Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/174

160 have almost always met in the suite of Madame de Chevreuse, agitated noisily for her, while the Chevalier de Jars intrigued secretly for Châteauneuf. Under the cloak of the English embassy, an extensive correspondence was established between Madame de Chevreuse, Vendôme, Bouillon, and the other malcontents.

When, in the summer of 1644, the Queen of England came to seek an asylum in France, and went to take the waters of Bourbon, Madame de Chevreuse passionately desired to behold again the one who had formerly received her so kindly; and the Queen Henrietta, who, like her mother, Marie de Medicis, and Madame de Chevreuse, was of the Catholic and Spanish party, would have been rejoiced to have poured out her heart into that of so old and so faithful a friend. But she did not think herself justified in yielding to her inclination without the permission of the queen who had accorded her so noble a hospitality. Anne of Austria replied courteously that her sister the queen was free in all her movements, but afterwards caused her to be privately informed through the Chevalier Jars that it was not proper for her to receive the visits of a person at variance with her Majesty. This fresh disgrace, added to so many others, urged the irritation of the duchess to its height. She redoubled her efforts to throw off the yoke that was oppressing her. Mazarin knew and watched all her manœuvres. He caused the arrest of the controller of her household at Paris, and also, a short time after, of her physician while in the same carriage with her daughter. The duchess complains loudly of this proceeding in a letter which