When the story became known, which was not immediately, many persons blamed the Comte de Soissons that he had not made up for Monsieur’s weakness by finishing the affair. “He excused himself,” says Montglat, “by the respect he owed Monsieur, so that he dared undertake nothing in his presence without his command.” He was too wise to act alone in such a matter: the position of Gaston’s cat’s-paw, to be disclaimed and forsaken and left to the King’s justice, was not attractive. The army might rally round the heir to the throne in sudden rebellion; the Comte de Soissons was not equally secure. Three days later there was another chance, for Richelieu visited the camp; but he was attended by his own guards, and the assassination was “judged impossible.” On this occasion a whisper of the plot reached his ears, and with his usual fearlessness he spoke of it to the Comte de Soissons, haughtily reprimanding him. The princes were frightened, for their plots had gone beyond the death of Richelieu. They had disloyally done their best to delay the relief of Corbie; they had attempted to draw the Duc d’Épernon into the project of a rising, already favoured by the Duc de Bouillon and others, the object of which was to lay hold on the government, to reinstate the Queen-mother, and to make peace with Spain. They failed; the various successes of the autumn were against them; the Duc d’Épernon, though two of his sons were on their side, refused to listen to them. After the re-taking of Corbie, having returned from the army to Paris, they were seized with a great fear of the Cardinal. He was certain to know all; he was of a temper that never forgave; the Court, they felt assured, was not a safe place for them. They took counsel with each other and resolved to fly, at once, on a dark November night, while Paris was singing and rejoicing over the good news of victory. Both princes, before leaving Paris, paid a separate visit to the Tuileries. There, under the care of M. de Montglat’s mother, Madame de Saint-Georges, lived Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Gaston’s daughter, now nine years old, a person of decided character, and one of Richelieu’s most hearty haters. The Comte de Soissons paid great court to this little lady, the richest heiress in France if not in Europe. Though four years older than her father and twenty-three years older than herself, and having failed ten years earlier to run away with her mother, he proposed to marry her, and Gaston was ready to consent. This plan was one of the links that now united them. Mademoiselle herself liked Monsieur le Comte, and accepted his compliments and sugar-plums with satisfaction: but at this time she did not understand his object. It is doubtful if the royal consent would ever have been given to this marriage. But a curious little passage in the Cardinal’s own _Memoirs_ shows how keenly he noticed every detail in the lives of the princes, and on what slight if sure grounds he accused them of conspiracy.