It was not difficult to understand these excuses. What was to be done with him? The King and La Vieuville tried to send him as ambassador to Spain, then to Rome; but he would not go. The Queen-mother obstinately pressed his claim to be admitted to the Council; she spared neither her son nor his Minister; she even held aloof from the Court in her discontent, and it seems that the fear of another serious breach with her had much influence with the King. Towards the end of April, 1624, the complications in home and foreign affairs increasing every day, the pamphlets stinging more sharply, public and private voices waxing louder, La Vieuville found himself forced to advise the King to admit Richelieu to his Council--and this in the full consciousness that the Cardinal’s rise must mean his own fall. Even now he tried, in self-defence, to limit his new colleague’s power for mischief. He was to sit on the Council for the purpose of giving his opinion, but nothing more; he might use the influence, but not the authority, of a Minister of the Crown. Richelieu swept this fragile barrier easily away; indeed, from his own account, he ignored it altogether, and history would have forgotten it, but for some detailed reports sent from Paris to his masters by the Florentine ambassador. The Cardinal’s _Memoirs_, with his letter to the King, show him by no means eager to accept the offered place which had been for so long “his one thought by day, his one dream by night.” All the intrigues of the affair were open to him, and if he despised and distrusted La Vieuville and the rest of the Council, he had little confidence in the jealous, uncertain temper of the King. Writing to Louis, he began by frankly acknowledging that God had given him “some enlightenment and strength of mind.” These qualities, however, were rendered unserviceable by extreme bodily weakness--so much so that he had lately besought the Queen-mother to relieve him from his light duties as superintendent of her household. Such indeed were his infirmities that he could not live without frequent excursions into the country. He added that he had many enemies, especially those of the Queen-mother, who would certainly, on his account, do their best to make mischief between their Majesties; while he assured the King that he would rather die than do anything against the welfare of the State, for which he would shed the last drop of his blood.