The Queen's feelings were overpowering; the tears rolled rapidly down her cheeks, taking from her all power of utterance, and quitting the King, after pressing his hand to her lips, she retired to her own apartments, to indulge in solitude the new and delightful emotions which her husband's unexpected kindness had excited. CHAPTER VIII. Which shows that the Moment and the Manner have often more to do with Success than the Matter. The various preparations for the King's journey into Roussillon occupied no small space of time. Litters and carriages were to be provided; relays of horses to be stationed on the road; cooks and victuallers were to be sent forward; and a thousand other arrangements to be made, required either by the general difficulty of locomotion in those days, or by the failing health of the King. It was not then, as in the present time, when monarchs and subjects travel with equal facility all over the globe: when a king gets into his travelling chaise with no more to do than a private man, and is carried along over a level road without let or hindrance, jolt or jumbling, to whatsoever place his fancy may incline him. The journey of a sovereign was then as formidable an undertaking as the passage of the Great Desert to a modern traveller, and required fully as much provision and circumspection. One great object of Richelieu's policy had been to diminish the feudal influence of the nobility, and by forcing them to reside with the Court, to break through their constant communication with their vassals. In pursuit of this, he had drawn the greater part of the nobles to Paris; and now that his absence and declining favour with the King dissolved the charm which seemed to hold them in the capital, they congregated at St. Germain's like a flock of bees, that, having lost their hive, flew forth in search of a new one. Many of these were bound, by their various offices in the household, to accompany the King in his present journey; others were particularly invited to do so either by Louis himself or by Cinq Mars and Fontrailles, who sought to surround the King with those who, on any sudden emergency, might support their party against the Cardinal; and a crowd of others, from vanity or interest, curiosity or ambition, were glad to follow in the train of the Monarch. Thus the greater part of the nobles who had flocked to St. Germain's, on Richelieu's departure from Paris, now again left it in order to take part in the journey to Narbonne. As all the horses, and every sort of accommodation on the direct road, were engaged for the service of the King and those immediately attendant upon him, the greater part of the Court took the indirect roads by which they could always be near the Royal party; and the rest followed a day or two after, taking advantage of whatever conveniences might be left unappropriated.