sh order not to listen to
any complaints against those who were attached to his person.

With a weakness worthy of his character, Gaston moreover repeated to his
favourite all that had taken place; and the fury of Puylaurens reached
so extreme a point that, in order to prove his contempt for the unhappy
Queen--about to be deprived of the support and affection of her
best-loved son, who had, like his elder brother, suffered himself to be
made the tool of an ambitious follower--he had on one occasion the
audacity to enter her presence, followed by a train of twenty-five
gentlemen, all fully armed, as though while approaching her he dreaded
assassination.

Marie de Medicis looked for an instant upon him with an expression of
scorn in her bright and steady eye beneath which his own sank; and then,
rising from her seat, she walked haughtily from the apartment. Once
arrived in her closet, however, her indignant pride gave way; and
throwing herself upon the neck of one of her attendants, she wept the
bitter tears of humiliation and despair.

Nor was this the only, or the heaviest, insult to which the widow of
Henri IV was subjected by the arrogant _protege_ of Monsieur, for
anxious to secure his own advancement, and to aggrandize himself by
means of Richelieu, since he had become convinced that his only hope of
future greatness depended on the favour of the Cardinal, Puylaurens once
more urged upon Gaston the expediency of accepting the conditions
offered to him by the King. Weary of the petty Court of Brussels, the
Prince listened with evident pleasure to the arguments advanced by his
favourite; the fair palaces of St. Germain and the Tuileries rose
before his mental vision; his faction in Languedoc existed no longer;
with his usual careless ingratitude he had already ceased to resent the
death of Montmorency; his beautiful and heroic wife retained but a
feeble hold upon his heart; and he pined for change.

Under such circumstances it was, consequently, not long ere Puylaurens
induced him to consent to a renewal of the negotiations; but, with that
inability to keep a secret by which he was distinguished throughout his
whole career, although urged to silence by his interested counsellor, it
was not long ere Monsieur declared his intention alike to his mother and
his wife, and terminated this extraordinary confidence by requesting
that Marie de Medicis would give him her opinion as to the judiciousness
of his determination.