Peace with Spain--The making of the army and navy--The question of Monsieur’s marriage--The first great conspiracy--Triumph of Richelieu and death of Chalais. The Duke of Buckingham had to do with a mind immeasurably superior to his own; and if he, in the autumn of 1625, was pushing on a quarrel with France, Cardinal de Richelieu’s game, for the present, was to disappoint him. The English fleet, playing at piracy, carried off French merchant ships: English influence led the Dutch to recall the fleet they had lent to France; a serious annoyance to Richelieu, who had not yet had time to make a navy. He had other reasons for being angry with King Charles, who, from Henrietta’s first arrival in England, had frankly shown his dislike of the “Monsers” she brought with her and seemed ready to treat all his marriage promises, open or secret, as waste paper. But Richelieu intended England to be the powerful mediator between Louis XIII. and the Huguenots; to this end, he ignored a whole series of pin-pricks, invited English ambassadors to Paris, and let it be understood that France, once at peace internally, would be ready to give active help in Germany. That bleeding wound of civil war had so weakened the campaign in North Italy as to make it ineffectual. An Austrian force, pouring down over the Saint-Gothard, had reinforced Genoa, and Lesdiguières, with no fleet to support him, had been obliged to retire. But the Spaniards had failed to recover the Valtelline. It remained for the present in the hands of the French; a difficult question to be settled with the Pope, and Cardinal Barberini’s mission to that end resulted in nothing but words. He went back to Rome, in high discontent, at the end of September, and Richelieu, so far from slackening his hold, sent the Maréchal de Bassompierre to reinforce the Marquis de Cœuvres in Switzerland. It seemed that there was nothing to be done in the Catholic interest with “le Roy du Roy,” the man people already called atheist, Huguenot, “le Cardinal de la Rochelle.”