Anne, too proud to justify herself, imprudently paraded her contempt for Richelieu’s malevolent intrigues by openly and on every occasion showing her love for her own family, at that time at war with France; expressions full of the warmth of natural affection were made a handle of by her enemies, construed into treason against the king and the state. The birth of Louis XIV. (1638) brought about a partial reconciliation between her and the husband who had insulted and treated her with systematic neglect. But Richelieu’s sway remained unshaken to the end. It was entirely an intellectual sway; the heart had no share in it on either side. The minister hated the king, and the king hated the minister; their natures were essentially antagonistic, and mutual interest alone held them together. Louis, hearing that he was about to be freed from the bondage under which he had chafed so long—that the summons had come for Richelieu—went in haste to the Palais Cardinal to receive the adieux of the dying minister. The interview between them was short and utterly devoid of pathos; no shade of tenderness had entered into the bond that was about to be dissolved. The breaking up of it was simply a matter of business. The king left the death-chamber of the man to whom he owed all the glory of his reign, without a tear in his eye or a passing emotion in his heart, and paced the adjoining room with a steady step and satisfied air, while a smile, amounting at intervals to a suppressed laugh, was visible on his features. When all was over, and the signal came forth that Richelieu was no more, he exclaimed tranquilly: “_Voilà un grand politique de mort!_”[42] (1642.) A few months later, he himself had joined the great politician in another world. Richelieu, whose more than royal munificence of state had roused the jealous susceptibilities of the king, atoned for it by bequeathing his beautiful palace, with its accumulated treasures of art and industry, to his unthankful master. Anne of Austria inaugurated her reign as regent by taking up her abode under the roof of the man who had been to the last day of his life her implacable enemy. Immediately after the death of Louis XIII., she came to the Palais Cardinal with the little king and his brother, the Duc d’Anjou. The theatre on which Richelieu had lavished so much taste and wealth was included in the bequest, though he had often expressed his intention of presenting it to the nation, and endowing it for the benefit of rising dramatic artists.