It nevertheless appears certain that although he resented the sarcasms of the Queen, he was less the dupe of Madame de Verneuil than those about him imagined; he was fascinated, but not convinced; and it is probable that had Marie de Medicis at this moment sufficiently controlled her feelings to remain neuter, she might, for a time at least, have retained her truant husband under the spell of her own attractions.

Such, however, was not the case; and between his suspicion of being deceived by his mistress, and his irritation at being openly taunted by his wife, the King, who shrank with morbid terror from domestic discomfort, instead of finding repose in the privacy of his own hearth, even while he was anxious to shake off the trammels by which he had been so long fettered, and to abandon a _liaison_ which had ceased to inspire him with confidence, only sought to escape by transferring his somewhat exhausted affections to a new object.

The struggle was, however, a formidable one; for although the Marquise had forfeited his good opinion, she had not lost her powers of fascination; and she so well knew how to use them, that, despite his better reason, the sensual monarch still remained her slave.
Thus his life became at this period one of perpetual worry and annoyance.

Marie, irritated by what she justly considered as a culpable weakness and want of dignity on the part of her royal consort, persisted in exhibiting her resentment, and in loading the favourite with every mark of contempt and obloquy; while Madame de Verneuil, in her turn, renewed her assertions of the illegality of the Queen's marriage, and the consequent illegitimacy of the Dauphin.

The effect of such a feud may be readily imagined: the Court soon became divided into two distinct factions; and those among the great ladies and nobles who frequented the circle of the Marquise were forbidden the entrance of the Queen's apartments.