Ever studying to abase the queen, Richelieu believed that he had at last found an opportunity to accomplish his purpose effectually. This was in 1637[7]. That the queen should privately keep up some correspondence with the king of Spain and the cardinal infant, who were her brothers, and also with the persons whom she valued in the courts of Madrid and Brussels, was natural, more especially in her discomfortable situation, slighted as she was by her husband, and thwarted and misrepresented by the minister and the minister’s satellites. But Anne of Austria had a sincere attachment to France, and there is no reason to believe that her letters contained anything which could prejudice her adopted country. Yet, it was not advisable that they should come into the hands of a man, who boasted that with only two lines of an innocent person’s writing he could ruin him—a boast which could be made by no one that was not dead to honour and shame. It was necessary, therefore, to provide a safe place, where the correspondence might be deposited. The queen’s favourite convent of Val de Grace, of which she was the foundress, was the place which she chose. There Anne had an elegant apartment, or oratory, in which, after her devotions were over, she could sometimes, free from the constraint and heartlessness of the court, enjoy a few hours of social intercourse with the inmates of the convent. One of the nuns received the letters from Spain and the Netherlands, and placed them in a closet, whence they were taken by the queen, whose answers were forwarded in the same manner. Richelieu, who had spies in all quarters, discovered the secret of the correspondence which was carried on through the Val de Grace. He lost not a moment in filling the mind of the weak Louis with phantoms of danger, which was to arise from the queen’s unauthorised communications with her relatives. The queen was hurried off by her husband to Chantilly, where she was confined to her own room, scantily attended, and was obliged to submit to being interrogated by the chancellor. Such was the baseness of the courtiers that, believing her to be lost, not one of them would venture even to look up at her window. Her confidential servants were shut up in various prisons. The chancellor himself visited Val de Grace to make a rigorous search for papers; but he found nothing. That he failed in his search is not marvellous; for he is believed to have previously contrived to give the queen notice of the intended visit. All the papers had consequently been removed, and placed under the care of the marchioness of Sourdis.