She advanced then before the Council, knowing that the happiness, if not the life of Anne of Austria, might depend upon her answer; and clasping her snowy hands together, she raised her eyes towards Heaven, "So help me God at my utmost need!" she said, with a clear, slow, energetic utterance, "no line that I have ever seen of her Majesty's writing--and I believe I have seen almost all she has written within the last five years--no line that I have seen, ever spoke any thing but the warmest attachment to my Lord the King; nor did any ever contain the slightest allusion to the politics of this kingdom, but were confined entirely to the subject of her domestic life;--nor even then," she continued, dropping her full blue eyes to the countenance of the King, and fixing them there, with a calm serious determined gaze, which overpowered the glance of the Monarch, and made his eyelid fall--"nor even then did they ever touch upon her domestic sorrows." Richelieu saw that the King was moved: he knew also the influence of Mademoiselle de Hauteford, and he instantly resolved upon crushing her by one of those bold acts of power which he had so often attempted with impunity. Nor had he much hesitation in the present instance, knowing that Louis's superstitious belief in the predictions of the Astrologer had placed the Monarch's mind completely under his dominion. "Mademoiselle de Hauteford," said he in a stern voice, "answer me. Have you seen all the letters that the Queen has written to her brother, Philip King of Spain, positively knowing them to be such?" "So please your Eminence, I _have_," replied Mademoiselle de Hauteford. "Well then," said Richelieu, rising haughtily from his chair while he spoke, "in so doing you have committed misprision of treason, and are therefore banished from this court and kingdom for ever; and if within sixteen days from this present, you have not removed yourself from the precincts of the realm, you shall be considered guilty of high treason, and arraigned as such, inasmuch as, according to your own confession, you have knowingly and wilfully, after a decree in council against it, concealed and abetted a correspondence between persons within the kingdom of France, and a power declaredly its enemy." As the Cardinal uttered his sentence in a firm, deep, commanding voice, the King, who had at first listened to him with a look of surprise, and perhaps of anger, soon began to feel the habitual superiority of Richelieu, and shrunk back into himself, depressed and overawed: the Queen pressed her hand before her eyes; and Chavigni half raised himself, as if to speak, but instantly resumed his seat as his eye met that of the Cardinal.