He had boasted to Marolles a day too soon.

The prize which he thought already in his grasp had slipped through his fingers, while an interminable list of demands which he dreamed not of, and which were likely to make him bankrupt, were brought to his door.

To the states, not himself, the triumph seemed for the moment decreed.

The "dice" had taken a run against him, notwithstanding his pains in loading and throwing.
Nevertheless, he did not yet despair of revenge.

"These rebels," he wrote to the Empress-dowager, his sister, "think that fortune is all smiles for them now, and that all is ruin for me.