iat.

In accordance with this invitation, Mademoiselle de Montpensier arrived
at Nantes on the 1st of August; and on the 5th of the same month, while
the wretched and deserted Chalais was exposed to the most frightful
torture, the marriage took place. "There was little pomp or display,"
says Mezeray, "either at the betrothal or at the nuptial ceremony."
_Feux de joie_ and salvos of artillery alone announced its completion.
The mass was, however, performed by Richelieu himself; and so thoroughly
had he succeeded in convincing Louis of the expediency of the measure,
that the delight of the young King was infinitely more conspicuous than
that of the bridegroom. The satisfaction of Marie de Medicis, although
sufficiently evident, was calm and dignified; but the King embraced the
bride on three several occasions; and no one could have imagined from
his deportment that he had for a single instant opposed a marriage which
now appeared to have fulfilled his most sanguine wishes.[99]

The reign of blood had nevertheless commenced. The head of Chalais fell
on the 19th of August; and on the 2nd of September the Marechal d'Ornano
expired in his prison; a fate which was shared on the 28th of February
1629 by the Grand Prieur de Vendome, both of these deaths being
attributed to poison. Be the fact as it may, thus much is at least,
certain, that the Cardinal, not daring to drag two legitimated Princes
of the Blood to the scaffold, had gradually rendered their captivity
more and more rigorous, as if to prove to the nation over which he had
stretched his iron arm that no rank, however elevated, and no name,
however ancient, could protect its possessor.

Having accomplished the marriage of the Duc d'Orleans, Richelieu and the
Queen-mother next laboured to widen the breach between Louis XIII and
his wife; for which purpose they represented that she had taken an
active part in the lately detected conspiracy, and was secretly
intriguing with Spain against the interests of her royal husband; an
attempt in which she had been aided and abetted by her confidential
friends.

The first consequence of this accusation was the arrest of Madame de
Chevreuse, who, after having undergone a formal examination, was exiled
from the Court; and this order had no sooner been obeyed than Anne of
Austria was summoned to the presence of the King, whom she found seated
between the Queen-mother and the Cardinal, and there solemnly accused,
on the pretended re