One day in December the French ambassador Bellièvre had had business at the royal palace. He was desirous of [A.D. 1638.] leaving, when he was detained by Lord Holland in one of the galleries, and after a short time the King and Queen of England with the Queen-mother came in through the very door by which he would have been obliged to withdraw. He had intentionally avoided paying her his respects, as all the other ambassadors had done: when she came nearer she now said to him that she had a word for his ear, and the King and Queen left her alone with him. She then assured him that, after so many painful experiences, she was of quite another mind from that in which she had formerly been when she left France: that she conjured the Cardinal to deliver her out of her misery, and not to leave her under the necessity of begging her bread: that she wished for nothing except to be near her son, and that she promised if near him to interfere in nothing: but that if this indulgence could not be obtained for the present, she wished to be allowed to remain anywhere else in France, and have a maintenance given her; that she would remove from the neighbourhood of her person all who were displeasing to the Cardinal, and would in all things do what he advised her[142]. Bellièvre in vain declared that his commission did not go so far as to allow him to listen to her; that he was merely ambassador at the court of the King of England. She replied that she knew that the French ambassadors were bound to report what was said to them, and that this was enough for her. Cardinal Richelieu however had made up his mind never to allow her to return to France, and to give her a maintenance only if she would repair to Florence. There was no question of compassion with him. The Queen of England remembered full well that her brother had forbidden her to interfere in any way in the affairs of the Queen-mother: but the unhappy plight of her mother, the general interest which she awakened at court, and her own confidence in herself, founded upon the respect which the power of her husband must procure for her, [A.D. 1638.] moved her notwithstanding to make an attempt to do something for her mother. After some time, as her first expression of opinion had no kind of effect, she sent one of her people, Henry Jermyn, who of them all perhaps stood highest in her confidence, to the French court in order to set on foot in France itself a negotiation for the Queen-mother’s return. Bellièvre not only did not recommend the Queen’s proposals, but was even adverse to them.