The Cardinal had passed the Rubicon. He
could no longer hope that his persecuted benefactress would ever again
place confidence in his protestations, or quietly permit him to exert
the authority which he had so arrogantly assumed; and thus he readily
persuaded the weak monarch--who had, moreover, long ceased to reason
upon the will of his all-powerful minister--that the return of the
ill-fated Marie to France would be the signal of intestine broil and
foreign aggression. In vain did Henrietta of England address letter
after letter to her royal brother, representing the evil impression
which so prolonged a persecution of their common parent had produced
upon the minds of all the European princes; the fiat of Richelieu had
gone forth; and the only result obtained by the filial anxiety of the
English Queen was a series of plausible replies, in which she was
complimented upon her good intentions, but at the same time requested
not to interfere in the private arrangements of the King her brother.

Desirous, nevertheless, of escaping the odium of so unnatural and
revolting an abandonment of his royal benefactress, the Cardinal caused
a council to be assembled to consider her demand, and to deliberate upon
the measures to be adopted in consequence; declaring his own intention
to maintain a strict neutrality, and instructing the several members to
deliver to him their opinions in writing. All had, however, been
previously concerted; before the meeting assembled Richelieu informed
his coadjutors that the King had voluntarily declared that no reliance
was to be placed upon the professions of the Queen-mother, as she had on
many previous occasions acted with great dissimulation, and that it was
not in her nature long to remain satisfied with any place in which she
might take up her abode; that she could not make herself happy in
France, where she was both powerful and honoured; that she had been
constantly discontented in Flanders, although she had adopted that
country as her own; that she had lived in perpetual hostility with the
Duc d'Orleans after having induced him to quit the kingdom; and that she
was even then at variance with the Princesse Marguerite, although she
had countenanced her marriage with Monsieur in opposition to the will of
the sovereign; that she had not gone to Holland without some hostile
motive to himself and his kingdom; and that she was already becoming
weary of England.

Moreover, as the Cardinal further