Such was his last greeting to the unhappy Princess, who had gone to rest without one suspicion that on the morrow she should find herself a prisoner, abandoned by her son, and bereft of her dearest friends; and meanwhile another scene was taking place in a distant wing of the palace, which has been so graphically described by Madame de Motteville that we shall transcribe it in her own words:
"At daybreak some one knocked loudly at the door of the Queen's chamber. On hearing this noise, Anne of Austria, whom it had awakened, called her women, and inquired whether it was the King who demanded admittance, as he was the only individual who was entitled to take so great a liberty. While giving this order she drew back the curtain of her bed, and perceiving with alarm that it was scarcely light, a vague sentiment of terror took possession of her mind. As she was always doubtful, and with great reason, of the King's feeling towards her, she persuaded herself that she was about to receive some fatal intelligence, and felt assured that the least evil which she had to apprehend was her exile from France. Regarding this moment, therefore, as one which must decide the whole of her future destiny, she endeavoured to recall her self-possession in order to meet the blow with becoming courage ... and when the first shock of her terror had passed by, she determined to receive submissively whatever trial Heaven might see fit to inflict upon her. She consequently commanded that the door of her apartment should be opened; and as her first femme de chambre announced that the person who demanded admittance was the Keeper of the Seals, who had been entrusted with a message to her Majesty from the King, she became convinced that her fears had not deceived her. This apprehension was, however, dispelled by the address of the envoy, who merely informed the Queen that her royal consort desired to make known to her that, for certain reasons of state, he found himself compelled to leave his mother at Compiègne under the guard of the Maréchal d'Estrées; that he begged her instantly to rise; to abstain from again seeing the ex-Regent; and to join him without loss of time at the Capuchin Convent, whither he had already proceeded, and where he should await her coming.
"Anne of Austria, although alike distressed and amazed by this intelligence, made no comment upon so extraordinary a communication; but after having briefly expressed her readiness to obey the command of the King, she left her bed; and while doing so, despatched the Marquise de Seneçay, her lady of honour, to tell the unfortunate Marie de Medicis that she was anxious to see her, as she had an affair of importance to reveal; while for certain reasons she could not venture to her apartment until she had herself sent to request her to do so. The Queen-mother, who knew nothing of the resolution which had been taken, but who was in hourly apprehension of a renewal of her former sufferings, did not lose a moment in profiting by the suggestion; and Anne of Austria had no sooner received the expected summons than she threw on a dressing-gown and hurried to the chamber of her royal relative, whom she found seated in her bed, and clasping her knees with her hands in a state of bewildered agitation. On the entrance of her daughter-in-law, the unhappy Princess exclaimed in a tone of anguish:
"Ah! my daughter, I am then to die or be made a prisoner. Is the King about to leave me here? What does he intend to do with me?'
"Anne of Austria, bathed in tears, could only reply by throwing herself into the arms of the helpless victim; and for a while they wept together in silence.
"The wife of Louis had, however, little time to spend in speechless sympathy, and ere long she communicated to Marie de Medicis the cruel resolution of the King, and conjured her to bear her banishment with patience until they should be revenged upon their common enemy, the Cardinal. They then parted with mutual expressions of sympathy and affection; and, as it ultimately proved, they never met again." [149]
During the course of this brief and melancholy interview, the young Queen, with the assistance of her royal mother-in-law, completed her toilet; and then after their hurried leavetaking hastened to rejoin the King, who had already evinced great impatience at her delay. But however consoled she might have been by her own escape on this occasion, Anne of Austria was nevertheless condemned to suffer her share of humiliation, for she had no sooner reached the Convent than Louis formally presented to her Madame de la Flotte as her First Lady of Honour, and her grand-daughter Mademoiselle de Hautefort as her next attendant; while upon her expressing her astonishment at such an arrangement, she was informed that the Comtesse du Fargis, who was replaced by Madame de la Flotte, had been banished from the Court, and that other great ladies had shared the same fate.[150]
The will of Richelieu had indeed proved omnipotent. Not one of those whom he had doomed to disgrace was suffered to escape without submitting to humiliations degrading to their rank. The unfortunate Princesse de Conti, the sister of the Duc de Guise, whose only crime was her attachment to her royal mistress, and her love for Bassompierre, was exiled to Eu; where her separation from the Queen, and the imprisonment of the Maréchal, so preyed upon her mind that she died within two months of a broken heart; while all was alarm and consternation in the capital, where the greatest and the proudest in the land trembled alike for their lives and for their liberties.
Of all the victims of the Cardinal the Queen-mother was, however, the most wretched and the most hopeless. So soon as Anne of Austria had quitted her apartment, feeling herself overcome by the suddenness of the shock to which she had been subjected, she caused her physician M. Vautier to be summoned, and was abruptly informed that he had been arrested, and conveyed a prisoner to Senlis.