Henrietta never liked Weston. Perhaps she was jealous of her husband's regard, and saw in him a potential Buckingham; certainly she disliked his close-fisted ways, which curbed her extravagance, always considerable, in money matters. She allowed a cabal of discontented spirits to gather round her, whose double aim was the overthrow of the powerful minister in England and of the far greater statesman across the Channel. That cabal, founded in French opinion by Chateauneuf,[91] included most of the Queen's personal friends. Holland,[92] who was jealous of Weston, and whose devotion to Madame de Chevreuse accounted for his attitude to Richelieu, without taking into account a warm friendship with Chateauneuf; Montagu, who laid such portion of his homage as he could spare from Queen Anne at the feet of the same seductive lady, and who had been and was "very well" with Monsieur the factious Duke of Orleans; Jermyn and Henry Percy--these are some of those[93] implicated in Henrietta's first attempt at the fascinating game of diplomatic chicanery. To them must be added Madame de Vantelet, whom Chateauneuf thought a little neglected, but who, as the only French lady of the royal household, had considerable influence over her mistress, and whose partisanship became so marked that the pension assigned to her by the King of France was taken away. The difficulties began with the arrival of Chateauneuf's successor, the Marquis of Fontenay-Mareuil, who threw himself on the side of Weston, and who soon found that he had to reckon with a foe in the person of the Chevalier de Jars. He met with little less opposition from Madame de Vantelet and from Father Philip, who disliked the ecclesiastical policy of the ambassador, and who was himself disliked by the party of Richelieu, because as a subject of King Charles he was quite independent of France and could not be persuaded to use the great influence over the Queen which his position gave him in the interests of a foreign Government.[94] The Queen proved even more intractable. She refused to dismiss Father Philip at her eldest brother's request, and it was an ominous sign that in 1631 an agent of Monsieur was in England, even though Charles took care that his presence should be reported to the French authorities. When the news arrived of the execution of the gallant Montmorency, Henrietta spoke with pity of his fate, while her husband, who had many of the instincts of absolutism, readily allowed that it was a painful necessity.