gree of authority and
power against which they could not hope successfully to contend; and
they accordingly counselled their patron rather to effect his own
reconciliation with the exiled Queen, and by rendering himself necessary
alike to the mother and the son, at once strengthen his own influence
and weaken that of the first Prince of the Blood.

In accordance with this advice De Luynes entered into a negotiation with
Marie, during the course of which the Marquis de Blainville was
despatched several times to Angers, authorized to hold out the most
brilliant promises should she consent to resume her position at the
French Court. Unfortunately, however, the zealous envoy overacted his
part by assuring her that De Luynes was strongly attached to her person,
and anxious only to secure her interests; a declaration which instantly
startled her suspicious temper into additional caution; but his next
step proved even more fatal to the cause he had been deputed
to advocate.

"I can assure you, Madame," he went on to say, encouraged by the
attentive attitude of his royal auditor, "that M. le Duc has ever
entertained the most perfect respect towards your Majesty. More than
once, indeed, it has been suggested to him to secure your person, and
either to commit you to Vincennes, or to compel your return to
Florence; nay, more; a few of your most inveterate enemies, Madame, have
not hesitated to advise still more violent measures, and have
endeavoured to convince him that his own safety could only be secured by
your destruction; but M. de Luynes has universally rejected these
counsels with indignation and horror; and this fact must suffice to
prove to your Majesty that you can have nothing to apprehend from a man
so devoted to your cause that he has undeviatingly made his own
interests subservient to yours."

This argument, which, while it revolted her good sense, revealed to the
Queen-mother the whole extent of the risk that she must inevitably incur
by placing herself in the power of an individual who had suffered such
measures to be mooted in his presence, produced the very opposite effect
to that which it had been intended to elicit; and it was consequently
with a more fixed determination than ever that Marie clung to the
comparatively independent position she had secured, and thus rendered
the negotiation useless.[50]

The alarm of De Luynes increased after this failure, and having become
convinced of the impolicy of provo