Their escape would have greatly embroiled the state and prevented the return of Poland to the King, a thing for which they were striving.
I know this from having been invited to the fracas, which was one of the finest strokes of policy ever made by the Queen.
Starting from Paris, she carried them to the King at Lyons so watchfully and skilfully that no one who saw them would think that they were prisoners.
They journeyed in the same coach with her, and she herself presented them to the King, who pardoned them soon after their arrival.
Again, who was it that enticed Monsieur, the King's brother, to leave Paris one fine night, casting off the affection of his brother who loved him so much, and to take up arms and embroil all France?
M. de La Noue knows all this, and the plots which began at the siege of La Rochelle, and what I told him about them.
It was not the Queen Mother, for on this open and abrupt departure by her son, she felt such grief to see one brother banded against another brother, his King, that she swore she would die of grief if she could not reunite them as they were before, which she accomplished. I have heard her say at Blois, in conversation with Monsieur, that she prayed for nothing so much as that God would grant the favour of this re-union, after which He might send her death and she would accept it with the best of heart. Or else she would retire to her houses of Monceaux and Chenonceaux and never again meddle with the affairs of France, willing to end her days in tranquillity.
In fact she really wished to do this, but the King begged her to refrain, for both he and his kingdom had great need of her.
I am assured that had she not gained peace by this re-union, all would have been up with France, for there were then fifty thousand foreigners scattered over France who would have gladly helped to humble and destroy her.
It was not, therefore, the Queen who brought about this taking up of arms, nor was it the State Assembly at Blois, who wanted but one religion and proposed to abolish all contrary to their own, and who demanded that, if the spiritual sword did not suffice to abolish it, recourse should be had to the temporal.