The king, continually disquieted by the projects of assassination hatched against his minister, gave him a company of musketeers as guards, and set off for Nantes, whither the cardinal was not slow to go and join him.

In the interval, a fresh accomplice in the plot had been discovered.
This time it was in the king's own household that he had been sought and found.

Henry de Talleyrand, Count of Chalais, master of the wardrobe, hare-brained and frivolous, had hitherto made himself talked about only for-his duels and his successes with women.

He had already been drawn into a plot against the cardinal's life; but, under the influence of remorse, he had confessed his criminal intentions to the minister himself.

Richelieu appeared touched by the repentance, but he did not forget the offence, and his watch over this "unfortunate gentleman," as he himself calls him, made him aware before long that Chalais was compromised in an intrigue which aimed at nothing less, it was said, than to secure the person of the cardinal by means an ambush, so as to rid him at need.