The Duke attempted to remonstrate, but he was haughtily silenced; and thus saw himself compelled to retire from the presence of the irritated Princess with the conviction that he had utterly failed to produce the effect anticipated from his mission.[49]
As a last resource the Duc de Montbazon was once more despatched to the Queen-mother, with full authority to satisfy all her demands, whatever might be their nature; and also with instructions to warn her that, should she still refuse to obey the commands of the King, she would be compelled to do so; while, at the same time, he was commissioned to announce that Louis was ready to receive her at Tours as he had formerly done, in order to convince her of his anxiety to terminate their misunderstanding. This portion of his mission was, however, strongly combated alike by M. de Condé and the ministers, who saw in it a proof of weakness unworthy of a great sovereign; but the apprehensions of the favourite so far outweighed his sense of what was due to the dignity of his royal master, that he refused to listen to their representations, and Louis accordingly left the capital, and advanced slowly towards the province of Angoumois, awaiting the result of this new negotiation.
Marie remained inflexible; Richelieu had not yet accomplished his object; and the King, who had already reached Orleans, returned to Paris, to the great triumph of the Queen-mother's faction. Months were wasted in this puerile struggle, which contrasted strangely with the important interests which at that period occupied the attention of all other European sovereigns; and meanwhile the faction of Marie de Medicis became more formidable from day to day; until, finally, the Prince de Condé declared his conviction that stringent measures could alone secure to the monarch any hope of averting the serious consequences with which he was threatened by the disaffection of his most powerful nobles. De Luynes was quite ready to adopt this reasoning in order to ensure his own safety; but it met with earnest opposition from the Cardinal de Retz, Arnoux, and many others of the favourite's confidential friends, who dreaded that by the fall of Marie de Medicis, Condé, whose ambitious views were evident to all, would attain to a degree of authority and power against which they could not hope successfully to contend; and they accordingly counselled their patron rather to effect his own reconciliation with the exiled Queen, and by rendering himself necessary alike to the mother and the son, at once strengthen his own influence and weaken that of the first Prince of the Blood.
In accordance with this advice De Luynes entered into a negotiation with Marie, during the course of which the Marquis de Blainville was despatched several times to Angers, authorized to hold out the most brilliant promises should she consent to resume her position at the French Court. Unfortunately, however, the zealous envoy overacted his part by assuring her that De Luynes was strongly attached to her person, and anxious only to secure her interests; a declaration which instantly startled her suspicious temper into additional caution; but his next step proved even more fatal to the cause he had been deputed to advocate.
"I can assure you, Madame," he went on to say, encouraged by the attentive attitude of his royal auditor, "that M. le Duc has ever entertained the most perfect respect towards your Majesty. More than once, indeed, it has been suggested to him to secure your person, and either to commit you to Vincennes, or to compel your return to Florence; nay, more; a few of your most inveterate enemies, Madame, have not hesitated to advise still more violent measures, and have endeavoured to convince him that his own safety could only be secured by your destruction; but M. de Luynes has universally rejected these counsels with indignation and horror; and this fact must suffice to prove to your Majesty that you can have nothing to apprehend from a man so devoted to your cause that he has undeviatingly made his own interests subservient to yours."
This argument, which, while it revolted her good sense, revealed to the Queen-mother the whole extent of the risk that she must inevitably incur by placing herself in the power of an individual who had suffered such measures to be mooted in his presence, produced the very opposite effect to that which it had been intended to elicit; and it was consequently with a more fixed determination than ever that Marie clung to the comparatively independent position she had secured, and thus rendered the negotiation useless.[50]
The alarm of De Luynes increased after this failure, and having become convinced of the impolicy of provoking a second civil war, he continued his attempts at a reconciliation through other channels; but as each in turn proved abortive, he began to tremble lest by affording more time for the consolidation of the Queen's faction, he might ultimately work his own overthrow; and it was consequently determined that the advice of the Prince de Condé should be adopted. The delay which had already taken place had, however, sufficed to permit of a coalition among the Princes which rendered the party of the malcontents more formidable than any which had yet been opposed to the royal authority; and it was not without considerable misgivings that, early in July, De Luynes accompanied the King to the frontier of Normandy, where it had been decided that he should place himself at the head of his army.[51]
Before leaving the capital it was considered expedient that Louis should attend a meeting of the Parliament, in order to justify the extreme step which he was about to take; and he accordingly presented himself before that body, to whom he declared the excessive repugnance with which he found himself under the imperative necessity of taking up arms against the Queen his mother, and excused himself upon the plea of her having headed the malcontents, by whom the safety of the throne and kingdom was endangered; and, this empty formality accomplished, little attention was conceded to the recommendation of the President and Advocate-General, who implored of his Majesty to adopt less offensive measures, and to avoid so long as it might be in his power an open war with his august parent.[52] Louis had complied with the ceremony required of him; and while De Luynes was trembling for his tenure of power, the young sovereign was equally anxious to commence a campaign which promised some relief from the tedium of his everyday existence, and some prospect of his definitive release from the thraldom of the adverse faction.