In June a report reached the Queen-mother at Compiègne that a royal army was to be sent to remove her by force. If this story was invented with the object of driving her out of the kingdom, it served its end. On July 18, at ten o’clock at night, she left Compiègne on foot and almost alone--an easier escape than that from the Château de Blois. A coach and six, with outriders, was waiting in the shadow of the forest. The Queen intended to stop at La Capelle, a small strong place in Picardy, close to the frontier of the Low Countries: the governor, M. de Vardes, had promised to receive her. But this coming to Richelieu’s ears, the father of M. de Vardes, who had formerly commanded at La Capelle, was sent post-haste from Paris to supersede his son, and the gates were shut against the fugitive Queen. She was thus obliged to cross the frontier, which she did, never to return; and was received with great honour at Avesnes in Artois, by the officers of the Archduchess Isabel. So the great Henry’s Florentine widow removed herself from the path of Cardinal de Richelieu; to his advantage and her own loss and ruin. This political triumph was followed by new honours and personal dignities. For a year past he had borne, with other Cardinals, the new titles of _Eminentissime_ and _Eminence_, decreed by Pope Urban VIII., and shared only by the ecclesiastical Electors of the Empire and the Grand Master of Malta. He had added to his worldly goods and to his spiritual power by becoming Coadjutor of the Abbot of Cluny, and the strength of his resolute will for reform was felt by the great religious orders as well as by the secular clergy. In September 1631 letters patent from the King created him Duc de Richelieu and a peer of France, and he took his seat in Parliament with great state, escorted by the Prince de Condé, the Duc de Montmorency, and a crowd of the first men in France. From that time he bore the singular title of “Cardinal-Duc.” He also became governor of Brittany; and one fortified town after another, throughout the north of France, fell into his hands and were garrisoned by friends of his own. He rewarded the Prince de Condé and the Cardinal de la Valette with the governments of Burgundy and Anjou. One foreign Power, at least, was not behindhand in paying homage to the man whom the King of France delighted to honour. The Republic of Venice sent him letters of Venetian nobility, to descend to any one of his relations he might choose. “And she sent them with ceremony by an express Gentleman, to whom His Eminence did not forget to present a very fine chain of gold.”