s were not loth to subject her to
sufficiently rough treatment; and afterwards hand her over to Mazarin.
Fortunately, in the Governor of the Isle of Wight, she met with the
Earl of Pembroke, whom she had formerly known. The Duchess appealed to
his courtesy,[2] and thanks to his good offices, she obtained--but with
no little difficulty--passports which permitted her to gain Dunkirk, and
thence the Spanish Low Countries.

[1] Subsequently, she requested the Marquis de Coetquen to hand over
her jewels to Montresor, who transferred them to a messenger of the
Duchess. But Mazarin was informed of everything from first to last.
He was aware of every tittle of the Duchess's correspondence, and
tried to seize with the strong hand the famous gems which had
formerly belonged to Marie de' Medicis' favourite foster-sister,
Leonora Galligai, created Marchioness d'Ancre. On the murder of the
Marshal d'Ancre, these diamonds and _parures_, valued at two hundred
thousand crowns, with a vast amount of other property confiscated by
an edict of Louis XIII., were bestowed by the king on his lucky
favourite, De Luynes, the first husband of Marie de Rohan. Failing
in his attempt to possess himself of these costly gems, Mazarin
arrested Montresor, and kept him upwards of a year in prison. See
"Memoirs of Montresor."

[2] See her letter to the Earl of Pembroke, dated Isle of Wight,
29th April, 1645, in "Archives des Affaires Etrangeres, France," t.
cvi. p. 162.

The adventurous exile took up her abode for a short time at Liege, and
applied herself to maintain and consolidate to the utmost degree
possible between Spain, Austria, and the Duke de Lorraine, an alliance,
which was the final resource of the _Importants_, and the last basis of
her own political reputation and high standing. Mazarin, however, having
got the upper hand, resumed all Richelieu's designs, and, like him, made
strenuous efforts to detach Lorraine from his two allies. The gay Duke
was then madly enamoured of the fair Beatrice de Cusance, Princess of
Cantecroix. Mazarin laboured to gain over the lady, and he proposed to
the ambitious and enterprising Charles IV. to break with Spain and march
into Franche-Comte with the aid of France, promising to leave him in
possession of all he might conquer. The Cardinal succeeded in winning
over to his interest Duke Charles's own sister (the former mistress of
Puylaurens