But those enemies were increasing in number, strength, and confidence. The chances seemed far more even to lookers-on of that day than to us, who possess the balances of history. The reigning Queen, the Queen-mother, Monsieur, all the princes of the blood except Condé--Alexandre de Vendôme had died at Vincennes in the early spring of 1629, and his family held Richelieu responsible--most of the great nobles and ladies of the Court; statesmen such as Michel de Marillac; Marshals of France such as his brother Louis, lately promoted to that rank, Bassompierre, and others; ecclesiastics such as the Cardinal de Bérulle--all these, openly or secretly, for personal or political reasons, were opposed to Richelieu. He had his hearty adherents, the followers of his star, but they were few and rather clever than powerful. His only real support was the King. And Louis XIII. showed considerable strength of character in standing by his Minister against such odds, social and religious. Arriving victorious at Fontainebleau, Richelieu was received with angry coldness by Marie de Médicis. He had not only carried out the policy she hated as to Mantua, Spain, and Savoy, but he had shown the rebel Huguenots what seemed to her a scandalous toleration. A furious jealousy of his influence with the King was so evident a motive of her rage, that the Cardinal found it politic to bow before the storm. Once more he solemnly offered his resignation to the King; once more Louis, torn between the claims of his mother and his Minister, having spent a day in tears, refused to receive it. On the contrary, he heaped fresh honours on the Cardinal. By letters patent he became “chief Minister of State,” the first time in French history that such an appointment had been formally made. A kind of peace was patched up with the Queen-mother. She and her friends only bided their time; the death of Cardinal de Bérulle, a few days after Richelieu’s return from the south, removed one of the best of her counsellors and left her more completely in the hands of a violent faction. Now, in the autumn, the Duke of Mantua found himself again in a desperate plight. The Emperor Ferdinand, victorious over the Protestants of the north, turned to revenge the check that France had given to his feudal authority and to the armies of Spain. The unlucky Grisons found their country once more overrun, this time by an imperial army under Marshal Colalto, which descended the Val Tellina and stormed across the Lombard plain to the siege of Mantua, very slightly hindered by a Venetian force which had come to the Duke’s aid. At the same time the valiant old Marquis Spinola, the Spanish governor of Milan, invaded Montferrat and again besieged Casale, where M. de Toiras, the hero of the Isle of Ré, was now in command.