To this question the vainglorious adventurer replied in a tone of affected sympathy and patronage which festered in the heart of the young King; assuring him that his followers were at his own cost, and not at that of the state; and concluding his explanation by an offer of pecuniary aid, and a company of his regiment of Bussy-Zamet, which he had just brought from Normandy. Justly incensed by such an insult, Louis commanded him instantly to quit his presence; and he had no sooner withdrawn, followed by his glittering retinue, than the young monarch sank back upon his seat, and uttered the most bitter complaints of the affront to which he had been subjected.[263] "And to this, Sire," said De Luynes, as he stood beside his royal master--"to this insult, which is but the precursor of many others, you have been subjected by the Queen-mother." "I will revenge myself!" exclaimed Louis with a sudden assumption of dignity. "And how?" demanded the favourite emphatically. "You are called a King, but where are your great nobles? where are the officers of your household? where are your barons? So many princes, so many powers. France has no longer a King." "And my people?" shouted the excited youth. "You have no people. You are a mere puppet in the hands of an ambitious woman and an unprincipled adventurer." "A puppet!" echoed Louis haughtily. "Do I not wear the crown of France?" "So did Charles IX," was the unmoved reply; "yet he died to make way for Henri III. Concini and his wife, Sire, come from the same country as Catherine de Medicis. Isabeau de Bavière was a mother, yet she preferred her lover to her son." [264] "Enough, enough, Sir," said Louis, clutching the hilt of his sword; "I will hear no more, lest it should make me mad!" De Luynes bowed in silence; he knew that the poisonous seed was sown, and he was content to wait until it should germinate. The pecuniary difficulties of the kingdom exercised no influence over the festivities of the Court; balls, banquets, and comedies took place in rapid succession; and the young Queen danced in a ballet which was the admiration of all the spectators; an example which was followed by the nobles of the royal household.[265] Still, however, it was necessary to recruit the national treasury; and, accordingly, on the 10th of March a declaration was published by which the King confiscated all the property of the disaffected Princes, and made it forfeit to the Crown; while at the same time three separate bodies of troops attacked the rebels with complete success, and the royal arms were everywhere triumphant, when intelligence was forwarded to their leaders from the capital which induced an immediate cessation of hostilities.[266]