The cardinal, who perceived this dismay, said to them, 'I am sure you were speaking about me.' The queen answered, 'We were not.' Whereupon, he having replied, 'Confess it, madam,' she said yes, and thereupon conducted herself with great tartness towards him, declaring to the king 'that she would not put up with the cardinal any longer, or see in her house either him or any of his relatives and friends, to whom she incontinently gave their dismissal, and not to them only, but even down to the pettiest of her officers who had come to her from his hands.'" [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t.iii.

p.

428.] The struggle was begun.

Already the courtiers were flocking to the Luxembourg; the keeper of the seals, Marillac, had gone away to sleep at his country-house at Glatigny, quite close to Versailles, where the king was expected; and he was hoping that Louis XIII.

would summon him and put the power in his hands.