In such projects, but still more in her obstinate partiality for the celebrated Marechal d'Ancre and his wife, originated a thousand factions and civil wars, which kept the country in a continual state of tumult during the King's minority. These factions, and the circumstances which they engendered, necessarily gave rise to various rapid changes in the Queen's ministry, and amidst these, for the first time, appeared on the political stage Richelieu, then Bishop of Luçon. His prospects yet doubtful, and his ambition still in its infancy, Richelieu made mildness and courtesy his first steps towards pre-eminence. He contented himself with an inferior station in the Council: his urbanity and his talents proved equally agreeable and useful; and no one beheld in the calm and polished Bishop of Luçon, any promise of the aspiring and remorseless Cardinal de Richelieu. A circumstance, however, occurred almost in the outset of his career, which had nearly thrown him for ever from the destined scene of his aggrandizement. This was the fall of the Marechal d'Ancre, and the arrest of the Queen-mother. On the marriage of Louis XIII., the jealous eye of Mary de Medicis soon perceived her son's first affection towards his young wife, and, fearful of an influence which might spring up to counteract her own, she found means to destroy, without remorse, the domestic happiness of her child, in order to secure her own dominion over him. But while she fomented every disagreement between Louis and his wife, and watched the least symptom of reviving affection with the suspicious anxiety of uncertain power, she blindly suffered near his person a favourite who combined with the genius to form great designs, the most consummate art to conceal them. Monsieur de Luynes, it appears, from the first moment of his intimacy with the King, projected his master's deliverance from the tyranny of Mary de Medicis; but lest he should be suspected of such designs, he hid them beneath the mask of levity and thoughtlessness. It would be little appropriate here to enter more largely into the details of these proceedings. Suffice it that in the end the Queen's favourite was shot as he entered the palace of the Louvre, and she herself was instantly arrested and exiled to Blois. Amongst others of her council who shared in the fall of the Queen, was Richelieu, and for some time he remained in exile at Avignon.