"My opinion!" exclaimed the indignant Queen. "You should blush even to
have listened to such a proposition. Have you forgotten your birth and
your rank? What will be thought of such a treaty by the world? Simply
that it was the work of a favourite, and not the genuine reconciliation
of a Prince of the Blood Royal of France, the heir-presumptive to the
Crown, with the King his brother. Your own honour and the interests of
your wife are alike sacrificed; and should you ever be guilty of the
injustice and cowardice of taking another wife before the death of
Marguerite, who will guarantee that the children who may be born to you
by the last will be regarded as legitimate? I do not speak of what
concerns myself. When such conditions shall be offered to you as you may
accept without dishonour, even although I may not be included in the
amnesty, I shall be the first to advise you to accept them."

Gaston attempted no reply to this impassioned address, but it did not
fail to produce its effect; and on returning to his own apartments he
withdrew the consent which Puylaurens had extorted from him. The
favourite, convinced that the answer of the Queen-mother had been
dictated by Chanteloupe, hurried to her residence, insulted and menaced
the Jesuit whom he encountered in an ante-room, and forcing himself into
the chamber of Marie de Medicis, accused her in the most disrespectful
terms of endeavouring to perpetuate the dissension of the King and his
brother, in order to gratify her emnity towards Richelieu.

"Never," exclaimed the Queen-mother, quivering with indignation, "did
even my enemy the Cardinal thus fail in respect towards me! He was far
from daring to address me with such an amount of insolence as this.
Learn that should I see fit to say a single word, and to receive him
again into favour, I could overthrow all your projects. Leave the room,
young madman, or I will have you flung from the windows. It is easy to
perceive that your nature is as mean as your birth." [201]

Puylaurens retired; but thenceforward the existence of the Queen-mother
became one unbroken tissue of mortification and suffering; and so
bitterly did she feel the degradations to which she was hourly exposed,
that she at length resolved to despatch one of the gentlemen of her
household to the King, to ascertain if she could obtain the royal
permission to return to France upon such terms as she should be enabled
to concede. In the letter which she add