Not being a pedant in anything else, he was a thorough pedant in gallantry, and this is the fault that women never pardon. The Queen detested Richelieu, and she made him feel it; but he took his revenge at Val-de-Grâce. After the outburst--after the word _treason_ had been spoken--it rested with him to have mercy, or to send into shameless banishment the barren Queen. It gave him pleasure to see her cowering before him, frightened and deprived of all her pride. He exulted in disdaining her with an exaggerated and insulting affectation of respect, and fearing lest the scene should not be known to posterity, he painted it with all the zest of the reaction of his wounded dignity.[27] He listened complacently while she drove the nails into her coffin, rendering more proofs of her docility "than he should have dared to expect"; incriminating herself, as she explained in her own way, by palpable untruths, all her treasonable letters to her brothers and to her friends in Spain. When she had told a great deal more than she knew, Richelieu put a few sharp questions, and the Queen completely lost her head. Then [wrote Richelieu, in his chronicle] she confessed to the Cardinal everything which is in the paper signed by her afterwards. She confessed with much displeasure and confusion, because she had taken oaths contrary to what she was confessing. While she made the said confession to the Cardinal her shame was such that she cried out several times, "Oh, how kind you must be, Monsieur the Cardinal!" protesting that all her life she should be grateful and recognise the obligation she was under to those who drew her out of the affair. She had the honour to say to the Cardinal: "Give me your hand," presenting her own as a mark of the fidelity with which she should keep all her promises. Through respect the Cardinal refused to give her his hand. From the same motive he retired instead of approaching her. Officially Louis XIII. pardoned the intrigue of Val-de-Grâce, but the courtiers were not deceived, and they immediately deserted the Queen's apartment. When they passed her windows they modestly lowered their eyes. It was just at that time that Mademoiselle arrived. It was at the end of August. She read her welcome in every face. Now that she had come gayety became a duty and amusements an obligation. The feeling of relief was general. Mademoiselle wrote: I put all the Court in good humour. The King was in great grief because of the suspicions they had awakened against the Queen, and not long before that they had found the strong box that had made all the trouble at Val-de-Grâce, about which too much has been said already. I found the Queen in bed, sick. Any one would be sick after such an affront as she had received.