For in the early spring of 1633 the Court of England was startled by the news of the arrest of that nobleman and of the Chevalier de Jars, who had returned to France after the above incident. In a moment the power of those who were the Queen of England's friends in her native land seemed destroyed. Chateauneuf was sent into captivity at Angoulême. His fair charmer, Madame de Chevreuse, was forced into uncongenial retirement, which ended in her dramatic escape, dressed up as a man, across the Pyrenees into Spain. While for Jars was reserved a still harder lot. Two years of rigorous imprisonment in the Bastille were followed by a sentence of death, pronounced by one who was known as the "bourreau du Cardinal." It was only as the victim kneeled upon the scaffold awaiting the stroke of the executioner that he received, by the tardy mercy of Richelieu, a reprieve from death, a reprieve so sudden and startling that for many minutes he was too stunned to appreciate his good fortune, which, however, was none too great, for he was reconducted to his prison, whence all the efforts of his friends, headed by the Queen of England, were long unavailing to drag him. It was not indeed likely that Richelieu would look favourably on a request proferred by Henrietta, for he was beginning to feel that distrust of her which never left him to the end of his life. Among the letters which the _affaire_ Chateauneuf placed in his power were many written by English hands, those of Holland, of Montagu, of the Queen herself. He knew also that the royal lady had spoken slighting words of him, saying that Chateauneuf was no participant of the evil counsels of the Cardinal, and that after the death of the latter he would be able to fill his place much more worthily. This information, moreover, came from an unimpeachable source, none other than the Treasurer of England. Weston indeed watched with no ordinary interest the course of events in France, and it is not surprising that he did not scruple to report to the Cardinal the uncomplimentary remarks of the Queen of England. The enemies of Richelieu were his own, and their overthrow prepared the way for his victory, which, though on a smaller scale and of less dramatic quality, was equally decisive. In the spring of 1633, not long after the fall of Chateauneuf, Jerome Weston, the son of the Treasurer, was on his way home from Paris, whither he had been as ambassador. On the journey he happened to fall in with a letter which he thought to be written by the Earl of Holland, and remembering the hostility of that nobleman to his father, he took possession of it. On opening the packet he found within a letter addressed in the Queen's handwriting, which he did not presume to unfold; but on his arrival in London laid it, just as he had found it, in the hands of the King.