Around these chiefs of the Court buzzed a swarm of ambitious rivals and whispering intriguers all animated by one purpose, to effect the discomfiture of Richelieu. The King's health was failing. The Cardinal knew that Louis "had not two days to live"; he was seen daily, steadily advancing toward the grave. In Michelet's writings there is a striking page devoted to the "great man of business wasting his time and strength struggling against I do not know how many insects which have stung him." Marie de Médicis was the only one who united with the King in defending Richelieu in the critical winter of 1626. The Cardinal was the Queen's creature. The pair had many memories in common--and of more than one kind. Some years previous Richelieu had taken the trouble to play lover to the portly quadragenarian, and he had brought to bear upon his effort all the courage requisite for such a suit. The Court of France had looked on while the Cardinal took lessons in lute playing, because the Queen-mother, notwithstanding her age and her proportions, had had a fancy to play the lute as she had done when a little girl. Marie de Médicis had given proof that she was not insensible to such delicate attentions, and she had forgotten nothing; but the moment was approaching when Richelieu would find that it had been to no purpose that he had shouldered the ridicule of France by sighing out his music at the feet of the fat Queen. That year a stranger would have said that the Court of France had never been more gay. Fête followed fête. In the winter there were two grand ballets at the Louvre, danced by the flower of the nobility, the King at their head. Louis XIII. adored such exhibitions, though they overthrow all modern ideas of a royal majesty. The previous winter he had invited the Bourgeoisie of Paris to the Hôtel-de-Ville to contemplate their ghastly monarch masked for the carnival, dancing his _grand pas_. "_It is my wish_," said he, "_to confer honour upon the city by this action_." The Bourgeoisie had accepted the invitation; man and wife had flocked to the appointed place at the appointed hour, and there they had waited from four o'clock in the afternoon until five o'clock in the morning, before the royal dancers had made their appearance. The dance had not ended until noon, when the honoured Bourgeoisie had returned to their homes.