Page:Memoirs of Madame de Motteville on Anne of Austria and her court.djvu/47

 was but nine years and eight days old when he came to the crown; but King Henri IV. had left him a kingdom so peaceful and flourishing, with such good troops in his armies, such able ministers in his councils, and such large sums in his coffers, that if the queen, Marie de' Medici, had been willing to follow the system established by that great prince in the State, her regency would have been far more glorious and the rest of her life much happier. But, having allowed the Marquis d'Ancre, whom she made marshal of France, to take too great authority, he advised her to dismiss the servitors of the late king, and particularly those great men who had grown old in the highest offices and managed the most important negotiations, to put in their place others who were wholly dependent upon her.

This drew upon her the hatred of all the princes of the blood, and of the other princes and great seigneurs, whom she treated with such haughtiness that they retired from Court; and the treaties of Sainte-Ménehould and Loudun, which the marshal had made, having no effect, the number of malcontents increasing daily, he resolved, in order to break