“Queen, forsooth! when I am at the mercy of every scribbler in the Palais Royal who covers waste paper with nonsense, or of every country squire in the kingdom.”
“Nevertheless, you have still the power of banishing from your presence those whom you do not like!”
“That is to say, whom you do not like,” returned the queen.
“I! persons whom I do not like!”
“Yes, indeed. Who sent away Madame de Chevreuse after she had been persecuted twelve years under the last reign?”
“A woman of intrigue, who wanted to keep up against me the spirit of cabal she had raised against M. de Richelieu.”
“Who dismissed Madame de Hautefort, that friend so loyal that she refused the favor of the king that she might remain in mine?”
“A prude, who told you every night, as she undressed you, that it was a sin to love a priest, just as if one were a priest because one happens to be a cardinal.”
“Who ordered Monsieur de Beaufort to be arrested?”
“An incendiary the burden of whose song was his intention to assassinate me.”