A brief interval of suspense succeeded. The prelate who had officiated then uttered the final blessing; and as the carriage which contained the King and his favourite entered the palace by one gate, that of Concini quitted it by another. Inexperienced as he was, however, Louis at once perceived that he was no longer in a position to recede; and hasty orders were issued to Vitry and his friends to accomplish their fatal project on the following day, while the King at the same time secretly commanded that the light horse of his bodyguard, and the members of his household, should be in attendance at an early hour in the morning, as well as a coach and six, at the entrance of the grand gallery. The pretext for this arrangement was a hunting-party; but its actual intention was to ensure and protect the King's flight, should his purpose prematurely transpire or prove abortive. And meanwhile Marie de Medicis slept, wholly unsuspicious of the change which was about to be effected in her fortunes! There is something singularly appalling in all the circumstances which formed the prelude to this contemplated tragedy. Hitherto the Queen-mother had created dangers for herself--had started at shadows--and distrusted even those who sought to serve her; while her son, silent, saturnine, and inert, had patiently submitted to the indignities and insults which had been heaped upon him, as though he were either unconscious or reckless of their extent; and the Italian adventurer had braved his enemies, and appeared to defy fate itself. Now, however, when the blow was about to be struck, when the ball and the blade were alike ready to do their deadly office, all the principal personages in the bloody drama had suddenly assumed new characters. Marie slept; the boy-King had become the head of a conspiracy; and the Maréchal d'Ancre, enriched and ennobled beyond the wildest dreams of his ambition, was preparing to quit the country of his adoption, and to seek rest and peace in his own land. Another month, perhaps another week, and he would have left France, probably for ever. History presents few such anomalies; and it appears scarcely credible that so ill-organized a plot, hatched, moreover, under the very eyes of those who were to become its victims, and revealed to upwards of a score of persons, many of whom were incited to join it from merely venal motives, should ever have attained its accomplishment. The fiat had, however, gone forth; and the unfortunate Concini, whose tragical fate compels sympathy despite all his faults, entered the court of the Louvre at ten o'clock in the morning of the 24th of April 1617, there to meet his death.