Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/48

34 occasions. The chancellor never required the queen to submit to an examination; the royal dignity positively forbade this; besides, the queen was not then in Paris, neither was she at the Val de Grâce when the chancellor visited it; she was with the king at Chantilly, and every thing was arranged by confidential explanations between the king, the queen, and Richelieu, without the intervention of the chief justice. The examination of the chancellor did not, therefore, justify the queen, nor was she acquitted; far from that, she was proved, and even acknowledged herself to be guilty, and it was to this confession that she owed the pardon which was granted her. Madame de Motteville explicitly declares this, when vindicating the innocence of her mistress, according to her usual custom. "The queen," says she, "could only obtain her pardon by signing with her own hand an acknowledgment that she had been guilty of all the things of which she had been accused, and she asked it of the king in the most humble and submissive terms.… Every one believed her to be innocent. She was so, in truth, as far as the king was concerned; but she was guilty if it were a crime to have written to her brother and to Madame de Chevreuse. La Porte, the servant of the queen, has himself related to me the particulars of this story. He recounted it to me at a time when he was in disgrace, and therefore dissatisfied with this princess, and what he told me is worthy of credence. He was arrested on the charge of being the bearer of letters of the queen, both to Spain and to Madame de Chevreuse. He was examined three times in the Bastille by La Poterie. The Cardinal de Richelieu wished to question him himself in the presence of the chancellor. He ordered him to be brought to his house into his own chamber, where he was questioned and cross-questioned upon all the points upon which they desired to confound the queen. He remained firm and avowed nothing…refusing the gifts and rewards