Ornano had, as we have mentioned elsewhere, been disgraced and imprisoned by La Vieuville, on a well-founded charge of developing ambition in his pupil. But, when Richelieu succeeded to the control of affairs, he was set at liberty, and restored to his offices, and at the beginning of 1626 created a marshal of France, in the hope of inducing him to lend his support to the Montpensier marriage. Richelieu, then, might reasonably have expected some gratitude from Ornano; but, unfortunately, gratitude found no place in the Corsican’s nature. Bold and ambitious, he urged without ceasing the vain and foolish young prince over whom he had acquired so great an ascendancy to assert his claims to the place in the State to which his birth entitled him. When _Monsieur_ demanded a place in the Council, he demanded to accompany him, with the rank and title of Secretary of State; and the refusal he received had greatly incensed him against Richelieu, and determined him to seek some means of compassing the overthrow of the Minister who had thwarted his ambition. Madame de Chevreuse had long been on friendly terms with Ornano, who had owed his fortune largely to the good offices of her first husband; and she was aware of the grudge which he cherished against Richelieu. She therefore anticipated little difficulty in gaining him over to the Queen’s cause; but, in order to leave nothing to chance, she summoned to her aid the Princesse de Condé, of whom Ornano, undaunted by the fact that he was “the ugliest man possible to imagine,” was a _soupirant_. The blandishments of _Madame la Princesse_ served to dissipate any lingering scruples which the marshal might have entertained; he declared himself a devoted servant of the Queen, and promised to do everything in his power to dissuade _Monsieur_ from making Mlle. de Montpensier his wife. In this task he did not lack coadjutors, and every day the “_Conspiration des Dames_,” as the anti-marriage cabal was called, gathered fresh adherents. The Dowager-Comtesse de Soissons was beloved by Alexandre de Vendôme, Grand Prior of France, the younger of Henri IV’s two sons by Gabrielle d’Estrées, an unquiet spirit, with a positive passion for mischievous intrigue, who nursed a grudge of his own against Richelieu. She had no difficulty in persuading him to join the conspiracy, and the Grand Prior, in his turn and with equal facility, secured the adhesion of his elder brother, the Duc de Vendôme. The gay and foolhardy young courtiers--Du Lude, La Rivière, Louvigny, Puylaurens, Bois-d’Annemetz and others--who surrounded _Monsieur_, espoused the same cause, either from dislike of the Cardinal, or from the hope that a breach between their patron and the King might redound to their advantage.