The firmness of the duchess was sustained by count Philip d’Aglie, one of her principal ministers, a man of discernment and talent, who never slackened in his hostility to the scheme of Richelieu. He feared that the visit of the young duke to France would resemble the descent into Avernus—“_Sed revocare gradum, hoc opus, hic labor est._” The cardinal had hoped that, in an interview which the duchess had with Louis at Grenoble, she might be cajoled or terrified into compliance. But on that occasion her own firmness was backed by the presence of count d’Aglie, and the expectations of the ungodly churchman were in consequence frustrated. So irritated was he by his disappointment, that he proposed, in council, to arrest the count; but, powerful and feared as he was, he could not prevail upon the members to assent to this measure. It was therefore postponed to a better opportunity. In the meanwhile, calumny was set at work to blacken the character of the devoted individual, that when the happy time arrived for pouncing upon him, he might excite no sympathy. That the slander would wound the duchess also was a matter of little concern to the personage by whom it was propagated. It was roundly asserted, apparently without the shadow of a reason for it, that an illicit intercourse subsisted between the duchess and the minister, the latter of whom the cardinal, with an affectation of virtuous anger, was pleased to designate as “the wretch who was ruining the reputation of Christina.” It was not till the following year that he could succeed in wreaking his malice on the count. As soon as the French troops had recovered Turin from the Spaniards, Richelieu ordered d’Aglie to be seized; and, in spite of the remonstrances of the duchess against this gross violation of her sovereignty, he was hurried to France, and confined in the Bastile. The date of the count’s deliverance, I am unable to ascertain, but it is probable that his imprisonment was not protracted beyond the life of the cardinal.