her for the beautiful and accomplished
Marie de Gonzaga, the daughter of the Duc de Nevers, who shortly
afterwards became Duke of Mantua.[106]

Coupled with his disinclination to see Gaston again placed in a position
to give an heir to the French throne, Louis had sufficiently profited by
the lessons of Richelieu to feel the whole extent of the danger by which
he would be threatened should Gaston succeed in acquiring allies beyond
the frontiers; and he accordingly hastened to express to the
Queen-mother his displeasure at the intelligence of this new passion,
with a coldness which immediately tended to convince her that a great
change had taken place in his feelings towards herself. Alarmed by this
conviction, and anxious to discover the cause of so marked a falling-off
in his confidence, Marie de Medicis exerted all her energies to
ascertain through whose agency her influence had thus been undermined;
nor was it long ere she became assured that Richelieu had availed
himself of her absence to renew all the old misgivings of the King, and
by rendering her motives and affection questionable, to make himself
entirely master of the mind of the jealous and suspicious monarch.

Once satisfied of this fact, the Queen-mother resolved to profit in her
turn by the absence of the Cardinal, whose ingratitude was so flagrant
as thenceforward to sever every link between them; and the opportunity
afforded by the open demonstrations of affection which Gaston lavished
upon the Mantuan Princess was consequently eagerly seized upon in order
to counteract the evil offices of the minister. Marie had watched the
growing passion of the Duc d'Orleans with an annoyance as great as that
of the King himself, for she had never forgotten the animosity displayed
towards her by the Duc de Nevers; and she was, moreover, anxious, as we
have already stated, to effect an alliance between her second son and a
Princess of Tuscany; but aware of the capricious and unstable character
of Gaston, she had hitherto confined herself to expostulations, which
had produced little effect. Now, however, she resolved to derive the
desired benefit from a circumstance which she had previously deprecated,
and, summoning Monsieur, she readily persuaded him to affect the most
violent indignation at her opposition, while she, on her side, would
evince an equal degree of displeasure against himself. To this
arrangement Gaston readily consented, as he delighted in intrigue, and