ew Keeper of the
Seals and the tool of Richelieu, openly accused her not only of
ingratitude to the monarch, but also of conducting a secret
correspondence with the Spanish Cabinet, and of having induced Monsieur
to leave the country; and concluded by declaring that stringent measures
should be adopted against her.

When desired to declare his opinion on this difficult question,
Richelieu at first affected great unwillingness to interfere, alleging
that he was personally interested in the result; but the King having
commanded him to speak, he threw off all restraint, and represented the
Queen-mother as the focus of all the intrigues both foreign and domestic
by which the nation was convulsed; together with the utter impossibility
of ensuring the safety of the King so long as she remained at liberty to
pursue the policy which she had seen fit to adopt, alike against the
sovereign and the state. In conclusion, he emphatically reminded his
hearers that weak remedies only tended to aggravate great evils, which
latter on the contrary were overcome by those proportioned to their
magnitude; and that consequently, at such a crisis as that under
consideration, there was but one alternative: either to effect a peace
with foreign powers on sure and honourable terms, or to conciliate the
Queen-mother and the Duc d'Orleans; either to dismiss himself from
office, or to remove from about the person of the Queen the individuals
by whom she was instigated to opposition against the will of the King
and the welfare of the state; and to beg of her to absent herself for
some time from the Court, lest, without desiring to do so, she should by
her presence induce a continuance of the disorder which it was the
object of all loyal subjects to suppress. He then craftily insisted upon
the peculiar character of Marie herself, whom he painted in the most
odious colours. He declared her to be false and revengeful; qualities
which he attributed to her Italian origin, and to her descent from the
Medici, who never forgave an injury; and, finally, he stated that all
which they had to decide was whether it would be most advantageous for
the King to dismiss from office a minister who had unfortunately become
obnoxious to the whole of the royal family, in order to secure peace in
his domestic circle, or to exile the Queen-mother and those who
encouraged her in her animosity against him. As regarded himself, he
said proudly, that could his absence from the