But Monsieur Salomon had no sooner seen the goddess of Particelli than he too was lifted from the earth and borne straight into the empyrean. At the moment of leaving her, when she suffered him to kiss her hand, and let him feel the darts of desire which shot from those not too prudish eyes, Salomon de Caus "_devint amoureux à en perdre la tête_." Thenceforth, in brief, "His chief good and market of his time" was to obey and anticipate every wild and frivolous fantasy of Marion Delorme. Michel Particelli's hyperbolical commission should be fulfilled for him beyond his own imaginings! He threw down the palace of Marion and built another in its place. The new palace was to cede in nothing to the Louvre or Saint-Germain. With his own hands Salomon de Caus decorated it; and then, at the bidding of his protector, Particelli, he consented, _bon grè, mal grè_, to paint the picture of the divinity herself. "Alone one morning with his delicious model," the distracted artist flung brushes and palette from him, and cast himself at her feet. "_Mon cœur se déchire, ma tête se perd.... Je deviens fou, je vous aime, et je me meurs!_" It was a declaration of much in little, and Marion, a _connaisseuse_ of such speeches, absolved and accepted him with a kiss. Installed by right of conquest in that Circean boudoir, which drew as a magnet the wit and gallantry of Paris, Salomon stood sentinel at the door "like a eunuch or a Cerberus." Brissac and Saint-Evremont received the most Lenten entertainment, and the proposals of Cinq-Mars were rejected. Marion was even persuaded to be not at home to Richelieu himself. But the happy Salomon grew unhappy, and more unhappy. Every moment he came with a sigh upon some souvenir, delicately equivocal, of the _vie galante_ of his mistress; and when love began to feed upon the venom of jealousy, his complacent goddess grew capricious, vexed, irritated, and at length incensed. After that, she resolved coldly on Salomon's betrayal. It was the fashion of the age to be cruel in one's vengeance. Marion penned a note to Richelieu: "I want so much to see you again. I send with this the little key which opens the little door.... You must forgive everything, and you are not to be angry at finding here a most learned young man whom the love of science and the science of love have combined to reduce to a condition of midsummer madness. Does your friendship for me, to say nothing of your respect for yourself, suggest any means of ridding me instantly of this embarrassing lunatic? The poor devil loves me to distraction. He is astonishingly clever, and has discovered wonders—mountains that nobody else has seen, and worlds that nobody else has imagined. He has all the talents of the Bible, and another, the talent of making me the most miserable of women. This genius from the moon, whom I commend to your Eminence's most particular attention, is called Salomon de Caus."