Madame d'Ancre, who was well aware of the extent of her own power over the spirit of her foster-sister, would not permit herself to regard her present disgrace as more than a passing shadow, and urged her less confident husband to persevere in his attempt to regain the good graces of Marie, assuring him that the Queen would ere long be as anxious for a reconciliation as himself. Somewhat encouraged by this declaration, Concini, whose vanity was only rivalled by his ambition, and who, despite daily experience, believed his own society to be as indispensable to the Regent as that of his wife, took measures to ascertain the precise moment at which the ministerial audience terminated, when, profiting by the opportunity, he threw himself upon his knees before the justly-offended Queen, and entreated her forgiveness of his involuntary offence. Marie was, however, in no mood for trifling, and she sternly bade him leave her; a command which he obeyed only to wreak upon his wife the consequences of his own mortification.[164] The son of the Baron de Luz finding that, despite her promise, the Regent had taken no measures to avenge the death of his father, but that, on the contrary, she had stopped the proceedings which previously to her reconciliation with the Duc de Guise had been commenced against his brother, determined to demand satisfaction in his own person; and he accordingly despatched a challenge to the Chevalier, which was immediately accepted by the hot-headed young noble. Seconds were appointed, and in compliance with the barbarous custom of the time the four combatants fought on horseback at the Porte St. Antoine. At the first pass François de Guise was wounded, but at the third his sword pierced the body of his antagonist, who fell from his saddle and expired a few minutes afterwards. Notwithstanding this tragical result, however, the murderer alike of the father and the son boldly returned to Paris, where he was visited and congratulated by numbers of the nobles, who, instead of shrinking from all contact with a man who had desolated the hearth and home of a sorrowing and now childless widow, were loud in their encomiums on his bravery and skill. Nor was this the most revolting feature of the case; for it is on record that Marie de Medicis herself, in her eagerness to retain the alliance of his family, no sooner learnt that the Chevalier had received a wound in the encounter than she despatched an officer of her household to convey to him her regret and to inquire into the extent of his hurt, overlooking, with extraordinary inconsistency, or still more reprehensible recklessness, the fact that only a few weeks previously she had instructed the Parliament to put him upon his trial for the murder of his first victim.