“I learned at the same time of the death of the Princesse de Conti, which occasioned me such affliction as was merited by the honour which, since my arrival at the Court, I had received from this princess, who, besides so many other perfections which have rendered her worthy of admiration, had that of being a very good and very obliging friend. I shall honour her memory and regret her for the rest of my days. She was so overwhelmed by grief at seeing herself separated from the Queen-Mother, with whom she had remained since the latter came to France, so afflicted at seeing her family persecuted and her friends and servants in disgrace, that she was neither willing nor able to survive, and died at Eu, on Monday, the last day of April, of that unhappy year 1631.” Assured of the firm support of the King, Richelieu continued to carry matters with a high hand. The Parlement of Paris refused to register the Royal Declaration of March 30, which, without inculpating _Monsieur_, stigmatised the accomplices of his flight as guilty of _lèse-majesté_. On May 13 the magistrates were summoned in a body to the Louvre, where Louis XIII curtly reminded them that their duty was to render justice to his subjects, and not to concern themselves with affairs of State. And, to give point to this rebuke, several presidents and counsellors were banished from Paris. The excitement which the dissensions in the Royal family had aroused, and the fact that public opinion was distinctly hostile to the Cardinal, rendered it essential to remove the Queen-Mother so far as possible from the Court and Paris. Louis XIII requested her to retire to Moulins, with the government of the Bourbonnais, as a kind of honourable exile. She consented, but quickly altered her mind, pretending that her son had fixed upon Moulins in order to send her from there to Florence. Then the King offered her Angers as a residence. To this also she objected, but agreed to go to Nevers for a time. When, however, she learned that _Monsieur_ had quitted France, she declined to budge from Compiègne. Early in July, the King, finding that neither his entreaties nor his orders had any effect upon his mother, sent her a kind of ultimatum. Instead of obeying, Marie resolved to retire to a frontier town and from there dictate her conditions. One of her adherents, Vardes, who commanded at La Capelle, in the name of his father, offered to deliver the place to her; but the King, warned of his intention, sent the old Marquis de Vardes in hot haste to La Capelle, who won over the garrison and expelled his son and the Queen-Mother’s friends from the town. When Marie, who had escaped from Compiègne on July 18, approached La Capelle, she was met by the younger Vardes, who informed her of the failure of their plans, which left her no alternative but to cross the Flemish frontier and seek an asylum with the Spaniards at Brussels.