Madame, I am the more annoyed by your resolution to retire from my state because I know that you have no real reason for doing so. The imaginary prison, the supposititious persecutions of which you complain, and the fears that you profess to have felt at Compiègne during your life there, were as lacking in foundation as the pursuit that you pretend my cavalry made when you made your retreat. After these words, the King delivered a pompous eulogy on the Cardinal and ended it thus: You will permit me, an it please you, to tell you, Madame, that the act that you have just committed, and all that has passed during a period more or less recent, make it impossible for me to be ignorant of your intentions in the past, and the action that I have to expect from you in the future. The respect that I owe to you hinders me from saying any more. It is true that Marie de Médicis received nothing that she did not deserve; but it may be possible that it was not for her son to speak to her with brutality. In their way Gaston's letters are _chefs-d'œuvre_. They do honour to the psychological sensibility of the intelligent _névrosé_. Monsieur knew both the strength and the weakness of his brother. He knew him to be jealous, ulcerated by the consciousness of his own insignificance--an insignificance brought into full relief by the importance of the superior Being then hard at work making "of a France languishing a France triumphant"[24]; and with marvellous art he found the words best qualified to irritate secret wounds. His letters open with insinuations to the effect that Richelieu had a personal interest in maintaining the enmity between "the King and his own brother," so that the King, "having no one to defend him," could be held more closely in his, Richelieu's, grasp. I beseech ... your Majesty ... to have the gracious prudence to reflect upon what has passed, and to examine more seriously the designs of those who have been the architects of these plans; if you will graciously examine into this matter you will see that there are interests at stake which are not yours,--interests of a nature opposed to your interests, and which aim at something further, and something far in advance of anything that you have thought of up to the present time (March 23, 1631). In the following letter Monsieur addresses himself directly to Louis XIII.'s worst sentiments and to his kingly conscience. He feigns to be deeply grieved by the deplorable condition of his brother, who, as he says, is reduced, notwithstanding "the very great enlightenment of his mind" to the plight of a puppet ... nothing but the shadow of a king, a being deprived of his authority, lacking in power as in will, counted as nothing in his own kingdom, devoid even of the external lustre ordinarily attached to the rank of a sovereign. Monsieur declares that Richelieu has left the King