[75] Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Manuscripts. Original Letters of Louis XIII. Section France, 5.
[76] Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Manuscripts. Section France, vol. lxxxviii. fol. 99, and lxxxix. fols. 3, 23, 67, 78, and 103.
[77] M. Michelet indicates another motive which it is only necessary to cite in order to show its improbability. “Richelieu,” he says, “trusted in the weakness of the Queen’s nature, and, consequently, that one day or other she would be involved in some embarrassment or thoughtlessness which would leave her at his mercy.”
[78] Mémoires de La Porte, p. 370.
[79] Letter from Richelieu to Marshal de Schonberg, September 25, 1630; Letter from Father Suffren, Louis XIII.’s confessor, to Father Jacquinot, October 1, 1630.
[80] Letter from Father Suffren, already quoted. In one year Bouvart, Louis XIII.’s doctor, had him bled 47 times, made him take 212 medicines and 215 injections.—Archives Curieuses de l’Histoire de France, by Cimber and Danjou, 2nd series, vol. v. p. 63.
[81] Letter from Richelieu to Schonberg, September 30, 1630; Letter from Richelieu to d’Effiat, October 1, 1630.—Mémoires de Richelieu, book xi. vol vi. p. 296. Letter from Father Suffren, already quoted.
[82] A similar and as perfect return of lively affection and reciprocal tenderness was produced anew on the occasion of the illness of February, 1643, to which Louis XIII. succumbed. See the Mémoire fidèle des choses qui se sont passées à la mort de Louis XIII., written by Dubois, his valet-de-chambre. The ingenuousness and the precision in details which it exhibits does not permit us to doubt the exactitude and authenticity of this account. See also Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Mémoires Manuscrits de Lamothe-Goulas, Secrétaire des Commandements du Duc d’Orléans, vol. ii. p. 368.
[83] Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Mémoires Manuscrits de Lamothe-Goulas, Secrétaire des Commandements du Duc d’Orléans, vol. ii. p. 367.
[84] November 11, 1630—known in French history as “the Day of the Dupes”—when the Duke de Saint-Simon, father of the famous memoir writer, brought about a secret interview between Richelieu, who, in disgrace, was on the eve of retiring to Havre, and Louis XIII., then at his hunting-seat of Versailles. At the moment when every one believed the downfall of the once all-powerful Minister to be complete, the latter succeeded in recovering his lost influence over the King, of which he had been deprived through the intrigues of Marie de Medicis, who had demanded of her son whether he was “so unnatural as to prefer a valet to his mother.” Richelieu, when firmly reinstated in power, did not spare the queen-mother’s partisans, upon several of whom he avenged himself with his accustomed severity.—Trans.