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Updated: June 20, 2025
The day was a mild one for the time of year, and the curtains of the litter were open. Inside sat a number of ladies. With a start, I recognized two of the faces. One was Mlle. d'Arency's; the other was the Queen-mother's. Mlle. d'Arency was narrating something, with a derisive smile, to Catherine, who listened with the slightest expression of amusement on her serene face.
The two armies met in the plain of Dreux with pretty nearly equal forces, the royal army being superior in artillery and the Protestant in cavalry. When they had arrived in front of one another, the triumvirs sent to ask the queen-mother's authority to give battle.
But this anger could not last so long as not to be replaced in time by reason. Mazarin, every morning, on opening his closet door, found the figure of Colbert like a sentinel behind the bench, and this disagreeable figure never failed to ask him humbly, but with tenacity, for the queen-mother's letter. Mazarin could hold out no longer, and was obliged to give it up.
According to other reports, the first opposition of the provost of tradesmen, Le Charron, was not without effect; it was not till the next day that he let the orders he had received take their course; and it was necessary to apply to his predecessor in his office, the ex-provost Marcel, a creature of the queen-mother's, to set in motion the turbulent and the fanatical amongst the populace, "which it never does to 'blood, for it is afterwards more savage than is desirable."
At nine in the morning the duke and cardinal, followed by their gentlemen, who remained in the hall, entered the king's bedroom, the captain on duty having informed them that Ambroise Pare had arrived, together with Chapelain and three other physicians, who hated Pare and were all in the queen-mother's interests.
This declaration has not, as might be guessed, given very great satisfaction in this country. The Grand Duchess says, in the time of the Queen-mother's regency, when the Prince and his brother, the Prince de Conti, were taken to the Bastille, they were asked what books they would have to amuse themselves with?
I, with my husband, kissed the Queen-Mother's hand, who promised her favour, with much grace, to us both, and sent letters to the King, then in Holland, by my husband. From her Majesty we waited on the Princes, and afterwards took our leave of all that Court. When we came to Calais, we met the Earl of Strafford and Sir Kenelm Digby, with some others of our countrymen.
"No," said his master, "the queen-mother's bill amounts to three thousand crowns; it is time to get the money, and I am going to Blois myself very soon." "Father, I do not think it right at your age and in these dangerous times to expose yourself on the high-roads.
"The admiral was beset by letters which reminded him of the queen-mother's crooked ways, and the detestable education of the king, trained to every sort of violence and horrible sin; his Bible is Macchiavelli; he has been prepared by the blood of beasts for the shedding of human blood; he has been persuaded that a prince is not bound to observe an edict extorted by his subjects."
Then he went to the rooms of his mother, who had sent for him. Nitetis had been carried insensible to the queen-mother's apartments. When she opened her eyes, her head was resting on the blind queen's lap, she felt Atossa's warm kisses on her forehead, and Cambyses was standing by her side. She gazed around, and smiled as she recognised them one by one. She raised herself with difficulty.
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