“The year began joyously,” writes Bassompierre, a lighter-hearted witness than Pontchartrain, and a loyal courtier of Marie de Médicis. “Many fine assemblies, at which, besides gambling, feasting, and comedy, there was also good music. Time passed pleasantly at the Fair of Saint-Germain.” The Maréchal and Leonora shared little in these amusements. He, at least, was troubled with a heavy presentiment of misfortune to come, and a present grief, the illness and death of their little daughter, caused them both “un cruel déplaisir.” The friendly soul Bassompierre, who had known him in his Florentine days, visited them in their sorrow on the very day of the child’s death. He found them together, “fort affligés,” in the little house close to the Louvre. “I tried as well as I could to console or divert him, but the more I spoke the more he grieved, and weeping answered me nothing, except “_Seignor_, je suis perdu; _seignor_, je suis ruiné; _seignor_, je suis misérable.” Bassompierre begged him to consider that he was a Marshal of France, and therefore that such lamentations, though worthy of his wife, were unworthy of him; adding in the candid fashion of the time that although he had lost an amiable daughter he had yet four nieces, by whose means he might ally himself with any four great French houses that he might choose--“and many other things which God inspired me to say.” “Ah, monsieur,” replied Concini, “I truly mourn my daughter, and shall mourn her as long as I live. Nevertheless, I am a man able to endure with constancy a grief such as this; but the ruin of myself and my wife, my son and my house, which I see before my eyes, and which my wife’s obstinacy makes inevitable, causes me to lament and to lose patience.” He went on to tell Bassompierre the familiar story of his life, curious enough from his own point of view. According to him, he had been perfectly happy and prosperous till within the last few months--since, in fact, to outward view, he had possessed almost sovereign power. His excitable southern nature was not made to stand firm against the assaults of fortune, party hatred, popular fury and insult; in all this he saw warnings from heaven of coming ruin, terrible and complete. On his knees, he said, he had implored his wife to retire with him to Italy, where with their immense fortune they could establish themselves magnificently and leave a fine heritage to their son. But the Maréchale, with more courage, if also with a more greedy, unsatisfied ambition, absolutely refused to leave France. It was cowardly and ungrateful, she said, to think of forsaking the Queen, to whom they owed their honours and their wealth. “If it were not for my obligations to my wife,” he said, “I would leave her, and go where neither nobles of France nor common people would follow and find me.”