f April he accordingly commenced his homeward journey, simply
taking the precaution, in order to satisfy his several allies, of
leaving Richelieu with a strong body of troops, and full authority to
terminate as he should see fit the pending negotiations. The Cardinal,
however, felt as little inclination as his royal master to waste his
time and to exhaust his energies at such a distance from the Court; and
thus to enable his enemies to gain the unoccupied ear of the King, who
was, as he had already experienced, easily swayed by those about him.
During his absence from the capital his emissaries had been careful to
report to him every movement of the Queen-mother and the Duc d'Orleans;
and he felt that he was lost should they again succeed in acquiring the
confidence of the weak and wavering Louis. Within a fortnight after the
departure of the monarch, he consequently made his own hasty
preparations for a similar retreat; and having placed six thousand
infantry and five hundred horse under the command of the Marechal de
Crequy, with orders that he should vigilantly guard the several passes
and rigidly enforce the orders of the King, he set forth in his turn
for Paris, in order to counteract the designs of the rival faction.

Meanwhile Marie de Medicis and Gaston d'Orleans had been consistent in
their policy; and on the arrival of Louis in Paris he was assured that
time had only tended to embitter their misunderstanding on the subject
of the Princesse de Gonzaga; a fact which was no sooner ascertained by
Richelieu than he resolved to profit by so promising an opportunity of
regaining the good graces of the royal Duke. This was precisely the
result which both the mother and son had desired; for while the former
sought to secure a pretext for complaint against the ingratitude and
treachery of the individual whose fortunes had been her own work, and
who now evinced a disposition to build up his prosperity upon the
disobedience of her best-beloved child, the latter had many and forcible
reasons for being equally delighted to see the ordinarily-astute
Cardinal taken in his own toils, and readily consented to second the
irritated Queen-mother in her attempt to effect his overthrow. During
the first few days which succeeded the arrival of the King in Paris,
every circumstance tended to increase the hopes of Marie de Medicis.
Louis made no secret of his satisfaction at the firmness which she had
evinced, and displayed towards her