And as Louis' visits to the Mancini lodging became more and more frequent, each adding a fresh link to the chain that was binding him to her young sister, Madame de Soissons saw less and less of him, until an amused tolerance gave place to a genuine alarm. It was nothing less than an outrage that she, who had so long held first place in the King's favour, should be ousted by a "mere child," the last person in the world whom she could have thought of as a rival. But the Comtesse was no woman to be easily dethroned. Although at every Court ball, fête, or ballet, Louis was now inseparable from her sister, she affected to ignore these open slights and lost no opportunity in public of vaunting her intimacy with His Majesty, even to the extent on one occasion, as Mademoiselle records, of taking Louis' seat at a ball supper and compelling him to share it with her. But such shameless arrogance only served to estrange the King still further, and to make him seek still more the company of the young sister, who had already captured his heart as the Comtesse had never captured it. When Louis made his memorable journey to Lyons to meet the Princess Margaret of Savoy, it was to Marie that he paid the most courtly and tender attentions. "During the journey," says Mademoiselle, "he did not address a word to the Comtesse de Soissons"; and, indeed, on more than one occasion he showed a marked aversion to her. At St Jean d'Angely, Louis not only himself escorted Marie to her lodging; he stayed with her until two o'clock in the morning. "Nothing," her sister Hortense records, "could equal the passion which the King showed, and the tenderness with which he asked of Marie her pardon for all she had suffered for his sake." It was, indeed, no secret at Court that he had offered her marriage, and had taken a solemn vow that neither Margaret of Savoy nor the Infanta of Spain should be his wife. But, as we have seen in a previous chapter, both the Queen and Mazarin were determined that the Infanta should be Queen of France; and that his foolish romance with the Mancini girl should be nipped in the bud. There was also another powerful influence at work to thwart his passion for Marie. The indifference of the Comtesse de Soissons had given place to a fury of resentment; and she needed no instigation of her uncle to determine at any cost to recover the place she had lost in Louis' favour. She brought all her armoury of coquetry and flatteries to bear on him, and so far succeeded that, we read, "the King has resumed his relations with the Comtesse; he has recommenced to talk and laugh with her; and three days since he entertained M. and Madame de Soissons with a ball and a play, and afterwards they partook of _medianoche_ (a midnight banquet) together, passing more than three hours in conversation with them."