194.] In fact, the queen-mother quite perceived that she was only shown the articles in the window, and did not enter the shop; "but, with all the prudence and patience of an Italian, when she was not carried away by passion, she knew how to practise dissimulation towards the Prince of Conde and his allies, Chancellor Sillery and his son Puisieux, secretary of state.

She accompanied her son on an expedition against the Huguenots of the South, which she had not advised, "foreseeing quite well that, if she were separated from the king, she would have no part either in peace or war, and that, if they got on without her for ten months, they would become accustomed to getting on without her." She had the satisfaction of at last seeing the Bishop of Lucon promoted to the cardinalship she had so often solicited for him in vain; but, at the same time, the king called to the council Cardinal Rochefoucauld, "not through personal esteem for the old cardinal," says Richelieu, "but to cut off from the new one all hope of a place for which he might be supposed to feel some ambition." Nevertheless, in spite of his enemies' intrigues, in spite of a certain instinctive repugnance on the part of the king himself, who repeated to his mother, "I know him better than you, madame; he is a man of unbounded ambition," the "new cardinal" was called to the council at the opening of the year 1624, on the instance of the Marquis of La Vieuville, superintendent of finance and chief of the council, who felt himself unsteady in his position, and sought to secure the favor of the queen-mother.

It was as the protege and organ of Mary de' Medici that the cardinal wrote to the Prince of Conde, on the 11th of May, 1624, "The king having done me the honor to place me on his council, I pray God with all my heart to render me worthy of serving him as I desire; and I feel myself bound thereto by every sort of consideration.

I cannot sufficiently thank you for the satisfaction that you have been pleased to testify to me thereat.

Therefore would I far rather do so in deed by serving you than by bootless words.