At times Richelieu gave Gaston presents, hoping to tempt the light-minded Prince to reflect upon the advantages attending friendly relations with the Court. Richelieu had tried in vain to force Gaston to consent to the dissolution of his marriage with Marguerite de Lorraine. He had never permitted Gaston to present his wife at Court, but Gaston had always hoped to obtain the permission and the anxious lady had remained just outside of France awaiting the signal to enter. She was generally supposed to be within call of her husband.
The time has come when justice of a new kind must be done to Monsieur, and probably it is the only time when a creditable fact will be recorded in his history. He stood firm in his determination to maintain his marriage. Try as the Cardinal might, and by all the means familiar to him from habitual use, he could not force Monsieur to relax his fidelity to his consort. D'Orléans was virtuous on this one point, but his manner of virtue was the manner of Gaston; there are different ways of sustaining the marriage vows, and Monsieur's way was not praiseworthy. His experience had passed as a veil blown away by the wind. His passion for intrigue still held sway, he always had at least one plot in process of infusion, and his results were fatal to his assistants. In the heat of his desire to rid himself of the Cardinal, he simulated change of heart so well that the Cardinal was deceived. Suspicious at first of the sincerity of Gaston's professions, after long and close observation he became convinced that the Prince was, in truth, repentant. It was at that epoch, when free exercise of an undisciplined will was made possible by Richelieu's conviction of his own security, that Monsieur laid his plan of assassination with de Soissons; at that time there was but opinion in France—de Richelieu was a tyrant, there could be no hope of pleasure while he lived. Let him die, let France hear that he was dead, and all the world could be happy and free to act, not according to the dogmas of an egotist by the grace of God, but by the rule of the greatest good to the greatest number.
The conspirators had found a time and a place favourable to their enterprise. It was during the siege of Corbie. The King was there attended by his Minister. Monsieur and the Count were there; so were the men whom they had engaged to kill the Cardinal. Culpable as the two scoundrels had always been, when the whole country was in arms it was impossible to find a reasonable excuse for refusing them commands, so they were at the front with all the representative men of the country, and they had good reason for supposing that one murder—a movement calculated to relieve the nation—might pass unnoticed in the general noise and motion of the siege. The time was ripe; Monsieur and Soissons had put their heads together and decided that the moment had come to strike the blow and rid the country of the Cardinal.
Their plans were well laid. A council of war had been called. De Richelieu was to pass a certain staircase on his way to it; de Soissons was to accompany Richelieu and distract his attention; Gaston was to be waiting at the foot of the stairs to give the signal to the assassins. But Monsieur had not changed since the days of Chalais, and he could not control his nerves. He was a slave to ungovernable panics. According to his plans the part which he had to play was easy. He had nothing to do but to give the signal; all the accomplices were ready; the assassins were awaiting the word; he himself was at his post; but when the Cardinal passed, haughty and calm, to take his place in his carriage, terror seized Monsieur and he turned and sprang up the stairway. As he fled one of his accomplices, thinking to hold him back, seized him by his cloak, and Gaston, rushing forward, dragged him after him.
The affrighted Prince and his astonished follower reached the first landing with the speed of lightning; and then, carried away by emotion, Monsieur, still dragging his companion, fled into an inner room, where he stopped, dazed; he did not know where he was, nor what he was doing, and when he tried to speak he babbled incoherent words which died in his throat. De Soissons was waiting in the courtyard; he had spoken so calmly that Richelieu had passed on unconscious of the unusual excitement among the courtiers.
Though the plot had failed, there had been no exposure; but the fact that the accomplices held the secret and that they had much to gain from the Cardinal by a denunciation of their principals made it unsafe for the conspirators to remain in Paris; before the Cardinal's policemen were warned they fled, Monsieur to Blois and de Soissons to Sedan. Not long after their flight the story was in the mouths of the gossips, and Mademoiselle knew that she could not hope for the Cardinal's assistance in the accomplishment of her marriage; so the child of the Tuileries advanced to maidenhood while her ambitious cousin (Soissons) turned grey at Sedan. When Anne-Marie-Louise reached her fourteenth year the Comte thought that the time had come to bring matters to a crisis. He was not a coward, and as there was no reason for hypocrisy or secrecy, he boldly joined the enemies of his country and invaded France with the armies of de Bouillon and de Guise. Arrived in France, he charged one of his former mistresses, Mme. de Montbazon, to finish the work begun by Campion. Mme. de Montbazon lent her best energies to the work, and right heartily.
I took great interest in M. le Comte de Soissons, [wrote Mademoiselle]; his health was failing. The King went to Champagne to make war upon him; and while he was on the journey, Mme. de Montbazon—who loved the Count dearly and who was dearly loved by him—used to come to see me every day, and she spoke of him with much affection; she told me that she should feel extreme joy if I would marry him, that they would never be lonely or bored at the Hôtel de Soissons were I there; that they would not think of anything but to amuse me, that they would give balls in my honour, that we should take fine walks, and that the Count would have unparalleled tenderness and respect for me. She told me everything that would be done to render my condition happy, and of all that could be done to make things pleasant for a personage of my age. I listened to her with pleasure and I felt no aversion for the person of M. le Comte.... Aside from the difference between my age and his my marriage with him would have been feasible. He was a very honest man, endowed with grand qualities; and although he was the youngest of his house he had been accorded[76] with the Queen of England.
Having been unable to acquire the mother, de Soissons turned his attention to the daughter. Mademoiselle recorded:
M. le Comte sent M. le Comte de Fiesque to Monsieur to remind him of the promise that he had made concerning me, and to remind him that affairs were then in such a condition that they might be terminated. M. le Comte de Fiesque very humbly begged Monsieur to find it good that de Soissons should abduct me, because in that way only could the marriage be accomplished. Monsieur would not consent to that expedient at all, and so the answer that M. le Comte de Fiesque carried back touched M. le Comte very deeply.
Not long after this episode the Comte de Soissons was killed at Marfée (6th July, 1641), and Mademoiselle's eyes were opened to the fact that she and M. le Comte "had not been created for each other." She wrote of his death as follows: