In order to give his views full swing, he waited till he had conquered the Huguenots at home: nearly all his treaties with Protestant powers are posterior to 1630.
So soon as he was secure that no political discussions in France itself would come to thwart his foreign designs, he marched with a firm step towards that enfeeblement of Spain and that upsetting of the empire of which Nani speaks.

Henry IV.

and Queen Elizabeth, pursuing the same end, had sought and found the same allies: Richelieu had the good fortune, beyond theirs, to meet, for the execution of his designs, with Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden.
Richelieu had not yet entered the king's council (1624), when the breaking off of the long negotiations between England and Spain, on the subject of the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Infanta, was officially declared to Parliament.

At the very moment when Prince Charles, with the Duke of Buckingham, was going post-haste to Madrid, to see the Infanta Mary Anne of Spain, they were already thinking, at Paris, of marrying him to Henrietta of France, the king's young sister, scarcely fourteen years of age.

King James I.was at that time obstinately bent upon his plan of alliance with Spain; when it failed, his son and big favorite forced his hand to bring him round to France.