friends of
the favourite declaring themselves for Conde; while Mayenne,
Longueville, and several others espoused the cause of the Comte
de Soissons.

It is almost ludicrous to be compelled to record that out of a quarrel,
originating in a servile endeavour on the part of the two principal
nobles of a great nation to usurp the functions of a _maitre-d'hotel_,
grew an attempt at civil war, which, had not the treachery of Richelieu
nipped it in the bud, might have involved France in a sanguinary and
unnatural series of conflicts that would have rendered that country a
frightful spectacle to all Europe. Thus it was, however; for the
Comtesse de Soissons, the mother of the young Prince, who was then only
in his seventeenth year, eagerly seized so favourable an opportunity to
weaken the party of the Prince de Conde, whose sudden influence
threatened the future prospects of her son, by attaching to the cause of
Marie de Medicis all the nobles who were opposed to the favourite, and
consequently to the first Prince of the Blood by whom he was supported
in his pretensions.

The ambition of the Countess was to obtain for her young son the hand of
Madame Henriette de France, the third sister of the King; an alliance
which she was aware would be strenuously opposed by Conde, and which she
could only hope to accomplish through the good offices of the
Queen-mother; and it was consequently essential that, in order to carry
out her views, she should labour to augment the faction of Marie. Her
efforts were successful; between the 29th of March and the 30th of June
the Ducs de Mayenne and de Vendome, the Grand Prior (the brother of the
latter), the Comte de Candale, the Archbishop of Toulouse, and Henry of
Savoy, Duc de Nemours, all proceeded to Angers; an example which was
speedily followed by the Comte and Comtesse de Soissons, and the Ducs de
Longueville, de Tremouille, de Retz, and de Rohan; who, one and all,
urged Marie de Medicis once more to take up arms, and assert her
authority.[47]

These successive defections greatly alarmed the favourite, who became
more than ever urgent for the return of th