Again and again did the delighted Princess utter her thanks; and after having been graciously dismissed by the King, she lost not a moment in proceeding, armed with the royal authority, to the Bastille, where, having constituted herself a prisoner, she hastened to impart her hopeful tidings to the Prince. Despite the assurances which she had received, however, from the lips of Louis himself, four more weary months were passed by M. and Madame de Condé in the fortress, in that daily and hourly fever of expectation which is more agonizing than utter despair; and even at the close of that dreary time, instead of the liberty for which the husband and wife alike panted, an order arrived at the Bastille for the transfer of the deluded and unhappy couple to the Castle of Vincennes, which was communicated to them as a signal mark of the royal clemency; and in that citadel they were detained until the autumn of 1619.[310] The result of Madame de Condé's admirable self-abnegation was, however, a source of triumph for her woman-heart, as the Prince was not proof against so unequivocal a demonstration of attachment, and thenceforward evinced towards her a tenderness which amply repaid her sacrifice. Shortly after the transfer of Madame d'Ancre to the Conciergerie she was put upon her trial; but as her mental hallucination, together with her estrangement from her husband, rendered it probable that sufficient proof of political delinquency could not be adduced against her to justify an extreme sentence, and as her escape from the scaffold must necessarily tend to render his tenure of the confiscated property of Concini (of which he had already obtained the reversion) difficult, if not impossible, De Luynes did not hesitate to tamper with her judges, and to induce them, alike by bribes and threats, to accomplish her death. For this purpose a second charge was coupled with that of _lèse-majesté_, which was brought conjointly against herself and her murdered husband. She was accused of sorcery as well as of conspiring against the state; of casting alike nativities to compass the destruction of the King, and cannon for the service of the disaffected Princes; together with a host of other crimes, none of which could be proved against her. So palpable, indeed, was the motive of her persecutors, that it excited the popular indignation; and the masses, who had so recently execrated the name of the unfortunate woman, began, ere the conclusion of her trial, to look upon her only as the victim of De Luynes. "You will see," said some of the citizens, as they learnt with what dignified calmness and logical precision she refuted the several charges brought against her, "that here the case of the Duc de Biron will be reversed--like her he was the victim of policy, but he died like a woman, while she will meet her fate like a man."