The plan which, under seemingly favourable auspices, was formed, by Mary of Medicis and her partisans, to subvert the power of Richelieu, and which was shattered to pieces on the day emphatically called the Day of the Dupes (November 11, 1630), was disastrous to many who were concerned in or suspected of favouring it. Of the Marillacs, one, a proved soldier, was brought to the scaffold; the other, a magistrate of unimpeachable conduct, was hurried from one prison to another, and closely confined, and he died a captive. But we must restrict ourselves to those individuals who were committed to the Bastile. One of these was Vautier, born at Montpelier, in 1592, who was the queen mother’s principal physician. If we were to give credit to Guy Patin, we must believe that Vautier was a worse pest than a whole host of duellists, and richly deserved to be the inmate of a dungeon. “He was,” says Patin, “a rascally Jew of the Avignonese territory, very proud and very ignorant, who was lucky in having escaped the gallows for coining, and who afterwards found means to wriggle himself in at court.” But the evidence of Patin is liable to more than suspicion in this instance; for Vautier was a friend to antimony and chemical remedies, all of which his censurer held in abhorrence: to prescribe them was worse in his eyes than being guilty of all the deadly sins. Vautier, however, certainly appears to have been of an obstinate disposition, and at times unjust. Vautier was believed to have so much influence with the queen mother, that he was one of the first to be arrested after the Day of the Dupes. He was confined for a while at Senlis, whence he was removed to the Bastile. In the Parisian fortress he remained for twelve years, during which period no communication with him was permitted. It was in vain that, after her flight, when she was so dangerously ill at Ghent, Mary of Medicis intreated to have the services of her confidential physician. Richelieu kept fast hold of his prey. In 1643, the captive was set at liberty by Mazarin, who subsequently appointed him head physician to the king. Patin flings his venom upon this appointment. It was, he says, bought of the minister for twenty thousand crowns, and the purchaser was to act as his spy. He adds an insinuation, which does no credit to his heart. “See what policy is!” he exclaims; “this man was twelve years imprisoned by the father, yet the health of the son is entrusted to him.” M. Patin seems to have thought, that a man who has been injured by the parent, must needs wish to poison the child. Vautier died in 1652.