On his return to Paris in 1607, the favour of the court and the protection of Marie de Medicis were the means of having him nominated Knight of Honour. His talents, birth, deportment and position soon procured him the appointment of French Ambassador to the Court of Spain in 1614, which high position he left for that of Ambassador at Rome in 1622, where he replaced the Marquis of Coeuvres. He spent two years in the Eternal City, and subsequently acknowledged that it was there that he conceived the idea first of embracing Holy Orders; Cardinal de LaValette replacing him at the Roman Court as French _Chargé d'Affaires_. From what can be gleaned in history, this distinguished personage led a princely life, his enormous rent-roll furnishing the means for a most lordly establishment of retainers, liveries and domains. [170] His fancy for display, great though it was, never, however, made him lose sight of the poor, nor turn a deaf ear to the voice of the needy. In 1626, the Pope (Barberini), Urban the VIII., having proclaimed a jubilee, the ex-ambassador, as if a new light had dawned on him, and under the guidance of a man famous for his pious and ascetic life, Vincent de Paul, determined to reform his house and whole life. Thus, a few years after, viz., in 1632, the Commandeur de Sillery sold to Cardinal Richelieu his sumptuous and princely hôtel in Paris, called Sillery, entered Holy Orders in 1634, and devoted all the energy of his mind and his immense wealth to the propagation of the faith amongst the aborigines of Canada, having been induced to do so by the Commandeur de Razili, who had previously solicited him to join the company des "Cents Associés," or Hundred Partners, of which Razili was a member.