Now, Bassompierre is generally regarded as a singularly reliable chronicler, but we must remember that his _Mémoires_ were written, or rather arranged and revised, during his imprisonment in the Bastille, and that there was always a by no means remote possibility that they might be impounded and placed under the eyes of Louis XIII and Richelieu. It was therefore manifestly to his interest to make out as good a case for himself as he could, and to pose as the victim of unfounded suspicions. When he declares that on the evening of the 10th he had no suspicion of what had taken place at the Luxembourg, and that he was positive that the Princesse de Conti knew nothing about it, he is probably speaking the truth. For it was not until the following morning that Louis XIII signed the despatch appointing the Maréchal de Marillac to the command of the army of Italy, and until the King had taken what appeared to her a decisive step against Richelieu, the Queen-Mother may well have refrained from speaking of the matter to anyone, even to so close a friend and confidante as the Princesse de Conti. But when he asks us to believe that until the afternoon of the 11th, by which time the affair must have been already known to half the Court, and, by his own admission, _was_ known to _Monsieur’s_ favourite Puylaurens and to the Duc de Longueville, both he and his wife were still in ignorance, and that when the Cardinal said to him: “You will no longer take any account of a disgraced man like myself,” he really believed that he was referring to [Illustration: CHARLOTTE LOUISE DE LORRAINE, PRINCESSE DE CONTI. From an engraving by Thomas de Leu.] his differences with _Monsieur_, we must entirely decline to do so. * * * * * On the morning of the 14th, the Spanish merchant Alphonso Lopez,[136] who was one of Richelieu’s secret agents, came to visit Bassompierre and “told him that he would do well to go to Versailles to see the King and the Cardinal.” The marshal, however, learning that the new Keeper of the Seals, Châteauneuf, with whom he was on very friendly terms, was coming to Paris that day to pay his respects to the two Queens, thought it advisable to defer his visit to the morrow, and, meanwhile, to go and offer his compliments to Châteauneuf on his appointment and ascertain from him what reception he was likely to receive.