The Court arrived at Poitiers on September 4, and was detained there, to the Queen-mother’s great vexation, till the 27th. The little Madame of thirteen, on her way to be married to the Prince of Spain, had an attack of small-pox, and Marie herself suffered from an inflamed arm. As Condé was already fighting his way across country with the object of blocking the road to Spain, while the Duc de Rohan, with a small Huguenot army, was preparing to second him by occupying Guienne and the Bordelais, it appeared at one moment as if the royal marriages might be effectually stopped. Two persons profited by the delay. One was the Maréchale d’Ancre. That mysterious Leonora, accused, probably falsely, of witchcraft and so many other crimes, seized this opportunity to creep back into the favour of her royal mistress and foster-sister, whom she, in concert with the Minister Villeroy and others, had seriously annoyed by advising her against pressing on the marriages. By devoted nursing of the royal invalids, and by the help of her Jewish doctor, Montalto, Leonora soon regained Marie’s selfish affection, to lose it once more, and finally, before the end of her tragic life. The other person who profited by the royal visit to Poitiers was the Bishop of Luçon. On returning from Paris in the spring, feverish and irritable, he had plunged deep in theological studies at his favourite Coussay. It seems to have been a grievance that even his friends should disturb him at his books. But when the Court arrived at Poitiers and was detained there, all loyal persons of any distinction in the province were bound to wait upon their Majesties. The Bishop of Luçon was among the foremost in paying his duty. Certain vague talk of the chaplaincy to Queen Anne now took solid shape, and he received the promise of his appointment, which was definitely made in November, when the Court was at Bordeaux. During the interval, it is evident that Richelieu considered himself bound to the Queen-mother’s service. He made it his business to send a report of the health of Madame, who was left behind at Poitiers for a few days when the Court hurried forward; and his letters to Marie de Médicis are full of grateful devotion. The little French princess was conveyed to the Spanish frontier, and the little Spanish princess was received in exchange. Under the escort of the Duc de Guise and six thousand men--for the Huguenots, under Rohan, made the journey perilous--she was brought to Bordeaux, where the King and his mother awaited her. There the marriage was finally blessed--it had already, in the case of both princesses, been celebrated by proxy--and there the Court lingered on till the middle of December, when it began its slow northward journey, not reaching Tours till January 25, 1616.