While Richelieu and the Queen-mother waited and looked on, _se ménageant_, as a French writer says, and amusing themselves with matters of art, the confusion in State affairs went on deepening. The weakness and irresolution of the Ministers were destroying, day by day, French influence in Europe, while the power of Spain and Austria went on growing. Old allies of France were biting the dust. The progress of the war in Germany was against the Protestants; the Elector Palatine, King of Bohemia, had been driven from his dominions, and James I., his father-in-law, saw no wiser course than to bid for the help of Spain by marrying his heir to the Infanta; it was in this very year 1623 that Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham visited Paris on their way to Madrid. Such an alliance might have sealed the fate of France and almost made her a vassal of Spain; she was indeed approaching that state, in the helpless hands of Sillery and Puisieux. At home the Court was full of quarrels and intrigues: the King, uneasy, discontented, and wilful enough, had not the wisdom or the character needed to dismiss his useless Ministers and to put a strong man in their place. He hunted more desperately than ever, and after a year or two of _rapprochement_ was again becoming estranged from Queen Anne, who for her part fell completely under the influence of the beautiful young widow of Luynes, appointed by him superintendent of her household. After the death of Luynes, this appointment was violently disputed by Madame de Montmorency, widow of the old Constable, who had formerly held it. Madame de Luynes’ chance of keeping it lay in her second marriage with the Duc de Chevreuse, which ranged the great House of Guise on her side. The whole Court, men and women, flung themselves into this quarrel; duels were fought and bribes exacted. Finally, the King and the Ministers decided to suppress the office altogether, to the bitter disappointment of both parties and the wrath of the young Queen. The Queen-mother, with her favourite counsellor, and the Prince de Condé, fallen into disfavour at Court and withdrawn in his government of Berry, were the persons of chief importance who stood aloof from the fray, each watching for some change which might throw political power into the hands of the Prince or the Cardinal. Richelieu, for his part, was neither patient nor idle, and while outwardly absorbed by palaces, pictures, statues, was working underground with an energy hardly realised by the men of his own day. He had few confidants. Père Joseph, as always, knew and understood him best and admired him most loyally; but Père Joseph was hardly in sympathy with the instrument chiefly used by Richelieu at this time--Fancan, the famous pamphleteer.