He went to Paris, and remained there for some months; but it was an unhappy and a disappointing visit. During these early days of her regency, Marie de Médicis had neither power nor leisure to make new friends. Concini, Maréchal d’Ancre, and his wife Leonora, reigned at the Louvre, though hardly yet outside it. The peace of the kingdom, according to Richelieu’s own _Memoirs_, depended on the princes--Condé, Soissons, d’Épernon, Guise, and their like. In these first months they kept it unbroken, and all, Parliament, nobles, statesmen, churchmen, municipalities, governors of provinces, were ready “to serve the King under the guidance of the Queen.” The Huguenots were pacified, for the moment, by the renewal of the Edict of Nantes. But the “grands de la cour” did not give their allegiance for nothing. Henry’s old Ministers, holding on to power with many searchings of heart, were forced to consent to the enormous bribes demanded by everybody. These “gratifications extraordinaires” were scattered with open hand among greedy nobles and courtiers, and, added to the Queen’s own personal extravagance, were likely soon to empty Henry’s precious coffers, so painfully filled. As to the Duc de Sully, whose rough temper, bad manners and comparative honesty had long made him unpopular at Court, a conspiracy among the nobles forced on his retirement in the winter of 1610. All these warring interests and anxieties, with visits from special foreign embassies, with the young King’s coronation at Rheims, with the question of war or peace beyond the frontiers, made a social whirlpool of Paris and the Court. The young provincial Bishop, without money or claims, whose few personal friends were naturally more interested in their own affairs than in his, found himself left behind in the race for power and fortune. His old enemy, fever, seized on him again and laid him low: Paris proved more unhealthy than even the marshes of Luçon. Terribly depressed by illness, he was irritated and annoyed by letters from his Cathedral chapter, complaining of disorders in the diocese, and he wrote sharply in answer, following his letters early in the year 1611. There was no advantage to be gained by staying in Paris, neglected and obscure. Through all the first half of this year, Richelieu was in a Slough of Despond both mental and physical, brooding over difficulties and disappointments, and constantly ill with fever. It seems that in these dark days Père Joseph was his good angel.